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!'" The following is rather an original commentary, by a layman, upon clerical incomes:--A relative of mine going to church with a Forfarshire farmer, one of the old school, asked him the amount of the minister's stipend.

He said, "Od, it's a gude ane--the maist part of L300 a year." "Well," said my relative, "many of these Scotch ministers are but poorly off." "They've eneuch, sir, they've eneuch; if they'd mair, it would want a' their time to the spendin' o't." Scotch gamekeepers had often much dry quiet humour.