by the wheels coming in contact with the very same stone, which remained in the very same place.  Still more irritated than before, in his usual coarse language he called the gatekeeper, and roared out:  “You rascal, if you don’t send that beastly stone to h—–­, I’ll break your head.”  “Well,” said the man quietly, and as if he had received an order which he had to execute, and without meaning anything irreverent, “aiblins gin it were sent to heevan it wad be mair out o’ your Lordship’s way.”

I think about as cool a Scottish “aside” as I know, was that of the old dealer who, when exhorting his son to practise honesty in his dealings, on the ground of its being the “best policy,” quietly added, “I hae tried baith”

In this work frequent mention is made of a class of old ladies, generally residing in small towns, who retained till within the memory of many now living the special characteristics I have referred to.  Owing to local connection, I have brought forward those chiefly who lived in Montrose and the neighbourhood.  But the race is extinct; you might as well look for hoops and farthingales in society as for such characters now.  You can scarcely imagine an old lady, however quaint, now making use of some of the expressions recorded in the text, or saying, for the purpose of breaking up a party of which she was tired, from holding bad cards, “We’ll stop now, bairns; I’m no enterteened;” or urging more haste in going to church on the plea, “Come awa, or I’ll be ower late for the ‘wicked man’”—­her mode of expressing the commencement of the service.

Nothing could better illustrate the quiet pawky style for which our countrymen have been distinguished, than the old story of the piper and the wolves.  A Scottish piper was passing through a deep forest.  In the evening he sat down to take his supper.  He had hardly begun, when a number of hungry wolves, prowling about for food, collected round him.  In self-defence, the poor man began to throw pieces of his victuals to them, which they greedily devoured.  When he had disposed of all, in a fit of despair he took his pipes and began to play.  The unusual sound terrified the wolves, which, one and all, took to their heels and scampered off in every direction:  on observing which, Sandy quietly remarked, “Od, an I’d kenned ye liket the pipes sae weel, I’d a gien ye a spring afore supper.”

This imperturbable mode of looking at the events of life is illustrated by perhaps the most cautious answer on record, of the Scotsman who, being asked if he could play the fiddle, warily answered, “He couldna say, for he had never tried.”  But take other cases.  For example:  One tremendously hot day, during the old stage-coach system, I was going down to Portobello, when the coachman drew up to take in a gentleman who had hailed him on the road.  He was evidently an Englishman—­a fat man, and in a perfect state of “thaw and dissolution” from the heat and dust.  He wiped himself, and exclaimed, as a remark addressed to the company generally, “D——­d hot it is.”  No one said anything for a time, till a man in the corner slily remarked, “I dinna doubt, sir, but it may.”  The cautiousness against committing himself unreservedly to any proposition, however plausible, was quite delicious.