the light of open
day, joyously married, and took possession of her "but and ben," as the
mistress of the blacksmith's castle.

Janet Jardine bowed her neck to the self-chosen yoke, with the light of
a supreme affection in her heart, and showed in her gentler ways, her
love of books, her fine accomplishments with the needle, and her general
air of ladyhood, that her lot had once been cast in easier, but not
necessarily happier, ways. Her blacksmith lover proved not unworthy of
his lady bride, and in old age found for her a quiet and modest home,
the fruit of years of toil and hopeful thrift, their own little
property, in which they rested and waited a happy end. Amongst those who
at last wept by her grave stood, amidst many sons and daughters, her son
the Rev. James J. Rogerson, clergyman of the Church of England, who, for
many years thereafter, and till quite recently, was spared to occupy a
distinguished position at ancient Shrewsbury and has left behind him
there an honored and beloved name.

From such a home came our mother, Janet Jardine Rogerson, a
bright-hearted, high-spirited, patient-toiling, and altogether heroic
little woman; who, for about forty-three years, made and kept such a
wholesome, independent, God-fearing, and self-reliant life for her
family of five sons and six daughters, as constrains me, when I look
back on it now, in the light of all I have since seen and known of
others far differently situated, almost to worship her memory. She had
gone with her high spirits and breezy disposition to gladden as their
companion, the quiet abode of some grand or great-grand-uncle and aunt,
familiarly named in all that Dalswinton neighborhood, "Old Adam and
Eve." Their house was on the outskirts of the moor, and life for the
young girl there had not probably too much excitement. But one thing had
arrested her attention. She had noticed that a young stocking-maker from
the "Brig End," James Paton, the son of William and Janet there, was in
the habit of stealing alone into the quiet wood, book in hand, day after
day, at certain hours, as if for private study and meditation. It was a
very excusable curiosity that led the young bright heart of the girl to
watch him devoutly reading and hear him reverently reciting (though she
knew not then, it was Ralph Erskine's _Gospel Sonnets_, which he could
say by heart sixty years afterwards, as he lay on his bed of death); and
finally that curiosity awed itself into a holy