or, a century earlier, in the days of Knox or Wishart, he might have been a useful one. But he was unlucky in the age in which he lived, in his temper, and in coming in contact with as hard-headed people as himself. [Sidenote: THE COCK-FIGHT.] The parish schools of Scotland had their annual saturnalian feast, of what may be well deemed an extraordinary character, if we consider their close connexion with the National Church, and that their teachers were in so many instances licensed clergymen waiting for preferment. On Fasten’s-eve, just when all Rome was rejoicing in the license of the Carnival, the schoolmaster, after closing the service of the day with prayer, would call on the boys to divide and choose for themselves “_Head-stocks_,” _i.e._, leaders, for the yearly cock-fight of the ensuing Shrove-Tuesday. A sudden rush would immediately take place among the pigmy population of the school to two opposing desks, which, piled up with urchin a-top of urchin half-way to the rafters, would straightway assume the appearance of two treacled staves, covered with black-bottle flies in a shopkeeper’s yard, on a day of midsummer. The grave question of leadership soon settled, in consequence of previous out-of-door arrangement, the master, producing the catalogue, would next proceed to call the boys in alphabetical order; and each boy to intimate, in reply, under what “head-stock” he purposed fighting his cocks, and how many cocks he intended bringing into the pit. The master, meanwhile, went on recording both items in a book--in especial the number of the cocks--as, according to the registered figure, which always exceeded the array actually brought into the fight, he received, as a fixed perquisite of his office, a fee of twopence per head. The school then broke up; and for the two ensuing days, which were given as holidays for the purpose of preparation, the parish used to be darkened by wandering scholars going about from farmhouse to farmhouse in quest of cocks. Most boys brought at least one cock to the pit; and “head-stocks”--selected usually for the wealth of their parents, and with an eye to the entertainment with which the festival was expected to close--would sometimes bring up as many as ten or twelve. The cock-fight ball, given by the victorious “head-stock” on the eve of his victory, was always regarded as the crowning item in the festival.