178 A HUNDKED YEARS 



or a hare if it unwisely crossed his road, or a grey crow 

 or magpie which foolishly, unaware that * Joe ' killed 

 at eighty yards, had the impertinence to set up their 

 chat within what they believed was a safe distance. 

 The boys were perhaps at lessons, and their mother 

 deep in household matters with the housekeeper or 

 cook at Conon. She might have arranged to meet 

 father at a certain hour to inspect the flax crop, and 

 see whether it was ready to pull, or, if pulled, had been 

 long enough in the retting (rotting) pool, and was fit to 

 take out for drying and scutching. When ready it was 

 spun by the maids, and old Junor, the sheet and table- 

 cloth weaver, finished it off for the well-stocked napery 

 press. 



" Only the other day I was using a towel of Junor *s 

 make, still quite sound, marked ' C. M. K., 1806,' by my 

 dear mother when I was three years old. It was part of 

 the present to my wife on her marriage visit to Conon in 

 1826, which all young daughters-in-law in those days 

 expected to get from their mothers-in-law. It is 

 painful to contrast the placidly peaceful, happy life of 

 my parents then with the rush and splash and constant 

 feverish excitement all round us now in the same ranks 

 of society . How eager is the pursuit of fancied happiness, 

 which people imagine cannot be found in the peaceful 

 life their wiser parents lived. One is reminded of the 

 contrast between the light of a good steady lamp and 

 the blaze and rush of a rocket, which too often ends in 

 an explosion and sends the ancestral acres and home 

 to smithereens ! Then the wreckage is gathered up by 

 wiser, quiet-going people, as we have seen in too many 



