Tam, we're gettin' auld now, you'll
tak a wife, and when I dee you'll get my share o' the grund." "Na, John,
you're the youngest and maist active, you'll tak a wife, and when I dee
you'll get my share." "Od," says John, "Tam, that's jist the way wi' you
when there's ony _fash or trouble_. The deevil a thing you'll do at a'."

A country clergyman, who was not on the most friendly terms with one of
his heritors who resided in Stirling, and who had annoyed the minister
by delay in paying him his teinds (or tithe), found it necessary to make
the laird understand that his proportion of stipend must be paid so soon
as it became due. The payment came next term punctual to the time. When
the messenger was introduced to the minister, he asked who he was,
remarking that he thought he had seen him before. "I am the hangman of
Stirling, sir." "Oh, just so, take a seat till I write you a receipt."
It was evident that the laird had chosen this medium of communication
with the minister as an affront, and to show his spite. The minister,
however, turned the tables upon him, sending back an acknowledgment for
the payment in these terms:--"Received from Mr. ----, by the hands of
the hangman of Stirling, _his doer_[188], the sum of," etc. etc.

The following story of pulpit criticism by a beadle used to be told, I
am assured, by the late Rev. Dr. Andrew Thomson:--

A clergyman in the country had a stranger preaching for him one day, and
meeting his beadle, he said to him, "Well, Saunders, how did you like
the sermon to-day?" "I watna, sir; it was rather ower plain and simple
for me. I like thae sermons best that jumbles the joodgment and
confoonds the sense. Od, sir, I never saw ane that could come up to
yoursell at that."

The epithet "canny" has frequently been applied to our countrymen, not
in a severe or invidious spirit, but as indicating a due regard to
personal interest and safety. In the larger edition of Jamieson (see
edition of 1840) I find there are no fewer than eighteen meanings given
of this word. The following extract from a provincial paper, which has
been sent me, will furnish a good illustration. It is headed, the
"PROPERTY QUALIFICATION," and goes on--"Give a chartist a large estate,
and a copious supply of ready money, and you make a Conservative of him.
He can then see the other side of the moon, which he could never see
before. Once, a determined Radical in Scotland, named Davy Armstrong,
left his native village;