12 FAMOUS SCOTS 



the introduction of the spinning-wheel, though the 

 older means of production lasted far into this century 

 in the west of Ross and in the Hebrides. The coasting 

 schooners of the agent were the means of introducing 

 into the town teas and wines, cloth, glass, Flemish 

 tiles, Swedish iron, and Norwegian tar and spars. The 

 rents of the landed proprietors were still largely paid in 

 kind, or in the feudal labour by which the Baron of 

 Bradwardine managed to eke out a rather scanty rent 

 roll. In this way the mains or the demesnes of the 

 laird were tilled and worked, and the Martinmas corn 

 rents were stocked in a barn or ' girnal,' like that of the 

 Antiquary's famous John of legend, often to cause a 

 surplus to hang on the hands of the proprietor, until 

 the idea was fortunately devised of exporting it to 

 England or to Flanders for conversion into malt. 



Ship-carpentry or boat-building upon a humble scale 

 had been long established, and the coasting trade lay 

 between the North, Leith, Newcastle, and London. 

 The Scottish sailors then on the eastern coast enjoyed 

 a strong reputation for piety, such as, we fear, their 

 descendants have not maintained. John Gibb of 

 Borrowstouness, the antiquary may remember as the 

 founder of the now forgotten sect of Gibbites or 

 c sweet singers/ who denounced all tolls and statutory 

 impositions, abolished the use of tobacco and all excis- 

 able articles, and finally made a pilgrimage to the 

 Pentland Hills to see the smoke and the desolation of 

 Edinburgh as foretold by their founder. The wardrobes 



