III. THE BANKS OF TAY 69

by us children unless at harvest time, when we used to go gleaning in the fields beyond; Jessie and I afterwards grinding our corn in the kitchen pepper-mill, and kneading and toasting for ourselves cakes of pepper bread, of quite unpurchaseable quality.

In the general course of this my careful narration, I rebut with as much indignation as may be permitted without ill manners, the charge of partiality to anything merely because it was seen when I was young. I hesitate, however, in recording as a constant truth for the world, the impression left on me when I went gleaning with Jessie, that Scottish sheaves are more golden than are bound in other lands, and that no harvests elsewhere visible to human eyes are so like the “corn of heaven”* as those of Strath-Tay and Strath-Earn.

* Psalm lxxviii. 24.

[Version 0.04: March 2008]