WINTER IN THE NORTH 307 



broomy knowe, that in the fresh fragrance of the spring 

 is covered with yellow blossoms. Now all nature is 

 as deathlike as well may be. Everything below and 

 around is clothed with a chilly winding-sheet, stretching 

 under the steel-blue glitter of an almost cloudless sky. 

 But long before, you had heard the clamour of voices 

 sounding deep and shrill in the rarified atmosphere, 

 and now you look down on such a gathering of rural 

 worthies as Burns might have sung or Wilkie painted. 

 A burst of welcome greets the laird and his friends, 

 followed by a respectful though a momentary hush. 

 Place for the kirk, and there is the parish minister, and 

 likewise his reverend brother of the Free persuasion ; 

 and there is the stout schoolmaster of Dreepdaily, 

 famed as a curler far and near, who dwarfs his 

 " shilpit " but energetic compeer of Bodencleuch. The 

 minister's man, who is likewise precentor, will soon 

 have an opportunity of showing that his sonorous bass 

 is- good for other things than pitching psalm-tunes. 

 There are farmers who cultivate and graze their five 

 hundred acres, and crofters who club with a neighbour 

 to hitch up a single " pair of horse." There are keepers 

 from the hill, and woodmen from the plantations ; 

 cottagers who get their living among the dikes and 

 the ditches ; " mason lads " who have been frozen 

 out of their work ; the tailor who has slipped from 

 his board, the shoemaker who has cast his apron 

 behind him, and the smith who has been lured away 

 from his forge, though they might all have been 

 following their indoor avocations. There are poachers 



