bout the Ardmuirland of bygone days was
gathered from her lips at intervals, and in the course of many repeated
visits; for it would have been fatal to my purpose had I allowed her to
imagine that I intended to make public use of her communications.
Though I have retained the substance, I have often altered the form;
for it would be useless to expect the reader to translate (if it were
even possible to do so without the help of a glossary) Bell's broad
Scots dialect. Yet the temptation has been too great to be resisted
from time to time to quote her exact words--so quaint her diction and,
to me at least, so attractive withal.

A description of the original chapel of the district will serve as a
fitting introduction to these memoirs. According to Bell, it must have
been simple even to destitution. No smoothly hewn stones, no carved
windows, no decoration of any kind distinguished it from the houses of
the people. It was a small, low building of rough stone, unplastered,
even inside, and roofed by a heather thatch. There was a single door
in the side wall. The roof within was open to the rude, unvarnished
beams which upheld the thatch. The floor was of beaten clay, and there
were rough benches for the people to sit upon during the sermon, but no
contrivance for kneeling upon.

"Some o' the fowk had boards to kneel on, ye ken," Bell explained, "but
the maist o' them prayed kneelin' on the flure."

The altar was a plain, deal kitchen table, devoid of all ornament in
the shape of draperies except the necessary linen coverings.
Underneath it was a box, within which the vestments were stowed away;
for there was no semblance of sacristy, and the priest's house was some
yards distant. At the opposite end from the altar was a raised dais
for the accommodation of the singers, of whom Bell herself was one.
She could not recall what they were accustomed to sing as a rule.

"I mind we wad sing the _Dies Irae_, whiles," was all the information
she could give on that point. One would think it scarcely possible
that so penitential a chant could form the usual musical accompaniment
to Sunday Mass! A teacher of music from a neighboring glen used to
come over from time to time to practise the singers.

"I mind weel," said Bell, "he had a wand and a tunin' fork." Are these
not the recognized signs of ability, all the world over, to conduct a
band of singers? The practices were held in the priest's house;
sometimes the pasto