d a favourite amusement, both at the time and afterwards,
was to imagine and describe the visitors who might have called on him
there in ignorance of the changed destination of the house. He would
imagine and mimic the tones of a drouthy Highland drover demanding
refreshment,--which, by the way, he would have been sure to get had he
so applied to Dr Burton; of an entirely drunk Lowlander, persisting in
representing himself as a _bona fide_ traveller; of a highly
Conservative old nobleman, posting up to town with his carriage-and-four
in spite of railways: this story ended with, "A wicked and perverse
generation shall come seeking a _Sign_, and no sign shall be given
them."

He delighted in a sort of practical bull, or confusion of ideas, such
as--"One may never have a _widow_ all his _life_."

A favourite story was of a too hospitable elder in a country parish,
who invited his minister to sup and spend the night in his house without
his wife's consent. The wife sees a male figure in the darkish entrance
of the house, and in her anger deals him a violent blow on the head with
the family Bible, ejaculating, "That's for asking him to stay a' nicht."
The husband, from an inner room, exclaims, "Eh, woman, ye have felled
the minister!" On which the virago says _to her victim_, "My dear, I
thocht it was yersel'!"

Ministers and clergy of all denominations are often the text of jokes.

Another story referred to an Episcopal clergyman, who was frequently too
late in reaching his church, and whose curate on such occasions began to
read the morning service instead of him, and had reached in one of the
lessons the well-known verse, St John xiv. 6, "I am the way, and the
truth, and the life," when his ecclesiastical superior, panting with
exertion, reaches the reading-desk, pushes his curate from his place,
and intones, "_I_ am the way, and the truth, and the life," adding a
strictly private aside to his curate, "_You_ the way, and the truth, and
the life, indeed!"

Another minister arriving at church drenched with rain, and claiming
sympathy from his wife, is told by her to "Gang up into the pu'pit;
ye'll be dry eneuch there."

A story in a different spirit, said to have been reported to him by Lord
Cockburn, is ascribed to a Scotch shepherd. A set of gentlemen were
imprecating the prevailing east wind, and asked the shepherd if he could
in any way defend that prevalent evil of his country. "Ay, sirs," said
he; "it weets the