It is surprising that an English church was ever suffered to be built in such a place; though probably the county gentry had something to do with it.

They travelled about too much to be good men.
Small though Thrums used to be, it had four kirks in all before the Disruption, and then another, which split into two immediately afterwards.

The spire of the parish church, known as the auld kirk, commands a view of the square, from which the entrance to the kirkyard would be visible, if it were not hidden by the town-house.

The kirkyard has long been crammed, and is not now in use, but the church is sufficiently large to hold nearly all the congregations in Thrums.
Just at the gate lived Pete Todd, the father of Sam'l, a man of whom the Auld Lichts had reason to be proud.

Pete was an every-day man at ordinary times, and was even said, when his wife, who had been long ill, died, to have clapped his hands and exclaimed, "Hip, hip, hurrah!" adding only as an afterthought, "The Lord's will be done." But midsummer was his great opportunity.