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It may be said, How do you know that one of the three or four varieties of Smolts which you describe further on, is not the fry of the Mort? Thirdly, we have the Sprod, which is, I believe, synonymous with the Whitling, Whiting, or Birling of Scotland.
"But who'd done it?" cried the boy. "Gap Gang, sir." "Who are they?" "Why, sir, Birling Gap Gang it should be by rights. That's where they mostly lay rough when they're this side. And it suits them to-rights that lonely, you see: just naked hills, cliffs, badgers, foxes, and the like. And such a crew! God help the man or maid crosses their hawse. Fear neither God nor Devil."
It was not the custom of the time, but her Grace had introduced into her Highland court the practice of withdrawing the ladies for some time after dinner, and leaving the men to their birling of the wine, as they phrased it. Out she swept at her husband's signal with her company Lady Strachur, Lady Charlotte, Mrs.
Diamond wanted the coast cleared; and he's cleared it by thunder he has! Swep it up bald as the back o my hand." The mist blew away faint and thin. Through it the bowed crest-line of a cliff loomed up to larboard. "There's the last o the Seven Sisters!" said Reuben. "Birling Gap's just here along." He moved among his men. "Stations, boys. It's here or hereabouts...." "Hush!" whispered Kit.
At Birling Gap, just short of the Head, is a coast-guard station and the point of departure for the cable to France where we may descend to the coast by an opening which was once fortified. Before the erection of the Belle Tout Light wrecks off the Head were of frequent occurrence and many are the tales of gallant fight and hopeless loss told by the coast dwellers here.
"Drinking and driving ower," quoth Jenny, "wi' the Steward and John Gudyill." "So, so he's safe enough and where are my comrades?" asked Halliday. "Birling the brown bowl wi' the fowler and the falconer, and some o' the serving folk." "Have they plenty of ale?" "Sax gallons, as gude as e'er was masked," said the maid.
Of how Jack Boyd has been known to float twenty miles without shifting his feet, on a log so small that he carried it to the water on his shoulder; of how a dozen rivermen, one after the other, would often go through the chute of a dam standing upright on single logs; of O'Donnell, who could turn a somersault on a floating pine log; of the birling matches, wherein two men on a single log try to throw each other into the river by treading, squirrel fashion, in faster and faster rotation; of how a riverman and spiked boots and a saw-log can do more work than an ordinary man with a rowboat.
About nine in the morning, in a burst of wintry sun between two squalls of hail, I had my first look of Holland a line of windmills birling in the breeze. It was besides my first knowledge of these daft-like contrivances, which gave me a near sense of foreign travel and a new world and life.
He stood cheerfully ready to meet the emergency. If I sought trouble, it was here to my hand; or if I needed help he was willing to offer it. "I guess you are," I replied, "if you can tell me what all this outfit's headed for." He thrust back his hat and ran his hand through a mop of closely cropped light curls. "Birling match," he explained briefly. "Come on."
There's no a hair on ayther o' the Weirs that hasna mair spunk and dirdum to it than what he has in his hale dwaibly body! Settin' up his snash to me! Let him gang to the black toon where he's mebbe wantit birling in a curricle wi' pimatum on his heid making a mess o' himsel' wi' nesty hizzies a fair disgrace!"
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