It was the old fashion, still practised in some districts, to carry the coffin to the grave on long poles, or "spokes," as they were commonly termed.

There were usually two bearers abreast on each side.

On a certain occasion one of the two said to his companion, "I'm awfu' tired wi' carryin'." "Do you _carry_ ?" was the interrogatory in reply.

"Yes; what do you do ?" "Oh," said the other, "I aye _lean_." His friend's fatigue was at once accounted for.
I am strongly tempted to give an account of a parish functionary in the words of a kind correspondent from Kilmarnock, although communicated in the following very flattering terms:--"In common with every Scottish man worthy of the name, I have been delighted with your book, and have the ambition to add a pebble to the cairn, and accordingly send you a _bellman story_; it has, at least, the merit of being unprinted and unedited." The incumbent of Craigie parish, in this district of Ayrshire, had asked a Mr.Wood, tutor in the Cairnhill family, to officiate for him on a particular Sunday.

Mr.Wood, however, between the time of being asked and the appointed day, got intimation of the dangerous illness of his father; in the hurry of setting out to see him, he forgot to arrange for the pulpit being filled.