NIM 'ROUS NORTHERN TOUR. 19! 



At the hour appointed David arrived ; and, after the usual sa- 

 lutation, the following parley ensued : 



Nimrod. " Well, David, we thought you were lost ; but we 

 are not going to ' tip you the double/* You have been to church, 

 I find ; I hope you have heard a good sermon." 



David" Wail 'twas no much of that, sir." 



Nimrod. : ' No much of that ! then did not the parson please 

 you to-day, David ?" 



David. " Wall he was no much to my mind to-day." 



Nimrod. " What was the fault of his sermon ?" 



David. " Wall he wilded about the Bible a long time, but 

 he didna seem to come to ony point at all at the last." 



Mr. DalyelL " Yes, yes, David ; I know what you mean ; the 

 parson was not true to the line to-day rather given to skirt." 



Nimrod. "Well, David, give my best compliments to the 

 Captain, and tell him I shall give him a call soon." 



David. "Gee him a caal ! that will nae do for him; ye 

 maen bede (bide) a nete wi' him." 



Nimrod. " No fear on that score, David ; the Captain and I 

 have been acquainted more than thirty years ever since he 

 first hunted in Oxfordshire." 



Amusing as these comments of David's are, they would be 

 much more so if I could give them in the dialect in which he made 

 them. I was also much struck with the personal appearance of 

 this good servant so different to that of the previous day, when 

 dressed for a coach box in a hard frost in December. He wore 

 a full suit of black of the very best texture ; and so -cleanly and 

 decent did he look that until'lie threw his tongue he might very 

 well have passed for a parson himself. But who can afford to 

 sport good broadcloth if David Roup cannot ? He is a single 

 man ; and I was given to understand, on good authority, worth 

 2000 in houses and cash, to say nothing of the long and short 

 pocket on the Defiance coach, no trifle in the year, we may be 

 certain ; for, as Jack Peer used to say of the passengers by the 

 Southampton Telegraph in its best days, those of the Defiance 

 generally wear good collars to their coats. 



I was much pleased with the town of Aberdeen, the principal 

 street of which (Union Street), at least a mile long, is by far the 

 finest I ever saw in a town of this description ; and the lively 

 and cleanly appearance of the granite with which the houses are 

 built, adds much to the beauty of it. The Provost was kind 

 enough to show me the Court-house, which, together with the 

 Reading and Banquet-rooms, are quite superb of their kind. 



* " Tipping the double," is a slang phrase on the road for a passenger 

 slipping away from a coach without paying the coachman. 



