An' lose your fee."

And on receiving a copy of some verses written by a lady, he talks in a
sad way for a Presbyterian deacon:--

"Were she some Aborigine squaw,
Wha sings so sweet by nature's law,
I'd meet her in a hazle shaw,
Or some green loany,
And make her tawny phiz and 'a
My welcome crony."

The practical philosophy of the stout, jovial rhymer was but little
affected by the sour-featured asceticism of the elder. He says:--

"We'll eat and drink, and cheerful take
Our portions for the Donor's sake,
For thus the Word of Wisdom spake--
Man can't do better;
Nor can we by our labors make
The Lord our debtor!"

A quaintly characteristic correspondence in rhyme between the Deacon and
Parson McGregore, evidently "birds o' ane feather," is still in
existence. The minister, in acknowledging the epistle of his old friend,
commences his reply as follows:--

"Did e'er a cuif tak' up a quill,
Wha ne'er did aught that he did well,
To gar the muses rant and reel,
An' flaunt and swagger,
Nae doubt ye 'll say 't is that daft chiel
Old Dite McGregore!"

The reply is in the same strain, and may serve to give the reader some
idea of the old gentleman as a religious controversialist:--

"My reverend friend and kind McGregore,
Although thou ne'er was ca'd a bragger,
Thy muse I'm sure nave e'er was glegger
Thy Scottish lays
Might gar Socinians fa' or stagger,
E'en in their ways.

"When Unitarian champions dare thee,
Goliah like, and think to scare thee,
Dear Davie, fear not, they'll ne'er waur thee;
But draw thy sling,
Weel loaded frae the Gospel quarry,
An' gie 't a fling."

The last time I saw him, he was chaffering in the market-place of my
native village, swapping potatoes and onions and pumpkins for tea,
coffee, molasses, and, if the truth be told, New England rum. Threescore
years and ten, to use his own words,

"Hung o'er his back,
And bent him like a muckle pack,"

yet he still stood stoutly and sturdily in his thick shoe