people, the year's anniversary fails upon a Sunday, when
the public-houses are inexorably closed, when singing and
even whistling is banished from our homes and highways,
and the oldest toper feels called upon to go to church.
Thus pulled about, as if between two loyalties, the
Scotch have to decide many nice cases of conscience, and
ride the marches narrowly between the weekly and the
annual observance. A party of convivial musicians, next
door to a friend of mine, hung suspended in this manner
on the brink of their diversions. From ten o'clock on
Sunday night, my friend heard them tuning their
instruments: and as the hour of liberty drew near, each
must have had his music open, his bow in readiness across
the fiddle, his foot already raised to mark the time, and
his nerves braced for execution; for hardly had the
twelfth stroke. sounded from the earliest steeple, before
they had launced forth into a secular bravura.

Currant-loaf is now popular eating in all house-
holds. For weeks before the great morning, confectioners
display stacks of Scotch bun - a dense, black substance,
inimical to life - and full moons of shortbread adorned
with mottoes of peel or sugar-plum, in honour of the
season and the family affections. 'Frae Auld Reekie,' 'A
guid New Year to ye a',' 'For the Auld Folk at Hame,' are
among the most favoured of these devices. Can you not
see the carrier, after half-a-day's journey on pinching
hill-roads, draw up before a cottage in Teviotdale, or
perhaps in Manor Glen among the rowans, and the old
people receiving the parcel with moist eyes and a prayer