As I left the pulpit, all the elders stood on the steps to hand me
down, and the tear was in every eye, and they helped me into the
session-house; but I could not speak to them, nor them to me. Then
Mr Dalziel, who was always a composed and sedate man, said a few
words of prayer, and I was comforted therewith, and rose to go home
to the manse; but in the churchyard all the congregation was
assembled, young and old, and they made a lane for me to the back-
yett that opened into the manse-garden--Some of them put out their
hands and touched me as I passed, followed by the elders, and some
of them wept. It was as if I was passing away, and to be no more--
verily, it was the reward of my ministry--a faithful account of
which, year by year, I now sit down, in the evening of my days, to
make up, to the end that I may bear witness to the work of a
beneficent Providence, even in the narrow sphere of my parish, and
the concerns of that flock of which it was His most gracious
pleasure to make me the unworthy shepherd.



CHAPTER I YEAR 1760



The Anno Domini one thousand seven hundred and sixty, was remarkable
for three things in the parish of Dalmailing.--First and foremost,
there was my placing; then the coming of Mrs Malcolm with her five
children to settle among us; and next, my marriage upon my own
cousin, Miss Betty Lanshaw, by which the account of this year
naturally divides itself into three heads or portions.