Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
But in August fly he must, 
For a Cuckoo in September 
Ne’er a fool can remember. 
May 28. — A lovely warm day ! The white Star of Beth- 
lehem is out, both in the kitchen-garden and in the planta- 
tion on the grass bank down where the Grosarts grow so 
freely. 
Boy and I went to get Kingcups to-day in the fields — 
Water-dragons as they are called in some places and Jonettes. 
There was a patch of marshy ground, thick with rushes, 
Kingcups and Cuckoo-flower, where a big black carthorse 
was roaming, making deep footprints in the mire (Icelandic, 
myrr). We filled Boy’s little cart with black muddy roots 
and golden flowers and he dragged it faithfully homeward 
through the fields; it was somewhat difficult to hoist over the 
fences, but the little kilted man stuck to it manfully, for Scots 
never say die. There were Peewits flying all over the field. 
They are sometimes called Lammermuir Whaups, though I 
believe this name belongs more properly to the Common 
Curlew, also a Lammermuir bird. We were lucky enough 
to come upon two little ones. They run about after their 
mother, and if people come near them the mother flies off, 
trying to decoy the intruder away from the spot where the 
young crouch in hollows and inequalities of the ground, 
and hope to escape notice. We almost trod on these two 
before we saw them, lying curled up in the deep dry foot- 
mark of a cow, where they looked just like black furry 
caterpillars or hairy oubits. I took one up in my hand, a 
dear little long-legged “ lang nebbit” creature with white and 
downy underside, and a sort of white ruff round its neck, 
and no sign of a crest as yet. Underneath it was all 
covered with “ paddy hair,” and black and chequered 
looking on the back, like an Arab donkey. “Paddy-hair” is 
an old local word which has come down from the Saxon 
padden hayr. It is also used for the down on little 
babies’ heads and for boys’ budding moustaches. In Fife 
the term is “ Cat’s hair.” In the North of Scotland, Jamie- 
son says the Devil is sometimes called “ Auld Whaupneb,” 
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