CH. XXXV. THE PLAID. 249 



well spun, and the fabric tight and regular, it will 

 disappoint the wearer. When I speak of new wool, 

 I mean that the wool of which the plaid is made 

 should he new. But in these days, when all manu- 

 facturing processes are cheap, and the demand for 

 woollen goods enormous, great quantities of old 

 and worn-out clothes are ground, or rather teased 

 up again, with machinery invented for the purpose, 

 and are rewove into new cloth and plaiding. The 

 worthlessness of all goods in which this renovated 

 trash forms a considerable portion may easily be 

 imagined. 



I am inclined to think that in the smaller woollen 

 manufactories such tricks are less easily and less 

 frequently played. At the bonny and pleasant 

 little town of Forres I have for many years had 

 most excellent and trustworthy pieces of plaiding 

 made for me, of all degrees of fineness and coarse- 

 ness; not only rough coarse fabrics, made of black- 

 faced wool, for a winter dreadnought shooting-coat, 

 impervious to cold or wet, but also the finest and 

 softest plaiding for ladies' dresses. Nor did I ever 

 put any of my Forres-made stuff into the hands 

 of a tailor, Scotch or English, without its being 

 pronounced superlative of its kind. 



Nothing is so invisible on the hillside as the 

 common shepherd's check, of a small pattern. It 



