was a very seemilar case," broke in Snecky Hobart,
shrilly. "Maist o' ye'll mind 'at Donal was michty plague't wi' a
drucken wife. Ay, weel, wan day Bowie's man was carryin' a coffin past
Donal's door, and Donal an' the wife was there. Says Donal, 'Put doon
yer coffin, my man, an' tell's wha it's for.' The laddie rests the
coffin on its end, an' says he, 'It's for Davie Fairbrother's
guid-wife.' 'Ay, then,' says Donal, 'tak it awa', tak it awa' to
Davie, an' tell 'im as ye kin a man wi' a wife 'at wid be glad to
neifer (exchange) wi' him.' Man, that terrified Donal's wife; it did
so."

As we delved up the twisting road between two fields, that leads to the
farm of Little Rathie, the talk became less general, and another
mourner who joined us there was told that the farmer was gone.

"We must all fade as a leaf," said Lang Tammas.

"So we maun, so we maun," admitted the newcomer. "They say," he added,
solemnly, "as Little Rathie has left a full teapot."

The reference was to the safe in which the old people in the district
stored their gains.

"He was thrifty," said Tammas Haggart, "an' shrewd, too, was Little
Rathie. I mind Mr. Dishart admonishin' him for no attendin' a special
weather service i' the kirk, when Finny an' Lintool, the twa adjoinin'
farmers, baith attendit. 'Ou,' says Little Rathie, 'I thocht to mysel,
thinks I, if they get rain for prayin' for't on Finny an' Lintool,
we're bound to get the benefit o't on Little Rathie.'"

"Tod," said Snecky, "there's some sense in that; an' what says the
minister?"

"I d'na kin what he said," admitted Haggart; "but he took Little Rathie
up to the manse, an' if ever I saw a man lookin' sma', it was Little
Rathie when he cam oot."

The deceased had left behind him a daughter (herself now known as
Little Rathie), quite capable of attending to the ramshackle "but and
ben"; and I remember how she nipped off Tammas's consolations to go out
and feed the hens. To the number of about twenty we assembled round
the end of the house to escape the bitter wind, and here I lost the
precentor, who, as an Auld Licht elder, joined the chief mourners
inside. The post of distinction at a funeral is near the coffin; but
it is not given to every one to be a relative of the deceased, and
there is always much competition and genteelly concealed disappointment
over the few open vacancies. The window of the room was decently
veiled, but the mourners outside knew what was hap