nd he needs some carefu' body to look after him.'

Fourthly. He is a good workman; knows his own business well, and can
judge of other craft, if sound, or otherwise.

All these four qualities of him must be known before we can understand
this single speech. Keeping them in mind, I take it up, word by word.

You observe, in the outset, Scott makes no attempt whatever to indicate
accents or modes of pronunciation by changed spelling, unless the word
becomes a quite definitely new and scarcely writeable one. The Scottish
way of pronouncing 'James,' for instance, is entirely peculiar, and
extremely pleasant to the ear. But it is so, just because it does _not_
change the word into Jeems, nor into Jims, nor into Jawms. A modern
writer of dialects would think it amusing to use one or other of these
ugly spellings. But Scott writes the name in pure English, knowing that
a Scots reader will speak it rightly, and an English one be wise in
letting it alone. On the other hand he writes 'weel' for 'well,' because
that word is complete in its change, and may be very closely expressed
by the double _e_. The ambiguous '_u_'s in 'gude' and 'sune' are
admitted, because far liker the sound than the double _o_ would be, and
that in 'hure,' for grace' sake, to soften the word;--so also 'flaes'
for 'fleas.' 'Mony' for 'many' is again positively right in sound, and
'neuk' differs from our 'nook' in sense, and is not the same word at
all, as we shall presently see.

Secondly, observe, not a word is corrupted in any indecent haste,
slowness, slovenliness, or incapacity of pronunciation. There is no
lisping, drawling, slobbering, or snuffling: the speech is as clear as
a bell and as keen as an arrow: and its elisions and contractions are
either melodious, ('na,' for 'not,'--'pu'd,' for 'pulled,') or as normal
as in a Latin verse. The long words are delivered without the slightest
bungling; and 'bigging' finished to its last _g_.

I take the important words now in their places.

_Brave._ The old English sense of the word in 'to go brave' retained,
expressing Andrew's sincere and respectful admiration. Had he meant to
insinuate a hint of the church's being too fine, he would have said
'braw.'

_Kirk._ This is of course just as pure and unprovincial a word as
'Kirche,' or 'eglise.'

_Whigmaleerie._ I cannot get at the root of this word, but it is one
showing that the speaker is not bound by classic rules, but will use any
syllables that en