When I went into residence at Tynecaster Grammar School, I was but a mere stripling, hardly out of my teens. My knowledge of classics and English was not extensive, but it was thorough, thanks to Mr. Lindsay, and was quite sufficient to warrant me essaying to prepare a class of boys for the local examinations held annually by the universities. At first I felt somewhat diffident about giving instruction in the history and contents of the Book of Common Prayer--a necessary subject in the Locals; but ere very long my diffidence had vanished. I made good use in the evenings of the opportunities for study afforded by the Church Institute Library and Reading-room, and I attended the lectures on Church history given in that institution. You can readily understand what a boon such a place was to me. Tynecaster was near enough to Scotland to prevent my feeling in an alien land, as I had expected. The broad Northumbrian dialect bore a strong resemblance to my own northern tongue, and the ways of the people were in many respects more Scotch than English. I had to run the gauntlet of the traditional practical jokes that were wont to be perpetrated on teachers who hailed from “the land of cakes”; however, as Mr. Lindsay had prepared me for this, I passed through the ordeal, and was voted, “Not a bad sort of fellow for a Scottie.” There were lots of Scotch folks in Tynecaster, but very few of these were Churchmen, and so I did not get much from them in the way of sympathy. Scotsmen in England are said to be very clannish, and to stand by one another in fair day and foul; my experience did not bear this out. When I was first introduced as a brother Scot I got the hearty handclasp of fellowship; but, when they came to know that I had leanings towards “the English Kirk,” they seemed all to have become very suddenly short-sighted, for in most cases they failed to recognize me when I met them in the street. There was, however, one notable exception, an old man from Perthshire, Tom Laidlaw by name, who kept a second-hand bookstall in the Market. Many a happy half-holiday did I spend with him, among his literary treasures. Brought up among the descendants of Jacobite non-jurors, he was a staunch, devoted Churchman. I told him one day of the strange attitude taken towards me by these brother Scots and was much amused by his pawky reply. “Man, Alan, I’m astonished at ye. Do ye no ken hoo the average Scot regards the releegious opinions o’ his neebour? Orthodoxy’s _my_ doxy, an’ heterodoxy’s _your_ doxy. He’s nae conceited, oh no; he only thinks that his neebour’s views are richt when they agree wi’ his ain.”