sicklike, they must go ranking like soldiers, and fight sham-fights
in bodies. In short, things grew to a perfect hostility, for a
swarm of weans came out from the schools of Irville on a Saturday
afternoon, and, forgathering with ours, they had a battle with
stones on the toll-road, such as was dreadful to hear of; for many a
one got a mark that day he will take to the grave with him.

It was not, however, by accidents of the field only, that we were
afflicted; those of the flood, too, were sent likewise against us.
In the month of October, when the corn was yet in the holms, and on
the cold land by the river side, the water of Irville swelled to a
great spait, from bank to brae, sweeping all before it, and roaring,
in its might, like an agent of divine displeasure, sent forth to
punish the inhabitants of the earth. The loss of the victual was a
thing reparable, and those that suffered did not greatly complain;
for, in other respects, their harvest had been plenteous: but the
river, in its fury, not content with overflowing the lands, burst
through the sandy hills with a raging force, and a riving asunder of
the solid ground, as when the fountains of the great deep were
broken up. All in the parish was a-foot, and on the hills, some
weeping and wringing their hands, not knowing what would happen,
when they beheld the landmarks of the waters deserted, and the river
breaking away through the country, like the war-horse set loose in
his pasture, and glorying in his might. By this change in the way
and channel of the river, all the mills in our parish were left more
than half a mile from dam or lade; and the farmers through the whole
winter, till the new mills were built, had to travel through a heavy
road with their victual, which was a great grievance, and added not
a little to the afflictions of this unhappy year, which to me were
not without a particularity, by the death of a full cousin of Mrs