AULD LANG SYNE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 12 November 1924, Page 8

AULD LANG SYNE.

THE LAIRD AND HIS FRIENDS.

(From a Correspondent of the London

Times.)

“Am I to-'finance this affair?” says the old laird. “You have just mentioned the exact point,” says the daughter; -“after all there are some uses for fathers.'/ So the whole hierarchy was astir —overseer, gardener, %ook, and all beneath them in a rivalry of good will. And the weather cleared; it was the very nick of the year for having the tenantry to tea. Watch that • company as it is presented at the head* of the terrace steps. Mark that outstanding quality —the combined largeness and shrewdness of their vision. In a moment it has ranged from the begonias at their feet to the peak of Lochnagar, 30 miles away. They judge the begonias; they pick out byf name the'mountains of the glorious amphitheatre. Youfcannot apply to such men and their wives a parochial standard. They are citizens of the world. The Scot abroad is with many of them a point of just pride in their living family record. See that sweet-faced lady—a tenant’s daughter and a tenant’s wife; her brother is rising to high position in India. See that other, a tenant’s daughter and a tenant’s sister; she talks to, you composedly of the success of three of her brothers in the Hawaiian Islands.

Nor will any economic standards size them up. They sit there quietly contemplative, but break out into a respectful jollity when the . harmonious blacksmith or the latest feuar bursts into song, or when the piper outside the canvas is tuning up his pipes. You almost feel that their make-up is generations old, and 'you are of tha mind that the sociology which, leaves out heredity and history is but a slipshod affair. : „

Do you hear the swish of the rising gale among the mighty arms of the ash beneath whose shade the,canvas of the feast is spread ? That ash is getting on for 400 years old; it ds named the Darnley ash, .and the ground we occupy, so 'is jfcKe tradition, wastfod. by the feet of Queen Mairy ere she planted at Darnley/s request .the .tree commemorative of the triumph of .Cor-* richie. And see those farmers there— Thistlycrook, . Pitcullen Fprdie, and Coirmoir and Craigour; they plough the land- , across which the "rout swept from that battlefield towards Aberdeen, and in the midst of which the fat Earl of Huntly slipped from his horE© and was trampled to death. And look over the haugh and upland to where the fight between man and nature goes steadily ori and • the heather yields to husbandry. Or lee where the huge droppings of the ice age are first circumvented and then blasted and “jankered” to the • wall line,'to make room for . the tenacity' of a tenant who is known as ‘ ‘Deatk-upon-etones” and whose indomitable pluck has brought success to him and his. Who is the true friend of the country, increasing its productivity and making it smile where it frowned? Is it not, they say, the good farmer ?, But who is the good farmer? It ifi he, in their own language, * ‘who farms in -the mole and out the tepchit (plover),” and the thin bare land over , which, their fathers heard the plover wail has become so responsive to tenacious tillage that the mole burrow's in it. You would think they .were • too serious, but wait a bit. The minister is not sure about it, but the bagpipes are very enticing, and he joins in the grand march, and is a bit knocked over when the laird, who is an elder of the Church, leads in a Scotch reel with the accomplished daughter of a leading tenant. Then come the neat intricacies of a country dance, “strip the willow,” which marks the whole diameter . of distinction between the old find the modern practice, for in “strip the willow” toes have ho chance in it without brains.

The tug of war was a distraction. The East of the property had challenged the West, and eight farmers a side adjourned to the did howling green. Feeling ran high, but the Teal fun only leaked out afterwards. The laird was the judge—on either side the tenants bent to the task. But the rope being long, Fordie had surreptitiously tied his end to a tree, making sure that the earth would be uprooted before his side was beaten. But Thistlycrook had seen the trick, and behind Fordie’s back had whipped out a gully knife and severed the attachment,, and nobody was more , surprised than Fordie when his side lost. The next bout was still more surprising. Everybody’s blood was up, but,, at the very, crisis of the struggle the rope broke; 16 farmers rolled on the ground and 32 tackety boots rose appealingly to heaven.

But the sun was sinking in the west over the hills and far away. A great circle was formed—household and staff and tenantry hand in hand. The harmonious blacksmith led in Auld Lang Syne, and all joined iii with ,a kind of wave of warm emotion. To‘ the minds of more than one rose the lines: My dear, mv native soil! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent! Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health and peace and sweet content! But in the gathering dusk and silence, all the laird said was “Good night, dear friends. God bless you,” and he disappeared behind the yew hedge. .In the quiet they hard a breeze sough among the pines, and in the sky a star here and there looked down v?pon them.