“Weel, efter the awfu’ defeat at Culloden, the Episcopalians had to keep very quiet, for you see their religion wis proscribed. Noo and then Bishop Watson wad come roon’ in his auld gig, and haud a service in some o’ the hooses. But he was watched sae closely by the government folk, that he couldna even cairry his communion vessels except in a secret box below the seat o’ the gig. Ye ken that pewter cup and plate in the press in your vestry; that belanged to Bishop Skinner, the son o’ auld ‘Tullochgorum.’ Mony’s the time that he’s used it here when he would be veesitin’ some o’ his freens. “Aboot 1790 things were a wee bit quaieter, and they got anither kirk--that’s it biggit on to the gable o’ The Home. I can mind my auld mither takin’ me there to a service when I was a bairn. It had an ootside stane stair that led up to the gallery. We were sittin’ in the gallery, an’ I was putten oot ’cause I let my ball row doon on the heids o’ the folk below. “Syne, in the year efter Waterloo they biggit the auld kirk that is noo a pairt o’ your parsonage. I helpit to dig the foondation o’t. Oh, man, but the Episcopalians were prood when it was biggit! The maist o’ the weyvers cam’ there to worship, aye, an’ they cam’ frae a’ the fishin’ toons alang the coast. Mony a time have I been sent by John Duncan, the beadle, to see if the fishers were near at hand afore he would begin to ring the last bell for the mornin’ service. “Yer present kirk--oh! it was biggit about twenty years ago. Aye, it’s a rael bonnie kirk; but, for me, I aye likit the auld ane best.” You can easily understand how deeply interested I was in all this local church history, and how I valued the honor of serving in such historic ground. Sometimes David’s reminiscences took a distinctly secular turn. He would tell me of the old coaching days, when the four-in-hand, tooled by Archie Hepburn, in scarlet coat and topboots, passed through the village twice a week, and was the only regular event of importance in their quiet lives; how, as soon as the toot of the guard’s horn was heard, every weaver flung down his shuttle and hurried to the Douglas Arms to get the newspapers and hear the news; and how, in Lucky Begg’s bar-parlor, there was keen competition for the honor of entertaining the coachman and guard. “There was aye plenty o’ hame-brewed ale on coach days,” David would say, “and yet ye hardly ever saw onybody the waur o’t. An’ sic a collyshangie there would be, ilka ane tryin’ to get the news that maist interested him. Peter Wyllie--man, what a cratur he was, aye arguin’ aboot politics;--he was terrible taen up aboot the Reform Bill, and bude to ken the latest news aboot it. Syne there was Jamie Polson--Jamie was an elder, and wis awfu’ keen on the Patronage question, that brocht on the disruption o’ the free kirk in 1843. Mony a wordy war did Archie and him hae aboot that.