220 Winter 



Presbyterian meeting-house with its prison-like walls 

 and narrow windows ; far less was it the slated, 

 shabby-genteel manse, for in cold weather the effect 

 of the whitewash upon it was to threaten the spectator 

 with a fit of the ague. No ; on any gusty day in 

 November, when the very trees on the hill-tops seemed 

 to have turned their shivering backs to the breeze 

 that whistled through their branches and plucked off 

 their red-tinted leaves, while inferior houses looked 

 almost as though crouching to escape the blast or to 

 be facing it in haggard despair, the Red Lion Inn 

 alone, with its comfortable overcoat of impervious 

 thatch, stood quiet and composed, and towards evening 

 the ruddy glare of its kitchen fire pressingly invited 

 the toil-worn cottars to forsake their scolding wives 

 and brawling children, their scanty fires and draughty 

 houses, and enjoy its comfortable warmth. And often 

 at the same time there would be a light at one of the 

 two attic windows that peered out from the roof like 

 a pair of open grey eyes from under lids of thatch. 

 For one of these attic rooms was the favourite resort 

 of Adam Black, the thriving publican of Blackford. 

 Hither at night would he often resort, if business was 

 dull down below, to smoke his pipe, to think over his 

 plans, and to calculate his ingoings and outgoings ; for, 

 as he would sometimes remark, ' It took a deal of 

 worry for a man as could neither read nor write to 

 keep a true reckoning,' and Adam's natural abilities 

 had not been brightened up by education. 



