y one we slipped off over her hurdies, and let him take a
suck! But what comet is yon in the sky--"with fear of change perplexing
mallards?" A Flying Dragon. Of many degrees is his tail, with a tuft
like that of Taurus terrified by the sudden entrance of the Sun into his
sign. Up goes Sandy Donald's rusty and rimless beaver as a messenger to
the Celestial. He obeys, and stooping his head, descends with many
diverse divings, and buries his beak in the earth. The feather kite
quails and is cowed by him of paper, and there is a scampering of cattle
on a hundred hills.

The Brother Loch saw annually another sight, when on the Green-Brae was
pitched a Tent--a snow-white Pyramid, gathering to itself all the
sunshine. There lords and ladies, and knights and squires, celebrated
Old May-day, and half the parish flocked to the Festival. The Earl of
Eglintoun, and Sir Michael Shaw Stewart, and old Sir John of Polloc, and
Pollock of that Ilk, and other heads of illustrious houses, with their
wives and daughters, a beautiful show, did not disdain them of low
degree, but kept open table in the moor; and would you believe it,
high-born youths and maidens ministered at the board to cottage lads and
lasses, whose sunburnt faces hardly dared to smile, under awe of that
courtesy--yet whenever they looked up there was happiness in their eyes.
The young ladies were all arrayed in green; and after the feast, they
took bows and arrows in their lily hands, and shot at a target in a
style that would have gladdened the heart of Maid Marian--nay, of Robin
himself;--and one surpassing bright--the Star of Ayr--she held a hawk on
her wrist--a tercel gentle--after the fashion of the olden time; and
ever as she moved her arm you heard the chiming of silver bells. And her
brother--gay and gallant as Sir Tristrem--he blew his tasseled bugle--so
sweet, so pure, so wild the music, that when he ceased to breathe, the
far-off repeated echoes, faint and dim, you thought died away in heaven
like an angel's voice.

Was it not a Paragon of a Parish? But we have not told you one half of
its charms. There was a charm in every nook--and Youth was the master of
the spell. Small magicians were we in size, but we were great in might.
We had but to open our eyes in the morning, and at one look all nature
was beautiful. We have said nothing about the Burns. The chief was the
Yearn--endearingly called the Humbie, from a farm near the Manse, and
belonging to the ministe