boys into what were known as Eton suits - long trousers, cut-
away jackets, and chimney-pot hats. I had been one of the
earliest victims, and well I remember how I fled home from
the Sabbath school with the snowballs of the town roughs
rattling off my chimney-pot. Archie had followed, his family
being in all things imitators of mine. We were now clothed in
this wearisome garb, so our first care was to secrete safely our
hats in a marked spot under some whin bushes on the links.
Tam was free from the bondage of fashion, and wore his
ordinary best knickerbockers. From inside his jacket he
unfolded his special treasure, which was to light us on our
expedition - an evil-smelling old tin lantern with a shutter.

Tam was of the Free Kirk persuasion, and as his Communion
fell on a different day from ours, he was spared the
bondage of church attendance from which Archie and I had
revolted. But notable events had happened that day in his
church. A black man, the Rev. John Something-or-other, had
been preaching. Tam was full of the portent. 'A nagger,' he
said, 'a great black chap as big as your father, Archie.' He
seemed to have banged the bookboard with some effect, and
had kept Tam, for once in his life, awake. He had preached
about the heathen in Africa, and how a black man was as good
as a white man in the sight of God, and he had forecast a day
when the negroes would have something to teach the British in
the way of civilization. So at any rate ran the account of Tam
Dyke, who did not share the preacher's views. 'It's all
nonsense, Davie. The Bible says that the children of Ham were
to be our servants. If I were the minister I wouldn't let a
nigger into the pulpit. I wouldn't let him farther than the