Reminiscences of Yarrow ... With preface by ... Campbell Fraser

Preface

BY PROFESSOR CAMPBELL FRASER WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLXXXVI AU Rights reserved

PREFACE.

. This book carries its readers back into parochial life in other days in the pastoral vale of Yarrow, that ideal Border vale, and source of so much Scottish song and romance. The greater part of it represents the parish as it was in the last decade of last century and in the earlier part of this century, when the " Ettrick Shepherd " and Sir Walter Scott were among the parishioners, and when it was passed by " unvisited " (1803), then " visited " (1814), and " revisited " (1831), by Wordsworth. The picture is part of a work, biographical, autobiographical, and antiquarian, projected by its late minister, Dr James Eussell. The part now published describes mostly his own local experience and that of Dr Eobert Eussell, his father and predecessor in the ministry, amidst the homely society by which they were surrounded. Although these ' Eeminiscences ' of Scottish man ners and Church life in the Border country were left unfinished by the writer when he died, in

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. VI January 1883, they add pleasantly, even in their present state, to our store of local anecdote and history. And the two principal figures, the father and the son, who were pastors in succession of this " church among the mountains " for nearly a century (1791-1883), now themselves belong to the consecrated memories of Yarrow. A chapter drawn from Dr Russell's manuscripts, touching on the history and antiquities of Ettrick Forest, has been added to the more personal remi niscences, which form the larger part of the book. Some of the ' Reminiscences ' were at first jotted down by Dr Russell for the gratification of his two sons, who wished thus to have preserved for them his stories of other days. Gradually the work grew in his hands. The following scrap, found among his manuscripts, explains his ultimate intention : — " I have been often importuned by friends to write a full description of this district, but I have hitherto declined, from felt inadequacy to do justice to the subject.

It was not till recently, when, on receiving an honorary degree from my Alma Mater} a strong wish was again expressed to the same effect, that I seriously entertained the idea. It was not perhaps unnatural that the task should be assigned to me of furnishing the chron icles of Yarrow. Born in its manse, nursed and 1 In April 1878.

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. VII bred among its breezes, with hereditary ties to its people, myself long the pastor of its' parish, having explored every corner of its hills and dales, a visitor in every cottage, and not altogether un versed in its past and present condition, I might be supposed to have some slender qualifications for the work. Besides, it was my lot in my youth to write the Statistical Account of the parish, which attracted considerable notice at the time, and long subsequent experience might well be thought to have supplied additional information. " That early account of Yarrow has accordingly been taken as the groundwork of the following pages — in describing the natural, civil, and ecclesiastical history of the parish, within its ancient boundaries, before it was curtailed by the erection of the new parishes of Kirkhope and Caddonfoot.

It is with diffidence, entreating the indulgence of readers and critics, that I charge myself with a task which, could I hope creditably to perform it, would indeed be a labour of love." When j)ortions of the manuscripts had been copied after Dr Russell's death by his son John, they were found to be in much incomplete and unarranged. In consequence of the lamented death of Mr John Russell in July 1884, the Rev. Alexander Williamson, of West St Giles' Church, Edinburgh, at the request of the representatives of Dr Russell, kindly undertook the charge of

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. VIII arranging them. Mr Williamson is also respon sible for the two biographical chapters at the end of this volume. Dr Russell's ' Reminiscences ' have been revised and annotated by Frofessor Veitch, whose name, as the living historian and poet of the Border, is an ample guarantee of the way in which this part of the work has been done. Mr Thomas Scott, artist, a native of Selkirk, has contributed the interesting engravings which illustrate the book. Sketches of the old bridge of Deuchar and of the dial on the church have been added by Mr J. Munro Bell. A circumstance, which I hope may be men tioned without egotism, explains how I have been asked to prefix a few sentences to this volume. From 1861 till 1875 I lived almost every summer in this remote and silent vale, led to it first by accident, and then by the attraction of a retreat more suited, perhaps, than any other in Scotland, for the meditative and literary work that should be done by a Scottish professor of metaphysics at the season of the year when his work in the class-room is suspended.

The region now suggests happy days spent in this sort of work — in connection with Berkeley, for example, which almost all belongs to some of those sum mers. At the easy distance of forty miles from Edinburgh, Yarrow is one of the few refuges for

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. IX contemplative recreation still saved in this over crowded island from the invasion of the railway. As an occasional resident, one soon found that the centre of its social system was in the manse, beautifully situated beside the river, and near the " dowie dens " of the Border ballad — a manse redolent of olden times, with its quaint simplicity of adornment, so much in keeping with the genius of the place. The writer of these 'Eeminiscences,' who personified and lived for the classic vale in which he was born, was there attracting his parishioners to goodness by the power of charity. His hos pitable abode was the common resort as to a con genial home of all the country round, and he was himself the loved father of the whole parochial family. With gracious brightness of manner, gentle and refined, and with an inexhaustible store of local legends and anecdotes, his society was a constant pleasure.

When other parishes in Scotland were disturbed by ecclesiastical strife, it was silent in Yarrow, where the ruling influ ence was always on the side of the things which tend to sweeten life. Friendship with the inmates of that manse now connects me with this volume. White's ' Natural History of Selborne,' in Hampshire, — that secluded parish, and type of the unmatched beauty of rural England, — is an illustration of the way in which animate nature b

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. X within a narrow parochial circuit may afford suffi cient material for one of the charming books of English literature. " The hill called the Hanger with its long hanging wood ; " the village with its straggling street of rose-clustered cottages in the sheltered vale below ; the antique parish church, beside " the square piece of ground called the Plestor," with the " vast oak " in the centre ; the picturesque " well-head ; " and the leafy lanes of Selborne, — all contributed to the fair scene amidst which the habits of the various denizens of air and water fully occupied the good pastor, Gilbert White, for many years. For a microscopic study of what is presented within a small space upon the surface of this planet, or within a short " tract on the river of time," reveals a miniature world, ready to yield — to the eye that can see — secrets everywhere latent in outward nature and in the homeliest doings of men.

It would be difficult to discover a space of cor responding extent more charged with natural and human interest of its kind than the lonely vale which winds in a north-westerly direction from the Duke of Buccleuch's residence at Bowhill, and " The shattered front of Newark's Tower, Renowned in Border story," to Birkhill, at the head of Moffatdale, amidst " the hills whence classic Yarrow flows." The distance between these extreme points is about twenty

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. XI miles, mostly rounded, grassy, treeless hills, all unadorned, in soft repose under the blue sky, wan and pensive in mists or in storms, radiant with splendour when under snow in sunshine, all silence or full of soothing sounds, with the " silvery current " of the famous stream meander ing along " the bare and open valley " to which it gives its name. Nature, it is true, does not here obtrude its charms, and Yarrow is to each man what each man makes it. It is mostly after pro longed stay that its power is felt, deepening with the intimacy of years. At first a stranger is apt to feel — What's Yairow but a river bare, That glides the dark hills under ; There are a thousand such elsewhere As worthy of your wonder." But when one lives in it and imbibes its .spirit it is found to be instinct everywhere with the historic symbolism of Scott, and significant of the spiritual meanings of which Berkeley and Words worth were conscious.

The largest lake in the south of Scotland — St Mary's — occupies the upper part of the valley. The country around it has been made familiar by the description in the introduction to the second canto of ' Marmion ' : — " All is loneliness : And silence aids — though the steep hills Send to the Lake a thousand rills ;

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. In summer time, so soft they weep, The sound but lulls the ear asleep ; Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude, So stilly is the solitude. " The rich variety of Como or of Grasmere is wanting. But there is the restful feeling of the "reen undulating hills, with the few asred trees on the margin, reminders of that Ettrick Forest which covered the now almost treeless country centuries ago, — when it was the home of the House of Douglas, and after that a hunting-ground of Scot tish kings. Memorials of medieval piety, in the vestiges of the church of St Mary's,1 with its lone churchyard, on the hillside above the lake ; Bowerhope, now a home of the Laidlaws, nestling on its opposite shore, and the famed cottage of Tibbie Shiel at its southern extremity; — memorials of feudal chivalry, in " Dryhope's ruined tower," and the scene of the " Douglas Tragedie," eastward of the church ; with the tomb of " Perys of Cok burne and hys wife Marjory," connected with the most pathetic of Border ballads, to the west — all add their associations to the scene.

" Meek loveliness is round thee spread, A softness still and holy ; The grace of forest charms decayed, Aud pastoral melancholy." The parish of Yarrow at the time of these 1 The parish church for centuries before the Reformation, aud afterwards in the Presbyterian and Episcopalian establishments, till almost the middle of the seventeenth century.

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. XIII ' Eeminiscences ' extended beyond the boundaries of the valley, into the vale of Ettrick on the one side, and the vale of Tweed on the other. The population was about 1200, sparingly distributed in sheep-farms over more than 70,000 acres, of which not 3000 were cultivated, and perhaps five or six hundred under natural or planted timber. The greater part was, and still is, the property of the Dukes of Buccleuch, whose beneficent ownership has covered the country with plenty and prosperity. The half-century of the ' Eeminiscences ' re veals a manner of life changed indeed from that of which Ettrick Forest was the scene in its cen turies of Border warfare, and in the struggle for the Covenant. The battle of Philiphaugh, fought at the foot of the Yarrow in September 1645, when the brilliant Montrose was defeated, closed the series of Border battles ; and when Renwick preached his last sermon near St Mary's, shortly before he suffered in February 1688, the warfare of the Covenant was about to cease.

The last sign of war within the Yarrow was prob ably when a portion of the Highland army, on its way to Carlisle, passed up the old road on the south side of St Mary's loch, in November 1745.1 1 For information of this interesting and unrecorded tradition, I am indebted to Lord Napier and Ettrick. It is not expressly corroborated in the published histories of the '45. Chevalier Johnstone says that the Prince's army marched by "three routes," and in several divisions, from Edinburgh to Carlisle. One divi-

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. XIV The tide of modern life invading its mountains had even then transformed the Efe of combat on the Scottish Border into one of pastoral content ment and peace. " Sweet Teviot ! on thy silver tide, The glaring bale-fires blaze no more, No longer steel-clad warriors ride Along thy wild and willowed shore. Where'er thou wind'st, by dale or hill, All, all is peaceful, all is still, As if thy waves, since Time was born, Since first they rolled upon the Tweed, Had only heard the shepherd's reed, Nor started at the bugle horn." In Ettrick Forest, towards the end of the eigh teenth century local sentiment was slowly giving way to general knowledge. With a more intelli gent interpretation of nature, faith in legends was in process of decay. Ghosts and fairy visitations were of the past, and tales at the cottage " ingle nook " were more rarely heard.

Scott was then collecting the ballads of the Border minstrels, still lingering in oral tradition, with a hold so loose that the publication of his 'Minstrelsy' in 1802 in a manner dissolved their spell, and they disappeared among the dales when they were thus introduced into modern literature. But the shepsion, it is well known, went by Jedburgh, Kelso, and Hawick, and the other by Peebles and Moffat. It seems that in the movement to Moffat from Peebles one party went by Tweedsmuir, and the other over the hills from Traquair, by St Mary's Loch and Moffat water.

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. XV herd's plaid and the blue bonnet of the Covenant were still the peasant's dress ; coarse homespun coats were not yet supplanted by broadcloth manu factured in noisy factories at Selkirk or Galashiels. The kindly tie between master and servant, formed in feudal times, in which " domestics grew up and grew grey under the same roof," was not yet changed for the contract that is fulfilled with mechanical because impersonal unconcern. The farmhouses, unlike those which now adorn the vale, were thatched and low-roofed — a room in one end, and the kitchen in the other, with two small dimly lighted attics above. Tea and wheaten bread were scarcely known, each farm providing within itself its own food and clothing. Neither spring-carriages nor gigs were seen on the narrow undulating road that then skirted St Mary's Loch, where the traffic was by horses and ponies.

Let ters reached the inhabitants of Yarrow only at irregular intervals. The chief newsmongers were beggars and pedlars ; and a single copy of the ' Edinburgh Courant ' served as newspaper for the whole population from Newark to Birkhill. It is this self-contained life of homely kindness that appears throughout the ' Eeminiscences,' in which we are introduced to Eobert Russell, in his boyhood in Fife, and then to his surroundings — first as parish minister in the wild and romantic region of Upper Ettrick in 1790 — afterwards

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. XVI in the neighbouring valley of Yarrow, to which he moved in the following year, to spend there the remaining fifty-six years of his life — altogether, a forcible, commanding character, according to report. The social life of the people, in cidents of ministerial visits, odd characters in the neighbourhood, parishioners who reached extreme old age in a region favourable to vitality, the interior of the manse and of the school and of the church, the annual Communion celebrations with their characteristic assemblages, pictures of clerical neighbours at a time when the Church of Scotland was less active than it is now, and glimpses of the General Assembbes of the Church in Edinburgh with their halo of a far-off outside world, — all pass before us in panoramic succession. The rumour of French invasion in 1804, which once more gathered the Border clans, alone suggested the troubled times of the past.

Yet the telescope as well as the microscope might be directed to the Yarrow of those days. Men whose effect on the age can be estimated only by a telescopic sweep of the horizon were then within the parochial boundary ; although the design of the ' Eeminiscences ' does not admit them there to a place proportioned to their mag nitude in the world outside Yarrow. The resident literary lion of the parish through out the two generations here portrayed was James

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. XVII Hogg, the shepherd-poet of Scotland, whose works in poetry and prose gave fit utterance to the spirit latent in the weird, fairy-haunted region in which he lived, — first a peasant's child in Ettrick parish ; then a shepherd at Blackhouse, on the Douglas Burn, in Yarrow, in company with his master's son, the " Willie Laidlaw " who was afterwards the amanuensis and friend of Scott ; lastly, at Mount Benger and at Altrive, where he died. In 1813 his " Queen's Wake " appeared, and his other poems and tales at interyals in the first three de cades of the century — all inspired by Yarrow. During eight years (1804-12) of the period of the ' Eeminiscences,' Walter Scott, the descendant on his mother's side of a former minister of Yar row, was living at Ashiestiel, at that time within the parish.

The ballads and traditions of the vale inspired him too, and he spread the inspiration : — For thou upon a hundred streams, By tales of love and sorrow, Of faithful love, undaunted truth, Hast shed the power of Yarrow." The ' Lay of the Last Minstrel,' ' Marmion,' and the 'Lady of the Lake,' all came from Ashiestiel in those years ; and there, too, ' Waverley ' was written. Moreover, in feeding the genius of Scott, Yarrow in the end helped to direct the thought and sentiment of the nineteenth century, in England as well as in Scotland, in pursuit of a higher ideal.

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. I have sometimes pleased myself with the notion that our lonely vale has thus had its own share in the romantic reaction of this century against materialism — that Yarrow is in this way associated with the Oxford of Keble and Newman, and with that awakened imaginative sympathy with the Past which, partly through Scott, has been a spring of spiritual philosophy as well as of ecclesiastical Catholicism. In olden times the strength and sentiment of the Scottish Border found vent in deeds of war and chivalry : in these latter days it has discharged itself in works of imagination and specu lative intellect which have influenced the whole modern world. If the greatest representative of imaginative literature that Scotland has ever pro duced was to be found in Yarrow in the half century of these ' Eeminiscences,' he who has most affected European thought by abstract speculation might have been found, in the half-century preced ing, in the neighbouring Border county of Berwick, in the person of David Hume.

The two Scotchmen of European magnitude in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — opposite indeed in their tendencies — were both of Border blood, and bore Border names, connecting the one with " Homes that dwelt on Leader-side;" and the other with " Scotts that dwelt on Yarrow."

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. XIX Since 1875 I have found in two other rural retreats formidable rivals even to Yarrow, — one the lovely vale which descends from Dunmail Eaise towards Fox How and Ambleside, per haps the loveliest even in beautiful England, in which Wordsworth lived, and where all that is mortal of him rests beside the Eothay, in the churchyard of Grasmere ; the region sacred to his memory, and connected too with the name of Arnold— the other, the home of my boyhood, on the shore of Loch Etive, beside the ruined Priory of Ardchattan, in the land of Lorne ; with its alpine scenery, the grandest in all the Highlands, if less soft and tender than Yarrow and without the cultured grace of smiling Grasmere ; and which, like Yarrow and Grasmere, moved the imagination of Wilson and Scott and Wordsworth, in the verse and prose in which each proclaimed its charms.

Notwithstanding, I am this summer again on the braes of Yarrow, — the genial writer of the ' Reminiscences,' and others of the bygone years, themselves now reminiscences of its past — adding to the former pensive sentiment of, the place. A. CAMPBELL FRASER. Kirkstead, Yarrow, September 1885. CONTENTS.

Chapter I. Page

Birth and early years of Robert Russell — The side school of Denmuir in Fife — College life at St Andrews — A forced settlement— Communion seasons in Fife — Edinburgh University — Edinburgh friends — Tutorship at Merchiston Hall — Bruce — Miller — Masonic enrolment — Licence — Ordination at Ettrick — Mr Russell's personal appearance — First days in Ettrick — Objections to reading sermons — Baptisms — Statistical account — Pedlars — Parochial schoolmasters — Stipend of Ettrick, ....... 1

Chapter II

Vacancy in Yarrow — Translation from Ettrick — The kirk-session — A Cameronian family — Parochial examinations — Church attendance — Mr Russell's successor at Ettrick — Midnight ordination — Mr Russell as Chaplain to the Lord High Commissioner — Reminiscences of the General Assembly, and the Commissioner's entertainments, processions, and levees — Degree of D.D., . . . . .27

Chapter III

Mr Russell's clerical neighbours : Mr Haliburton of Ashkirk ; Dr Douglas of Galashiels ; Mr Pate of Innerleithen ; Mr Booth ; Mr Paton of Ettrick — Meetings of Presbytery and Synod — Suspension for non-attendance — Pulpit -gown and paraphrases, ....... CONTEXTS. XXII

Chapter IV

Inhabitants — Change of customs — Farmhouses — Cottages — Want of Roads — Kain — Turnip husbandry — Potatoes - Style of farming — Drainage— Improvements— Burnt clay — Paring and burning — Soil — Climate — Stones — Hopes — Sheep — Snowstorms— Smuggling — Evil eye — Lochs — St Mary's Loch —Glebe— The " mart"— Tea— Head-powder— Wheaten bread — The solitary carrier — Postal arrangements — Letters — The 'Courant' — Mr James Anderson, Syart — Carriages — First gig — Improvements in roads, &c. — Bridge over Ettrick — Deuchar Bridge — Rebuilding bridge — Sudden collapse — Unprofessional doctors, . . . . . .73

Chapter V

Conscientious scruples — Dissent and the Church — The minister's man at Yarrow, Duddingston, Innerleithen, Wilton, St John's (Glasgow), Ettrick — Simplicity of character of the people — Henderson, Reid, and others — Beggars : Jock Gray, Johnnie Douglas, Jock Dickson, . . . .119

Chapter VI

Old Manse of Yarrow — Domestic arrangements — Linfoot school — Parish school — Teachers — Scholars — Holidays — Boarding-school — Dancing - school — Dinner-parties at the Manse — Visitors — Sir David Wilkie — The old church — Dogs — Ladle — Communion seasons in Yarrow — Sad events — The minister's horse — Fruit-trees — My first visit to Edinburgh, . .143

Chapter VII

Recollections of aged people — Character of the people — Sobriquets — Anderson and Bod — Desire for ministerial visitation — The minister superseded — Quaint expressions, . . 185

Chapter VIII

Eminent persons connected with Yarrow — Sir Walter Scott — "William Laidlaw — James Hogg — "Wordsworth— Tibbie Shiel, CONTENTS. XXIII

Chapter IX

The Dowie Dens — Songs and references to Yarrow — Parish of Yarrow — The forest — Names and antiquities — David I. — Alexander III. — Agriculture iu old times — War of Independence — James IV. and V.— Country and people — Philiphaugh — The Covenanters — Old towers — St Mary's Chapel — Wat of Harden and Mary Scott — Ballads and minstrelsy — Rebellion of 1715 — The false alarm — Yeomanry and militia — Football-match on Carterhaugh, ..... 244 SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTERS.

Chapter X. Dr Robert Russell

Marriage and family — Jubilee dinner — Secession of 1843 — Return of peace — Position in the controversy — Free Church in Yarrow — Presentation — Death and notices of his life, . 329

CHAPTER XL DR JAMES RUSSELL.

Mr James Russell's school and college days — Licensed as a preacher — Assistant and successor to his father — The minister of Kirkhope — Assistants at Communions — Mr Russell as a parish minister — As a preacher — St Mary's service — Renovation of Yarrow Church — Mr M'Crindle's friendly relations with Mr Russell — His literary work — Lectures and speeches — Chaplain to Lord High Commissioner — Degree of Doctor of Divinity — His family — His death, .... 347 Index, ..... ■ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. portrait of rev. dr james Russell, . Frontispiece ETTRICK KIRK AND MANSE, 1821, . . .20 ST MART'S LOCH FROM TIBBIE SHIEL'S, . . 98 DEUCHAR BRIDGE, . . . . .117 YARROW MANSE,. . . . . .142 DIAL ON YARROW CHURCH, . . . .166 YARROW KIRK, ...... 16S TIBBIE SHIEL'S, ...... 236 NEWARK CASTLE, . ... 294 ST MARY'S KIRKYARD, ..... 296 DRYHOPE TOWER, ..... 300 ETTRICK BRIDGEND CHURCH, .... Robert Russell. REMINISCENCES.

Chapter I. Birth And Early Years Of Robert Russell

— THE SIDE SCHOOL OF DENMUIR IN FIFE— COLLEGE LIFE AT ST ANDREWS — A FORCED SETTLEMENT — COMMUNION SEASONS IN FIFE — EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY — EDINBURGH FRIENDS — TUTORSHIP AT MERCHISTON HALL — BRUCE — MILLER — MASONIC ENROL- MENT — LICENCE — ORDINATION AT ETTRICK — MR RUSSELL'S PERSONAL APPEAP.ANCE — FIRST DAY'S IN ETTRICK — OBJECTIONS TO READING SERMONS — BAPTISMS — STATISTICAL ACCOUNT — PEDLARS — PAROCHIAL SCHOOLMASTERS — STIPEND OF ETTRICK. The life of a country minister, following the even tenor of his way, and quietly doing the work of an evangelist, is generally uneventful. Many of my father's contemporaries, who loved and venerated him, have followed him to the grave ; and it may seem that the time has now gone by for any memoir. But not a few of his old friends still remain. From his long con nection with the General Assembly, he was well and widely known in the Church.

An earnest A PARENTAGE. Parentage. and successful ministry, protracted far beyond the average period, has left its mark in Yarrow, and his memory is still fragrant as the hills where he fed his flock. To the rising generation a sketch of what he was may not be devoid of interest and profit. I have felt it incumbent, therefore, to yield to the request, often, and of late more strongly than ever expressed, to attempt a sketch of his personal and pastoral character. One reason has weighed with me — the growing demand for records of the past. No works are more popular than such illustrations of Scottish life and manners as are given us in many anecdotes by Dean Ramsay and Dr Rogers. The charm of such autobiographies as those of Carlyle and Dr Somer ville, of Dr R. Chambers and Dr Wightman — men all belonging to the Lowlands of Scotland — lies in the reproduction of the past and its con trast with the present.

The present sketch has no pretension to the graphic delineations or literary grace of these ; while the close relationship between the subject and writer renders the task all the more delicate. But in the years that have elapsed since my father entered on his ministry, and still more since his birth, considerably above a century, striking evidence may be found how rapidly the world has advanced and society changed. My father was born in the year 1766 at Wester Denmuir, in Fife, of which his father, James Russell, was farmer. His mother's name was Isabella Mel- LONGEVITY OF THE FAMILY. 3 Longevity of the family. Early education. drum. The family removed to Balcarres Mill, which was rented from the Earl of Balcarres. My father was one of a large family of eleven, most of whom, like himself, survived, in robust health, to a green old age.

Mrs Aitken, the eldest, lived long at Balram, and was above ninety when she died. My uncle James, of Westertoun, visited us at Yarrow when he was ninety ; was the picture of health, had a glow on his cheek, and was the image of my father, insomuch that Dr Anderson of Selkirk, meeting him on the road, thought for a moment that my father stood before him. His dialect was peculi arly that of the " kingdom of Fife," and prevented him enjoying a visit he once paid to London, as the Cockneys could not understand him, nor he them. Another sister in London, Mrs Edie, when above eighty, used often to walk from Tottenham Court Road to Mr Morton's at Wapping (a distance of nearly five miles) and back. When on a bad night Mr Morton would put her into an omnibus, and pay the fare, she sat for a little, then got out, and walked home.

The first education my father got was at a side school near his home, conducted by an old man whose teaching was of a very primitive kind. The pupils were taught to say " Muckle A and little cc, cruiked S, and percy and." That last was the name for the &, which often in spelling-books followed the Z — the percy, properly per se, descrip- YOUTHFUL EXPLOITS. Youthful exploits. Mr Dall. tive of it, which the man of the rod had simply by rote, denoting that it stood by itself. Connected with the farmhouse was an excellent orchard. As all the fallen apples were the per quisites of the boys, how they longed for a windy night to lay the fruit at their feet, and sally out the morning after a gale to gather up and divide the spoil ! Near Priestfield was another orchard, owned by Andrew Myles, which he guarded as jealously as was the Garden of the Hesperides.