Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character by Edward Bannerman Ramsay

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I cannot imagine a better illustration of the sort of change in the
domestic relations of life that has taken place in something like the
time we speak of, than is shown in the following anecdote, which was
kindly communicated to me by Professor MacGregor of the Free Church. I
have pleasure in giving it in the Professor's own words:--"I happened
one day to be at Panmure Castle when Lord Panmure (now Dalhousie) was
giving a treat to a school, and was presented by the Monikie Free Church
Deacons' Court with a Bible on occasion of his having cleared them
finally of debt on their buildings. Afterwards his Lordship took me into
the library, where, among other treasures, we found a handsome folio
_Prayer Book_ presented to his ancestor Mr. Maule of Kelly by the
Episcopalian minister of the district, on occasion of his having, by Mr.
Maule's help, been brought out of jail. The coincidence and contrast
were curiously interesting."

For persons to take at various intervals a retrospective view of life,
and of the characters they have met with, seems to be a natural feeling
of human nature; and every one is disposed at times to recall to memory
many circumstances and many individuals which suggest abundant subjects
for reflection. We thus find recollections of scenes in which we have
been joyous and happy. We think of others with which we only associate
thoughts of sorrow and of sadness. Amongst these varied emotions we find
subjects for reminiscences, of which we would bury the feelings in our
own hearts as being too sacred for communication with others. Then,
again, there are many things of the past concerning which we delight to
take counsel with friends and contemporaries. Some persons are disposed
to go beyond these personal communications with friends, and having
through life been accustomed to write down memoranda of their own
feelings, have published them to the world. Many interesting works have
thus been contributed to our literature by writers who have sent forth
volumes in the form of _Memoirs of their Own Times, Personal
Recollections, Remarks upon Past Scenes_, etc. etc. It is not within
the scope of this work to examine these, nor can I specify the many
communications I have from different persons, both at home and in our
colonial possessions; in fact, the references in many cases have been
lost or mislaid. But I must acknowledge, however briefly, my obligations
to Dr. Carruthers, Inverness, and to Dr. Cook, Haddington, who have
favoured me with valuable contributions.

Now, when we come to examine the general question of memoirs connected
with contemporary history, no work is better known in connection with
this department of Scottish literature than the _History of his Own
Times_, by my distinguished relative, Dr. Gilbert Burnett, Bishop of
Salisbury. Bishop Burnett's father, Lord Crimond, was third son of my
father's family, the Burnetts of Leys, in Kincardineshire. There is now
at Crathes Castle, the family seat, a magnificent full-length portrait
of the Bishop in his robes, as Prelate of the Garter, by Sir Godfrey
Kneller. It was presented by himself to the head of his family. But, as
one great object of the Bishop's history was to laud and magnify the
personal character and public acts of William of Orange, his friend and
patron, and as William was held in special abhorrence by the Jacobite
party in Scotland, the Bishop holds a prominent, and, with many, a very
odious position in Scottish Reminiscences; in fact, he drew upon himself
and upon his memory the determined hatred and unrelenting hostility of
adherents to the Stuart cause. They never failed to abuse him on all
occasions, and I recollect old ladies in Montrose, devoted to the exiled
Prince, with whom the epithet usually applied to the Prelate was that of
"Leein' Gibby[14]."

Such language has happily become a "Reminiscence." Few would be found
now to apply such an epithet to the author of the _History of his Own
Times_, and certainly it would not be applied on the ground of the
Jacobite principles to which he was opposed. But a curious additional
proof of this hostility of Scottish Jacobites to the memory of Burnett
has lately come to light. In a box of political papers lately found at
Brechin Castle, belonging to the Panmure branch of the family, who, in
'15, were forfeited on the ground of their Jacobite opinions and
adherence to the cause of Charles Edward, there has been found a severe
and bitter supposed _epitaph_ for Bishop Burnett. By the kindness of the
Earl of Dalhousie I was permitted to see this epitaph, and, if I chose,
to print it in this edition. I am, however, unwilling to stain my pages
with such an ungenerous and, indeed, I may say, so scurrilous a
representation of the character of one who, in the just opinion of our
Lyon King-at-Arms, himself a Burnett of the Kemnay branch, has
characterised the Bishop of Salisbury as "true and honest, and far
beyond the standard of his times as a Clergyman and as a Bishop." But
the epitaph found in these Panmure papers shows clearly the prejudices
of the age in which it was written, and in fact only embodies something
of that spirit and of those opinions which we have known as still
lingering in our own Reminiscences.

If it were not on my part a degree of presumption, I might be inclined
to consider myself in this volume a fellow-labourer with the late
accomplished and able Mr. Robert Chambers. In a very limited sphere it
takes a portion of the same field of illustration. I should consider
myself to have done well if I shall direct any of my readers to his able
volumes. Whosoever wishes to know what this country really was in times
past, and to learn, with a precision beyond what is supplied by the
narratives of history, the details of the ordinary current of our
social, civil, and national life, must carefully study the _Domestic
Annals of Scotland_. Never before were a nation's domestic features so
thoroughly portrayed. Of those features the specimens of quaint Scottish
humour still remembered are unlike anything else, but they are fast
becoming obsolete, and my motive for this publication has been an
endeavour to preserve marks of the past which would of themselves soon
become obliterated, and to supply the rising generation with pictures of
social life, faded and indistinct to their eyes, but the strong lines of
which an older race still remember. By thus coming forward at a
favourable moment, no doubt many beautiful specimens of SCOTTISH
MINSTRELSY have in this manner been preserved from oblivion by the
timely exertions of Bishop Percy, Ritson, Walter Scott, and others. Lord
Macaulay, in his preface to _The Lays of Ancient Rome_, shows very
powerfully the tendency in all that lingers in the memory to become
obsolete, and he does not hesitate to say that "Sir Walter Scott was but
_just in time_ to save the precious relics of the minstrelsy of
the Border."

It is quite evident that those who have in Scotland come to an advanced
age, must have found some things to have been really changed about them,
and that on them great alterations have already taken place. There are
some, however, which yet may be in a transition state; and others in
which, although changes are threatened, still it cannot be said that the
changes are begum I have been led to a consideration of impending
alterations as likely to take place, by the recent appearance of two
very remarkable and very interesting papers on subjects closely
connected with great social Scottish questions, where a revolution of
opinion may be expected. These are two articles in _Recess Studies_
(1870), a volume edited by our distinguished Principal, Sir Alexander
Grant. One essay is by Sir Alexander himself, upon the "Endowed
Hospitals of Scotland;" the other by the Rev. Dr. Wallace of the
Greyfriars, upon "Church Tendencies in Scotland." It would be quite
irrelevant for me to enlarge here upon the merits of those articles. No
one could study them attentively without being impressed with the
ability and power displayed in them by the authors, their grasp of the
subjects, and their fair impartial judgment upon the various questions
which come under their notice.

From these able disquisitions, and from other prognostics, it is quite
evident that sounder principles of political economy and accurate
experience of human life show that much of the old Scottish hospital
system was quite wrong and must be changed. Changes are certainly going
on, which seem to indicate that the very hard Presbyterian views of some
points connected with Church matters are in transition. I have elsewhere
spoken of a past sabbatarian strictness, and I have lately received an
account of a strictness in observing the national fast-day, or day
appointed for preparation in celebrating Holy Communion, which has in
some measure passed away. The anecdote adduced the example of two
drovers who were going on very quietly together. They had to pass
through a district whereof one was a parishioner, and during their
progress through it the one whistled with all his might, the other
screwed up his mouth without emitting a single sound. When they came to
a burn, the silent one, on then crossing the stream, gave a skip, and
began whistling with all his might, exclaiming with great triumph to his
companion, "I'm beyond the parish of Forfar now, and I'll whistle as
muckle as I like." It happened to be the Forfar parish fast-day. But a
still stricter observance was shown by a native of Kirkcaldy, who, when
asked by his companion drover in the south of Scotland "why he didna
whistle," quietly answered, "I canna, man; it's our fast-day in
Kirkcaldy." I have an instance of a very grim assertion of extreme
sabbatarian zeal. A maid-servant had come to a new place, and on her
mistress quietly asking her on Sunday evening to wash up some dishes,
she indignantly replied, "Mem, I hae dune mony sins, and hae mony sins
to answer for; but, thank God, I hae never been sae far left to mysell
as to wash up dishes on the Sabbath day."

I hope it will not for a moment be supposed we would willingly throw any
ridicule or discouragement on the Scottish national tendencies on the
subject, or that we are not proud of Scotland's example of a sacred
observance of the fourth commandment in the letter and the spirit. We
refer now to injudicious extremes, such, indeed, as our Lord condemned,
and which seem a fair subject for notice amongst Scottish peculiarities.
But the philosophy of the question is curious. Scotland has ever made
her boast of the simplest form of worship, and a worship free from
ceremonial, more even than the Church of England, which is received as,
in doctrine and ritual, the Church of the Reformation. In some respects,
therefore, may you truly say the only standing recognised observance in
the ceremonial part of Presbyterian worship is the Sabbath day--an
observance which has been pushed in times past even beyond the extreme
of a spirit of Judaism, as if the sabbatical ceremonial were made a
substitute for all other ceremony. In this, as well as in other matters
which we have pointed out, what changes have taken place, what changes
are going on! It may be difficult to assign precise causes for such
changes having taken place among us, and that during the lifetime of
individuals now living to remember them. It has been a period for many
changes in manners, habits, and forms of language, such as we have
endeavoured to mark in this volume. The fact of such changes is
indisputable, and sometimes it is difficult not only to assign the
causes for them, but even to describe in what the changes themselves
consist. They are gradual, and almost imperceptible. Scottish people
lose their Scotchness; they leave home, and return without those
expressions and intonations, and even peculiarity of voice and manner,
which used to distinguish us from Southern neighbours. In all this, I
fear, we lose our originality. It has not passed away, but with every
generation becomes less like the real type.

I would introduce here a specimen of the precise sort of changes to
which I would refer, as an example of the reminiscences intended to be
introduced into these pages. We have in earlier editions given an
account of the pains taken by Lord Gardenstone to extend and improve his
rising village of Laurencekirk; amongst other devices he had brought
down, as settlers, a variety of artificers and workmen from England.
With these he had introduced a _hatter_ from Newcastle; but on taking
him to church next day after his arrival, the poor man saw that he might
decamp without loss of time, as he could not expect much success in his
calling at Laurencekirk; in fact, he found Lord Gardenstone's and his
own the only hats in the kirk--the men all wore then the flat Lowland
bonnet. But how quickly times change! My excellent friend, Mr. Gibbon
of Johnstone, Lord Gardenstone's own place, which is near Laurencekirk,
tells me that at the present time _one_ solitary Lowland bonnet lingers
in the parish.

Hats are said to have been first brought into Inverness by Duncan Forbes
of Culloden, the Lord President, who died in 1747. Forbes is reported to
have presented the provost and bailies with cocked hats, which they wore
only on Sundays and council days. About 1760 a certain Deacon Young
began daily to wear a hat, and the country people crowding round him,
the Deacon used humorously to say, "What do you see about me, sirs? am I
not a mortal man like yourselves?" The broad blue bonnets I speak of
long continued to be worn in the Highland capital, and are still
occasionally to be seen there, though generally superseded by the
Glengarry bonnet and ordinary hat. It is a minor change, but a very
decided one.

The changes which have taken place, and which give rise to such
"Reminiscences," are very numerous, and meet us at every turn in
society. Take, for example, the case of our Highland chieftains. We may
still retain the appellation, and talk of the chiefs of Clanranald, of
Glengarry, etc. But how different is a chieftain of the present day,
even from some of those of whom Sir Walter Scott wrote as existing so
late as 1715 or 1745! Dr. Gregory (of immortal _mixture_ memory) used to
tell a story of an old Highland chieftain, intended to show how such
Celtic potentates were, even in his day, still inclined to hold
themselves superior to all the usual considerations which affected
ordinary mortals. The doctor, after due examination, had, in his usual
decided and blunt manner, pronounced the liver of a Highlander to be at
fault, and to be the cause of his ill-health. His patient, who could not
but consider this as taking a great liberty with a Highland chieftain,
roared out--"And what the devil is it to you whether I have a liver or
not?" But there is the case of dignity in Lowland Lairds as well as
clan-headship in Highland Chiefs. In proof of this, I need only point to
a practice still lingering amongst us of calling landed proprietors, not
as Mr. So-and-so, but by the names of their estates. I recollect, in my
early days, a number of our proprietors were always so designated. Thus,
it was not as Mr. Carnegie, Mr. Douglas, Mr. Irvine, etc., but as
Craigo, Tillwhilly, Drum, etc.

An amusing application of such a territorial denominative system to the
locality of London was narrated to me by a friend who witnessed it. A
Scottish gentleman, who had never been in the metropolis, arrived fresh
from the Highlands, and met a small party at the house of a London
friend. A person was present of most agreeable manners, who delighted
the Scotsman exceedingly. He heard the company frequently referring to
this gentleman's residence in Piccadilly, to his house in Piccadilly,
and so on. When addressed by the gentleman, he commenced his reply,
anxious to pay him all due respect--"Indeed, Piccadilly," etc. He
supposed Piccadilly must be his own territorial locality. Another
instance of mistake, arising out of Scottish ignorance of London ways,
was made by a North Briton on his first visit to the great city. He
arrived at a hotel in Fleet Street, where many of the country coaches
then put up. On the following morning he supposed that such a crowd as
he encountered could only proceed from some "occasion," and must pass
off in due time. Accordingly, a friend from Scotland found him standing
in a doorway, as if waiting for some one. His countryman asked him what
made him stand there. To which he answered--"Ou, I was just stan'ing
till the kirk had scaled." The ordinary appearance of his native borough
made the crowd of Fleet Street suggest to him the idea of a church crowd
passing out to their several homes, called in Scotland a "kirk scaling."
A London street object called forth a similar simple remark from a
Scotsman. He had come to London on his way to India, and for a few days
had time to amuse himself by sight-seeing before his departure. He had
been much struck with the appearance of the mounted sentinels at the
Horse Guards, Whitehall, and bore them in remembrance during his Eastern
sojourn. On his return, after a period of thirty years, on passing the
Horse Guards, he looked up to one, and seeing him, as he thought,
unchanged as to horse, position, and accoutrements, he exclaimed--"Od,
freend, ye hae had a lang spell on't sin' I left," supposing him to be
the identical sentinel he had seen before he sailed.

It is interesting to preserve national peculiarities which are thus
passing away from us. One great pleasure I have had in their collection,
and that is the numerous and sympathetic communications I have received
from Scotsmen, I may literally say from Scotsmen _in all quarters of the
world_; sometimes communicating very good examples of Scottish humour,
and always expressing their great pleasure in reading, when in distant
lands and foreign scenes, anecdotes which reminded them of Scotland, and
of their ain days of "auld langsyne."

There is no mistaking the national attachment so strong in the Scottish
character. Men return after long absence, in this respect, unchanged;
whilst absent, Scotsmen _never_ forget their Scottish home. In all
varieties of lands and climates their hearts ever turn towards the "land
o' cakes and brither Scots." Scottish festivals are kept with Scottish
feeling on "Greenland's icy mountains" or "India's coral strand." I
received an amusing account of an ebullition of this patriotic feeling
from my late noble friend the Marquis of Lothian, who met with it when
travelling in India. He happened to arrive at a station upon the eve of
St. Andrew's Day, and received an invitation to join a Scottish dinner
party in commemoration of old Scotland. There was a great deal of
Scottish enthusiasm. There were _seven_ sheep-heads (singed) down the
table; and Lord Lothian told me that after dinner he sang with great
applause "The Laird o' Cockpen."

Another anecdote arising out of Scotsmen meeting in distant lands, is
rather of a more serious character, and used to be told with exquisite
humour by the late lamented Dr. Norman Macleod. A settler in Australia,
who for a long time had heard nothing of his Scottish kith and kin, was
delighted at the arrival of a countryman direct from his own part of the
country. When he met with him, the following conversation took place
between them:--_Q_. "Ye ken my fouk, friend; can ye tell me gin my
faather's alive?" _A_.--"Hout, na; he's deed." _Q_.--"Deed! What did he
dee o'? was it fever?" _A_.--"Na, it wasna fever." _Q_.--"Was it
cholera?" _A_.--"Na." The question being pressed, the stranger drily
said, "Sheep," and then he accompanied the ominous word by delicately
and significantly pointing to the jugular under his ear. The man had
been hanged for sheep-stealing!

It must always be amusing for Scotsmen to meet in distant lands, and
there to play off on each other the same dry, quaint humour which
delighted them in their native land, and in their early days at home. An
illustration of this remark has been communicated by a kind
correspondent at Glasgow. Mrs. Hume, a true Scot, sends me the following
dialogue, accompanied by a very clever etching of the parties, from the
Melbourne _Punch_, August 17, 1871, headed "Too Poor,--_Night of
Waverley Concert_."

_Southron_.--You here, Mac! you ought to have been at the concert, you
know. Aren't you one of the 'Scots wha hae?'

_Mac_.--Indeed no. I'm are o' the Scots wha hae na, or I wadna be here
the nicht.

He would not have stayed at home if he had been one of the "Scots wha
hae."

I am assured that the genuineness of the following anecdote is
unquestionable, as my informant received it from the person to whom it
occurred. A popular Anglican Nonconformist minister was residing with a
family in Glasgow while on a visit to that city, whither he had gone on
a deputation from the Wesleyan Missionary Society. After dinner, in
reply to an invitation to partake of some fine fruit, he mentioned to
the family a curious circumstance concerning himself--viz. that he had
never in his life tasted an apple, pear, grape, or indeed any kind of
green fruit. This fact seemed to evoke considerable surprise from the
company, but a cautious Scotsman, of a practical, matter-of-fact turn of
mind, who had listened with much unconcern, drily remarked, "It's a
peety but ye had been in Paradise, and there micht na hae been ony faa."
I have spoken elsewhere of the cool matter-of-fact manner in which the
awful questions connected with the funerals of friends are often
approached by Scottish people, without the least intention or purpose of
being irreverent or unfeeling. By the kindness of Mr. Lyon, I am enabled
to give an authentic anecdote of a curious character, illustrative of
this habit of mind, and I cannot do better than give it in his own
words:--"An old tenant of my late father, George Lyon of Wester Ogil,
many years ago, when on his deathbed, and his end near at hand, his wife
thus addressed him: 'Willie, Willie, as lang as ye can speak, tell us
are ye for your burial-baps round or _square_?' Willie having responded
to this inquiry, was next asked if the _murners_ were to have _glooes_
(gloves) or mittens, the former being articles with fingers, the latter
having only a thumb-piece; and Willie, having also answered this
question, was allowed to depart in peace."

There could not be a better example of this familiar handling, without
meaning offence, than one which has just been sent to me by a kind
correspondent. I give her own words. "Happening to call on a poor
neighbour, I asked after the children of a person who lived close by."
She replied, "They're no hame yet; gaed awa to the English kirk to get
_a clap_ o' _the heid_. It was the day of _confirmation_ for St. Paul's.
This definition of the 'outward and visible sign' would look rather odd
in the catechism. But the poor woman said it from no disrespect; it was
merely her way of answering my question." But remarks on serious
subjects often go to deeper views of religious matters than might be
expected from the position of the parties and the terms made use of.

Of the wise and shrewd judgment of the Scottish character, as bearing
upon religious pretensions, I have an apt example from my friend Dr.
Norman Macleod. During one of the late revivals in Scotland, a small
farmer went about preaching with much fluency and zeal the doctrine of a
"full assurance" of faith, and expressed his belief of it for himself in
such extravagant terms as few men would venture upon who were humble and
cautious against presumption. The "preacher," being personally rather
remarkable as a man of greedy and selfish views in life, excited some
suspicion in the breast of an old sagacious countryman, a neighbour of
Dr. Macleod, who asked him what _he_ thought of John as a preacher, and
of his doctrine. Scratching his head, as if in some doubt, he replied,
"I'm no verra sure o' Jock. I never ken't a man _sae sure o' Heaven, and
sae sweert to be gaing tae't_." He showed his sagacity, for John was
soon after in prison for theft.

Another story gives a good idea of the Scottish matter-of-fact view of
things being brought to bear upon a religious question without meaning
to be profane or irreverent. Dr. Macleod was on a Highland loch when a
storm came on which threatened serious consequences. The doctor, a large
powerful man, was accompanied by a clerical friend of diminutive size
and small appearance, who began to speak seriously to the boatmen of
their danger, and proposed that all present should join in prayer. "Na,
na," said the chief boatman; "let the _little_ ane gang to pray, but
first the big ane maun tak an oar." Illustrative of the same spirit was
the reply of a Scotsman of the genuine old school, "Boatie" of Deeside,
of whom I have more to say, to a relative of mine. He had been nearly
lost in a squall, and saved after great exertion, and was told by my
aunt that he should be grateful to providence for his safety. The man,
not meaning to be at all ungrateful, but viewing his preservation in
the purely hard matter-of-fact light, quietly answered, "Weel, weel,
Mrs. Russell; Providence here or Providence there, an I hadna worked
sair mysell I had been drouned."

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