"Wheesht," said Ferguson; "we owe the illustration to that, but dinna interrupt the story." "Fifty years ago, when I was a slip o' a callant," continued John, "unco curious, an' fond o' kennin everything, as callants will be,"---- "Hoot, John," said one of the students, interrupting him, "can ye no cut short, man? Rob promised last Saturday to gie us, 'Fie, let us a' to the bridal,' an' ye see the ale an' the nicht's baith wearin' dune." "The song, Rob, the song!" exclaimed half a dozen voices at once; and John's story was lost in the clamour. "Nay, now," said the good-natured poet, "that's less than kind; the auld man's stories are aye worth the hearing, an' he can relish the auld-warld fisher-sang wi' the best o' ye. But we maun hae the story yet." He struck up the old Scotch ditty, "Fie let us a' to the bridal," which he sung with great power and brilliancy; for his voice was a richly modulated one, and there was a fulness of meaning imparted to the words which wonderfully heightened the effect. "How strange it is," he remarked to me when he had finished, "that our English neighbours deny us humour! The songs of no country equal our Scotch ones in that quality. Are you acquainted with 'The Guidwife of Auchtermuchty?'" "Well," I replied; "but so are not the English. It strikes me that, with the exception of Smollet's novels, all our Scotch humour is locked up in our native tongue. No man can employ in works of humour any language of which he is not a thorough master; and few of our Scotch writers, with all their elegance, have attained the necessary command of that colloquial English which Addison and Swift employed when they were merry." "A braw redd delivery," said John, addressing me. "Are ye gaun to be a minister tae?" "Not quite sure yet," I replied. "Ah," rejoined the old man, "'twas better for the Kirk when the minister just made himsel ready for it, an' then waited till he kent whether it wanted him. There's young Rob Ferguson beside you,"-- "Setting oot for the Kirk," said the young poet, interrupting him, "an' yet drinkin' ale on Saturday at e'en wi' old John Hogg." "Weel, weel, laddie, it's easier for the best o' us to find fault wi' ithers than to mend oorsels. Ye have the head, onyhow; but Jamie Brown tells me it's a doctor ye're gaun to be, after a'." "Nonsense, John Hogg--I wonder how a man o' your standing"----