"Amen!" responds the dominie. "That I am confident would be an improvement; but how it is to be brought about is a question of great difficulty. The common people of Scotland are not so poorly off as foreigners represent them. Their habits are primitive and simple, and I certainly have known many families, particularly in the country, make themselves very comfortable on eighteen pence or a couple of shillings a day."
"Give us an example, if you please!"
"Why, there is James Thomson, a working man, who makes, upon an average, say eighteen pence or a couple of shillings sterling (fifty cents) daily, through the year. He has a wife and four children. He built himself a kind of stone and turf cottage on the edge of one of Lord B.'s plantations, with a but and a ben,[161] and a little out-house. One day I called in to see him about one of his children, and, in the course of conversation, asked him how he got along."
"Brawly;"[162] was the reply.
"Can you make 'the twa ends meet' at the close of the year?"
"Yes," said he, "and something mair than that. Last Candlemas I laid up nae less than ten and saxpence."
"But how can you do it. Have you any land to cultivate?"
"A wee bittock," was the answer, "but it's graund for taties and turnips."
"Have you a cow?"
"O aye, we have a coo, and a gude coo she is."