of ratiocination, conclusions may be formed, though not algebraically, yet corporately, by constituting a quantity, which shall be equivalent to the difference, subtracting the less from the greater, and striking a balance in order to get rid of any ambiguity or paradox.

At the long adverb, nevertheless, the smith gave over blowing, and pricked up his ears, but the definition went beyond his comprehension.

"Ye ken that just beats the whole world for deepness," said the smith; and again began blowing the bellows. "You know, Mr Clinkum," continued the Dominie, " that a proposition is an assertion of some distinct truth, which only becomes manifest by demonstration. A corollary is an obvious, or easily inferred consequence of a proposition; while an hypothesis is a supposition, or concession made, during the process of demonstration. Now, do you take me along with you? Because if you do not, it is needless to proceed ?"

"Yes, yes, I understand you middling weel; but I wad like better to hear what other fo'ks say about it than you."

"And why so? Wherefore would you rather hear another man's demonstration than mine?" said the Dominie sternly.

“Because, ye ken, ye just beat the whole world for words," quoth the smith.

"Ay, ay! that is to say, words without wisdom," said the Dominie, rising and stepping away. "Well, well, every man to his sphere, and the smith to the bellows."

"Ye're quite wrang, master," cried the smith after him. "It isna the want o' wisdom in you that plagues me, it is the owerplush o't."

This soothed the Dominie, who returned, and said mildly-" By the by, Clinkum, I want a leister of your making, for I see there is no other tradesman makes them so well. A fivegrained one make it; at your own price." "Very weel, sir. When will you be needing it?"

"Not till the end of close-time."

monitor of the young and rising generation, should be the first to set them an example of insubordination ?”

"Yeken, that just beats a' in words! but we ken what we ken, for a' that, master."

"You had better take a little care what you say, Mr Clinkum; just a little care. I do not request you to take particular care, for of that your tongue is incapable, but a very little is a necessary correlative of consequences. And mark you don't go to say that I said this or that about a ghost, or mentioned such a ridiculous story."

"The crabbitness o' that body beats the world!" said the smith to himself, as the Dominie went halting homeward.

The very next man who entered the smithy door was no other than John Broadcast, the new laird's hind, who had also been hind to the late laird for many years, and who had no sooner said his errand than the smith addressed him thus:-" Have you ever seen this ghost that there is such a noise about?"

"Ghost? Na, goodness be thankit, I never saw a ghost in my life, save aince a wraith. What ghost do you mean?"

"So you never saw nor heard tell of any apparition about Wineholmplace, lately?"

"No, I hae reason to be thankfu' I have not."

"Weel, that beats the world! Whow, man, but ye are sair in the dark! Do you no think there are siccan things in nature, as fo'k no coming fairly to their ends, John?”

"Goodness be wi' us! Ye gar a' the hairs o' my head creep, man. What's that you're saying?"

"Had ye never ony suspicions o' that kind, John ?”

"No; I canna say that I had." "None in the least? Weel, that beats the world!"

"O, haud your tongue, haud your tongue! We hae great reason to be thankfu' that we are as we are!"

"How as you are?"

"That we are nae stocks or stones, or brute beasts, as the Minister o' Traquair says. But I hope in God there is nae siccan a thing about my master's place as an unearthly visitor."

The smith shook his head, and uttered a long hem, hem, hem! He had felt the powerful effect of that himself, and wished to make the same appeal

I

to the feelings and longings after immortality of John Broadcast. The bait took; for the latent spark of superstition was kindled in the heart of honest John, and there being no wit in the head to counteract it, the portentous hint had its full sway. John's eyes stelled in his head, and his visage grew long, assuming meanwhile something of the hue of dried clay in winter. "Hech, man, but that's an awsome story!" exclaimed he. "Fo'ks hae great reason to be thankfu' that they are as they are. It is truly an awsome story."

"Ye ken, it just beats the world for that," quoth the smith.

"And is it really thought that this laird made away wi' our auld master?" said John. The smith shook his head again, and gave a strait wink with his eyes.

"Weel, I hae great reason to be thankfu' that I never heard siccan a story as that!" said John. "Wha was it tauld you a' about it?"

"It was nae less a man than our mathewmatical Dominie, he that kens a' things," said the smith; " and can prove a proposition to the nineteenth part of a hair. But he is terrified the tale should spread; and therefore ye maunna say a word about it."

Na, na; I hae great reason to be thankfu' I can keep a secret as weel as the maist part o' men, and better than the maist part o' women. What did he say? Tell us a' that he said."

"It is not so easy to repeat what he says, for he has sae mony langnebbit words. But he said, though it was only a supposition, yet it was easily made manifest by positive demonstration."

"Did you ever hear the like o' that! Now, have we na reason to be thank fu' that we are as we are? Did he say it was by poison that he was taken off, or that he was strangled ?"

"Na; I thought he said it was by a collar, or a collary, or something to that purpose."

Then, it wad appear, there is no doubt of the horrid transaction? I think, the Doctor has reason to be thankfu' that he's no taken up. Is not that strange ?"

"O, ye ken, it just beats the world."

"He deserves to be torn at young horses' tails," said the ploughman.

Ay, or nippit to death with red hot pinchers," quoth the smith.

case exactly in higher geometry! for say the chord of sixty degrees is radius, then the sine of ninety degrees is equal to the radius, so the secant of 0, that is nickle-nothing, as the boys call it, is radius, and so is the co-sine of 0. The versed sine of 90 degrees is radius, (that is nine with a cipher added, you know,) and the versed sine of 180 degrees is the diameter; then of course the sine increases from 0 (that is cipher or nothing) during the first quadrant till it becomes radius, and then it decreases till it becomes nothing. After this you note it lies on the contrary side of the diameter, and consequently, if positive before, is negative now, so that it must end in 0, or a cipher above a nine at most.'

"

- "I'll just as soon say that the parabola and the ellipsis are the same," said the Dominie; "or that the dia meter is not the longest line that can be drawn in the circle; or that I want eyes, ears, and understanding, which that I have, could all be proven by equation. And now, sir, since you have forced me to divulge what I was in much doubt about, I have a great mind to have the old Laird's grave opened to-night, and have the body inspected before witnesses."

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"If you dare, for the soul of you, disturb the sanctuary of the grave," said the Doctor vehemently; " with your unhallowed hands touch the remains of my venerable and revered predecessor, it had been better for you, and all who make the attempt, that you never had been born. If not then for my sake, for the sake of my wife, the sole daughter of the man to whom you have all been obliged, let this abominable and malicious ca Jumny go no farther, but put it down; I pray of you to put it down, as you would value your own advantage.

"I have seen him, and spoke with him that I aver," said the Dominie. "And shall I tell you what he said to me?"

"No, no! I'll hear no more of such absolute and disgusting nonsense," said the Laird.

"Then, since it hath come to this, I will declare it in the face of the whole world, and pursue it to the last," said the Dominie,“ ridiculous as it is, and I confess that it is even so. I have seen your father-in-law within the last twenty hours; at least a being in his form and habiliments, and having his aspect and voice. And he told me, that he believed you were a very great scoundrel, and that you had helped him off the stage of time in a great haste, for fear of the operation of a will, which he had just executed, very much to your prejudice. I was somewhat aghast, but ventured to remark, that he must surely have been sensible whether you murdered him or not, and in what way. He replied, that he was not absolutely certain, for at the time you put him down, he was much in his customary way of nights, -very drunk; but that he greatly suspected you had hanged him, for, ever since he had died, he had been troubled with a severe crick in his neck. Having seen my late worthy patron's body deposited in the coffin,

and afterwards consigned to the grave these things overcame me, and a kind of mist came ower my senses; but I heard him saying as he withdrew, what a pity it was that my nerves could not stand this disclosure. Now, for my own satisfaction, I am resolved that to-morrow, I shall raise the village, with the two ministers at the head of the multitude, and have the body, and particularly the neck of the deceased minutely inspected."

"If you do so, I shall make one of the number," said the Doctor. "In the mean time, measures must be taken to put a stop to a scene of madness and absurdity so disgraceful to a well regulated village, and a sober community."

"There is but one direct line that can be followed, and any other would either be an acute or obtuse angle," said the Dominie; "therefore I am resolved to proceed right forward, on mathematical principles, in the dia gonal, and if the opposite vertices of the quadrilateral fall in with these, the case is proven ;" and away he went, skipping on his crutch, to arouse the villagers to the scrutiny.

The smith remained behind, concerting with the Doctor, how to controvert the Dominie's profound scheme of unshrouding the dead; and certainly the smith's plan, viewed professionally, was not amiss. O, ye ken, sir, we maun just gie him another heat, and try to saften him to reason, for he's just as stubborn as Muirkirk ir'n. He beats the world for that."

While the two were in confabulation, Johnston, the old house-servant, came in and said to the Doctor" Sir, your servants are going to leave the house, every one, this night, if you cannot fall on some means to divert them from it. The old laird is, it seem, risen again, and come back among them, and they are all in the utmost consternation. Indeed, they are quite out of their reason. He appeared in the stable to Broadcast, who has been these two hours dead with terror, but is now recovered, and telling such a tale down stairs, as never was heard from the mouth of man."

"Send him up here,” said the Doctor. "I shall silence him. What does the ignorant clown mean by joining in this unnatural clamour?"

John came up, with his broad bonnct in his hand, shut the door with

hesitation, and then felt twice with his hand if it really was shut. "Well, John," said the Doctor, "what an absurd lie is this that you are vending among your fellow servants, of having seen a ghost?" John picked some odds and ends of threads out of his bonnet, that had nothing ado there, and said nothing. "You are an old superstitious dreaming dotard," continued the Doctor; "but if you propose in future to manufacture such stories, you must, from this instant, do it somewhere else than in my service, and among my domestics. What have you to say for yourself?" "Indeed, sir, I hae naething to say but this, that we hae a' muckle reason to be thankfu' that we are as we are."

"And whereon does that wise saw bear? What relation has that to the seeing of a ghost? Confess then this instant, that you have forged and vended a deliberate lie, or swear before Heaven, and d-n yourself, that you have seen a ghost."

"Indeed, sir, I hae muckle reason to be thankfu'-"

"For what?"

"That I never tauld a deliberate lee in my life. My late master came and spake to me in the stable; but whether it was his ghaist or himsell -a good angel or a bad ane, I hae reason to be thankfu' I never said; for, I do-not-ken."

"Now, pray let us hear from that saget ongue of yours, so full of sublime adages, what this doubtful being said to you?"

I wad rather be excused, an it were your honour's will, an' wad hae reason to be thankfu'."

"And why would you decline tell ing this ?"

"Because I ken ye wadna believe a word o't. It is siccan a strange story! O sirs, but fo'ks hae muckle reason to be thankfu' that they are as they are!"

"Well, out with this strange story of yours. I do not promise to credit it, but shall give it a patient hearing, provided you swear that there is no forgery in it.'

"Weel, as I was suppering the horses the night, I was dressing my late kind master's favourite mare, and I was just thinking to mysell, an he had been leevin' I wadna hae been my lane the night, for he wad hae been

standing over me cracking his jokes, and swearing at me in his ain goodnatured hamely way. Ay, but he's gane to his lang account, thinks I, an' we poor frail dying cratures that are left ahind hae muckle reason to be thankfu' that we are as we are. When behold I looks up, and there's my auld master standing leaning against the trivage, as he used to do, and looking at me. I canna but say my heart was a little astoundit, and maybe lap up through my midriff into my breath-bellows; I couldna say, but in the strength of the Lord I was enabled to retain my senses for a good while. John Broadcast,' says he, with a deep and angry tone.John Broadcast, what the d-lare you thinking about? You are not currying that mare half. What a d-d lubberly way of dressing a horse is that?" "L-d make us thankfu', master!" says I, are you there?'

"Where else would you have me be at this hour of the night, old blockhead?' says he.

"In another hame than this, master,' says I; but I fear me it is nae good ane, that ye are sae soon tired o't.'

"A d-d bad one, I assure you,' says he.

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Ay, but, master,' says I, 'ye hae muckle reason to be thankfu' that ye are as ye are."