Three generations

CONTENTS xi
PAGES
room, where "Bobbing John" met the conspirators before
the rebellion of " '15 " — The glass door to the turret-room,
before which the " White Lady" was murdered - 100 — 107
CHAPTER V
The death of the last-born — In the wilds — My father's panoply
of an Edinburgh newspaper twice a week, in addition to the
weekly local paper — My mother's cheerful return to old
Balass habits, and her ceaseless industry — Old-fashioned
neighbours — The great man of the district, with his adverse
influence — The minister's strange story — My mother's dis-
covery of congenial friends in three maiden ladies (Miss
Effie, Miss Kirstie, and Miss Nancy Edie), her kinswomen
through the brothers Arthur and David Edie, who married
her father's sisters, Marget and Helen- - - 108 — 123
CHAPTER VI
My father and mother middle-aged — A family gathering — The
beginning of the long struggle with unconquerable forces —
The missing of the ironstone, which might have saved the
situation — The yearly levant of the miners to the North-
Country fishing — The presentation to the coal-master in
1838 ------- 124— 131
CHAPTER VII
Pit accidents — The catastrophe of the main pit flooded for a
year — The brackish burn — The stealthy and certain rise of
the water — Was it from some old working, or was it from
the sea ? — Must the work of the pumps, played night and
day, be in vain ? — The earlier and the later look-out from the
old pillared gateway — The first, that of the Malcolm of the
period, for the French ship bringing the heir of three
kingdoms, and for the pilot, whose failure to present himself
prevented the proclamation of James Steuart at the Cross
of Edinburgh — The second watch by a cluster of women,
frightened and dispirited, gazing with fear at the empty pit-
head, once so thronged with carts and horses, now presenting
one solitary man, anticipating his household ruin with the
sickness of hope deferred — One of the little blue "tents,"
locked up and forsaken, the other remaining, with its desk
and business papers handled by a master tempted to despair