Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
creeping into use in these Border Kirkyards, which is a 
pity, as it gives them such a tawdry look. I feel tempted to 
emulate the English vicar who is said to have gone in the 
night and smashed them all, considering they desecrated 
the old God’s-acre. Our little church has two galleries 
which can only be reached by outside stone staircases, and 
it is nearly smothered in Ivy. There is also a quaint Ivied 
excrescence which is an old burial vault no longer used, 
and there is a tradition there are vaults under the church 
too. In some of these old pulpits two ministers have 
appeared side by side, but that was in the olden days, 
and I have never heard that they spoke together. Col- 
lections are still taken up by the time-honoured Kirk 
Ladle, a square wooden box at the end of a long pole, 
and it would be a bold man who could refuse a “ bawbee ” 
to the wide- mouthed ladle, though he might, and perhaps 
does sometimes, allow the velvet bag in the modern 
town church to pass him, or puts it off with a sixpence 
where he could well afford a shilling, for such is the 
respect for the ladle, that every member of a family, down 
to the tiniest tot, “ thinks shame ” to come to the Kirk 
without a coin, and I have seen a laddie, who had forgotten 
his ha’penny, very nearly drop a salt tear instead thereof. 
Over the pulpit there is a sounding-board (A), like a 
triangular hat of honour, and a few square pews left, but an 
attempt to be modern is made by unlimited whitewash. At 
some churches a square box on legs stands outside the door, 
or a big embossed brass plate guarded by an elder, and 
never a member of the congregation dares pass in without 
dropping a small offering. This universality of donation by 
Scots much surprises other nationalities, and is a custom 
might be followed, I think, with advantage in other 
churches, where the duty of giving does not seem to be 
sufficiently understood. The origin of the word “ bawbee” 
or “ babie,” is curious, and is explained by a Fifeshire 
tradition that long ago, when a very infantile Scottish 
King was shown to his lieges, they had to pay entrance- 
money for the sight, and the piece of copper taken from the 
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