106 ■ Transactions. 



common in Ronfrewshire. I only heard it once in Dumfriesshire. 

 It was sung to a young child previous to its learning to walk : — 



Wag a fit, wag a fit, whan wilt thou gang ? 



Lantern days, when they grow lang. 



Harrows will hap and ploughs will bang. 

 And ilka auld wife tak' the ither by the tap, 

 And worry, worry, worry till her head fa' in her lap. 



" Lantern days " mean the days of Lent. In this winter of 



unwonted severity ploughs have not begun with Lent, though 



they stopped about Christmas. 



About six years after my residence in Tynron, my father and 

 I listened to the sound of an aurora. It was a very bright 

 aurora, sending streamers and luminous mist across the zenith. 

 It was like the sound of rustling silk, falling and rising. It is a 

 very rare thing to hear this ; but I wrote of it to Nature, and 

 discovered I was not entirely alone in my experience. Tom 

 Brown, while a member of this Society, when early up at lambing 

 time, saw the spectre of the Brocken — that is, opposite himself, 

 reflected on a bank of clouds about sunrise, he saw a magnified 

 image of himself, whose motions corresponded to his own. My 

 neighbour schoolmaster observed " Will-o'-the-Wisp " one 

 summer night in a marshy spot between Shinnel and Skarr. In 

 the store at Tynron Kirk is to be seen a shop account book made 

 by a former grocer, bound in calf skin, the hairs still adhering to 

 it. In that book entries are made of sales of tow, showing that 

 the spinning wheel went round. There are also entries of sales 

 of barleymeal. Now only a few rigs of barley are grown by one 

 farmer only. Sermons are shorter, but there is more psalmody. 

 Thanksgiving Monday liai become secular. Grace before meat 

 has nearly I'eached vanishing point. Grace after meat is most 

 frequently taken for granted. I fear Burns' " Cottar's Saturday 

 Night " is following Burns' " Hallowe'en " into the halls of 

 memory. 



Before closing, let me say a good word in favour of the 

 scrupulous honesty of the great mass of the parishioners. I have 

 had, during a whole night, linen spread to bleach or my blankets 

 hung out to dry. I have forgot to lock my door. I have left 

 the school door wide open for a night without loss. A cow 

 swallow half a shirt, but no fingers ever pilfered one. 

 legging on the hills, but the lost legging hopped back to me. 

 Carrying my coat on my arm on a bridle path one sultry day I 

 dropped my spectacles, but my spectacles gravitated towards my 



have left 

 3w might J 

 I lost a ^ 



