"I must not fall behind. I must not fall behind." The words had been echoing around in his head for several days now. His conscience was telling him to stop being so lazy. It made him pause. He had been brought up in a Calvinist culture: wasn't he supposed to have a work ethic? Or was it that he accepted the notion of predestination, and that he was not one of the elect, so therefore why bother? He doubted it. Anyway, Catholics have more fun. They don't have the presbyterian guilt - they can go and off-load it, say a couple of penances and have their guilt excised. Not so the poor protestant. No. Those poor beggars have to take it all and internalise it. Bury themselves in work and making money and being industrious just to prevent sinning or, much more likely, to take their mind off it. But never erase it. It shouldn't really matter anyway, because you are either elect - in which case your place is assured - or you are not - in which case it doesn't matter. He was glad, however, that some of his compatriots had taken the Protestant Ethic seriously, though. If they hadn't, then Scotland would be a poverty stricken European backwater clinging desperately to the subsidies provided to it by its larger southern neighbour.