By the time that I became its rector, the weaving trade was little more than a memory; but there were still not a few roofless cottages that were pointed out as the weaving shops of worthies whose names were quoted with unction by the fathers of the village. They must have been a lively lot--these old weavers! I can recall vividly, as if it were yesterday, a night I spent by the bedside of old David Grant, who soon afterwards passed over to the great majority. My wife had stayed with him during the first watch, and had gone home, leaving her patient sleeping peacefully. I was sitting by the peatfire reading, when a sound from the boxbed caused me to spring to my feet. The old man had got out of bed, and was making his way to the outer door, a stout oaken cudgel in his hand. I sprang forward to intercept him, as I could see he was in a state of delirium; and, should he get outside, it might mean sudden death from exposure. I managed to get in front of him, and was about to push him backwards towards the bed, when he raised the stick, and aimed a blow which would have felled me had it fallen on my head. Closing in upon him I managed, after a struggle, to get him back among the blankets where he lay panting. “Where were you going, David?” I said. “Could ye not leave me alane, man? I was gaun doon to Lucky Begg’s to redd the row; there’s a fecht on among the weyvers, and they’ll kill wee Johnnie Chisholm. He can haud his ain, if he gets fair play but there’s aboot half a dizzen o’ them at him. What’ll folk think if I’m no there when there’s sic ongauns?” When David was well, and able to hold a conversation, he beguiled many an evening for me with his reminiscences of bygone days. It was from him that I got the bulk of my information regarding my own church when I first settled down there. “Wha can tell you better than me, Maister Gray? I was born here, an’ brocht up here, and, although I’ve been a bit of a rovin’ blade, I’ve spent the maist o’ my days here. There’s the remains o’ ither three Episcopal kirks here. Ye ken that auld dyke o’ stanes an’ clay; weel, that was the back wa’ o’ the hoose that was used for a kirk when Maister Petrie was the minister in the ’45; but when the Bluidy Cumberland cam’ by on his road to fecht Prince Charlie, he set fire to the auld biggin’, and took Maister Petrie doon to Stanehyve, whaur he put him into the jail, doon aside the harbor. There was ither twa ministers in the jail wi’ him; and what do ye think the Episcopalians did when they wantit to get their bairns baptized? They stood outside the jail window on a bit o’ rock; and ane o’ the men that was a gey strong chield, held up a fisher’s creel wi’ the bairnie in ’t, an’ the minister bapteezed it throw the bars o’ the jail window.