Three generations

A MINIATURE EDINBURGH 77
sound of troubles he could not avert, which, manlike,
he could not bear to witness. But the golden days
of Cupar were something apart from its old houses
and gardens and from the historic memories of its
castle, of which not a stone was left, and of a dilapi-
dated building known as the " Temple Tenement," the
tenants in which paid no taxes because on the site
of their dwelling-house there had stood in the far-off,
misty past a preceptory of the Knights Templars.
The distinction of the little town was that, with its
law-courts, its collegiate church, its coffee-room, and
little theatre, to which good actors came on their
provincial tours; its stage coaches, its upper class never
sinking below the educated ranks of argumentative,
loquacious lawyers and their households, it was a
miniature Edinburgh. Having no trade, it had no
wealth, and had arrived at the careless, scornful
attitude of being perfectly unabashed in its poverty,
proclaiming with jesting glee that the capital of the
whole community was not more than thirty pounds,
which was generally borrowed and in the risky hands
of the most impecunious of its members.
Old Cupar took its place and its pride on the high
standard of its intelligence, its wit, its somewhat jovial
simplicity, and its independence. It was a law unto
itself, admitting and excluding whom it would to its
very citadel. Small, according to modern measure-
ment, as the incomes of the professional men who
were its magnates were, these incomes were equal,
in connection with the simpler habits of the time, to
the cost of much friendly free-and-easy visiting. These
hosts and guests were not misers : they were not even,
as a rule, gifted with the calculating prudence of
mercantile circles.
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