"Ye see, Miss Lyon, there's nocht that spoils good work like worry on the mind. The pigs will do fine. I'll put a branch or two over them and a corn-sack over that. If a drap o' rain comes through it will only harden the wee grunties for the trials o' life. Aye" (here Boyd relapsed into philosophy), "life is fu' o' trials, for pigs as weel as men. But men the worst--for as for pigs, their bread is given them and their water is sure. Now as for myself----" "Yourself," cried Aunt Jen, entering into one of her sudden rages, "if ye were half as much worth to the world as our old sow Girzie, ye wad be salted and hanging up by the heels now! As it is, ye run the country like Crazy, our collie, a burden to yourself and a nuisance to the world at lairge! "Eh, Miss Jen, but it's the word ye have, as I was sayin' to Rob McTurk up at the pirn-mill last Tuesday week. 'If only our Miss Jen there had been a man,' says I, 'it's never Lalor Maitland that would have been sent to sit in King George's High House o' Parliament.'" Again Boyd Connoway took up his burden of testimony. "Aye, Miss Jen, there's some that's born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. That's me, Miss Jen. Now there's my brother that's a farmer in County Donegal. Niver a market night sober--and _yet_ he's not to say altogether content. An' many is the time I say to our Bridget, 'What would you do if I was Brother Jerry of Ballycross, coming home to ye in the box of the gig, and the reins on the horse's neck?' "'Ye never _had_ a horse,' says she, and thinks that an answer! Women's heads are born void of logic, and what they fill them with--axing your pardon, Mistress Lyon, ah, if they were all like you--'tis a happier place this world would be!" "Finish, and let us get the dishes cleared away!" said my grandmother, who did not stand upon fashions of speech, least of all with Boyd Connoway. Boyd hastened to obey, ladling everything within reach into his mouth as fast as knife and spoon could follow each other. He concluded, crooning over his eternal ditty, by way of thanksgiving after meat-- "If I was in bed and fast asleep I wouldn't get up for a score of sheep." This distich had the gift of always infuriating Aunt Janet. "You may well say so," she cried, clattering away with an armful of dishes in a way that was a protest in itself; "considering all you are good for when you _do_ get up, you might just as well be in bed fast asleep, and----" "Now there you're wrong, Miss Janet," said Boyd. "It was only last Sunday that I gave up all my evil courses and became one of Israel Kinmont's folk. My heart is changed," he added solemnly; "I gave it to the Lord, and He seen fit to convart me!" The whole household looked up. Anything bearing on personal religion instantly touched Scots folk of the humble sort. But Aunt Jen was obdurate. Long experience had rendered her sceptical with regard to Boyd Connoway.