102 Transactions. 



abnormal eggs and with sliells from the seashore. A black cat, 

 a brindled cat, and a muscovy were generally crossing each other 

 or demanding a seat on your knee. You would leel something 

 cold touching your hand, and presently observe it was the nose 

 of a collie dog, generally named after a Scotch river, such as 

 Yarrow, Tweed, or Clyde. A t the door of the jioultry house was 

 a little hole or lunky which admitted the cats when shut out from 

 the family domicile. On Sundays waggon loads of children, 

 carefully packed in straw, presided over by the maternal or 

 paternal owner, or both, would pass my house on the road to 

 church ; wives and maidens who could not command such a 

 conveyance walked past, their shoes and stockings in a napkin, 

 ready to be put on at the rivulet's side nearest the church. At 

 that time the greater portion of the families in my district were 

 Cameronian or Reformed Presbyterian. At the present time the 

 Parish Church has the greater number of adherents, and it being 

 a much nearer place of worship, these modes of travelling are 

 wearing out. 



Ever since I came to Tynron, the child enters the Christian 

 Church on a secular day. Neighbours are invited, and the table 

 groans with every kind of food. Butter (salt, fresh, or powdered), 

 bacon and eggs, sweet milk and skimmed milk cheese, potato 

 scones, soda scones, drop scones, treacle scones, tea, and a dram 

 are part of the fare. The shepherds have a very restricted 

 number of baptismal names. At one time the fourth of my school- 

 boys were " Williams." 



Weddings are celebrated in the same hospitable and jovial 

 style. I have sat in a barn or cheese-room, the walls of which 

 were lined with sheeting to protect our clothes ; the floor saw 

 dusted for dancing. The built-in boiler was transposed into a 

 platform for the fiddlers. The tea was taken in relays ; the 

 minister, schoolmaster, and small gentry occupied seats at the first 

 table, which, along with the forms for sitting on, was improvised 

 from slabs for the occasion. The commoner folk and young herds 

 were next regaled at a second spread, while the elders smoked 

 tobacco outside. The dances did not consist of walking, simpei'- 

 ing, and circling round each other with planetary regularity, but 

 were like those that took place in Alloway Church, as far as 

 noise, life, and motion were concerned. Towards morning came 

 that awful ordeal, the pillow dance, or " Bob at the bolster," anj 

 ingenious method of picking out the bonny and weel-liked, and 



