Part 17 (1/2)
THE DAY FOR IT.
The driver of the bus which goes through the delightful part of Argylls.h.i.+re known as h.e.l.l's Glen, is often chaffed by the summer tourists rather unmercifully. One day, a nervous southern was criticising him on his furious and careless driving: ”You shouldn't be on the box at all; I never saw such a wild driver.” ”Drive!” said Jehu, in a voice of thunder. ”Why, man, once every year, I drive the mail-coach _down that steep hill-side_ among the bracken. _And this is the day for it!_” So saying, the humorous fellow made as if to whip the horses down the cliff, and the terrified tourist shrieked aloud. ”Seeing I've such a nervous pa.s.senger,” said the driver, with a guffaw, ”I had better break my own rules, and keep to the main road.”
THE CONVERTED DRUMMER.
A dilapidated Scot, with a strong odour of the accursed, staggered into a Salvation Army meeting one night, and was deeply impressed by the service. He became a changed man, professed conversion, and got a thorough moral overhaul. Like many others, he had great difficulty in keeping his good resolutions, but persevered, n.o.bly and successfully.
Latterly, he was admitted into the orchestra, and got command of the big drum. He was so anxious to show his zeal, that he beat far too vehemently, and drowned all the other instruments in his ecstatic rataplan. The captain mildly remonstrated with him, and requested him to beat a little more gently. ”_Gently!_” shouted the reformed drummer, ”that's impossible. Since I've got salvation, I feel so happy, that I could ding the whole slammed thing to bits!” (or rather ”slim the whole danged thing to bits”).
A CIRCULAR TICKET.
Three commercials, travelling from Cork to Dublin, had a discussion on the illiteracy of the Irish railway employes. ”Look here,” said one of them, ”the majority of the ticket collectors can't even _read_ the tickets they are supposed to check.” The other two refused to believe him, but he stoutly maintained his a.s.sertion. Taking out of his pocket the round ticket given him at the office of the Cork hotel, and containing the number of his bedroom, he said, ”I intend to offer this, instead of my railway ticket, at the first station where tickets are punched.” Shortly thereafter, the train stopped, and a porter came round the carriages to look at the tickets. There was silence deep as death when the commercial handed his bedroom ticket to the official. The latter looked long and carefully at the thing and muttered, ”Bejabbers, I never saw one like that before!” ”Don't keep the train waiting,” said the commercial, in a pretended fury, ”don't you see it's a _circular ticket_.” ”Oh, and in faith it's you that's right: it _is_ a circular ticket,” said the porter. So saying, he punched the hotel check and withdrew, leaving the three travellers to weep for joy all the way to Dublin.
A COMPOUND POSSESSIVE.
The following grammatical story will doubtless be new to most readers. A Sunday School jaunt had been arranged in an Ayrs.h.i.+re town, and the children were all ready to go in carts to a field, some miles away, for games and open-air junketing. Everyone was impatient to set out, but the piper was late, and the procession of carts could not start without music. The minister became impatient, and sent a youth to tell the piper to hurry up. The boy, on coming to the piper's house, saw a woman standing at the door, and addressed her in these words: ”_Are you the man-that-plays-the-pipes's wife?_”
SIXTEEN MEDALS.
Those who doubt the efficacy of self-lauding advertis.e.m.e.nt are refuted by this story. A commercial traveller, representing a whisky firm, craved an order from a small Highland innkeeper. ”Come, Donald,” he said, ”you must give me an order this time.” ”You will be getting no order from me, for your whisky is no good whatever. Dewar of Perth has got sixteen medals for his whisky; it is so good to drink, and makes people drunk so nice and quiet. But _your firm never got a single medal for filling folk fou_.” The granting of medals for quiet and comely intoxication is a brilliant, although droll, idea.
”SHE'S AULD, AND SHE'S THIN, AND SHE'LL KEEP.”
In a lone isle of the West, funerals are functions that cannot be celebrated (at least in the way consecrated tradition prescribes) without ample dispensing of whisky among the mourners. As there is no pier on the island, the steamer very frequently may not be able to call for days, during the terrific gales of winter. The legitimate stores of insular whisky thus occasionally become exhausted, and should a death occur during the period of dearth, a very regrettable situation arises.
In the epigrammatic style of King James I., who used to say ”_No bishop, no king_,” we might express the difficulty by saying _No whisky, no funeral_. While a gale of exceptional ferocity was raging some winters ago, an old woman pa.s.sed away, and there was not enough whisky on the island to bury her with credit. Her son scanned the angry sky and sea daily, in the hope that the weather would show signs of clearing up.
After a week's blighted hopes, he still refused to sanction interment, remarking, ”_She's auld, and she's thin, and she'll keep_.” Next day the sea was calm, the _Dunara_ called, and the old lady got her _munera pulveris_.
THE WILL O' THE DEAD.
The foregoing story suggested to one of the auditors the tale told in connection with the death of Lord Forglen, one of the Judges of the Court of Session, in 1727. After a long illness, in which he had endured the expert advice of several eminent physicians, Forglen, one morning, departed into the land of shadows. Not knowing of the fatal termination, one of the medical men, Dr. Clark, called as usual and asked David Reid, clerk to Forglen, how his master was. David's answer was: ”I houp he's well,”--a gentle euphuism, indicating that all was over, and also a timid hope that Heaven had received a new inhabitant. The doctor was shown into a room where he saw two dozen of wine under the table. Other doctors arriving, David made them all take seats, while he detailed, with much pathos, the affecting incidents of his master's dying hours.
As an antidote to their grief, the company took a gla.s.s or two, and thereafter the doctors rose to depart, but David detained them. ”No, no, gentlemen; not so. It was the express will o' the dead that I should fill ye a' fou, and I maun fulfil the will o' the dead.” All the time the tears were streaming down his cheeks. ”And indeed,” said Dr. Clark afterwards, when telling the story, ”he did fulfil the will o' the dead, for before the end o't there was na ane of us able to bite his ain thoom.”
SORRY FOR LONDON.
The following story is a good example of insular patriotism. Certain shooting tourists in the island of Mull, who hailed from London, and who were expecting important news from the capital, were greatly exasperated to find, on calling at the local post-office, that telegraphic communication with the mainland had broken down. Some very uncanonical language was indulged in, which the local postmaster deeply resented.
One tourist after another, exclaimed with blank despair: ”Alas, poor Mull will get no news from London to-day.” ”What will Mull do without the London news?” ”No news from London, what a misfortune for Mull!”
This harping on the forlornness of the island caused the blood of the postmaster to boil with indignation, and he shouted in ire: ”It is not Mull I will be sorry for, at all, at all. Mull can do without the London news. But what will poor London do, when she finds she will not be able to get any news from Tobermory, or from Salen, or from Dervaig, or from Craignure, or from Lochdon, or from Lochbuie, or from Bunessan, the whole of this blessed day!”
”RAITHER UNCEEVIL.”
A well-known boat, _The Stormy Petrel_, had been to Ardrossan for coal, and was conveying the precious cargo to the romantic terminus of Cairndow at the head of Loch Fyne. At St. Catherine's a great thirst took possession of the crew, and they put in there for refreshments. The conversation was most animated, and extended itself over a wide tract of political and theological topics. On setting out for Cairndow early next morning, all the crew had wistful, l.u.s.treless eyes, confused thoughts, and bad consciences. He to whom the coal was being conveyed, was awaiting them. He rowed out to _The Stormy Petrel_ in a small boat, and on coming near a.s.sailed them, in English and Gaelic, with all the most vituperative expressions he could remember. But the crew, each and all of them, knew they had been guilty of culpable delay, and uttered not a word, good or bad, as their a.s.sailant rowed round their boat and withered them with his invective. They had no fight left in them, and sat, with bowed heads, till the storm would subside. After enduring the agony for half an hour, one of the crew looked up and said, ”Do you no'
think, Mr. Sanderson, that you're _raither unceevil so early in the morning_?” This remark, uttered in a quiet, sad, reproachful way, staggered Mr. Sanderson far more than the most thunderous abuse would have done, and brought home to him the undoubted fact that he had been defective on the score of good taste.
AN UNWELCOME RECITATION.