There is an odd and original way of putting a matter sometimes in Scotch people, which is irresistibly comic, although by the persons nothing comic is intended; as for example, when in 1786 Edinburgh was illuminated on account of the recovery of George III. from severe illness.  In a house where great preparation was going on for the occasion, by getting the candles fixed in tin sconces, an old nurse of the family, looking on, exclaimed, “Ay, it’s a braw time for the cannel-makers when the king is sick, honest man!”

Scottish farmers of the old school were a shrewd and humorous race, sometimes not indisposed to look with a little jealousy upon their younger brethren, who, on their part, perhaps, showed their contempt for the old-fashioned ways.  I take the following example from the columns of the Peterhead Sentinel, just as it appeared—­June 14, 1861:—­

“AN ANECDOTE FOR DEAN EAMSAY.—­The following characteristic and amusing anecdote was communicated to us the other day by a gentleman who happened to be a party to the conversation detailed below.  This gentleman was passing along a road not a hundred miles from Peterhead one day this week.  Two different farms skirt the separate sides of the turnpike, one of which is rented by a farmer who cultivates his land according to the most advanced system of agriculture, and the other of which is farmed by a gentleman of the old school.  Our informant met the latter worthy at the side of the turnpike opposite his neighbour’s farm, and seeing a fine crop of wheat upon what appeared to be [and really was] very thin and poor land, asked, ‘When was that wheat sown?’ ’O I dinna ken,’ replied the gentleman of the old school, with a sort of half-indifference, half-contempt.  ’But isn’t it strange that such a fine crop should be reared on such bad land?’ asked our informant.  ’O, na—­nae at a’—­deevil thank it; a gravesteen wad gie guid bree[164] gin ye gied it plenty o’ butter!’”

But perhaps the best anecdote illustrative of the keen shrewdness of the Scottish farmer is related by Mr. Boyd[165] in one of his charming series of papers, reprinted from Fraser’s Magazine.  “A friend of mine, a country parson, on first going to his parish, resolved to farm his glebe for himself.  A neighbouring farmer kindly offered the parson to plough one of his fields.  The farmer said that he would send his man John with a plough and a pair of horses on a certain day.  ’If ye’re goin’ about,’ said the farmer to the clergyman, ’John will be unco weel pleased if you speak to him, and say it’s a fine day, or the like o’ that; but dinna,’ said the farmer, with much solemnity, ’dinna say onything to him about ploughin’ and sawin’; for John,’ he added, ’is a stupid body, but he has been ploughin’ and sawin’ a’ his life, and he’ll see in a minute that ye ken naething aboot ploughin’ and sawin’.  And then,’ said the sagacious old farmer, with much earnestness, ’if he comes to think that ye ken naething aboot ploughin’ and sawin’, he’ll think that ye ken naething aboot onything!’”