Part 27 (2/2)
”Gudewife,” said the farmer, ”Jock says he has ower little milk.”
”There's milk enough for a' my bread,” said the sly rogue.
=The Shoemaker and Small Feet=
A lady, who seemed rather vain, entered a bootmaker's shop one day with the usual complaint; ”Why, Mr. S----, these boots you last made for me are much too big; I really can't understand how you always make that mistake. Can you not make small boots?”
”Ou, ay,” quickly responded the man; ”I can mak' sma' buits, but I'm sorry I canna mak' sma' feet.”
=Pleasant Prospect Beyond the Grave=
An elderly lady, intending to purchase the upper flat of a house in Prince's Street, opposite the West Church Burying-ground, Edinburgh, from which the chain of Pentland Hills formed a beautiful background, after having been made acquainted with all its conveniences, and the beauty of its situation, elegantly enumerated by the builder, he requested her to cast her eye on the romantic hills at a distance, on the other side of the church-yard. The lady admitted that she had ”certainly a most pleasant prospect _beyond the grave_.”
=Pulpit Foolery=
The Rev. Hamilton Paul, a Scotch clergyman, is said to have been a reviver of Dean Swift's walk of wit in choice of texts. For example, when he left the town of Ayr, where he was understood to have been a great favorite with the fair s.e.x, he preached his valedictory sermon from this pa.s.sage, ”And they all fell upon Paul's neck and kissed him.”
Another time, when he was called on to preach before a military company in green uniforms, he preached from the words, ”And I beheld men like trees walking.” Paul was always ready to have a gibe at the damsels.
Near Portobello, there is a sea-bathing place named Joppa, and Paul's congregation was once thinned by the number of his female votaries who went thither. On the Sabbath after their wending he preached from the text, ”Send men to Joppa.” In a similar manner he improved the occasion of the mysterious disappearance of one of his paris.h.i.+oners, Moses Marshall, by selecting for his text the pa.s.sage from Exodus xxii, ”As for this Moses, we wot not what is become of him.” He once made serious proposals to a young lady whose Christian name was Lydia. On this occasion the clerical wit took for his text: ”And a certain woman, named Lydia, heard us; whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.” [9]
=A Restful Preacher=
Dean Ramsay relates that the Earl of Lauderdale was alarmingly ill, one distressing symptom being a total absence of sleep, without which the medical man declared he could not recover. His son, who was somewhat simple, was seated under the table, and cried out, ”Sen' for that preaching man frae Livingstone, for fayther aye sleeps in the kirk.” One of the doctors thought the hint worth attending to, and the experiment of ”getting a minister till him” succeeded, for sleep came on and the earl recovered. [7]
=Why the Bishops Disliked the Bible=
A Bishop of Dunkeld, in Scotland, before the Reformation, thanked G.o.d that he never knew what the Old and New Testaments were, affirming that he cared to know no more than his Portius and Pontifical. At a diet in Germany, one Bishop Albertus, lighting by chance upon a Bible, commenced reading; one of his colleagues asked him what book it was. ”I know not,”
was the reply, ”but this I find, that whatever I read in it, is utterly against our religion.” [9]
=The Same with a Difference=
A young wit asked a man who rode about on a wretched horse: ”Is that the same horse you had last year?” ”Na,” said the man, brandis.h.i.+ng his whip in the interrogator's face in so emphatic a manner as to preclude further questioning; ”na, but it's the same _whup_.” [7]
=Official Consolation and Callousness=
A friend has told me of a characteristic answer given by a driver to a traveler who complained of an inconvenience. A gentleman sitting opposite my friend in the stage-coach at Berwick, complained bitterly that the cus.h.i.+on on which he sat was quite wet. On looking up to the roof he saw a hole through which the rain descended copiously, and at once accounted for the mischief. He called for the coachman, and in great wrath reproached him with the evil under which he suffered, and pointed to the hole which was the cause of it. All the satisfaction, however, that he got was the quiet unmoved reply, ”Ay, mony a ane has complained o' _that_ hole.” [7]
=Objecting to Scotch ”Tarmes”=
In early times a Scotch laird had much difficulty (as many worthy lairds have still) in meeting the claims of those two woful periods of the year called in Scotland the ”tarmes.” He had been employing for some time, as workman, a stranger from the south, on some house repairs. The workman rejoiced in the not uncommon name in England of ”Christmas.” The laird's servant, early one morning, called out at his bedroom door, in great excitement, that ”Christmas had run away, and n.o.body knew where he had gone.” He turned in his bed with the earnest e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, ”I only wish he had taken Whitsunday and Martinmas along with him.”
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