Memorials of John Geddes

flower, and when the display was over, he grunted out as
his best acknowledgment on the occasion, " Hech, mon,
ye'll never be rich." " Whilk cam ower true," as Spalding
says ; at the same time, it is proper to say, the cottager had
chosen his part, and had a fair amount of happiness without
the riches, which " Ednies " looked on as the " be-all " here
below. It is right to add that " Ednies " took rather a
fancy to the young Geddes of Bodylair, and offered to help
him into a larger farm, but my father thought it better to
sail his own canoe with no borrowed sails.
Another Gauld, besides " Ednies," but superior to him
in style, and not less fortunate in his dealings, was the
farmer of Parkhall, an old staid bachelor who seldom spoke
a word but thought much, his fighting days, if he ever had
any, being long since over, and he, too, amassed by good
management a deal of money, part of which he left as an
endowment to female education in his native parish. With
quiet demeanour, and always clad in good, well-brushed
broad cloth, Parkhall drove business at markets in a much
more gentlemanly style than his cousin " Ednies," and he
was never seen " touched " in gait or speech through any
imbibing of the mountain dew. "Parkie" had his pecu-
liarities, however, but these savoured of superstition and old
world ways. He " sained " his byres regularly at certain
seasons, lining them with rowan tree sprays, in order to
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