S. R. Crockett

“ Then Allan Syme broke forth furiously.
"Your tongues are evil!" he said, "ye are not fit to take her name on your lips. She is to me as the mother of our Lord—yes, as Mary, the wife of Joseph, the carpenter!"
"And indeed I never thocht sae muckle o' that yin either," said Matthew of Craigs,—"the Papishes make ower great a to-do about her for my liking!"
"Matthew Carment and John Allanson, I bid you hearken to me," cried the young minister. ”

“ Cameronian was stamped upon their faces with broad strong simplicity. The blue bonnet, already looking old-world among the universal "felts" common to most adult manhood—the deep serious eyes, as it were withdrawn under the penthouse of bushy brows, and looking upon all things (even lamb sales) as fleeting and transitory—the long upper lip and the mouth tightly compressed—these marked out John Allanson of Drows and Matthew Carment of Craigs as pillars of that Kirk which alone of all the fragments of Presbytery is senior to the Established Church of Scotland. ”

“ But somehow up at Lowe's Seat, the leaves of the wood laughed to a different tune and the Airds woods were dearer than all sweet Kenside.
So in spite of all Elspeth Stuart had crossed in her father's own skiff, which he used for his longer ministerial excursions "up the water," and her brothers Frank and Sandy for perch-fishing and laying their "ged" lines. There was indeed a certain puddock in a high state of decomposition in a locker which sadly troubled Elspeth as she bent to the oars. And now she was at Lowe's Seat.
It is strange to what the love of poetry will drive a girl. ”

“ Indeed, she permitted her eyes to rove in every direction except immediately beneath her, where through a mist of leaves she could see the Dee kissing murmuringly the rushes on its marge.
A pretty girl—yes, surely. More than that, one winsome with the wilful brightness which takes men more than beauty. ”

“ Having arrived, the surprise and mutual courtesies were simply overpowering. Elspeth had not dreamed—the merest impulse had led her—she had been reading Lowe's poem the night before. It was really the only completely sheltered place for miles, where one could muse in peace. He knew it was, did he not?
But we must introduce this young man. If he had possessed a card it would have said: "The Rev. Allan Syme, B.A."
He was the new minister of the Cameronian Kirk at Cairn Edward. ”

“ At half-past eleven by the clock the minister of the Cameronian Kirk sat down beside this daughter of an Erastian Establishment.
Have you heard the leaves of beech and birch laugh as they clash and rustle? That is how the wicked summer woods of Airds laughed that day about Lowe's Seat.
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Half a mile down the river there is a ferry boat which at infrequent intervals pushes a flat duck's bill across Dee Water. It is wide enough to take a loaded cart of hay, and long enough to accommodate two young horses tail to tail and yet leave room for the statutory flourishing of heels. ”