speedy arrival at the rig-end. Sweet was the midday meal of baps and beer by a stook-side, varied by a chase for the youngsters after a scared rabbit or a hirplin' maukin (hare)! One ill-set prank I remember. The scene was a hairst rig on a Perthshire farm. The idle boy, stravaiging round, saw among the stubble some nice, plump toads (taeds he called them). Tucking one into a shearer's shawl that she had left on the sunny side of a stook, he waited till the owner came to sit down with her neighbours for her "twal oors," and enjoyed her squeal and fright as she caught sight of the "laithly beast," an expression illustrated in Grigor's laidlick, a loath (tad-pole and leech). The leadin' of the well-won thraves (stooks of twenty-four sheaves) appealed to the boy's love of horses. He took little interest in the gleaners that followed, making up their "singles" out of the scattered ears,
"O' gatherers next, unruly bands
Do spread themselves athort the lands,
And sair they grien (yearn) to try their hands
Amang the sheaves;
For which they're ordered far behind,
To mak' sic singles as they find."—
Winter brought its own sports. Frozen pools in the woods resounded to the clang of the "skaetchers" (skaters). Open snow-clad stretches were seamed with the sheen of slides, whereon in gleeful rows the boys careered, erect or hunker-tottie (crouching), the "coorie-hunker" of other dialects. "Faht," Grigor quotes, "wiz the auld bodie deein fin ye geed in? She wiz crulgin on her currie-hunkers at the cheek o' the cutchick." All went well till a thaw made the ice "bauch" (dull). The long evenings favoured such pranks as Tammy-reekie, Ticky-molie, and Guisin'. For the first a kail-stock was chosen, the pith within the custock extracted, and the space filled with wet tow. Then the process of smeekin some unsuspecting household through the front door key-hole went merrily on. Hallowe'en brought its supper of "stovies," "a pound of butter champit in," said champing being effected by a vigorous use of the porridge-stick, or "theel," the "theevil" of the North-east.
