shadow darkens the door, birl it through. " In went
the gauger, out went the bag. Out again flew the gauger, and
round the house opposite the air-hole he went. He looked around
the furnace door, inside the furnace, and beneath the furnace,
but there was no bag of salt to be seen. Meantime Sandy Hewit
busied himself pulling the red-hot cinders from the furnace,
and scattering them about among his feet and over a flag whereon
he generally stood when firing. Operations would be stopped,
when something like the following would ensue: —" Where
is the bag of salt your assistant bundled through that air-hole?"
"Ah, gauger, gauger, mony a man noo-a-days puts questions
to others that even himself canna weel answer. " "
I saw it depart through that hole to the outside here. "
" I dinna dispute it; but, hark'ee, gauger, he's a cute
auld dodger that man o' mine. Ye dinna, I suppose, for a second
suspect he might be trying to bamboozle the gauger? It wadna
surprise you a whit, I fancy, to be telt that, while you stand
palaverin' here, he'll be skirting ower the rocks—away wi'
another bag o' saut on his back—flying like the very mischief?"
This was enough to set the gauger off too. All the while Sandy
Hewit had the bag of salt, besides several others, safely
ensconced beneath that flag over which he had been pulling
the red-hot cinders, waiting the first favourable opportunity
of getting them safely conveyed to their destination. Some
sixty odd years ago the duty was taken off sail, and the day
of the salt smuggler ended.
Prior to 1840, rock salt had been introduced, and was being
used occasionally. Rock salt is used at every boiling now,
and now every boiling means a drawing of salt; and the turnout
at the present time compared with only a few years ago is
almost incredible.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ORIGINAL CHURCH.
The Original Church—Rival Establishments, 12th Century—Abbeys
of Holyrood and Newbattle—Dispute concerning the Tithes, 14th
Century— No Church in the l6th Century—Reformation Times—Davidson
appointed Minister, but no Church—No Place to Bury—Obliged
to Inveresk— Davidson builds a Church—His Successors—Ker of
Faddonside—Robert Ker — Oswald — Cooke — Monepenny — Buchan
— Ramsay — Moncrief— Andrews — Horseburgh — Carlyle — Roy
— Reid — Trotter — Primrose — Cunningham —Struthers—Smith.
THOR, the son of Swan of Tranent, confirmed to the Canons
of Holyroodhouse, about 1145, the church of Tranent; and De
Quincy, one of his successors at Tranent, granted the monks
of Newbattle—a rival establishment of the same religious order—lands
at the western extremity of his great estate, which ultimately
took the name of Preston.
It is scarcely in keeping with the nature of things to suppose
that the Canons of Holyroodhouse would withdraw from Tranent
church, or resign all claim to its tithes, of their own free
will; and there is no record in their chartulary intimating
that they were, until Reformation times, bereft of either;
and yet they became so suddenly eclipsed by the proceedings
of those from Newbattle, it looks as if the one order had
been sacrificed for the benefit of the other.
But it was not so, for in 1320 we find that if the one order
was still engaged at the eastern extremity of the estate,
the other was no less earnestly engaged at the western extremity,
and that amid their various enterprises not only had they
clashed together, but had actually laid hold of each other
by the ears, A squabble had ensued between them concerning
the tithes of the parish.
Seeing that the Canons of Holyrood were first established
on these lands, they might naturally be expected to hold a
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