Part 16 (1/2)

=Highland Simplicity=

On one occasion a young girl fresh from the West Highlands came on a visit to a sister she had residing in Glasgow. At the outskirts of the town she stopped at a toll-bar, and began to rap smartly with her knuckles on the gate. The keeper, amused at the girl's action, and curious to know what she wanted, came out, when she very demurely interrogated him as follows:

”Is this Glasco?”

”Yes.”

”Is Peggy in?”

=The Fall of Adam and Its Consequences=

As might have been expected, perhaps, Dean Ramsay is especially copious in clerical stories and those trenching on theological topics. He tells us how a man who was asked what Adam was like, first described our general forefather somewhat vaguely as ”just like ither fouk.” Being pressed for a more special description, he likened him to a horse-couper known to himself and the minister. ”Why was Adam like that horse-couper?” ”Weel,” replied the catechumen, ”naebody got onything by him, and mony lost.”

=Remarkable Presence of Mind=

A well-known parsimonious Scottish professor was working one day in his garden in his ordinary beggarlike attire, and was alarmed to see the carriage of the great man of the parish whirling rapidly along the road to his house. It was too late to attempt a retreat, and get himself put in order to receive ”my lord.” To retreat was impossible; to remain there and as he was, to be shamed and disgraced. With a prompt.i.tude seldom or never surpa.s.sed, he struck his battered hat down on his shoulders, drew up his hands into the sleeves of his ragged coat, stuck out his arms at an acute angle, planted his legs far apart, and throwing rigidity into all his form, stood thus in the potato ground, the very beau-ideal of what in England is called a ”scarecrow,” in Scotland ”a potato-bogle,” never suspected by the visitors as they drove up to the front entrance, while he made for the back door to don his best suit.

=Beginning Life Where He Ought to Have Ended, and Vice Versa=

A worthy Scotch couple, when asked how their son had broken down so early in life, gave the following explanation: ”When we began life together we worked hard and lived on porridge, and such like; gradually adding to our comforts as our means improved, until we were able to dine off a bit of roast beef, and sometimes a boiled chickie (chicken); but Jack, our son, he worked backwards and began with the chickie first.”

=How to Exterminate Old Thieves=

The humorous, but stern criminal judge, Lord Braxfield, had a favorite maxim which he used frequently to repeat: ”Hang a thief when he's young, and he'll no steal when he's auld.”

=A Sympathetic Hearer=

An old minister in the Cheviots used, when excited in the pulpit, to raise his voice to a loud half-whimper, half-whine. One day a shepherd had brought with him a young collie, who became so thrilled by the high note of the preacher that he also broke out into a quaver so like the other that the minister stopped short. ”Put out that collie,” he said, angrily. The shepherd, equally angry, seized the animal by the neck, and as he dragged him down the aisle, sent back the growling retort at the pulpit, ”It was yersel' begond it!”

=Ginger Ale=

A short time since, a bailie of Glasgow invited some of his electioneering friends to a dinner, during which the champagne circulated freely, and was much relished by the honest bodies; when one of them, more fond of it than the rest, bawled out to the servant who waited, ”I say, Jock, gie us some mair o' that _ginger yill_, will ye?”

=A Conditional Promise=

At Hawick, the people used to wear wooden clogs, which made a _clanking_ noise on the pavement. A dying old woman had some friends by her bedside, who said to her: ”Weel, Jenny, ye are gaun to heaven, and gin ye should see our folk, ye can tell them that we're all weel.” To which Jenny replied: ”Weel, gin I should see them, I'se tell 'em. But you maunna expect that I'se to gang clank, clanking thro heaven looking for your folk.”

=Scripture Examination=

An old schoolmaster, who usually heard his pupils once a week through Watts' Scripture History, and afterwards asked them promiscuously such questions as suggested themselves to his mind, one day desired a young urchin to tell him who Jesse was; when the boy briskly replied, ”The Flower of Dunblane, sir.”

=A Minor Major=