went about showing it to his friends and neighbours for the charge of one penny each sight.  Evil days, however, unfortunately overtook him, and he was obliged to part with his loved coin.  Soon after, a neighbour called on him, and asked a sight of his sovereign, at the same time tendering a penny.  ‘Ah, man,’ says he, ’it’s gane; but I’ll lat ye see the cloutie it was rowt in for a bawbee.’”

There was something very simple-minded in the manner in which a parishioner announced his canny care for his supposed interests when he became an elder of the kirk.  The story is told of a man who had got himself installed in the eldership, and, in consequence, had for some time carried round the ladle for the collections.  He had accepted the office of elder because some wag had made him believe that the remuneration was sixpence each Sunday, with a boll of meal at New Year’s Day.  When the time arrived he claimed his meal, but was told he had been hoaxed.  “It may be sae wi’ the meal,” he said coolly, “but I took care o’ the saxpence mysell.”

There was a good deal both of the pawky and the canny in the following anecdote, which I have from an honoured lady of the south of Scotland:—­“There was an old man who always rode a donkey to his work, and tethered him while he worked on the roads, or whatever else it might be.  It was suggested to him by my grandfather that he was suspected of putting it in to feed in the fields at other people’s expense.  ’Eh, laird, I could never be tempted to do that, for my cuddy winna eat onything but nettles and thristles.’  One day my grandfather was riding along the road, when he saw Andrew Leslie at work, and his donkey up to the knees in one of his clover fields, feeding luxuriously.  ’Hollo, Andrew,’ said he; ’I thought you told me your cuddy would eat nothing but nettles and thistles.’  ‘Ay,’ said he, ’but he misbehaved the day; he nearly kicket me ower his head, sae I pat him in there just to punish him.’”

There is a good deal of the same sort of simple character brought out in the two following.  They were sent to me from Golspie, and are original, as they occurred in my correspondent’s own experience.  The one is a capital illustration of thrift, the other of kind feeling for the friendless, in the Highland character.  I give the anecdotes in my correspondent’s own words:—­A little boy, some twelve years of age, came to me one day with the following message:  “My mother wants a vomit from you, sir, and she bade me say if it will not be strong enough, she will send it back.”  “Oh, Mr. Begg,” said a woman to me, for whom I was weighing two grains of calomel for a child, “dinna be so mean wi’ it; it is for a poor faitherless bairn.”

The following, from a provincial paper, contains a very amusing recognition of a return which one of the itinerant race considered himself conscientiously bound to make to his clerical patron for an alms:  “A beggar, while on his rounds one day this week, called on a clergyman (within two and a half miles of the Cross of Kilmarnock), who, obeying the biblical injunction of clothing the naked, offered the beggar an old top-coat.  It was immediately rolled up, and the beggar, in going away with it under his arm, thoughtfully (!) remarked, ’I’ll hae tae gie ye a day’s hearin’ for this na.’”