Persons who are curious in Scottish stories of wit and humour speak much of the sayings of a certain “Laird of Logan,” who was a well-known character in the West of Scotland.  This same Laird of Logan was at a meeting of the heritors of Cumnock, where a proposal was made to erect a new churchyard wall.  He met the proposition with the dry remark, “I never big dykes till the tenants complain.”  Calling one day for a gill of whisky in a public-house, the Laird was asked if he would take any water with the spirit.  “Na, na,” replied he, “I would rather ye would tak the water out o’t.”

The laird sold a horse to an Englishman, saying, “You buy him as you see him; but he’s an honest beast.”  The purchaser took him home.  In a few days he stumbled and fell, to the damage of his own knees and his rider’s head.  On this the angry purchaser remonstrated with the laird, whose reply was, “Well, sir, I told ye he was an honest beast; many a time has he threatened to come down with me, and I kenned he would keep his word some day.”

At the time of the threatened invasion, the laird had been taunted at a meeting at Ayr with want of loyal spirit at Cumnock, as at that place no volunteer corps had been raised to meet the coming danger; Cumnock, it should be recollected, being on a high situation, and ten or twelve miles from the coast.  “What sort of people are you up at Cumnock?” said an Ayr gentleman; “you have not a single volunteer!” “Never you heed,” says Logan, very quietly; “if the French land at Ayr, there will soon be plenty of volunteers up at Cumnock.”

A pendant to the story of candid admission on the part of the minister, that the people might be weary after his sermon, has been given on the authority of the narrator, a Fife gentleman, ninety years of age when he told it.  He had been to church at Elie, and listening to a young and perhaps bombastic preacher, who happened to be officiating for the Rev. Dr. Milligan, who was in church.  After service, meeting the Doctor in the passage, he introduced the young clergyman, who, on being asked by the old man how he did, elevated his shirt collar, and complained of fatigue, and being very much “tired.”  “Tired, did ye say, my man?” said the old satirist, who was slightly deaf; “Lord, man! if you’re half as tired as I am, I pity ye!”

I have been much pleased with an offering from Carluke, containing two very pithy anecdotes.  Mr. Rankin very kindly writes:—­“Your ‘Reminiscences’ are most refreshing.  I am very little of a story-collector, but I have recorded some of an old schoolmaster, who was a story-teller.  As a sort of payment for the amusement I have derived from your book, I shall give one or two.”

He sends the two following:—­