as a perfect conceit of a
thing--it was a gem--no pot on earth could match it in symmetry--it was
an object altogether perfectly lovely. "Dear sake! minister," said the
widow, quite overpowered by the reverend man's commendations of her pot;
"if ye like the pot sae weel as a' that, I beg ye'll let me send it to
the manse. It's a kind o' orra (_superfluous_) pot wi' us; for we've a
bigger ane, that we use for ordinar, and that's mair convenient every
way for us. Sae ye'll just tak a present o't. I'll send it ower the morn
wi' Jamie, when he gangs to the schule." "Oh!" said the minister, "I can
by no means permit you to be at so much trouble. Since you are so good
as to give me the pot, I'll just carry it home with me in my hand. I'm
so much taken with it, indeed, that I would really prefer carrying it
myself." After much altercation between the minister and the widow, on
this delicate point of politeness, it was agreed that he should carry
home the pot himself.

Off then he trudged, bearing this curious little culinary article,
alternately in his hand and under his arm, as seemed most convenient to
him. Unfortunately the day was warm, the way long, and the minister fat;
so that he became heartily tired of his burden before he got half-way
home. Under these distressing circumstances, it struck him, that, if,
instead of carrying the pot awkwardly at one side of his person, he were
to carry it on his head, the burden would be greatly lightened; the
principles of natural philosophy, which he had learned at college,
informing him, that when a load presses directly and immediately upon
any object, it is far less onerous than when it hangs at the remote end
of a lever. Accordingly, doffing his hat, which he resolved to carry
home in his band, and having applied his handkerchief to his brow, he
clapped the pot, in inverted fashion, upon his head, where, as the
reader may suppose, it figured much like Mambrino's helmet upon the
crazed capital of Don Quixote, only a great deal more magnificent in
shape and dimensions. There was, at first, much relief and much comfort
in this new mode of carrying the pot; but mark the result. The
unfortunate minister having taken a by-path, to escape observation,
found himself, when still a good way from home, under the necessity of
leaping over a ditch, which intercepted him, in passing from one field
to another. He jumped; but surely no jump was ever taken so completely
_in_, or, at least _into_,