“I tell you, Maister Gray, there was some stir in the toon on coach days; and, even when the coach set oot doon the south road to Embro, there was little mair work dune that day.” Most of the weavers were also crofters, and farmed a few acres of land, enough to provide them with oatmeal for the year, and a winter’s feed for the cows that supplied the family with milk. There was a piece of common land, called the “bogs,” and every crofter had a right to pasture his cow there. A boy collected the cattle by the blasts of a well-battered horn, and, driving them before him to the pastureland, herded them there till noon. The whole band re-formed in procession and retraced their steps to their respective byres, where buxom matrons in “soo-backit mutches,” relieved them of their burden of milk. In the afternoon, the same programme was gone through; and so it went on, through the long sunny days of summer and autumn, and was only discontinued when the snows and frosts of winter made grazing out of the question. To one who had spent a number of years amid the din and dust, the sins and sorrows of city life, this return to Arcadian simplicity was very welcome. Seven very happy years I spent there, and many a valuable lesson did I learn from the descendants of the loyal churchmen who had stood by their lawful prince in his hour of need, and had given loving and devoted heed to the godly teaching of their faithful though persecuted pastors. It was in these days I began to realize the full import of Tertullian’s words: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church and the more we are mowed down the more we grow.” The older generation of churchfolks were churchfolks from stern conviction; they would let nothing stand between them and the Apostolic Faith. I had not been long settled in Drumscondie when I had an opportunity of noting the soundness of the early training that had been given to those old folks by my predecessors of long ago. Old Sandy Barras, who had been the treasurer of the congregation for over half a century, was nearing his end, and I called to see him. After reading the service for the visitation of the sick, I talked to him for a little, and in the course of conversation, I received this bit of advice: “Whatever ye do, Mr. Gray, teach the bairns the Collects and the Psalms. When I was young and strong, I thocht that a’ this learnin’ by rote wis juist nonsense--a parrot could do that. But, sir, since God has laid me doon on a bed o’ sickness, and often I’m no able to get a bit o’ sleep the hale nicht through, I’m mair than thankful that I can say the Psalms an’ the Church’s prayers without a book; they’ve been a great comfort to me.”