was too much afraid of them to endeavour to investigate what they were. Why I was afraid I cannot tell. Many of the people were su- perstitious and their stories and reports of ghosts made me afraid. While these ghost stories were for the most part drawn from imaginas tion, or a misapprehension of natural occurrences, we are surrounded by many mysterious things that we cannot explain.

The Milling Frolic

One of the useful and happy entertainments, in which all the young people joined freely, was the “milling” or “thickening” frolic, “waulking”, as it is called in Gaelic. Many a romance started at these gatherings. I told you in a previous chapter, about the sheep shearing, and carding and spinning, and weaving. These were for the most part family affairs. But the “milling” was a community and co-operative affair where love and labour and a glad time were in- terwoven into the social life of the settlement. When the great webs of cloth came from the loom they had to be “milled” before they could be made into clothing. All our clothing was made at home. The shrinking process had to be applied to the cloth before it was cut. When the web was taken out of the loom it was in one piece, from fifteen to thirty yards long, and about a yard wide; the two ends of this were sewed together, making it into a long continuous belt; this was thoroughly washed and. wrung out, but not dried. A table was made a little longer than this belt; it was like a big outdoor picnic ta- ble; the belt of cloth was laid on this table. The young folk would take their places around this table and move the belt of cloth in one direction, each one helping. At a certain number of moves, that the leader counted out or gave some signal to indicate, they would all to- gether lift the cloth from the table and bring it down with a thump. Songs were sung and punctuated by this pounding of the cloth on the table. At the end of each stanza of the song there would be the thump, thump, thump of cloth. The rhythm of the Gaelic sing- ing, when Gaelic was used, gave zest to the milling process". This was kept up until the skilled overseers pronounced the cloth “milled”. Light refreshments, and frequently a full supper were served. In most of the homes this was followed by a dance. These were real jolly

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