tincross
my father was the minister, lies on a hillside above the little bay of
Caple, and looks squarely out on the North Sea. Round the horns of
land which enclose the bay the coast shows on either side a battlement
of stark red cliffs through which a burn or two makes a pass to the
water's edge. The bay itself is ringed with fine clean sands, where we
lads of the burgh school loved to bathe in the warm weather. But on
long holidays the sport was to go farther afield among the cliffs; for
there there were many deep caves and pools, where podleys might be
caught with the line, and hid treasures sought for at the expense of
the skin of the knees and the buttons of the trousers. Many a long
Saturday I have passed in a crinkle of the cliffs, having lit a fire of
driftwood, and made believe that I was a smuggler or a Jacobite new
landed from France. There was a band of us in Kirkcaple, lads of my
own age, including Archie Leslie, the son of my father's session-clerk,
and Tam Dyke, the provost's nephew. We were sealed to silence by the
blood oath, and we bore each the name of some historic pirate or
sailorman. I was Paul Jones, Tam was Captain Kidd, and Archie, need I
say it, was Morgan himself. Our tryst was a cave where a little water
called the Dyve Burn had cut its way through the cliffs to the sea.
There we forgathered in the summer evenings and of a Saturday afternoon
in winter, and told mighty tales of our prowess and flattered our silly
hearts. But the sober truth is that our deeds were of the humblest,
and a dozen of fish or a handful of apples was all our booty, and our
greatest exploit a fight with the roughs at the Dyve tan-work.

My father's spring Communion fell on the last Sabbath of April, and on
the particular Sabbath of which I speak the weather was mild and bright
for the time of year. I had been surfeited with the Thursday's and
Saturday's services, and the two long diets of worship on the Sabbath
were hard for a lad of twelve to bear with the spring in his bones and
the sun slanting through the gallery window. There still remained the
service on the Sabbath evening--a doleful prospect, for the Rev. Mr
Murdoch of Kilchristie, noted for the length of his discourses, had
exchanged pulpits with my father. So my mind was ripe for the proposal
of Archie Leslie, on our way home to tea, that by a little skill we
might give the kirk the slip. At our Communion the pews were emptied
of their regular o