sted for several weeks, having stopped
all communication betwixt neighboring hamlets, the
snuff-boxes were soon reduced to their last pinch. Borrowing
and begging from all the neighbors within reach were first
resorted to, but when these failed all were alike reduced to
the longing which unwillingly abstinent snuff-takers alone
know. The minister of the parish was amongst the unhappy
number; the craving was so intense that study was out of the
question, and he became quite restless. As a last resort,
the beadle was dispatched through the snow, to a neighboring
glen, in the hope of getting a supply; but he came back as
unsuccessful as he went. 'What's to be done, John? was the
minister's pathetic inquiry. John shook his head, as much as
to say that he could not tell, but immediately thereafter
started up, as if a new idea occurred to him. He came back
in a few minutes, crying, 'Hae!' The minister, too eager to
be scrutinizing, took a long deep pinch, and then said,
'Whour did you get it?' 'I soupit (swept) the poupit,' was
John's expressive reply. The minister's accumulated
superfluous Sabbath snuff now came into good use."

[Illustration: Sweeping from the Pulpit.]

"Near the Highlands,
Where the dry lands
Are divided into islands,
And distinguish'd from the mainland
As the Western Hebrides.

"Stormy weather,
Those who stay there,
Oftentimes for weeks together
Keep asunder from their neighbors,
Hemm'd about by angry seas.

"For, storm-batter'd,
Boats are shattered,
And their precious cargoes scatter'd
In the boist'rous Sound of Jura,
Or thy passage, Colonsay;

"While the seamen,
Like true freemen,
Battle bravely with the Demon
Of the storm, who strives to keep them
From their harbor in the bay.

"For this reason
One bad season,
(If to say so be not treason,)
In an island town the people
Were reduced to great distress.

"Though on mainland
They would fain land,
They were storm-bound in their ain land,
Where each luxury was little,
And grew beautifully less.

"But whose sorrow,
That sad morrow,
When no man could beg or borrow
From a friend's repository,
Equall'd theirs who craved for snuff.

"But, most sadden'd,
Nearly madden'd
For the lack of that w