meane him! Garskadden's been wi' his Maker these twa hours; I saw him
step awa, but I didna like to disturb gude company[40]!"

Before closing this subject of excess in _drinking_, I may refer to
another indulgence in which our countrymen are generally supposed to
partake more largely than their neighbours:--I mean snuff-taking. The
popular southern ideas of a Scotchman and his snuff-box are inseparable.
Smoking does not appear to have been practised more in Scotland than in
England, and if Scotchmen are sometimes intemperate in the use of snuff,
it is certainly a more innocent excess than intemperance in whisky. I
recollect, amongst the common people in the north, a mode of taking
snuff which showed a determination to make the _most_ of it, and which
indicated somewhat of intemperance in the enjoyment; this was to receive
it not through a pinch between the fingers, but through a quill or
little bone ladle, which forced it up the nose. But, besides smoking and
snuffing, I have a reminiscence of a _third_ use of tobacco, which I
apprehend is now quite obsolete. Some of my readers will be surprised
when I name this forgotten luxury. It was called _plugging_, and
consisted _(horresco referens_) in poking a piece of pigtail tobacco
right into the nostril. I remember this distinctly; and now, at a
distance of more than sixty years, I recall my utter astonishment as a
boy, at seeing my grand-uncle, with whom I lived in early days, put a
thin piece of tobacco fairly up his nose. I suppose the plug acted as a
continued stimulant on the olfactory nerve, and was, in short, like
taking a perpetual pinch of snuff.

The inveterate snuff-taker, like the dram-drinker, felt severely the
being deprived of his accustomed stimulant, as in the following
instance:--A severe snow-storm in the Highlands, which lasted for
several weeks, having stopped all communication betwixt neighbouring
hamlets, the snuff-boxes were soon reduced to their last pinch.
Borrowing and begging from all the neighbours within reach were first
resorted to, but when these failed, all were alike reduced to the
longing which unwillingly-abstinent snuff-takers alone know. The
minister of the parish was amongst the unhappy number; the craving was
so intense that study was out of the question, and he became quite
restless. As a last resort the beadle was despatched, through the snow,
to a neighbouring glen, in the hope of getting a supply; but he came
back as unsuccessfu