LITEKAKY AND DOMESTIC LIFE. 373 



Wife, children, pets, idealized as they sometimes are, play through 

 many of his most beautiful and imaginative essavs. Memory re- 

 vives iu his soul matters trivial enough ; but to those familiar with 

 his ways, these little touches, embalming the fancy or taste of some 

 cherished friend, are deeply interesting. For example, my mother's 

 favorite plant was the myrtle : we find it peeping out here and 

 there in his writings, thus — 



North. — " These are mere myrtles." 



SJiepherd. — " Mere myrtles 1 Dinna say that again o' them — mere ; an ungrate- 

 fu' word, of a flowery plant, a' fu' o' bonny white starries ; and is that their scent 

 that I smell?" 



North. — " The balm is from many breaths, my dear James. Nothing that grows 

 is without fragrance." 



In a letter written by my mother this autumn she says : — " We like 

 our residence exceedingly, notwithstanding its great retirement and 

 moist climate : the latter we were prepared for before we came, and 

 have certainly not been disappointed, for we have had rather more 

 of rain than fair weather. The house is situated in a narrow valley 

 in Ettrick, with high hills on every side, which attract the clouds. 

 We, however, contrive to amuse ourselves very well, with books and 

 work, music and drawing ; and when fair and fine, the boys and girls 

 have their ponies, and the old people a safe low open carriage, 

 yclept a drosky, in which they take the air. The walks are quite 

 to my taste, and without number in the wood which surrounds the. 



other. Every one remembers the celebrated contest in Rab and his Friends ; here is my father's 

 description of a dog-fight from the Nodes. No one was more amused at the resemblance than 

 the genial author of Rab, when the writer pointed out that he had been anticipated by the 

 "Shepherd:"— 



" Doun another close, and a battle o' dowgs 1 A bull-dowg and a mastiff! The great big brown 

 mastiff mouthin' the bull-dowg by the verra haunches, as if to crunch his back, and the wee 

 white bull-dowg never seeming to fash his thoomb, but sticking by the regular set teeth o' his 

 under-hung jaw to the throat o' the mastiff, close to the jugular, and has to be drawn off the grip 

 by twa strong baker-boys pu'in' at the tail o' the tane, and twa strong butcher-boys pu'in' at the 

 tail o' the tither; for the mastiff's maister begins to fear that the viper at his throat will kill him 

 outright, and offers to pay a' bets, and confess his dowg has lost the battle. But the crowd wish 

 to see the fecht out — and harl the dowgs that are noo worrying ither without any growling — baith 

 silent, except a sort o 1 snorting through the nostrils, and a kind o' guller in their gullets, — I say 

 the crowd harl them out o' the midden, ontil the stanes again — and, ' Weel dune, Cssar !' ' Better 

 dune, Vesper!' ' A mutchkin to a gill on Whitey !' 'The muckleane canna fecht!' 'See how the 

 wee bick is worrying him noo, by a new spat on the thrapple !' ' He wud rin awa'. gin she wnd 

 let him loose!' 'She's just like her mother, that belonged to the caravan o' wild beasts!' 'O. 

 man, Davie, but I wud like to get a breed out o' her by the watch-dowg at Bellmaiden Bleach- 

 field, that killed, ye ken, the Kilmarnock carrier's Help in twenty minutes at Kingswell !' "— 

 Nodes. 



