The fire, in these times, occupied, like the sun, the centre of the system, around which, at various distances, revolved, the Venus guidwife, the Mars guidman, the Juno Jenny, the Jupiter Jock, the Saturn Sandy, and a vast number of satellites, in the shape of half-clad, bare-footed, uncombed, squalling brats. Pocket handkerchiefs there were none; but coat-sleeves and petticoat tails did just as well; and though the Kenley Burn ran past, pure and pellucid, its waters were seldom defiled—unless perhaps, on a church-going Sunday—with the ablution of hands and faces. There was a byre covered with heath, and with rafters fixed in the earth, without the advantage of walls, from which issued, in their season, cows, stirks, and calves, all covered over, like the Dacians, in scaly armour, rattling as they went in hardened shairn, and sometimes carrying a considerable fragment of the door-head of their cabin along with them; ducks swattered in a Glenburnie midden dub; and an assortment of hens, over whom presided a most dignified cock in full feather, giving an air of extreme liveliness and stir to the whole. But although the outside of things was, comparatively with modern manners and improvements, somewhat rude and forbidding, there were warm hearts and tender consciences within. There literature was indeed but limited; but, limited as it was, it comprehended the Bible, the Confession of Faith, and “Knox’s History of the Church of Scotland.” Well acquainted was Andrew Watson, and so was his wife, Janet Morrison, with the grievous defections and oppressions of the times. And never did Andrew bend his knees in family worship, but he prayed the Lord in behoof of the poor persecuted remnant, of the good and faithful Mr Alexander Wilson, the ousted minister of Cameron, and of a’ those that opposed Prelacy and conformity, and supported Presbytery, in thae sairly afflicted lands.