106 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



Balmoral bonnet, walks round attended by his colley. Like all 

 the countrymen hereabouts, he has the rutila Caledoniam 

 habitantium comce, which Tacitus notes and ascribes to their 

 German origin. The distant Cheviots fill up the background 

 of the picture in grey and blue tints, with here and there a green 

 field running a short way up their sides, and wisps of mist 

 straying ever their flanks ; overhead grey skies, with a drifting 

 mist-rack torn into ragged edges, speak of coming storms ; while 

 on the right an eye of sunshine lights up a brae or falls in a 

 yellow glory over a stubble field. Adjoining it a reaping- 

 machine is at work upon some barley thus late in the year. 



At Minto we roam into the kirk, where if there be no " kist 

 fu' o' whistles," there is at all events a modern warming appar- 

 atus. A labourer who was employed with it, tells us " we ha'e 

 Sacrament twice a year noo, we did but use to hae it ance," in 

 a tone which seemed to imply a protest against the novel 

 practice, and which we could not help contrasting with the 

 state of things in England. It is to be hoped that Scotch 

 sermons are not so long now as those the old ballad represents. 



" There is a preacher in our chapell, 



And a' the live-lang day teaches he : 

 When day is gane and night is come, 



There's ne'er a word I mark but three. 

 The first and second is Faith and Conscience, 



The third Ne'er let a traitour free." 



From a kirk the transition is easy to a school. Not being 

 altogether strange to school inspecting in the sister kingdom, 

 during this ramble into Ballad-land we also made our way to a 

 parish school. A careworn master gravely bade us welcome, 

 and informed us he was " the dominie." We answered we had 

 supposed in our ignorance that functionary was the minister's 

 clerk. "No, a dominie is jist a schoolmaster;" and recollec- 

 tions of Dominie Sampson then rose to substantiate his state- 

 ment. The schoolroom was long, low, and dirty ; a row of 



