her to take 'sheriff-wine and Van Houtong's cocoah,' and her genteel pronunciation was too much for us. She was never at her best when your father was there; she didn't care for the clergy.
"'A lazy lot,' she called them. 'No wan o' them does a decent day's work. If it was me I wad mak' a' the ministers pollismen as weel, and that wad save some o' the country's siller.' She condescended to say that she rather liked your father's preaching, though her reason for liking it was not very flattering. 'I like him because he's no what ye ca' a scholarly preacher. I dinna like thae scholars, they're michty dull. I like the kind o' minister that misca's the deevil for aboot twenty meenits and then stops.'
"Mrs. Daw had me bogged at once when we started on theological discussions. She would ask questions and answer them herself as she knelt before the kitchen fire, engaged in what she called 'ringein' the ribs.'
"'Ay,' she would say, 'I'm verra fond o' a clear fire. Mercy me, it'll be an awfu' want in heaven—a guid fire. Ye read aboot golden streets and pearly gates, but it's cauld comfort to an auld body wha likes her ain fireside. Of coorse we'll a' be speerits.' (It needed a tremendous effort of imagination to picture Mrs. Daw as a spirit!) 'Wull speerit ken speerit?' and then, as if in scorn at her own question, 'I daur say no! It wad be little use if they did. I could get sma' enjoyment frae crackin' wi' a neebor, if a' the time I was lookin' through her, and her through me. An' what wad we crack aboot? Nae couthy bits o' gossip up there—juist harps an' angels fleein' aboot....'
"I would suggest diffidently that when we had gone on to another and higher life we wouldn't feel the want of the homely things so necessary to us here, and Mrs. Daw, shaking her head, would say, 'I dinna ken,' and then with her great laugh (your father used to quote something about a thousand beeves at pasture when he heard it) she would finish the profitless discussion with 'Weel, sit ye doun by ma guid fire and I'll mak' ye a cup o' tea in ma granny's cheeny teapot. We'll tak' our comforts so long as we hae them, for think as ye like the next warld's a queer turn-up onyway....'"
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