The Pay of Preaching

Our landlord, as he was guiding us over the Frith, very innocently asked how much a year we got by preaching thus.  This gave me an opportunity of explaining to him that kind of gain which he seemed utterly a stranger to. He appeared to be quite amazed and spake not one word, good or bad, till he took his leave.

Presently after he went, my mare stuck fast in a quagmire, which was in the midst of the high road. But we could well excuse this; for the road all along, for nearly fifty miles after, was such as I never saw any natural road, either in England or Ireland; nay, far better, notwithstanding the continued rain, than the turnpike road between London and Canterbury.

We dined at Dumfries, a clean, well-built town, having two of the most elegant churches (one at each end of the town) that I have seen. We reached Thorny Hill in the evening. What miserable accounts pass current in England of the inns in Scotland! Yet here, as well as wherever we called in our whole journey, we had not only everything we wanted, but everything readily and in good order, and as clean as I ever desire.

Tuesday, 17.—We set out about four and rode over several high, but extremely pleasant, mountains to Lead Hill.  This was a village of miners, resembling Placey, near Newcastle.  We dined at a village called Lesmahaggy, and about eight in the evening reached Glasgow. A gentleman who had overtaken us on the road sent one with us to Mr. Gillies’s house.