ered at, for in his old age, when I knew him, he was a man
of a most enticing mildness of manner, and withal so discreet in his
sentences that he could not be heard without begetting respect for his
observance and judgment. So out of the vanity of that vogie tod of the
town council was a mean thus made by Providence to further the ends and
objects of the Reformation in so far as my grandfather was concerned;
for the knight took a liking to him, and being told, as it was
expedient to give a reason for his journey to St Andrews, that he was
going thither to work as a ferrier, Sir David promised him not only his
own countenance, but to commend him to the Archbishop.

There was at that time in Kirkcaldy one Tobit Balmutto, a horse-setter,
of whom my grandfather had some knowledge by report. This Tobit being
much resorted to by the courtiers going to and coming from Falkland, and
well known to their serving-men, who were wont to speak of him in the
smiddy at Lithgow as a zealous reformer--chiefly, as the prodigals among
them used to jeer and say, because the priests and friars in their
journeyings atween St Andrews and Edinburgh took the use of his beasts
without paying for them, giving him only their feckless benisons instead
of white money.

To this man my grandfather resolved to apply for a horse, and such a
one, if possible, as would be able to carry him as fast as Sir David
Hamilton's. Accordingly, on getting to the land, he inquired for Tobit
Balmutto, and several of his striplings and hostlers being on the shore,
having, on seeing the bark arrive, come down to look out for travellers
that might want horses, he was conducted by one of them to their
employer, whom he found an elderly man of the corpulent order, sitting
in an elbow-chair by the fireside, toasting an oaten bannock on a pair
of tormentors, with a blue puddock-stool bonnet on his head, and his
grey hose undrawn up, whereby his hairy legs were bare, showing a power
and girth such as my grandfather had seen few like before, testifying to
what had been the deadly strength of their possessor in his younger
years. He was thought to have been an off-gett of the Boswells of
Balmutto.

When he had made known his want to Tobit, and that he was in a manner
obligated to be at St Andrews as soon as Sir David Hamilton, the
horse-setter withdrew the bannock from before the ribs, and seeing it
somewhat scowthert and blackent on the one cheek, he took it off the
torment