306 WINTER IN THE NORTH 



the black frost has laid a veto on field-labour, and 

 most of mankind who work out of doors must take 

 a holiday perforce. The ploughshare is frozen fast 

 in the crisp furrow ; the ditcher might splinter the 

 point of his pickaxe before doing another yard of his 

 drain ; the farm pond must be broken to let the 

 animals drink ; and as the partridges have gathered 

 to the shelter of the rick-yards, so the snipes and 

 every species of wild-fowl have taken to the shrunken 

 rills of slow trickling water. 



It is an involuntary holiday ; but is the parish to 

 stand idle on that account, or draw chairs and stools 

 into the ingle-nook to gossip and doze and keep the 

 fireplace warm ? Not a bit of it ! It is not every day 

 that the canny Scotchman has the chance of giving 

 himself over to enjoyment with a clear conscience. 

 Dreepdaily has challenged Bodencleuch to a curling- 

 match ; and already the players, with a long admiring 

 tail, are striding forward over hill and moor, from all 

 the airts, to the trysting-place. The laird, hospitable 

 as he is, somewhat hurries you, nevertheless, over a 

 hearty Scotch breakfast ; for he is to act skip or 

 headman himself for his players of Bodencleuch, while 

 the stalwart schoolmaster from over the march dis- 

 charges a similar office for the men of Dreepdaily. 

 A sharp walk through the policies and past the kirk 

 takes you to the curling-pond. It is a merry scene, 

 set in a frame of silver, that you look down upon from 

 the angle of the path that leads over the brae from the 

 kirk-stile. The pond lies in a hollow, at the foot of a 



