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"The hole is dangerfully deep, but no jist awful broad;

And efter that there's nothing more between them and the road."

RIDING CONVENIENT AND PLEASANT. 21

He wud na hear a word I'd say, it's no but wasting breath.

I canna see but jist their heads,—they're in! as sure as death!

She's sweeming fery goot, poor beast, and making splen

dit way.

Before he left 't was on my mind but I forgot to say

Take noo yer pokat-hankercher, 'or ye go oot o' that; Tie up yer watch and matches ticht, and stow them in yer hat.

The hole is dangerfully deep, but no jist awful broad; And efter that there's nothing more between them and the road

But five score yairds o' leval sand, and no yet three feet

deep.

They'll soon be on the solid land, withooten spur nor

wheep.

The mare's not ould, her Maister's bould (I seen it in

his eye),

And stieve as steel. I wush him weel, and bids them both goot-bye."

I found journeying on horseback both exceedingly pleasant and convenient. In the northern counties there were often schools in outlying districts where there was either no driving road or a very bad one, and more accessible by saddle than by wheeled conveyance. In the early years of my service I had very varied experience of schools of all kinds,-some fairly satisfactory in

respect of buildings and equipment, some poor in all respects, low roofs, no ventilation, sometimes a stone, sometimes an earthen floor, bad light, no apparatus, maps, or blackboards. I recall to mind a very worthy but snuffy old man who, in his loyalty to her Majesty's officer, reduced the much too limited number of cubic feet of air in the schoolroom still further by busking the walls and roof with branches of firtrees and other greenery to such an extent that, on entering, one could imagine oneself in a pineforest. This was pleasant enough in good weather, but on one occasion my visit was made on a wet day. The thick home-made woollen cloth, in which all the boys and many of the girls in Highland schools are clad, and which had been saturated with peat-smoke for months, and some of it perhaps for years, getting drenched with the rain, emitted an effluvium which, combined with the smell of the firbranches and the absence of ventilation, rivalled for solidity and complexity of stench anything I ever experienced either before or since.

In the 'Sixties railway travelling on some of the branch lines was very primitive. One night the guard of the last train leaving Banff was reminded by one of the passengers that it was

PRIMITIVE RAILWAY TRAVELLING. 23

some minutes past the starting time, and replied, "Oh ay, but Mr F. has a dinner-party the nicht, and I'm just giein' him twa or three minutes' preevilege."

On the Elgin and Rothes line I saw the Provost of Elgin walk across a field with a letter in his hand, which he waved to the driver of a train going at its usual full speed. The train stopped, and the guard took charge of the letter.

At Ordens, a siding on the Banff and Buckie branch line, I was instructed to go to this siding, and as the train approached to set fire to a newspaper or other material that would make a good blaze, and the train would stop. The night was very dark and windy, and I failed to set fire to the newspaper; but a stentorian shout which I executed had the same effect, and I was taken on board.

On another occasion I called on a school correspondent whose house was about a mile from a station on the Findhorn line. When I proposed to walk back to the station, he said, "You needn't take the trouble. I always stop it as it goes past." And he did. It is not matter for surprise that this line is now on the retired list.

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