CLEAR WATERS 



town hall, and then like good Scotsmen toast one 

 another till the small hours of the morning. This 

 ancient usage is no longer associated with such convivial 

 ceremonies. They are all good boys here now, or 

 nearly all. Even the toddy ladles and the rummers, 

 within easy memory in daily use throughout southern 

 Scotland, are now exhibited in glass cases as family 

 heirlooms, and gazed at by a generation of tea drinkers 

 as mysterious implements used by their ancestors for 

 some purpose or purposes unknown. Of the quality 

 of stuff that steamed habitually in these stemm'd 

 tumblers the younger folk in their moderate lapses 

 from the temperance regime cannot even guess. 

 What has become of it ? After forty years I can taste 

 its flavour still. Where has it gone ? I wonder how 

 Christopher North and the Ettrick Shepherd would 

 feel after the traditional ' ten tumblers ' of the modern 

 tavern sample ! 



Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty 

 at the Edinburgh University Press. 



