Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character by Edward Bannerman Ramsay

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In Lanarkshire there lived a sma' sma' laird named Hamilton, who was
noted for his eccentricity. On one occasion, a neighbour waited on him,
and requested his name as an accommodation to a "bit bill" for twenty
pounds at three months' date, which led to the following characteristic
and truly Scottish colloquy:--"Na, na, I canna do that." "What for no,
laird? ye hae dune the same thing for ithers." "Ay, ay, Tammas, but
there's wheels within wheels ye ken naething about; I canna do't." "It's
a sma' affair to refuse me, laird." "Weel, ye see, Tammas, if I was to
pit my name till't, ye wad get the siller frae the bank, and when the
time came round, ye wadna be ready, and I wad hae to pay't; sae then you
and me wad quarrel; sae we may just as weel quarrel _the noo_, as lang's
the siller's in ma pouch." On one occasion, Hamilton having business
with the late Duke of Hamilton at Hamilton Palace, the Duke politely
asked him to lunch. A liveried servant waited upon them, and was most
assiduous in his attentions to the Duke and his guest. At last our
eccentric friend lost patience, and looking at the servant, addressed
him thus, "What the deil for are ye dance, dancing, about the room that
gait? can ye no draw in your chair and sit down? I'm sure there's
_plenty on the table for three_."

As a specimen of the old-fashioned Laird, now become a Reminiscence, who
adhered pertinaciously to old Scottish usages, and to the old Scottish
dialect, I cannot, I am sure, adduce a better specimen than Mr.
Fergusson of Pitfour, to whose servant I have already referred. He was
always called Pitfour, from the name of his property in Aberdeenshire.
He must have died fifty years ago. He was for many years M.P. for the
county of Aberdeen, and I have reason to believe that he made the
enlightened parliamentary declaration which has been given to others: He
said "he had often heard speeches in the _House_, which had changed his
opinion, but none that had ever changed his vote." I recollect hearing
of his dining in London sixty years ago, at the house of a Scottish
friend, where there was a swell party, and Pitfour was introduced as a
great northern proprietor, and county M.P. A fashionable lady patronised
him graciously, and took great charge of him, and asked him about his
estates. Pitfour was very dry and sparing in his communications, as for
example, "What does your home farm chiefly produce, Mr. Fergusson?"
Answer, "Girss." "I beg your pardon, Mr. Fergusson, what does your home
farm produce?" All she could extract was, "Girss."

Of another laird, whom I heard often spoken of in old times, an anecdote
was told strongly Scottish. Our friend had much difficulty (as many
worthy lairds have had) in meeting the claims of those two woeful
periods of the year called with us in Scotland the "tarmes." He had been
employing for some time as workman a stranger from the south on some
house repairs, of the not uncommon name in England of Christmas. His
servant early one morning called out at the laird's door in great
excitement that "Christmas had run away, and nobody knew where he had
gone." He coolly turned in his bed with the ejaculation, "I only wish he
had taken Whitsunday and Martinmas along with him." I do not know a
better illustration of quiet, shrewd, and acute Scottish humour than the
following little story, which an esteemed correspondent mentions having
heard from his father when a boy, relating to a former Duke of Athole,
who had _no family of his own_, and whom he mentions as having
remembered very well:--He met, one morning, one of his cottars or
gardeners, whose wife he knew to be in the _hopeful way_. Asking him
"how Marget was the day," the man replied that she had that morning
given him twins. Upon which the Duke said,--"Weel, Donald; ye ken the
Almighty never sends bairns without the meat." "That may be, your
Grace," said Donald; "but whiles I think that Providence maks a mistak
in thae matters, and sends the bairns to ae hoose and the meat to
anither!" The Duke took the hint, and sent him a cow with calf the
following morning.

I have heard of an amusing scene between a laird, noted for his
meanness, and a wandering sort of Edie Ochiltree, a well-known itinerant
who lived by his wits and what he could pick up in his rounds amongst
the houses through the country. The laird, having seen the beggar sit
down near his gate to examine the contents of his pock or wallet,
conjectured that he had come from his house, and so drew near to see
what he had carried off. As the laird was keenly investigating the
mendicant's spoils, his quick eye detected some bones on which there
remained more meat than should have been allowed to leave his kitchen.
Accordingly he pounced upon the bones, declaring he had been robbed, and
insisted on the beggar returning to the house and giving back the spoil.
He was, however, prepared for the attack, and sturdily defended his
property, boldly asserting, "Na, na, laird, thae are no Tod-brae banes;
they are Inch-byre banes, and nane o' your honour's"--meaning that he
had received these bones at the house of a neighbour of a more liberal
character. The beggar's professional discrimination between the merits
of the bones of the two mansions, and his pertinacious defence of his
own property, would have been most amusing to a bystander.

I have, however, a reverse story, in which the beggar is quietly
silenced by the proprietor. A noble lord, some generations back, well
known for his frugal habits, had just picked up a small copper coin in
his own avenue, and had been observed by one of the itinerating
mendicant race, who, grudging the transfer of the piece into the peer's
pocket, exclaimed, "O, gie't to me, my lord;" to which the quiet answer
was, "Na, na; fin' a fardin' for yersell, puir body."

There are always pointed anecdotes against houses wanting in a liberal
and hospitable expenditure in Scotland. Thus, we have heard of a master
leaving such a mansion, and taxing his servant with being drunk, which
he had too often been after other country visits. On this occasion,
however, he was innocent of the charge, for he had not the _opportunity_
to transgress. So, when his master asserted, "Jemmy, you are drunk!"
Jemmy very quietly answered, "Indeed, sir, I wish I wur." At another
mansion, notorious for scanty fare, a gentleman was inquiring of the
gardener about a dog which some time ago he had given to the laird. The
gardener showed him a lank greyhound, on which the gentleman said, "No,
no; the dog I gave your master was a mastiff, not a greyhound;" to which
the gardener quietly answered, "Indeed, ony dog micht sune become a
greyhound by stopping here."

From a friend and relative, a minister of the Established Church of
Scotland, I used to hear many characteristic stories. He had a curious
vein of this sort of humour in himself, besides what he brought out from
others. One of his peculiarities was a mortal antipathy to the whole
French nation, whom he frequently abused in no measured terms. At the
same time he had great relish of a glass of claret, which he considered
the prince of all social beverages. So he usually finished off his
antigallican tirades, with the reservation, "But the bodies brew the
braw drink." He lived amongst his own people, and knew well the habits
and peculiarities of a race gone by. He had many stories connected with
the pastoral relation between minister and people, and all such stories
are curious, not merely for their amusement, but from the illustration
they afford us of that peculiar Scottish humour which we are now
describing. He had himself, when a very young boy, before he came up to
the Edinburgh High School, been at the parochial school where he
resided, and which, like many others, at that period, had a considerable
reputation for the skill and scholarship of the master. He used to
describe school scenes rather different, I suspect, from school scenes
in our day. One boy, on coming late, explained that the cause had been a
regular pitched battle between his parents, with the details of which he
amused his school-fellows; and he described the battle in vivid and
Scottish Homeric terms: "And eh, as they faucht, and they faucht,"
adding, however, with much complacency, "but my minnie dang, she
did tho'."

There was a style of conversation and quaint modes of expression between
ministers and their people at that time, which, I suppose, would seem
strange to the present generation; as, for example, I recollect a
conversation between this relative and one of his parishioners of this
description.--It had been a very wet and unpromising autumn. The
minister met a certain Janet of his flock, and accosted her very kindly.
He remarked, "Bad prospect for the har'st (harvest), Janet, this wet."
_Janet_--"Indeed, sir, I've seen as muckle as that there'll be nae
har'st the year." _Minister_--"Na, Janet, deil as muckle as that't
ever you saw."

As I have said, he was a clergyman of the Established Church, and had
many stories about ministers and people, arising out of his own pastoral
experience, or the experience of friends and neighbours. He was much
delighted with the not very refined rebuke which one of his own farmers
had given to a young minister who had for some Sundays occupied his
pulpit. The young man had dined with the farmer in the afternoon when
services were over, and his appetite was so sharp, that he thought it
necessary to apologise to his host for eating so substantial a
dinner.--"You see," he said, "I am always very hungry after preaching."
The old gentleman, not much admiring the youth's pulpit ministrations,
having heard this apology two or three times, at last replied
sarcastically, "Indeed, sir, I'm no surprised at it, considering the
_trash_ that comes aff your stamach in the morning."

What I wish to keep in view is, to distinguish anecdotes which are
amusing on account merely of the expressions used, from those which have
real wit and humour _combined_, with the purely Scottish vehicle in
which they are conveyed.

Of this class I could not have a better specimen to commence with than
the defence of the liturgy of his church, by John Skinner of Langside,
of whom previous mention has been made. It is witty and clever.

Being present at a party (I think at Lord Forbes's), where were also
several ministers of the Establishment, the conversation over their wine
turned, among other things, on the Prayer Book. Skinner took no part in
it, till one minister remarked to him, "The great faut I hae to your
prayer-book is that ye use the Lord's Prayer sae aften,--ye juist mak a
dishclout o't." Skinner's rejoinder was, "Verra true! Ay, man, we mak a
dishclout o't, an' we wring't, an' we wring't, an' we wring't, an' the
bree[163] o't washes a' the lave o' our prayers."

No one, I think, could deny the wit of the two following rejoinders.

A ruling elder of a country parish in the west of Scotland was well
known in the district as a shrewd and ready-witted man. He received many
a visit from persons who liked a banter, or to hear a good joke. Three
young students gave him a call in order to have a little amusement at
the elder's expense. On approaching him, one of them saluted him, "Well,
Father Abraham, how are you to-day?" "You are wrong," said the other,
"this is old Father Isaac." "Tuts," said the third, "you are both
mistaken; this is old Father Jacob." David looked at the young men, and
in his own way replied, "I am neither old Father Abraham, nor old Father
Isaac, nor old Father Jacob; but I am Saul the son of Kish, seeking his
father's asses, and lo! I've found three o' them."

For many years the Baptist community of Dunfermline was presided over by
brothers David Dewar and James Inglis, the latter of whom has just
recently gone to his reward. Brother David was a plain, honest,
straightforward man, who never hesitated to express his convictions,
however unpalatable they might be to others. Being elected a member of
the Prison Board, he was called upon to give his vote in the choice of a
chaplain from the licentiates of the Established Kirk. The party who had
gained the confidence of the Board had proved rather an indifferent
preacher in a charge to which he had previously been appointed; and on
David being asked to signify his assent to the choice of the Board, he
said, "Weel, I've no objections to the man, for I understand he has
preached a kirk toom (empty) already, and if he be as successful in the
jail, he'll maybe preach it vawcant as weel."

From Mr. Inglis, clerk of the Court of Session, I have the following
Scottish rejoinder:--

"I recollect my father relating a conversation between a Perthshire
laird and one of his tenants. The laird's eldest son was rather a
simpleton. Laird says, 'I am going to send the young laird abroad,'
'What for?' asks the tenant; answered, 'To see the world;' tenant
replies, 'But, lord-sake, laird, will no the world see _him_?'"

An admirably humorous reply is recorded of a Scotch officer, well known
and esteemed in his day for mirth and humour. Captain Innes of the
Guards (usually called Jock Innes by his contemporaries) was with others
getting ready for Flushing or some of those expeditions of the beginning
of the great war. His commanding officer (Lord Huntly, my correspondent
thinks) remonstrated about the badness of his hat, and recommended a new
one--"Na, na! bide a wee," said Jock; "where we're gain' faith there'll
soon be mair hats nor _heads_."

I recollect being much amused with a Scottish reference of this kind in
the heart of London. Many years ago a Scotch party had dined at
Simpson's famous beef-steak house in the Strand. On coming away some of
the party could not find their hats, and my uncle was jocularly asking
the waiter, whom he knew to be a _Deeside_ man, "Whar are our bonnets,
Jeems?" To which he replied, "'Deed, I mind the day when I had neither
hat nor bonnet."

There is an odd and original way of putting a matter sometimes in Scotch
people, which is irresistibly comic, although by the persons nothing
comic is intended; as for example, when in 1786 Edinburgh was
illuminated on account of the recovery of George III. from severe
illness. In a house where great preparation was going on for the
occasion, by getting the candles fixed in tin sconces, an old nurse of
the family, looking on, exclaimed, "Ay, it's a braw time for the
cannel-makers when the king is sick, honest man!"

Scottish farmers of the old school were a shrewd and humorous race,
sometimes not indisposed to look with a little jealousy upon their
younger brethren, who, on their part, perhaps, showed their contempt for
the old-fashioned ways. I take the following example from the columns of
the _Peterhead Sentinel_, just as it appeared--June 14, 1861:--

"AN ANECDOTE FOR DEAN EAMSAY.--The following characteristic and amusing
anecdote was communicated to us the other day by a gentleman who
happened to be a party to the conversation detailed below. This
gentleman was passing along a road not a hundred miles from Peterhead
one day this week. Two different farms skirt the separate sides of the
turnpike, one of which is rented by a farmer who cultivates his land
according to the most advanced system of agriculture, and the other of
which is farmed by a gentleman of the old school. Our informant met the
latter worthy at the side of the turnpike opposite his neighbour's farm,
and seeing a fine crop of wheat upon what appeared to be [and really
was] very thin and poor land, asked, 'When was that wheat sown?' 'O I
dinna ken,' replied the gentleman of the old school, with a sort of
half-indifference, half-contempt. 'But isn't it strange that such a fine
crop should be reared on such bad land?' asked our informant. 'O,
na--nae at a'--deevil thank it; a gravesteen wad gie guid bree[164] gin
ye gied it plenty o' butter!'"

But perhaps the best anecdote illustrative of the keen shrewdness of the
Scottish farmer is related by Mr. Boyd[165] in one of his charming
series of papers, reprinted from _Fraser's Magazine_. "A friend of mine,
a country parson, on first going to his parish, resolved to farm his
glebe for himself. A neighbouring farmer kindly offered the parson to
plough one of his fields. The farmer said that he would send his man
John with a plough and a pair of horses on a certain day. 'If ye're
goin' about,' said the farmer to the clergyman, 'John will be unco weel
pleased if you speak to him, and say it's a fine day, or the like o'
that; but dinna,' said the farmer, with much solemnity, 'dinna say
onything to him about ploughin' and sawin'; for John,' he added, 'is a
stupid body, but he has been ploughin' and sawin' a' his life, and he'll
see in a minute that _ye_ ken naething aboot ploughin' and sawin'. And
then,' said the sagacious old farmer, with much earnestness, 'if he
comes to think that ye ken naething aboot ploughin' and sawin', he'll
think that ye ken naething aboot onything!'"

The following is rather an original commentary, by a layman, upon
clerical incomes:--A relative of mine going to church with a Forfarshire
farmer, one of the old school, asked him the amount of the minister's
stipend. He said, "Od, it's a gude ane--the maist part of L300 a year."
"Well," said my relative, "many of these Scotch ministers are but poorly
off." "They've eneuch, sir, they've eneuch; if they'd mair, it would
want a' their time to the spendin' o't."

Scotch gamekeepers had often much dry quiet humour. I was much amused by
the answer of one of those under the following circumstances:--An
Ayrshire gentleman, who was from the first a very bad shot, or rather no
shot at all, when out on 1st of September, having failed, time after
time, in bringing down a single bird, had at last pointed out to him by
his attendant bag-carrier a large covey, thick and close on the
stubbles. "Noo, Mr. Jeems, let drive at them, just as they are!" Mr.
Jeems did let drive, as advised, but not a feather remained to testify
the shot. All flew off, safe and sound--"Hech, sir (remarks his friend),
but ye've made thae yins _shift their quarters_."

The two following anecdotes of rejoinders from Scottish guidwives, and
for which I am indebted, as for many other kind communications, to the
Rev. Mr. Blair of Dunblane, appear to me as good examples of the
peculiar Scottish pithy phraseology which we refer to, as any that I
have met with.

An old lady from whom the "Great Unknown" had derived many an ancient
tale, was waited upon one day by the author of "Waverley." On his
endeavouring to give the authorship the go-by, the old dame protested,
"D'ye think, sir, I dinna ken my ain groats in ither folk's kail[166]?"

A conceited packman called at a farm-house in the west of Scotland, in
order to dispose of some of his wares. The goodwife was offended by his
southern accent, and his high talk about York, London, and other big
places. "An' whaur come ye frae yersell?" was the question of the
guidwife. "Ou, I am from the Border." "The Border--oh! I thocht that;
for we aye think the _selvidge_ is the wakest bit o' the wab!"

The following is a good specimen of ready Scotch humorous reply, by a
master to his discontented workman, and in which he turned the tables
upon him, in his reference to Scripture. In a town of one of the central
counties a Mr. J---- carried on, about a century ago, a very extensive
business in the linen manufacture. Although _strikes_ were then unknown
among the labouring classes, the spirit from which these take their rise
has no doubt at all times existed. Among Mr. J----'s many workmen, one
had given him constant annoyance for years, from his discontented and
argumentative spirit. Insisting one day on getting something or other
which his master thought most unreasonable, and refused to give in to,
he at last submitted, with a bad grace, saying, "You're nae better than
_Pharaoh_, sir, forcin' puir folk to mak' bricks without straw." "Well,
Saunders," quietly rejoined his master, "if I'm nae better than Pharaoh
in one respect, I'll be better in another, for _I'll no hinder ye going
to the wilderness whenever you choose_."

Persons who are curious in Scottish stories of wit and humour speak much
of the sayings of a certain "Laird of Logan," who was a well-known
character in the West of Scotland. This same Laird of Logan was at a
meeting of the heritors of Cumnock, where a proposal was made to erect a
new churchyard wall. He met the proposition with the dry remark, "I
never big dykes till the _tenants_ complain." Calling one day for a gill
of whisky in a public-house, the Laird was asked if he would take any
water with the spirit. "Na, na," replied he, "I would rather ye would
tak the water out o't."

The laird sold a horse to an Englishman, saying, "You buy him as you
see him; but he's an _honest_ beast." The purchaser took him home. In a
few days he stumbled and fell, to the damage of his own knees and his
rider's head. On this the angry purchaser remonstrated with the laird,
whose reply was, "Well, sir, I told ye he was an honest beast; many a
time has he threatened to come down with me, and I kenned he would keep
his word some day."

At the time of the threatened invasion, the laird had been taunted at a
meeting at Ayr with want of loyal spirit at Cumnock, as at that place no
volunteer corps had been raised to meet the coming danger; Cumnock, it
should be recollected, being on a high situation, and ten or twelve
miles from the coast. "What sort of people are you up at Cumnock?" said
an Ayr gentleman; "you have not a single volunteer!" "Never you heed,"
says Logan, very quietly; "if the French land at Ayr, there will soon be
plenty of volunteers up at Cumnock."

A pendant to the story of candid admission on the part of the minister,
that the people might be _weary_ after his sermon, has been given on the
authority of the narrator, a Fife gentleman, ninety years of age when he
told it. He had been to church at Elie, and listening to a young and
perhaps bombastic preacher, who happened to be officiating for the Rev.
Dr. Milligan, who was in church. After service, meeting the Doctor in
the passage, he introduced the young clergyman, who, on being asked by
the old man how he did, elevated his shirt collar, and complained of
fatigue, and being very much "_tired_." "Tired, did ye say, my man?"
said the old satirist, who was slightly deaf; "Lord, man! if you're
_half_ as tired as I am, I pity ye!"

I have been much pleased with an offering from Carluke, containing two
very pithy anecdotes. Mr. Rankin very kindly writes:--"Your
'Reminiscences' are most refreshing. I am very little of a
story-collector, but I have recorded some of an old schoolmaster, who
was a story-teller. As a sort of payment for the amusement I have
derived from your book, I shall give one or two."

He sends the two following:--

"Shortly after Mr. Kay had been inducted schoolmaster of Carluke (1790),
the bederal called at the school, verbally announcing,
proclamation-ways, that Mrs. So-and-So's funeral would be on Fuirsday.
'At what hour?' asked the dominie. 'Ou, ony time atween ten and twa.' At
two o'clock of the day fixed, Mr. Kay--quite a stranger to the customs
of the district--arrived at the place, and was astonished to find a
crowd of men and lads, standing here and there, some smoking, and all
_arglebargling_[167] as if at the end of a fair. He was instantly, but
mysteriously, approached, and touched on the arm by a red-faced
bareheaded man, who seemed to be in authority, and was beckoned to
follow. On entering the barn, which was seated all round, he found
numbers sitting, each with the head bent down, and each with his hat
between his knees--all gravity and silence. Anon a voice was heard
issuing from the far end, and a long prayer was uttered. They had worked
at this--what was called '_a service_'--during three previous hours, one
party succeeding another, and many taking advantage of every service,
which consisted of a prayer by way of grace, a glass of _white_ wine, a
glass of _red_ wine, a glass of _rum_, and a prayer by way of
thanksgiving. After the long invocation, bread and wine passed round.
Silence prevailed. Most partook of both _rounds_ of wine, but when the
rum came, many nodded refusal, and by and by the nodding seemed to be
universal, and the trays passed on so much the more quickly. A sumphish
weather-beaten man, with a large flat blue bonnet on his knee, who had
nodded unwittingly, and was about to lose the last chance of a glass of
rum, raised his head, saying, amid the deep silence, 'Od, I daursay I
_wull_ tak anither glass,' and in a sort of vengeful, yet apologetic
tone, added, 'The auld jaud yince cheated me wi' a cauve' (calf)."

At a farmer's funeral in the country, an undertaker was in charge of the
ceremonial, and directing how it was to proceed, when he noticed a
little man giving orders, and, as he thought, rather encroaching upon
the duties and privileges of his own office. He asked him, "And wha are
ye, mi' man, that tak sae muckle on ye?" "Oh, dinna ye ken?" said the
man, under a strong sense of his own importance, "I'm the corp's
brither[168]?"

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