From Ploughshare to Pulpit by Gordon Stables

The farm of Kilbuie was by no means of large dimensions, though it was a farm, and not merely a croft. Nor was it, at the time our story commences, in very flourishing conditions, for only one year ago more than twenty head of fat cattle had been taken dead from the byres, a sad and almost irreparable loss to honest Farmer M‘Crae, or "Kilbuie," as he was more often called, according to the custom of the country.

That last summer and autumn had been a disastrous one all through, for besides the loss in fat cattle, a cow had succumbed in calving, a splendid horse had died; then in the autumn, ere the corn was cut, but when it was all ablaze and ready for the scythe, there had come a terrible storm of wind and hail, and the destruction to the standing crop was pitiable. There was lost at least as much seed as would have sufficed to sow the ground twice over.