day broke he was up and away. The grand enjoyment
of the three farm-lads--the enjoyment which seemed to counterbalance,
with its concentrated delights, the comfortless monotony of weeks--was a
rustic ball which took place once every month, and sometimes oftener, at
a public-house in the neighbouring village, and at which they used to
meet some of the farm-lasses of the locality, and dance and drink whisky
till morning. I know not how their money stood such frequent carousals;
but they were, I saw, bare of every necessary article of clothing,
especially of underclothing and linen; and I learned from their
occasional talk about justice-of-peace summonses, that the previous
term-day had left in the hands of their shoemakers and drapers unsettled
bills. But such matters were taken very lightly: the three lads, if not
happy, were at least merry; and the monthly ball, for which they
sacrificed so much, furnished not only its hours of pleasure while it
lasted, but also a week's talking in anticipation ere it came, and
another week's talking over its various incidents after it had passed.
And such was my experience of the bothy system in its first beginnings.
It has since so greatly increased, that there are now single counties in
Scotland in which there are from five to eight hundred farm-servants
exposed to its deteriorating influences; and the rustic population bids
fair in those districts fully to rival that of our large towns in
profligacy, and greatly to outrival them in coarseness. Were I a
statesman, I would, I think, be bold enough to try the efficacy of a tax
on bothies. It is long since Goldsmith wrote regarding a state of
society in which "wealth accumulates and men decay," and since Burns
looked with his accustomed sagacity on that change for the worse in the
character of our rural people which the large-farm system has
introduced. "A fertile improved country is West Lothian," we find the
latter poet remarking, in one of his journals, "but the more elegance
and luxury among the farmers, I always observe in equal proportion the
rudeness and stupidity of the peasantry. This remark I have made all
over the Lothians, Merse, Roxburgh, &c.; and for this, among other
reasons, I think that a man of romantic taste--'a man of feeling'--will
be better pleased with the poverty but intelligent minds of the
peasantry of Ayrshire (peasantry they all are, below the Justice of
Peace), than the opulence of a club of Merse farmers, wh