THE LAND OF HEATHER

WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY
CLIFTON JOHNSON



Published by
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
New York
MCMIV

LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
Copyright 1903,
by The Macmillan Company


Tam o' Shanter's Kirk 

ACKNOWLEDGMENT is hereby made to The Outlook, The Interior, Good Housekeeping, The Congregationalist, The Pilgrim, The Era, The Household-Ledger, and The Springfield Republican, in which periodicals several of the chapters included in this volume were first published.

Electrotyped                                Reprinted
and                                   December, 1903
Printed                                                      
at the                                                        
Norwood Press,                                        
Norwood, Mass,                                        
September, 1903                                       

Contents I.     A Rural Hamlet II.    Village Happenings III.   The Ways of the Farm Folk IV.   An Excursion V.    Historic Ground VI.   Thrums VII.  A Highland Glen VIII. Lochs and Bens IX.   The Isle of Mull X.    The Crofters of Skye XI.    A Country School XII.   The Sabbath and the Kirks XIII.  A Burns Pilgrimage XIV.  A Glimpse of Galloway

A Chat on the Highway

List of Illustrations

Tam o' Shanter's Kirk 
A Chat on the Highway
Setting up Blocks of Peat to Dry
His Favorite Grandchild
Threshold Gossip
A Favorite Loitering Place
On the Moorland
A Schoolroom Corner in Drumtochty College
Kathie scrubs the Front Walk
"A Wall of Crockery"
Village Bairns
Logie Ruin
Conducting her Coo to Pasture
Guddling for Trout
A Village Well
Washing by the Burnside
The Laddies playing "Links" in the Schoolyard
Quoits — a Dispute
Gypsies
Spreading Blankets after the Wash
A Servant Lassie
Neighbors
Women Workers
An Upland Pasture
Haymaking
Feeding the Pet Lamb
A Hayrake
Carrying Peat out of the Bog
Visiting
By the Fireside
 A Meeting in the Lane
"Puttin' oot the Dung"
Entrance to a Close
Edinburgh
Melrose Abbey
Queen Mary's Prison on an Isle of Lochleven
Palaulays
In the Tenements
Spinning a "Peerie"
The Window in Thrums House
Returning from Market
The Peat-stack in the Yard
Stirring up the Fire
"A Tattie Dooly"
Ruins of a Cotter's Home
Water from the Well
A Mountain Stream
Loch Katrine and Ben Venue
A Coach to Lomond
Highland Pipers
Kilchurn Castle on Loch Awe
Loch Lomond and Ben Lomond
A Cottager piling Peat
Churning
A Kitchen Corner
An Old Farmhouse
A Fire on the Floor
Skye Fishing-boats
Feeding the Dog
A Rider
Resting on a Dyke
A Highland Cow
A Bird's-nest in the Hedge
The School at Work
"A Wee Brig ower a Burnie"
A Garden Rose
An Exchange of Snuff
Sunday Afternoon
Church in a Northern Glen
Mess for the Pigs
Birthplace of Robert Burns
The Brig o' Doon
"The Twa Brigs o' Ayr"
A Stone-breaker
The Postman
Woodland Hyacinths
The Wall of Severus
A Castle of the Black Douglas


Setting up Blocks of Peat to Dry

HEATHER is not peculiarly Scotch. It grows on the moors and waste lands of all parts of Britain and is found in most sections of the continent of Europe. But in Scotland it is omnipresent to an unusual degree, and, besides, it has become so closely associated in literature, both of fact and of fiction, with this particular country as to have acquired many synonymous attributes. The flowers are of a lilac-rose color, but vary much in depth of tint, thus adding materially to the beauty of the wilds which they delight to inhabit. The heather is in its glory in late August and early September, and one who sees it then would be apt to forget that it had any other mission than to delight the eye; yet it is not without its utilitarian aspect as well. The domestic bees find their richest feast of the year in its blossoms; the plants contribute much to the formation of peat; the shrubby growth makes admirable cover for the game birds, and is often used for thatching cottages, or is tied to handles for brooms and in bunches for scrubbing brushes; and still other uses might be mentioned.

Naturally one would expect the heather to be the Scotch national flower, and perhaps it might have been had not a chance incident conferred the distinction on the thistle. History says this choice was due to James III, who took the thistle to illustrate his royal motto, "In Defence"; but according to tradition the preference given the thistle dates back to the time when the Norsemen ravaged all the shores of northern Europe. On one occasion, in the dead of night, an invading Norse force approached unperceived the camp of the Scots who had gathered to oppose them. But while the Norsemen paused to ascertain the undefended points of the camp they proposed to assault, one of their spies stepped on a thistle, and the sudden pain brought forth a violent oath. This aroused the Scots, and they hastened to attack the invaders, gained a complete victory, and afterward adopted the plant which had been the means of delivery as their emblem. The thistle's thorny vigor perhaps very well expressed the Scotch character in those long-gone fighting days, but now the hardiness and warm bloom of the heather, to my mind, indicate more exactly the racial individuality.