Perthshire in bygone days

CHABLES ROBERTSON. 225
impossible, so I replied, ' I could not tell you just now.'
The little scamp looked after me, and rejoined, ' Whan
eould ye tell me, d'ye think?'"
"After I had obtained license both to preach and to
practice as a surgeon, the people round about thought that
I surely could be a doctor, if I couldna be a minister, and
I was occasionally asked to prescribe. A man came to my
house one evening, and asked me to go and see Tammas
Miller, who was thought dying. ' What can I do for him ?'
I inquired. ' You are a minister, and some folk say you are
a doctor ; surely you can do something for him in ane o'
the twa ways.' After taking my tea, I hastened to see
Tammas ; but when I went in, I found his wife and another
woman stretching him on the floor before the bed. I
thought it would look rather indifferent if I were to come
away at once, so I waited to offer my sympathies to the
widow. After they had got Tammas laid out to their
minds, the wife stood up, and placing her hands on her
sides, said, in somewhat mournful tones, ' There he lies,
and he was a jealous devil.' I left."
" Many years ago, while the Circuit Court was sitting at
Perth, I went into the public-house at Balbeggie to wait
an appointment. A canny, decent-looking, but way-worn
man sat with a glass of beer before him. I called for a
similar beverage, and as we were ourselves two, I said, in
lifting the glass to my head, 'Here's t' ye, honest man.'
He looked at me suspiciously, and rejoined, ' Nane o' your
dry remarks.' Before leaving the house, I ascertained
that my boon companion was on his way home to Coupar-
Angus, after being tried for theft, and discharged — ' Not
proven.' "
It was in the winter of 1834-5, ever-memorable for its
severity, that Mr. Eobertson delivered his famous after-
dinner oration. I remember arriving at the Thane of Fife
Inn, a minute too late for John Kidd's coach to Dundee, to
which town I was going on a visit to Eobert Nicoll, the
poet. I did not put myself about, but walked down South
Street, crossed the river on the ice, and intercepted the
coach at the manse of Kinnoull. It was during the equally
severe winter of 1837-8 that the Messrs. Graham gave their
princely feast of a roasted ox on the Tay.
Mr. Robertson luxuriated in the social gatherings which
seem the inevitable concomitants of the game of curling,
or, as it was called in my early Perthshire days, " the
Q