6 A CAREFUL SPOUSE. 



the shores of the Firth of Forth — trading for cereals 

 with the sons, and now and then espousing the daughters 

 of Fife. Correctly or not, the nature of the soil is sup- 

 posed to have a share in the product of manly growth 

 and character ; and the man of the East of Scotland is 

 looked upon as taller and bigger-headed than the man 

 of the West; consistently with this opinion the re- 

 ligious revolutions of the Scotch have arisen on the 

 east of the country, and spread from a radius or central 

 point over a large territory. Let their origin be what 

 it may, the Goodsirs managed to keep themselves afloat 

 in the world, and tried to meet bad harvests by gar- 

 nering a little from the good ones. They were farmers, 

 schoolmasters, and traders up to the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, when the professional element became the pre- 

 vailing one. The history of the family strengthens 

 the Horatian tenet, and is not without the sanction 

 of modern opinion that attributes physical and moral 

 excellence to ancient stock. Thomas Goodsir of the 

 seventeenth century may be noted as a prototype of 

 his kinsmen. During the famine prevailing in his 

 time, he helped his needy neighbours as long as he 

 had it to give, and so freely as to draw forth a bit of 

 his wife's mind : — " Ay, Tammas Gutcher " (repeating 

 " Tammas" with a dogged meaning), " gie them'd a' 

 and tak the blanket on yer ain shouthers."* Upon 

 hearing this, Thomas would reply to his amiable 

 spouse : — " My dame" (Scottish mode of addressing a 



* Was the blanket thrown over the shoulder the token of domestic 

 poverty and distress ? or was it the significant garb of the old gaberlunzie of 

 the seventeenth century ? 



