424 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



piece of argument ; but he was evidently a person rather 

 to be listened to than read. He was quite as rigid in 

 church matters, it is said, as in those at the school, but 

 with no very marked success. He contrived to flog 

 some of his boys into very tolerable scholars ; but though 

 he set himself in Ciomarty so much against the practice 

 of Sabbath walking, that he used to take his stand 

 every Sunday evening in one of the avenues which leads 

 from the town, and turn back the walkers by the shoul- 

 ders, after he had first shaken them by the breast, the 

 practice, out of the sheer wrongheadedness of the people, 

 became more popular than before. He was called from 

 the school of Cromarty to a chapel of ease in Kilmarnock, 

 and there came in contact with Burns. I do not know 

 that he is the hero of the " Calf," but he cuts a rare 

 figure in the " Holy Pair " (see stanzas 21 and 22), in 

 the " Ordination " (see stanzas 2 and 13), in the " Kirk's 

 Alarm " (see stanza 5), and in the " Twa Herds," one of 

 whom (see stanza 3) was the wordy Russel. The poet 

 must have regarded the rugged preacher of the north as 

 no common antagonist ; for against none of all his other 

 clerical opponents has he opened so powerful a battery. 



1 1 have an uncle in Cromarty, now an elderly man, 

 who, when residing in Glasgow in the year 1792, walked 

 about ten miles into the country, to attend a sacrament 

 at which the learned Mr Russel was to officiate ; and 

 which proved to be quite such a one as Burns has de- 

 scribed in his "Holy Fair." There were excellent 

 sermons to be heard from the tent, and excellent drink 

 to be had in an alehouse scarcely a hundred yards away ; 

 and between the tent and the alehouse were the people 

 divided according to their tastes and characters. A 

 young man preached in the early part of the day ; his 

 discourse was a long one, and ere it had come to a close 



