hem, and I had a letter from Groningen which I behoved to
read. With Anton Lennox, stout of heart even in his sickness, abode my
lass, Maisie Lennox--of whom (though I looked to be back on the morrow)
I took leave with reluctance and with a heavy and sinking heart.

For us who were used to making a herd's track across the hills, it was
not a long step over the moors from Macaterick to the foot of the
Craigfacie of Shalloch, where the General Meeting of the Societies was
to take place. But it was a harder matter for my mother.

She needed help over every little brink of a peat brow, and as we passed
Tonskeen, where there is a herd's house in the wild, far from man and
very quiet with God, I ran to get her a staff, which the shepherd's good
wife gladly gave. For there was little that would be refused to a
wanderer in these parts, when on his way to the Societies' Meeting.[11]

[Footnote 11: So grateful and inspiring were these gatherings, that many
went to their death recalling the grace and beauty of these
meetings--"desirable general meetings"--they were in deed and sooth, at
least as I remember them.--(W. G., Afton, 1702.)]

Soon we left the strange, unsmiling face of Loch Macaterick behind, and
took our way towards the rocky clint, up which we had to climb. We went
by the rocks that are called the Rig of Carclach, where there is a pass
less steep than in other places, up to the long wild moor of the
Shalloch-on-Minnoch. It was a weary job getting my mother up the steep
face of the gairy, for she had so many nick-nacks to carry, and so many
observes to make.

But when we got to the broad plain top of the Shalloch Hill it was
easier to go forward, though at first the ground was boggy, so that we
took off our stockings and walked on the driest part. We left the burn
of Knocklach on our left--playing at keek-bogle among the heather and
bent--now standing stagnant in pools, now rindling clear over slaty
stones, and again disappearing altogether underground like a hunted
Covenanter.

As soon as we came over the brow of the hill, we could see the folk
gathering. It was wonderful to watch them. Groups of little black dots
moved across the green meadows in which the farmsteading of the
Shalloch-on-Minnoch was set--a cheery little house, well thatched, and
with a pew of blue smoke blowing from its chimney, telling of warm
hearts within. Over the short brown heather of the tops the groups of
wanderers came, even as we were