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                                 Wilson's

                           Tales of the Borders

                             AND OF SCOTLAND.

                 HISTORICAL, TRADITIONARY, & IMAGINATIVE.

                             WITH A GLOSSARY.

                                REVISED BY

                           ALEXANDER LEIGHTON,

             _One of the Original Editors and Contributors._

                                 VOL. XX.


    LONDON:
    WALTER SCOTT, 14 PATERNOSTER SQUARE,
    AND NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.
    1884.




CONTENTS.


    THE DOMINIE OF ST FILLAN'S, (_Alexander Leighton_)                   1

    SAYINGS AND DOINGS OF PETER PATERSON, (_John Mackay Wilson_)        34

    THE HEROINE: A LEGEND OF THE CANONGATE, (_Alexander Leighton_)      66

    THE BARLEY BANNOCK, (_Alexander Campbell_)                          93

    GLEANINGS OF THE COVENANT, (_Professor Thomas Gillespie_)--

          xx. JOHN GOVAN'S NARRATIVE                                   111

         xxi. "OLD BLUNTIE"                                            120

        xxii. THOMAS HARKNESS OF LOCKERBEN                             124

       xxiii. THE SHOES REVERSED                                       132

    THE LOST HEIR OF THE HOUSE OF ELPHINSTONE, (_Rev. G. Thomson_)     143

    TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS, (_John Mackay Wilson_)                        194

    THE MISER OF NEWABBEY, (_Alexander Leighton_)                      226

    THE SEA SKIRMISH, (_Anon._)                                        258




WILSON'S

TALES OF THE BORDERS,

AND OF SCOTLAND.




THE DOMINIE OF ST FILLAN'S.




CHAPTER I.

PLEASANT REMINISCENCES OF MY FATHER.


It is now about twenty years sin' I first raised my voice in the desk o'
the kirk o' St Fillan's, in the parish o' that name, and He wha out o'
the mouths o' babes and sucklins did ordain praise, hath never thought
meet, by means o' ony catarrh, cynanche, quinsy, toothache, or lock-jaw,
to close up my mouth, and prevent me frae leadin the congregation in a
clear, melodious strain, to the worship o' the Chief Musician. When I
was ordained session clerk, schoolmaster, and precentor, I had already
passed about thirty years o' my pilgrimage; yet filled wi' Latin and
Greek, till my _pia mater_ was absolutely like to burst, I had,
notwithstanding, nae trade by the hand. The reason was this. My father,
who had been for forty years sexton o' the parish, had seen, wi' an e'e
lang practised in searchin for traces o' death in the faces o'
parishioners--for the labourer maun live by his hire, and the merchant
by his customers, "and thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands"--a
pleasant leucophlegmatic tinge about the gills o' Jedediah Cameron, my
predecessor in the three offices already mentioned. Weel, as the
husbandman in dry weather, when his fields are parched, and his braird
thin and weak, watches the clouds that contain rain--mair precious to
him than the ointment that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's dry
beard--my guid father watched the dropsical signs or indications in
Jedediah's face, daily and hourly, in the fair and legitimate hope o'
gettin the aridity o' my starvin condition quenched and satisfied. He
was an argute sexton, and had learned, in his younger days, some
smatterin o' Latin, though I never could ascertain that he retained