sound observe for some time, and that, if I held to that doctrine in
the poopit, it wouldna be lang till I would work a change.--"I was

mindit," quoth he, "never to set my foot within the kirk door while
you were there; but to testify, and no to condemn without a trial,

I'll be there next Lord's day, and egg my neighbours to be likewise,
so ye'll no have to preach just to the bare walls and the laird's

family."
I have now to speak of the coming of Mrs Malcolm.--She was the widow

of a Clyde shipmaster, that was lost at sea with his vessel. She
was a genty body, calm and methodical. From morning to night she

sat at her wheel, spinning the finest lint, which suited well with
her pale hands. She never changed her widow's weeds, and she was

aye as if she had just been ta'en out of a bandbox. The tear was
aften in her e'e when the bairns were at the school; but when they

came home, her spirit was lighted up with gladness, although, poor
woman, she had many a time very little to give them. They were,

however, wonderful well-bred things, and took with thankfulness
whatever she set before them; for they knew that their father, the

breadwinner, was away, and that she had to work sore for their bit
and drap. I dare say, the only vexation that ever she had from any

of them, on their own account, was when Charlie, the eldest laddie,
had won fourpence at pitch-and-toss at the school, which he brought

home with a proud heart to his mother. I happened to be daunrin' by
at the time, and just looked in at the door to say gude-night: it

was a sad sight. There was she sitting with the silent tear on her
cheek, and Charlie greeting as if he had done a great fault, and the

other four looking on with sorrowful faces. Never, I am sure, did
Charlie Malcolm gamble after that night.

I often wondered what brought Mrs Malcolm to our clachan, instead of
going to a populous town, where she might have taken up a huxtry-

shop, as she was but of a silly constitution, the which would have
been better for her than spinning from morning to far in the night,

as if she was in verity drawing the thread of life. But it was, no
doubt, from an honest pride to hide her poverty; for when her

daughter Effie was ill with the measles--the poor lassie was very
ill--nobody thought she could come through, and when she did get the

turn, she was for many a day a heavy handful;--our session being
rich, and nobody on it but cripple Tammy Daidles, that was at that

time known through all the country side for begging on a horse, I
thought it my duty to call upon Mrs Malcolm in a sympathising way,

and offer her some assistance, but she refused it.
"No, sir," said she, "I canna take help from the poor's-box,

although it's very true that I am in great need; for it might
hereafter be cast up to my bairns, whom it may please God to restore

to better circumstances when I am no to see't; but I would fain
borrow five pounds, and if, sir, you will write to Mr Maitland, that

is now the Lord Provost of Glasgow, and tell him that Marion Shaw
would be obliged to him for the lend of that soom, I think he will

not fail to send it."
I wrote the letter that night to Provost Maitland, and, by the

retour of the post, I got an answer, with twenty pounds for Mrs
Malcolm, saying, "That it was with sorrow he heard so small a trifle

could be serviceable." When I took the letter and the money, which
was in a bank-bill, she said, "This is just like himsel'." She then

told me that Mr Maitland had been a gentleman's son of the east
country, but driven out of his father's house, when a laddie, by his

stepmother; and that he had served as a servant lad with her father,
who was the Laird of Yillcogie, but ran through his estate, and left

her, his only daughter, in little better than beggary with her
auntie, the mother of Captain Malcolm, her husband that was.

Provost Maitland in his servitude had ta'en a notion of her; and
when he recovered his patrimony, and had become a great Glasgow

merchant, on hearing how she was left by her father, he offered to
marry her, but she had promised herself to her cousin the captain,

whose widow she was. He then married a rich lady, and in time grew,
as he was, Lord Provost of the city; but his letter with the twenty

pounds to me, showed that he had not forgotten his first love. It
was a short, but a well-written letter, in a fair hand of write,

containing much of the true gentleman; and Mrs Malcolm said, "Who
knows but out of the regard he once had for their mother, he may do

something for my five helpless orphans."
Thirdly, Upon the subject of taking my cousin, Miss Betty Lanshaw,

for my first wife, I have little to say.--It was more out of a
compassionate habitualaffection, than the passion of love. We were

brought up by our grandmother in the same house, and it was a thing
spoken of from the beginning, that Betty and me were to be married.

So, when she heard that the Laird of Breadland had given me the
presentation of Dalmailing, she began to prepare for the wedding;

and as soon as the placing was well over, and the manse in order, I
gaed to Ayr, where she was, and we were quietly married, and came

home in a chaise, bringing with us her little brother Andrew, that
died in the East Indies, and he lived and was brought up by us.

Now, this is all, I think, that happened in that year worthy of
being mentioned, except that at the sacrament, when old Mr Kilfuddy

was preaching in the tent, it came on such a thunder-plump, that
there was not a single soul stayed in the kirkyard to hear him; for

the which he was greatly mortified, and never after came to our
preachings.

CHAPTER II YEAR 1761
It was in this year that the great smuggling trade corrupted all the

west coast, especially the laigh lands about the Troon and the
Loans. The tea was going like the chaff, the brandy like well-

water, and the wastrie of all things was terrible. There was
nothing minded but the riding of cadgers by day, and excisemen by

night--and battles between the smugglers and the king's men, both by
sea and land. There was a continual drunkenness and debauchery; and

our session, that was but on the lip of this whirlpool of iniquity,
had an awful time o't. I did all that was in the power of nature to

keep my people from the contagion: I preached sixteen times from
the text, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." I

visited, and I exhorted; I warned, and I prophesied; I told them
that, although the money came in like sclate stones, it would go

like the snow off the dyke. But for all I could do, the evil got in
among us, and we had no less than three contested bastard bairns

upon our hands at one time, which was a thing never heard of in a
parish of the shire of Ayr since the Reformation. Two of the

bairns, after no small sifting and searching, we got fathered at
last; but the third, that was by Meg Glaiks, and given to one Rab

Rickerton, was utterly refused, though the fact was not denied; but
he was a termagant fellow, and snappit his fingers at the elders.

The next day he listed in the Scotch Greys, who were then quartered
at Ayr, and we never heard more of him, but thought he had been

slain in battle, till one of the parish, about three years since,
went up to London to lift a legacy from a cousin that died among the

Hindoos. When he was walking about, seeing the curiosities, and
among others Chelsea Hospital, he happened to speak to some of the

invalids, who found out from his tongue that he was a Scotchman; and
speaking to the invalids, one of them, a very old man, with a grey

head and a leg of timber, inquired what part of Scotland he was come
from; and when he mentioned my parish, the invalid gave a great

shout, and said he was from the same place himself; and who should
this old man be, but the very identical Rab Rickerton, that was art

and part in Meg Glaiks' disowned bairn. Then they had a long
converse together, and he had come through many hardships, but had

turned out a good soldier; and so, in his old days, was an indoor
pensioner, and very comfortable; and he said that he had, to be

sure, spent his youth in the devil's service, and his manhood in the
king's, but his old age was given to that of his Maker, which I was