chaise from Mrs Watts of the New Inns of Irville, to go with her
brother, the major, to consult the faculty in Edinburgh concerning
his complaints. For, as the chaise was coming by the mill, William
Huckle, the miller that was, came flying out of the mill like a
demented man, crying fire!--and it was the driver that brought the
melancholy tidings to the clachan--and melancholy they were; for the
mill was utterly destroyed, and in it not a little of all that
year's crop of lint in our parish. The first Mrs Balwhidder lost
upwards of twelve stone, which we had raised on the glebe with no
small pains, watering it in the drouth, as it was intended for
sarking to ourselves, and sheets and napery. A great loss indeed it
was, and the vexation thereof had a visible effect on Mrs
Balwhidder's health, which from the spring had been in a dwining
way. But for it, I think she might have wrestled through the
winter: however, it was ordered otherwise, and she was removed from
mine to Abraham's bosom on Christmas-day, and buried on Hogmanay,
for it was thought uncanny to have a dead corpse in the house on the
new-year's day. She was a worthy woman, studying with all her
capacity to win the hearts of my people towards me--in the which
good work she prospered greatly; so that, when she died, there was
not a single soul in the parish that was not contented with both my
walk and conversation. Nothing could be more peaceable than the way
we lived together. Her brother Andrew, a fine lad, I had sent to
the college at Glasgow, at my own cost; and when he came out to the
burial, he stayed with me a month, for the manse after her decease
was very dull, and it was during this visit that he gave me an
inkling of his wish to go out to India as a cadet, but the
transactions anent that fall within the scope of another year--as
well as what relates to her headstone, and the epitaph in metre,
which I indicated myself thereon; John Truel the mason carving the