The Dark Year of Dundee

An Other Tale of the Scottish Reformation So passed the men of Dundee, in the summer months of that terrible year, step by step from vague apprehension to vivid, actual terror; as the pestilence that walketh in darkness first struck down one, and another, and another; then gradually multiplied its victims until the voice of lamentation filled the city, and no man felt his own life safe from the destroyer for a single hour. Not very long after the first appearance of the pestilence, Archie Duncan came back one morning in high glee from the grammarschool, to which he had been despatched by the careful Janet only half an hour before. “Nae mair schule,” he cried, flinging his book on the table; “maister’s awa’, for fear o’ the sickness; — and may guid gang wi’ him!”