The bothy being strictly the "man's" castle, the farmer never interfered; indeed, he was sometimes glad to see the show.

Every other weaver in Thrums used to have a son a ploughman, and it was the men from the bothies who filled the square on the muckly.

"Hands" are not huddled together nowadays in squalid barns more like cattle than men and women, but bothies in the neighbourhood of Thrums are not yet things of the past.

Many a ploughman delves his way to and from them still in all weathers, when the snow is on the ground; at the time of "hairst," and when the turnip "shaws" have just forced themselves through the earth, looking like straight rows of green needles.

Here is a picture of a bothy of to-day that I visited recently.