h said: "Auld Tarn Davidson's swine dee'd last nicht."

Dauvit looked up from the boot he was repairing.

"What did it dee o'?" and there followed an argument about the symptoms
of swine fever.

An English reader of _The House with the Green Shutters_ would have
concluded that these villagers were deliberately trying to put me in my
place. By ignoring me might they not be showing their contempt for
dominies who have just come from London? Not they. They were glad to
see me again, and their method of showing their gladness was to take up
our friendship at the point where it left off five years ago.

The only time a Scot distrusts other Scots is when they fuss over him.
The story goes in Tarbonny that when young Jim Lunan came home
unexpectedly after a ten years' farming in Canada, his mother was
washing the kitchen floor.

"Mother!" he cried, "I've come hame!"

She looked over her shoulder.

"Wipe yer feet afore ye come in, ye clorty laddie," she said.

But there is a garrulous type of Scot . . . or rather the type of Scot
that tries to make the other fellow garrulous. In our county we call
them the speerin' bodie. To speer means to ask questions. The
speerin' bodie is common enough in Fife, and I suppose it was a Fifer
who entered a railway compartment one morning and sat down to study the
only other occupant--an Englishman.

"It's a fine day," said the Scot, and there was a question in his tone.

The Englishman sighed and laid aside his newspaper.

"Aye, mester," continued the inquisitive Fifer, "and ye'll be----"

The Englishman held up a forbidding hand.

"You needn't go on," he said; "I'll tell you everything about myself.
I was born in Leeds, the son of poor parents. I left school at the age
of twelve, and I became a draper. I gradually worked my way up, and
now I am traveller for a Manchester firm. I married six years ago.
Three kids. Wife has rheumatism. Willie had measles last month. I
have a seven room cottage; rent L27. I vote Tory; go to the Baptist
church, and keep hens. Anything else you want to know?"

The Scot had a very dissatisfied look.

"What did yer grandfaither dee o'?" he demanded gruffly.

When the argument about swine fever had died down, Dauvit turned to me.

"Aye, and how is Lunnon lookin'?"

"Same as ever," I answered.

"Ye'll have to tak' Dauvit doon on a trip," laughed the smith.

Dauvit drove in a tacket.

"Man, smith, I was in Lunnon afore you was bor