It may be guessed by some that I had a certain parish in my eye, and this makes it proper I should add a word of disclamation. In my time there have been two ministers in that parish. Of the first I have a special reason to speak well, even had there been any to think ill. The second I have often met in private and long (in the due phrase) "sat under" in his church, and neither here nor there have I heard an unkind or ugly word upon his lips. The preacher of the text had thus no original in that particular parish; but when I was a boy he might have been observed in many others; he was then (like the schoolmaster) abroad; and by recent advices, it would seem he has not yet entirely disappeared.
I am not certain of the particular parish Stevenson had in his mind when he wrote this poem, but I am certain that the description is typical of almost any Scottish rural parish, Lowden (that is, _Lothian_) or other. In illustrating the verses it has seemed to me, therefore, unnecessary to make portraits from any one locality. I fancy the writer looked back to the period of his boyhood and to the people he knew in more than one part of his native country, so I have tried to depict that period and that class of people as I remember them in various counties of his land and mine.
_The clinkum-clank o' Sabbath bells Noo to the hoastin' rookery swells, Noo faintin' laigh in shady dells, Sounds far an' near, An' through the simmer kintry tells Its tale o' cheer._
_An' noo, to that melodious play, A' deidly awn the quiet sway-- A' ken their solemn holiday, Bestial an' human, The singin' lintie on the brae, The restin' plou'man._
_He, mair than a' the lave o' men, His week completit joys to ken; Half-dressed, he daunders out an' in, Perplext wi' leisure; An' his raxt limbs he'll rax again Wi' painfü' pleesure._
_The steerin' mither strang afit Noo shoos the bairnies but a bit; Noo cries them ben, their Sinday shüit To scart upon them, Or sweeties in their pouch to pit, Wi' blessin's on them._
_The lasses, clean frae tap to taes, Are busked in crunklin' underclaes; The gartened hose, the weel-filled stays, The nakit shift, A' bleached on bonny greens for days, An' white's the drift._
_An' noo to face the kirkward mile: The guidman's hat o' dacent style, The blackit shoon, we noo maun fyle As white's the miller: A waefü' peety tae, to spile The warth o' siller._