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And there was not one man of them but ran like hunted sheep back into the manse, and there, in the light, faced each other, forfeuchen and well-nigh greeting like terrified bairns, that did not know the face for that of Patrick Kerr, the laird of Abbotrule.
Seventeen years after the doing away with Abbotrule Parish there took place at the manse of Southdean, after the Sacrament had been dispensed, one of these gatherings of sanctified conviviality.
For four years the laird laboured to attain his end, and a blithe man was he when, in 1774, he got Eliott of Stobs and Douglas of Douglas to side with him and wipe out for evermore the kirk and parish of Abbotrule.
Jedburgh was but ten miles away, Hawick but six or seven, and any stay after the sun rose would speedily have brought strong bodies of men from these towns, as well as from his still nearer neighbours, at Chester, Abbotrule, and Hobkirk. Oswald's approach was seen, and two of his cousins Allan, who was a lad of about the same age, and Janet, a year younger ran out from the house to meet him.
Most unfortunately, too, the laird took a scunner at the minister of the parish of Abbotrule. It may be that he and the minister saw too much of each other, and only saw each other's faults, but of that no one now can tell. But, about the year 1770, Patrick Kerr set about to put an end to Abbotrule Parish and Abbotrule Kirk, that had seen many an open-air Sacrament on summer Sabbaths long ago.
Not long after Prince Charlie's day there lived at Abbotrule, in Rulewater, a laird named Patrick Kerr. Patrick Kerr was a Writer to His Majesty's Signet, a dour man, with a mischancy temper. The kirk and kirkyard of Abbotrule, as still may be seen, lay near the laird's house too near for the pleasure of one who had no love for the kirk and who could not thole ministers.
Next day they all had the news that Patrick Kerr, who hated the kirk and all ministers, and had done away with the parish of Abbotrule, had died in the darkening of that Sabbath evening and gone to his last account.
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