Chapter III (2)

One of the odd characters of this venerable village was the minister himself. He belonged to that quaint, homely class of Scottish rural pastors, the last remnants of which have now altogether vanished. A strange, eccentric old man was the Rev. Thomas Watson—more generally and familiarly known by the name of “Tammy”—parish minister of Auchincraig. He was a grayhaired man, but stout of body and ruddy of countenance, hale and hearty as an old farmer, and fond of his own creature comfort, while he imparted to others spiritual consolation. He was generally attired, at home and abroad, in a broad-brimmed hat, knee breeches, and a loose coat, cut in the shape of a jockey’s jacket. He had a habit of screwing his face and shrugging his shoulders, both in the pulpit and out of it, when anything unpleasant occurred. It was amusing to see him engaged in conversation with one of his aged parishioners on the streets of the village. He applied vigorously to his snuff-box, and a hearty slap on the shoulder of his auditor was the invariable prelude to a humorous remark. One day, while he was thus enjoying a “twa-handed crack” with an aged member of his congregation, he administered a heavier slap than was desirable, upon which the parishioner exclaimed, with more familiarity than reverence, “Tammy, Tammy! my banes are no made o’ brass—dinna hit sae sair!” Tammy, notwithstanding his slapping propensities, was a great favourite amongst the people, and I have heard the villagers repeating with great glee some of his witty remarks, and telling anecdotes regarding his eccentricities. He always addressed the people in broad Scotch from the pulpit. Indeed it is more than probable that they would have accused him of preaching heresy if he had ever attempted English. He felt himself as much at home, and said as homely things, in the church and before the congregation, as when sitting in social converse beside the manse hearth. Several instances of this I distinctly remember. One Sabbath forenoon, his own servant-girl entered the church rather late—in fact, the first psalm had been sung, and the Rev. Thomas was in the midst of his lengthy opening prayer. Janet, flurried no doubt by disturbing the devotions of the congregation, omitted to shut the door behind her, and a breeze blew up the passage and waved the gray locks of the minister. This was more than the reverend gentleman could endure. He opened his eyes, saw the culprit, and said with his own broad peculiar accent, “Janet, woman, Janet! can ye no steek the door ahint ye, an’ keep the wund oot!” Ludicrous as this remark might have appeared in the circumstances to a stranger, it was listened to by his hearers as devoutly as if it had been an ordinary part of the service.

On another occasion “Tammy” was holding an evening diet of worship in the church. This, it must be confessed, was with him a rare event indeed. It was the winter season, and, at the close of the first devotional exercise, the candles were emitting a light faint, and feeble as that of the waning crescent-moon. “Tammy” took up the psalmbook and adjusted his spectacles, but it was of no avail. The solitary “dips” at each side of the pulpit showed long wicks but little flame. The minister fumbled about for a time, but could not find the object of his search. At last, screwing his face, and shrugging his shoulders, he exclaimed, addressing the beadle (who was also the grave-digger), “Pate, I say, Pate! what’s come ower ye?—whaur’s the snuffers, man?”

Numerous anecdotes of a similar kind are recorded of the eccentric divine of Auchincraig. Once, however, on a baptismal occasion in the church, he committed what was regarded as a sacrilegious act by many of his parishioners. It set the tongues of all the mothers and grandmothers a-wagging for a month, and “Tammy” narrowly escaped a presbyterial investigation. The affair was innocent enough, allowing a margin for oddity of character, and he would, in all probability, have come off triumphant from a trial, unless the members of the presbytery had been rigid disciplinarians. The circumstances of the case may briefly be told. At the conclusion of the forenoon’s discourse, a child was brought up for baptism. The father received the customary exhortations and took his vows, and “Tammy” had just folded up his sleeve preparatory to sprinkling the baptismal water on the infant’s face, when he found to his surprise that Peter, otherwise Pate, the beadle, had stinted somewhat the necessary supply of liquid, perhaps in deference to the wishes of the child’s mother. The eccentric minister had conscientious objections at performing the sacred rite in a perfunctory manner, and he accordingly lifted the large pewter basin from its place, much to the amazement of the congregation, and sprinkled the whole contents to the last drop over the face and white attire of the squalling babe! He then coolly continued the service, in his own peculiar style, as if nothing extraordinary had occurred.

The Reverend Thomas Watson made himself at home wherever he was. When breakfasting with any of his parishioners, or in the neighbouring manses of brother clergymen, he invariably took possession of the largest egg, giving as his excuse and speaking from his experience, that “the biggest were aye the maist caller!” He was very fond of porter, and could drink as much toddy as any laird in all Strathkirtle, without showing the slightest symptoms that he had imbibed more than was good for the health of his body and brain. “Tammy,” it must be confessed, with all his good qualities, was rather lazy and self indulgent. To have spent more than an hour or two in the preparation of a discourse he would have regarded as a culpable waste of precious time. A clergyman in the neighbourhood once narrated to me a ludicrous instance of the manner in which the Auchincraig minister rolled the burden of duty upon the shoulders of others, and managed to escape himself.

“Tammy,” on a certain occasion, was assisting at the dispensation of the sacrament in another part of the county. The good cheer provided for clergymen in the manses at communion seasons he relished with infinite zest, and he generally contrived to coax the younger “hands” into undertaking a large share of his allotted spiritual work. When he could not succeed by coaxing, he adopted more effective means. On the special occasion referred to, he had taken as little part as he possibly could in the Saturday and Sunday services. It was his duty on Monday to preach one of two sermons; but that was with him the great day of the feast; a good winding-up dinner was expected in the afternoon, and he felt little inclination for ministerial work. Accordingly, as soon as breakfast was finished, and an hour before the commencement of public worship, he mysteriously disappeared. When the bell began to toll, the Rev. Thomas was searched for through every room of the house, and in every nook of the manse garden, but he could not be discovered, and another clergyman present was compelled, at a moment’s notice, to undertake the duty of the renegade. Meanwhile, “Tammy” was stretched at full length in an adjoining corn-field, quietly sunning himself, with much self-complacent composure, and listening to the voice of psalms floating upwards to the summer heavens from the lips of the assembled worshippers. He did not leave his lair until the guests were assembled for dinner, and then he returned to the manse, and heartily thanked the “dear brother” who had officiated in his stead. His ready wit, his contagious laugh, his fund of racy anecdotes, would doubtless be regarded by the company as some compensation for the sin he had committed in failing to discharge his ministerial duty. Many years have elapsed since old Tammy Watson was gathered to his fathers; and of the ancient kirk of Auchincraig in which he preached not one stone now stands upon another. _Requiescat in pace!_

The parish dominie was another of the eccentric characters in the village. He inhabited a house that had once seen better days, and he appeared also to have seen them himself. He was a tall, thin, silent, swarthy man, past middle age, abstemious and even miserly in his habits. Dominie Dawson was a bachelor, and few people ever crossed his threshold. He disliked old “Tammy,” who took a malicious pleasure in plaguing and bantering him upon the spareness of his body. Never were two men, occupying the highest posts in a parish, more utterly opposed to each other in appearance, tastes, and habits. “Tammy” was always ready with his joke; dominie Dawson had never even perpetrated a pun all his life. “Tammy” laughed immoderately when anything tickled his fancy; dominie Dawson was seldom seen to relax his grim countenance by a smile. Some men seem to have all things in common, but these two had absolutely nothing. The dominie never dined at the manse, and the minister never supped with the dominie. Still there was room in the parish for them both, and each held on the tenor of his way, independent of the other. The dominie, it could not be denied, was by far a more learned man than the minister. He was a capital linguist, as had been proved on more than one occasion, although his knowledge of languages was of little practical avail in the village of Auchincraig. He was also an enthusiastic naturalist. He returned from solitary rambles among the woods, and along the banks of the Kirtle, with his hat full of wild flowers and “weeds of glorious feature.” The old wives of the village used to say, “the man mun be crazed, for he’s aye houkin’ among divots!” On Saturday afternoons he sent bands of the school children away in search of beetles, moths, butterflies, and all varieties of insects; and these, after much study and careful examination, he pinned carefully on squares of pasteboard. Dominie Dawson was, in fact, an unrecognised genius. He seemed quite out of place in that secluded village, and yet it was almost impossible that he could have existed anywhere else. He was neither very much beloved, nor particularly disliked by his scholars. He flourished the birch pretty vigorously at times, and it was universally allowed that he made an excellent teacher. He opened his school each day with a prayer, which he had repeated so often that he could think on other matters during the time of its delivery. He always kept his eyes wide open when engaged in the act of devotion, watching intently the behaviour of his scholars, and no sooner was the prayer finished than he proceeded to apply the birchen rod as a corrective to misconduct, and an incitement to devotional feeling. “Tammy,” alluding to this circumstance, said to him one day—“Skelpin’ may mak gude scholars, dominie, but it’s sure to mak bad Christians.” After school-hours, the dominie either kept within doors, or walked forth alone. He had not a single companion in the whole village, nor did he cultivate any one’s society. He returned a salutation with civility, but appeared to have no desire for further intercourse. He was still parish teacher when I left the village; but it is more than probable that the loneliness of his life has now merged into the solitude of the grave.

After the minister and dominie, the village crier must not be forgotten. He used a large hand-bell instead of the kettle-drum which is employed in most country places to herald important public announcements. “Pob Jamie” was the name by which the bellman, as he was called, was generally known throughout the district. A squalid, ragged, cadaverous, miserable-looking object he was. He wore a hat “which was not all a hat,” part of the rim being gone, and the rain and sunshine finding a free passage through its rents of ruin. A long gaberlunzie’s gaberdine, formed, like Joseph’s coat, of many colours, and adorned with many streamers, descended from his neck to his heels. His feet were strapped over the soles of old shoes that served the purpose of sandals. Thus arrayed, he shuffled with his bell through the streets of Auchincraig, like the presiding genius of the place. It was no use attempting to clothe him in better attire. If he had been presented over night with a royal mantle, he would have appeared at his vocation next day in his many-coloured and tattered gaberdine. “Pob Jamie” was “cracked,” and public pity alone kept him in his responsible office. It was one of the most ludicrous sights in the world to see him actively engaged in the discharge of his duty, for which he seemed to think he had special calling. After tingling his bell for a time, he planted his staff behind him, and leant upon it in a half-sitting posture, and then drawing a long breath, commenced thus, in drawling tones, to give the world the benefit of his announcement:—“Go-od faa-aat bee-eef to be so-old at Mustruss Ma-act-avushes sho-op at sa-axpence the pund.” Poor Pob made a sad mess of long roup-bills and documents of a similar kind. The villagers, accustomed to his voice and manner, could make some meaning out of his words; but to strangers it sounded like a language never spoken before on earth since the dispersion at the Tower of Babel. The village boys annoyed the bellman greatly by mimicking his attitude and voice when he was in the act of “crying” through the streets. It invariably excited his somewhat irascible temper, and he prolonged and intensified his tones to an amusing extent. Jamie had a withered, ill-natured, half-crazed old woman for a wife, and a wretched cat-and-dog life they led together in their tottering hovel. The union of these two miserable beings was a melancholy caricature of the matrimonial alliance. They were never known to exchange a single word of affection. In fact, they were apparently bound to each other by mutual hatred. It was strange to think for what purpose they had been created, or why they should exist in the world so long. One winter day, after going his customary round, Pob fell sick, and rapidly declined. In the course of a day or two it was apparent that he was on the very verge of death. His old wife contemplated with evident pleasure the prospect of his speedy dissolution, and within five minutes of his death the half-crazed hag hissed these words into his ear, “Dee, ye deevil, dee!”

Space would fail me to describe minutely all the oddities of Auchincraig. There was the keeper of the post-office—a dwarfish man, with elfin locks, and a notorious squint, who knew all the secrets of the village, and seemed to possess the power of reading the contents of letters without breaking the seals. There was “burnewin,”—a man of huge stature and gigantic strength,—whose “smiddy” after nightfall, when the furnace blazed, was the favourite resort of all the cockfighters, poachers, and blackguards throughout Strathkirtle. There were the “souter” and the tailor, politicians both, and hard drinkers to boot. Nor did the village want its due complement of “innocents.” It had greatly more than the average number; and throughout all my wanderings, and during all my residences in towns and remote villages, I have never met so many odd characters gathered together as in old Auchincraig. It seemed to me strange that in a valley so beautiful,—where nature is prodigal of her richest gifts, where flowers bloom, birds sing, and corn-fields rustle in the summer breeze,—humanity should have appeared in such strange shapes and eccentric manifestations. But the old village is gone, and the old villagers have departed, and the sun now shines upon new homes and fresher hearts.

PERLING JOAN.

BY JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART, LL.D.

Our Laird was a very young man when his father died, and he gaed awa to France, and Italy, and Flanders, and Germany, immediately, and we saw naething o’ him for three years; and my brother, John Baird, went wi’ him as his own body-servant. When that time was gane by, our Johnny cam hame and tauld us that Sir Claud wad be here the next day, an’ that he was bringing hame a foreign lady wi’ him—but they were not married. This news was a sair heart, as ye may suppose, to a’ that were about the house; and we were just glad that the auld lady was dead and buried, not to hear of sic doings. But what could we do? To be sure, the rooms were a’ put in order, and the best chamber in the hale house was got ready for Sir Claud and her. John tauld me, when we were alane together that night, that I wad be surprised wi’ her beauty when she came.

But I never could have believed, till I saw her, that she was sae very young—such a mere bairn, I may say; I’m sure she was not more than fifteen. Such a dancing, gleesome bit bird of a lassie was never seen; and ane could not but pity her mair than blame her for what she had done, she was sae visibly in the daftness and light-headedness of youth. Oh, how she sang, and played, and galloped about on the wildest horses in the stable, as fearlessly as if she had been a man! The house was full of fun and glee; and Sir Claud and she were both so young and so comely, that it was enough to break ane’s very heart to behold their thoughtlessness. She was aye sitting on his knee, wi’ her arm about his neck; and for weeks and months this love and merriment lasted. The poor body had no airs wi’ her; she was just as humble in her speech to the like of us, as if she had been a cottar’s lassie. I believe there was not one of us that could help liking her, for a’ her faults. She was a glaiket creature; but gentle and tender-hearted as a perfect lamb, and sae bonny! I never sat eyes upon her match. She had never any colour but black for her gown, and it was commonly satin, and aye made in the same fashion; and a’ the perling about her bosom, and a great gowden chain stuck full of precious rubies and diamonds. She never put powder on her head neither; oh proud, proud was she of her hair! I’ve often known her comb and comb at it for an hour on end; and when it was out of the buckle, the bonny black curls fell as low as her knee. You never saw such a head of hair since ye were born. She was the daughter of a rich auld Jew in Flanders, and ran awa frae the house wi’ Sir Claud, ae night when there was a great feast gaun on,—the Passover supper, as John thought,—and out she came by the back-door to Sir Claud, dressed for supper wi’ a’ her braws.

Weel, this lasted for the maist feck of a year; and Perling Joan (for that was what the servants used to ca’ her, frae the laces about her bosom), Mrs Joan lay in and had a lassie.

Sir Claud’s auld uncle, the colonel, was come hame from America about this time, and he wrote for the laird to gang in to Edinburgh to see him, and he behoved to do this; and away he went ere the bairn was mair than a fortnight auld, leaving the lady wi’ us.

I was the maist experienced body about the house, and it was me that got chief charge of being with her in her recovery. The poor young thing was quite changed now. Often and often did she greet herself blind, lamenting to me about Sir Claud’s no marrying her; for she said she did not take muckle thought about thae things afore; but that now she had a bairn to Sir Claud, and she could not bear to look the wee thing in the face, and think a’ body would ca’ it a bastard. And then she said she was come of as decent folk as any lady in Scotland, and moaned and sobbit about her auld father and her sisters.

But the colonel, ye see, had gotten Sir Claud into the town; and we soon began to hear reports that the colonel had been terribly angry about Perling Joan, and threatened Sir Claud to leave every penny he had past him, if he did not put Joan away, and marry a lady like himself. And what wi’ fleeching, and what wi’ flyting, sae it was that Sir Claud went away to the north wi’ the colonel, and the marriage between him and lady Juliana was agreed upon, and everything settled.

Everybody about the house had heard mair or less about a’ this, or ever a word of it came her length. But at last, Sir Claud himself writes a long letter, telling her what a’ was to be; and offering to gie her a heap o’ siller, and send our John ower the sea wi’ her, to see her safe back to her friends—her and her baby, if she liked best to take it with her; but if not, the colonel was to take the bairn hame, and bring her up a lady, away from the house here, not to breed any dispeace.

This was what our Johnny said was to be proposed; for as to the letter itself, I saw her get it, and she read it twice ower, and flung it into the fire before my face. She read it, whatever it was, with a wonderful composure; but the moment after it was in the fire she gaed clean aff into a fit, and she was out of one and into anither for maist part of the forenoon. Oh, what a sight she was! It would have melted the heart of stone to see her.

The first thing that brought her to herself was the sight of her bairn. I brought it, and laid it on her knee, thinking it would do her good if she could give it a suck; and the poor trembling thing did as I bade her; and the moment the bairn’s mouth was at the breast, she turned as calm as the baby itsel—the tears rapping ower her cheeks, to be sure, but not one word more. I never heard her either greet or sob again a’ that day.

I put her and the bairn to bed that night—but nae combing and curling o’ the bonnie black hair did I see then. However, she seemed very calm and composed, and I left them, and gaed to my ain bed, which was in a little room within hers.

Next morning, the bed was found cauld and empty, and the front door of the house standing wide open. We dragged the waters, and sent man and horse every gate, but ne’er a trace of her could we ever light on, till a letter came twa or three weeks after, addressed to me, frae hersel. It was just a line or twa, to say that she was well, and thanking me, poor thing, for having been attentive about her in her down-lying. It was dated frae London. And she charged me to say nothing to anybody of having received it. But this was what I could not do; for everybody had set it down for a certain thing, that the poor lassie had made away baith wi’ hersel and the bairn.

I dinna weel ken whether it was owing to this or not, but Sir Claud’s marriage was put aff for twa or three years, and he never cam near us a’ that while. At length word came that the wedding was to be put over directly; and painters, and upholsterers, and I know not what all, came and turned the hale house upside down, to prepare for my lady’s hame-coming. The only room that they never meddled wi’ was that that had been Mrs Joan’s: and no doubt they had been ordered what to do.

Weel, the day came, and a braw sunny spring day it was, that Sir Claud and the bride were to come hame to the Mains. The grass was a’ new mawn about the policy, and the walks sweepit, and the cloth laid for dinner, and everybody in their best to give them their welcoming. John Baird came galloping up the avenue like mad, to tell us that the coach was amaist within sight, and gar us put oursels in order afore the ha’ steps. We were a’ standing there in our ranks, and up came the coach rattling and driving, wi’ I dinna ken how mony servants riding behind it; and Sir Claud lookit out at the window, and was waving his handkerchief to us, when, just as fast as fire ever flew frae flint, a woman in a red cloak rushed out from among the auld shrubbery at the west end of the house, and flung herself in among the horses’ feet, and the wheels gaed clean out ower her breast, and crushed her dead in a single moment. She never stirred. Poor thing! she was nae Perling Joan then. She was in rags—perfect rags all below the bit cloak; and we found the bairn, rowed in a checked apron, lying just behind the hedge. A braw heartsome welcoming for a pair of young married folk!—_The History of Matthew Wald._

JANET SMITH.

BY PROFESSOR THOMAS GILLESPIE.

Old Janet Smith lived in a cottage overshadowed by an ash-tree, and flanked by a hawthorn, called Lasscairn,—so named, in all probability, from a cairn of stones, almost in the centre of which this simple habitation was placed, in which, even within the period of my remembrance, three maiden veterans kept “rock and reel, bleezing hearth and reeking lum.” They were uniformly mentioned in the neighbourhood as “the lasses o’ Lasscairn,” though their united ages might have amounted to something considerably above three-score thrice told. Janet, however, of whom I am now speaking, had been married in her teens, and her husband having lost his life in a lime-quarry, she had been left with an only child, a daughter, whom, by the help of God’s blessing, and her wee wheel, she had reared and educated as far as the Proofs and Willison’s. This daughter having attained to a suitable age, had been induced one fine summer evening, whilst her mother was engaged in her evening devotion under the shadow of the ash-tree, to take a pleasure walk with Rob Paton, a neighbouring ploughman, but then recently enlisted, and to share his name and his fortunes for twenty-four months to come. At the end of this period, she found her mother nearly in the same position in which she had left her, praying earnestly to her God to protect, direct, and return her “bairn.” There were, however, two bairns for the good old woman to bless, instead of one, and the young Jessie Paton was said to be the very picture of her mother. Be that as it may, old Janet, now a grannie, loved the bairn, forgave the mother, and by the help of an additional wheel, which, in contradistinction to her own, was designated “muckle,” she, and her “broken-hearted, deserted” daughter, contrived for years to earn such a subsistence as their very moderate wants required. At last a severe fever cut off the mother, and left a somewhat sickly child at about nine years of age, under the sole protection of an aged and enfeebled grandmother. It was at this stage of old Janet’s earthly travail that, in the character of a schoolboy, I became acquainted with her and her daughter,—for ever after the mother’s death, the child knew her grandmother by no other name, and under no other relation.

Janet had a particular way—still the practice in Dumfriesshire—of dressing or preparing her meal of potatoes. They were scraped, well-dried, salted, beetled, buttered, milked, and ultimately rumbled into the most beautiful and palatable consistency. In short, they became that first, and—beyond the limits of the south country—least known of all delicacies, “champit potatoes.” As I returned often hungry and weary from school, Janet’s pot presented itself to me, hanging in the reek, and at a considerable elevation above the fire, as the most tempting of all objects. In fact, Janet, knowing that my hour of return from school was full two hours later than hers of repast, took this method of reserving for me a full heaped spoonful of the residue of her and her Jessie’s meal. Never whilst I live, and live by food, shall I forget the exquisite feelings of eager delight with which that single overloaded spoonful of beat or “champit” potatoes was devoured. There are pleasures of sentiment and imagination of which I have occasionally partaken, and others connected with what is called the heart and affections; all these are beautiful and engrossing in their way and in their season, but to a hungry schoolboy, who has devoured his dinner “piece” ere ten o’clock a.m., and is returning to his home at a quarter before five, the presentiment, the sight, and, above all, the taste and reflection connected with the swallowing of a spoonful—and such a spoonful!—of Janet Smith’s potatoes, is, to say nothing flighty or extravagant, not less seasonable than exquisite. As my tongue walked slowly and cautiously round and round the lower and upper boundaries of the delicious load, as if loath rapidly to diminish that bulk, which the craving stomach would have wished to have been increased had it been tenfold, my whole soul was wrapped in Elysium; it tumbled about, and rioted in an excess of delight—a kind of feather-bed of downy softness. Drinking is good enough in its season, particularly when one is thirsty; but the pleasures attendant on the satisfying of _the appetite_ for me!—this is assuredly the great, the master gratification.

But Janet did not only deal in potatoes; she had likewise a cheese, and, on pressing occasions, a bottle of beer besides. The one stood in a kind of corner press or cupboard, whilst the other occupied a still less dignified position beneath old Janet’s bed. To say the truth of Janet’s cheese, it was not much beholden to the maker. It might have been advantageously cut into bullets or marbles, such was its hardness and solidity; but then, _in those days_, my teeth were good; and, with a keen stomach and a willing mind, much may be effected even on a “three times skimmed sky-blue!” The beer—for which I have often adventured into the terra incognita already mentioned, even at the price of a prostrate person and a dusty jacket—was excellent, brisk, frothy, and nippy;—my breath still goes when I think of it. And then Janet wore such long strings of tape, blue and red, white and yellow, all striped and variegated like a gardener’s garter! I shall never be such a beau again, as when my stockings on Sabbath were ornamented with a new pair of Janet’s well-known, much-prized, and admired garters.

It was, however, after all, on Sabbath that Janet appeared to move in her native element. It was on Sabbath that her face brightened, and her step became accelerated—that her spectacles were carefully wiped with the corner of a clean neck-napkin, and her Bible was called into early and almost uninterrupted use. It was on Sabbath that her devotions were poured forth—both in a family and private capacity—with an earnestness and a fervency which I have never seen surpassed in manse or mansion, in desk or pulpit. There is, indeed, nothing in nature so beautiful and elevating as sincere and heartfelt, heart-warming devotion. There is a poor, frail creature, verging on three-score and ten years, with an attendant lassie, white-faced, and every way “shilpy” in appearance. Around them are nothing more elevating or exciting than a few old sticks of furniture, sooty rafters, and a smoky atmosphere. Surely imbecility has here clothed herself in the forbidding garb of dependence and squalid poverty! The worm that crawls into light through the dried mole-hill, all powdered over with the dust from which it is escaping, is a fit emblem of such an object and such a condition. But over all this let us pour the warm and glowing radiance of genuine devotion! The roots of that consecrated ash can bear witness to those half-articulated breathings, which connect the weakness of man with the power of God,—the squalidness of poverty with the radiant richness of divine grace. Do those two hearts, which under one covering _now_ breathe forth their evening sacrifice in hope and reliance—do they feel, do they acknowledge any alliance with the world’s opinions, the world’s artificial and cruel distinctions? If there be one object more pleasing to God and to the holy ministers of His will than another, it is this—age uniting with youth, and youth with age, in the giving forth into audible, if not articulate expression, the fulness of the devout heart!

Lord W——, whose splendid residence stands about fifteen miles distant from Lasscairn, happened to be engaged in a hunting expedition in the neighbourhood of this humble and solitary abode, and having separated from his attendants and companions, he bethought himself of resting for a little under a roof, however humble, from which he saw smoke issuing. But when he put his thumb to the latch it would not move; and after an effort or two, he applied first his eye, and lastly his ear, to the keyhole, to ascertain the presence of the inhabitants. The solemn voice of fervent prayer met his ear, uttered by a person evidently not in a kneeling, but in an erect position; he could, in short, distinctly gather the nature and tendency of Janet’s address to her Maker.

She was manifestly engaged in asking a blessing on her daily meal, and was proceeding to enumerate, with the voice of thanksgiving, the many mercies with which, under God’s good providence, she and hers had been visited. After an extensive enumeration, she came at last to speak of that _ample provision_ on which she was now imploring a blessing. In this part of her address she dwelt with peculiar cheerfulness, as well as earnestness of tone, on that goodness which had provided so bountifully for her, whilst many better deserving than she were worse circumstanced. The whole tenor of her prayer tended to impress the listener with the belief that Janet’s board, though spread in a humble hut, must be at least amply supplied with the necessaries of life. But what was Lord W——’s surprise, on entrance, to find that a round oaten bannock, toasting before a brick at a peat fire, with a basin of whey,—the gift of a kind neighbour,—composed that _ample and bountiful provision_ for which this humble, but contented and pious woman expressed so much gratitude! Lord W—— was struck with the contrast between his own condition and feelings and those of this humble pair; and, in settling upon Janet and her inmate £6 a-year for life, he enabled her to accommodate herself with a new plaid and black silk hood, in which she appeared, with her granddaughter, every Sabbath, occupying her well-known and acknowledged position on the lowest step of the pulpit stair, and paying the same respect to the minister in passing as if she had been entirely dependent on her own industry and the good will of her neighbours as formerly.

THE UNLUCKY TOP BOOTS.