The Common Rusk. 



191 



bits of land, rise up, like wardens of the waste, and 

 in their season make a brightness of their own. How 

 straight, and clear, and shining they are, with their 

 fresh glancing green, that answers so nicely to wind and 

 sun, and, when their flowering time is come, they look 

 like soldiers carrying spoils, or better still, banners of 

 victory. In old days the common rush had a use. 

 The pith of it furnished the best wick that could be 

 found for the oil-lamp in Scotland called a " crusie," 

 diminutive of " cruse." It was a common thing for a 

 whole family to turn out for a day or two at certain 

 seasons to gather rushes by the burn and ditch sides. 

 From these in the evenings the pith would be extracted, 

 cut into lengths, tied up in bundles, and put away for 

 future use, stored in dry places with the greatest care. 

 Over wide districts no other light was known than 

 that derived from this rush-pith saturated with oil. 

 These were the days 

 when nolucifermatches 

 as yet existed, when 

 the only way to get 

 light was by the slow 

 and clumsy process of 

 striking a spark from 

 a flint with steel upon 

 tinder, and then light- 

 ing at this tinder a sul- 

 phur : tipped " spunk " 

 or match. 



In our early days 

 away up in Glenesk, 

 beyond the village of 

 Edzell (to which we learn a railway is now being 

 constructed from Brechin, so as to join this old capital 



