Perthshire in bygone days

450 PEKTHSHXRE IN BYGONE DAYS.
together, and get it one after another ; and, although the
last of the circle got it after it was a week old, it was thought
quite as good as new. The rise or fall of an administration
did just as well at the end of a week as it does now within
the hour. Then, in the villages, as many weavers would
club together, and when "the papers" arrived every shuttle
was suspended, and the oracle of the shop would perch
himself on a high position, the rest falling in around. Once
properly posted, and his throat cleared by a most stentorian
cough, he would start off: " Seelance, gentlemen ! Extrak
of a letter from Geeber-al-taar !" After that was read and
discussed, " Boneyparty at Fountainblue ! March of the
army from Egypt overland to India, under the command of
Brigadier-General Baird." " Pitt and Lord Nelson " came
in due turn. These men were not so well fitted for politics
as they were disposed to them, but their great preceptor,
" The Press," carried them to their present proud position,
spreading their wings as it went on spreading its own; but,
unfortunately, in some of its meaner auxiliaries, encouraging
and goading them on to the unseemly antagonism at present
existing between the employer and the employed.
James Duff was born before this upward tendency had
begun to manifest itself, and he gave his assistance to its
inauguration. He held on to his King and country on the
one hand, while he haunted the "sma' stills" (then sending
up their curling smoke in every glen) on the other, singing
the praises of the hillside smugglers, who lived upon fraud,
and defied the laws of the very monarch he so much
extolled. In a poem entitled " Scotland's Comfort," he
lauds the governing party in very set phrase : —
Now, fill up a bumper to Geordie,
Our father, our friend, and our King;
And lang may he reckon we're wordie,
To shelter us under his wing,
Lat Bonaparte, faction, and party,
Gae knit themsels up in a string.
Sae lang's we've a groat to make hearty,
We'll drink to our monarch an' sing.
Singin' an' drinkin' an' a',
Drinkin' and singin' an' a',
We'll drink to our King an' his council,
But Willie's the wale o' them a'.
And next page, lamenting the seizure of Jamie Bell's still
at Ardeety, he goes on thus : —