[Footnote 6:  They go to the barnyard, and pull each, at three different times, a stalk of oats.  If the third stalk wants the “top-pickle,” that is, the grain at the top of the stalk, the party in question will come to the marriage-bed anything but a maid.—­R.B.]

[Footnote 7:  When the corn is in a doubtful state, by being too green or wet, the stack-builder, by means of old timber, etc., makes a large apartment in his stack, with an opening in the side which is fairest exposed to the wind:  this he calls a “fause-house.”—­R.B.]

     The auld guid-wife’s weel-hoordit nits^8
     Are round an’ round dividend,
     An’ mony lads an’ lasses’ fates
     Are there that night decided: 
     Some kindle couthie side by side,
     And burn thegither trimly;
     Some start awa wi’ saucy pride,
     An’ jump out owre the chimlie
     Fu’ high that night.

[Footnote 8:  Burning the nuts is a favorite charm.  They name the lad and lass to each particular nut, as they lay them in the fire; and according as they burn quietly together, or start from beside one another, the course and issue of the courtship will be.—­R.B.]

     Jean slips in twa, wi’ tentie e’e;
     Wha ’twas, she wadna tell;
     But this is Jock, an’ this is me,
     She says in to hersel’: 
     He bleez’d owre her, an’ she owre him,
     As they wad never mair part: 
     Till fuff! he started up the lum,
     An’ Jean had e’en a sair heart
     To see’t that night.

     Poor Willie, wi’ his bow-kail runt,
     Was brunt wi’ primsie Mallie;
     An’ Mary, nae doubt, took the drunt,
     To be compar’d to Willie: 
     Mall’s nit lap out, wi’ pridefu’ fling,
     An’ her ain fit, it brunt it;
     While Willie lap, and swore by jing,
     ’Twas just the way he wanted
     To be that night.

     Nell had the fause-house in her min’,
     She pits hersel an’ Rob in;
     In loving bleeze they sweetly join,
     Till white in ase they’re sobbin: 
     Nell’s heart was dancin at the view;
     She whisper’d Rob to leuk for’t: 
     Rob, stownlins, prie’d her bonie mou’,
     Fu’ cozie in the neuk for’t,
     Unseen that night.

     But Merran sat behint their backs,
     Her thoughts on Andrew Bell: 
     She lea’es them gashin at their cracks,
     An’ slips out—­by hersel’;
     She thro’ the yard the nearest taks,
     An’ for the kiln she goes then,
     An’ darklins grapit for the bauks,
     And in the blue-clue^9 throws then,
     Right fear’t that night.