and we got in his place one Mungo Argyle, who was as proud as a
provost, being come of Highland parentage. Black was the hour he
came among my people; for he was needy and greedy, and rode on the
top of his commission. Of all the manifold ills in the train of
smuggling, surely the excisemen are the worst, and the setting of
this rabiator over us was a severe judgment for our sins. But he
suffered for't, and peace be with him in the grave, where the wicked
cease from troubling!

Willie Malcolm, the youngest son of his mother, had by this time
learned all that Mr Lorimore, the schoolmaster, could teach; and as
it was evidenced to every body, by his mild manners and saintliness
of demeanour, that he was a chosen vessel, his mother longed to
fulfil his own wish, which was doubtless the natural working of the
act of grace that had been shed upon him; but she had not the
wherewithal to send him to the college of Glasgow, where he was
desirous to study, and her just pride would not allow her to cess
his brother-in-law, the Captain Macadam, whom, I should now mention,
was raised in the end of this year, as we read in the newspapers, to
be a major. I thought her in this somewhat unreasonable, for she
would not be persuaded to let me write to the captain; but when I
reflected on the good that Willie Malcolm might in time do as a
preacher, I said nothing more to her, but indited a letter to the
Lord Eaglesham, setting forth the lad's parts, telling who he was
and all about his mother's scruples; and, by the retour of the post
from London his lordship sent me an order on his steward, to pay me
twenty pounds towards equipping my protegee, as he called Willie,
with a promise to pay for his education, which was such a great
thing for his lordship to do off-hand on my recommendation, that it
won much affection throughout the country side; and folks began to