We have a pang when we sce Auchterarder's display and wish he had our custom instead of the grocer over the way for there is no doubt his calendar is the finer in sheer glory of colouring, if not of accuracy. What matter if young Lochinvar has come out of the West in two contending tartans of the 745, to carry off a lady of the Keformation on a mediaeval charger, we are not particular about these niceties in our village.
McWhannle has surpassed himself, and so high and so packed are his shelves, that geese and turkeys seem to be falling head downwards from heaven on his red pow.
We miss old Tibbie Inglis' sweetie shop at the end of the street, with its flat tins of gundy and tablet and rock and its glass jars of strippit ba's, licquorice rolls and nailrod: and the discreet card in the background, announcing "Potted Meat and Mangling."" Young Tibbie has been to Edinburgh and she has id it is "Miss Inglis Confectioner" now, and all we see is a pink bow and six chocolates on a dish, 2
Wuen Mipnicut Srrixes.
Leaving the bustle we go through the quiet square and pass the kirk.
is a Cathedral of ancient. lineage. whose nave and choir have moved poets, but to us it is just the Kirk. The organist is practising for the special service and we stand a little while and listen before we cross the bridge. The Bens loom black in the west and a snell wind comes down from the moors, but the ploughman's cottage shines a welcome in the gloaming from the bend in the road. We turn up the hill and twinkling under a. skyline of pines is the dear, dear house. Surely this is the deepest bit. We know everyone who will be there merrymaking and feasting on Hog. maney night; and the dancing and the singing and the games and the storytelling there will be, with Macgregor himself, back from the wars, to pipe for them. About midnight there will be a lull, and the windows will be opened for the old people, and the young ones will tiptoe outside, to wait quietly the stillness: and in these few seconds we know how big a share we will have in the festival.
Then there will be a mad skirling and hooching and whistling with the bells above it all to say the New Year has come; the ceremonial cake'and wine will be brought, that will wait ready all week on the sideboard for everyone who comes, and healths and toasts and good wishes be given and "a gude new year to one an' a'" sung lustily before the dancing starts again.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.