Page:Robert Carter- his life and work. 1807-1889 (IA robertcarterhis00coch).pdf/39

Rh “Late that evening we reached a farmer’s house, where we asked for employment, and were accepted. We had, however, to wait a day or two before the grain was sufficiently dry for the sickle, and these days were employed in visiting the peasantry in the neighborhood. We were painfully affected by the gross ignorance that prevailed. Many of them could neither read nor write, and their conversation was of course entirely different from that of the same class in Scotland, though they were only a few miles from the border. An epidemic which prevailed the previous summer had carried off nearly a third of the inhabitants, and yet, alas! this chastening was in most cases without fruit. We shed many a tear with the poor survivors while they related their losses, but were pained by their vacant stare when we attempted to point out to them the resurrection and the life.

“Here we remained several weeks, and aided in gathering in the harvest. A quarter of a century has since passed away. Not one of the simple cottagers with whom we were thus temporarily associated have I ever since seen or heard from. Doubtless a large portion of them have passed that bourne whence no traveller returns. Did we aid them in preparation for that momentous change? I fear not. We were regular in our own private devotions, but I do not remember that we ever engaged in social prayer in any family of that neglected vineyard.

“In 1822, when I was fifteen years of age, a cousin who had a private school in the small borough of Selkirk, ten miles off, invited me to take his place for the winter while he took a term at the University of Edinburgh. This was an entirely new scene to me. On my way to Selkirk I passed Abbotsford, the fairy palace of