face, always round and red, assumed a
greater rotundity and an extra glow, and
his little, short, fat body ached again, with
fatigue.

But, as is very often the case in better
society than that with which we are now
engaged, the amount of conversation
indulged in had not been in equal ratio with
the amount of liquor consumed. They
were very quiet drinkers in those parts, and
on great occasions sat round the council
fire as silently and gravely as a set of
aboriginal Indians. They had touched lightly
on the subject of the wedding, but only as
men who knew that they had an interminable
subject at hand, ready to fall back
upon whenever they felt disposed, and from
that they had jumped at a tangent to
discussing the chances of the lambing season,
where they were far more at home, and
much more practical in what they had to
say. The fertility of Farmer Porter's ewes,
or the carelessness of Tom Howson, Farmer
Jeffrey's shepherd, were topics which went
home to every man present; on which each
had a distinct opinion, which he delivered
with far greater force and emphasis than
when called upon to pronounce upon an
analysis of the guiding motives of the
human heart in connexion with the choice
of a husband. Indeed, so much had to be
said upon the subject of these " yows," that
the conversation began to become rather
tiresome to some members of the company,
who were also tenants of the bridegroom's,
but whose business connexions were rather
with commerce than agriculture or stock-
purchase. These gentry, who would have
sat interested for that indefinite period
known as " a blue moon," had the talk been
of markets, and prices, and "quotations,"
at length thought it time to vary the
intellectual repast, and one of them suggested
that somebody should sing a song. In
itself not a bad proposition, but one always
hard to be properly carried out. A dead
silence fell upon the company at once,
broken by Farmer Whicher, who declared
he had often heard neighbour Croke
"wobble like a lavrock," and moved that
neighbour Croke be at once called upon.
Called upon Mr. Croke was unanimously,
but being a man of uncertain temper he
nearly spoiled the harmony of the evening
by declaring flatly that he would be
"darnged" if he would. A book-keeper in
one of the Brocksopp mills, a young man
of literary tendencies, who had erected
several in memoriam tombstones to his own
genius in the Brocksopp Banner and County
Chronicle, then proposed that Mr. M'Shaw,
who, as the speaker remarked, " came from
the land which produced the inspired
exciseman," would favour them with a Scotch
ballad. But Mr. M'Shaw declined the
compliment. A thrifty man with a large
family, Alick M'Shaw always kept himself
in check in every way where expense was
concerned, and now for the first time for
years he found himself in the position of
being able to consume a large quantity of
whisky, without being called upon to pay
for it. He knew that the time taken up in
singing the ballad would be so much time
wasted, during which he must perforce
leave off drinking, and so, though he had a
pretty tenor voice, and sang very fairly,
he pleaded a cold and made his excuse.
Finally, everybody having been tried, and
everybody having in more or less
cantankerous manner refused, it fell upon
Farmer Whicher to sing that ditty for
which he was well known for a score of
miles round, which he had sung for nearly
a third of a century at various harvest
homes, shearing feasts, and other country
merry-makings, and which never failed—it
being a supposed joyous and bacchanalian
chant—in crushing the spirits and subduing
the souls of those who listened to it. It
was a performance which never varied the
smallest iota in its details. The intending
singer first laid down his pipe, carefully
knocking out the ashes, and placing it by
his right hand to act on emergency as a
conductor's baton, then assuming a most
dismal expression of countenance, he glared
round into the faces of those surrounding
him to sue for pity, or to see if there were
any chance of a reprieve, and finding neither
he would clear his throat, which was in
itself an operation of some magnitude, and
commence the song as a solemn recitation;
but the chorus, which was duly sung by all
present, each man using the most doleful
tune with which he was best acquainted,
ran thus:

Then pùsh, pùsh, pùsh—the bowl about,
And pùsh the bowl to me-ee—
The longer we sits here, and drinks,
The merr-i-er we shall be!

It is doubtful to what extent this doleful
dirge might have been protracted, for the
number of verses is beyond human reckoning,
and the more frequently the choruses
were repeated the more they are prolonged;
but Mr. Teesdale, the agent, a shrewd man
of business, saw his opportunity for making
a cast, and accordingly, at the end of the
ninth stanza, he banged the table with such