ifiable. At Struthill, two miles south of Muthill, both chapel
walls and ancient burial-ground remained till about 50 years ago, when
they were shamefully turned--the one into dyke material, and the
consecrated soil and remains into top-dressing for corn land. The sacred
well was also run off into a drain, and the site marked by a modern
cattle trough. The burial-ground at Strageath is still in use, but the
corner stones of the old church have been brutally abstracted for use in
neighbouring buildings. These desecrations ill agree with what is truly
stated by my predecessor in the New Statistical Account, that "the
inhabitants of Muthill, until very lately (_i.e._, about 1835), held S.
Patrick's name in so high veneration that on his day (March 17) neither
the clap of the mill was heard nor the plough seen to move in the
furrow." Across the Earn from Strageath is a farm called Dalpatrick, and
a ford known as Dalpatrick Ford.

This well-deserved honour to the patron saint of Ireland is traceable
here to the presence of one of his disciples and countrymen, S. Fergus,
whose work, however, must have been about 150 years after S. Patrick's
death. After his work of chapel building in Muthill, S. Fergus quitted
his hermitage at Strageath and went northward to Caithness and Buchan, on
the same gospel errand, where, after good work again, he moved southwards
to Glamis, the scene of his death and burial. The churches dedicated to
him are six--viz., Wick, Halkirk, S. Fergus or Lungley, Inverugy, S.
Fergus, at Banff; Dyce. Glamis has S. Fergus' cave and well. There was
a S. Fergus chapel in the church of Inchbrayock, at Montrose, and a
chapel and well at Usan, three miles south-east of Montrose. His head
was preserved at Scone in a silver casket, his arm in a silver casket at
Aberdeen, and his staff, baculus or bachul, at S. Fergus, in Buchan. In
721, _Fergustus Epis. Scotiae Pictus_ signed at Rome canons as to
irregular marriages. He belonged to the party that conformed to Rome as
distinguished from the strict adherents of the old Celtic ritual.

About one mile below Strageath is the old Collegiate Church of
Innerpeffray, dedicated to S. Mary, mentioned in 1342, and made
collegiate in 1508 by the first Lord Drummond. But as this belongs to a
later ecclesiastical system (1200-1560) it may be passed over for the
present.

About two miles lower than Innerpeffray is Kinkell Church, dedicated to
S. Bean. Here we come on