One day Gibby took his gun, and went out towards Knowe-back. The cooper also, guessing what his purpose was, went thither by a circuitous route, in order to come in as it were by chance. Ere he arrived, Mr Forret had begun his queries and instructions to Tibby.--The two could not agree by any means; Tibby either could not recollect the yearly crops on each field on the farm of Drumlochie, or recollected wrong. At length, when the calculations were at the keenest, the cooper came in, and at every turn he took Mr Forret's side, with the most strenuous asseverations, abusing Tibby for her stupidity and want of recollection. "Hear me speak, Johnnie Jardine, afore ye condemn me aff-loof: Mr Forret says that the Crooked Holm was pease in the 96, and corn in the 97; I say it was corn baith the years. How do ye say about that?" "Mr Forret's right--perfectly right. It grew pease in the 96, and aits, good Angus aits, in the 97. Poor gowk! dinna ye think that he has a' thae things merkit down in black and white? and what good could it do to him to mislead you? Depend on't, he is right there." "Could ye tak your oath on that, Johnnie Jardine?" "Ay, this meenint,--sax times repeated, if it were necessary." "Then I yield--I am but a poor silly woman, liable to mony errors and shortcomings--I maun be wrang, and I yield that it is sae. But I am sure, John, you cannot but remember this sae short while syne,--for ye shure wi' us that har'st,--Was the lang field niest Robie Johnston's farm growing corn in the dear year, or no? I say it was." "It was the next year, Tibby," said Mr Forret; "you are confounding one year with another again; and I see what is the reason. It was oats in 99, grass in 1800, and oats again in 1801; now you never remember any of the intermediate years, but only those that you shore on these fields. I cannot be mistaken in a rule I never break." The cooper had now got his cue. He perceived that the plea ultimately depended on proof relating to the proper cropping of the land throughout the lease; and he supported the farmer so strenuously, that Tibby, in her simplicity, fairly yielded, although not convinced; but the cooper assured the farmer that he would put all to rights, provided she received a handsome acknowledgment; for there was not the least doubt that Mr Forret was right in every particular.