Scarce a flower was to be seen in their gardens, and laughter was a sign of levity, to be sternly repressed.
Their isolation, in the midst of a hostile population, caused them no concern whatever.

They cared for no society or companionship, save that of their own households, which they ruled with a rod of iron; and an occasional gathering, for religious purposes, with the other settlers of their own faith.

They regarded the Irish as Papists, doomed to everlasting perdition, and indeed consigned to that fate all outside their own narrow sect.

Such a people could no more mix with the surrounding population than oil with water.

As a rule, they tilled as much ground in the immediate vicinity of their houses as they and their families could manage, and the rest of the land which had fallen into their possession they let, either for a money payment, or, more often, for a portion of the crops raised upon it, to such natives as were willing to hold it on these terms.
The next generation had fallen away somewhat from their fathers' standards.