38 Notes mid Sketches. 



of Eothney, in Insch, endeavoured to persuade his 

 ploughman to adopt the new mode, only to find him 

 impervious to reasoning and obstinately determined on 

 adhering to his old practice. At this the laird lost 

 temper and turned away with the exclamation, " Augh 

 min ! It's been some confoun'it idiot like you 't's 

 cairn't up the hill o' Dunnydeer there !" 



The ordinary carriages of the farm were accom- 

 plished by means of "currachs" or creels of wicker work 

 hung from a " crook saddle " one on each side of the 

 horse. Dung was carried from the farmyard in these, 

 and in harvest they bore home the sheaves to the 

 stackyard. In loading it was needful to fill the two 

 currachs simultaneously to keep them balanced. When 

 one man filled more promptly than his fellow of any 

 heavy material, he gained an advantage in depressing 

 his own creel and correspondingly elevating that on 

 the other side of the horse. Hence the phrase 

 " coupin' the creels " upon one, came to be a sort of 

 " byeword," which has hardly yet died out in certain 

 localities. When corn or meal had to be taken to or 

 from the mill, or conveyed away for sale, a sack or 

 " lade " was put across each horse's back, and the 

 animals followed one another in single file, the " hal- 

 ter tow " of the second horse tied to the tail of the 

 first ; and so on : a mode of transport that was still 

 in use in the remoter parts of Aberdeen and BanfFshires 

 at the end of last century, as many as a dozen horses 

 being occasionally to be seen following in single file, 

 each bearing its lade. It was not that wheeled con- 

 veyances were utterly unknown. Carts and wheel- 

 barrows too had been invented long before. But the 

 cart was a clumsy vehicle indeed. It was made en- 

 tirely of wood, including the axle-tree. As in the case 

 of the plough, no plane was used to smoothe the sur- 

 face of the wood in any part. In the " tumbling cart," 

 in place of the wheels turning round on the axle, the 

 axle-tree itself turned round. There were no iron 



