IN the rural districts of Scotland, forty years ago, the parish schools had no summer vacation; autumn was the holiday season. We schoolboys envied the lot of the lads who had returned from college and were enjoying all the fishing and fun of the first summer days; eagerly we watched the ripening of the fields of oats and barley, and when Jeemes Dewar, the village oracle, proclaimed to the worthies in smithy assembled that Hillton would begin reaping on the following Monday, you may be sure we spread the news like wildfire. When school prayers were over on Wednesday morning we waited breathlessly for the announcement of the vacation. And we were not disappointed.

“You may tell your parents that the holidays will begin on Monday, and the closing exercise will take place on Friday of this week.”

As Mr. Angus uttered the authoritative fiat, every eye glistened and all sorts of glorious “ploys” loomed in anticipation.

We got our holidays in autumn that we might be free to lend a helping hand at home or in the harvest-field during the busy season. How different are things nowadays! The twentieth-century boy must on no account be subjected to any work during his holiday time; he needs not only to have all his vacation for rest and amusement—he even looks to have amusement provided for him. The boys of our day were cast in a hardier mould. Harvest-time, while it brought to most of us lots of hard work, brought also lots of fun. Certainly, when we returned to our school tasks our appearance gave the impression that harvest work and harvest fare agreed with us marvellously well.

Many an Aberdeenshire lad, eager to secure a college education, earned enough during harvest to buy his class books and leave a few shillings for pocket money. If he managed to get into the scholarship list his bursary would pay matriculation and class fees; and with an occasional box of supplies from home, he was able to get along comfortably during the winter session.

Well, as soon as the date of closing was announced, the “buskin” of the school was the theme of conversation. Every spare moment was given up to that. Bands of boys scoured the woods for the nicest evergreens, which the girls made up into wreaths and festoons; contributions of fruit and flowers were solicited from all who had gardens, and no one was so churlish as to refuse. Is there a Glenconan laddie who does not remember with love and gratitude the kindly receptions given by some of the old people—how Mrs. Blair would strip her apple trees and rose bushes that we might have a “braw buskin”? And how old Hillton would choose out the ripest and neatest sheaves of grain to help us in our harvest decorations!

No one was late for school on Friday morning. Just on the stroke of nine, prayers were said by the dominie, and we commenced the work of adorning the classrooms. By noon everything was done and the rubbish swept away. Boys and girls hurried home to snatch a hasty meal and don Sunday attire for the afternoon function. By three o’clock all were in their places in school; precisely at a quarter past the hour the parish minister and his elders entered, and we all stood respectfully to receive them. Prayers was offered and a Psalm or paraphrase was sung. The minister called up the bigger pupils to say the Shorter Catechism and answer questions on the portion of scripture history studied during the year. (Religious knowledge formed the first and most important task of every day when I was a boy.) The little ones, too, had a chance of showing their acquaintance with the rudiments of the Christian faith, even if it was only to the extent of that contained in the “Mother’s catechism.” Then came the presentation of prizes and the reading out of the names of Glenconan boys who had won bursaries or college honors during the previous university session.

How the old school rang with shouts as lame Jamie Wilson stepped forward to get the silver medal for Latin prose composition, or when Geordie Sangster was complimented by the minister for his progress in Euclid and presented with several handsomely bound volumes as prizes. There was no jealousy or discontent among us, for we knew that though Mr. Angus was a hard man he was scrupulously just.

The giving out of tasks to be learned during the holidays was always left to the minister. Sometimes it was the Sermon on the Mount we had to commit to memory; at other times it was a certain number of Psalms or paraphrases, or one of the shorter Epistles. The wiseacres of today will probably sneer at such simple ways, but I could tell of many a man who, in his old age, thanked God and the minister that he learned those grand passages in his youth.

A few words of fatherly advice from the good man—and to know the Rev. Dr. Orr was to love him—then a parting benediction and the great function was over.

A very simple state of things it was undoubtedly; yet it produced the men and women who have made for Scotland her splendid reputation among Christian nations.

Our harvest vacation—it was my last before I went to Sandy Jamieson’s carpenter’s shop to learn my trade—stands out before me in bold relief.

Our mother had an uncle, William Leslie by name, who with his wife tenanted the old farmhouse of Braeside of Darvel. Uncle William, as my brother Ronald and I called him, was a splendid specimen of the Scottish tenant farmer of a past day. His sterling uprightness and more than average intelligence commanded the respect of all who knew him, while his genial nature and his great fund of old stories caused him to be beloved by us boys. Nothing delighted us more than a visit to Braeside, and when my mother told us of the proposed trip we were in great glee.

On a lovely harvest morning father saw us three—mother, Ronald and me! safely bestowed on the “Defiance” coach, and off we went to the sound of the guard’s horn. At noon we reached the Darvel toll house, where Uncle William sat in his shanrydan phaeton waiting to convey us the last two miles of our journey. I need not descant on the heartiness of our welcome, or of all that was done to make us happy. I have lived that week over again many times since then. The farmhouse at the Braeside had at one time been a dower-house of the Forbeses of Darvel, but for several generations it had been occupied by our forebears. It formed two sides of a quadrangle, the other two sides of which were stables and farm buildings. The dwelling house was full of all sorts of odd little apartments, and had just that mysterious something about it which awoke in an impressionable boy a desire for the romantic and legendary.

One evening during our visit the wind was whistling shrilly in the old wide chimneys, and we had all gathered around a blazing peat fire in the room which Uncle William used as his study and business room. On either side of the broad open fireplace stood two large easy chairs upholstered in quaintly-embossed leather. They were so different from all the other furniture that my boyish curiosity was aroused, and I asked the old man whence they had come. My mother, who sat in one of them, smiled at my eagerness.

“If you would like a story to while away the evening, I’ll tell you how these chairs came to the Braeside,” said Uncle William, and of course we were at once all attention. Generally he spoke in good colloquial English, with a strong north-country accent, but when he waxed enthusiastic over anything he would fall into the broad Doric Scotch.

“It was in the spring of 1746, just after Prince Charlie and his men had been defeated at Culloden. The Duke of Cumberland’s redcoats were scouring the country far and wide in search of the luckless Jacobites, who fell on all sorts of devices to avoid capture. One evening, just about bedtime, my grandfather and his wife were sitting around this very fireplace when they heard a gentle tap on the window. At first they were a little alarmed and did not move from their seats, but when a second tapping was heard my grandfather, taking a candle in his hand, went to the door opening into the front garden, and unlocked it. Two men, weary and footsore, stood there. One, whom he at once recognized, was the Laird of Darvel.

“‘We are in great danger, William,’ said he. ‘Can you take us in for an hour or two? We need food and rest. This is my friend Mr. Oliphant, of Gask, a faithful follower of our prince and a loyal member of our poor church.’

“‘Say nae mair, sir; come in baith o’ ye; ye are welcome to onything that William Leslie can do or gie.’

“They stepped quietly into this room, where in a very short space of time an abundant table was spread. An earnest discussion took place as to what had best be done to protect them from their pursuers, who, they said, were not far away. The night was dark, so there was little chance of annoyance before morning. In that wee room there the two noble Jacobites slept till daybreak, while my grandfather kept careful watch. When the first signs of daybreak began to appear my grandmother emptied yonder aumrie of its store of cheese and oatcakes; she folded a blanket so as to make a rug wide enough for one to lie upon, placed it far back on the broad bottom shelf of the aumrie, while a similar arrangement converted the upper shelf into a bed. On these two shelves the two wanderers placed themselves, and in front of them, to screen them from observation, she placed the provisions that had been removed. Nothing needed to be said to any of the other members of the household, for no one save my grandmother ever interfered with anything in this room. Everything about the place went on as usual till breakfast time, when one of the servant lassies came in and said that a company of soldiers were in the courtyard.

“William Leslie at once went out and was accosted by the officer in command.

“‘We are seeking two rebels who we have reason to believe are in hiding here.’

“‘There’s nae rebel aboot this toon sae far as I ken, but ye are welcome to search and see,’ said my grandfather.

“But and ben the house did these rough soldiers go, high and low and into every nook and cranny did they peer, but all without avail. Nor were the men who searched the stables and outhouses any more successful. They came as they went. For many days did the poor fugitives keep in hiding, only coming out at night when all was dark and still to stretch their wearied and cramped limbs.

“When he had ascertained that the soldiers had left the neighborhood, my grandfather conveyed the laird and his friend to the sea-coast by night; arranged with a friend of Jacobite tendencies, who was the skipper of a fishing smack, to take them on board as deck hands, and in this way they escaped to the continent.

“Many years elapsed ere they could return to Scotland in safety, but when Darvel did return he marked his gratitude by giving to my grandfather a deed entitling him and his descendants for three generations to sit rent-free in Braeside, and at the same time he sent thae two armchairs from his ain study in Darvel House for the use and comfort of the faithful couple in their old age.”

I had listened to the old man’s tale with breathless interest, and when it was finished not a word was spoken by one of the little company. The old man again broke the silence.

“Aye, Alan, laddie, this house has seen mony strange sichts. Ye maun ken that a great number of the Jacobites were Episcopalians and, as they persistently refused to pray for the Elector of Hanover, whom they regarded as a usurper of the crown of Great Britain so long as there was a single royal Stuart to claim the throne, the most tyrannical and unjust laws were enacted against them. No more then eight Episcopalians could assemble for worship at one time, and even then it was only regarded as family worship.

“But for all that, mony a time did the good priest of Linshart meet his poor persecuted people in this very room at the midnight hour. The auld aumrie is very precious to me, for mony a time did Mr. Skinner use it as the altar from which he dispensed the bread of life to the faithful. Sae careful did they need to be that sentinels were posted all round the hoose to give warning in case of a sudden visit from the emissaries of the Government.”

“Surely there was something in their faith very precious in their eyes to cause them to be so much in earnest.”

“Aye, laddie, so ye may say. They were upholding an apostolic ministry, apostolic worship and apostolic sacraments which, with the teaching of the apostolic faith had came down to them through the ages, sometimes much disfigured by unapostolic legends and superstitions, but still there in all their fulness.”

“Mr. Lindsay lent me a book full of bonnie poems, Uncle William, and in ane o’ them there’s a stanza that says:

“That’s ane o’ Bishop Coxe’s ‘Christian Ballads,’ and it’s gaun to come true yet.”

“Is he no an American bishop, Uncle William?”

“Aye, thae words o’ his express the loving gratitude of the great American church to the poor disestablished Scottish church for her gift of an apostolic ministry and an apostolic form of worship. The Scottish Episcopal church has a noble history, and although so long as there was a Stuart left many of her members were true to the old family, they are now most loyal subjects of the Hanover dynasty. They are doing a grand work for God and the church, and if they will only ‘bide their time in patience’ God will bring unity and order out of the trials and disorders of the past.”

We sat long by the ingle nook, and the old man glowed with enthusiasm as he gave me just the information I craved.

I was gradually gaining an insight into the cause of religious division in Scotland, and the more I heard about the “Gentle Persuasion” the more was I drawn to admire their constancy and devotion.