I am not certain of the particular parish Stevenson had in his mind when he wrote this poem, but I am certain that the description is typical of almost any Scottish rural parish, Lowden (that is, Lothian) or other. In illustrating the verses it has seemed to me, therefore, unnecessary to make portraits from any one locality. I fancy the writer looked back to the period of his boyhood and to the people he knew in more than one part of his native country, so I have tried to depict that period and that class of people as I remember them in various counties of his land and mine.