Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character by Edward Bannerman Ramsay

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The two following are from a correspondent who heard them told by the
late Dr. Barclay the anatomist, well known for his own dry
Scottish humour.

A country laird, at his death, left his property in equal shares to his
two sons, who continued to live very amicably together for many years.
At length one said to the other, "Tam, we're gettin' auld now, you'll
tak a wife, and when I dee you'll get my share o' the grund." "Na, John,
you're the youngest and maist active, you'll tak a wife, and when I dee
you'll get my share." "Od," says John, "Tam, that's jist the way wi' you
when there's ony _fash or trouble_. The deevil a thing you'll do at a'."

A country clergyman, who was not on the most friendly terms with one of
his heritors who resided in Stirling, and who had annoyed the minister
by delay in paying him his teinds (or tithe), found it necessary to make
the laird understand that his proportion of stipend must be paid so soon
as it became due. The payment came next term punctual to the time. When
the messenger was introduced to the minister, he asked who he was,
remarking that he thought he had seen him before. "I am the hangman of
Stirling, sir." "Oh, just so, take a seat till I write you a receipt."
It was evident that the laird had chosen this medium of communication
with the minister as an affront, and to show his spite. The minister,
however, turned the tables upon him, sending back an acknowledgment for
the payment in these terms:--"Received from Mr. ----, by the hands of
the hangman of Stirling, _his doer_[188], the sum of," etc. etc.

The following story of pulpit criticism by a beadle used to be told, I
am assured, by the late Rev. Dr. Andrew Thomson:--

A clergyman in the country had a stranger preaching for him one day, and
meeting his beadle, he said to him, "Well, Saunders, how did you like
the sermon to-day?" "I watna, sir; it was rather ower plain and simple
for me. I like thae sermons best that jumbles the joodgment and
confoonds the sense. Od, sir, I never saw ane that could come up to
yoursell at that."

The epithet "canny" has frequently been applied to our countrymen, not
in a severe or invidious spirit, but as indicating a due regard to
personal interest and safety. In the larger edition of Jamieson (see
edition of 1840) I find there are no fewer than eighteen meanings given
of this word. The following extract from a provincial paper, which has
been sent me, will furnish a good illustration. It is headed, the
"PROPERTY QUALIFICATION," and goes on--"Give a chartist a large estate,
and a copious supply of ready money, and you make a Conservative of him.
He can then see the other side of the moon, which he could never see
before. Once, a determined Radical in Scotland, named Davy Armstrong,
left his native village; and many years afterwards, an old fellow
grumbler met him, and commenced the old song. Davy shook his head. His
friend was astonished, and soon perceived that Davy was no longer a
grumbler, but a rank Tory. Wondering at the change, he was desirous of
knowing the reason. Davy quietly and laconically replied--'I've a coo
(cow) noo.'"

But even still more "canny" was the eye to the main chance in an
Aberdonian fellow-countryman, communicated in the following pleasant
terms from a Nairn correspondent:--"I have just been reading your
delightful 'Reminiscences,' which has brought to my recollection a story
I used to hear my father tell. It was thus:--A countryman in a remote
part of Aberdeenshire having got a newly-coined sovereign in the days
when such a thing was seldom seen in his part of the country, went about
showing it to his friends and neighbours for the charge of one penny
each sight. Evil days, however, unfortunately overtook him, and he was
obliged to part with his loved coin. Soon after, a neighbour called on
him, and asked a sight of his sovereign, at the same time tendering a
penny. 'Ah, man,' says he, 'it's gane; but I'll lat ye see _the cloutie
it was rowt in_ for a bawbee.'"

There was something very simple-minded in the manner in which a
parishioner announced his canny care for his supposed interests when he
became an elder of the kirk. The story is told of a man who had got
himself installed in the eldership, and, in consequence, had for some
time carried round the ladle for the collections. He had accepted the
office of elder because some wag had made him believe that the
remuneration was sixpence each Sunday, with a boll of meal at New Year's
Day. When the time arrived he claimed his meal, but was told he had been
hoaxed. "It may be sae wi' the meal," he said coolly, "but I took care
o' the saxpence mysell."

There was a good deal both of the _pawky_ and the _canny_ in the
following anecdote, which I have from an honoured lady of the south of
Scotland:--"There was an old man who always rode a donkey to his work,
and tethered him while he worked on the roads, or whatever else it might
be. It was suggested to him by my grandfather that he was suspected of
putting it in to feed in the fields at other people's expense. 'Eh,
laird, I could never be tempted to do that, for my cuddy winna eat
onything but nettles and thristles.' One day my grandfather was riding
along the road, when he saw Andrew Leslie at work, and his donkey up to
the knees in one of his clover fields, feeding luxuriously. 'Hollo,
Andrew,' said he; 'I thought you told me your cuddy would eat nothing
but nettles and thistles.' 'Ay,' said he, 'but he misbehaved the day; he
nearly kicket me ower his head, sae I pat him in there just to
_punish_ him.'"

There is a good deal of the same sort of simple character brought out in
the two following. They were sent to me from Golspie, and are original,
as they occurred in my correspondent's own experience. The one is a
capital illustration of thrift, the other of kind feeling for the
friendless, in the Highland character. I give the anecdotes in my
correspondent's own words:--A little boy, some twelve years of age, came
to me one day with the following message: "My mother wants a vomit from
you, sir, and she bade me say if it will not be strong enough, she will
send it back." "Oh, Mr. Begg," said a woman to me, for whom I was
weighing two grains of calomel for a child, "dinna be so mean wi' it; it
is for a poor faitherless bairn."

The following, from a provincial paper, contains a very amusing
recognition of a return which one of the itinerant race considered
himself conscientiously bound to make to his clerical patron for an
alms: "A beggar, while on his rounds one day this week, called on a
clergyman (within two and a half miles of the Cross of Kilmarnock), who,
obeying the biblical injunction of clothing the naked, offered the
beggar an old top-coat. It was immediately rolled up, and the beggar, in
going away with it under his arm, thoughtfully (!) remarked, 'I'll hae
tae gie ye a day's _hearin_' for this na.'"

The natural and self-complacent manner in which the following anecdote
brings out in the Highlander an innate sense of the superiority of
Celtic blood is highly characteristic:--A few years ago, when an English
family were visiting in the Highlands, their attention was directed to a
child crying; on their observing to the mother it was _cross_, she
exclaimed--"Na, na, it's nae cross, for we're baith true Hieland."

The late Mr. Grahame of Garsock, in Strathearn, whose grandson now "is
laird himsel," used to tell, with great _unction_, some thirty years
ago, a story of a neighbour of his own of a still earlier generation,
Drummond of Keltie, who, as it seems, had employed an itinerant tailor
instead of a metropolitan artist. On one occasion a new pair of
inexpressibles had been made for the laird; they were so tight that,
after waxing hot and red in the attempt to try them on, he _let out_
rather savagely at the tailor, who calmly assured him, "It's the fash'n;
it's jist the fash'n." "Eh, ye haveril, is it the fashion for them _no
to go on_?"

An English gentleman writes to me--"We have all heard much of Scotch
caution, and I met once with an instance of it which I think is worth
recording, and which I tell as strictly original. About 1827, I fell
into conversation, on board of a Stirling steamer, with a well-dressed
middle-aged man, who told me he was a soldier of the 42d, going on
leave. He began to relate the campaigns he had gone through, and
mentioned having been at the siege of St. Sebastian.--'Ah! under Sir
Thomas Graham?' 'Yes, sir; he commanded there.' 'Well,' I said, merely
by way of carrying on the _crack_, 'and what do you think of _him_?'
Instead of answering, he scanned me several times from head to foot,
and from foot to head, and then said, in a tone of the most diplomatic
caution, 'Ye'll perhaps be of the name of Grah'm yersel, sir?' There
could hardly be a better example, either of the circumspection of a real
canny Scot, or of the lingering influence of the old patriarchal
feeling, by which 'A name, a word, makes clansmen vassals to
their lord.'"

Now when we linger over these old stories, we seem to live at another
period, and in such reminiscences we converse with a generation
different from our own. Changes are still going on around us. They have
been going on for some time past. The changes are less striking as
society advances, and we find fewer alterations for us to notice.
Probably each generation will have less change to record than the
generation that preceded; still every one who is tolerably advanced in
life must feel that, comparing its beginning and its close, he has
witnessed two epochs, and that in advanced life he looks on a different
world from one which he can remember. To elucidate this fact has been my
present object, and in attempting this task I cannot but feel how
trifling and unsatisfactory my remarks must seem to many who have a more
enlarged and minute acquaintance with Scottish life and manners than I
have. But I shall be encouraged to hope for a favourable, or at least an
indulgent, sentence upon these Reminiscences, if to any of my readers I
shall have opened a fresh insight into the subject of social changes
amongst us. Many causes have their effect upon the habits and customs of
mankind, and of late years such causes have been greatly multiplied in
number and activity. In many persons, and in some who have not
altogether lost their national partialities, there is a general
tendency to merge Scottish usages and Scottish expressions into the
English forms, as being more correct and genteel. The facilities for
moving, not merely from place to place in our own country, but from one
country to another; the spread of knowledge and information by means of
periodical publications and newspapers; and the incredibly low prices at
which literary works are produced, must have great effects. Then there
is the improved taste in art, which, together with literature, has been
taken up by young men who, fifty, sixty, seventy years ago, or more,
would have known no such sources of interest, or indeed who would have
looked upon them as unmanly and effeminate. When first these pursuits
were taken up by our Scottish young men, they excited in the north much
amazement, and, I fear, contempt, as was evinced by a laird of the old
school, who, the first time he saw a young man at the pianoforte, asked,
with evident disgust, "Can the creature _sew_ ony?" evidently putting
the accomplishment of playing the pianoforte and the accomplishment of
the needle in the same category.

The greater facility of producing books, prints, and other articles
which tend to the comfort and embellishment of domestic life, must have
considerable influence upon the habits and tastes of a people. I have
often thought how much effect might be traced to the single circumstance
of the cheap production of pianofortes. An increased facility of
procuring the means of acquaintance with good works of art and
literature acts both as cause and effect. A growing and improved taste
tends to stimulate the _production_ of the best works of art. These, in
return, foster and advance the power of forming a due _estimate_ of art.
In the higher department of music, for example, the cheap rate not only
of _hearing_ compositions of the first class, but of _possessing_ the
works of the most eminent composers, must have had influence upon
thousands. The principal oratorios of Handel may be purchased for as
many shillings each as they cost pounds years ago. Indeed, at that time
the very names of those immortal works were known only to a few who were
skilled to appreciate their high beauties. Now associations are formed
for practising and studying the choral works of the great masters.

We might indeed adduce many more causes which seem to produce changes of
habits, tastes, and associations, amongst our people. For example,
families do not vegetate for years in one retired spot as they used to
do; young men are encouraged to attain accomplishments, and to have
other sources of interest than the field or the bottle. Every one knows,
or may know, everything that is going on through the whole world. There
is a tendency in mankind to lose all that is peculiar, and in nations to
part with all that distinguishes them from each other. We hear of
wonderful changes in habits and customs where change seemed impossible.
In India and Turkey even, peculiarities and prejudices are fading away
under the influence of time. Amongst ourselves, no doubt, one
circumstance tended greatly to call forth, and, as we may say, to
_develop_, the peculiar Scotch humour of which we speak--and that was
the familiarity of intercourse which took place between persons in
different positions of life. This extended even to an occasional
interchange of words between the minister and the members of his flock
during time of service. I have two anecdotes in illustration of this
fact, which I have reason to believe are quite authentic. In the church
of Banchory on Deeside, to which I have referred, a former minister
always preached without book, and being of an absent disposition, he
sometimes forgot the head of discourse on which he was engaged, and got
involved in confusion. On one occasion, being desirous of recalling to
his memory the division of his subject, he called out to one of his
elders, a farmer on the estate of Ley, "Bush (the name of his farm),
Bush, ye're sleeping." "Na, sir, I'm no sleeping--I'm listening." "Weel,
then, what had I begun to say?" "Oh, ye were saying so and so." This was
enough, and supplied the minister with the thread of his discourse; and
he went on. The other anecdote related to the parish of Cumbernauld, the
minister of which was at the time referred to noted for a very
disjointed and rambling style of preaching, without method or
connection. His principal heritor was the Lord Elphinstone of the time,
and unfortunately the minister and the peer were not on good terms, and
always ready to annoy each other by sharp sayings or otherwise. The
minister on one occasion had somewhat in this spirit called upon the
beadle to "wauken my Lord Elphinstone," upon which Lord Elphinstone
said, "I'm no sleeping, minister." "Indeed you were, my lord." He again
disclaimed the sleeping. So as a test the preacher asked him, "What I
had been saying last then?" "Oh, juist wauken Lord Elphinstone." "Ay,
but what did I say before that?" "Indeed," retorted Lord Elphinstone,
"I'll gie ye a guinea if ye'll tell that yersell, minister." We can
hardly imagine the _possibility_ of such scenes now taking place amongst
us in church. It seems as if all men were gradually approximating to a
common type or form in their manners and views of life; oddities are
sunk, prominences are rounded off, sharp features are polished, and all
things are becoming smooth and conventional. The remark, like the
effect, is general, and extends to other countries as well as to our
own. But as we have more recently parted with our peculiarities of
dialect, oddity, and eccentricity, it becomes the more amusing to mark
_our_ participation in this change, because a period of fifty years
shows here a greater contrast than the same period would show in many
other localities.

I have already referred to a custom which prevailed in all the rural
parish churches, and which I remember in my early days at Fettercairn;
the custom I mean, now quite obsolete, of the minister, after
pronouncing the blessing, turning to the heritors, who always occupied
the front seats of the gallery, and making low bows to each family.
Another custom I recollect:--When the text had been given out, it was
usual for the elder branches of the congregation to hand about their
Bibles amongst the younger members, marking the place, and calling their
attention to the passage. During service another handing about was
frequent among the seniors, and that was a circulation of the
sneeshin-mull or snuff-box. Indeed, I have heard of the same practice in
an Episcopal church, and particularly in one case of an ordination,
where the bishop took his pinch of snuff, and handed the mull to go
round amongst the clergy assembled for the solemn occasion within the
altar-rails.

Amongst Scottish reminiscences which do not extend beyond our own
recollections we may mention the disappearance of Trinity Church in
Edinburgh, which has taken place within the last quarter of a century.
It was founded by Mary of Gueldres, queen of James II. of Scotland, in
1446, and liberally endowed for a provost, prebendaries, choristers,
etc. It was never completed, but the portions built--viz., choir,
transept, and central tower--were amongst the finest specimens of later
Gothic work in Scotland. The pious founder had placed it at the east end
of what was then the North Loch. She chose her own church for the
resting-place of her remains as a sanctuary of safety and repose. A
railway parliamentary bill, however, overrides founder's intentions and
Episcopal consecrations. Where once stood the beautiful church of the
Holy Trinity, where once the "pealing organ" and the "full-voiced choir"
were daily heard "in service high and anthems clear"--where for 400
years slept the ashes of a Scottish Queen--now resound the noise and
turmoil of a railway station.

But we have another example of the uncertainty of all earthly concerns,
and one which supplies a Scottish reminiscence belonging to the last
seventy years. Wilhelmina, Viscountess Glenorchy, during her lifetime,
built and endowed a church for two ministers, who were provided with
very handsome incomes. She died 17th July 1786, and was buried on the
24th July, aged 44. Her interment took place, by her own direction, in
the church she had founded, immediately in front of the pulpit; and she
fixed upon that spot as a place of security and safety, where her mortal
remains might rest in peace till the morning of the resurrection. But
alas for the uncertainty of all earthly plans and projects for the
future!--the iron road came on its reckless course and swept the church
away. The site was required for the North British Railway, which passed
directly over the spot where Lady Glenorchy had been buried. Her remains
were accordingly disinterred 24th December 1844; and the trustees of the
church, not having yet erected a new one, deposited the body of their
foundress in the vaults beneath St. John's Episcopal Church, and after
resting there for fifteen years, they were, in 1859, removed to the
building which is now Lady Glenorchy's Church.

In our reminiscences of many _changes_ which have taken place during
fifty years in Scottish manners, it might form an interesting section to
record some peculiarities which _remain_. I mean such peculiarities as
yet linger amongst us, and still mark a difference in some of our social
habits from those of England. Some Scottish usages die hard, and are
found still to supply amusement for southern visitors. To give a few
examples, persons still persist among us in calling the head of a
family, or the host, the _landlord_, although he never charged his
guests a halfpenny for the hospitality he exercises. In games, golf and
curling still continue to mark the national character--cricket was long
an exotic amongst us. In many of our educational institutions, however,
it seems now fairly to have taken root. We continue to call our
reception rooms "_public_ rooms," although never used for any but
domestic purposes. Military rank is attached to ladies, as we speak of
Mrs. Lieutenant Fraser, Mrs. Captain Scott, Mrs. Major Smith, Mrs.
Colonel Campbell. On the occasion of a death, we persist in sending
circular notices to all the relatives, whether they know of it or not--a
custom which, together with men wearing weepers at funeral solemnities,
is unknown in England[189]. Announcing a married lady's death under her
maiden name must seem strange to English ears--as, for example, we read
of the demise of Mrs. Jane Dickson, spouse of Thomas Morison. Scottish
cookery retains its ground, and hotch-potch, minced collops, sheep's
head singed, and occasionally haggis, are still marked peculiarities of
the Scottish table. These social differences linger amongst us. But
stronger points are worn away; eccentricities and oddities such as
existed once will not do now. One does not see why eccentricity should
be more developed in one age than in another, but we cannot avoid the
conclusion that the day for real oddities is no more. Professors of
colleges are those in whom one least expects oddity--grave and learned
characters; and yet such _have_ been in former times. We can scarcely
now imagine such professors as we read of in a past generation. Take the
case of no less distinguished a person than Adam Smith, author of the
_Wealth of Nations,_ who went about the streets talking and laughing to
himself in such a manner as to make the market women think he was
deranged; and he told of one himself who ejaculated, as he passed,
"Hech, sirs, and he is weel pat on, too!" expressing surprise that a
decided lunatic, who from his dress appeared to be a gentleman, should
be permitted to walk abroad unattended. Professors still have their
crotchets like other people; but we can scarcely conceive a professor of
our day coming out like Adam Smith, and making fishwives to pass such
observations on his demeanour.

Peculiarities in a people's phraseology may prove more than we are aware
of, and may tend to illustrate circumstances of national _history_. Thus
many words which would be included by Englishmen under the general term
of Scotticisms, bear directly upon the question of a past intercourse
with France, and prove how close at one time must have been the
influence exercised upon general habits in Scotland by that intercourse.
Scoto-Gallic words were quite differently situated from French words and
phrases adopted in England. With us they proceeded from a real
admixture of the two _peoples_. With us they form the ordinary common
language of the country, and that was from a distant period moulded by
French. In England, the educated and upper classes of late years
_adopted_ French words and phrases. With us, some of our French
derivatives are growing obsolete as vulgar, and nearly all are passing
from fashionable society. In England, we find the French-adopted words
rather receiving accessions than going out of use.

Examples of words such as we have referred to, as showing a French
influence and admixture, are familiar to many of my readers. I recollect
some of them in constant use amongst old-fashioned Scottish people, and
those terms, let it be remembered, are unknown in England.

A leg of mutton was always, with old-fashioned Scotch people, a gigot
(Fr. gigot).

The crystal jug or decanter in which water is placed upon the table, was
a caraff (Fr. carafe).

Gooseberries were groserts, or grossarts (Fr. groseille).

Partridges were pertricks,--a word much more formed upon the French
perdrix than the English partridge.

The plate on which a joint or side-dish was placed upon the table was an
ashet (Fr. assiette).

In the old streets of Edinburgh, where the houses are very high, and
where the inhabitants all live in flats, before the introduction of
soil-pipes there was no method of disposing of the foul water of the
household, except by throwing it out of the window into the street. This
operation, dangerous to those outside, was limited to certain hours, and
the well-known cry, which preceded the missile and warned the
passenger, was gardeloo! or, as Smollett writes it, gardy loo (Fr. garge
de l'eau).

Anything troublesome or irksome used to be called, Scottice, fashions
(Fr. facheux, facheuse); to fash one's-self (Fr. se facher).

The small cherry, both black and red, common in gardens, is in Scotland,
never in England, termed gean (Fr. guigne), from Guigne, in Picardy.

The term _dambrod_, which has already supplied materials for a good
story, arises from adopting French terms into Scottish language, as dams
were the pieces with which the game of draughts was played (Fr. dammes).
Brod is board.

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