Part 30 (2/2)
An entertaining anecdote, ill.u.s.trative of life in the Scotch Highlands, is told by a border minister who once found himself a guest at a Presbytery meeting.
”After dinner, though there was no wine, there was no lack of whiskey.
This, each made into toddy, weak or strong, just as he liked it. No set speeches were made or toasts proposed. After each had drunk two or three tumblers, and no voice was heard above the hum of conversation, the stranger got to his feet, and craving the leave of the company, begged to propose a toast. All were silent, until the moderator, with solemn voice, told him that G.o.d's people in that part of the country were not in the habit of drinking toasts. He felt himself rebuked, yet rejoined, that he had been in a good many places, but had never before seen G.o.d's people drink so much toddy.”
=Sending Him to Sleep=
”Sleepin, Tonald?” said a Highlander to a drowsy acquaintance, whom he found ruminating on the gra.s.s in a horizontal position.
”No, Tuncan,” was the ready answer.
”Then, Tonald, would you'll no' lend me ten and twenty s.h.i.+llings?” was the next question.
”Ough, ough!” was the response with a heavy snore; ”I'm sleepin' now, Tuncan, my lad.”
How convenient it would be if we could always evade troublesome requests, like our Highlander here, by feigning ourselves in the land of dreams!
=Wiser Than Solomon=
Two Scotch lairds conversing, one said to the other that he thought they were wiser than Solomon. ”How's that?” said the other. ”Why,” said the first, ”he did not know whether his son might not be a fool, and we know that ours are sure to be.”
=Modern Improvements=
Sir Alexander Ramsay had been constructing, upon his estate in Scotland, a piece of machinery, which was driven by a stream of water running through the home farmyard. There was a thres.h.i.+ng machine, a winnowing machine, a circular saw for splitting trees, and other contrivances.
Observing an old man, who had been long about the place, looking very attentively at all that was going on, Sir Alexander said:
”Wonderful things people can do now, Robby?”
”Ay, indeed, Sir Alexander,” said Robby; ”I'm thinking that if Solomon was alive now, he'd be thought naething o'!” [7]
=Knox and Claverhouse=
The shortest chronicle of the Reformation, by Knox, and of the wars of Claverhouse (Claver'se) in Scotland, which we know of, is that of an old lady who, in speaking of those troublous times remarked: ”Scotland had a sair time o't. First we had Knox deavin' us wi' his clavers, and syne we've had Claver'se deavin' us wi' his knocks.”
=A Scotch Fair Proclamation of Olden Days=
”Oh, yes!--an' that's e'e time. Oh, yes!--an' that's twa times. Oh, yes!--an that's the third and last time. All manner of person or persons whatsover let 'em draw near, an' I shall let 'em ken that there is a fair to be held at the muckle town of Langholm, for the s.p.a.ce of aught days, wherein any hustrin, custrin, land-hopper dub-shouper, or gent-the-gate-swinger, shall breed any hurdam, durdam, rabble-ment, babble-ment or squabble-ment, he shall have his lugs tacked to the muckle throne with a nail of twa-a-penny, until he's down on his bodshanks, and up with his muckle doup, and pray to ha'en nine times, 'G.o.d bless the King,' and thrice the muckle Laird of Reltown, paying a goat to me, Jemmy Ferguson, baillie to the aforesaid manor. So you've heard my proclamation, and I'll gang hame to my dinner.”
=”Though Lost to Sight--to Memory Dear!”=
Some time ago a good wife, residing in the neighborhood of Perth, went to town to purchase some little necessaries, and to visit several of her old acquaintances. In the course of her peregrinations she had the misfortune to lose a one-pound note. Returning home with a saddened heart she encountered her husband, employed in the cottage garden, to whom she communicated at great length all her transactions in town, concluding with the question: ”But man you canna guess what's befaun me?”
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