Page:Cuthbert Bede - The White Wife.djvu/20



N the morning of New Year's Day, old style, in the year 1802, I attained the age of eleven; and, in company with other boys, looked forward to the celebration of the day with peculiar pleasure. For it was the custom for all the juveniles in our Western Highland town to hail the morning of New Year's Day with enthusiastic joy, and, having previously prepared torches of tar and old nets, to amuse themselves with perambulating the streets at a very early hour in the morning, flourishing their torches as long as they could keep them alight. This was done before