rder_ had called
attention to the great stores of poetry and romance lingering
among the peasantry of the Debateable Land. Wilson's _Tales_
showed how much of the old spirit remained more than two
centuries after the Union, and, in spite of all Christianity and
an orderly Government had done for the softening of manners.
Hogg, in speaking of his own countryside, said: "The poor people
of these glens know no other entertainment in the long winter
nights than repeating and listening to the feats of their
ancestors recorded in songs which I believe to have been handed
down from father to son for many generations." Wilson and his
successors gathered up as much of the romantic material as they
found available, and printed it for the delight of their
generation.

TARBOLTON.

In the agricultural lowlands of Scotland it is not rare to come upon
little villages that seem entirely left behind by modern progress. Not
long ago my work took me to Tarbolton, a quiet, uneven village in the
heart of the queenly shire of Ayr. The railway company has treated the
place very badly: a full fifteen minutes' drive is needed to reach the
town from the station. It is as if the company said: "Make what you can
of our line, ye insignificant Tarboltonians; our trains are in a hurry
to get from Ayr to Muirkirk; be thankful if we set you down only three
miles from your home." If it is not wet, the drive is a grand one. Five
miles to the right, Mauchline shows its red complexion on the green
hillside, and awakens lyric memories of Burns's imperishable mouse and
share-torn gowan. Over the pasture lands on the right come freshening
winds that hint of the heaving Firth not far away. The road pursued by
the coach meanders among all that is best of rural and pastoral scenery,
for coaly Annbank, defaced by the exhumed entrails of the earth, is
happily on the rear. At a turn of the road, a majestic spire, that of
Tarbolton Parish Church, suddenly stands before the view of the
traveller, and suggests Eternity even when tolling the hours of Time.
Soon the village is reached, and one is in a position to form an idea of
eighteenth century Scotland. The main street is built with that
irregularity so charmingly illustrative of the evolution of the
builder's art. Old cots roofed with thatch take the mind back to the
time when George I. was defending the faith and maltreating his wife.
Side by side with such