106 Transactions. 
common in Renfrewshire. I only heard it once in Dumfriesshire. 
It was sung to a young child previous to its learning to walk :— 
Wag a fit, wag a fit, whan wilt thou gang ? 
Lantern days, when they grow lang, 
Harrows will hap and ploughs will bang, 
And ilka auld wife tak’ the ither by the tap, 
And worry, worry, worry till her head fa’ in her lap. 
‘Lantern days” mean the days of Lent. In this winter of 
unwonted severity ploughs have not begun with Lent, though 
they stopped about Christmas. 
About six years after my residence in Tynron, my father and 
I listened to the sound of an aurora. It was a very bright 
aurora, sending streamers and luminous mist across the zenith, 
Tt was like the sound of rustling silk, falling and rising. It is a 
very rare thing to hear this; but I wrote of it to Matwre, and 
discovered I was not entirely alone in my experience. Tom 
Brown, while a member of this Society, when early up at lambing 
time, saw the spectre of the Brocken—that is, opposite himself, 
reflected on a bank of clouds about sunrise, he saw a magnified 
image of himself, whose motions corresponded to his own. My 
neighbour schoolmaster observed ‘ Will-o’-the-Wisp” one 
summer night in a marshy spot between Shinnel and Skarr. In 
the store at Tynron Kirk is to be seen a shop account book made 
by a former grocer, bound in calf skin, the hairs still adhering to 
it. In that book entries are made of sales of tow, showing that 
the spinning wheel went round. There are also entries of sales 
of barleymeal. Now only a few rigs of barley are grown by one 
farmer only. Sermons are shorter, but there is more psalmody. 
Thanksgiving Monday has become secular. Grace before meat 
has nearly reached vanishing point. Grace after meat is most 
frequently taken for granted. I fear Burns’ “ Cottar’s Saturday 
Night” is following Burns’ “ Hallowe’en” into the halls of 
memory. 
Before closing, let me say a good word in favour of the 
scrupulous honesty of the great mass of the parishioners. I have 
had, during a whole night, linen spread to bleach or my blankets 
hung out to dry. I have forgot to lock my door. I have left 
the school door wide open for a night without loss. A cow might 
swallow half a shirt, but no fingers ever pilfered one. I lost a 
legging on the hills, but the lost legging hopped back to me. 
Carrying my coat on my arm ona bridle path one sultry day I 
dropped my spectacles, but my spectacles gravitated towards my 
