The kye stood rowtin i’ the loan;
When up they gat, an’ shook their lugs,
Rejoiced they were na men but dogs;
An’ each took aff his several way,
Resolved to meet some ither day.”
“The kye stood rowting in the loan,” what a picture is that of an old-fashioned Lowland farm, with the loane or lane, between two dikes, leading up to the out-field or moor! All who have known the reality will at once recognize the truth of the picture, in which the kye, as they come home at gloamin’, stop and low, ere they enter the byre: to others it is uncommunicable.
Or take that description in “Halloween” of the burn and the adventure there:—
“Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays,
As thro’ the glen it wimpl’t;
Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays