When first published in 1912, this collection of sketches from the Dumfries and Galloway Courier and Herald aimed to contrast Annandale in the last half of the nineteenth century with that in the first. The rich reminiscences are of life in every 'town or village, hamlet or clachan in the country side ...each height and hollow, plain and moorland of the dale'. Home, domestic and social life; crimes and criminals; superstitious customs; baptisms, marriages, diseases and epidemics, funeral customs; school, church and professional life; illicit stills and contraband traffic; estate life; the railways; it's all here and more.