"A fugitive from church justice"

[Josephine]

"Stranger" means someone passing through the parish and not resident there.

Thanks, that is what I understood it to mean.

[Josephine]

@ Josephine, I think there are about 1500 parishes in the Church of Scotland at present so back in the day about the same, (give or take,) session-clerks recording the parish business in the registers.
 Money given to strangers might include soldiers/sailors passing through the parish making their way home, etc, etc, also Bible scholars who travelled the country attending communion services and "gaun-aboot-folk!" looking for a meal and a nights lodging.
 Every parish was different and it looks like a lifetimes study awaits you but I doubt if the lairds son would be disciplined as per the off-spring of a cobbler!

Good Luck,
Skoosh.

Interesting; thank you.

In the case I found, it was the laird's grandson who was guilty of fornication, and whose relationship to the laird was noted in the kirk session.

I had previously found the baptism of an illegitimate child, whose father (of the same surname as the laird) was mentioned as staying at the laird's home, but the relationship between the father of the child and the laird was not given; instead, the baptismal record named the father's father (someone unknown to me, living in another city).

Finding the kirk session entries meant I had identified another son for the laird (the laird being my 8x-g-grandfather or something like that) and the only son of that son. When I put two and two together, I actually put my arms up in the air and shouted, "Woohoo!" Of course, I haven't been able to find anything else on either of the men or the illegitimate child, but it's still something.

[Skoosh]

Trouble with these lairds was some of their sons being educated in England or getting commissions in the army and becoming completely Anglified, some became Episcopalians and no longer attended the Kirk anyhow yet as Heritors of a parish they had the right to exercise their patronage and appoint its minister.
 This interference was one of the principal causes of the Disruption of the 1840's with many ministers and members joining the Free Church of Scotland. In some cases only the kilted gentry & their servants & tenants were left in the Kirk.

 The country people only got the lairds off their back by the Crofters Acts of 1886, the so-called "Crofters Magna Carta", by which they had guaranteed security of tenure, a fair rent and compensation for improvements on leaving. Their new-found freedom was put to the test in 1888 in Shetland when two lairds claimed their centuries old right to a third of 300 whales driven ashore in a voe, this challenge went to the Sheriff Court in Lerwick which the people won but the lairds tried their hand at the Court of Session and lost again! 
 Thankfully folk no longer eat whales in Scotland or use whale-oil, and its the kilted lairds themselves might need a preservation order. 

Bests,
Skoosh.

[Josephine]

Very interesting, Skoosh; thank you!

I love the saying, "the kilted gentry," BTW. I've never heard it before -- it's great.