16
servants for threshing victual: She said, they did and enquired what his wages were a day, or a week He said the common rate was a comman rule; to which she assented At night he was put to the barn to bed with the servant lad, and that night he spent in prayer and groaning, up and down the barn. Tomorrow he threshed victual with the lad, and the next night he spent the same way; the second day in the morning, the lad said to his mistress, this man sleeps none, but groans and prays all night; I get no sleep for him. He threshes very well, and is not sparing of himself, though I think he has not been used with it, for he can do nothing to the botteling and ordering of the barn and when I put the barn in order, he goes to such a place, and there he prays for the afflicted church of Scotland, and names so many people in the furnace. He wrought the second day and his mistress watched and overheard him praying, as the lad had said: at night she desired her husband to enquire if he was a minister, which he did, and desired him to be free with him and he shou'd not only bo no enemy to him, but a friend to him Mr Peden said he was not ashamed of his office: and gave an account of his circumstances: he was no more set to work, nor to lie with the lad, and he staid a considerable time in that place and was a blessed instrument in the conversation of some and civilizing of others, though that place was noted for a wild, rude people, and the fruit of his labour appears unto this day. There was a servant-lass in that house, that he could not look upon but with frowns; and sometimes when at family worship he said, pointing to her with a frowning countenance, "You come from the barn and from the byre, reeking in your lusts, and sits down among us, we do not want you nor none such." At last he
