lower, and
southernwood, were stuck in their button holes; and broad belts of
stripped silk, of every colour in the rainbow, were flung across their
shoulders. As to their hats, the man would have had a clear e'e that
could have kent what was their shape or colour. They were all rowed
round with ribands, and puffed about the rim with long green or white
feathers; and cockades were stuck on the off side, to say nothing of long
strips fleeing behind them in the wind like streamers. Save us! to see
men so proud of finery; if they had been peacocks one would have thought
less; but in decent sober men, the heads of small families, and with no
great wages, the thing was crazy-like. Was it not?

At long and last we saw them all set in motion, like a regiment of
dragoons, two and two, with a drum and fife at their head, as if they had
been marching to the field of battle. By-the-bye, it was two of our own
volunteer lads that were playing that day before them, Rory Skirl the
snab, and Geordie Thump the dyer; so this, ye see, verified the old
proverb, that travel where ye like, to the world's end, ye'll aye meet
with kent faces; Tammie and me coming out to the yill-house door to see
them pass by.

Behind the drum and fife came a big, half-crazy looking chield, with a
broad blue bonnet on his head, and a red worsted cherry sticking in the
crown of it. He was carrying a new car-saddle over his shoulder on a
well-cleaned pitchfork. Syne came three abreast, one on each side of my
lord, being the key-keepers; he keeping the box, and they keeping the
keys, in case like he should take any thing out. And syne came the auld
my lord--him that was my lord last year, ye observe; and syne came the
colours, as bright and bonny as mostly any thing ye ever saw. On one of
them was painted a plough and harrows, and a man sowing wheat; over the
top of which were gilded letters, the which I was able to read when I put
on my specs, being, if I mind well, "Speed the Plough." On the other
one, which was a mazarine blue with yellow fringes, was the picture of
two carters, with flat bonnets on their heads, the tane with a whip in
his hand, and the tither a rake, making hay like. Then came they all
passing by two and two, looking as if each one of them had been the Duke
of Buccleuch himself, every one rigged out in his best; the young
callants, such like as had just entered the box, coming hindmost, and
thinking themselves, I daresay, no small