CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



and some crown-cracks from the shillelas of the Con- 

 naught Rangers. 



Down conies a sudden thunder-plump, making the 

 road a river and to the whiff o 1 lightning, all in 

 the shape of man, woman, and child, are under roof- 

 cover. The afternoon soon clears up, and the hay- 

 makers leave the clanking empty gill or half-mutch- 

 kin stoup, for the field, to see what the rain has done 

 the forge begins again to roar the sound of the 

 flying shuttle tells that the weaver is again on his 

 treddles; the tailor hoists up his little window in the 

 thatch, in that close confinement, to enjoy the caller 

 air the tinklers go to encamp on the common 

 "the air is balm 11 insects, dropping from eave and 

 tree, "show to the sun their waved coats dropt with 

 gold 11 though the season of bird -singing be over 

 and gone, there is a pleasant chirping hereabouts, 

 thereabouts, every where; the old blind beggar, dog- 

 led, goes from door to door, unconscious that such a 

 stramash has ever been and dancing round our 

 champion, away we schoolboys all fly with him to 

 swim in the Brother Loch, taking our fishing-rods 

 with us, for one clap of thunder will not frighten the 

 trout; and about the middle or end of July, we have 

 known great labbers, twenty inches long, play wallop 

 between our very feet, in the warm shallow water, 

 within a yard of the edge, to the yellow-bodied, 

 [84] 



