"Fairy doctors," as the dealers in the
preternatural, who in such cases were
called in, are termed, did all that in
them lay—but in vain. Father Tom came
down, and tried what holier rites could do,
but equally without result. So little Billy
was dead to mother, brother, and sisters;
but no grave received him. Others whom
affection cherished, lay in holy ground, in
the old church-yard of Abington, with
headstone to mark the spot over which the
survivor might kneel and say a kind prayer
for the peace of the departed soul. But
there was no landmark to show where
little Billy was hidden from their loving
eyes, unless it was in the old hill of
Lisnavoura, that cast its long shadow at
sunset before the cabin-door; or that, white
and filmy in the moonlight, in later years,
would occupy his brother's gaze as he
returned from fair or market, and draw from
him a sigh and a prayer for the little
brother he had lost so long ago, and was
never to see again.

THE GLENGILLODRAM PLOUGHING
MATCH.

THERE are only two public events in the
course of the year that stir the community
of the glen in its length and breadth. One
is the Cattle Show,* the other is the Ploughing
Match. Glengillodram is famous for
cattle, and is equally famous for peerless
ploughmen.

The ploughing match occurs in the late
autumn, when ways are dank and daylight
is brief. As the homely placard on the kirk-
yard gate informs us, "the ploughs must
be on the ground by eight A.M.," at which
hour, the December dawn in our northern
latitude has done little more than make
the landscape dimly visible. "The ground"
one finds to be a large field of even grass
land marked off into narrow sections by
a number of small wooden pins, with a
straight furrow drawn along at either end,
leaving a narrow margin outside.

Forty ploughs are to compete; and
here, to be sure, they are—forty pairs of
plump spirited farm horses, groomed in
the highest style of art, some with gaudy
ribbons worked into their tails and manes,
and all with plough harness polished as
if the most expert of shoeblacks had done
his best upon it.

Once, on a spring day journey by the
London and North-Western Railway, I
set myself to reckon up from the carriage
window the diversities that might occur,
as we passed on, in the style of team used
to do the ploughing going on at that busy
season. In the course of the journey from
London to Warrington, the varieties that
presented themselves were amusing. Here,
were two horses abreast in the traces,
with one leader in front; there, were two
leaders in front, and one behind, and then
three abreast. Next, three in single file,
four in single file, and at last five in single
file. Generally, too, it was the wooden
plough; and invariably there was one man
to manage the plough, and another, or a
lad, to drive the team. With the Scottish
ploughman it is altogether different. The
plough is uniformly drawn by a single pair
of horses walking abreast, and the ploughman
both guides his plough and drives his
team without any assistant. And it must
needs be said that his ploughing wears a
far more workmanlike look than the zigzag
uneven furrows cut by his English brother
of the old school: who yet adheres to
the numerous team and the antiquated
wooden plough.

But the Glengillodram field is now in
motion. The forty ploughs have all started,
or are starting. They plough in sections,
or ridges, of about a furlong in length.
At the outset, every ploughman has to cut
his "feirin" furrow in the line of the small
wooden pins. With what a serious air
each competitor bends himself to his task,
and how quietly and steadily the well-
in-hand teams pull forward! The ploughman
has no guide but his eye, closely
fixed on the line of pins before him; yet
when the other end of the field has been
reached by the man we watch, we see that
he has drawn a furrow which, if not in the
mathematical sense a straight line, is yet
so remarkably straight that the eye can
detect neither bend nor wrinkle in its whole
length. And to be successful in the
competition, he must cut every one of the
thirty or forty furrows he has to plough
equally straight. Nor is that the only
requisite. Equality in depth of furrow is
one condition of success; equality in width,
is another; and not less indispensable are
evenness in "packing" the furrows against
each other, and neatness in turning out the
last narrow strip when the ridge has been
pared down, furrow by furrow, till only a
mere thread of green runs from end to end
of the field.

As the ploughing goes on, the spectators

* See ALL THE YEAR ROUND, New Series, vol. iii.,
p. 36.