About the end o' July there cam' a spell o' weather, the like o' 't
never was in that countryside; it was lown an' het an' heartless; the
herds couldnae win up the Black Hill, the bairns were ower-weariet to
play; an' yet it was gousty too, wi' claps o' het wund that rummled in
the glens, and bits o' shouers that slockened naething. We aye thocht it
but to thun'er on the morn; but the morn cam', an' the morn's morning,
and it was aye the same uncanny weather; sair on folks and bestial. Of
a' that were the waur, nane suffered like Mr. Soulis; he could neither
sleep nor eat, he tauld his elders; an' when he wasnae writin' at his
weary book, he wad be stravaguin' ower a' the country-side like a man
possessed, when a' body else was blithe to keep caller ben the house.
Abune Hangin' Shaw, in the bield o' the Black Hill, there's a bit
enclosed grund wi' an iron yert; and it seems, in the auld days, that
was the kirkyaird o' Ba'weary, and consecrated by the papists before
the blessed licht shone upon the kingdom. It was a great howff, o' Mr.
Soulis's onyway; there he would sit an' consider his sermons' and inded
it's a bieldy bit.
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