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.