John Leech and other papers

Biggar and the House of Fleming. 337
when there was a hard frost, it was the pleasure of
the entire town, young and old, to go mad, and take to
hurling themselves down the frozen slopes, ' keepin'
the puddin' het' in an astonishing way. As were
the saturnalia to old, and the Carnival to present
Rome, so was this short insanity to the staid town —
its consummation being the Hurley-hacket, a sort of
express train, headed by one or two first-raters,
' perfect deevils,' who could descend the steep stand-
ing, like Hamlet in ' To be or not to be,' calm, and
with their arms crossed, and their feet close heel-and-
toe, shod with iron ; one fellow — he was afterwards
hanged — was generally the leader, straight as an
arrow shooting the rapids, and yielding, like a con-
summate rider, to the perilous ups and downs ; behind
him came the lads and lasses, scudding on their
hunkers ; then their elders on their creepies, turned
upside down, and then the ruck. Away it swept,
yelling and swaying to-and-fro, like a huge dragon,
lithe and supple — ' swingeing the horror ' of its mul-
titudinous tail — down across the street, heedless of
everything, running, it may be, right into Mr. Pairman's
shop, or down on the other side into William John-
stone's byre, and past the tail of his utmost coo.
Then the confusion and scrimmage, and doubling of
everybody up at the ending ! that was the glory, like
emptying an express train into a 'free toom.' All
this is gone, the Cross Knowe is levelled, the Hurley-