310 About Wooler. 



Presbyterian, and there's a third Presbyterian at the 

 other end of the town. And we have a Primitive 

 Methodist Chapel, and a hall where the Plymouth 

 Brethren meet. Yes, we should be ' good people,' if 

 stone and lime and preachin' the word could do it ; but 

 I'm afraid there's a good bit of the old Adam left still 

 hereabout in spite of all that." 



And then he proceeded to tell me how it came about 

 that the keen Presbyterian spirit could not be content 

 with fewer than three churches one had originally 

 belonged to the Established Church of Scotland, and 

 one had been a Burgher meeting-house, but both were 

 now connected with the Presbyterian Church of Eng- 

 land. The independence of the Border spirit thus 

 comes out very illustrative in the field of religion ; the 

 people are, or have been, keenly influenced by the 

 religious and theological differences that prevail in both 

 countries. The Roman Catholic church, he told me, 

 was built at a time when not a few of the landed gentry 

 in the region leaned that way ; but now many of them 

 had died out, and the numbers attending this spacious 

 church were so few, that when a much esteemed priest 

 died some years ago no new priest was settled in 

 Wooler, and they "begged or borrowed" a priest, as 

 he said, now and then from neighbouring churches. 



As we talked, the beauty of the morning was, as it 

 were, blighted by two or three ragged, wretched- 

 looking, filthy creatures creeping along with that pecu- 

 liar huddling together of the figure that tells of too 

 scanty clothing for the keen morning air. Hands in 

 pockets, and nondescript caps drawn as far as might 

 be over their eyes, they crept on, ill-shod, as though 

 the sunlight were a burden ; and they were followed 

 by another couple with better bearing, much more 



