plague lay like a ready to flow forth and spread and through the city what a terrible next door neighbour for superstitious citizens a rat within would send a shudder through the heart here if you like was a addressed by our forefathers to their own neglect v and then we have major for although even his house is now old cannot clear herself of his memory he and his sister lived together in an of sour piety she was a marvellous j he had a rare gift of and was known among devout admirers by the name of thomas he was a tall black man and ordinarily looked down to the ground a grim countenance and a big nose his garb was still picturesque notes on a cloak and somewhat dark and he never went without his staff how it came about that thomas was burned in company with his and his sister in manner hanged and whether these two were simply religious of the more furious order or had real as well as imaginary sins upon their old world shoulders are points happily beyond the reach of our intention at least it is suitable enough that out of this superstitious city some such example should have been put forth the and fine flower of dark and vehement religion and at least the facts struck the public fancy and brought forth a remarkable family of it would appear that the major s staff went upon his errands and even ran before him with a lantern on dark nights gigantic females laughing and gaping with of laughter at hours of night and morning haunted the legends of his abode his house fell under such a load of that no one dared to sleep in it until improvement the structure with the ground and my father has often been told in the nursery how the devil s coach drawn by six coal black horses with fiery eyes would drive at night into the west bow and people might see the dead major through the glasses another legend is that of the two maiden sisters a legend i am afraid it may be in the most meaning of the term or perhaps something worse � a mere yesterday s fiction but it is a story of some vitality an is worthy of a place in the this pair inhabited a single room from the facts it must have been double and it may have been of some dimensions but when all is said it was a single room here our two fell out � on some point of picturesque notes on divinity but fell out so bitterly that there was never a word spoken between them black or white from that day forward you would have thought they would separate but no whether from lack of means or the fear of scandal they continued to keep house together where they were a chalk line drawn upon the floor separated their two it the doorway and the fireplace so that each could go out and in and do her cooking without the territory of the other so for years they in a hateful silence j their meals their their friendly visitors exposed to an scrutiny j and at night in the dark watches each could hear the breathing of her enemy never did four walls look down upon an spectacle than these sisters in here is a canvas for to have turned into a cabinet picture � he had a vein which would have � legends fitted him to treat this horror he could have shown them to us in their and at their hideous twin a pair of great or praying aloud for each other s with emphasis now each with at her own corner of the fire on some evening j now sitting each at her window looking out upon the summer landscape sloping far below them towards the and the field paths where they had wandered hand in hand or as age and infirmity grew upon them and prolonged their and their hands began to tremble and their heads to nod involuntarily growing only the more in enmity with years until one fine day at a word a look a visit or the approach of death their hearts would melt and the chalk boundary be for ever alas to those who know the history of the race � the most perverse and notes on melancholy in man s annals � this will seem only a figure of much that is typical of scotland and her high seated capital above the forth � a figure so grimly that it may pass with strangers for a we are wonderful patient for conscience sake up here in the north i spoke in the first of these papers of the of the established and free churches and how they can hear each other singing across the street there is but a street between them in space but a shadow between them in principle and yet there they sit enchanted and in accents pray for each other s growth in grace it would be well if there were no more than two but the in scotland form a large family of sisters and the chalk lines are thickly drawn and run through the midst of many private homes is a city of churches as though it were a place legends of pilgrimage you will see four within a stone cast at the head of the west bow some are crowded to the doors some are empty like monuments and yet you will ever find new ones in the building hence that surprising of church bells that suddenly breaks out upon the sabbath morning from and the sea skirts to on the borders of the hills i have heard the of oxford playing their in a golden autumn morning and beautiful it was to hear but in all manner of loud bells join or rather in 