The Buchanites and Crocketford. 287 



leave of them. It was just then that a noteworthy little 

 incident occurred. The crowds had thinned to a tail of 

 stragglers and children, when a sharp-eyed mother discovered 

 to her horror that her own little five-year-old son was march- 

 ing bravely along with the Buchanites, and shouting with 

 the best of them that he was going to the New Jerusalem ! 

 A moment afterwards the young Buchanite, John Gait, was 

 seized and ignominiously dragged homewards " by the lug 

 and the horn," no doubt with a touching reminder of the 

 unwisdom of following after strange women. Little did the 

 Buchanites ever guess how important an addition they had 

 had to their numbers, albeit but for one short hour. 



Now, why was Ir\ine so very much perturbed on this 

 fair summer day, and why so extremely urgent for this second 

 removal of poor Mrs Buchan? Till eighteen months before 

 the town had never heard her name, and the Relief congre- 

 gation had been worshipping quietly and contentedly enough 

 under the guidance of their young and popular minister, the 

 Rev. Hugh White. But in an evil day for White, his elo- 

 quence at a communion service near Glasgow so captivated 

 the heart of Mrs Buchan, who was one of his hearers, that 

 nothing less would serve her than to become acquainted with 

 the preacher. This acquaintance proved his swift undoing ; 

 for in six months it was to cost him his church, and in another 

 twelvemonth his home. 



Mrs Buchan was an illiterate woman " of unprepossess- 

 ing appearance. Her manner of speaking was not only dis- 

 agreeable but even contemptible." She was "averse to 

 self-denial." She was strongly inclined to licentiousness. 

 She totally neglected her husband and children ; domestic 

 " duties " she, as a woman with a mission, simply failed to 

 recognise. But withal she had a g'enuine bent towards 

 religion. Fellowship meetings, ministerial discussions, 

 Scripture readings (the more cryptic the better), the writing 

 of letters of a semi-Rutherford flavour, which were much 

 " esteemed," were her continual delight. In time she came 

 to believe that she was the chosen instrument of a most 

 exalted mission in the world : she was no less than the Sun- 

 clad woman of Revelation xii. (White being her Man-Child) 



