Perthshire in bygone days

44 PERTHSHIRE IN BYGONE DATS.
at Crieff. On one occasion he remained rather too long
after dinner, and when he reached Ferntower, he felt him-
self very unfit to meet the sharp eye that had detected
so many false movements. No help for it, in he went, and
got through the business wonderfully well, but in turning
to leave the room, he stumbled and fell ; in an instant he
was on his feet and looking about — as all Scotchmen are
said to do — to see what made him stumble, Sir David, at
once saw the pawkie design, and remarked, "It is not so
much your feet as your head that is at fault, Boss."
Sir David had a tenant of the good old school, one of
those who wotild abuse his neighbour as if he had been
fashioned by the finger of Satan himself ; but if you
opened your mouth to decry the weather, although it were
blowing the roof off your house, it was " interfering with
the mercies of Providence," as if man were less the object
of providential mercy than the wind or the rain. One very
late and very wet harvest, Sir David went shooting over
this tenant's farm, and found him busy setting up dripping
stooks that had been blown over in a storm the night
before. " Very coarse weather," said the soldier. The
tenant could not see a chance of giving a captious answer,
and with reluctance said, "Yes, very." Sir David added,
" I am afraid you will be a loser if this continues." This
was a puzzling remark for the tenant. He saw a fair
opportunity of suggesting a reduction of rent on the one
hand, and on the other a chance of parading his sancti-
mony; the latter carried it, and he replied, "It's a' in
gude hands — it 's a' in gude hands." Sir David assented,
and went on his way. A week after, while going over the
same ground, he found his tenant again amongst the same
stooks, which by this time were black and green. The
straight-forward soldier said, "This is really dreadful;
unless a change of weather comes speedily, you will lose
your crop altogether." Here was another chance of throw-
ing in a hint ; and he did it by saying, " We will that."
But the old leaven cropped up, and he added, "But its a'
in gude hands — it s a' in gude hands." Sir David Baird
was no scoffer ; but this everlasting palaver, together with
some misgiving as to the tenant's personal exertions,
irritated him, and he said, loudly, " The sooner it changes
hands the better."
He had no occasion to complain of this dissimulation
when he came to the farm of Dubheads, where my father