Reminiscences of Yarrow. Edited and annotated by ... Professor Veitch, LL.D. Illustrated by Tom Scott ... Second edition

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. It represents the parish as it was in the last decade of last century and in the earlier part of this, when the " Ettrick Shepherd " and Sir Walter Scott were among the parishioners, and when it was passed by "unvisited" (1803), "visited" (1814), and "revisited" (1831), by Wordsworth. The picture is part of a larger work, autobiographical and antiquarian, projected by its late pastor, Dr James Russell. It describes his own local experience and that of Dr Robert Russell, his father and predecessor, amidst the homely society by which they were surrounded. Although these ' Reminis cences ' of manners and life in the Border country were left unfinished by the writer when he died, in 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, pastors in succession of this "church among the mountains" for VI

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. nearly a century (1791-1883), now themselves belong to the consecrated memories of Yarrow. A chapter drawn from Dr Russell's manuscripts, touching the history and antiquities of Ettrick Forest, has been added to the more personal remi niscences, which form the larger part of the book. His first idea was to preserve for his sons some of his own memories of other days. Gradually the work grew. The following scrap, found among his manuscripts, explains the process : — " 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,1 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 chronicles of Yarrow. Born in its manse, nursed and 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 unversed 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 1 In April 1878.

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. VII 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." In consequence of the lamented death of Mr John Russell, in July 1884, the Rev. Alexander William son, of West St Giles' Church, Edinburgh, at the request of the representatives of Dr Russell, under took the charge of arranging the ' Reminiscences.' Mr Williamson is also responsible for the two biographical chapters appended. The work has been revised and annotated by Professor Veitch, the historian and poet of the Border. Mr Tom Scott, the artist, a native of Selkirk, has contrib uted the illustrations which adorn it.

A circumstance, which I hope may be mentioned without egotism, explains how I have been asked to appear in this prefatory note. From 1861 till 1875 I lived almost every summer in remote and silent Yarrow, led to it first by accident, and then by the attraction of a retreat more suited than any other within convenient reach for the medi tative and literary work of a Scottish professor of metaphysics at the season of the year when the class - room is closed. The region now suggests happy hours of relaxation and of reflective thought. At the easy distance of forty miles from Edinburgh, Yarrow is one of the few refuges for contemplative recreation still saved in this overcrowded island from the invasion of the railway. As an occasional resident, one soon found that the centre of the social system was in the manse, beautifully situated near

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. the " dowie dens " of the Border ballad — a manse redolent of olden times, with its quaint simplicity of adornment, in keeping with the genius of the place. The writer of the ' Reminiscences,' who personified and lived for the classic vale in which he was born, was there attracting his parishioners to goodness by the power of example. His hospitable abode was the common home of the parish, and he was him self the loved father of the whole parochial family. With gracious brightness of manner, gentle and refined, an inexhaustible store of local legends, his society was a constant pleasure. When other parishes in Scotland were disturbed by ecclesi astical strife, it was silent in Yarrow, where the ruling influence was always on the side of " sweet reasonableness." Friendship with the inmates of that manse is my apology for taking the place of others better fitted to speak.

White's ' Natural History of Selborne ' shows how animate and inanimate nature within a narrow circuit may afford material for one of the classics 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, besides " 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 deni zens of air and water fully occupied the good pastor, Gilbert White. It is thus that a microscopic study of what is presented within a small space upon the surface of our planet, or within a short " tract

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. IX on the river of time," reveals a miniature world to the eye that can see. It would be difficult to discover in this island a space of corresponding extent more charged with natural and human interest 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 be tween them is about twenty miles — mostly rounded, grassy, treeless hills ; 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 meandering 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 after prolonged stay that its power is felt, deepening with the intimacy of years. At first a stranger is apt to feel — " What's Yarrow 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 in this way imbibes its spirit, it is found to be instinct everywhere with the historic symbolism of Scott, and significant of the spiritual meanings of which Wordsworth was conscious. X

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. The largest lake in the south of Scotland occupies the upper part of the valley. The country around it is familiar to the reader of ' Marmion ' : — " All is loneliness : And silence aids — though the steep hills Send to the Lake a thousand rills; 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 green undulating hills, with remains here and there of the 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 Scottish kings. Memorials of medieval piety, on the site 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 Cokburne 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, And pastoral melancholy." 1 The parish church for centuries before the Reformation, and afterwards in the Presbyterian and Episcopalian establishments, till almost the middle of the seventeenth century.

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. XI The parish of Yarrow at the time of the ' Reminiscences ' 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, distributed on sheep farms over more than 70,000 acres, of which not 3000 were cultivated, and perhaps 500 under natural or planted timber. The greater part was, and still is, the property of the Dukes of Buc cleuch, whose beneficent ownership has covered the country with plenty and prosperity. The half-century revived in this book presents a life changed indeed from that of which the Forest was the scene in its centuries of Border warfare, and in the struggle for the Covenant. The rout of JMontrose at Philiphaugh in September 1645 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 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 The tide of modern life invading its mountains was then transforming the life of combat on the Scottish Border into one of pastoral contentment and peace. 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 division, 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 others over the hills from Traquair, by St Mary's Loch and Moffat water.

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. "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, founded on tradition, was slowly disappearing. With faith in science, 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 collecting the ballads of the Border min strels, 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 thus introduced into literature.

But the shepherd's plaid and the blue bonnet of the Covenant were still the peas ant's dress ; coarse homespun coats were not yet supplanted by broadcloth manufactured 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 impersonal unconcern. The farmhouses, unlike those which now adorn the vale, were thatched and low-roofed — a room in one end, the kitchen in the other, with small dimly lighted attics above. Tea and wheaten bread were scarcely known, each farm providing within itself its own

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. XIII food and clothing. Neither spring-carriages nor gigs were seen on the narrow undulating road that then skirted St Mary's Loch, which was travelled only by pedestrians and riders. Letters reached the inhabitants only at irregular intervals. The chief newsmongers were beggars and pedlars ; and a single copy of the ' Edinburgh Courant ' served as a newspaper for the whole population from Newark to Birkhill. It is this homely self-contained life that passes before us in the ' Reminiscences.' The social life of the people, incidents of ministerial visits, odd local characters, parishioners who reached extreme old age in a region favourable to vitality, the in terior of manse and school and church, annual communion celebrations, pictures of clerical neigh bours at a time when the Church of Scotland was less active than it is now, and glimpses of the General Assemblies of the Church in Edinburgh, with their halo of a far - off outside world, are presented in panoramic succession.

A 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 associated with 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 ' Reminiscences ' does not admit them there to a place proportioned to their magnitude in the world outside. The resident literary lion of the parish was James Hogg, the shepherd-poet of Scotland, whose poetry and prose gave fit utterance to the spirit

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. XIV 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, resident at Mount Benger and at Altrive, where he died. In 1813 his 'Queen's Wake' appeared, other poems and tales at intervals, in the first three decades of the century — all inspired by Yarrow. During eight years (1804-12) of the period of the 'Reminis cences,' Walter Scott, the descendant on his mother's side of a former minister of Yarrow, was living at Ashiestiel. 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. I have sometimes pleased myself with the notion that the 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

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. XV 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 speculative intellect. If the greatest representative of imaginative literature that Scotland has produced was to be found in Yarrow in the half century of these ' Reminiscences,' he who has most affected European thought by abstract speculation might have been found, in the half-century pre ceding, 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 were both of Border blood, and bore Border names — "Homes that dwelt on Leader-side, And Scotts that dwelt on Yarrow."

Since 1875 I have found in two other summer re treats formidable rivals even to Yarrow — one the fair vale which descends from Dunmail Raise towards Fox How and Ambleside, perhaps the loveliest even in beautiful England, in which Wordsworth lived, and where all that is mortal of him rests besides the Rothay, 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 Lome ; 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

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. 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 author of the ' Reminis cences,' and others of the bygone years, them selves now reminiscences of its past, adding to the former pensive sentiment of the place. A. CAMPBELL FRASER. Kirkstead, Yarrow, September 1885. POSTSCRIPT — ♦ — This Second Edition of the " Reminiscences," now ready to issue from the press, comes to its readers with true pathos. The editing and annotating was the last literary work of one whose name must henceforth be united with those of Hogg and Scott, as chief representatives in this century of the patriotism and literature of the Border country. Professor Veitch had finished it only a few days before his death.

The " Prefatory Note " which follows had also been sent to the printer in the end of last month ; but before the final proof of this Note could reach the writer, he had already passed "from sunshine to the silent land." This is not the place for estimating what the world owes to this brave Borderer, of noble heart, devoted to the True, the Beautiful, and the Good ; or what the world of imagination and of abstract thought has lost in the poet and philosopher. For me, life looks changed indeed, now that the loving friend of almost half a century has been withdrawn from this world of sense : — a loss for ever new, A void where heart on heart reposed ; And, where warm hands have prest and closed, Silence, till I be silent too. A. C. F. Gorton, Hawthornden, September 15, 1894. B PREFATORY NOTE BY PROFESSOR VEITCH — ♦ — The original material of the ' Reminiscences of Yarrow,' when put into my hands in 1886, had been submitted to some general arrangement, but it was still in great measure without order — having been obviously the work of intervals of leisure on the part of the author.

For the selection and arrangement of the matter of the text, as in the first edition, I was thus mainly responsible. In view of a second edition, I have gone more carefully over the text itself than I had the opportunity of doing before. I have made such correc tions in expression and sometimes construction as may serve to bring out the meaning more clearly, and as seemed proper in a publication which had not the benefit of the author's revisal. Quotations also have been verified, and notes revised and added. J. VEITCH. The Loaning, Peehi.es, August, 1894. 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, . . . . . I

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. , 23

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, ..... CONTENTS. XX

Chapter IV Page

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, 62

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, .... 102

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, 122

Chapter VII

Recollections of aged people — Character of the people - Sobriquets— Anderson and Boa— Desire for ministerial visitation —The minister superseded— Quaint expressions, 158

Chapter VIII

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

Chapter IX Page

The Dowie Dens — Songs and references to Yarrow — Parish of Yarrow — The Forest- Names and antiquities— David I.— Alexander III. — Agriculture in 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, .... 209 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, . 285

Chapter XI. 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, 300 Index, LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Portrait of Rev. Dr Russell, . . . Frontispiece Ettrick Kirk — Moonlight, To face 16 Foulshiels — Sunshine and Shadow, . ,, 64 Newark Castle — Sunshine and Shower, ,, 72 Cutkerwood, Yarrow — Sunset, 80 Yarrow Manse, '83 — Summer, , 122 Yarrow Kirk — A Wet Day, 144 Yarrow from Fa'side — Afternoon Sky, ,, 212 Blackhouse Tower — A Breezy Day, ,, 238 Dryhope Tower — Noonday, ....,, 252 Oakwood Tower — Sunset, . . ,, 258 St Mary's Loch — Noonday, ,, 288 St Mary's Kirkyard — Sunset ,, 308 Deuchar Old Bridge 100 Dial on Yarrow Church 142 The Burial -Places of Hogg and Boston, 194 Tibbie Shiel's Cottage, 202 The Dowie Dens, ....... 211 Yarrow at Harewood Glen, 230 The Covenanters' Monument 251 Dr Russell's Burial- Place, ..... 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 APPEARANCE — FIRST DAYS 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 connection with the General Assembly, he was well and widely known in the Church.

An earnest 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 genera tion a sketch of what he was may not be devoid of interest and profit. I have felt it incumbent, A PARENTAGE. 2 Parentage Longevity of the family. 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 Somerville, of Dr R. Chambers and Dr Wightman — men all belonging to the Lowlands of Scotland — lies in the reproduction of the past and its contrast 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 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 LONGEVITY OF THE FAMILY. 3 Early education. Youthful exploits. moment that my father stood before him. His dialect was peculiarly that of the "kingdom of Fife," and prevented him enjoying a visit he once paid to London, as the Cockneys could not under stand 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 a, 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, descriptive of it, — which the man of the rod had simply by rote, — denoting that it stood by itself. Connected with the farm-house was an excellent orchard. As all the fallen apples were the perquisites 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.