cerpt from Selkirkshire and one of my chiefest friends. He was long,
very long, almost six feet three, with copious hair that never sank to
rest, and habitually adorned with a cravat that had caught the same
aspiring spirit. This was a rider perpetually attached.

One suit of clothes after another, as the years passed by, bore witness
to the loyalty of his heart; for he would not abandon the pre-historic
tailor who was a sort of heirloom in the Collin family. In consequence,
the rise and fall of William's coat, in its caudal parts, as he walked
down the aisle with the plate on the Sabbath day, had become part of St.
Cuthbert's ritual--and we all thought it beautiful. He was one of the
two, referred to in the opening of our story, who had been sent to spy
out the land, and to report upon the propriety of my conjugal
enterprise. The fluent panegyric in which his report was made is already
recorded and need not be here repeated.

William had a talent for friendship beyond that of any man I ever knew,
and this talent flowered into genius only after the clock struck
midnight. Never yet was there friend who would stay with you to the last
like William Collin, his shortcomings few, his long-stayings many and
delicious.

For never yet was friend so welcome, never speech more sane and
stimulating; never farewell so sweetly innocent when the clock struck
two. May the God of friendship bless thee, William Collin, for all that
thy friendship hath been to me! And if these lines outlive thee, let
them bear witness to that joy which is not denied to the humblest man,
who hath but a fireplace and a friend and a pipe--and four feet on the
fender, while the storm howls without. For, with alternate zeal, we cast
the blocks upon the blaze--and its flame never faltered till thou wert
gone.

William, as chairman, was the first to speak. He presented St.
Cuthbert's case with dignity and force, beginning with the tidings that
the Board wished me henceforth to take two months' holidays instead of
one. This started in my mind a swift reflection upon the native
perversity of the Scotch. To prove that they cannot do without you, they
banish you altogether for an extra month, but William Collin gave the
thing a more graceful turn:

"We love you weel eneuch to do without you--but no' for lang," he said.

Then he concluded, as was his inviolate custom, with a reference to
Burns, in whom he had sat down and risen up for forty years:

"I canna