THE VESTIBULE 



" At times our author philosophizes ; as witness the 

 following : — 



" ' For ordinary our women keen but when they are 

 up in years and without the flowers of the cheek that 

 the salt tear renders ugly ; women who have had good 

 practice with grief, who are so far ofF from the fore- 

 world of childhood where heaven is about the dubs of 

 the door and they find something of a dismal pleasure 

 in making wails for a penny or two or a cogie of sol- 

 dier's brose.' It seems to me that ' a cogie of soldier's 

 brose ' is enough to make anybody wail. 



" But think of this : 



" ' To walk by a lake and hear grief's chant upon 

 neighboring isles is the chief of the Hundred Dolours.' 



This sentence may be a bit obscure, but then obscur- 

 ity is the spice of Scotch literature. 



" There is some feeding and more of starving in the 

 tale. Once "■ the straw was burned to dry the grain, 

 the breeze win'd it, the quern ground it, the fire cooked 

 the bannocks of it,' yet, after all, the hero in winter 

 weather with bare legs and but scanty covering else- 

 where, was compelled to eat his ' chack ' in default of 

 ' bolls of meal.' On one occasion John Splendid find- 

 ing a ' yeld hind ' ' despatched and gralloched it with his 

 sigan bubh in a twinkling,' which is interesting, but not 

 surprising, as even a brachiopod might be expected to 

 yell at least once before being gralloched with a sigan 

 bubh. 



" The author tells us also of ' the profound gorges 

 of Stob Dubh belching full to the throat with animus,' 

 which will be news to most of us, for while we know 

 Scotland to be fairly full of animus, we did not dream it 



83 



