all
_arglebargling_[167] as if at the end of a fair. He was instantly, but
mysteriously, approached, and touched on the arm by a red-faced
bareheaded man, who seemed to be in authority, and was beckoned to
follow. On entering the barn, which was seated all round, he found
numbers sitting, each with the head bent down, and each with his hat
between his knees--all gravity and silence. Anon a voice was heard
issuing from the far end, and a long prayer was uttered. They had worked
at this--what was called '_a service_'--during three previous hours, one
party succeeding another, and many taking advantage of every service,
which consisted of a prayer by way of grace, a glass of _white_ wine, a
glass of _red_ wine, a glass of _rum_, and a prayer by way of
thanksgiving. After the long invocation, bread and wine passed round.
Silence prevailed. Most partook of both _rounds_ of wine, but when the
rum came, many nodded refusal, and by and by the nodding seemed to be
universal, and the trays passed on so much the more quickly. A sumphish
weather-beaten man, with a large flat blue bonnet on his knee, who had
nodded unwittingly, and was about to lose the last chance of a glass of
rum, raised his head, saying, amid the deep silence, 'Od, I daursay I
_wull_ tak anither glass,' and in a sort of vengeful, yet apologetic
tone, added, 'The auld jaud yince cheated me wi' a cauve' (calf)."

At a farmer's funeral in the country, an undertaker was in charge of the
ceremonial, and directing how it was to proceed, when he noticed a
little man giving orders, and, as he thought, rather encroaching upon
the duties and privileges of his own office. He asked him, "And wha are
ye, mi' man, that tak sae muckle on ye?" "Oh, dinna ye ken?" said the
man, under a strong sense of his own importance, "I'm the corp's
brither[168]?"

Curious scenes took place at funerals where there was, in times gone by,
an unfortunate tendency to join with such solemnities more attention to
festal entertainment than was becoming. A farmer, at the interment of
his second wife, exercised a liberal hospitality to his friends at the
inn near the church. On looking over the bill, the master defended the
charge as moderate. But he reminded him, "Ye forget, man, that it's no
ilka ane that brings a _second_ funeral to your house."

"Dr. Scott, minister of Carluke (1770), was a fine graceful kindly man,
always stepping about in his bag-wig and cane in hand, with a kind and
ready