On arrival at the well-appointed inn there, we received every attention, and retired to our bedrooms, giving strict orders to the waiter to see that we were called in time for lunch, and for the English service at the kirk, which he told us would be held that day between one and two o’clock.  In accordance with our instructions we were called, but it was not surprising, after walking quite forty miles since Saturday at daybreak, that we should be found soundly sleeping when the call came.

Lunch was waiting for us, and, after disposing of it as hungry folk should, we went to Glenorchy Church, only to find that, unfortunately, there was no service that day.  The minister, who had charge of two parishes, was holding a service at his other church, seven miles distant up the glen!  We therefore hurried to the Free Kirk, which stood in another part of the village; but as the Gaelic service had been taken at one o’clock and the English service followed it immediately afterwards, the minister had already begun his sermon when we arrived.  The door was shut, so entering quietly and closing it behind us, we were astonished to find a table in the vestibule with a plate exposing to our view a large number of coins evidently the result of the collection from the worshippers within.  We were surprised at the large proportion of silver coins, an evidence that the people had given liberally.  We added our mites to the collection, while we wondered what would have become of the money if left in a similar position in some districts we could think of farther south.  We were well pleased with the sermon, and as the congregation dispersed we held a conversation and exchanged views with one of the elders of the church chiefly on the subject of collections.  He explained that the prevailing practice in the Scottish Churches was for the collection to be taken—­or rather given—­on entering the House of God, and that one or two of the deacons generally stood in the vestibule beside the plate.  We told him it was the best way of taking a collection that we had ever seen, since it did not interrupt or interfere with the service of the church, and explained the system adopted in the churches in England.

In our youthful days collections were only made in church on special occasions, and for such purposes as the support of Sunday schools and Missionary Societies.  The churchwardens collected the money in large and deep wooden boxes, and the rattle of the coins as they were dropped into the boxes was the only sound we could hear, for the congregation remained seated in a deep and solemn silence, which we in our youthful innocence thought was because their money was being taken away from them.

In later years brass plates were substituted for boxes in some churches, and each member of the congregation then seemed to vie with his neighbours for the honour of placing the most valuable coin on the plate.  The rivalry, however, did not last long, and we knew one church where this custom was ended by mutual arrangement.  The hatchet was buried by substituting bags, attached, in this case, to the end of long sticks, to enable the wardens to reach the farthest end of the pews when necessary.