12 Notes and Sketches. 



hamlet. This road expands into " the toon loan," and 

 loses itself somewhere about the " head of the toon " at 

 this end ; most likely it loses itself at the other end 

 among " the rigs outbye ;" or, at farthest, about the 

 margin of the "moss," where peats, or more likely 

 " sods " only, are dug as fuel for the community. About 

 the place we find here and there an exceedingly rustic 

 sort of garden. In these " yards," which occur in no 

 regular order are so placed, in fact, that a stranger 

 could hardly guess from the position of any one of 

 them to which of the indwellers it belonged may be 

 found, besides certain useful vegetables, as " kail," 

 green or red, and " syboes," a few old fashioned herbs 

 and flowers. Some clusters of rich -scented honeysuckle, 

 a plant of hardy southernwood, peppermint, and worm- 

 wood ; with, mayhap, also a slip or two of " smeird 

 docken," the sovereign virtues of whose smooth green 

 leaves, in respect of sore fingers or broken shins, com- 

 mend it to careful consideration. And, as already 

 indicated, in almost every case we find trees about the 

 hamlet. A few ashes about the loan head, some rough 

 scrubby elder (or ' ' bourtree ") bushes about the corners 

 of the gardens, and, it may be, a plane-tree enriching 

 the scene with its mass of dark-green foliage. Then, 

 in some favoured corner there is the rowan tree, or 

 possibly a pair of these growing side by side like twin 

 sisters with their arms interlaced. They have yielded 

 many a slip for crosses to put above the byre-door, on 

 Kood even, to fend the bestial from " uncanny fowk." 

 For, as we know, 



Rowan tree and red thread, 

 Keep the witches fae their speed. 



Such, in a general way, was the outward aspect of 

 the hamlet and its surroundings. 



