was then an elder, but is since dead, a worthy man, with a soft
tongue and a pleasing manner, should go to Irville, and get Thomas,
if possible, released from the recruiters. But it was all in vain;
the sergeant would not listen to him, for Thomas was a strapping
lad; nor would the poor infatuated man himself agree to go back, but
cursed like a cadger, and swore that, if he stayed any longer among
his plagues, he would commit some rash act; so we were saddled with
his family, which was the first taste and preeing of what war is
when it comes into our hearths, and among the breadwinners.

The evil, however, did not stop here. Thomas, when he was dressed
out in the king's clothes, came over to see his bairns, and take a
farewell of his friends, and he looked so gallant, that the very
next market-day another lad of the parish listed with him; but he
was a ramplor, roving sort of a creature, and, upon the whole, it
was thought he did well for the parish when he went to serve the
king.

The listing was a catching distemper. Before the summer was over,
the other three of the farming lads went off with the drum, and
there was a wailing in the parish, which made me preach a touching
discourse. I likened the parish to a widow woman with a small
family, sitting in her cottage by the fireside, herself spinning
with an eident wheel, ettling her best to get them a bit and a brat,
and the poor weans all canty about the hearthstane--the little ones
at their playocks, and the elder at their tasks--the callans working
with hooks and lines to catch them a meal of fish in the morning--
and the lassies working stockings to sell at the next Marymas fair.-
-And then I likened war to a calamity coming among them--the callans
drowned at their fishing--the lassies led to a misdoing--and the