[107] The presence of cattle in the houses of the common people, or small farmers, was too often seen, but this is just a further instance of the disrespect for sanitary matters evinced by the Scots before the present century. A great change has taken place within the last eighty or a hundred years.
[108] Sunday observance has long been, and still is, a remarkable feature of the Scottish national life. In former times the utmost care was taken that there should be no Sabbath breaking. The old Jewish idea of a ‘Sabbath-day’s’ journey was kept to the letter, and no one was allowed to walk on the streets except going to or coming from the church. Any person found taking a walk ran the risk of being taken to the guard-house by the ‘civileers,’ who were inquisitors appointed conjointly by the Town Council and the kirk session. The average Scotsman would rather let his crops go to ruin than take them in on a fine Sabbath.
[109] In the 1816 edition, here followed throughout, the chap-book begins—‘This taylor;’ but in the 1820 edition the opening sentence runs thus:—‘Leper in his life-time,’ etc. That reading has been taken here as it makes a better beginning than the other.
[110] The English edition has a very different reading, as follows:—‘A farthing Roll, half a pint of Ale, and a pipe of Tobacco.’
[111] The word ‘nearest’ is given instead of ‘former’ in the other editions.
[112] ‘Half,’ in the English edition.
[113] ‘Sixty-two,’ in the English edition.
[114] ‘Three-half-pennys’ in the English edition.
[115] A reference to a similar event is made in R. Braithwaite’s Penitent Pilgrim, 1641, reprinted by Pickering, of London, in 1853. At p. 109 of the reprint the following passage will be found:—‘Nay, hast thou not seen the very corpse of thy departed brother arrested, and uncharitably stayed; who, though he had paid his debt to nature, yet must receive no burial till his corpse has discharged his debt to his creditor? and hast thou sought to satisfy his hard-hearted creditor that those due funeral rites might be performed to thy brother?’
[116] Romans ix. 27.