io The Naturalist of Cumbrae. 



used as plural words. The cows were brought home 

 about sunset, and were milked at 8 p.m. When this 

 had been done, supper was had, after which the farm 

 people retired to bed. 



On his first night the new lad was taken up to a 

 loft over the kitchen and led to his bedside. There 

 was no light. He was told to lay his clothes on the 

 floor where he could find them in the morning. During 

 the five or six weeks of his sojourn at this farm, he 

 never saw the apartment that he slept in, nor what it 

 contained. He was called up in the morning before 

 it was light, and it was dark long before he went to bed. 

 His shelter on a wet day was a check worsted plaid. 

 No matter how wet the day had been, none of his 

 clothes were put to the fire to dry, except his stock- 

 ings, which were hung on the side of the " swee," the 

 support generally used in farmhouses of that locality 

 for suspending the cooking-pots over the fire. What 

 was worst, before the harvest was over, snow came 

 on, and the boy's shoes were bad and out at the toes, 

 so that the snow got in. At this time, too, the cows 

 were milked in the morning before they went out, 

 so that the herd was out all day with them, having 

 his breakfast before starting, and his dinner in the 

 field. 



It is true that he had not come from a luxu- 

 rious home or been pampered by any superfluous 

 indulgences in his bringing up, but even so there 

 were many elements of contrast between his present 

 position and the life he had been previously leading 

 at school and under his mother's wing. A child of 

 eight years old, not over-well clad, and with his feet 



