Long have I been called by my neighbors "Auld Effie," and yet I am but threescore and seven years old. But I have lived in troublous times, and am older than my years. And although the Kirk of Scotland has had rest these many years, Auld Effie's heart is still sore. My kinsfolk need not now lay down their lives for conscience' sake; but, alas! few of them were left to me when those years of bloodshed were overpast. It is for those dear friends who were cut down in the bloom of youth, in manhood's prime, and even in old age, that I often make moan. And I hold it to be a sacred duty to keep in remembrance our martyred kindred and countrymen. It is with the wish and hope that the tales I have to tell may help to keep before the minds of Scotland's sons and daughters the value of their religious privileges that I have in this the evening of my days taken upon myself the task to write as best I can, with my poor wit, my own experience and the sufferings of my family and friends during those terrible years.

I was born in 1646 in the county of Ayr; here have I lived, and here, may it please God, I will die. My father, John Patterson, was the schoolmaster in our village. My mother was one Christie Henderson, from Dumfries. Her parents came to our town when she was a grown lass; two years later she wedded my father. I was the youngest bairn born to them. Three sons and a daughter besides myself completed our family. My sister's name was Mary, and my brothers were named James, Richard and Stephen; but to us they were Jamie, Richie, and Steenie.

My father was a man of strictest integrity, firm and stern. Perhaps the habit of ruling his little school made him more stern than he naturally was; at any rate, he seldom smiled, and he never indulged in frivolous conversation. Our noisy play was instantly checked when our father entered the house; not so much from fear as from respect, for my father was a man to command respect. After the lapse of so many years I still think of him as the embodiment of all that is good, true, and noble. But we look at our friends with partial eyes, and I doubt not many have thought as well of their own father.

My mother was truly a fit companion for him, although she thought him far superior to herself. She had a profound respect for him at all times; almost every important question concerning the management of domestic affairs she brought to him for his opinion or decision. "Use your own judgment, Christie," he would often say; "it will never lead you far astray."

It is surprising what cheerfulness and comfort my mother diffused throughout our household. She was constantly employed; and I may say without exaggeration that, owing to her tact and taste, no family of our means made so decent an appearance in the kirk as did ours. Nothing could be more serene than her own face as with her whole family she sat in the kirk listening to the Word of God as it was read and expounded by our spiritual leader. I could not but steal looks at her sometimes when she thought my eyes were where hers were—on the face of the speaker. She was not what one would call bonnie, but it was a right motherly face she had.

The children were early sent to school, for my father sought to impress our minds with the idea that we were in the world to be useful workers, and not idlers; and to fit us for usefulness he held education to be the chief means. When not in school we were always busy in the house or in the garden, for all the work of the family was done by its own members. Our home was well out of the village; we owned a house and garden, and rented some land forbye, for we aye kept cows and sheep. My mother had been reared in the country. She made butter and cheese; she spun and wove the wool of our flocks into cloth, and made the garments for our family with her own hands until her daughters were old enough to help her. My father worked in the garden; and he early taught his sons to handle the spade and the hoe. All worked from dawn to dark; and when the evening lamp was lighted my father or one of the lads read, while my mother sewed and Mary and I were busy with the family knitting.

We were kept in school longer than most children were, for my father thought it a shame for any one to be ignorant, and would not be satisfied till all his children could write their mother-tongue as it should be written.

Ours was a well-ordered home, and a happy one, till the troubles of the times brought sorrow into almost all the homes of Scotland.