He had many stories connected with the pastoral relation between minister and people, and all such stories are curious, not merely for their amusement, but from the illustration they afford us of that peculiar Scottish humour which we are now describing.

He had himself, when a very young boy, before he came up to the Edinburgh High School, been at the parochial school where he resided, and which, like many others, at that period, had a considerable reputation for the skill and scholarship of the master.

He used to describe school scenes rather different, I suspect, from school scenes in our day.

One boy, on coming late, explained that the cause had been a regular pitched battle between his parents, with the details of which he amused his school-fellows; and he described the battle in vivid and Scottish Homeric terms: "And eh, as they faucht, and they faucht," adding, however, with much complacency, "but my minnie dang, she did tho'." There was a style of conversation and quaint modes of expression between ministers and their people at that time, which, I suppose, would seem strange to the present generation; as, for example, I recollect a conversation between this relative and one of his parishioners of this description .-- It had been a very wet and unpromising autumn.

The minister met a certain Janet of his flock, and accosted her very kindly.
He remarked, "Bad prospect for the har'st (harvest), Janet, this wet." _Janet_--"Indeed, sir, I've seen as muckle as that there'll be nae har'st the year." _Minister_--"Na, Janet, deil as muckle as that't ever you saw." As I have said, he was a clergyman of the Established Church, and had many stories about ministers and people, arising out of his own pastoral experience, or the experience of friends and neighbours.