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Prestonpans and Vicinity

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shadow darkens the door, birl it through. " In went the gauger, out went the bag. Out again flew the gauger, and round the house opposite the air-hole he went. He looked around the furnace door, inside the furnace, and beneath the furnace, but there was no bag of salt to be seen. Meantime Sandy Hewit busied himself pulling the red-hot cinders from the furnace, and scattering them about among his feet and over a flag whereon he generally stood when firing. Operations would be stopped, when something like the following would ensue: —" Where is the bag of salt your assistant bundled through that air-hole?" "Ah, gauger, gauger, mony a man noo-a-days puts questions to others that even himself canna weel answer. " " I saw it depart through that hole to the outside here. " " I dinna dispute it; but, hark'ee, gauger, he's a cute auld dodger that man o' mine. Ye dinna, I suppose, for a second suspect he might be trying to bamboozle the gauger? It wadna surprise you a whit, I fancy, to be telt that, while you stand palaverin' here, he'll be skirting ower the rocks—away wi' another bag o' saut on his back—flying like the very mischief?" This was enough to set the gauger off too. All the while Sandy Hewit had the bag of salt, besides several others, safely ensconced beneath that flag over which he had been pulling the red-hot cinders, waiting the first favourable opportunity of getting them safely conveyed to their destination. Some sixty odd years ago the duty was taken off sail, and the day of the salt smuggler ended.
Prior to 1840, rock salt had been introduced, and was being used occasionally. Rock salt is used at every boiling now, and now every boiling means a drawing of salt; and the turnout at the present time compared with only a few years ago is almost incredible.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ORIGINAL CHURCH.
The Original Church—Rival Establishments, 12th Century—Abbeys of Holyrood and Newbattle—Dispute concerning the Tithes, 14th Century— No Church in the l6th Century—Reformation Times—Davidson appointed Minister, but no Church—No Place to Bury—Obliged to Inveresk— Davidson builds a Church—His Successors—Ker of Faddonside—Robert Ker — Oswald — Cooke — Monepenny — Buchan — Ramsay — Moncrief— Andrews — Horseburgh — Carlyle — Roy — Reid — Trotter — Primrose — Cunningham —Struthers—Smith.
THOR, the son of Swan of Tranent, confirmed to the Canons of Holyroodhouse, about 1145, the church of Tranent; and De Quincy, one of his successors at Tranent, granted the monks of Newbattle—a rival establishment of the same religious order—lands at the western extremity of his great estate, which ultimately took the name of Preston.
It is scarcely in keeping with the nature of things to suppose that the Canons of Holyroodhouse would withdraw from Tranent church, or resign all claim to its tithes, of their own free will; and there is no record in their chartulary intimating that they were, until Reformation times, bereft of either; and yet they became so suddenly eclipsed by the proceedings of those from Newbattle, it looks as if the one order had been sacrificed for the benefit of the other.
But it was not so, for in 1320 we find that if the one order was still engaged at the eastern extremity of the estate, the other was no less earnestly engaged at the western extremity, and that amid their various enterprises not only had they clashed together, but had actually laid hold of each other by the ears, A squabble had ensued between them concerning the tithes of the parish.
Seeing that the Canons of Holyrood were first established on these lands, they might naturally be expected to hold a

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