H McfiHinney, 
 
 NEWLONDOS.OHIO. 
 
 No. 
 
 (ttBRAFY 
 .JU.NiyER.sn. 
 SAN-W
 
 BY 
 
 AUTHOR Or "CHRISTMAS EVANS," "OLIVER CROMWELL, 11 "ROMANCE OT 
 BIOGRAPHY," STC., ETC. 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 
 
 NK\V YORK AND LONDON
 
 PUBLISHERS' NOTICE. 
 
 The advance sheets of this work have been pent to us by the Author as fast as 
 they could be got ready. We have had several changes made in the body of the 
 book adding an Index, and other improvements. We realized the fact that in 
 the United States and in Canada there are almost as many Scotch, and people of 
 Scotch descent, as there are in Scotland itself. They are indeed a grand and 
 peculiar race of people, and Paxton Hood, we believe, is of all other writers tne 
 man to do them justice. We issue the volume with full confidence that it will take 
 favorably with our readers. 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE OLI> SCOTTISH MINISTER, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF SCOTTISH HUMOR, .... 33 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE HUMORS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER, . . . . 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 SOME VARIETIES OF SCOTTISH SUPERSTITION, ... 74 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE SCOT ABROAD, , 94 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE HUMORS OK THE SCOTTISH DIAI.KCT, .... 103 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LAWYERS AND THE LAW COURTS, . 114 
 
 CHAPTER Vin. 
 OLD EDINBURGH, 13-J
 
 IV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LADY 151 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SCOTTISH PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY, 171 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH SABBATH, 190 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS, . . 198
 
 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH MINISTER. 
 
 IN every estimate of Scottish character and humor the old 
 minister furnishes a singular variety of illustrations, marking a 
 very distinct and individual type. Among ministers of all 
 orders, and especially in a time not very far remote, there was 
 much more of a brotherly resemblance than a brotherly differ- 
 ence ; for they might belong to the Establishment, or not ; they 
 might belong to the " United Presbyterian," the " Relief," or 
 the " Antiburgher" communions, but they were usually schol- 
 ars and men of education ; they were versed in their " human- 
 ities ;" the framework of their theology was uniformly built up 
 from the Confession of the Westminster Assembly, and their 
 church government was uniformly Presbyterian. Thus they all 
 resembled each other, and from their number it is very easy to 
 distinguish many rich and rare originals, but the uniformity of 
 the type holds even in circumstances which seem to differ. 
 
 Nor was this national type Presbyterian only. Episcopacy 
 and Prelacy have been supposed to be, until very recently, 
 especially hateful to the Scottish mind ; but John Skinner, the 
 Episcopal clergyman of Longside, in Aberdeenshire, for sixty- 
 four years during the last century, was as true to the type as 
 any whose ecclesiastical relations we have indicated. He was
 
 6 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 the friend of Robert Burns, and the author of the famous and 
 inspiring Scotch song, or reel, " Tullochgorum ;" but he was 
 the author also of a singularly interesting " Dissertation on the 
 Shekinah, or Divine Presence with the Church, or People of 
 God," and of one of the longest and most learned of the Exposi- 
 tions of " the Song of Solomon." For upward of half a century 
 he lived in his manse, a little low-thatched abode, ' ' far from the 
 madding crowd," apart from any public road, in a district of 
 Scotland removed from any animating local scenery : his 
 romantic retreat was by a sedgy burn, or brook, which, with- 
 out the semblance of a current, served as a fence on one side 
 to his garden. His manse stood in a dreary plain, almost two 
 miles square, in which neither tree, nor stone, nor shrub un- 
 less a straggling bush of broom deserved the name was to be 
 seen, and there it was his consolation to say, " My taper never 
 burns in vain." The light was always at night shining in his 
 window ; he never permitted curtain or shutter to intercept its 
 rays. He used to say, " It may cheer some roaming youth, or 
 solitary traveller, since the Polar Star is not truer to its position 
 than is the position of the Linshart (the name of his house) in 
 its rise and setting, true to the Buchan Hind." He used to 
 say, while there was a chance of any human creature traversing 
 the "Lang-gate" he could not bear to go to bed. John Skinner, 
 with his humor, his strait theology, his benevolent common- 
 sense, has always seemed a fine specimen of the old Scottish 
 minister, although of a communion which has never been 
 acceptable to the Scottish mind. 
 
 The biographies of such men are innumerable. A charming 
 picture Dr. Norman Macleod gives of his father's life among 
 the old hills of Morvern ; and it may probably stand as a beau- 
 tiful photograph of many a Scottish minister in his relation to 
 his household and his pariah. " Were I asked," says the son, 
 " what there was in my father's teaching and training that did 
 us all so much good, I would say, both in regard to him and 
 my beloved mother, that it was love and truth. They were 
 both so real and human. No cranks, twists, crotchets, isms, or
 
 THK OLD SCOTTISH MINISTER. 7 
 
 systems of any kind, but loving, sympathizing ; giving a genu- 
 ine blowng up when it was needed, but passing by trifles, fail- 
 ures, infirmities, without making a fuss. The liberty they gave 
 was as wise as the restraint they imposed. Their home was 
 happy, intensely happy. Christianity was a thing taken for 
 granted, and not enforced with scowl and frown. I never 
 heard my father speak of Calvinism, Arminianism, Presbyte- 
 rianism, or Episcopacy, or exaggerate doctrinal differences, in 
 my life. I had to study all these questions after I left home. 
 I thank God for his free, loving, sympathizing, and honest 
 heart. He might have made me a slave to any ' ism. ' He 
 left me free to love Christ and Christians." And this pleasant 
 picture of the manse of the patriarchal minister of Morvern re- 
 minds us of that other picture of the Scottish minister and his 
 work, from the same pen, in the " Reminiscences of a High- 
 land Parish," for which most likely the ancient father fur- 
 nished the original. 
 
 We are apt to think of the old Scottish minister as usually 
 living in wild scenes, amid scattered mountain hamlets, amid 
 wide and far-spreading moors, amid " the sheep that is among 
 the lonely hills," the wail of plovers, and the songs of moun- 
 tain streams. But this separation from cities, and from what 
 is called cultivated society, must not, therefore, imply, in this 
 instance, a character either less cultivated or less powerful, or, 
 in its sphere, less influential ; " strongest minds," says Words- 
 worth, in his fine portrayal of just such a character as we are 
 
 attempting to delineate 
 
 " Strongest minds 
 
 Are often those of whom the noisy world 
 Hears least." 
 
 There were remarkable oddities in the Scottish ministry in 
 the times of old. Mr. Kennedy, in " The Days of Our 
 Fathers in Ross-shire," recites, with admiration, the life of Mr. 
 Sage, the pastor of the kirk of Lochcarron. He found his par- 
 ish in a state of extreme depravity, and he* made friends with 
 the strongest man in the parish. ' Now, Rory," he said,
 
 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 " I'm the minister, and you must be my elder, and we must 
 see to it that all the people attend church, observe the Sab- 
 bath, and conduct themselves properly." So it seems to be 
 true that between them they dragged the idlers into the church, 
 locked the door, and returned to catch more ; then the minis- 
 ter mounted the pulpit. Rory stood at the door with his 
 cudgel, and the service proceeded. Mr. Kennedy says one of 
 the earliest sermons was blessed to the conversion of Rory ; 
 and the whole parish, beneath Mr. Sage's pastorate, became 
 remarkable for its orthodoxy of doctrine and behavior. This 
 is a story like that of our William Grimshaw, of Haworth, who 
 used to go out on the Sabbath morning through his long-neg- 
 lected parish, and literally compel the people to come into the 
 church. Before long it was a new place, and the good minis- 
 ter was as much loved as he had been first feared, and then 
 respected. 
 
 Johnson, in his " Journey in the Western Islands," gives 
 us fine glimpses of the old Scottish minister. Mr. Maclean, 
 on the Isle of Coll, he says, had the reputation of great learn- 
 ing. He was seventy-seven years old, but not infirm, " with a 
 look of venerable dignity," says Johnson, " excelling what I 
 remember in any other man; we found him," continues the 
 doctor, " in a hut that is, a house of only one floor, but with 
 windows and chimney, and not inelegantly furnished." In 
 Skye, he says of another clergyman, Mr. McQueen, " he was 
 courteous, candid, sensible, well-informed, very learned ;" 
 and he speaks of the whole race of ministers, saying, " I saw 
 not one in the islands whom I had reason to think either de- 
 ficient in learning or irregular in life. " Such were the men, 
 the foundations of whose faith were laid amid the silence of 
 mountains and the roar of seas ; there they learned 
 
 " To look on Nature with a humble heart ; 
 Self questioned, where it did not understand ; 
 And with a superstitious eye of love." 
 
 Such scattered societies have been favorable to the develop, 
 ment of humor and originality of character. Polite society ia
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH MINISTER. 9 
 
 mote favorable to the cultivation of the conventional, and 
 greatly takes away from the man, the doctor, or the minister, 
 that freedom of intercourse between classes which is the foun- 
 dation of all true humor or naturalness of personality. 
 
 One of the most essential attributes of the Scottish mind is 
 its orderly, methodical, in a word, its logical character ; this 
 has often given to its preaching a bony appearance, or emi- 
 nently doctrinal method. It was very important that the min- 
 ister should fulfil these conditions, that he should be " soun, " 
 or sound. Some ministers had the reputation even of being 
 " awfu soun, " and hence a more sprightly and flowing manner 
 came to be regarded with suspicion. Alexander Fletcher, 
 before he went to London, was exceedingly popular at Stow. 
 On the evening before he received " the call " to become the 
 co-pastor there, with the Rev. Mr. Kidstone, there had been 
 some doubt as to the perfect orthodoxy of his views ; but on 
 this occasion he preached a sermon to the delight, and even 
 surprise, of a great gathering of people. Coming down from 
 the pulpit, and going into the manse, Mr. Kidstone met him 
 and thanked him, saying with great suavity, " Weel, Sandie, 
 I must admit you're vara ' soun,' but, oh, man ! you're na 
 deep !" 
 
 A part of the usual duty of the Scottish minister was period- 
 ical pastoral visitation, which included visitations during which 
 all the members of the family were supposed to submit to cate- 
 chetical examinations. This work of examination has been, 
 from time immemorial, supposed to be kept up from house to 
 house, the minister taking certain districts, and usually anounc- 
 ing his route of visitation from the pulpit on the preceding 
 Sabbath. This visit of the minister was often the occasion of 
 great alarm and preparation, and, perhaps, was conducted 
 whatever may be the case now very mechanically. There 
 was examination in the Catechism, and the general routine of 
 sound theology. The beadle usually went before the minister 
 into the district to announce that on such and such a day ho 
 would pay his visit. Sometimes, however, indolent ministers
 
 10 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 neglected this duty. A poor old deaf man resided in Fife ; 
 he was visited by his minister shortly after coming to his pul- 
 pit. The minister said he would often call and see him ; but 
 time went on, and he did not visit him again until two years 
 after, when, happening to go through the street where the 
 deaf man was living, he saw his wife at the door, and could 
 therefore do no other than inquire for her husband. " Weel, 
 Margaret, how is Tammas ?" " None the better o' you," was 
 the rather curt reply. "How! how! Margaret?" inquired 
 the minister. " Oh, ye promised twa year syne to ca' and 
 pray once a fortnight wi' him, and ye hae ne'er darkened the 
 door sin' syne." " Weel, weel, Margaret, don't be so short ; 
 I thought it was not so very necessary to call and pray with 
 Tammas, for he is sae deaf ye ken he canna hear me." 
 " But, sir," said the woman, with a rising dignity of manner, 
 " the Lord's no deaf !" And it is to be supposed the minis- 
 ter felt the power of her reproof. Of course, in these visita- 
 tions, sometimes more humorous incidents occurred. Dr. 
 Henderson, of Galashiels, in the course of one of his pastoral 
 calls, came to the house of a woman who had lost her husband 
 a short time before, and had been left with a large and non- 
 productive family ; naturally the minister inquired after the 
 health of the household. " Weel," said the woman, " we're 
 all richt, except puir Darie ; he's sair troubled wi' a bad leg, 
 and not fit for wark." The doctor could not recollect who 
 Davie was, but, as in duty bound, he prayed that Davie's 
 affliction might be blessed to him, and also that it might not 
 be of long duration. But going home, and consulting his 
 wife, he said, " Davie, Davie ! which of the boys is Davie ?" 
 " Hoot, hoot ! you ought to ken wha Davie is," she replied. 
 " Davie is nae son, Davie is just the cuddy" (donkey). 
 
 Absence of mind, however, sometimes produces results as 
 awkward as absence of humor. The Rev. Mr. Itnlack, of Mur- 
 roes, was an able man, but a very absent-minded one, and 
 once, in a public service of considerable importance, he spoke 
 of all ranks and degrees of persons, ' ' from the king on the
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH MTKISTER. 11 
 
 dunghill to ihe beggar on the throne ;'' but, suspecting rather 
 than perceiving the mistake, he proceeded instantly to amend 
 his error by saying, ' ' No, my friends, I mean from the beg- 
 gar on the throne to tins king on the dunghill." 
 
 " One of Chalmers's earliest movements was to improve the 
 social status and domestic condition of the clergy. He came 
 to my father," says Dr. Chafes Rogers, " on a Monday in a 
 state of great enthusiasm. ' Yesterday I preached,' he said, 
 ' in the college kirk, and inaugurated my scheme for the aug- 
 mentation of stipends. I'll read to you my discourse ;' there- 
 upon taking a MS. from his pocket, and placing it on the table. 
 ' Just twenty minutes,' said my father, who knew that his 
 friend, when he entered warmly on a subject, forgot every- 
 thing else ; and the cook had announced that dinner was almost 
 ready. ' Half an hour,' pleaded Chalmers, ' and you shall 
 have the entire discourse. ' My father assented, but placed his 
 watch upon the table. The orator proceeded, as if he had 
 been addressing a congregation. ' The church bell,' he said, 
 ' may ring for a century to come, but if the clergy are not 
 properly remunerated, they will be termed " puir bodies," and 
 themselves and their ministrations will be regarded with con- 
 tempt.' ' I beg your pardon, Mr. Chalmers,' said my father, 
 'but what's your text?' 'My text,' said the orator, 'is 
 Luke 12 : 15 : "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance 
 of the things which he possesseth." ' You are not textual,' 
 said my father. ' Wait a little,' rejoined the orator, ' and 
 you'll see.' The sermon proved both eloquent and appropriate. 
 ' He never expressed himself better,' said my father, ' even in 
 the days of his greatest popularity.' ' 
 
 But there is probably no country in which the minister 
 receives so much respect and respect of so high an order ; 
 this is true of every communion in Scotland. Our readers need 
 not to be informed that the service of the Scottish communions 
 was utterly unadorned and unritualistic ; but Lockhart, in that 
 most charming book, " Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk," was 
 not wide of the truth when he pointed out that, to the devout
 
 12 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 Presbyterian, the image of his minister, and the idea of his 
 superior sanctity and attainments, stand instead of the whole 
 calendar of Catholicism ; or all the splendid liturgies, chant- 
 ings, and pealing organs of our English cathedrals. The min- 
 ister was the symbol of the faith, and, looking on his minister, 
 says Lockhart, the Scotchman might, whether he were of the 
 Old Presbytery, or an Old-light Anti-Burgher, or a New-light 
 Anti-Burgher, say with the Greek of old, " It is not in wide- 
 spreading battlements, nor in lofty towers, that the security of 
 our city consists. Men are our defence !" With all this, the 
 Scottish ministers of the old time had much cheerfulness ; the 
 doumess was of a far later growth. One writer before us, a 
 century old, tells that " papa and mamma," when he was a 
 boy, had invited a very important minister from Edinburgh to 
 spend some days with them. ' ' It put me in a terrible fright, 
 for I had formed a most awful idea of a minister. I thought 
 of some gaunt-looking personage, with a bushy wig, and all 
 stiffness and formality. I was dreadfully alarmed lest ht> 
 should examine me in the Longer or Shorter Catechism for, to 
 tell the truth, I knew no more of their contents than the first 
 and third questions, ' What is the chief end of man ? ' and 
 4 What do the Scriptures principally teach ?' when the ser- 
 vants announced the awful intelligence that the minister had 
 come. I thought my heart would have leaped into my mouth, 
 but my alarm was only for a moment ; for, in place of seeing 
 a gaunt, old, formal, sour Plum, as I expected, I found the 
 most lively, frank, good-humored personage I had ever met 
 with." 
 
 And such we suppose would be usually the account to bo 
 given of the Scottish minister ; with very much ecclesiastic;.! 
 decorum and official austerity, a blithe and cheerful person, 
 able to command not less the love and reverence of the youn_; 
 than the respect and confidence of the old. 
 
 Very naturally we have only thought of the Scottish minis- 
 ter, or ministers, of past generations ; the present will be en- 
 titled to take their place by and by ; but how long shall we
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH MINISTER. l-'J 
 
 have to wait before we have such another portrait as that of 
 Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh, by his gifted son, Dr. John 
 Brown, in the " Horae Subsecivae" ? 
 
 Perhaps the prejudice against read sermons lingered longer 
 in Scotland than in any other district. Until very recently the 
 use of any manuscript would have been fatal to the cordial ac- 
 ceptance of any candidate. 
 
 " He's a grand preacher," whispered an old spinster to her 
 sister on hearing a young minister for the first time. 
 " Whist ! Bell," was the reply ; " he's readin' !" " Read- 
 in', is he ?" said the eulogist, changing her tone ; " paltry fel- 
 low ! we'll gangTiame, Jenny, and read our Book." In 1762 
 Dr. Thomas Blacklock, the well-known poet, was presented by 
 the Earl of Selkirk to the living of Kirkcudbright. He was 
 afflicted by the loss of sight, but, when he was preaching one 
 of his trial discourses, an old woman who sat on the pulpit 
 stairs inquired of a neighbor whether he was a reader. " He 
 canna be a reader," said the old wife, " for he's blin'." 
 " I'm glad to hear it," said the ancient neighbor ; "I wish 
 they were all blin' !" His blindness, however, did not serve 
 Blacklock, for exception was taken to him on account of his 
 loss of sight, and he was compelled to resign his living. 
 
 As anecdotes of them occur in the old biographies, they 
 must often seem a strange race, those old Scottish preachers 
 and pastors. Mr. Shanks, of Jedburgh, was greatly perplexed 
 by a text ; he could make nothing of it ; so, late at night, he 
 started off to Selkirk, a distance of fifteen miles, to take coun- 
 sel upon it with his friend Dr. Lawson. He arrived at one in 
 the morning ; he had to knock many times at the manse 
 before he was heard. At last a servant appeared, asking who 
 he was, and what, in the name of all disorders, could have 
 brought him at that hour of the night. The perplexed parson 
 insisted on seeing Dr. Lawson. He had been in bed hours 
 since. " I must see him, however," said he, " and you must 
 hold my horse until I come down." He knew the way to the 
 doctor's bedroom. He knocked, and entered in the dark.
 
 14 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 He told his brother minister his errand. Lawson entered into 
 the difficulty of the situation, and, although in a somewhat 
 dreamy state, he commenced an exegesis upon the text in ques- 
 tion, showed the bearing of the context, referred to the parallel 
 passages, and cleared up the whole subject to his friend's satis- 
 faction, who thanked Dr. Lawson, bade him good-morning, 
 and then mounting his horse, rode back through the night to 
 Jedburgh. In the morning, at about five, Dr. Lawson awoke. 
 
 " My dear," he said to Mrs. Lawson, " I have had a very 
 singular and not unpleasant dream. I dreamed that Mr. 
 Shanks, good man, came all the way up from Jedburgh to con- 
 sult with me about a text that troubled him." 
 
 " It was no dream," said Mrs. Lawson ; " Mr. Shanks was 
 here, in this very room, and I had to listen to all that you and 
 he had to say." 
 
 It was with difficulty she could persuade him to believe it 
 had been so. On going downstairs, however, he inquired if 
 Mr. Shanks had been during the night, and then in what room 
 he was sleeping. The servant assured him that he had really 
 been in the house, but added, " He is not in the house now, 
 sir. He is at Jedburgh long before this time." 
 
 Of course this spirit of ministerial simplicity and earnestness 
 was sometimes imposed upon. Dr. Chalmers was not only a 
 mighty orator and sagacious scientific thinker, he was a large- 
 hearted and open-handed man. But there was one singular 
 instance in which he lost his temper. He was sitting busily 
 engaged in his study one afternoon when a man was intro- 
 duced. He was a Jew, professing to be an anxious inquirer. 
 Apologizing for his interruption by saying that he was in very 
 great distress of mind, the doctor's sympathy was instantly 
 excited. 
 
 " Sit down, sir. Be good enough to be seated." 
 
 The visitor declared he had been an unbeliever in the divine 
 origin of Christianity, but, beneath the touch of the doctor's 
 eloquence all doubts had vanished ; still there was a difficulty 
 which pressed upon him with peculiar force it was the ac-
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH MINISTER. 15 
 
 count the Bible gave of Melchizedek, one of the types of the 
 Christian Messiah, being without father, without mother, etc. 
 Very kindly, patiently, and anxiously Chalmers disposed of all 
 these difficulties. The man expressed himself as greatly 
 relieved in his mind, thankfully acknowledging that, in the 
 matter of Melchizedek, he saw his way very clearly. 
 
 "And now," continued he, "doctor, I am in great want 
 of a little money, and perhaps you could help me in that way 
 too." [J} 
 
 At once the object of the visit, and the cunning , stratagem 
 for obtaining an introduction, was seen, and the wrath of the 
 doctor was aroused. To have been interrupted in his work, to 
 have expended all his eloquence, and learning, and patience on 
 this ! A tremendous tornado of indignation rolled over the 
 head of the unfortunate mortal as he retreated from the study 
 to the street door. 
 
 " It's too bad !" said the orator. " Not a penny, sir ; not 
 a penny, sir ! It's too bad ; not merely to waste my time, but 
 to haul in your mendicity upon the shoulders of Melchizedek !" 
 
 But with all his grand shrewdness of character, Chalmers 
 especially in his earlier life was easily imposed upon, as Dr. 
 Charles Rogers illustrates in the following anecdote : 
 
 " One Saturday morning, the minister of Kilmany (Chal- 
 mers) stepped in. ' My dear sir,' said he, ' I have been de- 
 tained at Anster all the week, and I am unprepared for to- 
 morrow's duty ; so allow me to take your place, and, like a 
 kind man, you'll take mine at Kilmany.' My father con- 
 sented. ' I don't know what my housekeeper may have for 
 you in the way of eating,' he proceeded, ' but there is very 
 fine whiskey , and this reminds me, I have discovered a method 
 of eliminating the harsher and more deleterious particles from 
 all spirituous liquors. I leave my bottles uncorked, and place 
 them in an open cupboard, so that atmospheric air entering the 
 necks of the bottles may mollify the fluid.' ' All verv good,' 
 said my father. On a bottle of Mr. Chalmers's nctifinl aqua 
 being produced next day after dinner, at Kilmauy, lie found
 
 10 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 that other agencies than those of the atmosphere had been re- 
 ducing the strength. Three fourths of the liquor had evidently 
 been poured out, and the remainder proportionally diluted with 
 aqua from the well. Whiskey of such extreme mildness might 
 be drunk readily. In the evening, as my father was approach- 
 ing the manse, Mr. Chalmers met and hailed him. ' Got well 
 through, I hope ? ' 'Oh yes ! ' ' And some home comforts, 
 too?' 'Yes, a very good dinner, and very mild whiskey.' 
 ' Glad you liked it ; knew you would. I've fallen on the true 
 secret.' ' It was so very mild, that I finished the bottle.' 
 ' Nonsense, my dear sir,' said Mr. Chalmers, who now began 
 to suspect his friend's sincerity ; ' had you done so, you 
 would not have been here to tell the tale.' ' Oh, yes,' per- 
 sisted my father, ' I finished the bottle. The fact is, Mr. 
 Chalmers, you're a bachelor, as well as myself, and if you take 
 the corks out of your whiskey bottles, and throw open your 
 cupboards, your whiskey will be mild enough. Yours was 
 mostly water.' Chalmers was a little crestfallen, but added 
 after a little ' Depend upon it, sir, the air does it.' ' 
 
 Dr. Macfarlane has given, in his vivid likeness of George 
 Lawson, of Selkirk the original of the Rev. Josiah Cargill in 
 " St. Ronan's Well " a piece of ministerial Scottish folk-lore, 
 richer, because more original than Dean Ramsay's celebrated 
 ' Reminiscences. " Writing to Dr. Macfarlane, Thomas Carlyle 
 says : " From your biography of Dr. Lawson, I gather a per- 
 fectly credible account of his character, course of life, and 
 labors in the world ; and the reflection rises in me that, per- 
 haps, there was not in the British Islands a more completely 
 genuine, pious-minded, diligent, and faithful man. Altogether 
 original too ; peculiar to Scotland, and, so far as I can guess, 
 unique even there and then. England will never know him 
 out of any book, or, at least, it would take the genius of a 
 Shakespeare to make him known by that method ; but if Eng- 
 land did, it might much and wholesomely astonish her. Seen 
 in his intrinsic character, no simpler-minded, more perfect 
 lover of wisdom do I know of in that generation. Professor
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH MINISTER. 17 
 
 Lawson, you may believe, was a great man in my boy circle ; 
 never spoken of but with reverence and thankfulness by those 
 I loved best. In a dim, but singularly conclusive way, I can 
 still remember seeing him and even hearing him preach, 
 though of that latter, except the fact of it, I retain nothing ; 
 but of the figure, face, tone, dress, I have a vivid impression 
 (perhaps about my twelfth year, i.e. summer of 1807-8). It 
 seems to me he had even a better face than in your frontis- 
 piece more strength, sagacity, shrewdness, simplicity, a 
 broader jaw, more hair of his own (I don't much remember 
 any wig) ; altogether a most superlative, steel-gray Scottish 
 peasant, and Scottish Socrates of the period ; really, as I now 
 perceive, more like the twin brother of that Athenian Socrates 
 who went about supreme in Athens in wooden shoes, than any 
 man I have ocularly seen." Such was George Lawson. He 
 fulfilled his course among a people who had their homes on the 
 banks of the Tweed, the Ettrick, the Yarrow, and the Gala 
 among shepherds and farmers ; they listened to his words, 
 seated in the house of God, on winter days, wrapped in their 
 shepherds' plaids, their shepherd dogs crouching at their feet, 
 like silent and reverent hearers, too, till, the sermon over, they 
 started to their feet, wagged their tails, and marched out of 
 the house with their masters. 
 
 The old Scottish minister was remarkable for quaint drollery, 
 and it often partook of that dry and grim character which we 
 have distinctly identified as a feature of Scottish humor in 
 general. Men notable for absence of mind were seldom found 
 napping when the occasion came to waken their wit. Evidently 
 in allusion to the doctor's own wig, an impudent fop once 
 dared to ask Mr. Lawson if he could tell him the color of the 
 devil's wig, and prompt came the doctor's reply : " Oh, 
 man," said the divine, " ye maun be a puir tyke of a servant 
 to hae served a master sae lang and no to ken the color o' his 
 wig." Dr. Macfarlane, among his souvenirs, gives one of a 
 Selkirk minister we believe Mr. Law, afterward of Kirkcaldy 
 who was equally remarkable for wit and satire, piety and tal-
 
 18 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 ent : Mr. Law was a well-known humorist, though an excellent 
 man and diligent pastor. There was a sort of infidel and 
 scoffing character in the town in which he lived, commonly 
 called Jock Hammon. Jock had a nickname for Mr. Law, 
 which, though profane, had reference to the well-known evan- 
 gelical character of his ministry. ' ' There's the Grace of God, ' ' 
 he would say, as he saw the good man passing by ; and he 
 actually talked of him under that designation. It so happened 
 that Mr. Law had, on one occasion, consented to take the chair 
 at some public meeting. The hour of meeting was past, the 
 place of meeting was filled, but no minister appeared. Symp- 
 toms of impatience were manifested, when a voice was heard 
 from one corner of the hall " My friends, there will be no 
 * Grace of God ' here this nicht !" Just at this moment the 
 door opened, and Mr. Law appeared, casting, as he entered, 
 a rather knowing look upon Jock Hammon as Jock ejaculated 
 these words. On taking the chair Mr. Law apologized for 
 being so late. " I had," he said, "to go into the country to 
 preside at the examination of a village school, and really the 
 young folks conducted themselves so well that I could scarce 
 get away from them. If you please, I will just give you a 
 specimen of the examination. I called up an intelligent- look- 
 ing girl, and asked her if she had ever heard of any one who 
 had erected a gallows for another and who had been hanged on 
 it himself ? ' Yes,' replied the girl ; ' it was Haman.' With 
 that up started another little girl, and she said, ' Eh, minister, 
 that's no true. Hammon's no hanged yet ; for I saw him at 
 the public-house door this forenoon, and he was swearing 
 like a trooper.' ' (Upon this there was a considerable titter- 
 ing among the audience, and eyes were directed to the corner 
 were Jock was sitting.) "You are both quite right, my 
 dears," said Mr. Law. " Your Haman was really hanged, as 
 he deserved to be ; and " (turning toward the other) " your 
 Hammon, my lambie, is no hanged yet, by ' the Grace o' 
 God,' " he added, with a solemnity of tone which removed 
 every thought of irreverence from the allusion. It might have
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH MINISTER. 19 
 
 reminded some present of the saying of the great English 
 martyr, when he saw a criminal led to execution, ' ' But for the 
 grace of God, there goes John Bradford. ' ' The meeting was 
 awed at first by the solemnity of the rebuke, but then the 
 humor of the thing tickled them, and, amid roars of laughter, 
 Jock rushed out of the meeting, and, for a time at least, he ceased 
 to make the worthy minister the object of his scurrilous jokes. 
 
 Dr. Macfarlane's delightful Life of the old patriarch, Law- 
 son, gives some pathetic glimpses into the interior of the old 
 Scottish manse ; the following, of his comportment on the 
 night of the death of his most loved son, we take to be charac- 
 teristic, not only of Lawson in particular, but of the old Scot- 
 tish minister in general. 
 
 It was customary at that time to send for the undertaker at 
 whatever hour of the day or night death took place, who 
 brought along with him what was called the " dead- board," 
 upon which the corpse was stretched out. The son of the 
 worthy man who performed this duty at this time informed 
 Dr. Macfarlane that when his father arrived at the manse, he 
 found the family in great distress weeping and lamenting 
 over the dead Dr. Lawson sitting in the midst of them, calm, 
 but overwhelmed. After a short space, he arose and said, 
 " Oh, Mrs. Lawson, will you consider what you are about ? 
 Remember who has done this. Be composed ; be resigned ; 
 and rise, and accompany me downstairs, that we may all join 
 in worshipping our God." And so they all went down with 
 him to the parlor. He then read out for praise these solemn 
 verses of the 29th paraphrase : 
 
 " Amidst the mighty, where is He 
 
 Who ssith, and it is done ? 
 Each varying scene of changeful life 
 Is from the Lord alone. 
 
 " Why should a living man complain 
 
 Beneath the chast'ning rod? 
 
 Our sins afflict us ; and the cross 
 
 Must bring us back to God."
 
 20 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 Before he raised the tune, he paused for a moment, looking 
 round upon the weeping circle, and then, with faltering ac- 
 cents, said, "We have lost our singer this morning; but I 
 know that he has began a song which shall never end," and then 
 proceeded with the worship, completing a scene as holy and 
 sublime as can well be imagined. It was also customary at 
 that period, and in that quarter, when the day of funeral came, 
 for the chief mourners to come out and stand at the door, in 
 front of the house, to receive the company as they assembled. 
 Dr. Lawson, however, was not there ; and, as the hour was 
 past the undertaker (one of his elders) entered the manse to 
 inquire the reason. No one could inform him. Upon which, 
 he opened the door of the library, and found the afflicted 
 father on his knees in prayer. 
 
 A few days after this, a letter came to " 7oAw," from one 
 of his pupils at Penrith son of Herbert Buchanan, Esq., of 
 Arden making anxious inquiries as to his health. The letter 
 was opened and read by the father, who wrote an answer to 
 it, as if from John himself in heaven " an answer which 
 breathes not the language of terror and despair, like the spirit 
 that assumed the figure, the voice, and the mouth of the de- 
 parted prophet, but that of holy love and hope, like the words 
 of Moses and Elias, when they appeared in glory on the mount, 
 and spake of the decease which Jesus should accomplish at 
 Jerusalem." 
 
 " DEAR SIR : Your hope that I am in a better state of 
 health than formerly, is now more than realized. God has, in 
 His infinite mercy, been pleased to receive me into those happy 
 abodes where there is no more sorrow, nor death, nor sin. I 
 now hear and see things which it is impossible to utter ; and 
 would not give one hour of the felicity which I now enjoy, for 
 a lifetime, or for a thousand years, of the greatest felicity 
 which I enjoyed on earth. 
 
 " I still love you and the other friends whom I left on 
 earth, but my affection for them is very different from what it
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH MINISTER. 21 
 
 was : I value them not for the love which they bear to me, or 
 the amiable qualities which are most generally esteemed by 
 men, unless they love my Lord and Saviour, through whose 
 blood I have found admission to heaven. The happiness which 
 I wish for you, is not advancement in the world, or a rich en- 
 joyment of its pleasures, but the light of God's countenance, 
 the grace of His Spirit, and a share, when a few years have 
 passed, of those things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
 and which it has not entered into the heart of man to conceive. 
 
 " It is not permitted to us who dwell on high to appear to 
 our fonner friends, and to inform them of our present feelings ; 
 and, ardently as I desire to have you a participant of my felic- 
 ity, I do not wish to approach you in a visible form, to tell 
 you of the riches of the glory of that inheritance which I pos- 
 sess. Abraham tells me that the writings of the prophets and 
 apostles are better fitted to awaken sinners to a sense of ever- 
 lasting things, and to excite good men to holiness, than ap- 
 paritions, and admonitions of their departed friends would be ; 
 and what he says is felt to be true by all of us. I do not now 
 read the Bible. I thank God I often read it from beginning to 
 end, when it was necessary for me to learn from it the knowl- 
 edge of my beloved Saviour ; and yet, if I could now feel un- 
 easiness, I would regret that I made it so little the subject of 
 my meditation. You would be glad to know whether, though 
 unseen, I may not be often present with you, rejoicing in 
 your prosperity, and still more in every good work performed 
 by you, in every expression of love to my God, and care for 
 the welfare of your own soul. But I am permitted to tell you 
 no more on this subject than God has thought meet to tell you 
 in His Word, that there is joy in heaven over one sinner that 
 repenteth ; and angels are present in Christian assemblies, ob- 
 serving with pleasure or indignation the good or bad behavior 
 of the worshippers ; and that we welcome with great joy our 
 friends from earth, when they are received into our everlasting 
 habitations. 
 
 14 Farewell, my dear friend, farewell, but not forever.
 
 22 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 What are all the days you have before you on earth, but a 
 moment ! I hope that the grace which hath brought me so 
 early in my existence to heaven, will bring you all to the same 
 happy place, after sparing you some time longer in the lower 
 world to serve your generation, by His will ; and to do more 
 than I had an opportunity to do, for exciting your neighbor to 
 choose the path of life. Much good may be done by the at- 
 tractive example, by the prayers, and (at proper times) by 
 the religious converse of Christians engaged in this world. 
 " Farewell, again, till we meet never to be separated. 
 " I am, your friend, more sincerely than ever, 
 
 " JOHN LAWSON." 
 
 Thus we obtain a beautiful insight into the character of the 
 old Scottish minister.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF SCOTTISH HUMOB. 
 
 THE humor of any country really represents its human char- 
 acter, and it varies therefore in every nation with the character. 
 The English, Irish, French, Spanish, and American, have all 
 varying shades of humor decidedly their own ; differences and 
 resemblances, contrasts and likenesses. Humor is the outflow- 
 ing of the human idiosyncracy ; and such as the character is 
 and that will vary from the influence of temperament, scenery, 
 and circumstance so will the humor be. The Scottish charac- 
 ter has a kind of humor especially its own. 
 
 Reticence is one very marked characteristic ; a reserved sense 
 sometimes a kind of grim reserve ; indeed, this pervades, 
 more or less, all the manifestations. 
 
 Thus we read that " a minister's man," one of a class of 
 whom, indeed, many stories are told, was following the minis- 
 ter from the manse to the kirk one Sabbath afternoon, when, 
 the minister glancing back, perceived a smile on the face of 
 his old attendant. 
 
 " What makes you laugh, James ? It is unseemly. What 
 is there to amuse you ?" 
 
 " Oh, naething particular," says James ; "I was only 
 thinking o' something that happened this forenoon." 
 
 " What is that ? Tell me what it was." 
 ' Weel, minister, dinna be angry wi' me ; but ye ken the 
 congregation here are whiles no pleased to get auld sermons fra' 
 you, and, this morning, I got the better of the kirk session 
 ony way." 
 
 " And how was that, Jamie ?" says the minister.
 
 24 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 " 'Deed, sir, when we came out o' the kirk this forenoon, I 
 kenned what they were thinking ; and says I, Eh, but you 
 canna ca' that an auld sermon this day, for it's not abune sax 
 weeks since you heard it last !" 
 
 Dr. McLeod was proceeding from the manse of D to 
 
 church, to open a new place of worship. As he passed slowly 
 and gravely through the crowd gathered about the doors, an 
 elderly man, with the peculiar kind of wig known in that dis- 
 trict bright, smooth, and of a reddish brown accosted him. 
 
 ' ' Doctor, if you please, I wish to speak to you. ' ' 
 
 " Well, Duncan," said the venerable doctor it was, we 
 believe, the father of the well-known Scottish minister of our 
 own day " well, Duncan, can you not wait till after worship ?" 
 
 " No, doctor, I must speak to you now, for it is a matter 
 upon my conscience. ' ' 
 
 " Oh, since it is a matter of conscience, tell me what it is ; 
 but be brief, Duncan, for time passes. ' ' 
 
 " The matter is this, doctor. Ye see the clock yonder, on 
 the face of the new church. Well, there is no clock really 
 there ; nothing but the face of a clock. There is no truth in 
 it, but only once in the twelve hours. Now, it is in my mind 
 very wrong, and quite against my conscience, that there 
 should be a lie on the face of the house of the Lord." 
 
 " Duncan, T will consider the point. But I am glad to see 
 you looking so well ; you are not young now ; I remember 
 you for many years ; and what a fine head of hair you have 
 still." 
 
 " Eh, doctor, you are joking now ; it is long since I have 
 had any hair." 
 
 " Oh, Duncan, Duncan, are you going into the house of the 
 Lord with a lie upon your head ?" 
 
 This, says the story, settled the question ; and the doctor 
 heard no more of the lie on the face of the clock. 
 
 Grotesque and 4udicrous, producing the effect of humor 
 without being humorous we have said this is often the char- 
 acteristic of Scottish humor. At a time when many of the
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF SCOTTISH HUMOR. 25 
 
 poor in Scotland had scarcely any notion of any food but oat- 
 meal, a gentleman asked a boy one day if he did not tire of 
 porridge. The boy looked up astonished, saying : 
 
 " Wad ye hae me no' like my meat ?" 
 
 And so we read of a wee laddie interrogating his mother : 
 
 " Mither, will we hae tea tae our breakfast the morn ?" 
 
 " Ay, laddie, if we're spared." 
 
 " And if we're no spared, mither, will we only hae par- 
 ritch ?" 
 
 The story is well known of the old lady who shared the 
 strong prejudices against the organ in divine service. One 
 was, however, erected in her kirk ; it was the first she had 
 ever seen or heard, and she was asked her opinion of it after 
 the first performance, and she replied, " It's a very bonny kist 
 (chest) o' whistles ; but oh, sirs, it's an awfu' way of spend- 
 ing the Sabbath-day !" At the church of Dr. Alexander in 
 Edinburgh, where, after a considerable strife, an organ was 
 erected, it was discovered one Sabbath morning that it could 
 not be used, and the beadle appeared before the reverend doc- 
 tor, the pastor of the congregation, just as he was going into 
 the pulpit, saying, slyly he had always been opposed to the 
 innovation " Doctor, yon creature of an ourgan has gi'en up 
 the ghaist a'thegither the day !" 
 
 The best humor of Scotland is of a very sly and subtle kind. 
 Even the best humor of Burns is often of this order. The 
 Waverley novels, overflowing with every variety of Scottish 
 humor, have many illustrations of this ; the answers of Edie 
 Ochiltree, for instance, in his examination before the magis- 
 trate, Bailie Littlejohn. The old blue-gown's fencings of 
 speech are all in this play of unconscious subtlety : 
 
 " Can you tell me now, bailie, you that understand the law, 
 what gude will it do me to answer ony of your questions ?" 
 
 " Good ! no good, certainly, my friend, except that giving 
 a true account of yourself, if you are innocent, may entitle 
 me to set you at liberty." 
 
 " But it seems mair reasonable to me now that you, bailie,
 
 26 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 or anybody that has onything to say against me, should 
 prove my guilt, and not be bidding me to prove my inno- 
 cence. ' ' 
 
 " I don't sit here," answered the magistrate, " to dispute 
 points of law with you. I ask you, if you choose to answer 
 my question, whether you were at Ringan Arkwood, the for- 
 ester's, on the day I have specified ?" 
 
 " Really, sir, I dinna feel myself called on to remember," 
 replied the bedesman. 
 
 " Or whether in the course of that day or night you saw 
 Steven or Steenie Mucklebacket ? You know him, I suppose ?" 
 
 " Oh, brawlie did I ken Steenie, puir fallow," replied the 
 prisoner, " but I canna condescend on ony particular time I 
 have seen him lately." 
 
 " Were you in the ruins of St. Ruth any time in the course 
 of that evening ?" 
 
 " Bailie Littlejohn," said the mendicant, "if it be your 
 honor's pleasure, we'll cut a long tale short, and I'll just tell 
 you I'm no minded to answer ony o' thae questions. I'm 
 ower auld a traveller to let my tongue bring me into trouble." 
 
 " Write down," said the magistrate, " that he declines to 
 answer all interrogatories, in respect that by telling the truth 
 he might be brought to trouble." 
 
 " Na, na," said Ochiltree. "I'll no hae that set down as 
 ony part o' my answer ; but I just meant to say, that in all 
 my memory and practice I never saw ony gude come o' an- 
 swering idle questions." 
 
 " Write down," said the bailie, " that, being acquainted 
 with judicial interrogatories by long practice, and having sus- 
 tained injury by answering questions put to him on such occa- 
 sions, the declarant refuses " 
 
 " Na, na, bailie," reiterated Edie, " ye are not to come in 
 on me that gait either. ' ' 
 
 This conversation well illustrates that pleasant phase of Scot- 
 tish humor, simple yet shrewd, which has received the well- 
 known epithet of canny.
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF SCOTTISH HUMOR. 27 
 
 Perhaps this is the faculty which gives that fine power of 
 repelling an assault by some keen, efficient reply, sometimes 
 delicate and sometimes coarse, as the case may be, but quite 
 equal to the end. We have heard of a Scotchwoman who had 
 accompanied her mistress to Ireland, who, being jeered by an 
 Irishman on her unmarried condition, replied, in the predes- 
 tinarian phraseology very peculiar to her class, " I'm truly 
 thankful that a man was na ordainit to me, for maybe he 
 might have been like yoursel'." 
 
 Indeed, this cautious and canny slowness of character is en- 
 joined in a well-known Scottish proverb, " Naething should be 
 done in haste but gripping fleas. " 
 
 A droll kind of slow movement of character gives a hint of 
 a good deal of the humor. It is recorded by Chambers and 
 other Scottish historians that when Mrs. Siddons was in Edin- 
 burgh, on the occasion of her first appearance, the audience 
 had been, to English notions, singularly undemonstrative of 
 their approbation. Yet during one scene the whole house was 
 held entirely spellbound and breathless, when there was heard 
 distinctly from the pit a voice from some canny, cautious 
 Scotch critic, " Yon was no' that bad ;" and at that word the 
 whole house burst forth into a perfect tumult and uproar of 
 applause. A lady of rank, a very dear friend of the writer, 
 herself a Scotchwoman of a very old family, usually goes into 
 the housekeeper's room every morning to give her directions 
 for the day to her housekeeper, a daughter of Aberdeen. Our 
 friend has a considerable play of humor and fun, and she has 
 told us how, more than once, after some humorous remark, 
 on the day following her housekeeper will say to her, " Yon 
 was a very humorsome thing ye're leddyship was saying yester- 
 day." It had taken twenty- four hours for the saying fairly to 
 work in the mind. It was like the Scotchman's criticism in 
 the theatre, " Yon was no' that bad !" 
 
 It is no doubt owing to this queer slowness in the character 
 that we have among Scottish anecdotes so many of the ludi- 
 crous, which are not humorous. Dr. Rogers, in his collection,
 
 28 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 gives an instance of grotesque stupidity in a magistrate. A 
 bailie of the Gorbals, Glasgow, was noted for the simplicity of 
 his manners on the bench. A youth was charged before his 
 tribunal with abstracting a handkerchief from a gentleman's 
 pocket. The indictment being read, the bailie, addressing the 
 prisoner, remarked, " I hae na doot ye did the deed, for I 
 had a handkerchief ta'en oot o' my ain pouch-pocket this vera 
 week. ' ' The same magisterial logician was, on another occa- 
 sion, seated on the bench when a case of serious assault was 
 brought forward by the public prosecutor. Struck by the 
 powerful phraseology of the indictment, the bailie proceeded 
 to say, " For this malicious crime you are fined half a 
 guinea. ' ' The assessor remarked that the case had not yet 
 been proven. "Then," said the magistrate, "we'll just 
 make the fine five shillings." But we have many analogies to 
 this worthy among the magistrates of England. 
 
 The humor of some stories needs some little knowledge to 
 apprehend the altogether unconscious humor which comes out 
 from the narrator. It has been said, that of all the sciences, 
 it is a difficult task to make a Highlander comprehend the value 
 of mineralogy ; there is some' sense in astronomy, it means the 
 guidance of the stars in aid of navigation ; there is sense in 
 chemistry, it is connected with dyeing, and other arts : but 
 ' ' chopping off bits of the rocks, ' ' that is a mystery. 
 
 A shepherd was sitting in a Highland inn, and he communi- 
 cated to another his experiences with " one of they mad Eng- 
 lishmen." 
 
 "There was one," said he, "who gave me his bag to 
 carry, by a short cut, across the hills to his inn, while he took 
 the other road. Eh ! it was dreadfully heavy, and, when I 
 got out of his sight, I determined to see what was in it, for I 
 wondered at the unco' weight of the thing ; and, man ! it's 
 no use for you to guess what was in that bag, for ye'd ne'er 
 find out. It was stanes. " 
 
 " Stanes !" said his companion, opening his eyes, " stanes !" 
 
 " Ay, just stanes."
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF SCOTTISH HUMOR. 29 
 
 " Well, that beats all I ever knew or heard of them. And 
 did you carry it ?" 
 
 " Carry it ! Man, do ye think I was as mad as himself ? 
 Nae ! Nae ! I emptied them all out, but I filled the bag 
 again from the cairn near the house, and I gave him good 
 measure for his money. ' ' 
 
 And yet Hugh Miller was a Scotchman ! 
 
 It has sometimes appeared to us that old Scotland furnishes 
 a greater variety of humor in the character than any other 
 region of which we have heard ; there is a greater originality, 
 and there is less sameness. Sir Walter Scott knew this, and 
 he studied this variety, and originality in variety, so as to 
 bring it out in the many characters he portrays. Daft Jock 
 Amos is a character of whom many stories are told. 
 
 " John," said the minister to him one day " John, can 
 you repeat the Fourth Commandment ? I hope you can ; 
 which is the Fourth Commandment ?" 
 
 " I dare say, Mr. Boston, it'll be the ane after the third." 
 
 " Can you repeat it?" 
 
 " I'm no sure about it. I ken it has some wheeram by the 
 rest." 
 
 Mr. Boston repeated it. He had found John working with 
 a knife on the Sabbath-day. He tried to show him his error, 
 but John whittled on. 
 
 " But, John, why won't you rather come to church, John ? 
 What is the reason you never come to church ?" 
 
 " Because you never preach on the text I want you to preach 
 on." 
 
 " What text would you have me to preach on ?" 
 
 " On the nine-and-twenty knives that came back from Baby- 
 lon." 
 
 " I never heard of them before !" 
 
 " It is a sign you never read your Bible. Ha, ha, ha, Mr. 
 Boston ! sic fool, sic minister." 
 
 But Mr. Boston went away and searched long and hard for 
 John's text, and sure enough he found the record in Ezra 1:9;
 
 30 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 though he still wondered greatly at the acuteness of the fool, 
 considering the subject on which he had been reproving him. 
 But this story became the foundation of a proverb, " The mair 
 fool are ye, as Jock Amos said to the minister." It was to 
 this same Jock Amos an old wife said one day : 
 
 " John, how auld will ye be ?" They had been talking of 
 their ages. 
 
 " Oh, I dinna ken," said John. " It would tak' a wiser 
 head than mine to tell ye that." 
 
 " It is unco' queer that ye dinna ken how auld you are," 
 returned she. 
 
 " I ken weel enough how auld I am," said John, " but I 
 dinna ken how auld I'll be." 
 
 A good deal of the humor is just in the shrewd simplicity of 
 a reply. A London tourist met a young woman going to the 
 kirk, and, as was not unusual, she was carrying her boots in 
 her hand and trudging along barefoot. 
 
 " My girl," said he, "is it customary for all the people in 
 these parts to go barefoot ?" 
 
 " Pairtly they do," said the girl, " and pairtly they mind 
 their own business." 
 
 In the town of Falkirk there lived a very notorious infidel 
 who gloried in his profanity. On one occasion he was de- 
 nouncing the absurdity of the doctrine of original sin ; and the 
 beadle of the parish, perhaps, thought himself bound officially 
 to put in his word, although the other was socially his superior. 
 
 " Mr. H.," said he, " it seems to me that you needna fash 
 (trouble) yourseP about original sin, for to my certain knowl- 
 edge you have as much akwal (actual) sin as will do your busi- 
 ness. ' ' 
 
 The humor of the Scotchman does not always seem to wear 
 the most amiable complexion. Some one remarked to an 
 Aberdonian, " It's a fine day." 
 
 " Fa's (who's) finding faut wi' the day ?" was the not very 
 civil reply. " Ye wad pick a quarrel wi' a steen (stone) wa !" 
 
 Repartee is a species of witty gladiatorship, which, skilfully
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF SCOTTISH HUMOR. 31 
 
 wielded, is sure to set the "table in a roar." The Hon. 
 Henry Erskine was, notwithstanding his powers as a humorist, 
 once overcome in wit by a country clergyman. The Rev. Dr. 
 
 M'C , minister of Douglas, and Mr. Erskine had met at the 
 
 dinner-table of a mutual friend. A dish of cresses being on 
 the table, the rev. gentleman took a supply on his plate, which 
 he proceeded to eat, using his fingers. Erskine remarked 
 that the doctor's procedure reminded him of Nebuchadnezzar. 
 
 " Ay," retorted Dr. M'C , " that'll be because I am eatin' 
 
 amang the brutes." 
 
 Hugo Arnot was of a form so emaciated that he was often 
 compared to a walking skeleton. He was one day, in his usual 
 eccentric manner, eating on the street a speldin, or dried fish. 
 Mr. Erskine came up. " You see," said Arnot, " I'm not 
 starving." " I confess," replied the wit, " you are very like 
 your meat." Arnot openly avowed infidel principles. He 
 was riding on a white horse one Sabbath afternoon, when he 
 met the celebrated Rev. Dr. Erskine of the Greyfriars return- 
 ing from church. " I wonder that a man of your sense," said 
 the infidel, " would preach to a parcel of old wives ; what 
 was your text?" " The text," replied Dr. Erskine, " was in 
 the sixth chapter of Revelation, ' And I looked, and behold a 
 pale horse : and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell 
 followed with him !' ' Arnot gave reins to his horse, and 
 galloped off. 
 
 A capital story is told of Professor Blackie, of Edinburgh, 
 Grecian, poet, philosopher, and orator. He had one day 
 affixed a paper to the door of his class-room, announcing that 
 " Professor Blackie is unable to meet his classes." Some wag 
 of a student, seeing this, carefully erased the first letter of the 
 word classes, which left the announcement that " Professor 
 Blackie is unable to meet his lasses ;" but the Professor came 
 along, noticed the erasure, and made another of the letter " J;" 
 thus leaving the announcement that " Professor Blackie is un- 
 able to meet his asses /" 
 
 But the humors of the religious character are among the
 
 32 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 most noticeable. To some English readers the phraseology 
 may be amusing from its quaintness, but let them remember 
 that it is used with the most solemn reverence. A Scotchman 
 would be equally amused with the seeming irreverence of 
 "Jessica's First Prayer," or with the words of the worthy 
 English soldier, who, in his prayer at the opening of Mrs. 
 Daniell's Home at Aldershot, said, " Lord, Thou knowest what 
 a fix the poor soldier was in before this here blessed place was 
 built." Stories are told of a Mr. James Lockhart, of the Salt 
 Market, in Glasgow, who was a good specimen of the old- 
 fashioned morality of bygone times. One day a country girl 
 came into his shop to buy a pair of garters. Having asked 
 the price, Mr. Lockhart told her they were fourpence. The 
 girl said, " I will not give you a farthing more than threepence 
 for them." " Weel, lassie, you'll not get them," replied the 
 shopkeeper. Shortly afterward the girl returned and said, " I 
 noo gie ye fourpence." " Gang awa', lassie ; gang awa'," 
 replied Mr. Lockhart, " and no tell lies." An anecdote is 
 told of another worthy tradesman, a near neighbor of the above, 
 which illustrates the high principle and simple manners of one 
 who lived when profane swearing was too common. One day 
 a woman came into the shop of this person (his son became a 
 magistrate of the city). She asked the price of his goods, and 
 hearing the cost, she cried out at the top of her voice, " Lord 
 preserve us !" which words were no sooner ejaculated than the 
 good religious man touched her very gently on the arm, and, 
 with a look of kindness, said to her, " It is very good always 
 to pray." " Was I praying, sir ?" asked the woman. " In- 
 deed you were ; but you might do so more reverently." 
 
 The Ettrick Shepherd, in his "Shepherd's Calendar," 
 refers to the religious character of the shepherds of Scotland 
 in his day, as a class ; in his experience, he says, it was 
 scarcely possible that he could be other than a religious char- 
 acter, feeling himself to be a dependent creature, compelled to 
 hold converse with the cloud and the storm, on the misty 
 mountain and the dark waste, in the whirling drift and the
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OP SCOTTISH HUMOR. 35 
 
 overwhelming thaw ; amid the voices and sounds that are only 
 heard in the howling cliff and the solitary dell. " Among the 
 shepherds," says the Ettrick Shepherd, " the antiquated but 
 delightful exercise of family worship was never neglected ;" 
 always gone about with decency and decorum ; but, he con- 
 tinues, " formality being a thing despised, there are no com- 
 positions, that I ever heard, so truly original as those prayers 
 occasionally are ; sometimes for rude eloquence and pathos, at 
 other times for an indescribable sort of pomp, and, not unfre- 
 qucntly, for a plain and somewhat unbecoming familiarity." 
 He gives several illustrations quite justifying this description 
 from some with whom he had himself served and herded. 
 One of the most notable men for this sort of family eloquence, 
 he thought, was a certain Adam Scott, in Upper Dalgleish. 
 Thus he prayed for a son who seemed thoughtless : " For Thy 
 mercy's sake for the sake of Thy poor sinfu' servants that 
 are now addressing Thee in their ain shilly-shally way, and for 
 the sake o' mair than we dare weel name to Thee, hae mercy 
 on Rab. Ye ken fu' weel he is a wild, mischievous callant, 
 and thinks nae mair o' committing sin than a dog does o' 
 licking a dish ; but put Thy hook in his nose, and Thy bridle 
 in his gab, and gar him come back to Thee wi' a jerk that he'll 
 no forget the longest day he has to leeve. " He prayed for 
 another son away from home : " Dinna forget poor Jamie, 
 wha's far awa' frae us the nicht. Keep Thy arm o' power 
 about him ; and oh, I wish ye wad endow him wi' a little 
 spunk and smeddum to act for himself. For if ye dinna, he'll 
 be but a banckle (an old shoe) in this world and a backsittcr in 
 the neist." Another time, when the first Napoleon was filling 
 Europe with alarm, he prayed : " Bring down the tyrant and 
 his lang neb, for he has done muckle ill the year, and gie him 
 a cup o' Thy wrath, and gin he winna take that, give him 
 kelty (two cups)." Hogg heard a relation of his own, a 
 worthy old shepherd, pray as follows on the day on which he 
 buried his only son : " Thou hast seen meet in Thy wise Provi- 
 dence to remove the staff out of my right hand at the very
 
 S* SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 time when, to us poor sand-blind mortals, it appeared that I 
 stood maist in need o't. But oh, he was a sicker (such) ane 
 and a sure ane, and a dear ane to my heart ! And bow I'll 
 climb the steep hill o' auld age and sorrow without it Thou 
 mayst ken, but I dinna." Another time he prayed during a 
 severe and long-lying storm of snow, " Is the whiteness of des- 
 olation to lie still on the mountains o' our land forever ? Is 
 the earthly hopes o' Thy servants to perish frae the face o' the 
 earth ? The flocks on a thousand hills are Thine, and their 
 lives or deaths wad be naethiug to Thee- thou wad be neither 
 richer nor poorer, but it is a great matter to us. Have pity, 
 then, on the lives of Thy creatures, for beast and body are a' 
 Thy handiwork, and send us the little wee cludd out o' the sea 
 like a man's hand, to spread and darken, and pour and flash, 
 till the green gladsome face o' nature aince mair appear." 
 Reading the story of Goliath and David at family prayer, his 
 prayer, as was often the case, became a commentary : " And 
 when our besetting sins come bragging and blowstering upon 
 us, like Goli o' Gath, oh, enable us to fling off the airmer and 
 hairnishing o' the law, whilk we haena proved, and whup up 
 the simple sling o' the gospel, and nail the smooth stanes o' re- 
 deeming grace into their foreheads." 
 
 The Waverley novels constitute the most comprehensive 
 compendium of Scotch humor of every kind and variety. The 
 characters are living embodiments of the humor of the nation, 
 especially in that feature we have indicated, its imperturbable 
 unconsciousness. King Jamie and " Gingling Geordie," or 
 George Heriot, and Andrew Fairservice, and Richie Moneplies, 
 and crowds besides, all fulfil this droll unconsciousness. They 
 say the most pleasant and unexpectedly odd things, which 
 make the reader's sides ache with laughing, and themselves see 
 nothing in what they say to provoke a smile. A minister 
 called to console a poor widow who had just lost her husband, 
 Jock Dunn, a thriftless rascal, who only lived to eat and drink 
 the hard-won earnings of his patient wife, Jeanie. " Provi- 
 dence in His mercy," said the minister," has seen fit to take
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF SCOTTISH HUMOR. 35 
 
 awa' the head of yer house, Jeanie, lass." To this the 
 bereaved wife philosophically replied, " Oh, hoch aye, but, 
 thank gudeness, Providence, in His mercy, has ta'en awa' the 
 stommack tae !" There is a deal of quiet philosophy in 
 Scotch humor. 
 
 When the present fashionable spa of Bridge of Allan was a 
 small agricultural hamlet, it was the abode of an old cobbler 
 who was renowned for his witty sayings, and was never known 
 to be put out. One day, as he was walking in front of his 
 little cottage, two young officers from Stirling Castle came up. 
 One had previously betted with the other that he would over- 
 match the cobbler. " How far have we to go, Sawney ?" says 
 the confident. "Just three miles," replied the cobbler. 
 "How do you know ?" insisted the querist. "Because," 
 answered the cobbler, " it's three miles to Stirling, an' it'& 
 three to Dunblane, and there's a gallows at baith !" It is 
 necessary to explain, that at the period of the incident there 
 were public executioners at both places. 
 
 The celebrated Dr. John Erskine of Greyfriars, Edinburgh, 
 was noted for the evenness of his temper. His handkerchief 
 had disappeared every Sabbath during his descent from the 
 pulpit, and suspicion could only fall on an elderly female, who, 
 according to the practice of the times, sat on the pulpit stair. 
 In order to discover the depredator, Mrs. Erskine sewed the 
 corner of the handkerchief to the minister's pocket. Return- 
 ing from the pulpit, he felt a gentle pull, when, turning round 
 and tapping the old woman on the shoulder, he exclaimed, 
 " No the day, honest woman ; no the day !" 
 
 " My grandmother," says Hugh Boyd in his most entertain- 
 ing " Reminiscences of Fifty Years," " once awoke my 
 grandfather in the middle of the night, and told him that she 
 much feared their son Willie, who slept next room to them, 
 had become deranged, as she had been listening to him for 
 some time speaking loudly and rapidly to himself. Her hus- 
 band listened, and came to the same conclusion ; and they 
 forthwith hurried into their boy's bedroom to know what way
 
 36 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 the matter. Willie's explanation was, that as they were going 
 to the seaside next day, he wished to save time, and was say- 
 ing his prayers over and over to last him during the holidays. 
 This reminds me," he continues, " of our cook in Scotland, 
 whom I found one night after twelve o'clock sipping her tea. 
 ' Hallo, cook ! how late you are in drinking your tea. ' ' Na, 
 na, sir, I am no at my tea, I am at my breakfast, as I thocht it 
 best to tak mine afore ganging to bed, as you and the ither 
 young gentleman hae ordered yours to be ready at five, that ye 
 mae get aff in guid time to the muirs. ' ' 
 
 The Rev. Dr. H , though of a kindly, genial nature, 
 
 indulged in a somewhat blunt manner of talking. " llow 
 many of your family are alive now, Saunders ?" asked the 
 Doctor of an aged person, who had been his parishioner forty 
 years before, prior to his elevation to a professorship. The 
 old man replied, " They're a' leevin, sir, but my sister an' 
 me." " Ye're a fool, man," said the Doctor ; " are you not 
 
 living?" The following season Dr. H happened to be 
 
 in the parish, and again encountered Saunders. " I am glad to 
 meet you once more, Saunders," said the professor. 
 " Maybe, sir," replied the rustic ; " but I didna expect that 
 ye wad hae spoken to me. You ca'd me a full the last time 
 we foregathered." " Ye're an idiot, man," said the Doctor ; 
 "I have no recollection of ever having called you a fool in 
 my life." Dr. Rogers, to whose ample and well-stored mem- 
 ory we are indebted for so many happy anecdotes, says he was 
 a witness to both the interviews. 
 
 An odd illustration of the indigenous love of titles in the 
 Scotch occurs in an old newspaper. In the days of Bailie 
 Nicol Jarvie's father, the office of deacon (chairman of a cor- 
 poration of tradesmen) was esteemed no mean distinction. 
 Two worthy incumbents, who fretted their little hour upon a 
 stage not far from the banks of the Ayr, happened to be in- 
 vested with the above-named dignity on the same day. The 
 more youthful of the two flew home to tell his young wife 
 what an important prop of the civic edifice he had been al-
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF SCOTTISH HUMOR. 37 
 
 lowed to become ; and searching the " but and ben" in vain, 
 ran out to the byre, where, meeting the cow, he could no 
 longer contain his joy, but, in the fulness of his heart, clasped 
 her round the neck, and it is even said, kissed her, exclaiming, 
 " Oh, crummie, crummie, ye're nae langer a common cow 
 ye're the deacon's cow!" The elder civic dignitary was a 
 sedate, pious person, and felt rather " blate" in showing to 
 his wife that he was uplifted above this world's honors. As 
 he thought, however, it was too good a piece of news to allow 
 her to remain any time ignorant of, he lifted the latch of his 
 own door, and stretching his head inward, " Nelly !" said he, 
 in a voice that made Nelly all ears and eyes, ' ' gif ony body 
 comes spierin' for the deacon, I'm just owre the gate at John 
 Tamson's !" 
 
 One dark winter's evening, John Ritchie, the beadle of St. 
 Dariel's Church, Dundee, undertook to conduct the minister 
 of an adjoining parish to the residence of his own pastor in a 
 suburb of the town. It was particularly dark, and the minister 
 who accompanied John began to express a fear that his guide 
 would miss the way. John, however, continued to assert that 
 all was right, till, after a lengthened journey, they reached 
 the precincts of a large public building ; the not discomfited 
 functionary exclaimed, " I've ta'en ye a little aboot, sir ; but 
 I thocht ye wad maybe like to see the Cholera Hospital !" 
 The Asiatic scourge was then raging in the town ; and John 
 had, indeed, lost his road. 
 
 Alexander M'Lachlan, beadle in the parish of Blairgowrie, 
 had contracted a habit of tippling, which, though it did not 
 wholly unfit him for his duties, had become a matter of con- 
 siderable scandal. The Rev. Mr. Johnstone, the incumbent, 
 had resolved to reprove him on the first suitable opportunity. 
 A meeting of the kirk session was to be held on a week-day, 
 at twelve o'clock. The minister and the beadle were in the 
 session-house together before any of the elders had arrived. 
 The beadle was flushed and excited, and the minister deemed 
 the occasion peculiarly fitting for the administration of reproof.
 
 38 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 " I much fear, Saunders, " began the minister, " that the 
 bottle has become ; " Ay, ay, sir," broke in the unper- 
 turbed official, " I was just gaun to observe that there was a 
 smell o' drink amang's !" 
 
 " How is it, John," said a clergyman to his church officer, 
 " that you never go a message for me anywhere in the parish 
 but you contrive to take too much spirits ? People don't 
 offer me spirits when I'm making visits in the parish." 
 " Weel, sir," said John, " I canna precisely explain it, unless 
 on the supposition that I'm a wee mair popular wi' some o' 
 the folks." 
 
 Among the pleasing illustrations of the peculiarities of Scot- 
 tish humor, we remember nothing more characteristic than an 
 incident which appeared many years since in the columns of a 
 Scotch newspaper ; it was the story of Betty's marriage and 
 we the rather insert it here because, characteristic as it is, it is 
 not so popular as it deserves to be ; it perhaps, however, needs 
 the accent of the Scottish tongue to give full effect to its 
 humor. Betty was the housekeeper to a farmer, not very far 
 away from Edinburgh, who had attained the matured age of 
 sixty and had never found a wife for a helpmate ; all his house- 
 hold affairs, however, were conducted by Betty ; she was a 
 young woman, and rather regarded as a housekeeper than a 
 merely humble domestic servant, for the farmer was wealthy 
 and had many servants to his household ; Betty had the rare 
 good fortune to be at once beloved by her fellow-servants as 
 well as highly respected and trusted by her master ; he often 
 consulted her upon matters on which she was able to advise, 
 and she never tendered her advice gratuitously, but always 
 gave her opinion with modesty and wisdom. She had lived 
 with him many years in this way, when a maiden lady in the 
 neighborhood, having set her cap at the farmer and failed, 
 began to whisper certain scandals which came to the farmer's 
 ear ; he not only had a high regard to his own character, but 
 an equal regard for the character of Betty ; so he took the 
 best course at once of vindicating himself and his excellent
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF SCOTTISH HUMOR. 39 
 
 housekeeper, by asking her to become his wife. The event 
 excited considerable speculation what artifice could she have 
 used ? how could she have gone about courting the old man ? 
 A neighbor asked her to give an account of how it all came 
 about ; but Betty was perfectly simple, a true and altogether 
 inartificial person ; and thus called upon, she gave an account 
 of her marriage with a naivete and homeliness peculiarly 
 Scotch. She had a lisp in her speech, so that the * was always 
 pronounced as th, and this added a deeper and more pleasing 
 simplicity to her manner ; here is Betty's narrative, and we do 
 not know anything in Gait or Scott more simply and thor- 
 oughly worthy of being called a Scottish characteristic : 
 
 *' Weel, Betty," says her acquaintance, " come, gie me a 
 sketch, an' tell me a' about it, for I may hae a chance mysel. 
 We dinna ken what's afore us. We're no the waur o' haein 
 somebody to tell us the road when we dinna ken a' the" cruiks 
 and throws in't." " 'Deed," says Betty, " there was little 
 about it ava'. Our maister was awa' at the fair ae day, selling 
 the lambs, and it was gey late afore he cam hame. Our mais- 
 ter very seldom stays late, for he's a douce man as can be. 
 We.ei, ye see, he was mair hearty than I had seen him for a 
 lang time, but I opine he had a gude merket for his lambs, 
 and there's room for excuse when ane drives a gude bergen. 
 Indeed, to tell even on truth, he had rather better than a wee 
 drap in his e'e. It was my usual to sit up till he cam hamo. 
 when he was awa'. When he cam in and gaed upstairs, he 
 fand his supper ready for him. ' Betty,' says he, very saft 
 like. ' Sir,' says I. ' Betty,' says he, ' what has been gaun 
 on the day ? a's right, I houp ? ' ' Ou ay, sir,' says I. 
 'Vera weel, vera weel,' says he, in his ain canny way. He 
 gae me a clap on the shouther, and said I was a gude lassie. 
 When I had telt him a' that had been dune through the day, 
 just as I aye did, he gae me anither clap on the shouther, 
 and said he was a fortunat man to hae sic a carefu' person 
 about the house. I never had heard him say as muckle to my 
 face before, though he aften said mair ahint my back. I
 
 40 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 really thocht he was fey. Our maister, when he had got his 
 supper finished began to be vera joky ways, and said that I was 
 baith a gude and bonnie lassie. I kent that folks arna them- 
 sels whan in drink, and they say rather mair than they wad do 
 if they were sober. Sae I cam away doon into the kitchen. 
 Na, ray maister never offered to kiss me ; he was ower modest 
 a man for that. 
 
 " Twa or three days after that, our maister cam into the 
 kitchen. ' Betty,' says he. ' Sir,' says I. ' Betty,' says 
 he, ' come upstairs; I want to speak t'ye,' says he. ' Vera 
 weel, sir,' says I. Sae I went upstairs after him, thinking a' 
 the road that he was gaun to tell me something about the 
 feeding o' the swine, or killing the heefer, or something like 
 that. But when he telt me to sit doun, I saw there was some- 
 thing serious, for he never bad me sit doun afore hut ance, 
 and that was when he was gaun to Glasgow fair. ' Betty,' 
 says he, ' ye hae been lang a servant to me, ' says he, ' and a 
 gude and honest servant. Since ye're sae gude a servant, I 
 aften think ye'll make a better wife. Hae ye ony objection to 
 be a wife, Betty ?' says he. ' I dinna ken, sir,' says I ; ' a 
 body canna just say how they like a bargain till they see the 
 article.' ' Weel, Betty,' says he, ' ye're vera right there 
 again. I hae had ye for a servant these fifteen years, and I 
 never knew that I could find faut wi' ye for onytbing. Ye're 
 carefu', honest, and attentive, and ' ' Oh, sir,' says I, 
 ' ye always paid me for't, and it was only my duty.' ' Weel, 
 wee!,' says he, ' Betty, that's true ; but then I mean to make 
 am nds t'ye for the evil speculation that Tibby Langtongue 
 raised about you and me, and forby the warld are taking the 
 same liberty ; sae, to stop a' their mouths, you and I sail be 
 married.' ' Vera weel, sir,' says I ; for what could I say ? 
 
 ' ' Our maister looks into the kitchen anither day, an' says 
 ' Betty,' says he. ' Sir,' says I. ' Betty,' says he, ' I am 
 gaun to gie in our names to be cried in the kirk this and next 
 Sabbath.' ' Vera weel, sir,' says I. 
 
 "About eight days after this, our maister says to me
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF SCOTTISH HUMOR. 41 
 
 'Betty,' says he. 'Sir,' says I. 'I think,' says he, 'we 
 will hae the marriage put ower neist Friday, if ye hae nae ob- 
 jection.' ' Vera weel, sir,' says I. ' And ye'll tak the gray 
 yad, and gang to the toun on Monday, an' get your bits o' 
 wedding braws. I hae spoken to Mr. Cheap, the draper, and 
 ye can tak aff onything ye want, an' please yoursel, for I canna 
 get awa' that day.' ' Vera weel, sir,' says I. 
 
 " Sae I gaed awa' to the toun on Monday, an' bought some 
 wee bits o' things ; but I had plenty o' claes, and I couldna 
 think o' being 'stravagant. I took them to the manty-maker 
 to get made, and they were sent hame on Thursday. 
 
 " On Thursday night our maister says to me ' Betty,' says 
 he. 'Sir,' says I. 'To-morrow is our wedding-day,' says 
 he ; '-an' ye maun see that a' things are prepared for the 
 denner,' says he, ' an' see everything dune yoursel,' says he ; 
 ' for I expect some company, an' I wad like to see every- 
 thing feat and tidy in your ain way,' says he. ' Vera weel, 
 sir,' says I. 
 
 " I had never taen a serious thought about the matter till 
 now, and I began to consider that I must exert mysel to please 
 my maister and the company. Sae I got everything in readi- 
 ness, and got everything clean ; I couldna think ought was 
 dune right, except my ain hand was in't. 
 
 " On Friday morning our maister says to me ' Betty,' says 
 he. ' Sir,' says I. ' Go away and get yoursel dressed,' says 
 he ; ' for the company will soon be here, an' ye maun be de- 
 cent. An' ye maun stay in the room upstairs,' says he, ' till 
 ye're sent for,' says he. ' Vera weel, sir,' says I. But there 
 was sic a great deal to do, and sae rnony gran' dishes to pre- 
 pare for the denner to the company, that I could not get awa', 
 and the hail folk were come afore I got myscl dressed. 
 
 " Our maister cam dounstairs, and telt me to go up that 
 instant and dress mysel, for the minister was just comin doun 
 the loan. Sae I was obliged to leave everything to the rest of 
 the servants, an' gang upstairs an' put on my claes. 
 
 " When I was wanted, Mr. Brown o' the Haaslybrae cam
 
 42 SCOTTISH CHAKACTERISTICS. 
 
 an' took me into the room among a' the gran' folk and the 
 minister. I was maist like to fent, for I never saw sae mony 
 gran' folk thegither a' my born days afore, an' I didna ken 
 whar to look. At last our maister took me by the han', an' I 
 was greatly relieved. The minister said a great deal to us, but 
 I canna mind it a', and then he said a prayer. After this, I 
 thought I should hae been worried wi' folk kissing me ; mony 
 a yin shook hands wi' me I had never seen afore, and wished 
 me much joy. 
 
 " After the ceremony was over, I slipped awa' doun into 
 the kitchen again amang the rest o' the servants to see if the 
 denner was a' right. But in a wee time, our maister cam into 
 the kitchen, and says 'Betty,' says he. 'Sir,' says I. 
 'Betty, 'says he; 'you must consider that ye're no longer 
 my servant, but my wife,' says he, 'and therefore ye must 
 come upstairs and sit amang the rest o' the company,' says he. 
 ' Vera weel, sir,' says I. So what could I do but gang up- 
 stairs to the rest o' the company, and sit down amang them ? 
 Sae, Jean, that was a' that was about my courtship and mar= 
 riage. ' '
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE HUMORS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER. 
 
 ALTHOUGH so many hands have attempted to delineate it, 
 the Scottish character is not very easily sounded ; there is a 
 subtlety and a variety in it which a few crayon strokes will by 
 no means satisfy. This character is composite ; the Lowlander 
 and the Highlander meet in the character ; the Dane and the 
 Englishman may each recognize some features of themselves. 
 The first thing which has usually impressed us is that the 
 Scotchman is one who is always " keeping up a terrible think- 
 ing" a kind of man engaged in a perpetual soliloquy, or 
 rather colloquy, with himself 
 
 " As I walked with myself I talked with myself, 
 And myself replied to me. " 
 
 We some time since were dining in Edinburgh at our table 
 by ourselves, but in an opposite corner was a Scotchman dining 
 also, and his mind seemed sorely exercised. Quite alone at 
 his table, he was altogether oblivious of any company in the 
 room, and at intervals of two or three moments came forth the 
 ejaculation, " Ay ay, ay !" He pursued the pathway of 
 silence, occupied with his steak, but as he stretched forth his 
 fork for another potato, it came forth again, " Ay, ay ay !" 
 And so through the whole af his dinner he renewed his expres- 
 sive utterances from the flashes of silence. It seemed to us 
 very Scotch. 
 
 Would it be possible to write the " Cotter's Saturday Night" 
 now ? Even if Scotland had a Burns, would such a picture be 
 any longer true of the social life of the country ? Is it true 
 that, as Emerson says, merely " for everything given some-
 
 44 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 thing is taken ;" that while " society has acquired new arts, 
 it has lost its old instincts ;" that " the civilized man has built 
 a coach, but has lost the use of his feet ; that he has a fine 
 Geneva watch, but cannot tell the hour by the sun" ? Is this 
 the entire story of civilization ? We can draw some very 
 sweet pictures of the rural life in times not long since deceased, 
 but there are, of course, other pictures. Was there not much 
 more real enjoyment then than is now known ? They had, it 
 has been truly said, more leisure to be merry than their de- 
 scendants have. Looking into many homes, especially of the 
 Highland tacksman and the Lowland farmer, it seems as if 
 they had more innocent enjoyments. Even though spring and 
 autumn were seasons of arduous labor, the other seasons of the 
 year were periods of heart-stirring festivity. Sometimes the 
 labors were light the winning, or raising peats and hay, ewe- 
 milking, sheep-shearing, the dairy, the flocks, and the herds. 
 Such occupations employed the jocund hours of summer. But 
 no sour Puritanism presided over the home-born happiness of 
 winter ; the long winter evenings were crowned with fireside 
 delights, and Alexander Waugh, who came from such a home, 
 says, with scarcely any books of amusement, without any 
 games of chance, without stimulating liquors, and without ever 
 seeing a newspaper, our simple ancestors managed to beguile 
 their hours of leisure and relaxation cheerfully, and innocently, 
 and, on the whole, quite as rationally, if not quite so elegantly, 
 as their more bustling and ambitious offspring. The state of 
 culture and education must have been much higher in the old 
 times, especially with the gentlem< n tacksmen, or leaseholders. 
 Dr. Macleod, in his book published twelve years since, says he 
 knew one who was ninety years of age then. Fifty years 
 since, in the Highlands, he was accosted by a pedestrian with 
 a knapsack on his back, who addressed him in a language 
 which was intended for Gaelic. The farmer, judging him to 
 be a foreigner, replied in French, which met no response, the 
 farmer's French being probably as bad as the tourist's Gaelic. 
 The Highlander then tried Latin, which created a smile of
 
 THE HUMORS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER. 45 
 
 surprise, and drew forth an immediate reply. This was inter- 
 rupted by the remark that English would probably be more 
 convenient for both parties. The tourist, who turned out to 
 be an Oxford student, laughing heartily at the interview, gladly 
 accepted the invitation of the tacksman to accompany him to 
 his thatched house and share his hospitality. He was sur- 
 prised on entering "the room" to see a small library in the 
 humble apartment. "Books here! 11 he exclaimed, as he 
 looked over the shelves. " Addison, Johnson, Goldsmith, 
 Shakespeare what ! Homer too ?" The farmer, with some 
 pride, begged him to look at the Homer ; it had been given 
 as a prize when he was a student at the university. 
 
 " As proud as a Scot" is an old proverb. It is Sir Walter 
 who sketches the portrait in "Richie Moniplies :" "'Now 
 there goes Scotch Jockey with all his good and bad about him,' 
 said Master George. ' That fellow shows, with great liveli- 
 ness of coloring, how our Scotch pride and poverty make liars 
 and braggarts of us ; and yet the knave, whose every third 
 word to an Englishman is a boastful lie, will, I warrant you, be 
 a true and tender friend and follower to his master, and has, 
 perhaps, parted with his mantle to him in the cold blast, 
 although he himself walked in cuerpo, as the Don says. 
 Strange that courage and fidelity for I will warrant that the 
 knave is stout should have no better companion than this 
 swaggering braggadocio humor.' ' 
 
 The Scot clings tenaciously, wander as he may, to the ties 
 and associations of his youth. Sir Thomas Munroe was born 
 in Glasgow ; he became such a man that George Canning said 
 of him that Europe never produced a more accomplished 
 statesman, nor India, so fertile in heroes, a more skilful 
 soldier. When the general, after his long absence in India, 
 returned to Glasgow, he paid a visit to an old school-fellow 
 who, while Munroe had pursued his work abroad, had followed 
 his humbler calling of enlightening the world by making 
 candles in the old street in which both he and the general 
 were born. " Well, Mr. llurvie," said Sir Thomas, as he
 
 46 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 entered the shop, " do you remember me ?" Harvie gazed 
 for some time at the tall, gaunt figure before him, striving to 
 recall his features. At last he said, " Are ye Millie Munroe ?" 
 " I'm just Millie Munroe," said the other ; and then the two 
 plunged into a long talk, in which all the differences of social 
 rank and occupation were buried in the memories of " auld 
 lang syne." The nickname " Millie" came from the fact that, 
 in those early days, he was the hero of the school ; he had a 
 proficiency in "milling," and was the hero of a hundred 
 fights. 
 
 Not but that the Scot can be " sly and sleekit" on occasion. 
 We remember to have read an awkward illustration of this. A 
 well-known and very able practitioner, but not less remarkable 
 for a captious and troublesome temper, sought admission into 
 the Medical Club of Glasgow. By the laws of the club one 
 black ball was sufficient for exclusion ; the gentfeman who had 
 proposed his professional brutber fearing, perhaps, that the 
 fervor of his eloquence might permit this anti-social element to 
 slip in, and thereby injure the harmony of the fraternity, re- 
 solved to sacrifice friendship at the shrine of duty, and, as the 
 ballot-box came round, he slipped in a black ball. But what 
 was the surprise of all present when, on opening the repository 
 of the silent voices of the club, it was found they were all of 
 the same color, and all black ! 
 
 There are singular contradictions in the Scottish character ; 
 hardness and tenderness seem to meet and mingle in equal pro- 
 portions, the sarcastic and the reverential perpetually striving 
 for mastery ; how they rejoice if they are able to espy some- 
 thing in a train or chain of reasoning through which they can 
 pierce ! and, on the other hand, they become most delight- 
 fully unreasonable, and bow themselves down before some 
 single and solitary touch of truly affectionate eloquence ; they 
 are unable to resist it, and they have no desire to attempt to do 
 so. Speculative hard-headedness unites in the national character 
 with a sublime and lofty enthusiasm concerning things alto- 
 gether remote and intangible.
 
 THE HUMORS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER. 47 
 
 The logical and the poetical thus wonderful!}' mingle in the 
 national character. They have carried logic into their theol- 
 ogy as persistently even as Rome herself. Andrew Hunter 
 was a member of the United Presbyterian Greyfriars congrega- 
 tion. He dared to permit himself to be employed to erect the 
 Episcopal Meeting House of St. Andrew's, Glasgow, and from 
 an old church minute-book we have the following minute : 
 " 26th April, 1750. The Session, understanding by the Mod- 
 erator and some members of the Session that they had con- 
 versed privately with Andrew Hunter, mason, a member of 
 this congregation, who had engaged to build the Episcopal 
 Meeting House in this place, and have been at great pains in 
 convincing him of the great sin and scandal of such a practice, 
 and the Session, understanding that notwithstanding thereof he 
 has actually begun the work, they therefore appoint him to be 
 cited to the Session at their meeting on Thursday after ser- 
 mon ;" but the unfortunate builder prosecuted his work, so 
 he was forthwith excommunicated and " denied all church 
 benefit." The church rose in about twelve months. Then 
 went abroad a saying that Alexander Beelzebub was the master 
 mason of the new English chapel ; and that Andrew Hunter 
 got Satanic help in his Babylonish work. 
 
 But the more domestic humors of the Scottish character are 
 brought out in many illustrations. Hugh Boyd presents us 
 with one, lying immediately to hand : 
 
 " Since the introduction of the steamboat and railway, the 
 Glasgow merchant, the professional man, and the more affluent 
 tradesman, manages on the shores of the attractive Clyde to 
 give his family, annually, sixty days or more ' o' the saut- 
 water.' Mr. Mac (a Maclean, Mackenzie, or a MacGregor) 
 had accordingly located the family group in an attractive 
 4 neuk, ' convenient for steamer and rail. He was a hospitable 
 man, and one Saturday invited from Scotland's great commer- 
 cial centre a larger party than usual, thereby causing the douce 
 and prudent Mrs. Mac some anxiety ; for she dreaded that, if 
 the '.control ' department were that day deficient, the small
 
 48 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 hours of the Sabbath morning might be most improperly in- 
 vaded. Dinner passed off ; but it was observed that Mrs. Mac 
 and the ladies sat afterward, as the host thought, inconveniently 
 long so much so that, had he dared, he would, by way of 
 reminder, have asked his wife what month followed February. 
 The ladies at last retired, and after two or more rounds of 
 good port and sherry, the evening being damp, there was a 
 unanimous call for whiskey-toddy. Mrs. Mac was en rapport 
 with all that was passing, and was sanguine that when edition 
 No. 1 of the ' barely-bill ' was discussed, the gentlemen would 
 appear in the drawing-room. It is but fair to state that a 
 majority of the visitors wished then to adjourn, and hinted 
 that they thought Mrs. Mac expected them to join her and the 
 ladies. On this being stated to the host, he became somewhat 
 emphatic, and declared that he was ' Julius Caesar' in his own 
 house, and forthwith rang the bell for a further supply of hot 
 water, which was instantly brought. The tumblers were re- 
 plenished, when the door immediately behind the host quietly 
 opened, and the figure of a female appeared, which was rec- 
 ognized to be that of Mrs. Mac. ' Gentlemen, ' said the amia- 
 ble lady, ' I beg you to finish your whiskey -toddy, and to enjoy 
 yourselves ; but as for you, Julius Caesar, I shall at once put 
 you to bed, so come along.' The Roman Emperor, wisely 
 considering that discretion is the better part of valor, did as he 
 was bid." 
 
 The Anderston Relief Church of Glasgow arose from one of 
 the most eminent, successful, and notable manufacturers of 
 that city declining to stand church censure. He and his wife 
 one Sabbath were proceeding to their own place of worship in 
 Duke Street ; a heavy shower of rain came on, and they turned 
 aside into the iron church of the Establishment. For this 
 grievous offence they were both ordered to stand a sessional 
 rebuke ; he would not submit to it, and the establishment of 
 the Anderston Relief Church was the result. The pulpit of the 
 new building was well supplied ; and the services, although 
 conducted by clergymen of the same order, were described as
 
 THE HUMORS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER. 49 
 
 " grand sermons, but out of a foul dish." Sectarian feeling 
 ran very high, and even the young understood the party ani- 
 mosities. 
 
 The weather in Scotland is a delicate subject for a visitor to 
 criticise with a native, as remarks upon it may lead to a very 
 long sermon, as in the following instance : 
 
 " Well, John, this is a very wet day." " No ava (not at 
 all), sir," replied John, rather sternly. " It's a wee saft 
 (somewhat moist), but it's no a wat day. Raley, sir, it pro- 
 voks me at times to hear the remarks o' some o' the Englishcrs. 
 I recollect an English leddy who cam here a few years syne 
 (since), and she wrot to her friens that she had been a week 
 in Scoteland, and had never seen a dry day nor a smiling face, 
 and would remain nae langer. Noo, sir, you maun (must) 
 admit it's vera wrang for any wooman, leddy or no leddy, to 
 write in that inainer aboot ony kintra, mair speecialiie Scoteland, 
 the kintra aboon a' ithers (above all others) that every ane o' 
 them, gentle or simple (high or low), be they English or Ameri- 
 can, ay, or French or Spanish the bonnie Empress o' the French 
 o' the number are sae proud to brag o' (boast of), for gin (if) 
 they hae a drap 'o Scotia's bluid in their veins, they're shure to 
 tell you o't (of it), let them alane for that ; and then to talk 
 o' the wather (weather) as if Providence dldna (did not) ken 
 (know) hoo (how) to regulate the elements. Na, na, I'm no 
 the man to say that Scotch folks haena their fauts (have not 
 their faults) as weel as English ; but I will say this, they get 
 awsomely (terribly) spoiled and contaminated after they gang 
 among the Southrons (among the English) ; they are a' recht 
 eiteuch (all right enough) while they're at hame. Ma faither 
 ance wus sairly tried wi* his ain brother in the Wast Indies as 
 to the mainer in which he received ma brither oot there, for it 
 showed raal clear hoo Scotchmen get altered from what they 
 wur afore they left their ain chimla lug (fireside). Ma faither 
 said to ma brither, ' Willie, there's naething for you, my dear 
 lad, to do at hame ; you'd better gang oot to your uncle in the 
 Wast Indies,' which Willie vera properly at ance said he waud
 
 50 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 do, or onything else, puir fallow, his faither wished o' him. 
 Accordingly, ma faither fitted oot Willie, and ma mither pack't 
 his kist (box) fu (full) o' sarks (shirts) and nice claes (good 
 clothes), and sent him ower the sea to Liverpool, and got a 
 frien there to tak a passage for him in a ship for the Wast In- 
 dies, to the place whar his uncle wus. Noo, the fact is, ma 
 uncle had become a great man oot there, although when he 
 first went to a distant land, I hae hard ma faither often say, he 
 wus onnly a bit o' a dark or an owerseer to the blaiks (blacks). 
 Well, on his landing frae the ship, he gaed strecht (went 
 straight) to his uncle, wha (who) recaived him vera cauldly, 
 which was eneuch to doomfoonder ony puir lad. ' Who are 
 you ? ' said his uncle. ' I'm yur ain brither's son, sir, and of 
 consequence yure nevy ' a vera discreet and proper answer for 
 my brither to mak. ' Hoo (how) am I to know that ? ' and he 
 said it in a vera angry tone o' voice. Wasn't it eneuch 
 (enough) to brak doon ony lad's speerit ? ' Where's your letter 
 o' introduction to me ? ' said his uncle. ' Ma faither, sir, 
 didna think there wus ony need for me to bring a bit o' a note 
 to you.' ' The deuce he didn't,' wus the answer ma brither 
 got to this. ' IIoo (how) am I to ken (know) that you are not 
 a young scamp ? ' Wasn't that an awfu? remark to drap frae 
 his lips ? But ma brither's bluid wus a wee up at this, and he 
 said for he tellt me the hale (whole) story in his letter ' Oh, 
 sir, I was always vera respectable, and I never gied mafriens 
 (gave my friends) ony trouble or vexation except that they 
 cou'dna fin (could not find) ony employment for me aboot the 
 farm, which is the cause o' my coming oot to the Wast Indies. ' 
 Ills uncle then lookit him recht through and a' ower, and tellt 
 him he cou'd see nae family likeness, to which ma brither 
 doucely (prudently) made answer for he wus always a vera 
 respectfu' lad, wi (with) nice mainers o' his ain ' I assure 
 you, sir, yur ain brither is ma faither.' To this his uncle vera 
 unkindly remarked, ' I fear a strange bull then must hae strayed 
 into the pastures, as ma brither could never be sae fool -like a 
 man as to send a son o' his oot to the Wast Indies without a
 
 THE HUMORS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER. 51 
 
 letter o' introduction.' ' But he did sae, I assure you, sir, and 
 I'm speaking naething but the trowth. ' ' Weel,' said ma uncle, 
 who aifter ' wus a vera t/wzW-hearted man, ' I thocht, when I 
 left Scoteland, there was mair (more) common-sense in ma 
 family there than appears to be the case.' That remark, when 
 ma faither read it in ma brither's letter, stuck into him awfu'. 
 He then took anilher awsom keen glowr (look) at Willie, and 
 then handed him a bit piece o' paper and a quill (a pen), at the 
 same time pushing the inkstand afore him, ' as he wished,' he 
 said, ' to see what kind o' hand o' write his was. ' Well, when 
 he saw it, he tellt Willie it was a confoondedly bad stick ; but 
 ma brither, who had been sairly tried that day by his uncle, 
 never ance lost himseV the least in his replies, for he wus a 
 shrewd Scoatch callan (lad, boy), and but for that he would 
 hae been druven (driven) distrackit (distracted) ; he juist met 
 it candidly by telling his uncle that he had been waur (worse) 
 at the writing at school than twything else, and that it wus a 
 la-mentable fact. Hooever, ma uncle began at last to tak to 
 ma 6rither, and behaved vera cleverly (very kindly) to him, 
 and vera soon, by my faith, made a man o' him. Ma faither, 
 aifter being weel blown (blown) up by his brither, began to be 
 o' opinion that it would hae been the better coorse to hae gien 
 (have given) Willie a bit o' a line o' introduction at first to his 
 uncle, but ma faither never liket to be thocht wrang, and nae 
 Scoatchman does, for its unco (very) seldom they are wrang." 
 The entire of this is very Scotch. 
 
 And this reminds us of another illustration belonging, per- 
 haps, to that droll reticence to which we have already referred ; 
 for this also we are indebted to the pleasant garrulity of Hugh 
 Boyd. He says : 
 
 " My late esteemed friend Mr. John Mackie, M.P. for Kirk- 
 cudbrightshire, used to describe an extensive view which one 
 of a friend's hills commanded. This he never failed to call to 
 the attention of his English visitors when the weather was clear. 
 Willy the shepherd was always the guide on such occasions, as 
 he knew precisely the weather that would suit.
 
 52 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 " One forenoon an English friend was placed under Willy's 
 charge to mount the hill in order to enjoy the glorious view. 
 ' I am told, shepherd, you are going to show me a wonderful 
 view. ' ' That's quite true, sir. ' ' What shall I see ? ' ' Weel, 
 ye'll see a feck (many) o' kingdoms, the best part o' sax, sir.' 
 ' What the deuce do you mean, shepherd ? ' ' Weel, sir, I 
 mean what I say.' ' But tell me all about it.' ' I'll tell ye 
 naething mair, sir, until we're at the tap o' the hill.' The top 
 reached, Willy found everything he could desire in regard to a 
 clear atmosphere. l Noo, sir, I hope you've got guid een?' 
 ' Oh, my eyes are excellent.' ' Then that's a' recht (right), sir. 
 Noo, div ye see yon hills awa yonder ? ' ' Yes, I do.' ' Weel, 
 sir, those are the hills o' Cumberland, and Cumberland's in the 
 kingdom o' England ; that's ae kingdom. Noo, sir, please 
 keep coont. Then, sir, I must noo trouble you to look ower 
 (over) yonder. Div ye see what I mean ? ' ' Yes, I do. ' 
 ' That's a' recht. That's the Isle o' Man, and that was a 
 kingdom and a sovereignty in the families o' the Earls of 
 Derby and the Dukes o' Athol, frae the days o' King 
 David o' Scotland, if ye ken anything o' Scotch history.' 
 ' You are quite right, shepherd.' ' Quite recht, div ye say ; I 
 wouldna hae brocht ye here, sir, if I wus to be wrang. Weel, 
 that's two, kingdoms. Be sure, sir, to keep coont. Noo, turn 
 awee aboot. Div ye see youn land yonder ? It's a bit farder, 
 but never mind that, sae lang as ye see it. ' 'I see it dis- 
 tinctly.' ' Weel, that's a' I care aboot. Noo, sir, keep coont, 
 for that's Ireland, and maks three kingdoms ; but there's nae 
 trouble aboot the niest (next), for ye're stannen on't I mean 
 Scoteland. Weel, that maks four kingdoms ; div ye admit 
 that, sir ? ' ' Yes, that makes four, and you have two more to 
 show me.' ' That's true, sir, but don't be in sic (such) a 
 hurry. Weel, sir, just look up aboon (above) yer heed, and 
 this is by far the best of a' the kingdoms ; that, sir. aboon is 
 Heaven. That's five ; and the saxth kingdom is that doon 
 below yer feet, to which, sir, I hope you'll never gang; but 
 that's a point on which I cannot speak with ony certainty.' '
 
 THE HUMORS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER. 53 
 
 The humors of the Scottish character abound in thousands of 
 illustrations. " Jeanie," said a stanch old Cameronian to his 
 daughter, "Jeanie, my lass, it's a very solemn thing to be 
 married." " I ken that weel," said the sensible lassie ; " but 
 it is a great deal solemner not to be." And most of our read- 
 ers will remember the prayer of Preacher Geordie for the mag- 
 istracy of Lochmaben ; it was once far-famed : ' ' Lord, we pray 
 Thee to remember the magistracy of Lochmaben, such as they 
 are !" The old life of Scotland tended to elicit and give effect 
 to many singular varieties of character. 
 
 A grim, and yet a droll aspect, to our modern notions have 
 the following advertisements. They certainly indicate that 
 there was a time when far more attention was paid to the adorn- 
 ment of the dead. It was a mournful and lugubrious occupa- 
 tion, but those who pursued it carried on a very profitable 
 trade, and this continued, until the beginning of the present 
 century, to be so fruitful a branch of industry, and the materials 
 used for the dressing of corpses were considered so important, 
 that Acts of Parliament were passed in favor of woollen or linen, 
 as one branch or other of the manufactures appeared to need 
 encouragement. The following advertisements have a very 
 cheerful and pleasant ring. 
 
 First, here is one from Glasgow in 1747 : " James Hodge, 
 who lives in the first close above the Cross, on the west side 
 of the High Street, continues to sell burying crapes, ready 
 made ; and his wife's niece, who lives with him, dresses dead 
 corpses at as cheap a rate as was formerly done by her aunt, 
 having been educated by her and perfected at Edinburgh, from 
 whence she has lately arrived, and has brought with her the 
 newest and latest fashions !" 
 
 Here is another advertisement in 1789 : " Miss Christy Dun- 
 lop, Leopard Close, High Street, dresses the dead, as usual, in 
 the most fashionable manner." Again in 1799 : " Miss Chris- 
 tian Brown, at her shop, west side of Hutcheson Street, carries 
 on the business of making dead flannels and getting up burial 
 crapes, etc. She also carries on the mantua-making at her
 
 54 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 house in Duncan Close, High Street, where a mangle is kept 
 as formerly. ' ' 
 
 Very strange are some of the traits of Scottish character. 
 We ought, did our space permit, to devote a chapter to the 
 humors of the medical profession. It is related by an eminent 
 physician that a wealthy citizen, who had the misfortune to re- 
 quire his visits, was in the custom of having the gold always 
 ready in his hand to electrify the doctor when he felt his pulse. 
 One day it happened, on the doctor's making his stated call, 
 that the servant informed him, " All is over !" " Over ?" re- 
 echoed the doctor, as the remembrance of the accustomed fee 
 flashed on his mind. tc Impossible ! he cannot be dead yet ; 
 no, no ; let me see him some trance or heavy sleep, perhaps." 
 The doctor was introduced into the sable apartment ; he took 
 the hand of the pale corpse, applied to that artery which once 
 ebbed with life, gave a sorrowful shake of his head, while, with 
 a trifling legerdemain, he relieved from the grasp of death two 
 guineas, which, in truth, had been destined for him. " Ay, 
 ay, good folks," said the doctor, " he is dead ; there's a des- 
 tiny in all things," and, full of shrewd sagacity, turned upon 
 his heel. 
 
 Among the national characteristics of Scotland was that fes - 
 tive meeting of thrifty fingers, called the " Rocking." Bums 
 celebrates it : 
 
 " On Fasten E'en we had a rocking, 
 To ca' the crack and weave our stocking ; 
 And there was muckle fun and joking, 
 
 Ye need na doubt ; 
 At length we had a hearty yoking 
 
 At sang about." 
 
 It was, in fact, the most popular evening pastime during the 
 winter. It combined, in the thrift and enjoyment, the spin- 
 ning-wheel and the needle, the song and the dance. The Scot- 
 tish peasantry were wont to take great pride in a stock of 
 home-made linen ; and the family was poor indeed where the
 
 THE HUMORS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER. 55 
 
 gudewife was without an enviable portion of such goods in con- 
 templation of her own household necessities, and of her bairns' 
 marriage providing. How true it is that such feelings of de- 
 cent pride have their moral advantages. Is it not true that the 
 thrift, the cleanliness, and independent spirit, proved by the 
 possession of such articles, are at least akin to virtue ? Some 
 pieces were kept with singular care, such as were of a particular 
 texture or as being the manufacture of a beloved mother. 
 But, above all, there was one called " the weel-hained web" 
 that was the dead linen, reserved for winding-sheets. That 
 was consecrated, and there were usually several ready-made 
 robes of the same stuff to dress the body ere the blood was 
 cold, " for," said a gudewife, " there's a number of us yet to 
 bury ;" and many a necessary and comfort of life would be 
 denied ere the property of the dead could be violated. And 
 " the weel-hained web," the robe of death, was not carelessly 
 shown ; none but friends know anything about this attire, and 
 their exhibition and history are only confided to favorites, or at 
 a time when hearts are interchanging their secret thoughts. 
 On such occasions you would observe the eye filled with tears, 
 started by mournful recollections or anticipations, and all con- 
 versation conducted in whispers, as if a dread being were 
 present and hallowing the elements before them. But " the 
 weel-hained web" was not the work of the Rocking ; that was 
 altogether too blithe an occasion for such associations and 
 thoughts ; that was the hour of the spinning-wheel. As 
 Robert Nicholl says and sings with true nationality : 
 
 " The spinnin'-wheel ! the spinnin '-wheel ! the very name is dear ; 
 It minds me o' the winter nichts, the blithest o' the year ; 
 O' oozie hours in hamely ha's, while frozen was the wiel 
 In ilka burn, while lasses sang by Scotland's spinnin'-wheel. 
 
 " The auld wife by the ingle sits, an' draws her cannie thread ; 
 It hauds her baith in milk an' meal, an' a' thing she can need ; 
 An' gleesome scenes o' early days upon her spirits steal, 
 Brought back to warm her withered heart by Scotland's spinnin'- 
 wheel !' '
 
 56 SCOTTISH CHAEACTEBISTICS. 
 
 The capacious kitchen, or more frequently the barn, was well 
 swept, and the best china was brought out for the occasion, 
 and the tables were loaded with buttered toast, sweet-cakes, 
 cheese, ham, honey, jelly ; the board ever replenished as the 
 dainties disappeared. A Scottish Rocking was a merry time 
 a time of flirting and wooing, while the auld wives spun, and 
 the gray -headed gude men laughed and cracked over crops, and 
 markets, and news, and old tales. 
 
 Some of Robert Nicholl's verses are very finely descriptive 
 in their humorsome individuality : " The Auld Beggar-man," 
 " The Bailie," " The Provost," " Fiddler Johnnie," " Bonnie 
 Bessie Lee," "Minister Tarn," "The Dominie." The fol- 
 lowing of " My Grandfather" is very Scottish : 
 
 ' ' Ance proud eneuch was I to sit 
 
 Beside thee in the muirland kirk, 
 A ruling elder ane o' weight, 
 
 Nae wonder though your oe did smirk : 
 And braw eneuch was I to find 
 
 My head the preacher's hand upon, 
 While by the kirkyard still he cracked 
 
 Of holy things with Elder John ! 
 
 " Thy daily fireside worship dwells 
 
 Within this inmost soul of mine ; 
 Thy earnest prayer sae prophet-like 
 
 For a' on earth I wadna' tyne. 
 And you and grannie sang the psalms 
 
 In holy rapt sincerity ; 
 My grannie ! dinna greet, auld man 
 
 She's looking down on you and me. 
 
 ' ' But mair than a' frae beuks so auld 
 
 Frae mony treasured earnest page, 
 Thou traced for me the march of Truth, 
 
 The path o' Eight frae age to age : 
 A peasant auld, and puir, and deaf, 
 
 Bequeathed this legacy to me, 
 I was his bairn he filled my soul 
 
 With love for liberty !' '
 
 THE HUMORS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER. 5? 
 
 But very varied and dissimilar are the illustrations of Scottish 
 character. 
 
 The following is on both sides thoroughly Scotch. 
 
 Robin Carrick was one of the earliest bankers of Glasgow ; 
 he came to Glasgow a poor boy ; he became the chief and lead- 
 ing partner of the old Ship Bank ; he lived and he died a grim, 
 penurious old bachelor, and left not a penny to any benevolent 
 institution in the city in which all his wealth had been accumu- 
 lated ; but, on one occasion, the old miser was waited on by a 
 respectable deputation of three fellow-citizens, for a subscrip- 
 tion to the Royal Infirmary, then in its infancy ; he was 
 requested to head the subscription, and, to their mortification 
 and surprise, he would only put down his name for two 
 guineas ; and when they earnestly besought him to increase his 
 miserable pittance, he talked even of drawing it back. He 
 told them he could not really even afford that sum, bowed 
 them out of the room, encased with hoards of money, repre- 
 sented by bills and other documents. 
 
 The deputation then proceeded to Mr. M'llquham, one of 
 the great early manufacturers of Glasgow, to ask his help. He 
 looked down the list of subscribers, but exclaimed, " Bless me, 
 what's this ? Banker Carrick only two guineas /" They told 
 the manufacturer that the banker had said he really could not 
 afford any more. " What's that you say ? Jamie" to his 
 faithful cash-keeper and confidant, James Davidson ' ' Jamie, 
 bring me the bank-book, and a check, and the ink-bottle, and 
 a pen," and he wrote a check on the Ship Bank for 10,000. 
 Some reports give a much larger sum ; no matter, it was large. 
 " Now,' Jamie, run down as fast as your legs will carry you to 
 the bank, and bring that money to me." 
 
 The check was presented. Old Robin stared. " Go back," 
 said he, "there's some mistake." And presently he came 
 running into M'llquham's counting-house in a high state of 
 fever. " What's wrong wi* ye the day ?" said the banker. 
 " Nothing in the least degree wrong. I only suspect there's 
 surely something very far wrong with yourself and the bank ;
 
 58 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 for my friends, these douce gentlemen sitting there yonder, 
 have assured me that, in your own premises, and out of your 
 own mouth, you declared you could only afford them scrimp 
 two guineas for the purpose ; and, if that is the case, I think 
 it is high time I remove some of my deposits out of your 
 hands." 
 
 With some reluctance Robin had to put down his name for 
 fifty guineas before Mr. M'llquharn would cancel his check 
 for 10,000. The deputation went away, scarce less amazed 
 than they were delighted. But we have not done with Robin 
 Carrick yet, for one of the mighty notabilities of Glasgow, 
 now some generations back, was Robin Carrick ; true, he was 
 a miserable sinner, but his name is connected with the monetary 
 history of Glasgow. He was the son of a poor clergyman in 
 Renfrewshire, who never got beyond an income of eighty 
 pounds a year ; thus Robin came into Glasgow a poor boy, as 
 before stated, and died in 1865, at the age of eighty-six, the 
 principal of the Glasgow Ship Bank, having amassed a fortune 
 of a million sterling. He was a bachelor, exactly of the type 
 and order of Jimmy Wood of Gloucester ; it is said he was one 
 of the veriest scrubs or misers Glasgow ever knew ; and yet, 
 as we have truly said, to the city in which he had amassed his 
 enormous wealth, he did not leave for any of its charitable in- 
 stitutions a single penny. An elderly damsel, Miss Paisley, his 
 niece, kept his house for him ; they lived in a miserable style, 
 in the upper flat of the bank premises ; he carried on his im- 
 mense transactions in the flat below. His niece and house- 
 keeper was exactly worthy of her Uncle Robin ; it is said she 
 would price, haggle, or banter the shopkeepers down to the 
 value of a farthing ; and a writer in the " History of Glasgow" 
 says : " We have frequently seen her hurrying from the mar- 
 ket in King's Street, with a sheep's head and trotters, or a 
 string of flounders, or caller herrings." A keen old boy was 
 Robin, and Glasgow at one time resounded with droll stories 
 concerning him. On one occasion he was waited upon by a 
 rising and sprightly customer with a batch of bills to discount ;
 
 THE HUMORS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER. 59 
 
 they seemed all to pass current with the exception of one, the 
 largest in amount ; thereat Robin shook his head. " Oh, you 
 need not hesitate about him, Mr. Carrick," said the proposed 
 discounter, " for he has started and keeps his carriage." 
 " Ou, ay," said Robin ; " but the question wi' me is, can he 
 keep his legs ?" 
 
 One day when Mr. Carrick was sitting in his private 
 room at the bank, a gentleman (said to have been Thomas 
 Stewart of The Field), who was upon intimate terms with 
 him, called to transact some trifling bank business. This 
 matter being arranged, these gentlemen sat down to a 
 sober two-hand crack, which Mr. Carrick enjoyed very much 
 when he met an old acquaintance. All of a sudden, Mr. Car- 
 rick rose up and proceeded to his iron safe, from which he 
 extracted a piece of paper, carefully folded up, which, having 
 spread out, he laid it before his visitor, saying, " Here is a bill 
 made payable at the bank ; will you be so good as to give me 
 your opinion of it?" The gentleman having examined the 
 bill, returned it to Mr. Carrick, saying, " I am greatly sur- 
 prised, Mr. Carrick, at your having discounted that bill." 
 " How so ?" said Mr. Carrick. " Because," said the gentle- 
 man, with an emphasis, " it is a forgery." At this Mr. Car- 
 rick merely gave a gentle smile, calmly folded up the bill, and, 
 on rising to restore it to his iron safe, simply remarked, with a 
 nod, "It is a very good bill." In fact, Mr. Carrick had a 
 shrewd guess that the bill was a forgery when he discounted it, 
 but he also knew that it was sure to be regularly paid when 
 due ; he, however, was desirous of ascertaining from another 
 person if his suspicions were likely well founded. 
 
 Old Robin was very partial to transact business with the 
 respectable Highland drovers, believing that the Ship Bank 
 notes would not soon come back ; once upon a Tuesday a 
 Highland drover came into Mr. Carrick's private room with a 
 bill having three days to run before becoming due, and request- 
 ing cash for it. Robin readily agreed to take the bill, remark- 
 ing, however, that there was sixpence of discount to be taken
 
 60 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 off. " Na, na, " said the Highlandman, " she maun hae a' te 
 siller !" "I can't do that," replied Carrick, " the discount 
 must be deducted." " Hoot, toot," exclaimed the drover, 
 " she'll get it all hersel' on Friday ; shust gie me te siller !'' 
 Carrick, however, was obstinate in his refusal, and so carelessly 
 handed back the bill to the Highlandman. He then put on his 
 spectacles and commenced writing. The drover walked slowly 
 away to the room door with the bill in hand, expecting to be 
 called back ; but Carrick continued writing without taking the 
 least notice of him. The Highlandman, having got outside the 
 door, kept it a little while upon the jar, but still grasping 
 firmly the handle of the door. He then popped in his head at 
 the jar, and called out to Carrick, " She'll gie 't for te 
 groat !" " No, no," replied Carrick, " it must be sixpence !" 
 " "Well, well," cried the drover, " if it maun be sae, it maun 
 be sae." And so, sixpence being deducted, the bill was dis- 
 counted. Such was Robin Carrick, a character on whose mem- 
 ory we can linger with no pleasure, although a marked and 
 strong man in his day. His old porter, John, served him 
 faithfully for fifty years, for the greater part of which time he 
 had also been his butler ; the old man was almost as great a 
 notability in the city as his master ; he knew every merchant 
 manufacturer in the city, and all their kith and kin ; he remem- 
 bered and had conversed with the great Virginia lords when 
 they walked the Trongate, in their scarlet mantles, in their 
 pride of place ; he had carried in his arms, when he was an 
 infant, the illustrious Sir John Moore, the hero of Corunna, 
 who was born in Glasgow, and distantly related to Robin Car- 
 rick. The old man was a walking history of Glasgow, and it 
 was supposed when his master died that poor old John would 
 be certainly noticed handsomely and sufficiently for the remain- 
 der of his days ; but the old miser left him not a farthing, not 
 the gratuity of a year's or a week's wages ; and he died in the 
 town's hospital, in which he had been enrolled as a pauper. 
 He was a polite, communicative old man, described as possess- 
 ing a heart and disposition far superior to that of the miserable
 
 THE HUMORS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER. 61 
 
 master who bad for fifty years received the benefit of his honest 
 services. 
 
 Robin had odd people about him, especially Mr. John Mar- 
 shall, his accountant " Old Accountant Marshall," as he was 
 called ; he was very fond of taking bis meridian, which gen- 
 erally consisted of a glass of real Ferintosh, strongly savoring 
 of John Ilighlandman's handiwork, but he was equally desirous 
 of doing something effectually to prevent the sweet aroma of 
 the peatrcek being discovered by his breath, therefore he 
 always took a mouthful of oat-cake toasted brown almost to 
 blackness ; but he doubted the efficacy of this remedy, and 
 once, while he and Dr. Towers, a well-known Glasgow phy- 
 sician, were holding a social crack in the Trongate, Marshall 
 thought this would be a good opportunity to ascertain from 
 the doctor if he knew of a specific certain to overwhelm the 
 smell of whiskey, and accordingly he put the question direct to 
 the doctor ; the doctor readily answered, " Oh, yes, I can tell 
 you," and tapping Mr. Marshall gently on the shoulder, 
 " Johnny, my man, if you take a glass of whiskey and dinna 
 want ony one to ken it, just take two glasses of rum after it, 
 and the deil ane will ever suspect ye having tasted a drap o' 
 whiskey." 
 
 The imperturbable stolidity of the Scotchman has often been 
 remarked upon as one of the chief national characteristics, and 
 especially as that, perhaps, which has won for him pre-eminent 
 success in almost every sphere and region of life and labor ; 
 and Mr. Boyd, in his interesting " Reminiscences of Fifty 
 Years," gives us an illustration of this in the story of the non- 
 elected Scotch laird, who, with perfect self-possession, took his 
 seat in the House of Commons. He says : " The following 
 anecdote I heard from Mr. Cutlar Fergusson, M.P., as well as 
 from the laird himself the day after the occurrence. I wrote 
 it out at the time, and it appeared shortly afterward in the 
 London Magazine. A worthy Scotch proprietor, whose estate 
 was in Kirkcudbrightshire, then represented by the Right Hon. 
 R. Cutlar Fergusson, the Judge-Advocate in Lord Melbourne's
 
 62 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 Government, came up to London for a few weeks shortly after 
 the assembling of a new Parliament. He called upon his right 
 honorable friend, who asked him what he could do for him in 
 town. The laird said that nothing he would like so much dur- 
 ing his stay as being present at the debates in the House of 
 Commons. ' That being the case,' said the Judge- Advocate, 
 'I will have your name placed on the Speaker's list. ' The 
 following evening the laird was early in his attendance at the 
 House, found his name on the list, and was told by the door- 
 keeper to enter. Where the Speaker's privileged friends sat 
 he knew not, but up the body of the House he walked, and 
 took his seat on the second bench of the Opposition, close be- 
 hind Sir Robert Peel. An interesting debate came on, and the 
 laird sat undisturbed until the House adjourned at midnight. 
 Fortunately for him there was no division, and equally fortu- 
 nately it was a new Parliament. Next day he called upon Mr. 
 Fergusson, whose first inquiry was : ' What became of you, as 
 I looked for you in vain ? ' ' Oh,' said the laird, ' I saw you 
 moving about the House, and tried to catch your eye. I was 
 delighted with the debate, and I shall now be a constant at- 
 tendant.' From the laird's vernacular he was supposed to be a 
 recently elected Scotch member, and being a tall, portly, gen- 
 tlemanly-looking man, so far as appearance went, passed 
 muster very well. Next night found the laird occupying his 
 former seat. However, about nine o'clock, Lord Granville 
 Somerset, who the previous evening had his doubts as to the 
 genuineness of the reputed Scotch M.P., went to the sergeant- 
 at-arms and asked who was that tall man sitting behind Sir 
 Robert Peel ? ' Oh, he is a Scotch member, one of yourselves, 
 Lord Granville. ' 'I doubt that exceedingly,' said his lord- 
 ship, ' and I doubt his being a member at all.' 
 
 " The sergeant-at-arms, all excitement, flew round behind 
 the Opposition benches and gave the laird a sharp tap on the 
 shoulder, desiring him to come to him. The laird so far com- 
 plied, but not being accustomed to be treated unceremoniously, 
 *sked the stern official what he meant ? ' Why, sir, you were
 
 THE HL'MOHS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER. 63 
 
 in the House last, night ? ' 'I was.' ' You sat in the same 
 place you have now been occupying ? ' ' Yes, the very same ; 
 and what right have you to disturb me ? ' ' You are in my 
 custody. ' ' In your custody ! for what ? Hands off ! ' ex- 
 claimed the laird in any other tone than a mild one. ' Who 
 are you ? ' asked the sergeant. ' Who am I ! go and ask Mr. 
 Cutlar Fergusson ; he placed my name on the Speaker's list, 
 and if there is any mistake ' the laird being now very angry 
 ' it was your duty, as the servant of the House, to have shown 
 me where to sit.' The sergeant-at-arms was so far relieved ; 
 but still holding the laird's arm, the latter again exclaimed, 
 ' Hands off ! ' and being a powerful man, soon wrested himself 
 from the official's grasp. ' Tell me where my place is.' This 
 he was only too happy to do, and the laird now took his fresh 
 seat in St. Stephen's, under considerable excitement, muttering 
 to the sergeant-at-arms that it was a matter of indifference to 
 him where he sat, provided he heard the speeches, but he must 
 beg not to be again disturbed. 
 
 " This escapade of my countryman in the House of Com- 
 mons used to amuse a hospitable friend of mine in town be- 
 yond measure, the more so from the fact of his coming from 
 his own and my part of Scotland. One day, after dinner, I 
 was asked by my friend to tell the story, and finding myself 
 sitting next to Mr. William Holmes, M.P., the Conservative 
 'whip,' I remarked that Mr. Holmes would correct me if I 
 went wrong. The honorable gentleman was kind enough after- 
 ward to say that I had told it right well." 
 
 This imperturbability of the Scottish character has been well 
 illustrated in many instances, although sometimes it has been 
 found at fault ; there was a time when the Scottish commercial 
 character regaled and strengthened itself by constant appeals to 
 McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary, and this was so frequently 
 the case that McCulloch as frequently became a great bore. 
 Mr. Boyd, among bis numerous reminiscences, mentions the 
 instance of a member for a Scotch borough, who on the occa- 
 sion of his first election, having to address his constituents, and
 
 64 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 finding a difficulty in obtaining a place for that purpose, the 
 minister of the parish was so obliging as to offer him the use 
 of the kirk ; every corner of the building was of course 
 crammed, and at length the candidate for senatorial honors 
 was seen ascending the pulpit with a large volume under his 
 arm. " Ay, mon, div ye see that he is ganging up into the 
 pulpit wi' the Bible under his arm ?" " Na, na, it canna be 
 the Bible, frae the binnen [binding] o' the buik. " But the 
 mysterious volume was soon opened, and it proved to be Mc- 
 Culloch's Dictionary, from which he continued reading for two 
 hours, instead of attempting a speech of his own. However, 
 it is said that his readings from McCulloch secured him a seat in 
 the House, and McCulloch himself suffered not a little in the 
 way of quizzing from the part he had in the return of this 
 member. But the joke remains as yet untold, for when he 
 entered the House, he thought to dose it with McCulloch too ; 
 and upon one sad occasion he felt himself called upon to assert 
 his principles ; he had a boundless sense of his importance, 
 and did not fail to convey this idea alike to the members of 
 the Treasury and the Opposition benches. Upon this particu- 
 lar occasion he entered the House with slow step and grave 
 countenance, and his mercantile lexicon in his hand, in various 
 portions of which he had inserted slips of paper, quotations to 
 guide him, or verify his statements in his speech ; but he 
 found that the debate would not be likely to give him his de- 
 sired opportunity for some considerable time, for an hour or 
 two, during the which he might regale himself by retiring for 
 dinner, and return strengthened for the conflict. He had no 
 sooner gone, having, however, allowed sufficient time to be 
 assured he was comfortably engaged with the affairs of the 
 table, when one of the wags of the House, a facetious member 
 who was often relieving graver cares by some singular excursion 
 of his humor, took the place of the mercantile member who 
 had left his McCulloch behind him on his seat. The wag care- 
 fully inspected the passages indicated in the volume, but turn- 
 ing to some of his friends, who were enjoying the scene, he
 
 THE HUMORS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER. 65 
 
 said, " Why, good gracious ! if he gives us all these readings 
 he must speak for hours. This won't do ; in the interests of 
 the country, and our domestic felicity, I must put a stop to it. 
 We shall be regularly bombarded, therefore I must close the 
 channels by lifting the buoys." So he proceeded to alter all 
 the slips of paper which the intending orator had carefully 
 arranged to lead him unerringly along through his oration 
 passages which were indeed to constitute not only the main 
 argument, but the main portion of his speech. The post- 
 prandial hour came ; the only fear was lest before commencing 
 he should refer to any one of the quotations, and by its defec- 
 tion discover the remainder ; but no, the awful moment came, 
 and he rose. After a very few introductory remarks he said. 
 " I shall now read to the Hoose what Mr. McCulloch says." 
 Up went the spectacles on his nose ; but, alas ! that eminent 
 political authority was not forthcoming ; up and down and 
 across did his eyes flit and wander, but without avail ; then he 
 made the important announcement that he " would save the 
 time of the Hoote" (loud cries of " Hear, hear !"), " and 
 proceed to anither branch of the subject ;" and on this head he 
 would also refer to Mr. McCulloch but with like success. So 
 after floundering and floundering, again and again renewed, he 
 resumed his seat. He was not comforted when he sat down, 
 for an old and experienced member asked him why he always 
 referred to McCulloch's brains instead of using his own, inform- 
 ing him that he had a copy of McCulloch, and that it was ex- 
 ceedingly likely that every member of the House, able to form 
 a judgment, had a copy too. Feuchtersleben, in his " Mental 
 Physiology," has said, " that if we could penetrate into the 
 secret foundations of human events, we should frequently find 
 the misfortunes of one man caused by the intestines of 
 another." No doubt the German metaphysician was right ; in 
 the instance, however, of the Scottish member, his own intes- 
 tines were the cause of his postprandial grief. He continued, 
 however, to be a remarkable man in the House ; one of his 
 fellow members, in a somewhat uiifraternal spirit, remarking if
 
 66 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 him that " so long as he continued in the House he must be a 
 distinguished member, since he was considered the very ugliest 
 member in it." 
 
 Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, in his work on the floods of Moray 
 a work the interest of which it is impossible to over-esti- 
 mate has crowded the pages of his entertaining volume with 
 instances of a kind of stolid but moral dignity, bearing itself 
 firmly and piously in the presence of the most overwhelming 
 terrors of the tempest and the flood. He tells the story of 
 John Cly, a sturdy, hale man of sterling independence of char- 
 acter, who, in the year 1829, had reached his seventy-fifth an- 
 niversary. All his life he appears to have been singularly per- 
 secuted by floods ; he suffered by that in 1768, then by 
 another, in 1783, his house and mill were carried away, and 
 he was left penniless ; this flood fell upon him, and no one 
 else, and the calamity very sorely affected him, but his indom- 
 itable spirit rose triumphant over all his troubles. About seven 
 years before the great flood of 1829, he undertook to improve 
 a piece of absolute beach of two acres, entirely covered with 
 enormous stones and gravel. But John knew that a deep, rich 
 soil lay below buried there by the flood of 1768 ; he removed 
 the stones with immense labor, formed them into a bulwark 
 and inclosure round the field, trenched down the gravel to the 
 depth of four or five feet, and brought up the soil, which after- 
 ward produced the most luxuriant crops. His neighbors ridi- 
 culed his operations while they were in progress, saying that he 
 would never have a crop there. " Do ye see these ashen 
 trees ?" said John, pointing to some vigorous saplings growing 
 near ; " are they not thriving ?" It was impossible to deny 
 that they were. " Well," continued John, " if it wunna pro- 
 duce corn, I'll plant it with ash trees, and the laird at least 
 will hae the benefit." The fruits of John's labors were all 
 swept away by the direful floods of the third of August ; but 
 pride of his heart as this improvement had been, the flood was 
 not able to sweep away his equanimity and his philosophy with 
 liis acres. When some one condoled with him on his loss
 
 THE HUMORS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER. 07 
 
 " I took it frae Awcn [the river Aven], and let the Awen hae 
 her ain again," he said with emphasis. And when a gossiping 
 tailor halted at his door one day, charitably to bewail his loss, 
 he cut him short by pithily remarking, " Well, if I have lost 
 my croft, I have got a fish-pond in its place, where I can fish 
 independent of any one." After the year 1783, he built his 
 house on a rock that showed itself from under the soil, at the 
 base of the bank bounding the glen of the burn. During the 
 late flood, the water was dashing up at his door, and his sister, 
 who was older than he, having expressed great terror, and pro- 
 posed that they should both fly for it " What's the woman 
 afeard o' ?" cried John impatiently. " Hae we not baith the 
 rock o' nature an' the Rock o' Ages to trust till ? we'll no stir 
 one fit !" John's first exertion after the flood was to go down to 
 Ballindallock to assist the laird in his distress ; there he labored 
 hard for three days before the laird discovered that John had 
 left his own haystack buried to the top in sand, and insisted on 
 his going home to disinter it. When the laird talked to him 
 of his late calamity, "Odd, sir," said he, "I dinna regaird 
 this matter hauf sae muckle as I did that slap i' the aughty 
 three, for then I was in a manner a marked man. Noo, we're 
 a' sufferin' thegither, an' I'm but neebourlike. " Lauder says 
 that the people of this district bear misfortunes with a wonder- 
 ful degree of philosophy, arising from the circumstance of 
 their being deeply tinged with the doctrine of predestination. 
 " I was much gratified," says Lauder, " by my interview with 
 honest John Cly. While I was sketching him unperceived, 
 Mr. Grant was doing his best to occupy his attention. ' Well, 
 now, John,' said Mr. Grant to him, pointing to an apparently 
 impracticable beach of stones a little way up the glen, ' if you 
 had improved that piece, as I advised you, it would have been 
 safe still, for you see the burn hasn't touched it at all.' ' Na, 
 fegs ! ' replied John, with a most significant shake of his head, 
 ' gin I had gruppit her in wi' stanes that cam oot o't, whaur 
 wad she hae been noo, think ye ? Odd. I kent her ower lang. ' ' 
 The flax-miller's croft shared the same fate as John Cly's,
 
 68 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 and the mill full of flax was sanded up to the beams of the first 
 floor. 
 
 The ancient stories of Scotland show just this same spirit 
 upon which we are remarking. 
 
 It appears certain that wolves inhabited the forests and moun- 
 tain fastnesses of Scotland for hundreds of years after they 
 were exterminated from England and Wales. The general be- 
 lief is that they were finally extirpated about the year 1680, 
 but there is reason to suppose that they existed in remote dis- 
 tricts considerably after that period indeed, until within the 
 last hundred years certainly so, if we may rely upon a story 
 told by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder. Macqueen, the laird of Pol- 
 lochock, on the Findhorn, at the time of the great Moray 
 floods, 1829, is believed to have been alive at the time of the 
 slaughter of the last wolf indeed, was its destroyer. The 
 story is as follows : 
 
 " A poor woman, crossing the mountains with two children, 
 was assailed by the wolf, and her infants devoured, and she 
 escaped with difficulty to Moyhall. The chief of Mackintosh 
 no sooner heard of the tragical fate of the babes, than, moved 
 by pity and rage, he dispatched orders to his clan and vassals 
 to assemble the next day at twelve o'clock, to proceed in a 
 body to destroy the wolf. Pollochock was one of those vas- 
 sals, and being then in the vigor of youth, and possessed of 
 gigantic strength and determined courage, his appearance was 
 eagerly looked for to take a lead in the enterprise. But the 
 hour came and all were assembled except him to whom they 
 most trusted. Unwilling to go without him, the impatient 
 chief fretted and fumed through the hall, till at length, about 
 an hour after the appointed time, in stalked Pollochock, dressed 
 in his full Highland attire : ' I am little used to wait thus for 
 any man,' exclaimed the chafed chieftain, ' and still less for 
 thee, Pollochock, especially when such game is afoot as we are 
 boune after ! ' ' What sort o' game are ye after, Mackintosh ? ' 
 said Pollochock simply, and not quite understanding his allu- 
 sion. ' The wolf, sir,' replied Mackintosh ; ' did not my mes-
 
 THE HUMORS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER. 69 
 
 senger instruct you ? ' ' Ou, ay, that's true,' answered Pol- 
 lochock, with a good-humored smile ; ' troth I had forgotten. 
 But an' that be a',' continued he, groping with his right hand 
 among the ample folds of his plaid, ' there's the wolf's head ! ' 
 Exclamations of astonishment and admiration burst from chief 
 and clansmen as he held out the grim and bloody head of the 
 monster at arm's length, for the gratification of those who 
 crowded round him. ' As I came through the slochk [ravine], 
 by east the hill there,' said he, as if talking of some every-day 
 occurrence, ' I forgathered with the beast. My long dog there 
 turned him. I buckled wi' him, and dirkit him, and syne 
 whuttled his craig, and brought awa' his countenance, for fear 
 he might come alive again ; for they are vera precarious creat- 
 ures. ' ' My noble Pollochock ! ' cried the chief in ecstasy ; 
 ' the deed was worthy of thee ! In memorial of thy hardi- 
 hood, I here bestow upon thee Seannachan, to yield meal for 
 thy good greyhound in all time coming.' ' 
 
 An old fragment of a mill was disinterred and brought down, 
 in the great floods of Moray, by the Cuach, and lodged on Mr. 
 Cumming's farm. It was ultimately proved to have belonged 
 to a saw-mill that existed in Glenquoich, in Mr. Cumming's 
 father's youth, though for some time it excited yet greater in- 
 terest, as it was believed to be part of a corn-mill anciently 
 erected in a small plain in the glen. As persons conversant in 
 mechanics were not plenty in the Highlands in the days when 
 this corn-mill was constructed, the laird brought a miller from 
 the low country to manage it. In this neighborhood there 
 lived at this time a certain Donald Mackenzie, a far-removed 
 branch of the family of Dalmore, a place that once stood where 
 the lodge does now. This hero, being remarkable for his 
 haughty and imperious manner, was known by the appellation 
 of Donald Unasach, or Donald the Proud. Being a native of 
 Glenquoich, he knew as little of the English language as the 
 miller did of the Gaelic. He was an outlaw, addicted to free- 
 booting, and of so fierce and unruly a temper that the whole 
 country stood in awe of him. One circumstance regarding him
 
 70 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 struck every one with superstitious awe, and created much con- 
 jecture and speculation among those around him. He was 
 never known to be without abundance of meal, and yet he was 
 never known to carry any corn to the mill. 
 
 But the sagacious miller of Glenquoich soon discovered that, 
 in order to bilk him of his proper mill-dues, the caitiff was in 
 the habit of bringing his grain to the mill in the night, and 
 grinding it, and carrying it off before morning. To charge 
 him directly with this fraud was too dangerous an attempt. 
 But the miller ventured to ask him now and then quietly how 
 he did for meal, as he never brought any corn to the mill. To 
 which the freebooter never returned any other answer than 
 "7s laider larinh Dhe!"" Strong is the hand of God !" 
 
 Provoked at last, the miller determined to take his own way 
 of curing the evil ; and, having some previous inkling of the 
 next nocturnal visit of his unwelcome customer, he took care, 
 before leaving the mill in the evening, to remove the bush, or 
 that piece of wood which is driven into the eye of the nether 
 millstone, for the purpose of keeping the spindle steady in 
 passing through the upper stone. He also stopped up the 
 spout, through which the meal discharged itself ; and, as the 
 mill was one of those old-fashioned machines, where the water- 
 wheel moved horizontally, and directly under the stones, it fol- 
 lows that, by this arrangement of things, the corn would fall 
 into the stream. Having made these preparations, the miller 
 locked his house-door, and went to bed. About midnight, 
 Donald arrived with his people, and some sacks of dry corn ; 
 and finding everything, as he thought, in good order in the 
 mill, he filled the hopper, and let on the water. The machinery 
 revolved with more than ordinary rapidity the grain sank fast 
 into the hopper, but not a particle of it came out at the place 
 where he was wont to receive it into his bag as meal. Donald 
 the Proud and his gillies were all aghast. Frantic with rage, 
 he and they ran up and down ; and in their hurry to do every- 
 thing, they succeeded in doing nothing. At length Donald 
 perceived, what even the obscurity of the night could not hide,
 
 THE HUMORS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER. 71 
 
 a long white line of fair provender floating down the middlo of 
 the stream, that left not a doubt as to where his corn was dis- 
 charging itself. But he could neither guess how this strange 
 phenomenon was produced, nor how the evil was to be cured. 
 After much perplexity, he thought of turning off the water. 
 But here the wily miller had also been prepared for him, having 
 so contrived matters that the pole or handle connecting the 
 sluice with the inside of the mill had fallen off as soon as the 
 water was let on the wheel. Baffled at all points, Donald was 
 compelled at last to run to the miller's house. Finding the 
 door locked, he knocked and bawled loudly at the window ; 
 and on the miller demanding to know who was there, he did his 
 best to explain, in broken English, the whole circumstances of 
 the case. The miller heard him to an end ; and, turning him- 
 self in bed, he coolly replied, " Strong is the hand of God !" 
 Donald Unasach gnashed his teeth ; tried the door again ; re- 
 turned to the window ; and, humbled by circumstances, repeat- 
 ed his explanations and entreaties fur help. "Te meal town te 
 purn to te tiel ! Hoigh! HoighT 1 " I thought ye had been 
 ower weel practeesed in the business to let any sic mischanter 
 come ower ye, Maister Anesack," replied the imperturbable 
 Lowlander ; " but strong is the hand of God !" The moun- 
 taineer now lost all patience. Drawing his dirk, and driving it 
 through the window, he began to strike it so violently against 
 the stones on the outside of the wall, that he illuminated the 
 house with a shower of fire, and showed the terrified inmates 
 the ferocious countenance of him who wielded the weapon. 
 "TV meal to te mill, te mutter to te mailler," sputtered out 
 Donald in the midst of his wrath, meaning to imply that, if 
 the miller would only come and help him, he should have all 
 his dues in future. Partly moved by this promise, but still 
 more by his well-grounded fears, the miller arose at last, put 
 the mill to rights, and ground the rest of the corn ; and tradi- 
 tion tells us that, after this, the mill-dues were regularly paid, 
 and the greatest harmony subsisted between Donald Unasach 
 and the miller of Glenquoich.
 
 72 SCOTTISH CHAEAOTERTSTIC8. 
 
 It is not difficult to see, in such old traditional stories as 
 these, the foundations of that commingled shrewdness and 
 strength which are so prominent in the Scottish character. 
 
 Colonel Stewart, in his work on the present state of the 
 Highlanders in Scotland, tells a story very honorable to the 
 Highland character. In the year 1795 there had been some 
 disturbance in a Highland regiment, the Breadalbane Fenci- 
 bles ; but the soldiers were made sensible of their misconduct, 
 and of the necessity of consequent punishment ; whereupon 
 four men voluntarily offered themselves to stand trial and suffer 
 the sentence of the law as an atonement for the whole. These 
 men were accordingly marched to Edinburgh Castle for trial. 
 On the march, one of the men stated to the officer commanding 
 the party, Major Colin Campbell, that he had left business, of 
 the utmost importance to a friend in Glasgow, uncompleted, 
 which he wished to transact before his death ; that, as to him- 
 self, he was fully prepared to meet his fate, but with regard to 
 his friend, he could not die in peace until the business was set- 
 tled, and that, if the officer would suffer him to return to Glas- 
 gow for a few hours, he would join him before he reached 
 Edinburgh, and march as a prisoner with the party. The 
 soldier added, " You have known me since I was a child ; you 
 know my country and kindred, and you may believe I shall 
 never bring you to any blame by a breach of the promise I now 
 make to be with you in full time to be delivered up in the 
 Castle." This was a startling proposal to make to the officer ; 
 but his confidence was such that he complied with the promise 
 of the prisoner, who returned to Glasgow at night, settled his 
 business, and left the town before daylight to redeem his 
 pledge. He was under the necessity of taking a long circuit 
 to avoid being seen and apprehended as a deserter and sent 
 back to Glasgow. In consequence of this caution, there was 
 no appearance of him at the appointed hour. The perplexity 
 of the officer when he reached the neighborhood of Edinburgh 
 may be easily imagined. He moved forward slowly indeed, 
 but no soldier appeared ; and unable to delay any longer, he
 
 THE HUMORS OF SCOTflSH CHARACTER. 7-1 
 
 marched up to the Castle, and as he was delivering over the 
 prisoners but before any report was given in Macmarbin, the 
 absent soldier, rushed in among his fellow-prisoners, all pale 
 with anxiety and fatigue, and breathless with apprehension of 
 the consequences in which his delay might have involved his 
 benefactor. The whole four were tried, and condemned to be 
 shot ; but it was determined that only one should suffer, and 
 they were ordered to draw lots. It is some relief to know that 
 the fatal lot was not drawn by this faithful soldier.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SOME VARIETIES OF SCOTTISH SUPERSTITION. 
 
 IT is scarcely possible to take up the life of any member of 
 the great Scottish family without instantly being made aware 
 of the strong tendency to superstitious fancy which governs 
 almost all orders of life, however learned or illiterate. We 
 find it in the life of Sir David Brewster. His daughter, Mrs. 
 Gordon, tells us how, in his early days, the love and fear of the 
 superstitious surrounded the home of the future great philoso- 
 pher. Behind his father's house at Jedburgh was a little cot- 
 tage, and, as we are speaking of a period nearly a century ago, 
 it is not a cause for wonder that only a gable of it is standing 
 now ; in Sir David's childhood it was shaded by a favorite 
 apple-tree, and within it lived David's old nurse. The delight 
 of the future author of the charming volume on Natural Magic 
 was to spend his winter evenings with the old woman, whose 
 memory appears to have been an amazing repository of stories 
 of ghosts and goblins. The old lady's narrations usually so 
 infiltrated the imagination of her young auditor that she had to 
 quit her easy-chair and cosey fire and convey the shuddering 
 child, or children, across the garden home, with her apron 
 thrown over their heads ; and Mrs. Gordon tells us that the 
 recollection of the old apple-tree and the fascination of the old 
 stories of the ancient woman were so vivid upon her father in 
 his old age, that he himself pleaded guilty to suffering from 
 superstitious fears even through the rnaturest years of man- 
 hood. Perhaps many writers, like Sir David Brewster and Sir 
 Walter Scott, who have written elaborate works to show how 
 groundless are superstitious fears, have been impelled to the 
 task by a strong sense of the hold which superstitious ideas had
 
 SOME VARIETIES OF SCOTTISH SUPERSTITION. 75 
 
 upon them ; few can doubt that this was the case with the 
 healthy- minded Sir Walter. It is more remarkable to find that 
 Mrs. Somerville the illustrious mathematician and great scien- 
 tific expositor was the subject of the same fears. Speaking 
 of her childhood, she says, " I was very fond of ghost and 
 witch stories, both of which were believed in by most of the 
 common people and many of the better educated. I heard an 
 old naval officer say that he never opened his eyes after he was 
 in bed ; I asked him why, and he replied, ' For fear I should 
 see something ! ' Now I did not actually believe in either 
 ghosts or witches, but yet, when alone in the dead of the 
 night, I have been seized with a dread of I know not what. 
 Few people will now understand me if I say I was eerie, a 
 Scotch expression for superstitious awe. I have been struck, 
 on reading the life of the late Sir David Brewster, with the in- 
 fluence the superstitions of the age and country had on both 
 learned and unlearned. Sir David was one of the greatest phi- 
 losophers of the day ; he was only a year younger than I ; we 
 were both born in Jedburgh, and both were influenced by the 
 superstitions of our age and country in a similar manner ; for 
 he confessed that, although he did not believe in ghosts, he 
 was eerie when sitting up at a late hour in a lone house that 
 was haunted. This is a totally different thing from believing 
 in spirit-rapping, which I scorn." 
 
 But, of these distinguished names in science, Hugh Miller, 
 in his "Schools and Schoolmasters," gives an instance from 
 his childhood which seems to rank him among veritable ghost- 
 seers. He gives a reminiscence from his earliest childhood of 
 that night when, in the wild and fatal tempest, his father went 
 down at sea. His mother had just received a cheerful letter 
 from the father, so that there were no forebodings in the dwell- 
 ing. She was sitting, plying her cheerful needle by the house- 
 hold fire ; the door had been left unfastened, and she sent little 
 Hugh to shut it ; it was in the twilight. " A gray haze," he 
 says, " was spreading a neutral tint of dimness over distant ob- 
 jects, but left the near ones comparatively distinct, when I saw
 
 76 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 at the open door, within less than a yard of my breast, as 
 plainly as I ever saw anything, a dissevered hand and arm 
 stretched toward me hand and arm were apparently those of 
 a female ; they bore a livid and sodden appearance, and 
 directly fronting me, where the body ought to have been, there 
 was only a blank transparent space, through which I could see 
 the dim forms of the objects beyond. I was fearfully startled, 
 and ran shrieking to my mother, telling what I had seen ; and 
 the house-girl, whom she next sent to shut the door, appar- 
 ently affected by my terror, also returned frightened, and said 
 that she too had seen the woman's hand." 
 
 Hugh Miller says, " I communicate the story as it lies fixed 
 in my memory, without attempting to explain it. The coinci- 
 dence with the probable time of my father's death seems at 
 least curious." 
 
 We mention these illustrations without any especial comment 
 upon the instances, but for the purpose of remarking that this 
 hard-headed Scotch mind, which seems so naturally allied to 
 mathematics and the logic of facts, is especially metaphysical 
 and mystical ; the love of the mysterious is inherent among the 
 people, and, among thinkers, a fondness for dealing with the 
 occult causes of things seems generally to pervade the mind. 
 Even now, Dr. Rogers says, " Spectres have not altogether left 
 the scene, and although those apparitions which do appear are 
 generally detected, and found to possess flesh and blood, they 
 testify to a general prevalence, a terror of and faith in ghostly 
 visitations among the people." 
 
 He mentions how a friend of his own was returning late on 
 a summer evening to his residence at Earlston from the vicinity 
 of Montrose. The road led through a piece of unfrequented 
 mooriand, a solitary waste. The night was oppressively hot ; 
 the course was up hill. To relieve himself a little he threw 
 open his vest, inclosing his head in a light-colored handker- 
 chief, raising his hat aloft upon his cane. On a sudden a figure 
 started from the foot-path and disappeared amid a forest of 
 whins. The traveller appears to have been a little terrified
 
 SOME VARIETIES OF SCOTTISH SUPERSTITION. 77 
 
 himself. Approaching the spot where the figure seemed to be 
 concealed, he called out, " Who is there ?" Then came the 
 immediate reply, " I'm I'm I'm a weaver frae Galashiels ; 
 but och, man ! I'm glad to hear you speak, for ye were an 
 awfu' like sicht comin' ower the hill ; I thocht ye were a 
 ghaist, an' I were amaist feared oot o' my judgment !" 
 
 No doubt many a ghost has as natural a solution or dissolu- 
 tion, but such stories do not the less tend to show a character- 
 istic of the national mind. In his very interesting, but now 
 rare, book on " Scotland, Social and Domestic," Dr. Rogers 
 has collected a number of instances ; some of them were per- 
 sonal, and household alarms, arising from simple causes, but 
 there are many also to which he does not furnish any explana- 
 tion, and some of them of a quite recent occurrence. In the 
 University of St. Andrews a custom obtains that, on the death 
 of a professor, intimation of the event is conveyed by messen- 
 ger to the other members of the institution. In 1842 an aged 
 professor was very ill, and his decease was expected daily. 
 One of his colleagues sat down to his usual evening devotions 
 with his household. His wife was reading a portion of Script- 
 ure when, watch in hand, the professor asked her whether it 
 was not precisely half-past nine. The lady, taking out her 
 watch, answered that it was. When the service was con- 
 cluded, the professor explained that at the time he had inter- 
 rupted the reading he had seen his ailing colleague, who had 
 signalled him an adieu. He felt satisfied his friend had then 
 expired. Not long after a messenger arrived, reporting that 
 Dr. H. had died that evening at half-past nine. 
 
 Scotch writers classify apparitions into four orders. This 
 alone shows the prevalence among them of superstitious ideas. 
 There are the wraith, the tutelary spirit, the genie, and the 
 unrested ghost. There is a singular story connected with the 
 death of Mungo Park on his second great African expedition. 
 His sister, Mrs. Thomson, lived with her husband on their 
 farm at Myreton, among the Ochils. She had received a letter 
 from her brother, expressing his hope that he would shortly
 
 78 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 return home, and saying that she would not be likely to hear 
 from him again until she saw him on his return. Shortly after 
 this she was in bed ; she fancied she heard a horse's feet on 
 the road before her window. Sitting up in bed, she instantly 
 saw her brother, the great traveller, open the door and walk 
 toward her in his usual attire. She expressed her delight, 
 sprang up from bed, stretched out her arms to embrace him, 
 and only folded them over her own breast. By the dim light 
 she could still only believe that he had stepped aside, that he 
 was, perhaps, joking with her ; and while she was upbraiding 
 him for retreating from her, her husband came into the room 
 and assured her of her delusion. This was the last that was 
 heard of Mungo Park ; the date of his death is unknown. 
 Mrs. Thomson is described as a shrewd, intelligent woman not 
 at all inclined to superstition, but she always believed that his 
 death took place at the time when she imagined he had 
 returned to her at Myreton. Such stories as these hover over 
 all Scotland, and seem to interlace themselves with the histories 
 of all her families. We apprehend that very extraordinary 
 man, John Leyden, great scholar, extensive traveller, enthusiast, 
 and exquisite poet, gives not only his own experience, but also 
 that of many another member of his Scottish kindred, when, 
 in his " Scenes of Infancy," he says : 
 
 " The woodland's sombre shade that peasants fear, 
 The haunted mountain streams that murmur near, 
 The antique tombstone and the churchyard green, 
 Seemed to unite me with the world unseen ; 
 Oft when the eastern moon rose darkly red 
 I heard the viewless paces of the dead, 
 Heard in the breeze the wandering spirits sigh, 
 Or airy skirts unseen that rustled by." 
 
 Mental eminence and independence, or extensive attainments, 
 seem to be no protection against this mystical charm of ghostly 
 influence ; and even the metaphysical strength of Scottish 
 thought seems to assure us of the relation of the mind to occult 
 subjects of investigation. Hugh Miller, to whom we have
 
 SOME VARIETIES OF SCOTTISH SUPERSTITION. 79 
 
 already referred, gives to us, in the twenty-fifth chapter of his 
 " Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland," a long sue- 
 cession of ghostly tales which infiltrated, and, no doubt, 
 formed, his young imagination as they floated round his early 
 home. 
 
 The superstitions of Scotland vary according to the region ; 
 there is a difference between Lowland and Highland supersti- 
 tions ; between the superstitions of the Scottish fishermen and 
 the Scottish shepherds. It is true of other countries, besides 
 Scotland, that the superstitions of a district live longest among 
 its fishermen. The profession of the fisherman naturally in- 
 clines him to superstition ; life with him is always especially 
 uncertain ; there is a wide province for the imagination, for 
 the ominous dream and the warning vision, the wandering 
 death-light and the threatening spectre ; superstition seems 
 natural to precariousness and peril. Hence, usually, the fish- 
 ing village is especially full of stories and legends ; almost every 
 disaster is set in a framework of the supernatural. Then the 
 fisherman's life is isolated ; even in his marriage he must have 
 a wife not selected from the family of the cotter or mechanic ; 
 he must have a girl who can bait lines, and repair nets, and 
 who can help him to sell his fish ; a girl of his own class ; so 
 there is no infusion of new ideas, the same legendary life runs 
 on from generation to generation. 
 
 But the Highlands were the especial home of superstitions, 
 although, even when Dr. Johnson visited the Western Isles, he 
 thought they were wearing away. 
 
 At the commencement of the present century, Mrs. Grant, of 
 Laggan, wrote her charming, thoughtful, and eloquent essays 
 on the superstitions of the Highlands ; and although she very 
 beautifully attempted to elucidate the natural causes of these 
 superstitions, and to expostulate with them, she certainly dealt 
 with them in no merely sceptical or flippant spirit, while her 
 volumes contain many tender illustrations of the hold which 
 the heart had on the life of the world to come. Thus we read 
 how common it was for survivors to give conditional messages
 
 80 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 to their departing friends by the passing spirit ; there was a 
 kind of ritual of decorous departure. " Nothing was more 
 common," says Mrs. Grant, " than to take a solemn leave of 
 old people as if they were going on a journey, and pretty much 
 in the same terms : ' If you are permitted, tell my dear brother 
 that I have merely endured the world since he left it, and that 
 I have been very kind to every creature he used to cherish, for 
 his sake.' I have heard, indeed," continues Mrs. Grant, " a 
 person of a very enlightened mind seriously give a message to 
 an aged person to deliver to a child he had lost not long be- 
 fore, which she as seriously promised to deliver, with the 
 wonted condition, if she was permitted." We read in these 
 same essays, written amid the people to whom they refer, of a 
 man remarkable for filial affection, who continued single that 
 he might sedulously attend to the comfort of his mother and 
 watch her declining years with reverent care. On her birthday 
 he always collected the members of the family, his brothers 
 and sisters they were all married before the father's death- 
 and at the conclusion of the family feast he always proposed a 
 reverent toast, the substance of which was, " An easy and 
 decorous departure to my mother." How this toast would 
 shock and shake the nerves of fashionable delicacy ! how the 
 cynic would sneer at it, and almost mis-translate it ! but it was 
 not thought an unnatural thing, it was received with great ap- 
 plause, and the old lady always replied in nearly the same 
 terms, that " God had always been good to her, and she hoped 
 she should die as decently as she had lived." It was thought 
 of the utmost consequence to " die decently." 
 
 We read Mrs. Grant's " Essays and Letters from the Moun- 
 tains" until we almost wish that the knowledge of books and 
 science, the learning of so many things by rote, the remoteness 
 of nature and of the influences of nature, had not deprived us 
 of that singular sense of a pleasant familiarity with the dead 
 which those papers delineate ; when auspicious forms came to 
 comfort the mourner, or to suggest useful hints on the conduct 
 of life, and when the want the deadly and wretched want of
 
 SOME VARIETIES OF SCOTTISH SUPERSTITION. 81 
 
 some object beyond what earth affords to stimulate or satisfy 
 was responded to by something lifting the inind above objects 
 of mere sense, enlarging the conceptions, and exalting the 
 general character. Some of these spectres, or visions, of the 
 Highlands of the old time seem almost like allegories. 
 
 A farmer, whose high character gave him great influence in 
 his elevated hamlet, lost his children, one after another ; at last 
 he lost a little child who had taken great hold on the father's 
 affections ; the father's grief was intemperate and quite un- 
 bounded. The death took place in the spring, when, although 
 the sheep were abroad in the more inhabited Lowlands, they 
 had to be preserved from the blasts of that high and stormy 
 region in the cote. In a dismal, snowy evening, the man, un- 
 able to stifle his anguish, went out lamenting aloud ; he went 
 to the door of his sheep-cote to take a lamb he needed, and he 
 found a stranger at the door. He was astonished to find, in 
 such a night, any person in so unfrequented a place. He was 
 plainly attired, but with a countenance remarkably expressive 
 of mildness and beneficence. The stranger, very singularly, 
 asked the farmer what he did there amid the tempest on such a 
 night. The man was filled with awe, which he could not ac- 
 count for, but said he came there for a lamb. 
 
 " What kind of a lamb do you mean to take ?" said the 
 stranger. 
 
 " The very best I can find," answered the farmer ; " but 
 come into the house and share our evening meal." 
 
 ' ' Do your sheep make any resistance when you take away 
 the lamb, or any disturbance afterward ?" 
 
 " Never," said the farmer. 
 
 " How differently am I treated," said the traveller ; " when 
 I come to visit my sheepfold, I take, as I am well entitled to 
 take, the best lamb to myself, and my ears are filled with the 
 clamor of discontent by those ungrateful sheep whom I have 
 fed, and watched, and protected." 
 
 Perhaps the reader may, in some form, have met this story
 
 82 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 before, but we give it as it has come down from the mountains, 
 ages since. 
 
 But we must not dwell on these old superstitions of the 
 Highlands, and tell the stories of visions of the dead, and how 
 often, even in the stillness of noon, in the solitary place, while 
 speaking of them, in an instant, even in the daytime, they were 
 beheld passing transiently or standing ready for conversation. 
 We cannot attempt to elucidate the wonders of second sight, 
 by which things distant or future are seen as if they were pres- 
 ent ; a seer driving home his cattle, or wandering in idleness, 
 or musing in sunshine, is suddenly surprised by the appearance 
 of a bridal ceremony, or a funeral procession ; a Mr. Keith 
 drops down dead of an apoplexy from his chair, and an inn- 
 keeper declares that he saw that event three hours before ! 
 
 Dr. Macculloch, in his splendid descriptions of tho High- 
 lands, deals with these matters at length in a very jocular 
 spirit ; but the whole phenomena of Highland spiritualism has 
 been a perplexity to many writers, who have been far enough 
 from a disposition to yield themselves implicitly to all the 
 vagaries of superstition ; and we suppose that most readers are 
 much better pleased to find a clearing up of some mysterious 
 story than to remain beneath the impression of inexplicable 
 mystery. 
 
 But superstition in Scotland is rapidly on the wane ; all the 
 grosser superstitions are gone. Once it was the favored region 
 of wizards, witches, warlocks, fairies, brownies, and hobgob- 
 lins ; they have all taken their departure. Spectres, as we said 
 at the commencement of this chapter, have not entirely left the 
 scene, but the temper of the times in which we live leads us to 
 feel most enjoyment when they are found to be divested of 
 ghostly terrors, and to appear in flesh and bones. 
 
 We have shown how fear operates when faith declines. A 
 story is told of Mr. Fleming, who was, in his large building 
 transactions, the first to introduce Scottish timber for purposes 
 for which foreign wood had been previously employed. About 
 the year 1753-54 he was at Kilmun now, we believe, a fash-
 
 SOME VARIETIES OF SCOTTISH SUPERSTITION". 83 
 
 ionable and well-built watering-place ; then, a remote and 
 secluded Highland hamlet. The accommodation was so bad 
 that, instead of submitting to the predaceous animals thirsting 
 for the blood of the Lowlander, he chose to have a temporary 
 bed put up in the burial-vault of the Argyle family, there to 
 attempt to sleep surrounded by the peaceful coffins of departed 
 dukes and duchesses. Could the most audacious modern dis- 
 believer in ghosts dare this feat ? While occupying this dark, 
 and to our ideas not attractive bed-chamber, he on one occasion 
 stepped out rather early on a fine Sabbath morning in his white 
 night-dress, and, while indulging himself and giving a loud 
 yawn, he was perceived by some sailors who were loitering near 
 the tomb and waiting for a tide to carry their small craft, 
 which was moored in the Holy Loch, to Greenock. The super- 
 stitious sailors, as may well be conceived, were quite appalled 
 by the supposed apparition issuing from the charnel-house ; 
 they instantly took to their heels, and, hurrying into their 
 boat, set off to Greenock, where, on their arrival, they gave 
 such a circumstantial account of the resurrection of at least one 
 of the Dukes of Argyle as to induce the authorities to make a 
 formal inquiry into the circumstance. 
 
 Into the historical department of Scottish superstition we 
 have not permitted ourselves to enter ; it is a brief and very 
 painful chapter in the history of fanaticism, the story of the 
 persecutions for witchcraft, the shuddering recollections of 
 which perpetuated themselves in the marvellous visions of Tarn 
 O' Shanter, in the old kirk of Alloway : 
 
 " Where ghosts and owlets nightly sigh ! " 
 
 Every close in Edinburgh is haunted with weird old stories ; 
 and the memory of Major Weir has scarcely relinquished the 
 awful hold it had upon even the better judgment of men. We 
 are bold enough to think that Major Weir and his sister were a 
 sorely much-abused old couple. 
 
 Major Weir was one of the strictest of the old Scotch Pres-
 
 84 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 byterians, a man of singular devoutness and exact Puritanic 
 severity ; he lived in the West Bow with his sister ; a man 
 mighty in prayer and heavenly gesture, and unsu^ied in repu- 
 tation, he continued through many years, when, being seized 
 with a severe illness, he made open and voluntary confession of 
 having indulged in every kind of possible and impossible 
 wickedness. It was the day of wizards and witchcraft ; upon 
 his own and his sister's confessions they were tried April 9th, 
 1670 ; he was sentenced to be strangled and burned, and his 
 sister to be hanged ; and the sentences were accordingly carried 
 into execution. For a century and a half the neighborhood 
 was haunted by the memory of Major Weir ; his memory lin- 
 gers over the neighborhood still, although the house in which 
 he resided was probably pulled down. For many years it was 
 deserted ; it was said to be haunted, and no one would live in 
 it, until at last some hardy spirits attempted to do so, and, 
 upon the first night's attempt, were scared away. For a long 
 time Major Weir and his sister haunted the imaginations of the 
 people of the West Bow, in the Lawn Market. His name fig- 
 ured in Sinclair's " Invisible World Discovered," and other 
 such works. Of course, innumerable stories were told of him ; 
 his sister had said that all the major's power lay in his staff ; 
 this was sentenced to be burned also, but when it was cast into 
 the fire it showed great indisposition to burn, and " gave sev- 
 eral rare turnings. ' ' 
 
 Scott refers to this extraordinary instance in the story of 
 " Blind Willie's tale," which was, perhaps, partly derived 
 from it. Robert Chambers, in his "Traditions of Edin- 
 burgh," says that the conclusions of humanity in the present 
 age are simply that the poor major was mad ; hjs mind 
 wrought upon by the diseased atmosphere around him, laden 
 with notions of witchcraft and wizardry, and himself wrought 
 up to an unnatural state of nervous excitement by overstrained 
 theological notions, united, probably, to fastings and experi- 
 ences almost monastic, produced on his mind the effects of 
 monomania ; and it should be remembered that nothing was
 
 SOME VARIETIES OF SCOTTISH SUPERSTITION. 85 
 
 ever proved tending to sully the innocence of the major's char- 
 acter beyond his own solemn asseverations. 
 
 It is not wonderful that imagination, combining with super- 
 stition, in a people themselves intensely imaginative, hung 
 round the names and memories of certain characters traditions 
 of an even awful description ; and Blind Willie's tale, to which 
 we have just referred, is not so much an exaggeration as an 
 illustration of this. Sir Walter Scott's description of Red- 
 gauntlet seems only naturally to give the impressions conveyed 
 of Sir Robert Grierson, the laird of Lag, one of the most cruel 
 and remorseless persecutors of the Covenanters. The house 
 the great novelist intended to depict was Grierson's town 
 house, in Dumfries ; it was an old pile, for a long time called 
 " the Turnpike," and has now yielded to modern change. In 
 it the laird of Lag spent the latest years of his life, and there 
 he died in 1736 ; but if anything were wanting to identify him 
 with the grim Redgauntlet of Blind Willie's tale, Mr. McDowall 
 has supplied it in his History of Dumfries, by his assurance 
 that the monkey companion of Redgauntlet, called " Major 
 Weir," had a real existence as the companion of Grierson, as 
 had also the " cat's cradle" where the curious creature slept ; 
 it was a remote turret of " the Turnpike" which had been built 
 as a point of observation in ancient times. It will not be apart 
 from the purpose of the present volume to quote from Wander- 
 ing Willie's tale what must pass for a most racy description of 
 the laird of Lag, and, considering what he had been a wicked 
 persecutor, and what were his awful and grotesque surround- 
 ings, it seems natural that the popular imagination should sur- 
 round him and his memory with the notoriety of an infamous 
 terror : " There sat the laird his leesorne lane, excepting that 
 he had beside him a great, ill-favored jackanape, that was a 
 special pet of his ; a cankered beast it was, and mony an ill- 
 natured trick it played ill to please it was, and easily angered 
 ran about the haill castle, chattering and yowling, and pinch- 
 ing and biting folk, especially before ill weather, or disturb- 
 ances in the state. Sir Robert ca'd it ' Major Weir,' after the
 
 86 SCOTTISH CHARACTEEISTICS. 
 
 warlock that was burned ; and few folk liked either the name 
 or the conditions of the creature they thought there was 
 something in it by ordinar'. Sir Robert sat, or I should say 
 lay, in a great armed chair, wi' his grand velvet gown and his 
 feet on a cradle for he had both gout and gravel and his 
 face looked as gash and ghastly as Satan's. ' Major Weir ' sat 
 opposite to him in a red laced coat, and the laird's wig on his 
 head ; and aye as Sir Robert girned wi' pain, the jackanape 
 girned too like a sheep's-head between a pair of tangs : an 
 ill-faured, fearsome couple they were. The laird's buff coat 
 was hanging on a pin behind him, and his broadsword and his 
 pistols within reach ; for he keepit up the auld fashion of hav- 
 ing the weapons ready, and a horse saddled day and night, just 
 as he used to do when he was able to loup on horseback and 
 away after ony of the hill-folk he could get speerings of." 
 The " major" was literally pistolled by Sir Gilbert, the next 
 laird of Lag, though not, need we add, under such circum- 
 stances of diablerie as are so graphically narrated in the 
 romance. 
 
 The ghostly superstitions of Scotland are so many and so 
 characteristic that the omission to notice some of the more con- 
 siderable of them would render any estimate of Scottish charac- 
 ter, however full otherwise, incomplete. There is a traditional 
 catch in the county of Berwick : 
 
 " O Pearlin' Jean, O Pearlin' Jean, 
 She haunts the house, she haunts the green, 
 And glowers on us a' wi' her wullcat e'en." 
 
 " In my youth," says Mr. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, 
 " Pearlin' Jean was the most remarkable ghost in Scotland, 
 and my terror when a child. Our old nurse, Jenny Black- 
 adder, had been a servant at Allanbank, and often heard her 
 rustling in silks up and down stairs, and along the passages. 
 She never saw her, but her husband did. She was a French 
 woman, whom the first baronet of Allanbank, then Mr. Stuart, 
 met with at Paris, during his tour to finish his education as a
 
 SOME VARIETIES OF SCOTTISH SUPERSTITION. 87 
 
 gentleman. Some people said she was a nun ; In which case 
 she must have been a Sister of Charity, as she appears not to 
 have been confined to a cloister. After some time young 
 Stuart either became faithless to the lady, or was suddenly 
 recalled to Scotland by his parents, and had got into his car- 
 riage, at the door of the hotel, when his Dido unexpectedly 
 made her appearance, and stepping on the fore-wheel of the 
 coach to address her lover, he ordered the postilion to drive 
 on ; the consequence of which was that the lady fell, and one 
 of the wheels going over her forehead, killed her. 
 
 " In a dusky autumnal evening, when Mr. Stuart drove 
 under the arched gateway of Allanbank, he perceived Pearlin' 
 Jean sitting on the top, her head and shoulders covered with 
 blood. After this, for many years, the house was haunted ; 
 doors shut and opened with great noise at midnight ; the rust- 
 ling of silks and the pattering of high-heeled shoes were heard 
 in bedrooms and passages. Nurse Jenny said there were seven 
 ministers called in together at one time to lay the spirit ; ' but 
 they did no muckle good, my dear.' The picture of the ghost 
 was hung up between those of the lover and his lady, and kept 
 her comparatively quiet ; but when taken away, she became 
 worse natured than ever. This portrait was in the present Sir 
 J. G. 's possession. I am unwilling to record its fate. The 
 ghost was designated Pearlin, from always wearing a great 
 quantity of that sort of lace a species of lace made of thread. 
 Nurse Jenny told me that when Thomas Blackadder was her 
 lover (I remember Thomas very well), they made an assigna- 
 tion to meet one moonlight night in the orchard at Allanbank. 
 True Thomas, of course, was the first comer ; and seeing a 
 female in a light-colored dress, at some distance, he ran for- 
 ward with open arms to embrace his Jenny ; when, lo, and be- 
 hold ! as he neared the spot where the figure stood, it vanished ; 
 and presently he saw it again at the very end of the orchard, 
 a considerable way off. Thomas went home in a fright ; but 
 Jenny, who came last, and saw nothing, forgave him, and they 
 were married. Many years after this, about the year 1790,
 
 88 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 two ladies paid a visit to Allanbank I think the house was 
 then let and passed the night there. They had never heard a 
 word about the ghost ; but they were disturbed the whole 
 night with something walking backward and forward in their 
 bed-chamber. This I had from the best authority. " A house- 
 keeper called Betty Norrie, who lived many years at Allanbank, 
 declared she and many other people had frequently seen Jean, 
 adding that they were so used to her as to be no longer alarmed 
 at her noises. The persevering annoyances at Allanbank were 
 so thoroughly believed and established as to have formed at 
 various times a considerable impediment to letting the place. 
 Sir Robert Stuart of Allanbank was created a baronet in the 
 year 1697, so that it must have been previous to that time that 
 Jean died. 
 
 Another famous ghost was, we do not know whether we may 
 say is, " The Chappie of Houndwood," concerning which an 
 old Border ballad sings : 
 
 " For the cruel and bloody deed 
 
 That was done within the dome, 
 
 Shall haunted be the forest home 
 O' Houndwood, till away shall speed 
 
 Generations mony a ane ; 
 And no son shall heir that Ha' 
 Till Chappie leave baith wood and wa', 
 
 And a* our kings and queens are gane." 
 
 Houndwood is an old mansion lying on the north bank of 
 the Eye, about four miles south-west of Coldingham. It was 
 an old possession of the priory of Coldingham ; and the house 
 was placed in the midst of the forest attached to that splendid 
 establishment and was built, it is said, as a hunting-seat for 
 the prior. Like all old country mansions, Houndwood was 
 long a haunted house ; and individuals are still living who 
 maintain that they have heard strange sounds and seen strange 
 sights there. The ghost which so long troubled the .inmates of 
 the forest house was usually called " Chappie," from the fre- 
 quent knockings which it made during the night. The servants
 
 SOME VARIETIES OF SCOTTISH SUPERSTITION. 89 
 
 were frequently annoyed, even in the daytime, with its perti- 
 nacious visits. Sometimes a knocking would be heard at the 
 front door ; and if anybody went to open it, nobody could be 
 seen, except on one occasion, when on the servant's opening 
 the door, a grand lady rushed past her, and went up the stairs 
 with a majestic gait, rustling in silks and satins ; but this lady 
 was never afterward seen, either within or without the house. 
 Sometimes, in the twilight, would be heard near the house the 
 voice as of the greeting and wailing of a child in distress ; and 
 when the inmates of the house went out to seek the object of 
 such lamentation, it could never be found " an individual told 
 me lately," says Mr. George Henderson in his valuable little 
 brochure on " The Popular Rhymes, Sayings, and Proverbs of 
 the County of Berwick," " that her father was one of those 
 who made such a search, on one occasion." At other times, 
 during the silence of night, there would be heard loud knock- 
 ings, rattling and rolling of heavy objects about the house, and 
 sounds as if of combatants in mortal struggle, and sometimes 
 all the plates, basins, and glasses were scattered over the floor, 
 and then followed meanings, and groans of an appalling kind, 
 which made the inmates shudder and creep together in terror 
 and dismay. One night, our informant, then a very young 
 girl, and a servant in the house, had occasion to go with a 
 friend to the neighboring farmhouse of Lamington. When 
 about halfway to the place, they were struck with the sound of 
 what appeared to be a great number of horsemen coming gallop- 
 ing up behind them ; they both ran to the side of the road, and 
 got upon the hedge-bank to be out of the way of the riders ; 
 they had only stood a minute or so, when the troop rushed past 
 at least, what appeared, by the sound, to be a troop for 
 they saw nothing ; and the noise of the trampling of the horses, 
 and the clashing of armor, died away on the wind, as if it had 
 been a real cavalcade of mortal men and horses ! There was a 
 room in Houndwood House, called " Chappie's room," into 
 which nobody ever cared to enter, even in the broad light of 
 day. It was from this room that most of the supernatural
 
 90 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 noises seemed to proceed. In it had been done, at some 
 former period, an atrocious deed of murder : there were dark 
 spots of blood on the floor, which could not be washed out 
 the floor had been taken up and renewed but it was all the 
 same the gory marks reappeared in the new flooring as well ! 
 In consequence of this murder, it was prophesied, by whom we 
 never heard, that Houndwood was not to have a male heir for 
 five generations at least. Oui father had a cousin, Margaret 
 Smeaton by name, who died in Chirnside in 1827, and who, 
 when young, lived as a servant at Houndwood. She was a 
 very pious woman, and would not have told an untruth to 
 please the greatest lord or lady in Christendom, and she related 
 to our father the following story, which we have often heard 
 him tell : " While living at Houndwood, an Englishman was 
 hired as gardener he would not believe in the tales about the 
 ghost ; and so bold and confident was he that he swore there 
 was no such thing in the world as ghost or apparitions ; and to 
 show that he did not believe in them, he had a bed made up in 
 ' Chappie's ' room, in which no person had slept for a hundred 
 years or more ; and there he was determined to sleep in defiance 
 of all the ghosts, goblins, and devils under the moon ! Well, 
 the gardener went to his bed in the said ' goblin chamber,' and 
 composed himself for sleep ; but about the witching hour of 
 twelve, 
 
 ' When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out 
 Contagion to the world,' 
 
 the crest-fallen gardener came down the stairs with such pre- 
 cipitation that he put both neck and limbs in the utmost jeop- 
 ardy, and swore that he would never set foot again in that 
 room while he lived ; and when asked what he saw, or heard, 
 that had put him into such affright, he said that he would 
 never tell any mortal man or woman what he had seen !" It 
 is said that " Chappie" sometimes appeared in the shape of a 
 pair of enormous military or trooper's boots, stalking across 
 the floor all plashed with blood, but no other part of the
 
 SOME VARIETIES OF SCOTTISH SUPERSTITION. 91 
 
 wearer of those boots was visible. Such is a specimen of the 
 ghost stories, which had such a charm for our boyhood ! 
 
 We have not left ourselves much space to speak upon the 
 more favorite and popular department of superstition that of 
 dreams. The words about dreams have not always been as wise 
 as those of William Calder, of Strath-halladale, who used to 
 say, " When I have a pleasant dream I thank the Lord for it, 
 and when it is unpleasant I thank Him that it was only a 
 dream." Many of our Scotch friends have had some experi- 
 ences to give us from dreamland, tending to show the prev- 
 alence of a certain kind of composition in the blood or tem- 
 perament very favorable to a kind of spiritual communion. 
 
 A Scotchman a dear, but now departed, friend of the 
 author of this volume used to tell how he, early, when a 
 very little child, lost his father. His mother had tenderly 
 loved her husband. She was distracted ; she was desolate. 
 All day long, and for many days, she lay as one stunned ; she 
 could not brook the loss ; she could not live for her child. 
 One night she dreamed she was in a deep forest alone ; she 
 could not see the path, nor know the way, but she knew she 
 was in a forest. Suddenly a shining one stood before her. 
 He was clad in white, but he was radiant, and he illuminated 
 the forest. He revealed the path ; he revealed himself. He 
 held in his hand a golden wand, and with it he touched the left 
 eye of the mourning widow, and she saw no longer the forest ; 
 all was lit up with heaven, with brightness, and there in the 
 distance, beyond a doubt, was her husband, and he knew her, 
 recognized her, and gave her his well-known smile. The 
 stranger still stood by her side. 
 
 "Oh," she said, " touch the other eye !" 
 
 She was all impatience. What might not that touch do ? 
 bring her to him ; bring him to her ? 
 
 " Better not," said the white-robed shining one, " better 
 not." 
 
 But she still said, " Do, do! oh, do !" Her heart was im- 
 patient.
 
 92 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 " Well," he said, and he touched the other eye, and in- 
 stantly all faded, the husband, the heaven, the stranger, and 
 she woke to her lonely pillow. 
 
 The reader may rely on this as a veritable dream, perhaps he 
 will say a foolish dream, but, on the strength of it, she arose 
 and went forth to life and duty. The dream became cheerful- 
 ness, solace, and hope to her heart ; her boy, in due time, took 
 his degree in Edinburgh, became a minister, and was just one 
 of the most beautiful spirits it has been the writer's privilege 
 to know. 
 
 A lady, also a friend of the writer, from beyond Aberdeen, 
 the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, and one who always 
 seemed to have fairy blood in her veins, used to tell us of a 
 dream she had before she was married, when living at home at 
 her father's manse. The pastor of the next parish, some sev- 
 eral miles distant, was her uncle her father's brother. He 
 was an unco' dry old body, given over to studies of a very per- 
 plexing description ; he was a weird comminglement of meta- 
 physician and mathematician ; nobody, even of his own family, 
 saw much of him, week in and week out ; he lived at the top 
 of the house, in a remote study, surrounded by his books and 
 diagrams, and working out his head-splitting calculations. His 
 brother the father of our friend often told him that if he 
 did not quit his evil ways, and become human, he, or some- 
 body for him, " would sairly rue his weird." One night, 
 Sally, his niece, and our friend, dreamed that she saw the old 
 manse in which her uncle lived just clean divide itself right in 
 two, and one part seemed to come toward her father's manse, 
 and the other seemed to go off, she knew not whither ; and 
 she woke, but falling asleep again, she dreamed the same 
 dream. She was a girl of about twenty years of age, and, 
 when she woke in the morning, the dream so troubled her 
 that she would give her father no rest until he sent off to the 
 other manse to know if all were right there. On the way his 
 messenger met some one coming to inform them that, during 
 the night, the minister, her uncle, had been seized with fever
 
 SOME VARIETIES OF SCOTTISH SUPERSTITION. 03 
 
 uncontrollable madness insanity ! The end of the story 
 was that the dear old manse in the moorlands was broken up. 
 The wife and children came for a time to the other manse, 
 while the poor shattered and broken body and mind were con- 
 veyed away to some asylum, where they also soon parted com- 
 pany ilf death. And so the manse, as in the dream, divided in 
 two 1
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 "THE SCOT ABROAD." 
 
 WE appropriate the title given by the historian of Scotland, 
 Mr. John Burton, to his two pleasant volumes. It is very de- 
 scriptive, and suggestive of a remarkable trait of Scotch char- 
 acter. Mr. Burton devotes his work very much to the great 
 relations of Scotland with France, in the time of the French 
 League with Scotland, and in those days when the old Scots 
 Guard of France was as famous as the unfortunate Swiss Guard 
 of recent and unhappy times. But this is only a hint of what 
 the Scot has been ever since. With considerable pride and 
 real humor a Scotchman said to us once, " We're just the 
 greatest vagabonds on the face of the earth ;" and so, if the 
 vagabond be a wanderer, as the term literally and etymologi- 
 cally implies, just as Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses were 
 vagabonds, " strangers and pilgrims on the earth," to the same 
 illustrious order the Scot in all ages has belonged. He has 
 furnished the world, in recent times, with its most illustrious 
 travellers, and especially in the department of African travel. 
 Livingstone, although the incomparable chief, had many dis- 
 tinguished predecessors from his own country, notably Mungo 
 Park, Hugh Clapperton, James Bruce, Ledyard, Leyden, and 
 many others ; and the Scot has supplied, perhaps, not only the 
 most enterprising but the most successful emigrants. The Scot 
 has not merely left his mountains, lochs, and moors for the 
 great cities of England. The same spirit which makes him so 
 important an element in the commercial life of London, Man- 
 chester, and other great cities, has pushed him out to the most 
 important commercial seats in far-distant quarters of the globe 
 as engineer, trader, and inventor.
 
 "THE SCOT ABROAD/* 95 
 
 The Scot is one of the most ubiquitous of all travellers. 
 Referring to this, an ill-natured old proverbial riddle asks, 
 " Which is the finest view in all Scotland ?" The reply being, 
 ' ' The road which leads out of it, or the road which leads to 
 England." If this be so, at any rate England and the world 
 have gained by the spirit which has impelled the Scot to 
 wander. In a quiet, irresistible sort of a way, he is taking 
 possession of the world, and especially the world opened up by 
 the arms and discoveries of Great Britain. Its markets, its 
 literature, its poetry, its manufactories, its steamboats, and its 
 trains, its foreign depots Singapore, Shanghai. Hong Kong, 
 Calcutta, Melbourne, and Montreal all proclaim the Scot is 
 abroad. The people, proverbially considered the most cau- 
 tious, are, perhaps, the most adventurous, the most speculative 
 and daring, not to say rash, on the face of the earth, and their 
 power is now, where it has ever been, not so much in their 
 prudence, or their principles, nor in their so often boasted love 
 of liberty which really has often looked very mythical, and 
 faded away into a true Celtic worship of that which is strongest 
 but in a certain strong, shrewd perception, sustained by 
 physical daring, and physical endurance, a firm educational 
 faculty at home resulting in a strangely uniform success abroad. 
 Scotland herself is now becoming thickly peopled, and the 
 motives which once drove the Scot into foreign armies and far- 
 away cities do not operate quite to the same extent now. It is 
 wonderful, and almost inexplicable, that while Ireland, with so 
 much more of the material means - of prosperity at her com- 
 mand, has added little to the world's stock and store, and is 
 still loudly clamoring about Home Rule, every Scotchman 
 would, probably, gratefully acknowledge that the moment 
 which put an end to the mere political independence of Scot- 
 land put an end also to its poverty, increased its pride, and 
 lifted it from the condition of a little insignificant principality, 
 to become one of the mightiest elements in the political and 
 commercial administration of Great Britain; 
 
 The strength of Scotland seems really to lie in the fact that
 
 96 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 " the union" has brought that country nearly into the same 
 close relationship as the English counties, say, of Yorkshire or 
 of Cornwall. 
 
 The Scot is a keen trader. An old woman was heard in 
 consultation with her son, who was about to embark to Austra- 
 lia from the Land o' Cakes, but who loudly grumbled at the 
 idea of going to a country where he heard there was nothing 
 to trade with but kangaroos. " Weel," said the old woman, 
 in a consolatory tone, " and is na' a kangaroo's money as good 
 as onybody else's ?" It is true that this restless spirit leaves 
 many a neighborhood silent, solitary, and deserted ; many a 
 grand old feudal castle in the far north is little more than a 
 mere shooting-box, and still, in such old neighborhoods, there 
 are some tenacious old souls who cling to the old scenes, and 
 drink the Highland toast of old times, " Here's our native 
 country, and may those who don't like it leave it !" But, in 
 most instances, those who have left it did not depart from any 
 ungrateful sense of dislike. Usually the absence of all the 
 means and hopes of life drove them away, and, like Richie 
 Moniplies, they find the means and magnificence of their coun- 
 try to increase in proportion to their distance from it. 
 
 Sweden has, among her other romances and legends, many 
 of " the Scot Abroad." It is with reference to the Scotch 
 descent upon Uick that, at midnight, when the storm rages, 
 the Ballar peasant listens and cries, " Hark ! 'tis the war cry 
 of the Scots, and the clash of their weapons from the battle- 
 field." The story of that immense villain, Bothwell, " the 
 wicked earl," is as full of romantic incident and interest in 
 Sweden as in Scotland. He was imprisoned, died, and was 
 buried at Malmohus in Sweden, and he no doubt there made a 
 confession quite exonerating Queen Mary from the murder of 
 Darnley. We find " the Scot Abroad " in Sweden and at 
 Stockholm in the last years of the reign of Gustavus Vasa ; in- 
 deed, it is said, and is no doubt true, that, in the Swedish 
 Riddarhaus, near two hundred of our Scotch cousins hang 
 enrolled among the noblest of the country. We seem to be
 
 "THE SCOT ABROAD." 97 
 
 quite at home in Sweden, among the Stuarts and Ruthvens, the 
 Mornays, Balfours, and Neaves. The Scots were often enno- 
 bled, and often also treated in a scurvy manner. Thus, in 
 1565, we read how, on a Scot soliciting the release of one 
 Anders Ansteot, unjustly suspected as a spy, and imprisoned at 
 Stockholm, King Erik writes to his secretary ; " Accuse An- 
 ders at once of treachery and breaking the trust confided in 
 him, and cause him immediately to be executed. The other 
 Scotchman will come with a paper in which his Majesty orders 
 Anders shall be pardoned. This reprieve must not be delivered 
 until the sentence is already executed. When he arrives you 
 must pretend to think it a great pity, and blame the man for 
 not having made more haste on the way !" Not to mention 
 the valorous deeds of the " Green Brigade in Sweden," we find 
 " the Scot Abroad V with Gustavus Adolphus, in Germany, 
 fighting with the great champion of the Reformation, and for 
 their services upward of two hundred received patents of nobil- 
 ity, while those who could prove themselves of baronial line- 
 age, although only of collateral descent, were granted the same 
 rank in Sweden, with counties, baronies, and lands to support 
 the dignity of the newly erected fief. We know not where in 
 English literature we could find a more curious chapter illustra- 
 tive of " the Scot Abroad " than the forty pages of Horace 
 Marryat's Appendix to his "One Year in Sweden." When 
 we remember how delightfully the great northern wizard called 
 up the memories of the persons of the old Scots Guard in 
 France, in the pages of " Quentin Durward," we can but wish 
 that the same enchantingly descriptive and dramatic pen had 
 dealt with persons and scenes which seem to us even more 
 romantic in the story of the Scotch Abroad in Stockholm and 
 Sweden, Copenhagen and Denmark. 
 
 One of the most entertaining novels of John Gait is " Laurie 
 Todd. " It is the story of a Scotsman who emigrated to 
 America, and, by a combination of thrift, prudence, and 
 sagacity, succeeded in life. But, in fact, it is known well that 
 the genius of the story-teller only wove together the real facts
 
 98 SCOTTISH CHAKACTERISTICS. 
 
 in the life of Grant Thorburn, from Dalkeith, who from hum- 
 ble beginnings became a successful man in New York. " A 
 slikie auld Scotchman" described him very well, when he said 
 to him, " Ye're an auld furrant chap [Thorburn was but a lad 
 then], an' nae doobt but ye'll do very wee! in their country."" 
 Grant Thorburn's life well illustrates the Scotsman who carries 
 the religious sentiments and convictions of his early training 
 with him. But when we think of u the Scot Abroad " we 
 come up against some of the most illustrious names in history. 
 Especially we have that name, so long Scotland's highest boast, 
 John Knox, who was a Scot Abroad, working for nineteen 
 months as a prisoner in the French galleys, passing there 
 through that dreadful ordeal which was to fit him for that great 
 reforming work in Scotland that " Scottish Puritanism 
 which," says Thomas Carlyle, " well considered, seems to me 
 distinctly the noblest and completest form that the grand six- 
 teenth century Reformation anywhere assumed." And of 
 quite another order was Marshal Keith, the right-hand man of 
 Frederick the Great, and Patrick Gordon, whose life of advent- 
 ure at last landed him in the service of Peter the Great. 
 "Whatever may be the cause, through all ages, near or far 
 remote, the Scots appear ever as the most restless of mortals ; 
 and even of those whose names are intimately associated with 
 their own country it may be said they won their spurs abroad. 
 It is a Scotch proverb that "A Scotsman, a crow, and a 
 Newcastle grindstone travel a' the world over. 1 ' 1 The Scotch, 
 very singularly, are far less insular than the English ; it is said 
 they differ less from the general type of Europeans ; they adapt 
 themselves more to the habits and modes of thought of other 
 nations ; it is said, also that on the Continent, they mark 
 themselves far less strongly, and conform to foreign ways more 
 easily and naturally than the English. It is far more usual to 
 meet with a continentalized Scotchman than a continentalized 
 Englishman. As we have already said and shown, the connec- 
 tion of Scotland and France has been much more close, and the 
 influence much more abiding, than between France and Eng-
 
 "THE SCOT ABROAD." 99 
 
 land. Thus in Scotland, as in France, in the designation of 
 functionaries and officials they have advocates, procurators, 
 provosts and bailies, etc., corresponding to the barristers and 
 solicitors, the mayors and the aldermen, of England. Old 
 Osborne said, ages" since, " The Scot, like the poor Swiss, finds 
 a more commodious abiding under every climate than at home, 
 which, as it makes the Swiss to venture their lives in the quar- 
 rel of any prince for money, so this northern people are known 
 to do ; or turn peddlers, being become so cunning through 
 necessity that they ruin all about them. Manifest in Ireland, 
 where they usually say none of any other country can prosper 
 that comes to live within the kenning of a Scot." This testi- 
 mony, although neither courteous nor kind , is curious for its 
 age, while it has a large measure of substantial truth. A story 
 appeared in a well-known serial, some several years since, de- 
 scribing the disappointment of an Englishman who went out to 
 the East as an interpreter, and whose ruling passion was a 
 hatred of everything Scotch ; but strolling through the camp 
 with a Turkish officer, and abusing the Scotch to his heart's 
 content, to his astonishment, Hassan Bey, the Turk, broke 
 out, " I'll tell ye whaat, ma mon, gin ye daur lowse yere 
 tongue upon my country like thaat, I'll gie ye a cloot on the 
 lug that'll mak' it tingle fra this till Hallowe'en !" The thun- 
 derstruck Englishman stammered out, " Why, my good man, 
 I thought you were a Turk !" " And sae I am a Turk the 
 noo, ma braw chiel," said the angry Glasgow Mussulman, 
 " but my faither's auld leather breeks ne'er travelled farther 
 than just fra Glasgow to Greenock and back again ; but when 
 I gang hame as I'll do or it's lang, if it be God's will I'll 
 just be Wully Forbes, son o' auld Daddy Forbes, o' the Gor- 
 bals, for a' that's come and gane !" Presently a splendidly- 
 dressed Hungarian came up and said to the Turk, " Wully, 
 mon, there's a truce the noo for twa hours ; just come wi' mo 
 and we'll hae a glass o' whuskey thegither. " It was the same 
 with a Russian officer, until the Englishman exclaimed, " Bless 
 my heart ! is everybody on earth a Scotchman I Perhaps I'm
 
 100 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 one myself without knowing it !" But when the Russian gen- 
 eral Tarassoff exclaimed, " Eh, Donald Cawmell ! are ye here ?" 
 and Ibrahim Pasha burst forth, simultaneously, " What, Sandy 
 Robertson ! can this be you ?" the Englishman burst forth, 
 " It's all over ! Turks, Russians, Hungarians, English all 
 Scotchmen ! It's more than I can bear ! I shall go home ; 
 there's nothing left for me to do here. I came out as an inter- 
 preter, but if all the nations of Europe talk nothing but Scotch, 
 what use can I be ?" This seems very droll, but it is not more 
 droll than real. 
 
 In the midst of all this, however, it is still true that " the 
 Scot Abroad " usually not only retains his own nationality, but 
 also affects some considerable contempt frequently for the peo- 
 ple among whom he dwells. Mr. Boyd gives us the following 
 characteristic anecdote : 
 
 " The laird of , a few years after the battle of Water- 
 loo, took his family to France for economy and education. A 
 former neighbor of his in Scotland, who had never been on the 
 Continent, resolved about 1832 to visit his friend, who had 
 taken up his abode at Tours, or Dijon. The day after his 
 arrival, he, with his host as cicerone, were strolling through the 
 streets of the old town, the laird explaining everything minutely 
 to the new-comer. At last they came to something which even 
 puzzled the laird, and greatly interested his visitor, who said, 
 ' Do ask this person to explain and tell us all about it.' ' Na, 
 na, naething o' the kind,' said the laird, ' for I maun (must) 
 tell you that I hate the people, and I hate their language, and 
 hae I not hauden weel aff (have I not managed well) not to hae 
 pickt ony o' it up in fourteen years ? ' ' Well,' said his 
 visitor, ' as you have considered France a country good enough 
 to live in for the last fourteen years, I should not have turned 
 my back so much upon the language as you appear so success- 
 fully to have done.' The laird made no reply. " 
 
 We believe it is Sir Archibald Alison who mentions how, 
 when Marshal Keith was combating the Turkish forces under 
 the Grand Vizier, the two generals came to a conference with
 
 "THE SCOT ABROAD." 101 
 
 each other ; the Grand Vizier came mounted on a camel, in all 
 the pomp of Eastern magnificence ; the Scotch Marshal Keith, 
 who originally came from the neighborhood of Tariff, in Aber- 
 deenshire, approached on horseback. After the conference the 
 Turkish Grand Vizier said to Keith that he would like to speak 
 a few words in private to him, in his tent, and begged that nc 
 one should accompany him ; Marshal Keith accordingly went 
 in, and the moment they conferred, the Grand Vizier threw off 
 his turban, tore off his beard, and running to Marshal Keith, 
 said, " Oh, Johnnie, foo's a wi' ye, man ?" and he then dis- 
 covered that the Grand Vizier of Turkey was a schoolfellow 
 of his own who had disappeared about thirty years before 
 from a parish school near Methlic. And we remember to have 
 met with an anecdote of a Scotchman from Perth, who had 
 penetrated into some far interior of Asia we forget where ; he 
 had to see the Pasha, or Bashaw. He was introduced to the 
 comely man in his tent. They gathered up their knees, and 
 sat down upon their carpets. They drank their strong coffee, 
 and smoked their hookahs together in solemn silence ; few 
 words, at any rate, passed between them, but, we may trust, 
 sufficient for the occasion ; but when the man of Perth was 
 about to leave, the Pasha also arose, and, following him out- 
 side the tent, said, in good strong Doric Scotch, " I kenned ye 
 vera weel in Perth ; ye are just sae and sae. " The Perth man 
 was astonished, as well he might be, until the Pasha explained, 
 as he said, " I'm just a Perth man mysel' !" He had trav- 
 elled, and he had become of importance to the Government 
 there. Hie story was not very creditable. In the expectation 
 of the post he filled, he had become a Mohammedan. But he 
 was an illustration of the ubiquity of his race, and of " the 
 Scot Abroad." 
 
 But the heroes of the Indian service illustrate the outward- 
 bound character of the Scot, and the ease with which he not 
 only finds a home for himself on every soil, but the energy 
 and strength of mind he brings to bear to make his home use- 
 ful to himself and to others. Some of the most eminent and
 
 102 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 brilliant names in the rise and development of our Indian 
 empire are those of Scotsmen, from the highest names to the 
 rank of lowliest service. 
 
 And not in India alone, but all the world over, energy has 
 passed from the fields of the Lothians and the bleak moors of 
 the north to create generals like Baird, Moore, Abercrombie, 
 Graham, Campbell, Gordon, who have raised the renown and 
 glory of the empire ; and judges like Erskine, Wedderburn, 
 Murray, Campbell, and Brougham, who must all be spoken of 
 as Scots Abroad.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE HUMORS OF THE SCOTTISH DIALECT. 
 
 WE are quite aware that some Scotch cousin may be some- 
 what aggrieved at the use of the term dialect, and may interro- 
 gate us at the commencement of our chapter, " Dinna ye ken, 
 sir, that oors is a language ?" We shall only humbly entreat 
 that this may be permitted for the moment to pass, nor is this 
 chapter intended to claim any of the regards of a philological 
 essay. It is undoubted that, to most English readers, the 
 Scottish language is more or less of a mystery ; it very fre- 
 quently draws an almost impenetrable veil over the richest 
 humor of Burns and Scott, and prevents the reader from enter- 
 ing into and following the course of a dialogue. Nor is the 
 dialect one any more than those of Somersetshire and Lanca- 
 shire are one, and the Lowlander and the English-speaking 
 Highlander are as likely to misunderstand each other as are 
 those widely-separated counties of England. 
 
 Mr. Burton, in his both instructive and entertaining volumes, 
 " The Scot Abroad," to which we have already referred, shows, 
 in a peculiarly interesting manner, how much indebted the 
 architecture of Edinburgh is, or rather has been, to its connec- 
 tion with France. The same remark applies to the etymology 
 of many of its words. It is supposed that there is something 
 peculiarly Scotch about a haggis, and Burns, the poet, has 
 loudly proclaimed its nationality, and, eulogizing it, has scoffed 
 at the French ragout. Yet Mr. Burton pretty plainly demon- 
 strates that the one is as French as the other. The haggis, 
 that potent pudding which has been called a boiled bagpipe, is 
 the lineal descendant of the French hachis, which, being inter- 
 preted, means a sliced gallimaufry, or minced meat. The
 
 104 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 almost equally famous Scotch dish hodge-podge is also a gift 
 from France hochepot ; that also is a confused gallimaufry, or 
 mingle-mangle of divers things jumbled together. In connec- 
 tion with this jumbling together, a curious story, and worth 
 repeating, is told of the late Prince Consort. 
 
 During one of the earlier visits of the royal family to Bal- 
 moral, Prince Albert, dressed in a simple manner, was crossing 
 one of the Scottish lakes in a steamer, and was curious to note 
 everything relating to the management of the vessel, and, 
 among many other things, the cooking. Approaching the 
 galley, where a brawny Highlander was attending to the culi- 
 nary matters, he was attracted by the savory odors of a pot of 
 hodge-podge which the Highlander was preparing. " What is 
 that ?" asked the prince, who was not known to the cook. 
 "Hodge-podge, sir," was the reply. " How is it made?" 
 was the next question. " Why, there's mutton intiVt, and 
 turnips intiVt, and carrots intiVt, and " " Yes, yes," said 
 the prince ; " but what is * intil't ' ?" " Why, there's mutton 
 intiVt, and turnips intiVt, and carrots intiVt, and " " Yes, 
 I see, but what is ' intil't ' ?" The man looked at him, and, 
 seeing that the prince was serious, he replied, " There's mutton 
 intiVt, and turnips intiVt, and" " Yes, certainly, I know," 
 urged the inquirer; "but what is ' intil't ' * intil't ' I" 
 " Man !" yelled the Highlander, brandishing his big ladle, 
 "am I no' tellin' ye what's intiVt? There's mutton intil't, 
 and " Here the interview was brought to a close by one of 
 the prince's suite, who fortunately was passing, explaining to 
 his royal highness that " intil't" simply meant " into it," and 
 nothing more ! 
 
 Burns, as is well known, felt the inspiration of haggis : 
 
 " Ye Powr's, who mak mankind your care, 
 And dish them out their bill o' fare, 
 Auld Scotland wants nae stinking ware, 
 
 That jimps in luggiea , 
 But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer, 
 Gie her a haggis !"
 
 THE HUMORS OF THE SCOTTISH DIALECT. 105 
 
 But hodge-podge also has its poet, and Mr. Burton has intro- 
 duced some lines singularly national and characteristic. They 
 appear never to have been published before, and Mr. Burton 
 speaks of their author as the venerable and accomplished Arch- 
 ibald Bell, the sheriff of Ayrshire. " And I think," says he, 
 " some of those who merely knew him as a man of business 
 will be a little surprised, if not scandalized, to know that he 
 was capable of such an effusion." We can only trust that our 
 readers will not be scandalized by its insertion here. It will 
 be noticed that he spells intilVt more correctly than the writer 
 of the prose anecdote. 
 
 A SONG IN PRAISE OF HODGE-PODGE. 
 
 " O leeze me on the canny Scotch, 
 Wha first contrived, without a botch, 
 To make the gusty, good hotch-potch, 
 
 That fills the wame sae brawly : 
 There's carrots intill't, and neaps intill't, 
 There's cybies intill't, and leeks intiU't, 
 There's pease, and beans, and beets intill't, 
 
 That soom through ither sae brawly. 
 
 " The French mounseer and English loon, 
 When they come daunderin' through our town, 
 Wi' smirks an' smacks they gulp it down, 
 
 An' lick their lips fu' brawly : 
 For there's carrots intill't, and neaps intill't, 
 And cybies intill't, and leeks intill't, 
 There's mutton, and lamb, and beef intill't, 
 That maks it up so brawly. 
 
 " And Irish Pat, when he comes here, 
 To lay his lugs in our good cheer, 
 He shools his cutty wi' unco steer, 
 
 And clears his coque fu' brawly : 
 For there's carrots intill't, and neaps intill't, 
 There's pease, and beans, and beets intill't, 
 And a' gude gusty meats intill't, 
 
 That grease his gab fu' brawly.
 
 106 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 " A dainty dame she cam' crar way, 
 An' sma' soup meagre she wad hae ; 
 Wi' your fat broth I cannot away 
 I' maks me scunner fu' brawly : 
 For there's carrots intill't, and neaps intill't, 
 There's cybies intill't. and leeks intill't, 
 And filthy, greasy meats intill't, 
 
 That turn my stamach sae brawly. 
 
 " She gat her soup : it was unco trash, 
 And little better than poor dish-wash ; 
 'Twad gie a man the water-brash 
 To sup sic dirt sae brawly : 
 Nae carrots intill't, nor neaps intill't, 
 Nae cybies intill't, nor leeks intill't. 
 Nor nae good gusty meats intill't, 
 To line the ribs fu' brawly. 
 
 " Then here's to ilka kindly Scot ; 
 Wi' mony good broths he boils his pot, 
 But rare hotch-potch beats a' the lot, 
 
 It smells and smacks sae brawly : 
 For there's carrots intill't, and neaps intill't, 
 There's pease, and beans, and beets intill't, 
 And hearty, wholesome meats intill't, 
 
 That stick the kite sae brawly." 
 
 Of course, many words, which seem natural enough in the 
 more retired muirlands and mountain districts, become very 
 offensive when used in the polite circles of Edinburgh society. 
 Our readers will remember an illustration of this in Dr. Guth- 
 rie's story of the unfortunate use, in a fashionable pulpit in 
 Edinburgh, of the word puddings, which, although it might 
 prove interesting to an etymologist whose business has been 
 said to be to send vagrant words back to their own parish 
 was certainly odd, and quite out of place in an Edinburgh 
 pulpit. 
 
 The preacher, from a remote country parish, filling the 
 pulpit of the eminent Dr. Blair, in the presence of the most 
 cultivated and fashionable congregation in Edinburgh, amid
 
 THE HT'MORS of- THK SCOTTISH DIALECT. 107 
 
 many other vernaculars, somewhat horrific to polite ears, 
 reached the climax of his offences by introducing some remarks 
 upon " the puddings 11 of mankind, the word " puddings''' in 
 Scottish dialect meaning bowels. 
 
 Speaking of the " Noctes Ambrosianae," Lord Cockburn 
 says and we thoroughly sympathize with him " Its Scotch is 
 the best Scotch that has been written in modern times. I am 
 really sorry for the poor one-tongued Englishman, by whom 
 because the Ettrick Shepherd uses the sweetest and most ex- 
 pressive of living languages the homely humor, the sensibility, 
 the descriptive power, the eloquence, and the strong joyous 
 hilarity of that animated rustic can never be felt. " "The 
 sweetest and most expressive of living languages !" It is ver}' 
 high praise. But Lord Cockburn expresses his belief that the 
 Scottish dialect is dying out ; he is afraid that even Burns's glory 
 must contract, not extend, because the sphere of the Scotch lan- 
 guage, ideas, and feelings is diminishing. Even in Scotland 
 there are now, he says, more English words and less of the Scotch 
 idiom. Even in Scotland Burns is becoming a sealed book. 
 " English," says Lord Cockburn, with becoming national 
 pride, " has made no encroachment on me," but, he continues, 
 " I could name dozens of families, born, living, and educated 
 in Edinburgh, which could not produce a single son and 
 daughter capable of understanding even ' The Mouse,' or ' The 
 Daisy.' I speak," he continues, " more Scotch than English 
 throughout the day, but I cannot get even my own children to 
 do more than pick up a queer word of Burns here and there." 
 Cockburn wrote thus in 1842. Since then every year has, we 
 arc sorry to say, witnessed, more and more, the decline of the 
 Scottish language, not only among the resident? in England, 
 but even in Edinburgh, and throughout Scotland. It is said 
 that Lord Cockburn was one of the last who added to the gran- 
 deur of his demeanor as a judge by his use of the Scottish 
 accent ; and it cannot be doubted that it is a vehicle for mascu- 
 line pathos far superior to the English tongue. 
 
 A living writer an eminent poet and novelist George Me-
 
 108 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 Donald, has done his best to keep alive the waning Scottish 
 dialect ; but it is especially singular, and quite confirmatory of 
 the prophecy of Lord Cockburn, that, among our own friends, 
 we have those from Auld Reekie who are quite unable to follow 
 the course of his dialogue, or to enter into the meaning of 
 many of his Scotch words ; indeed, we have heard some of 
 them say that " George McDonald is more Scotch than the 
 Scotch." 
 
 The humors of the Scottish language are among the most in- 
 teresting suggestions on the subject ; take the word soft, for 
 instance, as applied to the weather. 
 
 " A drizzling morning, good madam," says Mr. Touchwood 
 to Mrs. Dodds, in "St. Ronan's Well." 
 
 " A fine soft morning for the crap, sir," answered Mrs. 
 Dodds. 
 
 " Right, my good madam, soft is the very word, though it 
 has been sometime since I heard it. I have cast a double hank 
 round the world since I last heard of a soft morning." It is 
 only in the Scottish dialect that this epithet if used to express 
 weather which the barometer calls rainy. 
 
 Pig, in old-fashioned Scotch, was a term always used for a 
 coarse earthenware jar, or vessel ; the story is well known of 
 the good-natured chambermaid, who said to an English lady 
 who had lately arrived in Scotland for the first time in her life, 
 " Would you like a het crock in your bed, this cauld nicht, 
 mem ?" " A what ?" said the lady. " A pig, mem. Shall 
 I put a pig in your bed to keep you warm?" " Leave the 
 room, young woman ! Your mistress shall hear of your inso- 
 lence. " " Nae offence, I hope, mem. It was my mistress 
 that bade me ask, and I'm sure she meant it in kindness." 
 The lady looked Grizzy in the face, and saw at a glance 
 that no insult was intended ; but she was quite at a loss how to 
 account for the proposal. She was aware that Irish children 
 sleep with pigs on the earthen floors of their cabins, but this 
 was something far more astonishing. Her curiosity was now 
 roused, and she said in a milder tone, "Is it common in this
 
 THE HUMOUS OF THE SCOTTISH DIALECT. 109 
 
 country, my girl, for ladies to have pigs in their beds ?" 
 " And gentlemen hae them too, mem, when the weather's 
 cauld. " " But you surely would not put the pig between the 
 sheets?" 
 
 " If you please, mem, it would do you maist good there." 
 " Between the sheets ! It would dirty them, girl. I could 
 never sleep with a pig between the sheets." " Never fear, 
 mem ! You'll sleep far inair comfortable. I'll steek the mouth 
 o' 't tightly, and tie it up in a poke." " Do you sleep with a 
 pig yourself in cold weather?" " No, mem ; pigs are only 
 for gentlefolks that lie on feather beds. I sleep on cauf (chaff 
 in sacking) with my neighbor- lass. " " Calf? Do you sleep 
 with a calf between you ?" said the Cockney lady. " No, 
 mem ; you're jokin now," said Grizzy ; " we lie on the tap 
 o' 't." 
 
 A recent poet, Robert Leighton now no more has put the 
 difficulties of the Scottish dialect into very pleasant verse, 
 which, to our readers, will also have the advantage of explain- 
 ing what it humorously describes. 
 
 " They speak in riddles north, beyond the Tweed, 
 The plain pure English they can deftly read ; 
 Yet when without the book they come to speak, 
 Their lingo seems half English and half Greek. 
 Their jaws are chafls ; their hands, when closed, are neives ; 
 Their bread's not cnt in slices but in sheires ; 
 Their armpits are their oxters , palms are Inifj ; 
 Their men are cliields ; their timid fools are cuiffs ; 
 Their lads are ca.Ua.nts, and their women kimmers ; 
 Good lasses denty queans, and bad ones limmers. 
 They thole when they endure, scart when they scratch ; 
 And when they give a sample it's a swatch ; 
 Scolding \xflytin, and a long palaver 
 Is nothing but a blither or a haver ; 
 This room they call the but and that the ben, 
 And what they do not know they dinna ken ; 
 On keen cold days they say the wind blaws snell, 
 And they have words that Johnson could not spell. 
 To crack is to converse, the lift's the sky ;
 
 110 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 And bairns are said to greet when children cry ; 
 
 When lost folk ever ask the way they want 
 
 They speir the gate ; and when they yawn they gaunt ; 
 
 Beetle with them is dock ; a flame's a lowe; 
 
 Then straw is strae; chaff caw/, and hollow howe; 
 
 A mickle means a few ; muckle is big ; 
 
 A piece of croekeryware is called a pig." 
 
 Such is the Scottish language or dialect ; as Lord Brougham 
 aud Mr. Latham have both maintained, a sister, not a daughter 
 of the English language, by which concession of sisterhood, not 
 childhood, we trust we have made amends for what may seem 
 the improper use of the word dialect. Mr. Latham says that 
 " in Lowland Scotch there are a number of words which, 
 though Teutonic, were never Anglo-Saxon ; a large portion 
 were introduced directly from France. ' ' The dialect partakes 
 largely of the Danish or Norwegian element, and, no doubt, it 
 is from the Scandinavian branch of the Teutonic stem that what 
 we now incorrectly call the Scottish people have their essential 
 origin. It is therefore no paradox to maintain that the person 
 we call a Scot is usually no Scot at all. 
 
 No doubt the power of the Scottish language is very largely 
 in its strong and earnest accent ; there is an old and singular 
 illustration of this, and we must give it here. It has been 
 said, that the Scottish dialect is peculiarly powerful in its use 
 of vowels, and the following dialogue, between a shopman and 
 a customer, has been given as a specimen. The conversation 
 relates to a plaid hanging at the shop door. 
 
 Ous. (inquiring the material). Oo ? (wool). 
 
 Shop. Ay, oo, (yes, of wool). 
 
 CMS. (touching the plaid). A' oo ? (all wool). 
 
 Shop. Ay, a' oo (yes, all wool). 
 
 Cus. A' ae oo ? (all same wool). 
 
 Shop. Ay, a' ae oo (yes, all same wool). 
 
 Hence it is that such odd and incomprehensible mistakes are 
 made by the English as they listen, altogether unable to appre- 
 hend Scotch words. We read of a stranger amazed in listening
 
 THE HUMOUS OF TIIK SCOTTISH DIALECT. Ill 
 
 to a minister, who, intending to inculcate on his congregation 
 the propriety of receiving a hint properly, did it by saying 
 " My friends, be ready at all times to take a hunt f" Another 
 was quite perplexed when told at a party in Scotland that all the 
 guests were "Kent people," the phrase not meaning to imply 
 that they were, as he supposed, all from the county of Kent, 
 but that they were all well-known personages. How very odd 
 it is to hear a sore or painful affection of any part of the body 
 called an " income /" Miss Sinclair tells of an old woman who 
 came to her begging, with a most pitiable countenance, because 
 she had a great " income" in her hand. 
 
 A legacy to any charitable fund or institution is called : 
 mortification ; and a very benevolent person was heard to ex 
 press himself with great gratification because the Blind Asy- 
 lum had received a great mortification from Mr. Angus's will. 
 If a Scotch person says, " Will you speak a word to me 1" he 
 means, " Will you listen ?" But if he says to a servant, " I 
 am about to give you a good hearing," that means a severe 
 scolding. Scotticisms have been detected in some of the most 
 classical of Scottish writers. It is singular to hear one say, 
 "Take" that is, shut " the door after you ;" or another, 
 " She looks very silly" that is, weakly in body. To hear it 
 said of a thing that it is " out of sight the best," means that it 
 is " out and out." To be told always to change your feet (that 
 is, " your shoes and stockings") after walking. "To be going 
 seventeen" is to be in the seventeenth year. "He has fallen 
 thro 1 his clothes" is a way of saying that he has grown thin, 
 and that his clothes do not fit him. We read, "He sat down 
 on his knees." ''''Well on to fifty" is almost, or well-nigh, 
 fifty ; and it is consistent with the Scottish language to speak 
 of sparks or bespatterings of water. While at takes the place 
 of with, for, or to as, to be angry at, sorry at, or to ask at, 
 and so to feel hatred at or dislike at, instead of against. These 
 illustrations might be carried on to any extent, but it is enough 
 to show that they often give some perplexity in understanding 
 the dialect. Of course the difficulties of comprehension in-
 
 112 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 crease as we find ourselves in more remote and untrodden dis- 
 tricts ; but they are certainly not greater, while they are exactly 
 of the same character as those which might meet some traveller 
 in an out-of-the-way village of Lancashire or the West Riding 
 of Yorkshire. In an admirable and entertaining paper in 
 Blackwood's Magazine for 1842, on the " Fishers of the South- 
 east Coast of Scotland," we read of a stranger who had occa- 
 sion to call on a fisherman, living in one of the Buchan fishing 
 villages, named Alexander White, but he was ignorant both of 
 his house and his tee, or mark, or, as perhaps we should say, 
 his " nickname," and unfortunately there were many persons 
 of the same name in the village. Meeting a girl, he asked, 
 "Could you tell me fa' Sanny Fite lives?" "Fiek (i.e. 
 young) Sanny Fite ?" "Muckle (big) Sanny Fite." "Fiek 
 muckle Sanny Fite?" "Muckle lang Sanny Fite." "Fiek 
 muckle lang Sanny Fite ?" "Muckle lang, gleyed (squinting) 
 Sanny Fite." " Oh ! it's Goup the lift ye're seeking," cried 
 the girl ; " and fat for dinna ye speer for the man by his richt 
 name at ance ?" But this is from the Highlands. The diffi- 
 culties from the Lowlands would, perhaps, be as great. 
 
 One of the most curious illustrations of the Scottish language 
 recently published is a volume little known, entitled, " The 
 Psalms : frae Hebrew until Scottis, by P. Hately Waddell, 
 LL.D." Whosoever is able to read this will find all the rich, 
 human, and perhaps even, in such a connection, we may be 
 permitted to say, the humorsome characteristics of the lan- 
 guage. Take two or three instances. Thus, " Touch the 
 mountains, and they shall smoke," is literally rendered, " Tang 
 but the heights, an' they'll reek !" and, " He delighteth not in 
 the strength of the horse ; He taketh not pleasure in the legs 
 of a man," is rendered, " He cares nane for the strength o* the 
 aiver ; likes as little the shanks o' the carl." But our readers 
 will perhaps like to see a more extended illustration ; and here, 
 then, is the 23d Psalm, and we think it will be scarcely possi- 
 ble to read it without feeling its frequent beauty tnd literalness 
 of expression :
 
 THE HUMORS OF THE SCOTTISH DIALECT. 113 
 
 " The Lord is my herd ; nae want sal fa' me. 
 
 " He louts me till he amang green howes ; He airts me 
 atowye by the lown waters. 
 
 " He waukens my wa'-gaen saul ; He weises me rown, for 
 His ain name's sake, intil right roddins. 
 
 " Na ! tho' I gang thro' the dead-mirk-dail ; e'en thar sal I 
 dread nae skaithin ; for yersel are nar-by me ; yer stok an' yer 
 stay hand me baith fu' cheerie. 
 
 " My buird ye hae hansell'd in face o' my faes ; ye hae 
 drookit my head wi' oyle ; my bicker is/' an' skailin. 
 
 "E'en sae sal gude guidin an' gude gree gang wi' me, ilk 
 day o' ray livin ; an' evir mair syne, i' the Lord's ain howff, 
 at lang last, sal I mak bydan." 
 
 Another illustration or two may be given as furnishing a 
 pleasant key to idiomatic Scotch. Here are the first two 
 verses of the 103d Psalm " My saul, ye maun blythe-bid the 
 Lord ; and a* in mysel, that name o' His ain sae halie : my 
 saul, ye maun blythe-bid the Lord, an' forget na' His gates, a' 
 sae kindly." And equally characteristic the first three of the 
 104th : " My saul, ye maun blythe-bid the Lord : Lord God 
 o' my ain, sae grand as ye hain ; gloiry an' gree ye put on. 
 Light ye dight on like a cleuk ; the lift, like a hingin', ye 
 streck ; stoopin his banks on the fludes ; ettlin his carriage the 
 cluds ; on the wings o' the win' makin' speed." 
 
 The study of the Scottish dialect, however it may seem to 
 be fading from use, would well repay the student, who would 
 find his language enriched by some fine monosyllabic words, 
 and graced by expressive compound epithets ; but this is be- 
 yond the purpose of these slight sketches.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LAWYERS AND LAW COURTS. 
 
 THE spirit of litigation, it is well known, is peculiarly char- 
 acteristic of Scotland, and this being so, it is not wonderful 
 that some of the most striking characteristics of Scottish humor 
 should pertain to the law courts, especially to the law courts of 
 the times of old. Perhaps the most entertaining passages of 
 Lord Cockburn's Memorials are his memories of the law lords. 
 Belonging to this race there were several characteristically emi- 
 nent, and some as characteristically odd. David Rae, Lord 
 Eskgrove, for a long time the head of criminal law in Scotland, 
 could have had few who exceeded him in oddity ; thus, when- 
 ever addressing a jury, if a name could be pronounced in more 
 ways than one, he gave them all. Syllable he always called 
 sy]\abill, and whenever a word ended with the letter " G, " the 
 letter was pronounced, and strongly so. He crowded his 
 speech with a meaningless succession of adjectives. The article 
 "A" was generally made into one, and he would describe a 
 good man, for instance, as " one excelled, and worthy, and 
 amiabill, and SLgreeabill, and very good man.'' 
 
 The stories Cockburn tells of him are ridiculous. " I heard 
 him," says Cockburn, " condemning a tailor to death for mur- 
 dering a soldier by stabbing him ; he addressed him thus : 
 ' And not only did you murder him, whereby he was berea-weo? 
 of his life, but you did thrust, or push, or pierce, or project, 
 or propel the lethal weapon through the belly-band of his regi- 
 men-tal breeches, which were his majesty's ' !" 
 
 The following story is well known. lu the trial of Glen- 
 garry, for murder in a duel, a lady of great beauty was called 
 as a witness : she came into court veiled, but, before adminis-
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LAWYERS ANO LAW COURTS. 115 
 
 tering the oath, Eskgrove expounded to her the nature of her 
 duty as a witness. " Youny^ woman ! You will now con- 
 sider yourself as in the presence of the Almighty, and of this 
 high court ; lift up your veil, throw off all modesty, and look 
 me full in the face !" He had to condemn two or three per- 
 sons to death for housebreaking ; he first, as usual, explained 
 the nature of the various crimes, assault, robbery, and hame- 
 sucken, giving to the prisoners the etymology of the words ; he 
 then reminded them that they had attacked the house, and the 
 persons within it, and robbed them ; and then he wound up 
 with this climax : " All this you did just when they were 
 sittin' doon to their denner !" 
 
 He never failed to signalize himself in pronouncing sentences 
 of death, and it was his style to console the prisoner thus : 
 " Whatever your rcligi-ows persua-fo'o may be, or even if, as 
 I suppose, you be of no persua-to'on at all, there are plenty of 
 rever-end gentle-men who will be most happy for to show you 
 the way to yeternal life." Cockburn says a common arrange- 
 ment of his logic to juries was this : " And so, gentle-men, 
 having shown you that the pannel's argument is utterly imposs- 
 ibill, I shall now proceed for to show you that it is extremely 
 impTob-abill. " His entertaining memorialist says his tedious- 
 ness of manner and matter in charging juries was most dread- 
 ful ; it was, indeed, usual for the juries to stand while the 
 judge was charging them, but no other judge was punctilious 
 about it ; and sometimes, perhaps usually, beneath the dis- 
 course of this tedious old oddity, some one would sink into a 
 seat, from sheer inability to stand any longer, but the unfort- 
 unate wight was sure to be reminded by his lordship that 
 " these were not times in which there should be any disrespect 
 .of this high court, or even of the law." " Often," says Cock- 
 burn, " have I gone back to the court at midnight and found 
 him, whom I had left mumbling hours before, still going on, 
 with the smoky, unsnuffed tallow candks in greasy tin-candle- 
 sticks, and the poor despairing jurymen, most of the audience 
 having retired or being asleep, the wagging of his lordship's
 
 110 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 nose and chin being the chief signs that he was still charg-lng." 
 It is said he was the staple of public conversation ; and his 
 oddities, so long as his old age lasted, almost drove Napoleon 
 himself out of the talk of the Edinburgh world. 
 
 One of these late law lords, whose irritable disposition, eccen- 
 tricities, and facetiousness have been so aptly portrayed by the 
 author of the " Scrap Book," in his story of The Man, had 
 his natural propensities called into action on another occasion, 
 when presiding in a criminal court in the north. A trial, 
 where life and death were at stake, was proceeding with that 
 solemnity which distinguishes the Scottish justiciary courts 
 over those of their neighbors, when a wag (for there are some 
 characters who must have their joke, however solemn the occa- 
 sion) entered the court, and set a musical snuff-box a-playing 
 " Jack's Alive" upon one of the benches. In the silence of 
 conducting the inquiry, the music struck the ear of the audi- 
 ence, and particularly the venerable judge, whose auricular 
 organ was to the last most admirably acute ; and a pause to the 
 business was the immediate consequence. He stared for an 
 instant at a sound so unusual in a court of justice, and with a 
 frantic demeanor exclaimed, " Macer, what, in the name of 
 God, is that ?" The officer looked round him in vain to 
 answer the inquiry, when the wag exclaimed, " It's ' Jack's 
 Alive,' my lord." " Dead or alive, put him out this mo- 
 ment." " We canna grup him, my lord." "If he has the 
 art of hell, let every man assist to arraign him before me, that 
 I may commit him for this outrage and contempt." Every 
 one endeavored to discover the author of the annoyance, but 
 he had put the check upon the box, when the sound for a time 
 ceased, and the macer informed his lordship that the person had 
 escaped. The judge was indignant at this, but not being able 
 to make any better of it, the trial proceeded, when, in about 
 half an hour, sounds of music again caught the ears of the 
 court. "Is he there again ?" exclaimed his lordship. " By 
 all that's sacred, if he shall escape me this time ! fence, bolt, 
 bar the doors of the court, and at your peril, let a man, living
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LAWYERS AND LAW COURTS. 117 
 
 or dead, escape." All was now bustle, uproar, and confu- 
 sion ; but the search was equally vain as before. His lordship, 
 who had lived not long after the days of witchcraft, began to 
 imagine that the sound was something more than earthly, and 
 exclaimed, "This is deceptio auris ; it is absolute delusion, 
 necromancy, phantasmagoria ;" and to the hour of his death 
 never understood what had occasioned the annoyance that day 
 to the court. 
 
 There were many of these men odd in different ways. Eng- 
 lish judges have been supposed to reserve their queer character- 
 istics of manner, style, and matter, for the private and con- 
 vivial circle ; but, in the old times, the law lords of Edinburgh 
 seem to have flaunted theirs freely from the chair of justice. 
 Their speeches were frequently freaks, which, however, in- 
 vested with the dignity of law, kept the court and the city in a 
 wondering roar of laughter. Jeffrey used to mention Cock- 
 burn does not mention it that one day Cockburn bounced into 
 the second division, and came out again. Running up against 
 Jeffrey, " Do you see any paleness about my face ?" said 
 Cockburn. " No," replied Jeffrey ; " I hope you are not un- 
 well ?" " I don't know, but I've just heard Bolus [the irrev- 
 erent designation of the Lord Justice Clerk] say, ' I for one am 
 of opinion that this case is founded on the fundamental basis 
 of a quadrilateral contract, of which the four sides are aglutin- 
 ated by adhesion.' After that," said Jeffrey, "I think we 
 had better go home." 
 
 Famous among the Edinburgh legal notabilities was John 
 Clerk, of Eldin. He possessed a very coarse humor ; it has 
 been said that what in other men was sugar in character, in 
 him became crystallized vinegar. It was of him the story was 
 told that he had been dipping deeply into convivialities with a 
 friend in Queen Street, and coming out into the open air, early 
 in the morning, he was quite confused, and unable to tell the 
 way to his own house in Picardy Place. He saw an* industri- 
 ous housemaid cleaning a doorstep, and went up to her, saying, 
 "Eh, my girl, can ye tell me where John Clerk lives?"
 
 118 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 " Dinna speer at me," says the girl, " with your nonsense, 
 when you're John Clerk himsel' !" " Ay, ay," said he, " I 
 ken that vera weel, but John Clerk wants to know where John 
 Clerk lives." 
 
 The traditional stories of his eccentricities are innumerable, 
 and if only these had been preserved we might wonder at the 
 respect paid to his memory. But, fortunately, we have his 
 character portrayed by Lord Cockburn, who is far more than 
 equal to Dean Ramsay in his graphic sketches of Scottish life 
 and manners. He describes John Clerk as a person whose con- 
 ditions in repose and in action, that is, in his private and in his 
 professional life, almost amounted to the possession of two 
 natures. 
 
 A contracted limb, which made him pitch when he walked, 
 and only admitted of his standing erect by hanging it in the 
 air, added to the peculiarity of a figure with which so many 
 other ideas of oddity were connected. Blue eyes, very bushy 
 eyebrows, coarse grizzly hair, always in disorder, and firm 
 projecting features, made his face and head not unlike that of 
 a thoroughbred shaggy terrier. It was a countenance of great 
 thought and great decision. 
 
 Had his judgment been equal to his talent, few powerful 
 men could have stood before him. For he had a strong, work- 
 ing, independent, ready head which had been improved by 
 various learning, extending beyond his profession into the 
 fields of general literature, and into the arts of painting and 
 sculpture. Honest, warm-hearted, generous and simple, he 
 was a steady friend, and of the most touching affection in all 
 the domestic relations. The whole family was deeply marked 
 by a hereditary caustic humor, and none of its members more 
 so than he. 
 
 These excellences, however, were affected by certain peculi- 
 arities or habits, which segregated him from the whole human 
 race. Among these peculiarities was his temper, which, how- 
 ever serene when torpid, was never trained to submission, and 
 could rise into fierceness when chafed.
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH 1AWYKKS AND LAW COUNTS. 310 
 
 Of course it was chafed every moment at the bar, and, ac- 
 cordingly, it was there that his other and inferior nature ap- 
 peared. Every consideration was lost in eagerness for the 
 client, whose merit lay in this, that he has relied upon me, 
 John Clerk. Nor was his the common zeal of a counsel. It 
 was a passion. He did not take his fee, plead the cause well, 
 hear the result, and have done with it ; but gave the client his 
 temper, his perspiration, his nights, his reason, his whole body 
 and soul, and very often the fee to boot. His real superiority 
 lay in his legal learning and his hard reasoning. But he would 
 have been despicable in his own sight had he reasoned without 
 defying and insulting the adversary and the unfavorable 
 judges ; the last of whom he always felt under a special call to 
 abuse, because they were not merely obstructing justice, but 
 thwarting him. His whole session was one keen and truceless 
 conflict, in which more irritating matter was introduced than 
 could have been ventured upon by any one except himself, 
 whose character was known, and whose intensity was laughed 
 at as one of the shows of the court. 
 
 His popularity was increased by his oddities. Even in the 
 midst of his frenzies he was always introducing some original 
 and quaint humor ; so that there are few of the lights of the 
 court of whom more sayings and stories are prevalent. 
 
 Lord Braxfield has left a name for heartless severity as a 
 judge. It was he of whom we read in Lockhart's Life of 
 Scott, who addressed some eloquent culprit at the bar, " Ye're 
 a vera clever chiel, man, but ye'll be none the worse for hang- 
 ing." It is said that it may be doubted if he was ever so much 
 in his element as when vauntingly repelling the last despairing 
 claim of a wretched culprit, and sending him to Botany Bay 
 or the gallows, with an insulting jest, over which he would 
 chuckle the more from observing that correct people were 
 shocked. He had a pleasant and humorous maxim, which he 
 often repeated, and attempted as far as possible to practise 
 " Hang," he would say, " a thief when he is young, and he'll 
 no steal when he is auld." His character, as judged by his
 
 120 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 language, seems to have been indecent and detestable. His 
 conduct in the political trials of that time, especially of Muir, 
 Palmer, and the early advocates of reform, could not have been 
 surpassed by the notorious Judge Jeffries. 
 
 While Lord Coalstoun lived in a house in the Advocates' 
 Close, Edinburgh, a strange accident one morning befell him. 
 It was at that time the custom for advocates and judges to 
 dress themselves in gowns, and wigs, and cravats, at their own 
 houses, and walk to the Parliament House. They usually 
 breakfasted early, and, when dressed, were in the habit of 
 leaning over their parlor windows for a few minutes, before St. 
 Giles's bell started the sounding peal of a quarter to nine, 
 enjoying the agreeable morning air, and perhaps discussing the 
 news of the day. It so happened one morning, while Lord 
 Coalstoun was preparing to enjoy his matutinal treat, two girls, 
 who lived in the second flat above, were amusing themselves 
 with a kitten, which, in thoughtless sport, they had swung 
 over the window, by a cord tied round its middle, and hoisted 
 for some time up and down, till the creature was getting rather 
 desperate with its exertions. His lordship had just popped his 
 head out of the window directly below that from which the 
 kitten swung, little suspecting, good easy man, what a danger 
 impended, like the sword of Damocles, over his head ; when 
 down came the exasperated animal at full career, directly upon 
 his senatorial wig. No sooner did the girls perceive what sort 
 of landing-place their kitten had found, than in terror or sur- 
 prise they began to draw it up ; but this measure was now too 
 late, for, along with the animal, up also came the judge's wig, 
 fixed full in its determined talons. His lordship's surprise, on 
 finding his wig lifted off his head, was ten thousand times 
 redoubled, when, on looking up, he perceived it dangling in 
 its way upward, without any means visible to him by which its 
 motion might be accounted for. The astonishment, the dread, 
 the awe almost of the senator below the half-mirth, half-terror 
 of the girls above together with the fierce and retentive 
 energy of puss between altogether formed a scene to which
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LAWYERS AND LAW COURTS. 121 
 
 language cannot do justice, but which George Cruikshank 
 might perhaps embody with considerable effect. It was a joke 
 soon explained and pardoned ; but assuredly the perpetrators 
 of it did afterward get many a lengthened injunction from their 
 parents, never again to fish over the window with such a bait, 
 for honest men's wigs. 
 
 If not of Clerk, it was of one of the advocates of the same 
 day and the same order, that it was said his opinion was ex- 
 actly measured out in proportion to his fee ; and, one day, 
 vhile dictating to his clerk, he suddenly stopped. " By the 
 bye, Sandy," said he, "what was the fee in this case?" 
 " Two guineas, " was the answer. "Two guineas! Ay, is 
 that it, man, why didna ye tell me that sooner ? Go on to the 
 next case. " Vivid in all Scottish delineations, it is not sur- 
 prising that we find such pictures of the old lawyers and the 
 law courts in the pages of Scott ; it was Scott's own life ; he 
 was a Writer to the Signet, and he is careful to let us know 
 that his portraits of advocates, like Protocol and Pleydell, and 
 their unfortunate litigants and clients, like Peter Peebles, are 
 all memories drawn from the life ; nor less those roystering 
 descriptions of the convivial habits of the Scottish bar. The 
 passion for litigation, which really left the advocate with 
 scarcely a choice of his own, is well realized in the determina- 
 tion of Dandy Dinmont, against all advice whatever, to " ding 
 Jock o' Dawstowcleugh." 
 
 Such were some of the great lawyers of Edinburgh at the 
 early part of the present century. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott appears usually to have drawn his more 
 prominent and remarkable characters from personages tolerably 
 well known. Paul Pleydell is identified in the celebrated Mr. 
 Crosbie, who flourished for many years at the head of the Bar, 
 and was highly respected for his integrity and his abilities. 
 He frequented the Clerihugh's, a respectable house in Anchor 
 Close ; there, on Saturday evenings, it was the wont of mem- 
 bers, both of the Bar and Bench, to regale themselves with 
 tripe and minced collops, which were served up at the moder-
 
 122 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 ate charge of sixpence a head ; and after this a bacchanalian 
 festivity was carried on through the night. His more favorite 
 place during the day was John's Coffee-room ; this was a great 
 resort of gentlemen of the Bar ; and here, over a gill of brandy 
 and a bunch of raisins, technically called " a cock and feather," 
 it was the wont to fee counsel. A practical joke was played 
 off upon Mr. Crosbie by the celebrated Lord Gardenstone, 
 who, in the course of a walk from Morningside, where he lived, 
 met a rustic going to Edinburgh, in order to be present at the 
 pleading of a cause in which he was deeply interested as a 
 principal, and in which Mr. Crosbie had been retained as coun- 
 sel. His Lordship directed the man to get a dozen or two of 
 farthings at a snuff-shop in the Grassmarket, to wrap them up 
 separately in white paper, as if they were so many guineas, 
 and to present them, as the occasion served, in the capacity of 
 fees. The counsel, who did not happen to be very warmly 
 animated with his client's case, frequently suffered his elo- 
 quence to droop, to the imminent danger of being non-suited. 
 His wary client, however, who had posted himself close to his 
 back, ever and anon, as he found the cadence of his voice has- 
 tening to a full-stop, for the purpose of winding up the argu- 
 ment, slipped another farthing into his hand. These repeated 
 applications of the wrapped-up farthings so powerfully stimu- 
 lated Mr. Crosbie's exertions, that he strained every nerve in 
 grateful zeal for the interests of his treacherous client ; and, 
 precisely as the fourteenth farthing was passing into his coun- 
 sel's hand, the cause turned in his favor. The denouement of 
 the oonspiracy, which took place shortly afterward in John's 
 Coffee-house, over a bottle of wine with Lord Gardenstone, at 
 the expense of Mr. Crosbie, from the profits of his pleading, 
 may be better imagined than described. 
 
 There is another character in the same novel, Pleydell's 
 clerk, Driver ; he also appears to have been a well-known 
 haunter of Parliament Square. He was a creature who had 
 sunk from a regular course of irregularities to a kind of thin, 
 pimpled Falstaff, a man of genius, fulfilling in himself what
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LAWYERS AXD LAW COUKTS. 1 23 
 
 Pleydell said of Driver that sheer ale would support him 
 under everything, was meat, drink, clothes, bed, board, and 
 washing to him. It is said " there did not exist a tavern in 
 Edinburgh of which he could not have worked you the charac- 
 ters of both the waiters and the beefsteaks of each, at a mo- 
 ment's notice ; he had never been farther than five miles out of 
 Edinburgh in his life ; all he knew beyond his profession was 
 Auld Reekie, but then he knew all that ; he was the walking 
 chronology of the mobs, manners, and jokes of the town ; a 
 human vial containing the essence of the most remarkable 
 events, corked with wit, and labelled with pimples. He was 
 infinitely rich in all sorts of humor and fine sayings. His con- 
 versation was dangerously amusing ; and had he not, unhap- 
 pily, fallen into irregular habits, he possessed abilities that 
 might have entitled him to the most enviable situations about 
 the court. He had a perfect knowledge of the law of Scotland, 
 combined with much professional tact ; but from the nature of 
 his peculiar habits, his wit was the only faculty he ever brought 
 to bear to its full extent. It was absolutely true that he could 
 write his papers as well drunk as sober, asleep as awake ; and 
 the anecdote which the fictitious Pleydell related to Colonel 
 Mannering, in confirmation of this remarkable faculty, is 
 strictly consistent in truth with an incident of real occurrence. ' ' 
 This is the character which, as what we have already said 
 shows, is delineated by Sir Walter in the following conversa- 
 tion between Colonel Mannering and Pleydell : 
 
 " The clerk grinned, made his reverence, and exit. 
 
 "' That's a useful fellow,' said the counsellor; 'I don't 
 believe his match ever carried a process. He'll write to my 
 dictating three nights in the week without sleep, or, what's the 
 same thing, he writes as well and correctly when he's asleep as 
 when he's awake. Then he's such a steady fellow some of 
 them are always changing their alehouses, so that they have 
 twenty cadies sweating after them, like the bare-headed captains 
 traversing the taverns of East-Cheap in search of Sir John 
 Falstaff. But this is a complete fixture ; he has his winter seat
 
 124 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 by the fire, and his summer seat by the window, in Luckic 
 Wood's, betwixt which seats are his only migrations there 
 he's to be found at all times when he is off duty. It is my 
 opinion he never puts off his clothes or goes to sleep ; sheer ale 
 supports him under everything ; it is meat, drink, and cloth- 
 ing, bed, board, and washing.' 
 
 " ' And is he always fit for duty upon a sudden turnout ? I 
 should distrust it, considering his quarters.' 
 
 " ' Oh, drink never disturbs him, Colonel ; he can write for 
 hours after he cannot speak. T remember being called sud- 
 denly to draw an appeal case. I had been dining, and it was 
 Saturday night, and I had ill will to begin to it ; however, they 
 got me down to Clerihugh's, and there we sat birling till I had 
 a fair tappit hen under my belt, and then they persuaded me to 
 draw the paper. Then we had to seek Driver, and it was all 
 that two men could do to bear him in, for, when found, he 
 was, as it happened, both motionless and speechless. But no 
 sooner was his pen put between his fingers, his paper stretched 
 before him, and he heard my voice, than he began to write like 
 a scrivener and, excepting that we were obliged to have some- 
 body to dip his pen in the ink, for he could not see the stand- 
 ish, I never saw a thing scrolled more handsomely.' 
 
 " ' But how did your joint production look the next morn- 
 ing ? ' said the Colonel. 
 
 " ' Wheugh ! capital not three words required to be 
 altered, it was sent off by that day's post.' " * 
 
 How well and wisely Scott says, in the person of old Pley- 
 dell, of the legal profession : "It is the pest of our profession 
 that we seldom see the best side of human nature ; people 
 come to us with every selfish feeling newly pointed and 
 grinded. Many a man has come to my garret yonder that I 
 have first longed to pitch out at the window, and yet, at length, 
 have discovered that he was only doing as I might have done 
 in his case, being very angry, and, of course, very unreason- 
 
 * " Guy Mannering," chap, xxxix.
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LAWYERS AND LAW COURTS. 125 
 
 able. I have now satisfied rnysolf that if our profession sees 
 more of human folly and human roguery than others, it is be- 
 cause we witness them acting in that channel in which they can 
 most freely vent themselves. In civilized society law is the 
 chimney through which all that smoke discharges itself that 
 used to circulate through the whole house and put every one's 
 eyes out. No wonder, therefore, that the vent (chimney) it- 
 self should sometimes get a little sooty." 
 
 We surmise also that Scott had in view the craving and 
 litigious disposition which characterizes some of our northern 
 brethren, when he drew the following sketch of ' ' Poor Peter 
 Peebles against Planestanes. " The touches are so true to 
 nature, and the incidents of such daily occurrence, that we can- 
 not resist quoting it. The satire on a court of justice is no less 
 keen than true. 
 
 " ' Well, but, friend,' said the Quaker, ' I wish to hear thee 
 speak about the great law-suit of thine which has been a matter 
 of such celebrity.' ' Celebrity ! ye may say that,' said Peter 
 (a ruined pauper suitor) when the string was touched to which 
 his crazy imagination always vibrated. ' And I dinna wonder 
 that folks that judge things by their outward grandeur should 
 think me sometimes worth their envying. It's very true, that 
 it is grandeur upon earth to hear ane's name thundered out 
 along the arched roof of the outer house "Poor Peter Peebles 
 against Planestanes et per contra ;" a' the best lawyers fleeing 
 like eagles to the prey ; some because they are in the cause, 
 and some because they want to be thought engaged (for there 
 are tricks in other trades by selling muslins), to see the report- 
 ers mending their pens to take down the debate the lords 
 themselves porin' in their chairs, like folks sitting down to a 
 gude dinner, and crying at the clerks for parts and papers of 
 the process ; the puir bodies can do little mair than cry on 
 their closet keepers to help them. To see a' this,' continued 
 Peter, in a strain of sustained rapture, ' and to ken that noth- 
 ing will be said or done araang a' these grand folk, for may be 
 the feck of three hours, saving that concerns you and your busi-
 
 126 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 ness. man, nae wonder that ye judge this to be earthly 
 glory ! and yet, neighbor, as I was saying, there be unco draw- 
 backs. I whiles think of my bit house, where dinner and sup- 
 per and breakfast used to come without any crying for, just as 
 if the fairies had brought it and the gude bed at e'en and 
 the needfu' penny in the pouch and then to see a' ane's 
 worldly substance capering in the air in a pair o' weigh bauks, 
 now up, now down, as the heart of judge or counsel incline for 
 pursuer or defender. Troth, man, these are times I rue having 
 even begun the plea wark, though may be, when ye consider 
 the renoun and credit I have by it, ye will hardly believe what 
 I am saying. ' ' 
 
 The stories of Scottish conviviality of olden times are quite 
 innumerable. Mr. Boyd says : " My father related to me an 
 instance of the state of convivial society in Scotland at the 
 commencement of the century. He was on a visit to Lord 
 Newton, one of the judges of the Court of Session. The 
 courts were about to open for the autumn or winter session, 
 and the learned lord was giving a dinner to his brother judges 
 and some of the senior members of the Bar. They dined and 
 they drank, they supped and they drank ; but many, previous 
 to the grilled bones and supper appearing, had fallen from their 
 chairs the more dignified of whom were removed by the ser- 
 vants for a couple of hours' rest, and again rejoined the orgies. 
 One half of the party remained all night, and to avoid publicity 
 did not, or rather were not, sent home until the sun had gone 
 down the following evening to that on which the debauch com- 
 menced." This is a singular picture of a judge's dinner in 
 modern Athens, but it may be accounted for perhaps upon the 
 logic of the Scotchman who was seriously called to task, by 
 one who had his welfare at heart, for his constant addiction to 
 whiskey. " Canna ye follow the example o' that coo, noo, 
 ganging doon to the water to tak a drink which will satisfie her 
 until the morn ? But wi' you it's drink, drink a' day lang." 
 To which the accused replied : " Ye maun recollect this, that 
 the coo haesna, as I hae ower often, ane or ither sitting oppo-
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LAWYERS AND LAW Coi/KTS. 127 
 
 site, and saying to me, ' Here's to ye finish yer glass, and 
 let's have another hauf mutchkin.' That's how I differ from 
 the coo." 
 
 There were others of higher moral type ; the Lord President 
 Hope, for instance. Lockhart gives a vivid picture of him 
 pronouncing sentence upon a well-known Writer of the Signet 
 detected in some piece of mean and petty chicanery. " Amid 
 silence profound as midnight, he named the man before him in 
 tones that made my pulse quiver, and every cheek around me 
 grow pale, and I thought within myself that the offence must in- 
 deed be great which could deserve to call down upon any head 
 such a palsying sweep of terrors. The language in which the re- 
 buke was clothed would have been enough of itself alone to beat 
 into atoms the last lingering bud of self-complacency on which 
 detected meanness might have endeavored to p*op up the hour 
 and agony of its humiliation. The harrowing words came 
 ready as flashes from a bursting thundercloud, making the flesh 
 and spirit of the poor wretch creep chill within him like a 
 bruised adder. His coward eye was fascinated by the glance 
 that killed him, and he durst not look from the face of his 
 chastiser. He did look for a moment ; at one terrible word he 
 looked wildly round, as if to seek for some whisper of protec- 
 tion or some den of shelter. But he found none, and after the 
 rebuke was at an end he stood like the statue of Fear, frozen 
 in the same attitude of immovable desertedness. " 
 
 A greater man still was the Lord President Blair. He was 
 called " a living equity ;" he was a man of supreme intellect, 
 and apparently of moral perceptions in equal proportion. A 
 story is told of a very great and eminent barrister who ap- 
 peared before him with a truly mighty mass of ingenious soph- 
 istry, which appeared insurmountable to the rest of his audi- 
 ence. The President Blair overturned it all without an effort 
 in a few clear, short sentences. It had cost the barrister, most 
 evidently, much labor to erect his cause. Chagrined and dis- 
 comfited, he sat a few seconds musing in his bitterness, and 
 then muttered between his teeth, " My man, the Almighty
 
 128 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 spared nae pains when He made your brains." It was a great 
 and characteristic compliment, and not to be the less thought 
 of on account of its coarseness. Only once again, in the in- 
 stance of Chalmers, was there such a funeral in Edinburgh as 
 that when Blair was carried to his grave. " When the sod," 
 says Cockburn, " was laid, his relations took off their hats ; so 
 did the judges who stood next ; then the magistrates, the fac- 
 ulty and other legal bodies, the clergy, and all the spectators in 
 the churchyard, beyond whom it ran over the skylines of the 
 people, ridged on all the buildings and on the southern edge of 
 the Castle Hill. All stood silent and uncovered." 
 
 We have said that Scotland is litigious, and so it was said 
 once, and there is scarcely much exaggeration in the saying, 
 that every house which a man, not a lawyer, builds out of 
 Edinburgh enables a man who is a lawyer to build another 
 equally comfortable in Edinburgh. The attorneys of Edin- 
 burgh are called the Writers to the Signet, and it is said that 
 almost every foot of land in Scotland pays something to them. 
 But the same may be said of English property. These writers 
 are, of course, the agents of all proprietors, and, in this con- 
 nection, the writer is called the " doer." They were once 
 said to be the bankers and creditors of their clients ; and when 
 any gentleman changes his man of business, the difficulties are 
 so great, there is so complete a revolution and revulsion, that it 
 has been said that in Scotland it is a much easier thing to get 
 rid of one's wife than for a man to get rid of his " doer." 
 The ' ' doer' ' was the term used for the agent of the law ; it is, 
 perhaps, not singular that it was also the designation of the 
 hangman ! 
 
 The case before the town bailies of Cupar Angus, when 
 Luckie Simpson's cow had drunk up Luckie Jameson's browst 
 of ale, while it stood in the door to cool, is very fully and 
 facetiously detailed in Franck's " Northern Memoirs," of 
 which a reprint was published at Edinburgh, under the reported 
 superintendence of Sir Walter Scott ; it suggests a not unnatu- 
 ral picture of the curious frivolities of Scottish law, and is thus
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LAWYERS AND LAW COURTS. 129 
 
 I imorously narrated in the last Waverley edition, with the 
 mthor's notes, to the following effect : " An ale-wife in Forfar 
 } ad brewed her ' peck o' malt,' and set the liquor out of doors 
 10 cool ; a neighbor's cow chanced to come by, and seeing the 
 good beverage, was allured to taste it, and finally to drink it 
 up. When the proprietor came to taste her liquor, she found 
 her tub empty, and from the cow's staggering and staring, so 
 as to betray her intemperance, she easily discovered the mode 
 in which her ' browst ' had disappeared. To take vengeance 
 on crummie's ribs with a stick was her first effort. The roar- 
 ing of the cow brought her master, who remonstrated with his 
 angry neighbor, and received in reply a demand for the value 
 of the ale which crummie had drank up. Payment was 
 refused, and the party was cited before the magistrate, who 
 listened patiently to the case, and then demanded of the 
 plaintiff whether the cow had sat down to her potation, or 
 taken it standing. The plaintiff answered she had not seen 
 the deed committed, but she supposed the cow had drank 
 the ale standing on her feet adding that, had she been near, 
 she would have made her use them to some purpose. The 
 bailie, on this admission, solemnly adjudged the cow's to be 
 deoch an doruis drink at the door, a stirrup, for which no 
 charge could be made, without violating the ancient hospitality 
 of Scotland." 
 
 Henry, Lord Cockburn, was himself one of the most eminent 
 of the Scotch men and judges of his day. Perhaps, as we 
 have said before, the most entertaining portion of his " Memo- 
 rials" is to be found in his sketches of his brethren of the 
 bench ; and we have seen from his delineations that they ap- 
 pear to have been a very odd race. Thus George Fergusson, 
 Lord Hermand, was a tiger on the bench, but a lamb among 
 his gardens and his fields. He lived to the age of eighty-four, 
 greatly beloved in private, but through all his life, in court, a 
 queer piece. His energy in speaking made him froth and 
 splutter, and a story is told of him before his elevation how, 
 when once pleading in the House of Lords, the Duke of Glou-
 
 130 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 cester, who was about fifty feet from the bar, rose and said, 
 " I shall be much obliged to the learned gentleman if he be so 
 good as to refrain from spitting in my face. " He pronounced, 
 says Cockburn, the word lords laards, and many other words 
 in the same way. Thus he was very apt to say, " My laards, 
 T feel my law here, my laards," striking his heart. This is 
 the worthy of whom the story is told that when, in early life, 
 pleading at the bar with even more than his usual animation, 
 and just about to close his oration, his agent came up to him 
 and whispered, " Oh, Mr. Fergusson, ye've ruined us a'the- 
 gither ; ye 're pleading on the wrang side !" Thus checked, 
 with great presence of .mind he proceeded : " Such, my lords, 
 is the case the opposite party will make, and which I have pre- 
 sented to your lordships in the strongest possible terms, but I 
 will now proceed to show your lordships how utterly ground- 
 less the case is," and so he took up his own previous arguments 
 one by one, and refuted them all. 
 
 There is no lack of either interest or romance in the law 
 courts of Scotland. We meet with a good illustration of two 
 methods of examining a witness, and by two eminent counsel, 
 Francis Jeffrey and Henry Cockburn. The examination 
 turned upon the sanity, or insanity, of one of the parties con- 
 cerned, and Jeffrey and Cockburn were acting together in the 
 case. Jeffrey began, " Is the defender, in your opinion, per- 
 fectly sane ?" he said to one of the witnesses, a plain, stupid- 
 looking countryman. The witness gazed in bewilderment at 
 the question, but gave no answer. Jeffrey repeated it, alter- 
 ing the words, " Do you think the defendant capable of man- 
 aging his own affairs?" Still in vain. " I ask you," said 
 Jeffrey, " do you consider the man perfectly rational ?" No 
 answer yet ; the witness glowered with amazement and 
 scratched his head. " Let me tackle him," said Cockburn. 
 Then assuming his own broadest Scotch tones, and turning to 
 the obdurate witness, he began, " Hae ye your mull [snuff-box] 
 wi' ye ?" " Ou, ay," said the awkward fellow, stretching out
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LAWYERS AND LAW COURTS. 131 
 
 his snuff-horu to Cockburn. " Noo, hoo lang hae ye kent 
 John Sampson ?" said the witty advocate, saluting the mull and 
 taking a pinch. "Ever since he was that height," was the 
 ready reply, the witness indicating with his hand the alleged 
 height. " An dae ye think noo, atween you and me," said 
 Cockburn, in his most insinuating Scottish brogue, " that 
 there 1 s anything infill the creature?" "I would not lipprn 
 [trust] him with a bull calf," was the instant rejoinder. The 
 end was gained amid the convulsions of the court, and Jeffrey 
 said to Cockburn that he had fairly extracted the essence out 
 of the witness. 
 
 No spot of Edinburgh is more interesting, either to the citi- 
 zen, or to a stranger, than the magnificent old Parliament 
 House. The noble hall is, like ours of Westminster, the scene 
 of parliamentary debates, and of great historical incidents of 
 many generations ; but also, like Westminster Hall, the region 
 of the law courts. Along these boards and stones, one thinks, 
 as one walks along here walked Duncan Forbes cla-rum et 
 venerabile nomen Lord Kaimes, Monboddo, Hume, McKenzie, 
 Erskine, Cockburn, Brougham, Homer, Jeffrey, Scott. The 
 calm statues, busts, and portraits of many of these look down 
 upon the stranger as he passes along. On the outside stood 
 the figures of Justice and Mercy, concerning which a pleasant 
 story is told. The late Honorable Henry Erskine was persuad- 
 ing a friend, a tough old Jacobite laird, James Robertson, the 
 Master of Kincraigie, to accompany him into the Parliament 
 House. Robertson abruptly declined. " But I'll tell ye what, 
 Harry," he said, pointing to the statue of Justice which stood 
 over the porch, " take the Lady Justice with ye ; for, poor 
 thing, she's stood Jang at the door, and it wad be a treat for her 
 to see the inside like ither strangers !" Probably, in this par- 
 ticular, the Parliament Square of Edinburgh, is not worse than 
 our own Westminster Hall or any other law court. 
 
 It is a mighty and ancient dispute, and one the very fringes 
 of which we are altogether unable to touch, as to whether
 
 132 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 modes of procedure in Scottish or English law be the best. 
 Certainly Scott, Gait, and all the other domestic humorists of 
 the land have dwelt at length upon the ease with which an un- 
 fortunate wight may get himself entangled, before he is aware, 
 in the mighty machinery, and the difficulty he will find in 
 escaping when he has once permitted himself to be caught in 
 its toils. Members of the Scottish legal profession, however, 
 we understand, painfully feel that " the profession of the ad- 
 vocate has seen its day." We quote from an able paper on 
 the legal profession in the North British Review. The gravest 
 questions, it is thought, which roused the splendid invective of 
 the Erskines, Broughams, and others, will no longer call for 
 their apologists. We confess we a little doubt this ; still it 
 may be fairly presumed that men are casting off the glamor 
 which, from time immemorial, has been thrown over them by 
 the courts of law, and Scotchmen especially are not so quarrel- 
 some as they were. After all, the spirit of combativeness, or 
 litigiousness, as it becomes in civilized life, is a failing in 
 human nature, and belongs to no nationality. Yet we call it a 
 specially Scottish characteristic. We are not likely soon to 
 forget the occasion of our first visit to Scotland, some thirty- 
 five years since. We were riding on the top of the coach then 
 running there was no rail between Stirling and Dumblane. 
 Sitting next to us was a Scot, whom an extra allowance of 
 whiskey had made something considerably less than canny. 
 We were strangers to the place the villages, St. Ninians, etc., 
 through which we were passing. We inquired, however, of 
 our neighbor the name of one spot, and received a hearty dig 
 in the ribs from his elbow, as he exclaimed, " Dinna ye ken 
 whaur ye were weel lickit ?" " What?" we exclaimed, and 
 received another dig or elbowing in the ribs, and again the 
 question, " Dinna ye ken whaur ye were lickit ?" It was his 
 civil way of conveying to us the information that we were un- 
 consciously passing over the field of Bannockburn. He was a 
 quarrelsome Scot ; but the intercommunication, the true inter-
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LAWYERS AND LAW COURTS. 133 
 
 national relations and unity of life, have not only brought 
 about an amiable state of feeling between the two countries, 
 but have in Scotland itself disseminated a kindlier feeling be- 
 tween all classes, and no doubt there, as with us, much of the 
 law business has become now more a matter of the chamber 
 than of the court.
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 OLD EDINBURGH. 
 
 WE had just stepped outside from our hotel, not far from 
 the noble Scott Monument in Princes Street, Edinburgh ; it 
 was verging toward evening, and we were standing, in a half 
 irresolute frame of mind, undetermined which way we should 
 walk in a city where every inch of ground is a romance, and 
 every suburb an enchantment, when a respectable stranger who, 
 we suppose, saw that we were not native to the land of cakes, 
 and had perhaps noticed our eyes travelling up and down that 
 most splendid highway, and glancing on the gathering lights 
 glimmering out from the old town opposite, accosted us with 
 " Is na it a braw city, sir ?" We expressed our entire sympa- 
 thy with his evident hearty admiration. 
 
 " Why, sir," continued our interlocutor, " I suppose it is 
 weel kent there is na sich anither bit o' kintra on the face of 
 all the yarth !" He was a fine, hearty-looking Lowlander, evi- 
 dently of the Scottish borders, quite prepared to chant to any 
 extent the praises of his great Scotch capital. We mildly com- 
 plied with the claims he levied on our regards, only narrowing 
 them by a confession of ignorance of the greater number of the 
 cities of the world, or even of Europe, but giving him our 
 hearty adhesion so far as our knowledge permitted. " Weel," 
 exclaimed our companion, " I hav na been muckle o' a traveller 
 mysel, but I hae run a bit about England, and have just been 
 o'er the water to Paris a bonnie city, wi' its gardens, and 
 squares, and sic like but, oh, man ! it's a puir thing com- 
 pared wi' Embro'. It's just like comparing a sausage to a 
 haggis. Do ye ken Davie Wilkie ?" " The great painter?" 
 we suggested. u Ay, that's the man ; weel, did ye nae hear
 
 OLD EDINBURGH. 135 
 
 what he said about Embro' ? Why, he said that he had just 
 travelled over all Europe to find that a' that it was necessary to 
 see elsewhere was just to be found in this braw city. It was at 
 a public dinner, gien to him just on this verra spot, and I 
 think likely in this verra house ye hae just come out of, and I 
 mind me he said that he'd been to Prague, and Saltzburg, 
 and he'd been to Genoa, and Naples, and Athens, and he 
 mentioned places he'd seen in Rome, and Greece, and Spain, 
 and the very crack places, too ; and mind me if he did 
 na say that the like o' them a' were to be found in Auid 
 Reekie. Ay, man ! but it's a bonnie spot !" Our admiring 
 friend proceeded to expatiate in a very intelligent and instruc- 
 tive manner upon the memories, the mysteries, and the glories 
 of his city ; Edinburgh was evidently a passion with him. 
 We walked together up into the High Street, and there we 
 parted. 
 
 But we have often thought that he was not far wrong ; and, 
 perhaps, of all the great cities which travellers are wont to 
 visit from motives of memory, affection, and admiration, if 
 there be some which equal, it may be questioned if any one 
 can bear the palm away from the great northern capital. He 
 was quite right about Sir David Wilkie ; he almost quoted his 
 words exactly, though it was probably the passion of nation- 
 ality and where is the Scotchman who is destitute of that ? 
 which led him to say, on the occasion to which our friend 
 referred, " What the tour of Europe was necessary to see else- 
 where, I now find congregated in this one city ; here are alike 
 the beauties of Prague and Saltzburg ; here are the romantic 
 sights of Orvietto and Tivoli ; and here is all the magnificence 
 of the admired bays of Genoa and Naples ; here, indeed, to 
 the poetic fancy may be found realized the Roman capital and 
 the Grecian Acropolis.'' 
 
 It is not mere local vanity which makes Scotchmen believe 
 that, in point of position, Edinburgh is not only unsurpassed, 
 but unrivalled by any cities in Europe, with the possible excep- 
 tions of Corinth and Constantinople. Venice and Florence are
 
 136 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 wonderful dreams, and the first, especially, is an amazing freak 
 of architecture a city on the sea ; but they depend more for 
 the passion of admiration they excite upon what is in them 
 than what nature has done around them. Innspruck and 
 Geneva are grand, and magnificent in the surrounding majesties 
 of nature ; but they have little interior, and their natural 
 glories of immediate neighborhood can scarcely be said to equal 
 the Scottish metropolis. Vienna, Berlin, Paris, have no castle 
 crags like those which rise so proudly over the northern city ; 
 and their rivers have none of the wild beauties of those which 
 are to be found here, and they are at a distance from the ever- 
 living and ever-changing sea ; while the absence of the great 
 excitements of trade and manufactures have constituted this 
 spot the retreat of quiet wealth and learned leisure, and, in 
 certain and recent periods of its history, have made it indeed a 
 very Athens in renown, for the presence of its large constella- 
 tion of poets, philosophers, historians, and preachers. 
 
 Lord Cockburn wrote and published a letter to the Lord 
 Provost on the best ways of spoiling the beauties of Edin- 
 burgh ; and there can be no doubt that, while manufactures 
 might and would materially increase the wealth of the city, 
 they would soon rob it of that isolated beauty and splendor 
 with which it lifts itself up, as has so often been remarked, a 
 metropolis worthy of the land of the mountain and the flood, 
 the glen, the forest, and the loch. We know of no other city 
 with such a cliff rising in the centre of it, crowned with its 
 hoary Castle, and such crags as those of Salisbury and Arthur's 
 Seat rising over it, while at their foot stands the historic old 
 palace of Holyrood. Looked at from the sea, or from the 
 heights of the Castle Ilill, or walking down its noble Princes 
 Street, or wending in and out through its innumerable and 
 haunted closes in the old town every way, and everywhere, 
 Edinburgh is wonderful. 
 
 Edinburgh in particular, and Scotland in general, have been 
 eminently honored. Probably there is no spot on the face of 
 the earth of which so much has been written, so much has been
 
 OLD EDINBURGH. 137 
 
 well said, and well sung. The novelists, like Scott, Gait, and 
 the Wilsons, not to mention a number of other and many in- 
 ferior names, have set the social manners of the people, the 
 scenery, and the historical incidents in such a pleasing light ; 
 the poets, like Scott again, Burns, Fergusson, and Ramsay, 
 have made every variety of beauty familiar to all readers by 
 their verse. No other spot has been honored by such a crowd 
 of artists and engravers, illustrating and realizing the charm of 
 scenery, the romantic structure of old buildings, or the curiosi- 
 ties of old manners. The Abbotsford edition of Scott is as 
 remarkable in this particular as are the works themselves, which 
 have attained so extensive a renown. And then the archaeolo- 
 gists and historians of Edinburgh and Scotland, like Burton, 
 Rogers, Pitcairn, Chambers, have explored every cranny where 
 a fact or a forgotten incident might be supposed to lie. Be- 
 sides these, there is a world of biographers and collectors of 
 anecdotes and ana, men like Dr. Strong, whose "Clubs of 
 Glasgow" is full of the odd incidents of states of society 
 which have been long left to oblivion, and of which such works 
 are the pleasant relics, brought up by such divers from the deep 
 seas. Edinburgh is a place of which not only its citizens, but 
 all England and all English colonies may well be proud. What 
 an amount of brain it has supplied to the world ! It has been 
 like a popular author who needed a large population to give to 
 him his success and fame. The great men of Edinburgh could 
 not have attained their eminence without London and the large 
 populations and interests London represents. But what great 
 successes the ventures of Edinburgh have been, when we think 
 of the Edinburgh Review, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 
 and Chambers' 1 s Edinburgh Journal. It is true these have now, 
 for the most part, left the city of their birth, but in their first 
 years they were eminently Scotch. And as we walk round the 
 old city, what names and memories come up names of men 
 who were all there together. 
 
 Henry Cockburn has given a charming picture of that old 
 time in his memorials, talking with all the affectionate garrulity
 
 138 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 of a wise, thoughtful, and highly cultivated man. It is alinoat 
 idle to mention names, but when the isolated state of that small 
 city at the commencement of this century is remembered, when 
 there were no trains to thunder along at the foot of the Castle, 
 and no steamers to break the stillness of the beautiful waters of 
 its Firth ; to think that there were Dugald Stewart and his 
 successor, Thomas Brown ; that there were Scott, Lockhart, 
 Wilson, and that singular chield, the Ettrick Shepherd ; there 
 was Thomas Chalmers, and in another perhaps some would 
 call it a sectarian pulpit, John Brown ; there the young 
 Chambers' were just commencing their career as publishers, 
 and one certainly exciting attention by his first happy effort as 
 an author, in his " Traditions of Edinburgh ; M that there was 
 Jeffrey, and, frequently, his greater companion in arms, and 
 collaborates in literature, Henry Brougham ; there frequently 
 the young Carlyle, even after his student days, was a marked 
 man and a frequent visitor ; and William Hamilton was gather- 
 ing into his mind that amazing variety of learning which some 
 have thought, perhaps, the most stupendous ever found in a 
 single head, and revolving all into philosophic theses which 
 were to be the nuces philosophicce, the hard nuts for generations 
 of thinkers to crack. When it is remembered that all this 
 mental development was going on there great poems read with 
 avidity all over the earth as soon as published ; great novels 
 which changed the whole idea of what a novel might, or ought 
 to be ; great preachers, whose oratory was famous and effective 
 beyond that of almost any other preachers of the age ; great 
 lecturers in the university ; and great reviews and magazines all 
 over the empire, diffusing or directing opinion and all this in 
 a town then not nearly the size of the present Brighton it 
 must be admitted that Edinburgh was a remarkable little piece 
 of eartlj. Since that day a large portion of what was then so 
 interesting in Edinburgh has passed away. Perhaps Edin- 
 burgh is now almost as unlike what it was in those days as in 
 those days it was unlike to the city of which the earliest history
 
 OLD EDINBURGH. 130 
 
 informs us when it was but a small burgh, or rather a village, 
 the houses of which, because they were so often exposed to in- 
 cursions from England, being thatched for the most part with 
 straw and turf, so that when burned or demolished they were 
 with no great difficulty restored. 
 
 In fact the old Canongate is full of traditions of which the 
 gravest historians recite the legends. Adjoining Rae's Close 
 there is a stone tenement with an antique gable fa9ade, in which 
 is the curious figure of a turbaned Moor, " occupying a pulpit 
 in a recess. ' ' It stood upon a spot called for ages, and still so 
 called, when Wilson published his " Memorials of Edinburgh 
 in the Olden Time," "Morocco Land." Wilson claims to 
 have ferreted out the origin of this singular name and sign. 
 The mobs of Edinburgh were in ancient times troublesome and 
 famous affairs. On the accession of Charles I., from some 
 cause not necessary to expound, such a mob assailed the house 
 of the provost, who had made himself unpopular ; they broke 
 into it and fired it. After some time, order was re-established, 
 but several of the rioters were seized, and among others a lead- 
 ing spirit, Andrew Gray, a son of the Master of Gray, whose 
 descendants still inherit the honors and title of the family ; he 
 was convicted and sentenced to be executed in a day or two ; 
 the gallows was erected, and all preparations completed for the 
 execution, but the very night before the morning fixed for the 
 execution, the old Tolbooth whose gates were often so sensi- 
 ble to the privileges of gentle blood connived at his escape ; 
 the culprit effected it by means of a rope and file ; a boat was 
 in waiting at the foot of one of the closes, by which he was 
 ferried over the North Lock, and, long before the hour ap- 
 pointed for execution, Andrew Gray was beyond the reach of 
 his pursuers. Years passed away, and he was heard of no 
 more. The sack of the provost's house was forgotten ; but in 
 the year 1645 a terrible gloom hung over the city ; it was the 
 year of the last visitation cf pestilence ; the plague appears 
 almost to have equalled in its ravages the great plague of Lon-
 
 140 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 don ; all the prisoners in the Tolbooth were set at liberty ; all 
 persons not free of the city were compelled to leave it ; the 
 city was deserted. 
 
 In the midst of this dismay, and all the preparations made 
 to diminish the ravages of the plague, a curious vessel anchored 
 in the Leith Roads. It turned out to be an Algerine rover ; a 
 number of the crew landed. They were told in vain of the 
 dreadful scourge to which they exposed themselves ; they evi- 
 dently intended no good will to the city. It is said, by old 
 Maitland, there were scarce sixty men equal to the defence of 
 the town in the event of attack. The magistrates proposed to 
 ransom the town, and a large ransom was agreed to be received 
 on condition that the son of the provost, Sir John Smith, 
 should be delivered up to the captain of the Algerine rover. 
 But it transpired that the provost had no son, and his only 
 child, a daughter, lay stricken of the plague, of which her 
 cousin, Egidia Gray, had recently died. This information 
 seemed to work a sudden change in the mind of the leader of 
 the Moors ; he intimated his possession of an elixir of wonder- 
 ful potency, and demanded that the provost's daughter should 
 be intrusted to his care and skill, engaging, if he did not cure 
 her immediately, to embark with his men and leave the city 
 free without ransom. It was only after the earnest exhorta- 
 tions of his friends that Sir John Smith accepted the offer of 
 the Moor, who would not go to the provost's house, but insist- 
 ed that the young lady should be brought to that where he had 
 taken up his abode, at the head of the Canongate, and, to the 
 astonishment of the father, the fair invalid was shortly after 
 restored to him safe and well. Then came the singular close 
 of the story. The Moorish leader and physician proved to be 
 Andrew Gray. He had been captured by pirates and sold as a 
 slave, had won the favor of the Emperor of Morocco, and risen 
 to rank and wealth in his service. He had returned to Scot- 
 land, bent on revenging his early wrongs on the magistrates of 
 Edinburgh, when he found the destined object of his special 
 rengeance, the provost, to be a relative of his own. He mar-
 
 OLD EDINBURGH. 141 
 
 ried the provost/s daughter, and settled down a wealthy citizen 
 in the Canongate. The house to which his fair patient was 
 borne, and whither he afterward brought her as a bride, is still 
 adorned with the effigy of his royal patron, the Emperor of 
 Morocco, and has ever since been called " Morocco Land." 
 The residents of Edinburgh have often seen it, and probably 
 wondered why it should be there. The writer has often looked 
 at it, and realized the wild story whose memory it perpetuates. 
 It is added that Andrew Gray had vowed never to enter the 
 city but with sword in hand, and having abandoned all 
 thoughts of revenge he kept the vow till his death, and never 
 passed the threshold of the Nether-bow port. In the Canon- 
 gate the figure of the Moor has always been a subject of popu- 
 lar admiration and wonder, and Dr. Wilson, although he says 
 he cannot pretend to guarantee the romantic legend, thought 
 he discovered coincidences in the title-deeds of the Gray estate, 
 confirmations of the Chronicle of the Algerine rover and the 
 provost's daughter. Such is one of the memories of this fa- 
 mous street. 
 
 It is no part of our purpose to write a history of Edinburgh. 
 Even now the lovers of romance, and those who like to loiter 
 among the dainty bits of grotesque building which artists love 
 to sketch, and over which poets love to dream, will find plenty 
 of queer old places. It is unfortunately true that the perambu- 
 lator must usually pay for his explorations by wading through 
 a world of filth. It is something astonishing that such a noble 
 city, with a people also capable of such noble things, should be 
 permitted to abide contented amid such singularly filthy high- 
 ways and byways. Never shall we forget the disenchantment 
 which came over our minds when we first went down the 
 Canongate. The Chronicles of the Canongate of these later 
 days would furnish very different stories from those of the 
 Great Northern Wizard. Here, for many years, has run down, 
 as into a common sewer, the beggary and destitution, the dirt 
 and drunkenness of the great city ; in this street, at the foot 
 of which is the old palace, the street in which the proudest
 
 142 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 nobles, the Morays, the Montroses, and the Argyles lived, or 
 moved with their cavalcades to and fro, is seen nothing but 
 dirt and squalor now, while gin-shops everywhere abound where 
 once the houses of proud nobles stood. With all due defer- 
 ence and homage to the transcendent genius of Sir Walter 
 Scott, we have always thought that his " Chronicles of the 
 Canongate" was rather a misnomer. Of course, he knew the 
 history of every bit of stone in Edinburgh ; but, assuredly, he 
 might have found, in the old Canongate itself, anecdotes, facts, 
 and traditions even more appropriately belonging to it than 
 those he has recited. 
 
 From among the many houses, so difficult now to conceive 
 of as the residences of great statesmen and beautiful women, 
 there is one, Moray House, upon which, and its balcony, we 
 have often looked with interest as we have passed it by. 
 There, in that room from which juts out the balcony, in 1650 
 great merry-makings were going on, the occasion being the 
 marriage of Lord Lome, afterward known as the unfortunate 
 Duke of Argyle, with the Lady Mary Stuart, the eldest daugh- 
 ter of the Earl of Moray. While they were there, a crowding 
 and hurrying was observed in the street. Along the Canongate 
 the great Marquis of Montrose was borne, ignominiously bound 
 to a low cart, to the place of execution. Montrose had fought 
 with and overcome Argyle, the father of the bridegroom had 
 driven him beyond the sea, and wasted his country with fire 
 and sword ; and now, as he came beneath the windows of 
 Moray House, the Earl of Lauder, then Lord Chancellor, Lord 
 Warriston, and the Countess Haddington, along with the Mar- 
 quis of Aigyle, and the bride and bridegroom, stepped out on 
 the old stone balcony to gaze upon their prostrate enemy. It 
 is even said that the Countess of Argyle's niece so far forgot 
 her sex as to spit upon Montrose as he passed. The gloomy 
 procession passed on to the Tolbooth, and the gay wedding- 
 party disappeared from the window. But what a picture of 
 the vicissitudes of the times it furnishes, to remember that 
 three of these onlookers, including the gay and happy bride-
 
 OLD EDINBURGH. 143 
 
 groom, perished by the hand of the executioner on the same 
 spot as that to which Montrose was wending his melancholy 
 way. Truly the Canongate is full of memories. 
 
 So is the Lawn Market, so called because, even within the 
 memory of men now living, the wide thoroughfare was covered 
 with the stalls and booths of lawn merchants, with their webs 
 and cloths of every description. Among these singular closes 
 we are to seek, and here we shall find, some of the most inter- 
 esting houses of the last century. Very few persons will visit 
 Edinburgh for more than a brief sojourn without seeking Lady 
 Stair's Close. That contemptible-looking house held in its day 
 the leaders of fashion, at a period when the distinctions of 
 rank and fashion were guarded with a jealousy which we now 
 can scarcely imagine. If, however, we step into the interior, 
 we shall find in some of the rooms indications of an ancient 
 style of which the exterior gives us little idea. The Countess 
 of Stair adds to this house an especially romantic interest, as in 
 her singularly checkered and romantic life is said to have oc- 
 curred the incident which Sir Walter Scott has told in " Aunt 
 Margaret's Mirror," one of the most singular stories of this 
 neighborhood. 
 
 It is in this immediate neighborhood that haunted houses 
 abound. Perhaps the clouds of fancy are rolling away from 
 most of them, and, beneath the lights of advancing intelli- 
 gence, and the demand for house accommodation, old closes 
 and their chambers are being disenchanted ; it seems, however, 
 that in many a stack of buildings where, while one flat story or 
 suite of rooms might be occupied, others in the same building 
 might remain locked, closed, and unoccupied for years, about 
 which innumerable weird stories would spring up. \Vc believe 
 there are many such suites of chambers so unoccupied even 
 now. We must quote the words of a well-known citizen of 
 Edinburgh, remarkable for caution and good common sense, 
 Robert Chambers. In the last edition of his '" Traditions of 
 Edinburgh," published so recently as 1869, he says : "At no 
 very remote time there were several houses in the old town
 
 144 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 which had the credit of being haunted ; it is said that there is 
 one at this day in the Lawn Market, a ' flat ' which has been 
 shut up from time immemorial. The story goes that one 
 night, as preparations were made for a supper-party, some- 
 thing occurred which obliged the family, as well as all the 
 assembled guests, to retire with precipitation and lock up the 
 house. From that night it has never once been opened, nor 
 was any of the furniture withdrawn ; the very goose, which 
 was undergoing the process of being roasted at the time of the 
 occurrence, is still at the fireplace ; no one knows to whom the 
 house belongs ; no one ever inquires after it ; no one living 
 ever saw the inside of it : it is a condemned house. There is 
 something peculiarly dreadful about a house under these cir- 
 cumstances what sights of horror might present themselves if 
 it were entered." When in Edinburgh we have tried to dis- 
 cover the close in which this " flat" might be, we are sorry to 
 say ineffectually, but we saw many which might seem to be 
 worthy of holding such a legend. 
 
 Most of the lovers of old associations will regret that the old 
 To! booth is no more, " The Heart of Mid Lothian," as it was 
 properly called. In fact it was the Newgate of the old city. 
 Several years ago one of the wildest and most popular dema- 
 gogues of modern times, not quite aware of what the " Heart 
 of Mid-Lothian" meant, went down to Edinburgh to harangue 
 the roughs, and before a large concourse of persons whom he 
 gathered round him to unfold his scheme, in an inflated flight 
 of eloquence he commenced his address : " Brothers and men 
 of the ' Heart of Mid-Lothian. ' ' In point of fact, what that 
 expressed was, " my brother jail-birds !" To his amazement 
 what he intended to be a telling apostrophe created a loud and 
 utterly unconquerable roar of laughter ; the orator was discom- 
 fited, and his unfortunate and unsuccessful flight amid the 
 tropes and figures of poetry more successfully foiled the pur- 
 poses of bis meeting than any reading of the Riot Act would 
 have done. The Heart of Mid-Lothian, the old Tolbooth, 
 stood next to St. Giles's Church ; it has been down for more
 
 OLD EDINBURGH. 145 
 
 * 
 
 than half a century, so that Scott's novel was a kind of funeral 
 sermon for the old building. It was haunted by a crowd of 
 memories ; in its ancient days, royal and fiscal ; in more mod- 
 ern times, for the most singular stories in the romance of 
 crime ; it was, in fact, an old curiosity-shop of crime. In the 
 hall or chapel hung a board, on which were the following true 
 and expressive lines : 
 
 " A prison is a house of care, 
 
 A place where none can thrive ; 
 A touchstone true to try a friend, 
 
 A grave for men alive. 
 Sometimes a place of right, 
 
 Sometimes a place of wrong, 
 Sometimes a place for jades and thieves 
 
 And honest men among." 
 
 It appears to have been a horrible place, but its historian 
 says it knew the men who ought not to be too roughly handled, 
 and the consequence was that almost every criminal of rank 
 confined in it contrived somehow to make an escape. One of 
 the most remarkable stories was that of the Lady Catherine 
 Nairne, who, in 1766, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to 
 death for the murder of her husband. He had treated her, it 
 appeared, with great barbarity ; but, although popular preju- 
 dice was very strong against her, so that the crowd upon her 
 appearance was prepared to give her a very rough reception, 
 her exceeding beauty, joined to her exceeding youth, quite 
 turned the tide of feeling in her favor, and her guilt, although 
 she had been very guilty, was forgotten in a tide of sympathy. 
 When condemned she was near the time of her confinement ; 
 her execution was delayed on this account. A midwife in the 
 city was admitted into the prison to attend her ; two days after 
 her confinement, disguised as the midwife, she composedly 
 walked out of the Tolbooth. Intending, apparently, to call at 
 the house of her uncle, afterward Lord Dunsinane, she knocked 
 at the door of the judge who had condemned her. The foot- 
 man, who had been at the trial, recognized her ; she took to
 
 146" SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 her heels. The hue and cry was raised, and still she escaped 
 to some cellars apparently unknown, but belonging to her 
 uncle's house. There she continued some days, and at last 
 effected a safe escape to France disguised in a soldier's uni- 
 form ; thence she reached America, where she is said to have 
 changed in an eminent degree her morals and her manners, 
 married again, and died at a very advanced age, highly honored 
 and loved by a very large family. 
 
 A far more tender story of the old Tolbooth is that of the 
 faithful wife of a poor wig- maker of Leith, who was executed 
 for signing a bill to save her husband from disgrace. It was a 
 case singularly involved, and well calculated to create a large 
 amount of sympathy, but she had no rich relations or aristo- 
 cratic connections to connive at her escape, and she died the 
 victim of her mistaken act of constancy and affection. 
 
 Walking about among the old houses of Edinburgh, nothing 
 was, and we may still say is, more noticeable than the frequent 
 inscriptions over houses ; of course we mean the old houses, 
 with their fantastic timbers and stone gables, strange relics of a 
 forgotten order of things. Thus, over one house, on the 
 antique lintel, is the quaint legend in ornamental characters of 
 a very early date, " J|e gt ijjoles obercumits ;" that is, " He that 
 tholes (or endures) overcomes." Who put up this motto is 
 not, and never will be known ; but it is very illustrativ > of the 
 Scotch character, nor can it be doubted that the unknown per- 
 son who reared this house, and put over it this inscription, had 
 realized it as the great truth of life, that steady, quiet endur- 
 ance conquers and triumphs at last. Many of the inscriptions 
 are in old Latin. A handsome tenement stands not far from 
 the Cowgate, surmounted with two ornamental gables, bearing 
 on them the initials of the two builders, and over the main 
 doorway the inscription : " <S|j magnifg iljt |Torb faritlj nu, suit let 
 m exalt f is nanu together, IS4S." But the tailors, over their 
 hall, when it was erected in 1 664, put very ambitious and strik- 
 ing inscriptions ; an earlier inscription, 1621, with the sign of 
 the shears and three balls of thread, bear* the pious wish,
 
 OLD EDINBURGH. 147 
 
 $ob gibe % Wising to % lailrer traft in tjje goob tohm of bin- 
 Then over the main entrance is the dedication verse : 
 
 " &o % glore of <$ob, anb bertebris renofone, 
 &\t companie of tailreonrs britlj t|jis goob tohm ; 
 ^or nutting of lljeir craft tjjts bal |jts mtteb, 
 W\i\ trust in <$ob's goobness to be blift ifc protecfeb." 
 
 In a recess in a picturesque timber-fronted tenement, oppo- 
 site St. Peter's Pend, is a very fine door with an inscription 
 which perhaps has been passed by many onlookers as altogether 
 too puzzling and vernacular to make out : 
 
 " <&if be eib as be boolb be nureljt jjaif as be balb." 
 
 Literally rendered into modern English, it is, "If we did as 
 we should, we might have as we would." We do not remem- 
 ber ever to have seen a more pathetic inscription than that 
 which tells a sad story, although a story altogether unknown, 
 at the head of Rae's Close, near to that Morocco Land in the 
 Canongate of which we spoke a short time since : 
 
 41 $$liserere mei |Bomine ; a peccato, probto, bebito, 
 et morte subita, me Ubtra, 
 
 Shall we say that the national character, as revealed in the 
 history of Scotland, seems to be usually that of a grim one ? 
 How especially this comes out in the records of punishments 
 for offences ; some of the sentences, as gathered by Dr. Wil- 
 son, are very odd. We will take the liberty to simply adapt 
 the spelling to our modern ocular and audible senses ; thus we 
 read : " Patrick Gowanlot, on the first of July, 1530, is ban- 
 ished the town forever,' under pain of death, for harboring a 
 woman infected with pestilence, and half of his movable 
 goods be applied to the common work of the town for his de- 
 fault ; and his serving-woman, which is infected, for her con- 
 cealing the same, shall be burnt on both cheeks, and banished 
 the town forever, under pain of death." Drowning was a fre-
 
 148 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 quent punishment of women for stealing. A favorite punish- 
 ment in the seventeenth century was the standing in the pillory 
 with the ears nailed to it. We read, in 1655, the marshal's 
 man who was appointed to " Haif cuttit Mr. Patrick Maxwell 
 hail! lug (ear) did onlie cut off part of his lug, was therefore 
 this day brought to the Market Cross of Edinburgh, and set 
 upon the pillory and there his lug boirit for not obeying his 
 commission in that point." There was a mode of punishment 
 which we confess passes beyond our knowledge, " nose pinch- 
 ing ; r ' thus we read, in 1728, of the trial against "Jean 
 Bpence, noted thief, pilloried, her lug nailed, and her nose 
 pinched." 
 
 Some of the provisions against fever and plague seem espe- 
 cially cruel ; we find another instance similar to that cited 
 above. On the same day, a woman who had been in the house 
 of infected persons, and was now infected herself, without 
 revealing either circumstance, is sentenced to be burned on the 
 cheek, and banished the town for life, and to remain on the 
 muir till she be recovered, under pain of death. On the 4th 
 of June, a woman who had a daughter sick without giving in- 
 formaJ a, is sentenced to the like punishment, " all her 
 bairns" being at the same time adjudged to perpetual banish- 
 ment. Several cases of the same kind occurred throughout 
 June and July (1530) ; but at length, in August, when prob- 
 ably the danger had become greater, concealment of sick 
 friends is punished with death ! An unfortunate tailor, David 
 Duly by name, had a wife sick ; he kept her concealed in his 
 house, and even, while she was ill, went to attend mass in St. 
 Giles's Kirk, thereby " dooand (carrying all) at was in him till 
 haif infekkit all the toune. " For this he was adjudged to be 
 hanged on a gibbet before his own door ; the sentence seema 
 to have been immediately carried into execution, for, in the 
 afternoon of the same day, we find an entry stating that Duly 
 had been hung up, but that the " raip" had broken, and he 
 escaped at the will of God, for which reason, and because " he 
 is ane puir man with small bairns, and for pete of him," the
 
 OLD EDINBURGH. 149 
 
 council banish him instead. A few months afterward, we find 
 that several women were actually put to death (" drounit in the 
 Quarrel] holis at the Grey -frier post") for concealing their sick- 
 ness. Throughout August, the business of " clenging," that 
 is, we presume, of completing quarantine, proceeds under the 
 regulation of various statutes. But even after suspected, or 
 sick persons had given full satisfaction of their purity from the 
 disease, and had been allowed to come back to their homes 
 with their goods, they were still forbidden to attend mass 
 among the other clean people. Such were a few of the doings 
 and sufferings of our citizens in " the good old times." 
 
 One of the oldest inscriptions in Edinburgh alas ! that we 
 should say it is over the " Rose and Thistle Tap," the tradi- 
 tional guard-house of Cromwell's Ironsides after the battle of 
 Dunbar, "Jmtlj itt Crist onl sabti, 1567." While another 
 building in the High Street, of the period of James VI., has 
 an inscription with a hand pointing, as if giving emphasis to 
 it, "{je JTorfl is % portion: of mint inheritance, artb of tng rap; 
 &{jon maintainrst mg lot. |)salm *bi. berse 5." Sometimes these 
 inscriptions are placed on ceilings, sometimes over fireplaces ; 
 several very beautiful inscriptions are in the Castle, and these 
 are so many, and so representative of various phases of histori- 
 cal opinion, that an interesting volume might be compiled 
 giving the various mottoes, the engravings of them, and per- 
 haps, in many instances, some necessary elucidation of their 
 meaning ; some of them in the Edinburgh interiors are exceed- 
 ingly beautiful. 
 
 We have seen how terrible were the terrors to evil-doers in 
 Old Edinburgh. Yet it was a singularly merry and convivial 
 old city. Scott, both in " Guy Mannering," "Rob Roy," 
 and others of his works, has given very vivid descriptions of 
 days when tavern dissipation among the respectable classes pre- 
 vailed to an amazing extent ; it was the same in Glasgow as in 
 Edinburgh ; there were a multitude of clubs with ridiculous 
 rules and designations ; there was the Dirty Club, at which no 
 gentleman was to appear in clean linen ; the club of the Black
 
 150 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 Wigs ; the club of Odd Fellows, all whose members were 
 bound to write their names upside down ; there was the Spend- 
 thrift Club, so called from the extravagance of the members, 
 who \vere all bound to spend fourpence halfpenny each night ; 
 and there was the Pious Club, so called because they met in a 
 room over a pie-house, but who really adopted this as an equi- 
 voque, as they really were steady characters, always breaking up 
 at ten o'clock at night, never drinking more than one gill, and, 
 if they met on a Sunday evening, always restricting their con- 
 versation to the subject of the morning's sermon. 
 
 Enough that, although so much has been written upon this 
 subject, it is still fresh in every kind of interest for the pen of 
 poet or archaeologist, the pencil of the artist, or note-book of 
 the collector of the folk-lore of the manners and customs of the 
 fathers and mothers of Old Edinburgh. 
 
 And, in fact, we very seriously question whether there be 
 another spot in all Europe so abounding in every kind of 
 romantic, tingling tradition and legend ; and where every street 
 and stone seems to speak so immediately to some singular old- 
 world anecdote or memory.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LADY. 
 
 THE old Scottish lady appears to have been singular. The 
 anecdotes told of this character are innumerable, and the class 
 she represents enters, in a very extraordinary manner, into the 
 social life of the period. Some remarkable illustrations occur 
 in that extraordinary and pathetic little book, " Mystifica- 
 tions," apparently edited, and introduced by Dr. John Brown, 
 who indeed gave to it much of its popularity by his short paper 
 bearing the same title in the second series of " Horse Sub- 
 secivae. " There is much that is very pathetic in the little vol- 
 ume itself. The authoress is an old Scottish lady, Miss Clem- 
 entina Sterling Graham, a descendant of the old Montrose 
 family. When she was young no doubt a bright, merry 
 creature she possessed a remarkable power of personating 
 what was then, in her young time, the Old Scottish Lady. 
 Great men, like Jeffrey and Sir Walter Scott, and others, de- 
 clared it would be impossible to take them in, but the old lady 
 called upon them, or was introduced to them at parties, and 
 kept them in conversation, acting her part, and the innocent 
 imposture was successfully maintained. 
 
 Her imposition on Jeffrey was complete and entire ; him she 
 called upon for the purpose of legal consultation, and it was in 
 response to an invitation from Jeffrey himself, who had begged 
 Miss Graham to let him see her Old Lady. So one evening the 
 " Lady Pitlyal" called on Jeffrey with her daughter, a young 
 lady of about twenty. She called, as she said, " to take a 
 word of the law frae him." She kept him from his dinner a 
 long time, and when he returned to the room from which he 
 had been called, Mrs. Jeffrey said, " What in the world has
 
 152 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 detained you ?" " One of the most tiresome and oddest old 
 women I ever met with," he replied ; " I thought never to 
 have got rid of her." While he was narrating to his wife 
 some particulars of the conversation, it flashed upon him that 
 he had possibly been taken in, but going back to the room, and 
 finding, in the envelope which the old lady had left, only a 
 blank sheet of paper with his fee of three guineas, he supposed 
 that it really was the case of an odd old lady, desirous of his 
 opinion upon a complicated question of law, and not until the 
 next day did he discover that Miss Graham had permitted him 
 to see her Old Lady, as he had requested. 
 
 These " mystifications" were for a long time the talk of the 
 upper classes of that old Edinburgh society, and in her old age 
 the lady was often requested to put down some account of the 
 innocent impostures she had so successfully performed in her 
 young and merry days. Her little book, privately printed, and 
 kept private for many years, although now published, justifies 
 the characterization of it by Dr. Brown, " Was there ever any- 
 thing better, or so good, said of a stiff clay than that it ' girns 
 a' simmer and greets a' winter ' ?" 
 
 Miss Graham in her little volume has appended two or three 
 little portraits which she calls " worthies ;" one of them of 
 Miss Menie Trotter, mentioned by Lord Cockburn in his 
 Memorials, but to whose portrait Miss Graham adds some 
 charming characteristics. She appears to have been one of the 
 most delightful of these strong-minded but most tender-hearted 
 and singularly eccentric old Scottish ladies ; when in her ex- 
 treme old age, she sent an invitation begging her old neighbor, 
 Sir Thomas Lauder, to dine with her on a very early date she 
 mentioned, writing, " for eh, SirThammas, we are terrible near 
 the tail noo !" If Miss Menie Trotter was a representative 
 woman in the society of old Scottish ladies, that society must 
 have been very rich in fine characters. She was exceedingly 
 penurious in small things, but she had a noble generosity ; she 
 had a perfect contempt for all securities, and would trust no 
 bank with her money, and kept all her bills and bank-notes in a
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LADY. 153 
 
 green bag hanging on her toilet glass. On each side of the same 
 table stood two bowls, the one full o.f her silver and the other 
 of her copper money, accessible to any of the servants of her 
 household, the idea of any one stealing money from her never 
 entering into her hcwd. She sent a present of a fifty-pound 
 note to her niece, Mrs. Cunningham, wrapped up in a cabbage 
 'eaf . And the same niece told Miss Graham the following pleas- 
 ant anecdote of her. She said to Mrs. Cunningham one day, 
 
 "Do ye ken, Margaret, that Mrs. Thomas R is dead ? 
 
 I was gaun by the door this morning, and thought I would just 
 look in and speer for her ; she was very near her end, but quite 
 sensible, and expressed her gratitude to God for what He had 
 done for her and her fatherless bairns. She said she was leav- 
 ing a large young family with very small means, but she had 
 that trust in Him that they would not be forsaken, and that 
 He would provide for them. Now, Margaret, ye'll tell Peggy 
 (this was her housekeeper) to bring down the green silk bag 
 that hangs on the corner of my looking-glass, and ye'll tak 
 twa thousand pounds out of it and give it to Walter Ferrier for 
 behoof of thae orphan bairns ; it will fit out the laddies, and 
 do something for the lasses. I want to make good the words 
 that God would provide for them ; for what else was I sent 
 that way this morning, but as an humble instrument in His 
 hands?" 
 
 Miss Graham mentions another instance. There was a young 
 man, the son apparently of a widowed friend of Miss Trotter. 
 He was not remarkably gifted either with sense or goodness, 
 but he was in a bank in Edinburgh, where he contrived to steal 
 money to the extent of 500. His peculations were dis- 
 covered. Had he been prosecuted in those days he would have 
 been hanged. Miss Trotter posted off to the bank in Edin- 
 burgh ; there, before the principal, she at once laid down the 
 500, saying, " Now, you maun not only stop proceedings, 
 but you maun keep him in the bank in some capacity, however 
 mean, till I find some other employment for him." Then she 
 fitted the lad out and sent him to London, writing to a friend
 
 154 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 that she was prepared to give another 500 to any one who 
 would procure him a good situation abroad, where he might 
 gain an honest living, but never be trusted with money. All 
 this time she kept his mother in ignorance of the lad's sins, 
 and did not communicate them until he was settled again. 
 
 The story of the love passage in the early days of this noble 
 old lady is one of the most pathetic things we ever read. Her 
 niece one day looked at a little coarse engraving hanging in the 
 old lady's room in a black frame. " Dinna ye ken, Margaret," 
 she said, " whase picture that is ? I would like to tell ye all 
 about it. " The old lady was in her last days then, near her 
 end. " That's Jamie Pitcairn ; he was a medical student in 
 
 
 
 thae days, but he rose to distinction in his profession after that. 
 He was of a noble nature and had a kindly heart, and he was 
 the only one in the whole world that ever showed me any ten- 
 derness or affection, and well did I love him ; indeed, we were 
 deeply attached to ane anither." But we will continue to tell 
 the story in the old lady's own words, the volume which con- 
 tains it is not likely to be known to many of our readers. 
 " My mother and my sister Johanna were proud and overbear- 
 ing, and looked down upon Jamie, but my auldest sister, Mrs. 
 Douglas, had a mair feeling heart, and often took me with her 
 to visit at Dr. Cullen's, where I met Jamie, and mony happy 
 hours we spent there. Whiles he wad come and drink tea with 
 Mrs. Douglas. Her house was at the head cf the Links, and 
 the windows looked out upon the country and up to Arthur's 
 Seat and the Salisbury Craigs. One evening we three sat there 
 building our airy castles, a happy party ; the beautiful warld 
 before us, and the birds singing joyously, when the door 
 opened, and four black eyes like a thundercloud darkened the 
 room. They fell upon me like a spell that froze my very 
 heart's blood. I can never forget the look of disdain they 
 coost upon Jamie. He never spoke, but took up his hat, gave 
 one kind look to me, opened the door, and left the room, and 
 I never saw him again. They were cruel to me. I was ta'en 
 hame to suffer, and he never married. I had no friend left,
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LADY. 155 
 
 for Mrs. Douglas went to France for the education of her only 
 daughter, who in course of time became Lady Dick of Preston- 
 field. So I wandered among the hills, and held communion 
 with Him who is the Father of the afflicted, and when I looked 
 over the varied land and the restless sea, and down upon the 
 broom and the flowers that were offering up their mute praise 
 and incense to their Creator, I found ' the comfort that passes 
 understanding.' Mony ane thought when I gaed thae long 
 walks among the mountains that I was my lane (i.e., all alone), 
 but I never was my lane, for the Maker of this beautiful world 
 was my constant companion." Pointing again to the engrav- 
 ing, she said, " Now that's the picture of James Pitcairn !" 
 Mrs. Cunningham called upon her again a day or two after this 
 and found her still alive, but very feeble, and asking how she 
 felt, the old lady replied, " Vera weel, but the candle is just 
 done !" She fell asleep the same evening, says Miss Graham, 
 " and her soul returned to Him who gave it." 
 
 The old Scottish lady was a study worthy of much more at- 
 tention than we can bestow upon her, and we think we see the 
 reflection of that stately old character in many, elder or 
 younger, of the good old race with whom we are acquainted. 
 There was a deep nobility of sentiment beneath the character 
 of the old Scottish woman ; she was not a flirt ; she had little 
 real coquetry about her ; it has been said of her, we think with 
 truth, and the little story we have just told seems to illustrate 
 this, that, she did not get through her love affairs with little 
 trouble ; they were deep, heartfelt, sincere, and abiding. A 
 Scottish, writer says these ladies of the old Scottish school " did 
 not first try to fascinate, and then try to think they were fas- 
 cinated ; they received a wound like a bird that closes its wing 
 over it, and they would die rather than reveal the secret ; a 
 Scottish woman never babbles a love-tale of her own passion, 
 not like the Continentals, whose love affairs are like musical 
 glasses, hollow and empty." 
 
 The old Edinburgh ladies formed a very stately aristocratic 
 circle ; stiff, in their black silk gowns and pure white muslin
 
 156 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 caps and mutchkins ; or sailing along, as the author of the 
 Memorials describes one of them, like ships from Tarshish, 
 gorgeous in velvets and rustling silks, imperial and splendid, 
 venerable and beautiful, those various but honest faces, with 
 gentle voices, and kind eyes, mild, but with such a capacity for 
 sternness ; cheerful, but with such a capacity for severity, they 
 look out upon us from the environment of old times. The 
 stories about them are full of humor, but it frequently also par- 
 took of that which we have noticed as a characteristic of much 
 Scottish humor in general grimness. The story is well known 
 of that old Scotch lady, Miss Johnson, who was lying on her 
 deathbed in the midst of a tremendous thunderstorm ; it rattled 
 and shook the house, and the old lady, with no thought of 
 profanity, but in the full possession of all her faculties, ex- 
 claimed to her attendants, " Ech, sirs, what a night for me to 
 be fleein' through the air !" We agree with those who have 
 remarked upon it that there was something wild, striking, and 
 almost sublime in the expression ; that it was not an utterance 
 of humor out of season, but of a highly imaginative and poetic 
 temperament ; that it was probably not the utterance of the 
 weakness, but of the strength of her faith ; that it was a note 
 of aspiration and not of despair ; and that, perhaps, haunted 
 by some of her ancient readings, and country superstitions, she 
 realized her flight heavenward through the midnight storm to 
 her bright home. It seems like the expression of one shudder- 
 ingly setting sail through a dark storm-haunted night, but with 
 the assurance of the morning in the land beyond. 
 
 Take these memories of the Lady Anne Barnard, one of the 
 most distinguished Scottish ladies of the olden time ; her 
 maternal grandmother, the ancient Lady Dalrymple of Capring- 
 ton, as was much in accordance with the kindly habits of those 
 days, spent her widowed years under her son-in-law's roof at 
 Balcarres, and after his death settled in Edinburgh, where her 
 house, in a close of the Canongate, was the usual town-house 
 subsequently of all her young descendants. Mrs. Murray 
 Keith, the original of Mrs. Bethune Baliol, in the " Chronicles
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LADY. 157 
 
 of the Canongatc, " kept house with Lady Dalryrnple. Lady 
 Anne recollected her grandmother as " a placid, quiet, pleasing 
 old woman, whose indolence had benevolence in it, and whose 
 sense was replete with indolence, as she was at all times of the 
 party for letting things alone." 
 
 " I now remember," continues Lady Anne, " with a smile 
 the different evolutions that grandmamma's daily fidgets had to 
 perform, though, at the time, they plagued me a little. At 
 ten, she came downstairs, always a little out of humor till she 
 had had her breakfast. In her left hand were her mitts and 
 her snuff-box, which contained a certain number of pinches ; 
 she stopped on the seventeenth spot of the carpet, and coughed 
 three times ; she then looked at the weather-glass, approached 
 the tea-table, put her right hand in her pocket for the key of 
 the tea-chest, and, not finding it there, sent me upstairs to 
 look for it in her own room, charging me not to fall on the 
 stairs. ' Look,' said she, ' Annie ! upon my little table there 
 you will find a pair of gloves, but the key is not there ; after 
 you have taken up the gloves, you will see yesterday's news- 
 paper, but you will not find it below that, so you need not 
 touch it ; pass on from the newspaper to my black fan, beside 
 it there lies three apples (don't eat my apples, Annie ! mark 
 that !) take up the letter that is beyond the apples, and there 
 you will find it. ' ' But is not that the key in your left hand 
 over your little finger ? ' ' No, Annie, it cannot be so, for I 
 always carry it on my right. ' ' That is, you intend to do so, 
 my dear grandmamma, but you know you always carry it in 
 your left.' ' Well, well, child ! I believe I do, but what 
 then ? is the tea made ? put in one spoonful for every person, 
 and one over Annie, do you mark me ? ' Thus, every morn- 
 ing, grandmamma smelled three times at her apple, came down- 
 stairs testy, coughed on the seventeenth spot, lost her key, had 
 it detected in her left hand, and, the morning parade being 
 over, till the evening's nap arrived (when she had a new set of 
 manoeuvres), she was a pleasing, entertaining, talkative, mild 
 old woman. I should love her, for she loved me ; I was her
 
 158 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 god-daughter, and her sworn friend." " She was the mild- 
 est, ' ' adds Lady Anne, many years afterward, ' ' and most inno- 
 cent of beings." 
 
 The following anecdote of David Hume, whom Lady Dal- 
 rymple had known from a child, occurs in a letter of Lady 
 Anne to her sister Margaret, from her grandmother's house in 
 Edinburgh : " Our friend David Hume is a constant morning 
 visitor of ours. My mother jested him lately on a cir- 
 cumstance which had a good deal of character in it. When 
 we were very young girls, too young to remember the 
 scene, there happened to be a good many clever people at 
 Balcarres at Christmas, and as a gambol of the season they 
 agreed to write each his own character, to give them to 
 Hume, and make him show them to my father, as extracts 
 he had taken from the Pope's library at Rome. He did : 
 my father said, ' I don't know who the rest of your fine fel- 
 lows and charming princesses are, Hume ; but if you had not 
 told me where you got this character, I should have said it was 
 that of my wife. ' ' I was pleased, ' said my mother, ' with my 
 lord's answer ; it showed that at least I had been an honest 
 woman.' Hume's character of himself," said she, lt was well 
 drawn and full of candor ; he spoke of himself as he ought, 
 but added, what surprised us all, that, plain as his manners 
 were, and apparently careless of attention, vanity was his pre- 
 dominant weakness. That vanity led him to publish his essays, 
 which he grieved over, not that he had changed his opinions, 
 but that he thought he had injured society by disseminating 
 them. ' Do you remember the sequel of that affair ? ' said 
 Hume. 'Yes, I do,' replied my mother, laughing; 'you 
 told me that, although I thought your character a sincere one, 
 it was not so there was a particular feature omitted, that we 
 were still ignorant of, and that you would add it ; like a fool I 
 gave you the MS., and you thrust it into the fire, adding, " Oh ! 
 what an idiot I had nearly proved myself to be, to leave such a 
 document in the hands of a parcel of women !" 
 
 It was in this old lady's house that Sir Walter Scott, when a
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LADY. 159 
 
 boy of six or seven, used to see Lady Anne Barnard ; and in 
 one of his letters to her, after the lapse of nearly fifty years, he 
 says : " I remember all the locale of Hyndford's Close per- 
 fectly, even to the Indian screen with Harlequin and Colum- 
 bine, and the harpsichord, although I never had the pleasure to 
 hear Lady Anne play on it. I suppose the close, once too 
 clean to soil the hem of your ladyship's garment, is now a 
 resort for the lowest mechanics and so wears the world away. 
 The authoress of ' Robin Gray ' cannot but remember the last 
 verse of an old song, lamenting the changes ' which fleeting 
 time procurcth : ' 
 
 ' For many a place stands in hard case 
 
 Where blythe folks kenned nae sorrow, 
 With Humes that dwelt on Leader Hanghs, 
 And Scots wha lived on Yarrow.' 
 
 It is, to be sure, more picturesque to lament the desolation of 
 towers on hills and haughs, than the degradation of an Edin- 
 burgh close ; but I cannot help thinking on the simple and 
 cosey retreats where worth, and talent, and elegance to boot, 
 were often nestled, and which now are the resort of misery, 
 filth, poverty, and vice. 
 
 " I believe I must set as much modesty as near thirty years 
 of the law have left me entirely aside, and plead guilty to being 
 the little boy whom my Aunt Jeanie's partiality may have 
 mentioned to your ladyship, though I owed my studious dispo- 
 sition in no small degree to my early lameness, which prevented 
 me romping much with other boys, though, thank God ! it has 
 left me activity enough to take a great deal of exercise in tlic 
 course of my life. Your ladyship's recollections, awakening 
 ray own, led me naturally to reverse the telescope on my part 
 of life, and to see myself sitting at the further end of a long 
 perspective of years gone by a little spoiled chattering boy, 
 whom everybody was kind to, perhaps because they sympa- 
 thized with his infirmities." 
 
 Another of Lady Anne's portraits brings before us a most
 
 1 .60 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 picturesque spinster, of whom also Sir Walter had preserved a 
 lively recollection : "I close this gallery of portraits with that 
 of Sophy Johnstone, for many years a constant inmate of Bal- 
 carres, and one of the most extraordinary originals of a day 
 when character seems to have been stamped with a bolder die, 
 or at least to have opposed more resistance to attrition than it 
 now does." " Her father," says Lady Anne, " was what was 
 commonly called an odd dog ; her mother that unencroaching 
 sort of existence, so universally called ' a good sort of woman.' 
 One day after dinner, the squire, having a mind to reason over 
 his bottle, turned the conversation on the folly of education. 
 The wife said, she had always understood it was a good thing 
 for young people to know a little, to keep them out of harm's 
 way. The husband said, education was all nonsense, for that 
 a child who was left to nature had ten times more sense, and 
 all that sort of thing, when it grew up, than those whose heads 
 were filled full of gimcracks and learning out of books. Like 
 Mrs. Shandy, she gave up the point, and, as he stoutly main- 
 tained his argument, they both agreed to make the experiment 
 on the child she was ready to produce, and mutually swore an 
 oath that it never should be taught anything from the hour of 
 its birth, or ever have its spirit broken by contradiction. 
 
 " This child proved to be Miss Sophy Johnstone. I scarce 
 think that any system of education could have made this 
 woman one of the fair sex. Her taste led her to hunt with her 
 brothers, to wrestle with the stable-boys, and to saw wood with 
 the carpenter. She worked well in iron, could shoe a horse 
 quicker than the smith, made excellent trunks, played well on 
 the fiddle, sung a man's song in a bass voice, and was by many 
 people suspected of being one. She learned to write of the 
 butler at her own request, and had a taste for reading which 
 she greatly improved. She was a droll, ingenious fellow ; her 
 talents for mimicry made her enemies, and the violence of her 
 attachments to those she called her favorites secured her a few 
 warm friends. She came to spend a few months with my 
 mother soon after her marriage, and, at the time I am speaking
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LADY. 161 
 
 of, had been with her thirteen years, making Balcarres her 
 headquarters, devoting herself to the youngest child, whichever 
 it was, deserting him when he got into breeches, and regularly 
 constant to no one but me. She had a little forge fitted up in 
 her closet, to which I was very often invited." It was for a 
 beautiful old Scottish melody, sung by this Amazonian dame, 
 that Lady Anne, the eldest of the youthful tribe of Balcarres, 
 wrote the ballad of " Auld Robin Gray." 
 
 The times of these old ladies call up before us many pictures 
 of old memories and old manners such as cannot here be de- 
 scribed. How imposing and important were the tea-tables 
 over which they presided ! 
 
 " The checkered chairs in seemly circle placed, 
 The Indian tray with Indian china graced ; 
 The red stone teapot with its silver spout, 
 The teaspoons numbered, and the tea filled out ;" 
 
 for the numbers on the spoons enabled the hostess to return to 
 each guest, the cup which he had before. And then, how singular 
 it seems, to our notions, that, after the tea-drinking was over, 
 the lady of the house washed, with her own fair hands, the 
 china cups at the table. For this purpose a wooden bowl, kept 
 for this business alone, was introduced, and the work was gone 
 through with both grace and gravity. We suppose this an- 
 swered the double purpose of preventing breakages and assist- 
 ing servants, who, perhaps, were neither so numerous nor neat- 
 handed as in our more convenient and polished times ; and 
 then, at the close, 
 
 " The clogs are ready when the meal is o'er, 
 And many a blazing lantern leaves the door." 
 
 Those were the times, to which we are looking back, when 
 scarcely a thing, or circumstance, we should regard as essential 
 to our comfort now, had come into use ; but an old Scotch 
 song says :
 
 162 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 " Little was stown (stolen) then, and less gaed to waste, 
 
 Ba rely a millen (a sniff) for mice or for rattens (rats) ; 
 The thrifty housewife to the flesh-market paced, 
 Her equipage a' just a guid pair o' pattens ; 
 
 " Folk were as gude then, and friends were as leal, 
 
 Though coaches were scant, with their cattle a-canterin', 
 Eight air (early) we were tell't, by the housemaid or chiel (young 
 
 man), 
 ' Sic, an* ye please, here's your lass and a lantern.' " 
 
 A great institution of those old times was the lass with the 
 lantern, the constant attendant of every lady, whether accom- 
 panied by a gentleman or not, who might happen in those 
 gasless days to be out after nightfall. 
 
 But we can have no more favorable opportunity for remark- 
 ing that Scotland furnishes, not only among those we have des- 
 ignated Scottish ladies women of the higher circles but in 
 much more lowly and humble spheres, very fine illustrations of 
 truly noble womanhood. How many romantic stories of sin- 
 gularly faithful wives and daughters we must not stay to tell ! 
 Of those old times, the men seem to be much more attractive 
 by their strength, but of a rugged order. The women seem to 
 attract not less by their strength than by a certain elevated 
 beauty of character, frequently, no doubt, in a setting which 
 seems somewhat rugged too. The story of Helen Walker of 
 Irongray, the real original of Jeannie Deans, is too well known 
 to need any specific mention. Exactly to the same order be- 
 longed the mother of Robert Nicol, the poet. The Nicols were 
 a very poor family ; the mother nobly struggling to educate 
 the children, and by this means to raise their condition to the 
 level from whence misfortune had driven them. When Rob- 
 ert was dying in Leeds, she had acquired some little property, 
 solely by her own exertions and industry, but she had no 
 money to spare to defray the necessary expenses of a journey 
 to Leeds, and Robert was dying, languishing to see her. A 
 friend afterward asked her how she had been able to defray the 
 expenses, as her son was in no condition to help her, when sh
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH I.AI'Y. 163 
 
 bluntly but nobly replied, " Indeed, sir, I shore for the siller" 
 that is, her wages as a reaper, her harvest-fee, was the only 
 means by which she could honestly fulfil her son's dying wish, 
 and accomplish the yearning desire of her own mother's heart. 
 
 Thus it is as much in the lowly ranks of womanhood in 
 Scotland that we are often to seek for the spirit and bearing we 
 admire in higher circles. Lord Cockburn says, " On the 23d 
 of July, 1637, Jenny Geddes threw her stool at the Dean of 
 Edinburgh's head, a proceeding for which, at the distance of 
 two hundred years, she is still respected. Another Jenny has 
 appeared, against whom and her principles all the lairds of the 
 empire will persecute in vain. This woman, Jenny Frazer, 
 occupied a few yards of ground in one of the Duke of Buc- 
 cleuch's parishes, which it was discovered were not his but 
 hers, being the only spot in that inconvenient condition. She 
 was offered an extraordinary price for it. Though but a poor 
 crofter, she had the spirit to say, ' Na ! it cam' frae the Lord, 
 an' the Lord wants 't again and He shall have it !' And there 
 is now a Free Church erected upon it." This is finer thau 
 Jenny Geddes ; and Cockburn adds, he firmly believes the 
 story to be correct. 
 
 Some of the most affecting, it is not too much to say some 
 of the most wonderful stories of old Scotland are of snow- 
 storms. Dr. Macleod tells one of a Highland widow. She 
 had left her home on a morning which gave the promise of a 
 peaceful day. She carried her only child, an infant, with her. 
 Her journey was through giant precipices for ten miles, but her 
 rent was overdue, she had been threatened with dispossession, 
 and she was on her way to seek help of a kinsman. It was in 
 the month of May ; but before noon the weather changed, the 
 sky became black and lowering, the clouds fell down upon the 
 hills, the wind rose, and was followed by the rain, and by the 
 sleet, and then came a heavy fall of snow. This snowstorm be- 
 came memorable as the "great May storm." Her journey 
 was known to her neighbors, but little anxiety was felt, as it 
 was supposed that in the sheiling of some shepherd, or the
 
 164 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 steading of some farmer, she would find a refuge before she 
 began to cross the rugged mountain-side. But when the next 
 morning came, and it was learned, from some person who 
 arrived from the place to which the widow was travelling, that 
 she had not made her appearance there, a dozen men mustered 
 to set forth to search for the missing woman. For some dis- 
 tance they were able to track her as she had been seen pursuing 
 her journey the day before. At last they lost all trace of her. 
 The shepherd on the mountain could give no information 
 regarding her, and beyond his hut there was no shelter. There 
 was nothing but deep snow, the drift lay thickest, the storm 
 had blown with a fierce and bitter blast, the deep wreaths filled 
 up every hollow. At length a cry was heard from one of the 
 searchers, and, crouched beneath a huge granite boulder, they 
 found the dead body of the widow entombed in the snow. A 
 portion of the wretched tartan cloak, which scarcely covered 
 her, led to the discovery, but she was divested almost entirely 
 of her clothes. What had become of them ? She had evi- 
 dently died where she sat, almost bent double. Where was 
 her child ? The mystery was soon cleared up. A shepherd 
 found the infant alive in a sheltered nook of the rock ; high up, 
 near the spot where the mother sat cold and stiff in death, he 
 lay in a bed of heather and of fern, swathed all round with the 
 clothes which his mother had stripped from herself to save her 
 child. Such was that mother's love. It was an incident never 
 forgotten in that neighborhood, and we may well believe that 
 no eyes were dry, and the minister could scarcely perform the 
 service for his tears, when the poor body was carried to its 
 grave. And this son never forgot the mother, whom he never 
 remembered to have seen. He entered the army when a man, 
 and, fifty years after, came home to his native village to die ; 
 and, Dr. Macleod says, among his last words were, " I have 
 found deliverance now, where I found it in my childhood, in 
 the cleft of the rock the Rock of Ages." 
 
 Archdeacon Sinclair, in his interesting volume, " Old Times 
 and Distant Places," gives the account of an old Scottish
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LADY. 165 
 
 woman, quite too remarkable to be omitted from any gathering 
 of the curiosities of Scottish folk-lore, and especially in the 
 chronicling of the memories of Scotland's daughters. He 
 knew her well ; she was one of his congregation and pensioners 
 when he was a minister in Edinburgh. He calls her " Widow 
 Butler, the centenarian," and says, " In the year l'831, not- 
 withstanding the infirmities of above a hundred years, she reg- 
 ularly took her seat on Sundays upon the pulpit stairs of my 
 chapel, St. Paul's, York Place, Edinburgh." He says, " Her 
 short, thin figure bent forward reminded me of the saying that 
 aged persons seem always to be stooping down in search of the 
 grave to which they are hastening. Her face did not at first 
 betray extraordinary age, but on close examination it was inter- 
 laced in all directions, with a profusion of small wrinkles, about 
 which there could be no mistake. When once upon her feet, 
 she was able, with the help of a stick, to totter on for miles." 
 Her age was doubted, but the examination of the register of 
 her birth placed it beyond dispute. Here was a singular in- 
 stance. She was a native of Dumfries, and was seventeen years 
 old when she saw Prince Charles Stuart, in 1745. Sinclair 
 asked her what she thought of the prince. " He was dressed," 
 she said, " in tartan, with plenty of silk and gold, and many 
 thought he was the best-looking man in the army ; but, for my 
 part, I was but a girl, and I thought I saw men who, with as 
 much silk and gold, would have looked as well as he." She 
 had innumerable stories to tell of those days. She had a 
 daughter and granddaughter, with whom she lived. They be- 
 naved badly to her, and Mr. Sinclair took her beneath his pro- 
 lection. " Once," he says, " I raised some money to pay her 
 rent, and was putting it into her hand, when she stopped me, 
 saying, ' Keep it till the term day, I know it is safe, and if my 
 daughter and granddaughter knew I had such a pile of money 
 I couldna keep it from them. ' ' 
 
 Among his friends in those days in Edinburgh, the arch- 
 deacon numbered an old lady, Mrs. Irving, ninety-eight years 
 of age, and very proud of her longevity. " I mentioned," he
 
 166 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 says, " the widow Butler to her. Her curiosity was excited, 
 and I arranged that they should have an interview. The next 
 time I called on Mrs. Irving she took me good-humoredly to 
 task, asking in broad Scotch, ' What for did you send that auld 
 woman to take the shine out of me ? ' The old widow But- 
 ler used to say to Mr. Sinclair, " I have been spared far longer 
 than other folk ; but a hundred years, when you look back 
 upon them, are but a span long ; the things lang syne seem to 
 me as if they had only happened yesterday ; it would be ill for 
 us if we had naething but this puir world for our portion." 
 Mr. Sinclair visited her a few hours before her death, when, as 
 he was taking leave, she rose up in bed without assistance, 
 stretched out her thin, wrinkled arms, and in solemn benedic- 
 tion said, " God bless you, you have long been the chief 
 earthly stay of a puir helpless woman that has seen above a 
 hundred years. " She died a few hours after, aged one hun- 
 dred and nine. This is a singular glimpse into a remote and 
 agitated time. Her husband had been a soldier, and out in the 
 great forty-five. She had anecdotes to tell of officers and men 
 of her husband's regiment in the army, whose names were 
 known upon inquiry ; and her stories clothed with life and 
 freshness personalities which otherwise were only names and 
 dust. 
 
 To return to the old Scottish lady of the higher class of 
 Edinburgh society of a departed age, Colonel Fergusson, in his 
 recently published life of the celebrated Henry Erskine, the 
 Lord Advocate of Scotland, calls up a dream of fair women of 
 the old time, which we may, we trust, be permitted to quote. 
 Referring to the old Edinburgh ball-room, Colonel Fergusson 
 says in his delightful volume : 
 
 " But there can be no doubt about the beauty of the fair 
 performers who figured in such scenes as these ; it might be so 
 now if the elite of the Scottish nation were to be found in an 
 Edinburgh ball-room. Such an incident as that recorded as 
 having been frequently witnessed at the period of the West 
 Port balls will never, it is feared, be seen again. Imagine a
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LADY. 167 
 
 procession of eight sedan chairs, each with its couple of liveried 
 bearers, carrying a lady in full ball costume of feathers, sacque, 
 etc., on their way to the Assembly Rooms. These are the 
 seven lovely daughters of Susannah, Countess of Eglintoun 
 herself the loveliest of her daughters who are thus conveyed to 
 the ball-room in broad daylight. Great is the excitement as 
 the procession, emerging from Lady Eglintoun's house in the 
 Canongate, threads its way up the crowded High Street till it 
 reaches the Assembly Rooms hard by the house of the infamous 
 Major Weir, half-way down the steep street leading to the 
 Grassmarket. But a scene still more striking and picturesque 
 was witnessed when these fair ladies returned from the ball 
 with the addition of flaming torches, and to each chair a gen- 
 tleman in attendance, drawn sword in one hand, and hat obse- 
 quiously held in the other, according to custom, to guard the 
 party till they descend at their house in the aristocratic neigh- 
 borhood of Jack's Land. As this goodly caravan wends its 
 way down the slopes of the Canongate, with wealth of cackle 
 and silvery laughter over incidents of the ball, what fitter sub- 
 ject for a last century picture than such a combination or 
 sedans, torches, swords, cocked hats, and full-dressed wigs, 
 with flashes from bright eyes more deadly than from the 
 swords, while from under the outside stairs the aroused swine 
 stare forth in wonder. Susannah, Countess of Eglintoun, had 
 the remarkable distinction of being the only person in Scotland 
 who kissed Dr. Johnson. Her ladyship was vastly pleased 
 with his opinions and genteel conversation. Xature had almost 
 surpassed herself when she turned out this bevy of fair dames. 
 Moreover, from her ample stores she had provided a product 
 a cosmetic which should have the effect of conserving her 
 handiwork in its original loveliness it was sow's milk. With 
 one exception all these ladies made good marriages. This 
 
 same nature delights in contrasts. Erskine, of , in the south 
 
 country, had several hard-favored daughters. After him his 
 comely widow ' enjoyed ' two other husbands, while not one 
 of the girls went off. The scene where the young ladies stand
 
 IBS SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 around busking their buxom mother for her third wedding is a 
 subject for reflection. ' How strange it seems, my dears,' said 
 the bride, ' that I should be married a third time before one of 
 you has been married once/' 'This,' remarks the good old 
 lady who relates the incident, ' is perhaps Scotch wit which 
 usually has a spice of savagery in it. ' " * 
 
 And this chapter shall not close without some verses in which 
 the charming Scottish poet, Dr. Walter Smith, beneath the 
 portrait of Miss Penelope Leith, delineates the oddities and 
 contradictions in the character of the old Scottish lady : 
 
 " Never to her the new day came, 
 
 Or if it came she would not see ; 
 This world of change was still the same 
 
 To our old-world Penelope ; 
 New fashions rose, old fashions went, 
 
 But still she wore the same brocade, 
 "With lace of Valenciennes or Ghent, 
 
 More dainty by her darning made. 
 A little patch upon her face, 
 
 A tinge of color on her cheek, 
 A frost of powder just to grace 
 
 The locks that time began to streak. 
 
 " A stately lady ; to the poor 
 
 Her manner was without reproach ; 
 But from the Causeway she was sure 
 
 To snub the Provost in his coach. 
 In pride of birth she did not seek 
 
 Her scorn of upstarts to conceal, 
 But of a baillie's wife would speak 
 
 As if she bore the fisher's creel. 
 She said it kept them in their place, 
 
 Their fathers were of low degree ; 
 She said the only saving grace 
 
 Of upstarts was humility. 
 
 * " The Honorable Henry Erskine, Lord Advocate of Scotland, 
 with Notices of Certain of his Kinsfolk and of his Time," by Lieut. 
 Colonel Alex. Fergusson. (William Blackwood.)
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH LADY. 169 
 
 " The quaint old Doric still she used, 
 
 And it came kindly from her tongue ; 
 And oft the ' kinsfolk ' she abused, 
 
 Who mincing English said or sung. 
 She took her claret, nothing loth, 
 
 Her snuff that one small nostril curled ; 
 She might rap out a good round oath, 
 
 But would not mince it for the world : 
 And yet the wild word sounded less 
 
 In that Scotch tongue of other days ; 
 'Twas just like her old-fashioned dress, 
 
 And part of her old-fashioned ways. * 
 
 " She loved a bishop or a dean, 
 
 A surplice or a rocket well, 
 At all the Church's feasts was seen, 
 
 And called the kirk, conventicle ; 
 Was civil to the minister, 
 
 But stiff and frigid to his wife, 
 And looked askance, and sniffed at her, 
 
 As if she lived a dubious life. 
 But yet his sick her cellars knew, 
 
 Well stored from Portugal or France, 
 And many a savory soup and stew 
 
 Her gamebags furnished to the manse. 
 
 *' Her politics were of the age 
 
 Of Claverhouse or Bolingbroke ; 
 Still at the Dutchman she would rage, 
 
 And still of gallant Grahame she spoke. 
 She swore 'twas right that Whigs should die 
 
 Psalm snivelling in the wind and rain, 
 Though she would ne'er have harmed a fly 
 
 For buzzing on the window pane. 
 And she had many a plaintive rhyme 
 
 Of noble Charlie and his men ; 
 For her there was no later time, 
 
 All history had ended then. 
 
 " The dear old sinner ! yet she had 
 A kindly human heart, I wot ; 
 And many a sorrow she made glad, 
 And many a tender mercy wrought ;
 
 170 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 And though her way was somewhat odd, 
 
 Yet in her way she feared the Lord, 
 % And thought she best could worship God 
 
 By holding Pharisees abhorred, 
 By being honest, fearless, true, 
 
 And thorough both in word and deed, 
 And by despising what is new, 
 
 And clinging to her old-world creed."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SCOTTISH PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 PROVERBS constitute the great volume of folk-lore in almost 
 all nations ; they are the granite flooring, the underlying strata, 
 upon which rises, and, indeed, out of which is built, the mind 
 of a people. The proverbs of i nation are the great book out 
 of which it is easy to read its character. French or Spanish, 
 Chinese or Hindoo, the idiosyncrasy of a people may be tested 
 by the national proverb. No doubt, as a nation increases in 
 culture, and in what is called the refinement of social manners, 
 the proverb dissolves and dissipates like the ripened poetry of 
 a country, the philosophy of life becomes less axiomatic and 
 proverbial, and more diffuse. It might naturally be supposed 
 that with a people whose national characteristics are so marked, 
 so sharply and distinctly defined as the Scotch, proverbs would 
 form a large department of literature, when efforts were made 
 to gather them up, and group and classify them ; and it is so. 
 This " wit of the one, and wisdom of the many," as the prov- 
 erb has been so admirably defined these gold-headed nails of 
 speech are very abundant, and from time to time men have ap- 
 peared who have put almost the labor of a life into the accumu- 
 lation. After all that has been done in this way, perhaps one of 
 the earliest collections that by James Kelly, M.A. (1721) is, 
 on the whole, the best. Lord Bacon's well-known saying that 
 " the genius, wit, and spirit of a nation are discovered in their 
 proverbs," finds remarkable illustration here. That can 
 scarcely be said now which Kelly remarked in his day : 
 " Among others, the Scots are wonderfully given to their way 
 of speaking, and, as the consequence of that, abound with 
 proverbs, many of which are very expressive, quick, and home
 
 172 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 to the purpose ; and indeed, this humor prevails universally 
 over the whole nation, especially among the better sort of the 
 community, none of whom will discourse you any reasonable 
 time, but he will confirm every assertion and observation with 
 a Scottish proverb." 
 
 There is some difference between those proverbs derived from 
 the Gaelic and the Lowland Scotch ; the first are like the peo- 
 ple, more melancholy, simple, and superstitious. " One dog is 
 the better for seeing another dog hanged" is characteristic. The 
 Scottish proverbs are humorous, shrewd, figurative, rustic, and 
 predatory. "He that cheats me aince (once) shame fa him ; 
 but he that cheats me twice shame fa me," is very national. 
 "Diny down the nests and the rooks will flee awa," gave an 
 edge to the wrath of Covenanters and Cameronians ; indeed, it 
 would be easy to show how Scotland is embodied in her popu- 
 lar sayings. 
 
 And no doubt the love of the proverb lingers still, but it is 
 true that the age of the proverb has passed, or is rapidly pass- 
 ing, when the archaeologists of letters make them a grave mat- 
 ter of study, and seek to collect them into books. Of the col- 
 lections, however, in this way, old friend Kelly's is the best 
 among the old, and Alexander Hislop's seems to us certainly 
 the best among the new. Another collection by Andrew 
 Henderson, with an introduction by William Motherwell, the 
 well-known Scotch poet, while it is usually regarded as very 
 scarce, and fetches many times the price of either of the others, 
 seems to us really far inferior. No doubt its value is greatly 
 derived from William Motherwell's introductory essay, but 
 even that is far below his literary character ; he only tells one 
 story where he ought to have told at least a hundred, but his 
 one story is a droll one. A friend of Motherwell's piqued 
 himself upon his store of proverbial colloquialisms ; he was 
 always ready, upon every occasion and in all conversations, to 
 pour out a broadside of rusty saws or proverbial rhymes ; he 
 was always accumulating and collecting these quaint oddities 
 of ancient wisdom, so that he scarcely ever had a card or piece
 
 SCOTTISH PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 173 
 
 of paper in his pocket upon which some such stray gathering 
 was not written. On one occasion, invited to a large party at 
 the house of a friend, a misunderstanding arose between the 
 proverb collector and another gentleman which ended, as was 
 too frequently the case in that old day, with an irritated and 
 ominous exchange of cards between the two gentlemen, and 
 they parted for the night. The next morning, when he who 
 was wroth with the man of proverbs examined the card for the 
 purpose of learning the address of his antagonist of the preced- 
 ing evening, and desirous of refreshing at once his memory and 
 his irritation, he found nothing belonging either to name or 
 place, only on one side inscribed in good legible characters, 
 "Naething should be done in a hurry but catching fleas." The 
 effect was irresistible, the proverb became a peacemaker. The 
 anger melted into good humor, and instead of one or the other 
 of two valuable lives being sacrificed to a foolish whim, a 
 mutual friendliness was brought about by the intervention of 
 a droll aphorism. 
 
 The old Scottish novelists, and especially the great Sir Wal- 
 ter, abound in the appropriation of proverbs. Scott constantly 
 dovetails proverbs into the homely speech of almost all his 
 humbler characters. That canny Scot, Andrew Fairservice, in 
 " Rob Roy," often illumined the paths of his piety by a prov- 
 erb. " If ye dinna think me fit," said Andrew, in a huff, " to 
 speak like ither folk, gie me my wages and my board wages, 
 and I'll gae back to Glasgow. ' There" 1 s sma sorrow at our 
 pairting, as the auld mare said to the broken carl. ' ' For 
 proverbs, no doubt, as we have already said, find their largest 
 reception and application among the humbler, and those who 
 are spoken of as the unlettered, classes. To them, as has been 
 said by Motherwell, " proverbs are a kind of metaphysical lan- 
 guage which stands as a substitute for philosophical principles. 
 Men of education express their ideas in their own words, per- 
 haps, sometimes, and often in inferior words ; the uneducated 
 man uses those traditional forms which custom and daily use have 
 made familiar to him, and when a remark needs confirmation
 
 174 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 he clenches it by a proverb." Thus, in " Rob Roy," from 
 which we have already quoted, " The Deacon used to say to 
 me, ' Nick young Nick ' his name was Nicol as well as 
 mine, sae folk ca'd us in their daffin ' Young Nick and auld 
 Nick ' ' Nick,' said he, ' never put your arm out farther than 
 ye can draw it easily back again. ' ' And the same moral is 
 conveyed, perhaps, in that other proverb : "JWer let your feet 
 run faster than your shoon." 
 
 Even ordinary idiomatic phrases have something of this char- 
 acter. The designation, "Aye, he's a ne'er-do-weel," and that 
 other, " I canna be fashed" (that is, troubled), as in the story 
 of the old lady who was asked how the old gentleman (her hus- 
 band) was he was ninety-three years of age she replied, 
 " Weel, I can scarcely tell ye, for I am fairly fashed wi' him, 
 for he'll neither leeve nor dee !" Perhaps our readers will see 
 here an illustration of that French relationship to the Scotch, 
 to which we have referred some papers back, and find for the 
 Scottish word " fash" a French parentage in the French verb 
 "fdcher." 
 
 It is not too much to say that the spirit of the proverb seems 
 as if it were essentially inherent in the Scottish character. 
 There are many natural reasons for this. It is a character 
 made up, as Thomas Carlyle says, of strong Saxon stuff, 
 interpenetrated everywhere with the Presbyterian gospel of 
 John Knox : a sense very frequently a kind of grim, sour 
 sense of the infiniteness of the universe has made itself 
 felt even by almost every denizen of the humblest cottage 
 home ; a sense that life is no place for a midsummer's night 
 dream or a May day holiday, but a sphere for earnest labor, 
 and demanding for conquest and overcoming a strong hand and 
 a strong head, a stout will with clear practical shrewdness ; 
 with this has become conjoined in the character, or certainly 
 was so in times not far remote, a really devout and reverential 
 nature, through which thought has been wakened and con- 
 science quickened. A rare sense of humor has received some 
 sombre shades from the universal feeling that human life, as it
 
 SCOTTISH PKOVKIU5IAL PHILOSOPHY. 175 
 
 is God -given, so also it is God-commissioned and commanded, 
 and thus a sense of its mystery and awfulness over-canopies it 
 all. 
 
 We have made the remark before, and perhaps in these 
 papers it is a very palpable and obvious remark to make, that 
 there is an eminent likeness, we have no doubt a real relation- 
 ship to and between the Scottish of course we mean especially 
 the Lowland Scotch and the Danish and Swedish characters, 
 more particularly the Danish. No doubt the Lowland Scot is 
 a branch of the Scandinavian stem. The fine Danish proverbs 
 are very like those of Scotland in their character. Let us take 
 a few : ' ' The Lord will not fail to come though He may not 
 come on horseback ;" " Under white ashes often lie glowing em- 
 bers ;" " You may often feel that heavily on your back which 
 you took lightly on your conscience ;" " ' Peter, Pm taking a 
 ride, J said the goose, when the fox was running into the wood 
 with her ;" " When joy is in the parlor sorrow is in the pas- 
 sage ;" "A headless army fights badly /' ' ' 'He who would make 
 a fool of himself will find a good many people to help him ;" 
 " The foot of the farmer manures the field ;" " He is nearest to 
 God who has fewest wants ;" " He is young enough who has 
 health, and he is rich enough who has no debts." We need not 
 extend our quotations, although we have an affluent supply be- 
 fore us. The spirit of all these Danish proverbs is very like 
 that which we recognize in the Scottish. 
 
 The Scottish character has a strong, terse, idiomatic way of 
 expressing itself. We have referred to Sir Walter's knowledge 
 of Scotch proverbs, and the easy, happy way in which he in- 
 troduces a number of these old-world sayings ; but it is really 
 sometimes difficult without knowledge to discriminate the 
 proverb quoted from the entire speech of which it forms a 
 part ; the same remark applies to the domestic novels of John 
 Gait ; and, not to stay to illustrate this, the proverbial power 
 of the Scotch character is seen in other of its great writers. 
 Many of the words of Burns have become proverbs :
 
 176 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 " The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft a-gley !" 
 " A man's a man for a' that !' ' 
 
 " Oh wad some power the giftie gie us, to see ourselves as ithers see 
 us !" 
 
 " An atheist's laugh 's a poor exchange for Deity offended." 
 " A correspondence fixed with Heaven is sure a noble anchor." 
 
 Burns abounds in such reraemberable proverbial sentences, 
 more or less well known. But from the works of Thomas 
 Carlyle might be gathered, we suppose, a larger collection of 
 genuine proverbs illustrative of the Scottish mind than from 
 any other writer whom we could quote. ''''How long the rotten, 
 will hold together if you do not handle it roughly ;" " To the 
 blind all things are sudden ;" " Whoever is not a hammer must 
 be an anvil ;" " The beggarliest truth is better than the royalist 
 lie;" " Wisdom is folly which is wise only behindhand." The 
 whole style of Carlyle may be said to be made up of thoso 
 winged words, those sharp, short, rememberable sentences we 
 call proverbs, like his definition of democracy, that it means 
 " government by blindman's-buff. " The great famous writers 
 of Scotland thus illustrate in a remarkable manner the pro- 
 verbial philosophy, the condensed wisdom, of the nation. 
 
 Our paper will not be as entertaining as was many a meeting 
 of shepherds among the hills in the old time, where, as the 
 poet Ramsay says, it was the custom to exercise the memory 
 by keeping up a conversation " with these guid auld says that 
 shine with wail'd (choice) sense, and will as long as the world 
 wags." The soul of conversation was sustained and kept alive 
 by old proverbs ; and so, before books became general, it is 
 testified that, not many years ago, it was the common pastime 
 of a winter's night to while the time away by repeating prov- 
 erbs and illustrating them by personal tales and family experi- 
 ences, or illuminating them by suggestive songs and ballads ; 
 this, however, was before the schoolmaster was abroad. But 
 indeed the schoolmaster was abroad then, and his school was 
 by the ingleside. Not unprofitable, we fancy, would it have 
 been to have listened to the sharp sayings in one of those
 
 SCOTTISH PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 177 
 
 Nuctes among the hills, long before the jovial nights of Chris- 
 topher North and the Ettrick Shepherd ; lessons of wisdom 
 quaintly uttered, and derived not from books but from the lone 
 ways among the hillsides and from intercourse with men in 
 daily life ; not, perhaps, that they were all so wise : such, for 
 instance, as that very questionable one, "Do a man a good turn 
 and he'll ne'er forgie you," the proverb which Scott has turned 
 to such powerful use in " The Pirate." " ' Are you mad? ' 
 cried Brice Snailsfoot, ' you that lived sae lang in Zetland to 
 risk the saving of a drowning man ? Wot ye not, if you bring 
 him to life again, he will be sure to do you some capital 
 injury?' " 
 
 No doubt, in the quiet and measured cadence with which 
 these proverbs were uttered, we can often perceive a strong 
 consciousness of the superiority of the Scotch, reminding us of 
 the gardener who, when asked by his master, an English squire, 
 how he liked the English, replied, " Weel, sir, being frae 
 1 uiine, and amang the English, I find nae great faut in them ; 
 but I maun mak this remark, that for ministers, or gardeners, 
 or onything needin' hede (head) wark, ye maun come to us in 
 the North." 
 
 A strong fatalism runs also along many of these proverbs ; 
 the very word " weird," so thoroughly Scotch, has an ominous 
 and mystic tone in it. "A man may woo where he will, but 
 must toed where his weird is ;" " We can a' shape our coat but 
 we canna shape our weird;" "Every man has his weird, and 
 we mun a' dee when our day comes." It is easy to feel some- 
 thing of the tingling sensations which the commentaries and 
 illustrative stories for such proverbs as these would awaken in 
 nights in far remote places, before ghosts had been laid by 
 learned discourses on natural magic, demonology, and witch 
 craft. The greater number of these proverbs, however, are les- 
 sons on the prudent side of life : "They mun hunger in frost 
 that winna wark in sunshine;" "An idle brain's the devil's 
 workshop ;" "All the speed's not in the spurs ;" "A wee house 
 has a wide mouth;" "The feathers carried away the flesh."
 
 178 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 Of course we have plenty of humor among these proverbs, and 
 when there was more disposition for business than devotion it 
 was somewhat grimly expressed by that one, "/ wad rather be 
 your Bible than your horse ;" and the disposition to serve the 
 two masters was satirized in that " 'It's always weel to be 
 ceevil,' as the auld wifie said when she made a courtesy to the 
 de'il." Unprofitable ministers came in for some of these say- 
 ings. A country farmer would say, after he had listened to 
 the exhortation of a very poor preacher, "Ye've put a loom 
 (empty) spune in my mouth.' 1 '' Of course the dryness of the 
 humor is proverbial. " Three are ahvays good to keep a secret 
 when two are awa' ;" and some have a very odd ring, like '''The 
 clartier (dirtier) the cosier," that is, the more comfortable. 
 We may believe that Scotland has reformed this altogether. 
 
 Not the least interesting are those proverbs which refer to 
 that awful person, the Devil, and they are usually very sugges- 
 tive. We find a number of them : "The De'iFs a busy bishop 
 in his diocese ;" "The De'il's journeyman never wants ivork ;" 
 " The De'il's aye (always) gude to his ain ;" " The De'il's ower 
 grit (too familiar) wi' you ;" "The De'il's bairns hae (have) 
 aye (always) their daddy's luck;" "The De'il always drives 
 his pigs to a bad market ;" " The De'il gaes (goes) aioay when 
 he finds the door stecket (shut) against him ;" "If ye follow the 
 De'il ye'll even gang to the De'il." A questionable pleasure or 
 adornment is ridiculed in that proverb, " ' They're curly and 
 they're crookit,' as the De'il said to his horns;" or, in that 
 other, " 'Are they not a bonny pair ? ' as the De'il said to his 
 hoofs." One would suppose that with all the alleged Scottish 
 love for litigation, there was a furtive suspicion of lawyers 
 from that proverb, " ' Hame is hamely,' as the De'il said when 
 he found himself in the laio court." 
 
 Many others were not quite so unexceptionable as those we 
 have quoted, against which, we should think, the most fastidi- 
 ous taste can have nothing to urge either on the score of de- 
 cency or devotion. 
 
 These old fathers, according to their proverbs, believed m
 
 SCOTTISH PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 179 
 
 making the earlier years to bear the yoke and burden of life 
 rather than the later ones "Sharp sense gives a good taste to 
 sweetmeats. 1 " They had a great faith in, as they said, " be- 
 ginning the world at the right end," and there is a story very 
 well known which has passed into a proverb as describing the 
 cause why some came to grief in" life : "He began wV the 
 chuckie" (fowl). It is the story of an old pair who, by dint 
 of thrift and careful saving, had provided for themselves a 
 decent competency and comfort in old age, and they estab- 
 lished their son Tarn in business. He seemed industrious and 
 regular, but behold, in the course of a very little time, it was 
 found that he was doing ill was the victim, as it was said, of 
 ill-luck ; and when a neighbor came to condole with his 
 mother, the old lady said, " Ye see, our Tarn could mak siller 
 enough, but he could never understand that pence mak pounds ; 
 he began the world at the wrang end. Ye see, mem, when 
 the gude man and me began the wurld thegither, we were just 
 as bare as weel could be hardly ae saxpence to rub against 
 anither ; but we contented ourselves wi' a drap parritch and 
 milk i' the morning, a herring and a potato or sae to our din- 
 ner, and our parritch at nicht again. By and by we began to 
 mak a little ; then we had some gude broth and meat at dinner- 
 time, and after that a wee we ventured on a drap tea in the 
 morning. As things got better wi' us, the gude man wad 
 whiles send hame a lamb- leg for our Sunday's dinner, and, 
 odd, mem, before a' was dune, we used sometimes to treat 
 ourselves to a chuckie ; now, ye see, mem, our Tarn took the 
 cl^an contrair way o' going aboot things ; *' he began w'C the 
 chuckie ! ' Hence it has been said of many who, without 
 any apparent cause for their bad success, are unable to get their 
 head above water, " they have begun with the chuckie," 
 
 Some proverbs need a knowledge of localities ; that, for in- 
 stance, spoken of a crowded house, " It's like Craushaw's Kirk 
 there's as mony dogs as folk, and neither room for reel nor 
 rock." Craushaw lies among the Lammermore hills, where 
 shepherds' dogs accompany llicir masters to church, and
 
 180 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 where, as the number of shepherds was considerable, the dogs, 
 perhaps, equalled in number the more rational hearers of the 
 Divine Word. 
 
 And many of the Scottish proverbs, perhaps, like many 
 others, or, indeed, like innumerable words, are a kind of fossil- 
 ized history, and we must 'know the circumstance in order to 
 understand the proverb. Thus, "Who dare bell the cat?" so 
 famous in Scotland, in addition to the fabulous illustration of 
 the Mice and the Cat, has an historical fact attached to it 
 which is well known in Scotland. The Scottish nobles of the 
 time of James III. proposed to meet at Stirling in a body and 
 take Spence, the king's favorite, and hang him. At a prelim- 
 inary consultation Lord Gray said, " That is very well said, but 
 who will dare bell the cat ?" The Earl of Angus undertook 
 the task, accomplished it, and, until his dying day, was called 
 44 Archibald Bell -the-Cat." 
 
 There is a cluster of proverbs to which we have as yet made 
 no reference, which illustrate the spirit of a simple and nature- 
 loving people, such as that in honor of early rising : "ICs better 
 to hear the lark sing than the mouse cheep ;" or, "Gang to bed 
 with the lamb and rise with the laverock;" "They that rise 
 with the sun have begun their work well. 1 " Indeed, many of 
 the proverbs, and among these the oldest, have great beauty, 
 such as "Goodness ne'er grows auld," and, "If a gude man 
 thrive, all thrives with him ;" and that is a pretty one, " The 
 changing of words is the lightening of hearts ;" and "Hue and 
 thyme grow both in the same garden. ' ' Nor ought we to forget 
 what, indeed, has been already implied, that a devout religious 
 spirit runs through many of these household saws, such as 
 " forsake not God till ye can find a better Master." At the 
 same time very wise are the hints as to dealings with human 
 nature : "Gi'e your tongue mair holidays than your head ;" 
 "Meat feeds, cloth clothes, b^tt manners make the man ;" "Truth 
 has a gude face but raggit claes." 
 
 We have often thought that if we were called upon to give 
 the proverb which reflects most completely the Scottish char-
 
 SCOTTISH PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 181 
 
 acter, we should go to that old house in the West Bow in Edin- 
 burgh, if it be still standing, over which was inscribed, "He yt 
 tholis overcummis" "Jfe that tholes," that is, he that 
 endures, " overcomes." It is a fine proverb ; it is not found 
 in all collections, even of Scottish proverbs, but scarcely any 
 could more appropriately represent that steady and indomi- 
 table tenacity of purpose, that power of holding on against 
 odds and difficulties, that power of holding out, and against 
 hope believing in hope, which has done so much, on so many 
 shores and in so many circumstances, to make the Scotchman 
 successful and invincible. It is a fine lesson, too, for every 
 order of life, and especially for youth, the power of enduring, 
 the quality attributed to Moses the tholing, the enduring, " as 
 seeing Him who is invisible ;" the quality enjoined by the old 
 soldier Paul upon the young soldier Timothy the tholing, the 
 enduring " hardness." It seems such an eminent Scottish vir- 
 tue ; and the old lettering on the house to which we refer, 
 when Robert Chambers with difficulty deciphered it, he thought 
 could not be more recent than 1530. The characteristic has 
 descended from an ancient line. And there is another proverb 
 like it, thoroughly Scotch, a cheerful reproof of despair, 
 " When ae door sleeks anither opens" When one door shuts 
 another opens. The whole fleet of life is not lost in one ship 
 The wealth of life is not in one venture is a faithful expos- 
 tulation with an innate disposition to give up and to be down- 
 hearted ; it seems to reason that the very spring which closes 
 one door may touch that which opens another ; and the prov- 
 erb might be illustrated from many a brave life which has gone 
 forth to wrestle with untoward elements from the hardy North- 
 ern land. 
 
 Scottish perseverance has itself become proverbial ; we 
 remember to have met with a story which is said to be con- 
 nected with the foundation of an opulent mercantile house 
 which has flourished for some generations. Saunders, the 
 traveller, entered a shop and inquired for the head of the 
 house ; one of the clerks asked what he wanted ; the answer
 
 182 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 of Saunders was, as usual, a question, " Want ye aught in my 
 line, sir ?" " No," was the prompt reply, accompanied by a 
 look of contempt at the itinerant Scotch merchant. ' ' Will ye 
 no tak' a look o' the gudes, sir ?" was Saunders's next query. 
 " No, not at all ; I have not time. Take them away take 
 them away !" " Ye'll aiblins (perhaps) find them worth your 
 while, and I doubt na but ye'll buy," said Saunders ; and he 
 proceeded to untie and unstrap his burden. " Go away go 
 away !" was reiterated half a dozen times by the clerk, but the 
 persevering Scot still persisted. " Get along, you old Scotch 
 fool !" cried the clerk, completely out of temper. Saunders 
 looked up, and still said, " An' wull ye really no buy aught ? 
 But ye dinna ken ; ye hae na seen the gudes yet." " Get out 
 of the shop, sir !" was the peremptory command ; to which 
 Saunders replied, " Are ye in earnest, friend?" " Yes, cer- 
 tainly," was the answer ; and the reply was succeeded by an 
 unequivocal proof of sincerity, for the clerk seized the bonnet 
 of Saunders, and whirled it into the street. The cool Scotch- 
 man walked gravely and deliberately after his head-gear, picked 
 it up, gave it two or three hearty slaps upon the wall before the 
 door, came back, and said, ' ' Yon was an ill bird, man ; ye'll 
 surely tak' -a look at the gudes noo ?" The master of the 
 establishment had been watching the whole scene, and now he 
 stepped forward, and, moved by some compunction for the 
 treatment the traveller had received, and some admiration, too, 
 for the patience and perseverance of the man, he consented to 
 look over the contents of the pack, found them to be exactly 
 the goods he was in want of, purchased them all, and gave a 
 very large order ; and thus, says Chambers, who tells the story, 
 assisted in the foundation of a large mercantile house. 
 
 But is not this the stuff of which also the Livingstones and 
 the Lawrences are made ? Was not this the spirit which set 
 the brave Sir Walter Scott to work, when sinking into his later 
 years, to overtake his fearful loss of 100,000 ? Is it not a 
 commentary upon that especial proverb which we have said so 
 illustrates the Scottish character, "ffe that tholes overcomes 1 '?
 
 SCOTTISH PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 183 
 
 A volume might be filled with those Scottish proverbs which 
 refer to places, and which, arising in some ancient tradition or 
 circumstance, cannot be appreciated or understood without 
 some knowledge of it ; thus, for instance, He has a conscience 
 is wide as Coldinyham Common, 
 
 Before the year 1703, Coldingham moor, or common, was 
 an extensive or undivided waste of above 6000 acres. It was 
 divided by a decree of the court of session, the 15th January, 
 1773, among those heritors proving thereto. Since that time, 
 several portions of it have been planted and cultivated ; and 
 during the last twenty years or so, several feurs have taken up 
 their residence within its bounds, and there protract an uncom- 
 fortable existence on the scanty crops which it produces ; but 
 the greater portion still is covered with heath, interspersed 
 with bogs and mosses. It is understood that there is still about 
 4000 acres of this common in an uncultivated state. In ancient 
 times, this wide moor constituted part of the forest belonging 
 to the monastery of Coldingham. It was then mostly covered 
 with trees and brushwood the roots of oaks, birch, and hazel, 
 etc., being still frequently found embedded in the soil and the 
 peat-mosses are full of their decayed trunks and branches. 
 This moor has a singularly wild, bleak, and dreary aspect so 
 that in the " Memoirs of Paul Swanston," by Alexander Som- 
 merville, the author very appropriately makes one of his char- 
 acters say, " My heart was as desolate as Coldingham uioor on 
 a misty day" and this naked dreariness, extending several 
 miles in every direction. The proverb is very applicable to 
 those persons of lax principles, who can accommodate their 
 consciences to all circumstances, and which are of a very horny 
 texture, and yet, like elastic gum, can stretch themselves to any 
 extent. The conventional manners of the day, the trade spirit 
 of the times gives a sanction to untruthf ulness, or laxity of con- 
 science, under cover of which, " men reputed for godliness 
 scruple not to take shelter ; promises made with no intention 
 of performing them articles recommended in terms which are 
 meant to produce an exaggerated impression of their value
 
 184 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 equivocations framed with a view to mislead suppressions of 
 known fact, the candid mention of which might alter the mind 
 of a purchaser appearances assumed to impose upon the un- 
 wary tricks resorted to for making things pass for what in re- 
 ality they are not and numberless manoeuvres, in almost every 
 business, practised with the design of placing the seller in a 
 position to the buyer, or vice versa these are looked upon as 
 the piccadilloes of trade, and, to their shame be it spoken, are 
 allowed to constitute part of the daily conduct of men laying 
 claim to a religious character." A trading spirit has a wide 
 conscience. Too many individuals are keen set in practising 
 chicane in their ordinary dealings, and are great adepts in the 
 little dirty tricks of bargain-making. The pride or tact to out- 
 wit a purchaser, and to make what is called a good bargain, or 
 to take the advantage of some unsuspecting person, is almost 
 universal in the world. Fair dealing is a rare jewel among 
 mankind. The horse couper or cow couper spirit is to be found 
 in ten thousand instances, besides those respectable persons 
 who deal in horses or cows. We sometimes expect a better 
 spirit in those especially who get the reputation of " righteous 
 men" but even these can stretch their consciences as wide as 
 Coldinaham Common, and sometimes a good deal wider, for 
 they set no bounds whatever to their rapacity. 
 An old proverbial couplet says : 
 
 " In the town o' Auchencrow, 
 Where the witches bide a'." 
 
 These lines have long constituted a common saying of obloquy 
 or reproach against Auchencrow (usually pronounced Edencraw) 
 and its inhabitants, how much deserving of it we do not pre- 
 tend to say. Auchencrow was a queer place in the days of old, 
 and is supposed to have furnished its quota of witches, or some 
 of those poor unfortunate aged women, whom Home of Ren- 
 ton, Sheriff of Berwickshire, caused to be burned at Colding- 
 ham, for being guilty of the sin of witchcraft. In the session 
 records of Chirnside, we find that, "in May, 1700, Thomas
 
 SCOTTISH PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 185 
 
 Cook, servant in Blackburn, was indicted for scoring ;i woman 
 in Auchencrow above tfie breath (that is, drawing a gash across 
 her brow), in order to the cure of a disease he labored under," 
 which disease he imagined was caused through the witchcraft 
 of the woman. Dr. Henderson, in his " Popular Proverbs of 
 the County of Berwick," says : " We have been credibly in- 
 formed, by an eye-witness of the fact, that the operation of 
 ' scoring aboon the breath ' was inflicted, or attempted to be 
 inflicted, upon the person of an old woman of the name of 
 Margaret Girvan, residing in Auchencrow, so late as the com- 
 mencement of the present century. This atrocious deed was 
 done by a neighboring laird, because he imagined that the poor 
 woman, who was gleaning in his fields at the time, was guilty 
 of raising a wind to shake his corn !" Auchencrow, about the 
 beginning of this century, was a famed seat of learning, Mr. 
 John Strauchan, an eminent Greek and Latin scholar, having 
 his school here, so that Alexander Hewitt, a Berwickshire 
 ploughman, in an address to Mr. Strauchan, says : 
 
 " Where witches used to rant and reel 
 You've rear'd a college." 
 
 In the following local rhyme, an attempt has been made to 
 depict some of the doings of " The Witches o' Edencraw" : 
 
 " In langsyne days, in ancient times, 
 When rang in Britain's Isle King James, 
 Then witches wraught their awfu* crimes 
 
 In mony a house and ha' , 
 'Mang they were foremost, say old rhymes, 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " They play'd wild pranks in bught and fauld, 
 'Round wechts in barns, they danced bauld, 
 In mirksome howes, they reel'd and squall'd, 
 
 And frighten' d great and sum' ; 
 And mony a saul to death they haul'd 
 
 The witches o' Edencraw.
 
 186 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 " Wi' gley'd laird Bour, they met and danc'd, 
 And 'bout the bourtrees nightly pranc'd ; 
 Wi' carl-cats they squeel'd and ranc'd 
 
 'Round the auld Castle wa', 
 And in the dark their wild een glanc'd 
 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " They witch 'd complete laird Bogue's auld mare. 
 That she wad neither gang nor steer, 
 And she came down the loan wi' bere, 
 
 She flung the laird an' a', 
 And they maist made him swarf wi' fear 
 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " As Robin Pae cam hame wi' saut, 
 He saw a hare as gray's 's hat, 
 Rin cross his path, and there he swat, 
 
 For fear he maist did fa' ; 
 For aft was seen like hare or cat 
 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " Poor Tibby Redpath's cow lay dead, 
 And she had nane her cause to plead, 
 The cow was gane without remead, 
 
 The witches did her thraw, 
 And they might hersel' to ruin tread 
 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " The gudewife's butter wadna kirn, 
 The gudewife's milk it wadna yirn ; 
 And troth, they play'd a bonny pirn 
 
 On decent Nelly Shaw, 
 They chang'd her woo' to clatts o' shern 
 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " A' night they plough'd the windy-flat, 
 Wi' thirteen paddocks and a rat 
 Yok' d in a plough old Nick held that, 
 
 Seven warlocks did it ca' ; 
 And on the knowe a' girnin' sat 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " A feast was held in Buncle Kirk, 
 
 Whereat was wrought some fearfu' wark
 
 SCOTTISH PROVKKBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Wi' imps o' ill wha like the dark, 
 
 And spurn the auld gride law ; 
 
 And rndous wives, grim, gaunt, and stark 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 *' Out o' their graves, below the stanes, 
 They houkit skulls wi' grievous granes, 
 And wrought their cantraips owre the banes, 
 
 Mischief 'mang men to saw 
 A wicked crew as ilk man kens 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " Neist day the corn was blawn to labbs, 
 Three boats gaed down right off St. Abbs, 
 And lang and sair, in fitful sabs, 
 
 The wind did furious blaw ; 
 Yet merrilie gaed the spitefu' gabs, 
 
 O' th' witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " John Bonner's house was driven down, 
 Poor John gat out wi' cracked crown ; 
 They hadna power to smoor or drown, 
 
 The honest man ava ; 
 And he got free o' ilka loon 
 
 'Mang witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " Bee Bonner's swarms to cast were sweer, 
 Frae his skeps his queens wad hardly steer ; 
 A' his bees grew drones, best time o' year, 
 
 And hive fought hive wi' ga' ; 
 And they stole and drank his bragwort beer 
 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " They gar'd Meg Laudles hang hersel' 
 
 Frae the kipple-bawks, and gang to h , 
 
 They drown 'd Jean Dewar i* the meadow well, 
 
 At the mirk gloamin's fa' ; 
 And they killed Tom Hood wi' a knockin-mell 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " Bob Durno's loom wad work nae mair ; 
 The bull ran wud o' auld lair Fair, 
 Laird Greenfield's yauds fell down wi' care, 
 When he gaed out to saw ;
 
 188 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 And night and day they fash'd folk sair 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " A big flesh-boat wi' feathers fu', 
 Stood by the side of Kigan's mow, 
 To it they Rigan haul'd and drew 
 
 Headforemost, 'gainst a' law ; 
 And conp'd him in like a fat sow 
 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " He had nae breath to squeel or roar 
 Some wicked randies ranc'd the door, 
 They guddled him till he a' was gore, 
 
 And left him wi' a flaw 
 
 But the vile hags will ne' er sae glore 
 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " As cooper Tom ae night when late, 
 Gaed owre the myre for howdie Kate, 
 Aff 's naig he fell, and lost the gate, 
 
 And deils and ghaists he saw, 
 And they gar'd him maist lose his mate 
 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " On auld broom-besoms, and ragweed naigs, 
 They flew owre burns, hills, and craigs, 
 To spread their devilry and plagues, 
 
 And make this life a staw ; 
 And play'd on rich and poor their flegs 
 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " Some o' thae hags they burn'd to dead, 
 High up on Sheilup-dikes knowe-haad, 
 And some aboon the breatk did bleed, 
 
 In yonder reeky raw ; 
 For in a' ill they took the lead 
 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " But at the length some light arose, 
 And scarce a witch durst show her nose, 
 Meg Girvan's days in storm did close 
 
 She was the last o' a'. 
 And ne'er again will be our foes 
 
 The witches o' Edencraw.
 
 SCOTTISH PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. 189 
 
 " Wi' 's Greek and Latin Strauchan came, 
 Thae ill-gien witches a' to tame, 
 And Boag shed light on mony a hame, 
 
 Frae his auld Gramman Ha : 
 But now they're only ken'd in raeme 
 
 The witches o' Edencraw. 
 
 " And now, on earth nae witch surpasses, 
 Siller, drink, and bonny lasses, 
 Thae witch wise men and silly asses, 
 
 To mony a fatal fa' ; 
 And bring on us far waur distresses 
 
 Than the witches o' Edencraw."
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH SABBATH. 
 
 MANY severe things have been said concerning the old Scot- 
 tish Sabbath, and many stories told in profane ridicule of the 
 Scotch idea of the Day of Rest ; but the reader may find from 
 some pens, and in some places where he would not expect such 
 words, commendations, all tending to show that the rest of the 
 day has woven itself tenderly into the hearts of the people. 
 Shall we give Christopher North, or the Ettrick Shepherd, the 
 credit of the words in the " Noctes" ? 
 
 " A day set apart from secular concerns, and, as far as may 
 be, from the secular feelings that cling to them, even in 
 thought, has a prodigious power, sirs, ower a' that is divine in 
 our human. It is as if the sun rose more solemnly, yet not 
 less sweetly, on the Sabbath morning, and a profounder still- 
 ness pervaded not the earth only, but also the sky. The mair 
 Christian the people, the mair Christian the Sabbath ; there- 
 fore, let the Sabbath be kept holy, as I believe it to be in Scot- 
 land, and then the blessing of God will be upon her ; and as 
 she is good, so shall she wax great." 
 
 Dr. Guthrie hits the truth of the Scottish Sabbath when he 
 says, " Our ancestors might be too scrupulous, but whatever 
 they were, they were not fools. I don't say they did not fall 
 into even glaring inconsistencies." And then he mentions 
 how, on first going to Ross-shire to visit and preach for his 
 friend, Mr. Garment, of Ross Keen, he asked him on the Sat- 
 urday evening before retiring to rest whether he " could get 
 warm water in the morning," whereupon his host held up a 
 warning hand, saying, " Whist ! whist !" adding, with a
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH SABBATH. 191 
 
 twinkle in his eye, " Speak of shaving on the Lord's day in 
 Ross-shire, and you need never preach here any more. ' ' 
 
 Dr. Strang, in his " Clubs of Glasgow," gives an extract 
 from the journal of Mr. George Brown, who was educated in 
 the Glasgow University, was some time on the town council, 
 and several times Dean of Guild. The following extract gives 
 a picture of the manner in which Sunday was spent in Glas- 
 gow in those days : 
 
 " Sabbath-day, Nov. 10th, 1745. Rose about seven in the 
 morning ; called on the Lord by prayer ; read the 9th chapter 
 of Job, then attended to family worship, and again prayed to 
 the Lord for His gracious presence to be with me through the 
 whole of the day, and went to church at ten of the clock ; 
 joined in public prayers and praises in the assembly of His 
 saints ; heard the 17th chapter of Revelation lectured upon, 
 and sermon from the 81st Psalm, 13th and 14th verses. In 
 the interval of public service I thought on what I had heard, 
 and wrote down some of the heads of it ; went again to the 
 house of the Lord, and heard sermon from the same text ; 
 came home and retired, and thought on the sermon. About 
 five at night joined in family worship, and afterward supped, 
 then retired again and wrote down some things I had been 
 hearing ; then read the 9th chapter of Romans and prayed ; 
 after this I joined in social worship a second time, and went 
 to keep the public guard of the city at ten o'clock at night." 
 
 Such was probably many a Sabbath in Glasgow in the old 
 time. Sir Kenneth Mackenzie directed the attention of Dr. 
 Guthrie to a servant-girl who astonished her master by refusing 
 to feed the cows on the Sabbath. She was willing to milk 
 them, but would by no means feed them ; and her reasoning 
 as to acts of necessity and mercy was finely casuistical. ' The 
 cows," she said, " canna milk themselves, so to milk them is 
 a clear work of necessity and mercy ; but let them out to the 
 fields and they'll feed themselves." 
 
 Very odd and very severe are some of the extracts which Dr. 
 Strang gives in his " Clubs of Glasgow ;" and we find similar
 
 SCOTTISH CHAKACTEKISTICS. 
 
 extracts in the " History of Glasgow" referring to the observ- 
 ance of the Sabbath, especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries. " In 1600 the session ordains the deacons of the 
 crafts to cause search for the absents from the kirks in their 
 crafts of all the freemen ; the one half of the fine to so to the 
 
 D 
 
 kirk and the other to the craft." The same year searchers are 
 directed to pass, on the Sabbath, into all houses to apprehend 
 absents from the kirk. In 1642 we find an entry that the ses- 
 sion directs the magistrates and ministers to go through the 
 streets on the. Sabbath nights to search for persons who absent 
 themselves from kirks, " the town officers to go through with 
 the searchers ;" and in 1691, " Those who wander on the Sab- 
 bath or stand before the door will be called before the session." 
 
 We read of a Mr. Andrew Taylor, a good teacher, but who, 
 in his declining years, became rather too fond of social excite- 
 ment. He usually dined out on Saturday, and rarely found his 
 way home by a very direct route. One such Saturday, going 
 to bed well refreshed, he awoke in a hurry in the morning on 
 hearing the clock strike, and forgetting the day of the week, 
 rang his bell violently, and upon his servant coming to the 
 door, he cried, ''Jenny ! Jenny ! bring shaving water as fast 
 as possible. What will the boys say, and me no at the 
 schule?" "Oh, Maister Taylor," said the girl, "it's the 
 Saubath-day. " " The Saubath-day !" quoth the dominie ; 
 "glorious institution the Saubath, Jenny," and forthwith 
 turned himself round for another snooze. 
 
 There is a story told by Mr. Kennedy in his work, " The 
 Days of our Fathers in Ross-shire," of a worthy called the 
 " Penny Smith," and how he reprimanded the sheriff for tak- 
 ing a walk on the Sabbath evening. Meeting the sheriff in his 
 Sabbath evening walk, " Law-makers should not be law- 
 breakers," said the smith to him, as he looked him boldly in 
 the face. " My health requires that I should take a walk, 
 Kenneth," said the sheriff, by way of excuse. " Keep you 
 God's commandment, and you can trust Him with the keeping 
 of your health," was the smith's reply. " Accursed must be
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH SABBATH. 193 
 
 the health that is preserved by trampling on the law of God. ' ' 
 And, indeed, we read that Mr. Blackburn, the grandfather of 
 the present Laird of Kilearn, having been taken into custody 
 for walking on the Glasgow Green on the Sunday, brought an 
 action against the magistrates for unwarranted exercise of 
 authority, and carried his suit to the Court of Session, who at 
 once decided against the attempt to prevent walking on the 
 Sunday either in the streets or on the green. 
 
 But the Scottish Sabbath among the hills, in the lonely 
 glens, and solitary kirkyards, among the moors the Scottish 
 Communion Sabbath, when, from far and near, the worshippers 
 and the communicants come how many pens have most 
 sweetly described the scene ! By those who know very little 
 of the spirit of such services and scenes, Burns' s " Holy Fair" 
 has been quoted as an authority ; but it may be sufficient to 
 remember how different is the impression conveyed in that 
 truly elevated and sacred poem, " The Cotter's Saturday 
 Night." 
 
 The Sacrament was generally administered, did the weather 
 at all permit, in the open air. When the venerable and holy 
 Alexander Waugh drew near to the close of his life, all his 
 young enthusiasm revived if any member of his family recalled 
 to his memory the Communion Sabbaths of his early days on 
 Stitchell Brae. Lockhart, whose pen we might suppose not 
 inclined to especially favorable words concerning the religious 
 habits of Scotland, rises to warm enthusiasm as he remembers 
 to describe the Scottish Sabbath and the Scottish Sacrament. 
 Let the reader, for instance, think of some rustic amphitheatre 
 filled by a mighty congregation ; on the top and brink of the 
 ravine the carriages of the ancient gentry ; the horses taken 
 away ; the ancient ladies of the neighborhood sitting in the 
 carriages ; the younger ladies sitting on the turf immediately 
 below them ; the old people gathered mostly together, the old 
 women dressed in their clean white " mutches, " with black 
 ribbon bound round their heads ; some of the more gently 
 born would have some of the relics of the family of the old
 
 194 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 days, such as a black silk scarf, or an old silver brooch, adorn- 
 ments taken out of the old family kist. What thankfulness was 
 expressed if the day was fine. 
 
 No pen has described more tenderly the Sacramental Sabbath 
 of Scotland than that of Principal Shairp, in his " Kilmahoe. " 
 His lines are as graphic as the pictures of Tiedeman, the great 
 painter of the Swedish Sabbaths, which greatly resemble the 
 Scotch : 
 
 " Lull'd the sea this Sabbath morning, 
 
 Calm the golden-misted glens, 
 And the white clouds upward passing 
 
 Leave unveil' d the azure Bens, 
 Altars pure to lift to heaven 
 
 Human hearts' unheard amens. 
 
 " And the folk are flowing, flowing, 
 
 Both from near and far, enticed 
 By old wont and reverent feeling, 
 
 Here to keep the hallowed tryst, 
 This calm Sacramental Sabbath, 
 
 Far among the hills with Christ. 
 
 " Dwellers on this side the country 
 
 Take the shore-road, near their doors, 
 
 Poor blue-coated fishers, plaided 
 Crofters from the glens and moors ; 
 
 Fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters, 
 Hither trooping, threes and fours. 
 
 " You might see on old white horses 
 
 Aged farmers slowly ride, 
 With their wives behind them seated, 
 
 And the collie by their side ; 
 While the young folk follow after, 
 
 Son and daughter, groom and bride. 
 
 " There a boat or two is coming 
 
 From lone isle or headland o'er ; 
 
 Many more, each following other, 
 Slowly pull along the shore, 
 
 Fore and aft to gunwale freighted 
 With the old, the weak, the poor."
 
 TUB OLD SCOTTISH SABBATH. 195 
 
 The old bell which had rung over the silent fields ceased its 
 tolling, and then the service went on. " Such prayers ! such 
 sermons !" said old Alexander Waugh ; " none such to be 
 heard nowadays ! It was a scene on which God's eye might 
 love to look. What are your cathedrals, your choirs, your 
 organs ? God laid the foundations of our temple on the pillars 
 of the earth ; our floor was nature's verdant carpet ; our 
 canopy was the vaulted sky, the heaven in which the Creator 
 dwells ; nature in all the luxuriance of loveliness the lowing 
 herds, the flowers and green fields offering their perfume ; and, 
 lovelier still, and infinitely dearor to God, multitudes of 
 redeemed souls, and hearts purified by faith, singing His 
 praises in grave, sweet melodies." The old tune, " Martyrs," 
 was usually the last psalm sung in the service of the holy day. 
 It is a great favorite over the whole of the west of Scotland, 
 and was so among the ancient Covenanters ; its very name is 
 derived from the fact that it was often sung by them on the 
 way to death, as the old verse says : 
 
 " This is the tune the martyrs sang, 
 When they, condemned to die, 
 Did stand all at the gallows tree, 
 Their God to glorify." 
 
 That antique melody had a wonderful charm as it fell over 
 the darkening fields ; there is a breath of sober-enduring hero- 
 ism in its melancholy accents ; its murmurs fall like evening 
 dews, and it seems to breathe of the communion of saints ; it 
 lias a kind of sunset glow in its chords, and seems to connect 
 the living and the dead, those who sit upon the grassy tombs 
 with those who sleep beneath. And, indeed, the^e services are 
 derived, in the form we have described, from the old Cove 
 nanter days, when the best of the nation had to worship God 
 in the open air ; when, not for conveniency but of necessity, 
 the psalm ' in the wilderness must perforce mingle with the 
 bleating of sheep, the wail of the plover, and the cry of the 
 distant eagle ; with the musical thunder of the cataracts, and
 
 196 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 the gentle plash of the stream ; when the voice of the preacher 
 was heard under the blue dome of the sky overhead, in some 
 sequestered glen, or on the wild, dark moor ; or, sometimes, 
 where such accessories as we have mentioned were wanting, in 
 some lonely cave, in the neighborhood of the ever-sounding 
 sea, moaning hoarse and bodeful but 
 
 " Where, as to shame the temple deck't, 
 By skill of earthly architect, 
 Nature herself, it seem'd, would raise 
 A minister to her Maker' s praise ! 
 Not of a theme less solemn tells 
 That mighty surge, that ebbs and swells ; 
 There Nature's voice might seem to say, 
 ' Well hast thou done, frail child of clay ! 
 Thy humble powers that stately shrine 
 Task'd high and hard but witness mine.' " 
 
 Such meetings were often watched, waited for, and inter- 
 rupted by the dragoons of Claverhouse and Dalziel, and it often 
 happened that the worshippers in such circumstances sang 
 
 ' ' Their last song to the God of Salvation, 
 While the melody died, midst derision and laughter, 
 As the hosts of th' ungodly rushed on to the slaughter ;" 
 
 and then the chariot of fire descended through the dark cloud 
 to bear the faithful martyr to the martyr's crown and kingdom 
 of glory. 
 
 Such memories no doubt often fell over the minds and hearts 
 of Scottish worshippers on their Communion Sabbath evenings, 
 amid their pastoral valleys, in more peaceful times. This tune 
 of " Martyrs," to which we have referred, has been carried 
 into remote wildernesses, wherever the Scottish emigrant has 
 travelled. Thomas Pringle, in his narrative of a residence in 
 South Africa, describes thus, in touching language, a Sabbath 
 in the African desert : 
 
 " The day was bright and still, and the voice of psalms rose 
 with a sweet and touching solemnity among those wild moun-
 
 THE OLD SCOTTISH SABBATH. 197 
 
 tains, where the praise of the true God had never in all human 
 probability been sung before. The words of the hymn were 
 appropriate to our situation, and affected some of our congre- 
 gation very sensibly. 
 
 ' Oh, God of Bethel ! by whose hand 
 Thy people still are fed.' 
 
 (These are words which are seldom sung in Scotland to any 
 other tune than Martyrs.) We then read some of the most 
 suitable portions of the English Liturgy, which we considered 
 preferable to any extempore service that could be substituted 
 on this occasion. We read an excellent discourse, by the Rev. 
 Dr. Pringle, of Perth, and had a similar service in the after- 
 noon, and agreed to maintain in this manner the worship of 
 God in our infant settlement. While we were singing our last 
 psalm in the afternoon, an antelope, which appeared to have 
 wandered down the valley without observing us, stood for a 
 little while on the opposite side of the rivulet, gazing at us in 
 innocent amazement, as if unacquainted with man, the great 
 destroyer. On this day of peace it was of course permitted to 
 depart unmolested." Thus, whatever sarcasms some may 
 choose to indulge concerning the Scottish Sabbath, it is sur- 
 rounded with lights of exquisite beauty, and we venture to be- 
 lieve that neither in Scotland nor elsewhere do the happiness, 
 the honor, or the prosperity of a people increase as the sanctity 
 of the day declines. Although we may afford a smile at the 
 story Professor Blackie tells in his " Altarona," of the grave 
 old man walking to the kirk with a young companion, who 
 when the latter dared to remark on the loveliness of the Sab- 
 bath morning, "It is a beautiful day this ;" replied, " Yes, 
 indeed, young man, it is a very beautiful day ; but is this a 
 day to be talking about days I"
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 
 
 WE are not certain whether we could find now in Scotland 
 all the characteristics which we have attempted to delineate in 
 this small volume. Scotland has not escaped the transitions 
 and innovations so remarkable in our times. We sometimes 
 wonder whether the Scottish peasantry is now, what it was ad- 
 mitted universally to be once, the finest and noblest in the 
 world. The peasant so tenderly described by Mr. Cromek in 
 his " Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song," in which he 
 writes : " There is not perhaps a more impressive scene than a 
 Scottish Sabbath morn presents ; when the wind is low, the 
 summer's sun newly risen, and all the flocks at browse by the 
 waters and by the woods. How glorious then to listen to the 
 holy murmur of retired pr;:yer, and the distant chant of the 
 cotterman's psalm spreading from hamlet and village." Or, 
 in the language of Thomas Aird, one of Scotland's sweetest 
 poets : " To see the old men on a bright evening of the still 
 Sabbath, sitting in their southern gardens on the low beds of 
 chamomile, with the Bible in their hands, their old eyes filled 
 with mild seriousness, blent with the sunlight of the sweet 
 summer -tide, is one of the most pleasing pictures of human 
 life." This cottage peace, and solemn reverence of young and 
 old, is perhaps very much a story of the past. But it was, we 
 believe, from scenes and characteristics like these it came about 
 that, perhaps, no country in the world, in proportion to its 
 size, has produced so many eminent men from the tumble 
 ranks of life men who, from the most adverse circumstances, 
 have forced their way to fame ; the sons of shepherds and of 
 weavers, lowly born and sternly reared, becoming great lawyers
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 199 
 
 and great linguists, great poets, great orators in the pulpit, and 
 leaders of metaphysical thought. 
 
 Perhaps the course of these pages, which we are now bring- 
 ing to a close, will a little vindicate us from the charge in the 
 " Noctes Ambrosianae, " that Englishmen are prone as a people 
 to underrate the national virtues of Scotchmen. On the other 
 hand, the same page of the same work declares that, manifold 
 as are the excellences of the Scottish character, there is a ten- 
 dency, in the English mind or imagination, enormously to 
 magnify them ; but we have presented no such exaggerations. 
 We have seen that Scotland a land considered naturally poor 
 is so wealthy that you may hear the cattle lowing on a thou- 
 sand hills, while the river-fed glens are rich with the noblest of 
 crops, The scenery, too, is of the noblest on the earth, and, 
 perhaps, better fitted, than any we can easily reach, to stir and 
 to satisfy the heart of the pedestrian. The vast and houseless 
 moors are more cheerful than cities ; the hill country is alive 
 with the voice of streams, and magnificent armies of mists 
 trooping 1 to and fro among the glens, and rolling in silence far 
 more sublime than the tramp of horses or the rush of chariots ; 
 such scenes give perpetual variety to the heath- covered moun- 
 tains of this lovely land. 
 
 The grandeur and moral sublimity of any country may be 
 estimated by its power to produce upon the mind permanent 
 impressions, and this is eminently the case with Scotland ; 
 mountains and floods, mists and roaring torrents, silver lakes 
 and precipitous crags, the unceasing dash of the ocean beating 
 on the hard rocks all such things become the occasions of in- 
 tellectual and moral power, and they act on the hearts and 
 minds of those capable of interpreting such sublime phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 Scotland appears in a remarkable manner to illustrate the 
 interdependence of moral and physical geography ; its climate 
 and its physical features have, no doubt, very materially helped 
 to mould the character of its people. 
 
 Burt, in his " Letters from the North of Scotland " (1754),
 
 200 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 one of the earliest works descriptive of this country, tells the 
 story of an officer finding a laird at one of the public huts in 
 the Highlands, and, both going the same way, they agreed to 
 keep each other company for the rest of the journey. After 
 they had ridden about four miles, the laird turned round, and 
 said, " Now, all the ground we have hitherto gone over is my 
 own property." " Say you so ?" says the other ; " I tell you 
 the truth ; I have an apple-tree in Herefordshire that I would 
 not swop with you for the whole of it." 
 
 This may appear to give but a grim account of the country ; 
 but perhaps it speaks of that hard strength of the strata which 
 sustains a character equally expert, it has been said, in con- 
 structing systems of mental science and philosophy, and good 
 bowls of whiskey punch. The characteristics of Scottish 
 national scenery seem to be very closely blended with reminis- 
 cences which all tend to illustrate, and to bring out into a 
 strong light, the mind, and moral qualities of the people. 
 Perhaps the effect of natural objects in a northern, or moun- 
 tainous region, is greater when associated with objects of 
 national history. Wordsworth truly says, 
 
 "The tales 
 
 Of persecution and the Covenant, 
 Their echo rings through Scotland to this hour." 
 
 Those persecutions were not mere things of a day, but con- 
 tinued through at least three generations, and their memory has 
 been emblazoned by the pens of Scott, Gait, Hogg, Wilson, 
 Grahame, Pollock, and Moir, and the pencils of Wilkie, Harvey, 
 Duncan, and a crowd besides. The pious Scotchman comes to 
 holy ground as he wanders among the wild moors and solitudes 
 of his land. Here was the cavern, where the crystal water 
 bubbles up, where the Covenanter's infant was baptized. Be- 
 neath this little knoll the aged elder was gathered to his final 
 rest, and in this narrow vale the children and disciples of the 
 Covenant met, in fear and trembling, to remember the death of
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 201 
 
 the Saviour, or to rejoice over some great deliverance, singing, 
 as in the fine words of Delta : 
 
 " We have no hearths ; the ashes lie 
 
 In blackness where they brightly shone , 
 We have no homes the desert sky 
 
 Our covering, earth our couch alone ; 
 We have no heritage depnven 
 
 Of these, we ask not such on earth. 
 Our hearts are sealed, we seek in heaven 
 
 For heritage, and home, and hearth. 
 Let thunders crash, let torrents shower, 
 
 Let whirlwinds churn the howling sea ; 
 What is the turmoil of an hour 
 
 To an eternal calm with Thee !" 
 
 Hence, what a fascinating charm gathers round the Bass Rock, 
 as it looms, a lone island, out of the sea near Edinburgh, with 
 its martyr graves. But patriotic memories and associations of 
 Scotland equal its religious. Here you come upon a glen 
 which sheltered William Wallace from his foes, and there some 
 hut or rude cavern which gave an asylum to the outlawed 
 Bruce. Even the translucent Esk, and the caverned Hawthorn- 
 den, hold the charm not merely of the old oak and birchen 
 forests which fringe their beauties, but of the venerable names 
 we have just mentioned. Hence it was that the phlegmatic 
 Dr. Johnson, notwithstanding all his foolish prejudices against 
 Scotchmen, was compelled to yield to the moral inspiration of 
 the home of St. Coluraba ; while Sir Walter Scott not only 
 received the permanent impressions of the wonderful country 
 whose wild and varied legends seemed to respond to, and to 
 interpret, the majestic glories of the 
 
 " Land of brown heath, and shaggy wood, 
 Land of the mountain, fell, and flood, " 
 
 but fixed his impressions in his immortal and Homeric descrip- 
 tions. Well may Scotland be proud ; she has given never- 
 dying names to intellectual science ; she has given historians
 
 202 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 who have written the immortal histories of continents, and phi- 
 losophers who have successfully speculated on the universal 
 nature of man. She has given some of the children of sweetest, 
 song, embodying, in most wonderful verse, the most obscure 
 and the most fascinating traditions ; while it has been said that 
 Adam Smith did not so much create an era in political science 
 as political science itself ; but great as are the merits of the 
 " Wealth of Nations," the " Cotter's Saturday Night" of the 
 ploughboy poet will probably outlive that great political work, 
 and speak to the heart of man in all stages of its development. 
 It is true the Scotchman is pugnacious very pugnacious ; 
 he has been nursed in storms, both physically and morally ; his 
 life has been usually, for many ages, a life of hard discipline. 
 Hence feats of daring became the end of existence. The story 
 of the country is a history of stirring events, in which tempest- 
 uous passions had free scope. Indeed, the history of Scotland 
 does by no means produce a pleasing impression on the mind ; 
 it is full of romance and adventure, but there is very little in it 
 that looks generous ; it is too much like the story of the con- 
 flict of clans, and every clan had an Indian's scent for the blood 
 of its neighbor. Something of the same stern characteristics 
 abide, and give, as has often been remarked, a passion for 
 wrangling, a dogged tenaciousness of opinion, a proneness to 
 use uncomfortable epithets, and an inability to distinguish be- 
 tween the substance and the shadow. The quaint and even 
 mistaken use of language has been illustrated in many particu- 
 lars, as where the maid describes the exacting and economical 
 ways of her ' mistress. "She's vicious upo' the wark ; but, 
 eh ! she's vary mysterious o' the victualling." We have 
 referred to the story of an Aberdonian, one Bannerman, of a 
 matter-of-fact disposition, who, when some one remarked, 
 " It's a fine day," dryly responded, " Fa's findin' faut wi' the 
 day? Ye wad pick a quarrel wi' a steen wa !" The Quar- 
 terly Review remarks on this that " Punch" translates it, " Do 
 you want to hargue, you beggar?" but cites the story of an 
 Aberdonian sand-cadger, who, instead of uttering his cry of
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 203 
 
 " Buy dry san' !" as he drove his cart through the streets, 
 shouted, in a peevish tone, " Ye wunna buy san' the day ; na, 
 ye wunna !" 
 
 It has been said that the persistent use of barbarous epithets 
 in legal language illustrates the dogged obstinacy of the Scot- 
 tish character. Thus, having occasion to look through some 
 ecclesiastical proceedings in the Scottish courts, we found such 
 verbiage as the following plentifully sprinkled : " Should be" 
 sisted (Anglice, stopped or summoned) " as parties ;" " any 
 part of the sederunt ;" " present when the deliverance was pro- 
 nounced ;" " were astricted to obey ;" " they implemented the 
 veto law ;" " when the call was moderated in," etc., etc. 
 
 George Outram, an Advocate of the Scottish Bar, wrote a 
 number of pieces, which have been called Legal Lyrics. 
 Although much talked of, they are but little known. These 
 are intended to satirize many of the prevalent legal but occult 
 observances, as well as the mysterious language, of the Scottish 
 Bar. "The Process of Augmentation," and " Soumin and 
 Roumin," and " The Multiplepoinding, " and " The Annuity" 
 are all pieces of rich humor, so also " The Law of Lien." 
 
 " If ye've been up ayont Dundee, 
 Ye maun hae heard abont the plea 
 That's rais'd by Sandy Grant's trustee, 
 For the mill that belanged to Sandy. 
 For Sandy lent the man his mill, 
 An' the mill that was lent was Sandy' s mill, 
 An' the man got the len' o' Sandy's mill, 
 An' the mill it belanged to Sandy. 
 
 " A' sense o' sin an' shame is gone, 
 They're claiming now a lien on 
 The mill that belanged to Sandy. 
 But Sandy lent the man his mill, 
 An' the mill that was lent was Sandy's mill, 
 An' the man got the len' o' Sandy's mill, 
 An' the mill it belanged to Sandy." 
 
 We might largely amplify and illustrate here, but we prefer 
 to dwell on some of those features which, as the Scotchman has
 
 204 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 yielded to the influences of culture and civilization, especially 
 when he has felt the amenities of other climes and scenes, have 
 made him so genial a companion, and even so faithful a friend. 
 We have referred to that ease with which he glides into society, 
 and that reticence and power of self-respect which sustains him 
 there. How many anecdotes leap to the memory to show this. 
 We have noticed how the Scot abroad rises in estimation and 
 honor. An interesting story is told by Dr. Rogers of the pri- 
 vate secretary of the late Duke of Wellington. Perhaps it 
 shows the perception and bias of the duke, that upon the death 
 of his duchess he requested the Marquis of Tweeddale to look 
 out for a prudent Scotsman who might become his major 
 domo, or private secretary. Lord Tweeddale, being somewhat 
 reluctant to undertake the task, the duke said to him, " Just 
 select a man of sense, and send him up. I'll take a look at 
 him, and if I don't think he'll suit I'll pay his expenses and 
 send him home." Returning to Tester House, the marquis 
 sent for Mr. Heriot, who rented one of his farms, and asked 
 him whether he would undertake the proposed secretaryship. 
 Mr. Heriot consented to make a trial. Arriving at Apsley 
 House, he was kindly received by the great duke, who ex- 
 plained that, while all private business would terminate at 
 one o'clock, the secretary would afterward be required to 
 entertain visitors. The latter duties seemed formidable, but 
 Mr. Heriot did not seek an explanation. That evening the 
 duke gave a dinner-party. On the guests being ushered into 
 the dining-room, the duke said, " Mr. Heriot, will you take 
 the end of the table ?" Embarrassing as was his position, the 
 new major domo acquitted himself well, evincing on the various 
 topics of conversation, especially on questions of the day, much 
 correct information. Some members of the company described 
 him as an intelligent Scotsman, which entirely concurred with 
 the duke's own sentiments. He was soon in entire possession 
 of his grace's confidence. Walking in the city one day, Mr. 
 Heriot met an old acquaintance from Scotland. " Hello, Her- 
 iot 1" said the friend, " what are you doing in London ?"
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 205 
 
 " I'm private secretary to the Duke of Wellington," answered 
 Heriot. " You be nothing of the sort," said the Scotsman, 
 " and I fear you're doing little good since you would impose 
 upon me in this fashion." Returning to Scotland, it occurred 
 to Heriot's acquaintance that he would write to the duke warn- 
 ing him that one Heriot had been passing himself off as his 
 secretary from Apsley House. He received a reply in these 
 words : " Sir : I am directed by the Duke of Wellington to 
 acknowledge receipt of your letter, and I am your obedient ser- 
 vant, J. Heriot, Private Secretary." 
 
 We have not dwelt upon any of the more unamiable charac- 
 teristics of the Scotch nationality. Why should we ? Person- 
 ally, we have only met with here and there a disagreeable 
 Scotchman, although some three of them have wrought upon the 
 writer the greatest mischief he has known in his life. All the 
 Scotchmen with whom we have been intimate have been down- 
 right good fellows, and some of them are now among our most 
 hallowed recollections. But " keeking" through, we can see 
 that a Scot is a man of terrible prejudices ; he is made of stern 
 stuff. Dr. Johnson ought to have loved him, for, usually, he 
 is " a good hater." Dr. Norman Macleod says, " It must be 
 frankly admitted that there is no man more easily offended, 
 more /Ana-skinned, who cherishes longer the memory of an in- 
 sult, or keeps up with more freshness a personal, family, or 
 party feud, than the genuine Highlander. Woe to the man 
 who offends his pride or his vanity ! ' I may forgive, but I 
 cannot forget,' is a favorite saying. He will stand by a friend 
 to the last, but, let a breach be once made, and it is most diffi- 
 cult ever again to repair it as it once was. The grudge is im- 
 mortal. There is no man who can fight and shake hands like 
 the genuine Englishman." 
 
 We have already dwelt at length on some of the characteris- 
 tics of Scottish humor, and have shown that Sidney Smith was 
 certainly very far wrong when he said that " a surgical opera- 
 tion was needed in order to put a joke into a Scotchman's 
 head." Yet there is a feature of Scottish character out of
 
 200 SCOTTISH CHAKACTERlSTiCS. 
 
 which possibly this mistaken verdict grew. Dr. Rogers truly 
 says that the Scottish farmer, though usually shrewd, is not 
 always so ; but we would add to this that there is a kind of 
 greenness a grim unconsciousness- which is often the next 
 best thing to genuine humor. Rogers mentions a Kincardine - 
 shire husbandman, who was expressing to his minister the high 
 opinion he had of his personal virtues, and he wound up his 
 eulogy by saying, " An' I a' ways and specially liket your ster- 
 ling independence, sir ; I hae a' ways said, sir, that ye neither 
 feared God nor man !" On the other hand, the shrewdness is 
 sometimes remarkable. A farmer, the elder of a parish in For- 
 farshire, was suggesting to his recently appointed youthful pas- 
 tor how he should proceed in his parochial visitations. " Now, 
 there's John," he said. " Speak to him on any subject ex- 
 cept ploughing and sowing, for John is sure to remark your 
 deficiency on these, which he perfectly understands ; and if 
 he should detect that you dinna ken about ploughing and sow- 
 ing, he'll no gie ye credit for understanding onything else." 
 
 " It is very sad," said a Scotchman, u it is very sad, indeed, 
 to think on the number of the world's greatest men who have 
 lately been called to their last account. And the fact is," 
 added he, with unction, " I don't feel very well myself." 
 
 In gathering up these sketches, we are reminded of what we 
 have already said of that grim unconsciousness which, some- 
 times, in its ludicrousness, has the effect of humor. Mr. Boyd 
 gives to us the following queer Highland sermon, which he ap- 
 pears to have either heard himself, or a report of which he 
 seems to have received on highly credible authority : 
 
 "Ah, my friends, " exclaimed the preacher, "what causes 
 have we for graatitude, oh yes, for the deepest graati- 
 tude! Look at the place of our habitaation. How grate- 
 ful should we be that we do not leeve in the far north, 
 oh no ! amid the frost and the snaw, and the cauld and 
 the weet, oh no ! where there's a lang day tae half o' the 
 year, oh yes ! and a, lang lang nicht the tither, oh yes ! that 
 we do not depend upon the Aura wry Borcawlis, oh no ! that
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 20? 
 
 we do not gang shivering aboot in skins, oh no ! snokiug ainang 
 the snaw like mowdiwarts, oh no, no ! And how graateful 
 should we be that we do not leeve in the far south, beneath the 
 eqnawter, and the sun aye burnin, burnin, where the sky's het, 
 ah yes ! and the y earth's het, and the water's het, and ye' re 
 burnt black as a smiddy, ah yes ! where there's teegers, oh 
 yes ! and lions, oh yes ! and crocodiles, oh yes ! and fearsome 
 beasts growling and girnin at ye among the woods, where the 
 very air is a fever, like the burnin breath o' a fiery drawgon ; 
 that we do not leeve in these places, oh no, no, no ! no ! But 
 that we leeve in this blessit island of oors, callit Great Britain, 
 oh yes, yes ! and in that pairt of it named Scotland, and in 
 that bit o' auld Scotland that looks up at Ben Nevis, oh yes ! 
 yes ! yes ! where's neither frost nor cauld, nor wund, nor weet, 
 nor hail, nor rain, nor teegars, nor lions, nor burnin suns, nor 
 huncanes, nor ' Here a tremendous blast of wind and rain 
 from Ben Nevis blew in the windows of the kirk, and brought 
 the preacher's eloquence to an abrupt conclusion." But other 
 anecdotes give the preacher the best of the story, like that of 
 the minister of Inverary, who met a cluster of young roughs, 
 and had experienced some incivilities from them. " Good-by, 
 gentlemen," said he, " good- by ; we shall meet again very 
 shortly." " How is that ?" said one of the number. " I am 
 a jail chaplain," replied he. 
 
 It is not only in the odd imagination and humorous fancy of 
 the " modern Pythagorean," Dr. McNeil, that we find the 
 monkey or ape playing a very singular part. Many years 
 since, when the good folk of the old granite city of Aberdeen 
 first thought of venturing their commercial transactions upon an 
 extensive scale, with the fervent hope that they might add to 
 their importance to the extent to which Glasgow had risen by 
 its importation of outlandish luxuries, they fitted out a ship for 
 the far Indies. The voyage was long. Week after week and 
 month after month passed by, and the " boatie" did not 
 return. At last, when hope began almost to expire in the souls 
 of the daring adventurers who had stayed at home, the joyful
 
 208 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 tidings came that the object of their fond fears and anxieties 
 was safely moored, and all was as it should be. The wonder- 
 ful " boatie" which had twice crossed the Atlantic was visited 
 by all the responsible men of the city, including, of course, the 
 provost. The captain Captain Skene, so the story describes 
 him received them, as the owners of his vessel, with the gruff 
 hospitality of a sailor. The ship was full of wonders such as 
 neither the provost nor the bailies had ever seen before. We 
 need not enumerate such things as were far from ordinary then, 
 although common enough now. Meantime, the provost never 
 felt himself so great a man before. He was now on board of 
 a trader which had visited foreign parts, and of which he was 
 undoubtedly the principal owner. He had been the great 
 means of introducing a new trade into his native city, and he 
 was now in the full fruition of these gratifying reflections. He 
 felt elated with a double portion of dignity, and was laying 
 down the law with a relative portion of bis usual solemnity, 
 when he was most indecorously interrupted by a sudden and 
 violent pulling at his pig-tail from behind. He looked round 
 in wrath ; but seeing his assailant was a sickly, weak-looking, 
 dark-complexioned lad, who had skipped off the moment he 
 was observed, and having compassion for his want of breeding, 
 he rebuked him with mildness and dignity, and resumed the 
 thread of his discourse. Scarcely had he done so, however, 
 when the attack was resumed. This was too much to be 
 borne. He forgot in a moment both his age and his place, 
 and exclaimed in peevish frctfulness, " Laddie, but gin you 
 come that gait again, I'll put ye in the heart o' auld Aberdeen" 
 (the jail). "What's the matter wi' ye, provost ?" said the 
 captain. "It is only that unchancy laddie o' yours," replied 
 the provost, " has pu'd my tail as an' he wud tug it oot by the 
 roots." "What laddie, provost?" cried the captain. 
 " Why, that yin there, wi' the rough mouth and the sair 
 een." 
 
 " Laddie ! bless you, provost, that's only a monkey we hae 
 brocht wi' us." " A monkey ca' ye it ?" said the astonished
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 209 
 
 provost ; " I thought it was a sugar-maker' s son frae the West 
 Indies, come hame to our university for his edication." 
 
 Not often to be caught napping is the Scotch humorist. 
 " You have a wide view from these mountains," said an Eng- 
 lishman to a shepherd in some remote district in the heights of 
 Aberdeen. "That's true," said the shepherd. "You can 
 see," said the travellers (there were two), " America from 
 here." " Muckle farrer than that," he replied. " An' how 
 can that be?" "When the mist drives off, ye can seethe 
 mune." 
 
 Shrewdness a grim shrewdness we have noticed as the 
 characteristic of Scotch humor. During the Voluntary con- 
 troversy, Dr. John Ritchie, of the Pollesrow Church, Edin- 
 burgh, was one of the foremost champions on the Voluntary 
 side. At a public meeting held in Dundee, the reverend gen- 
 tleman was descanting on the misrepresentations to which his 
 opponents had subjected him. " They have," he said, 
 " called me everything but a gentleman, everything but a min- 
 ister nay, they have compared me to the devil himself. 
 Now," he proceeded, coming forward to the front of the plat- 
 form, and exhibiting a well-shaped limb, " I ask you if you 
 see any cloven foot there ?" " Tak aff ye' re shoe 11 (shoe), 
 shouted a voice from the gallery. What oratory could stand 
 against that rejoinder ? And we believe, although Sheridan 
 has the credit of the joke, it was a Scotchman who, when told 
 by a remarkably ugly fellow that, unless he altered his ways, 
 he would withdraw his countenance from him, replied, " I am 
 very glad to hear it, for an uglier countenance I never saw in a' 
 my life !" 
 
 Patrick Lord Robertson, one of the senators of the College 
 of Justice, was a great humorist ; he was on terms of intimacy 
 with Mr. Alexander Douglas, W.S., much respected, but, on 
 account of his untidiness, known as " Dirty Douglas." Lord 
 Robertson invited his friend to accompany him to a ball. ' ' I 
 would go," said Mr. Douglas, " but I don't care about my 
 friends knowing that I attend balls." " Why, Douglas," said
 
 210 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 the senator, ' put on a well-brushed coat and a clean shirt, and 
 nobody will know you." 
 
 When at the Bar, Robertson was frequently intrusted with 
 cases by Mr. Douglas. Handing his learned friend a fee in 
 Scottish notes, Mr. Douglas remarked, " These notes, Robert- 
 son, are like myself, getting old." " Yes, they're both old 
 and dirty, Douglas," replied Robertson ; which anecdote 
 reminds us that lawyers, next to ministers, enter most into the 
 humors of the Scottish character. 
 
 On the other hand, a curious absenteeism has often found 
 singular illustrations in these Scottish ana. Henry Erskine 
 used to relate of an eminent scholar, Professor Wilkie, that on 
 one occasion he met one of his former pupils. " I am sorry to 
 hear," said the professor, " my dear boy, you have had fever 
 in your family ? was it you or your brother who died of it ?" 
 " It was me, sir," was the astonishing reply. " Ah, dear me, 
 I thought so ! very sorry for it, very sorry for it ;" but of this 
 trait other instances may meet us further on. 
 
 It has been well said that the Scotch are a peculiar people, 
 but some of their southern neighbors are not very well aware 
 of their peculiarities. " Hard-headed " is a very general des- 
 ignation of their nationality. Harsh and ilnamiable, it is sup- 
 posed that there is only an indurated grain in their temper ; 
 but it is even yet more true that they are shy in displaying the 
 softer part of their nature, and that their peculiar humor is 
 often nothing more than pathos, checked, curbed, and turned 
 aside by a sense of shame at being caught giving way to tender- 
 heartedness. But it would indeed be strange if there were not 
 depths of tenderness in the Scottish character, when we remem- 
 ber the wailing sweetness of the most popular of the national 
 airs, the dirgo, the hymn, the elegy. Musical and poetical 
 genius often meet together in the national lyrics ; passion-in- 
 spired pedestrians in Scotland often come upon some lonesome 
 burial-place among the hills ; the kirk has been removed else- 
 where, but there still beloved dust is deposited. " Enchained 
 in sounds, disappointed, defrauded, or despairing passion,"
 
 NOttTHEKX LIGHTS. 211 
 
 says Professor Wilson, " gave biith to the low, flat tune, sur- 
 charged throughout with one groan-like sigh, acknowledged 
 even by gayest hearts to be indeed the language of incurable 
 grief." No one who knows anything of Scottish music or 
 Scottish poetry can for a moment doubt that there is a fine 
 depth of tenderness in the Scottish character, although it may 
 be hidden like her lakes among stern dark mountain passes, and 
 fringed with forest glooms. 
 
 Which last paragraph, anent Scottish melody and music, 
 reminds us of the Bagpipes. Our volume would indeed be in- 
 complete if we did not refer, and at some length, to that pecul- 
 iarly national instrument. 
 
 Different impressions are usually, we believe, produced- upon 
 the minds of Englishmen and Scotchmen by the bagpipes. 
 Some Englishmen seem to have been able to appreciate their 
 martial melody. It may be supposed that they should be 
 heard amid Highland circumstances and scenery to receive their 
 proper meed of admiration. Lord Byron says of them : 
 
 " How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, 
 Savage and shrill ! But with the breath which fills 
 
 Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers 
 With the fierce native daring which instils 
 
 The stirring memory of a thousand years, 
 
 And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears !" 
 
 But Saint Fond, in his interesting book rare, valuable, and 
 now scarcely known his travels in Scotland (1799), does not 
 convey the idea that he was charmed ; so far from it, the 
 poor man seems to have been very particularly annoyed. It 
 was in Oban ; he had passed a happy day in geological explora- 
 tions. Saint Fond was a French savant ; he knew nothing of 
 the language or of the manners and customs of the people 
 among whom he was travelling ; however, he testifies, " I was 
 happy ; the labors of the day made me enjoy my supper with 
 particular pleasure ; and sleep soon weighing down my eyelids, 
 I hastened to bed. It was hard, but it was in other respects
 
 212 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 good, and fatigue converted it into down ; but there is no per- 
 fect happiness in this world. Will it be believed that a music, 
 new to me, but of a kind shocking to my ear, deprived me of 
 the repose I so much wanted ? I had scarcely time to lie down 
 in bed when an unlucky piper used to come and place himself 
 under my window. At first he waited upon me every evening 
 in the passage of the inn, to regale me with an air ; he after- 
 ward took his station in the front of the house, where he made 
 his noisy instrument resound until eleven o'clock, and I could 
 fall upon no means to prevail upon him to be silent. He 
 thought his music was agreeable to me, and it was his wish to 
 do me a kind of honor, of which I in vain endeavored to con- 
 vince him I was unworthy. 
 
 " On the day of our arrival, this man came under the win- 
 dow of the room into which we were shown ; with a bold 
 countenance, and a martial air, he walked backward and for- 
 ward, stunning us with sounds of the most unharmonious kind. 
 At first we imagined that he was a kind of madman who earned 
 a livelihood by this strange exhibition ; but Patrick Fraser as- 
 sured us, not only that this honest man was in his senses, but 
 that he had the reputation of being an excellent musician of the 
 Highland school ; that his principal intention in playing on his 
 instrument before us was to exhibit his joy at our arrival in a 
 country so seldom visited by foreigners. Affected by this hos- 
 pitable motive, I was prodigal in my applauses on his art, and 
 begged of him to accept some shillings, which he at first 
 refused, and seemed only to receive that he might not displease 
 me. He played always the same air, if I may give that name 
 to a kind of composition unintelligible to foreigners, but which 
 brings to the recollection of the Highlanders events which have 
 the greatest interest to them. The piper had observed that 
 my companions were gone, and he persuaded himself that I 
 remained behind to hear his music. Imagining, therefore, that 
 his concerts would be most agreeable to me in the silence of 
 the night, he continued his serenade under my window to 
 eleven or twelve o'clock. Nothing could induce him to desist.
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 213 
 
 I rose one evening with great impatience ; but not being able 
 to make myself understood by speech, I took him by the hand 
 to lead him to a distance. He returned, however, eagerly to 
 his old place, as one who was determined to dispute a point of 
 politeness, expressing by his gestures that he was not at all 
 fatigued, and that he would play all night to please me ; and 
 he kept his word. Next day I forced him to accept a small 
 present, and made signs to him that I did not wish to hear him 
 any more ; but he was not to be outdone in civility, and that 
 very evening he returned, and made his pipe resound until 
 midnight, playing constantly the same air." 
 
 This, however, was not to be the only occasion in which 
 Saint Fond was called upon to express a very decided sentiment 
 upon the grand national music of the bagpipes. While in 
 Edinburgh, he was on terms of close intimacy and friendship 
 with the great Dr. Adam Smith. " One day Adam Smith 
 asked me whether I loved music. I answered that it formed 
 one of my chief delights whenever I was so fortunate as to hear 
 it well executed. ' I am very glad of it,' said he ; ' I shall put 
 you to a proof which will be very interesting for me ; for I 
 shall take you to hear a kind of music of which it is impossible 
 you can have formed any idea, and it will afford me great 
 pleasure to know the impression it makes upon you.' 
 
 " Next morning at nine o'clock, Smith came to my lodgings. 
 At ten he conducted me to a spacious concert room, plainly 
 but neatly decorated, in which I found a numerous audience. 
 I saw, however, neither orchestra, musicians, nor instruments. 
 A large space was left void in the middle of the room, and sur- 
 rounded with benches, which were occupied by gentlemen 
 only ; ladies and gentlemen were dispersed over the room upon 
 other seats. Adam Smith informed me that the gentlemen who 
 sat in the middle were the judges of the musical competition 
 which was about to take place ; they were almost all, he ob- 
 served, inhabitants of the Isles or Highlands of Scotland, and 
 might therefore be regarded as the natural judges of the con- 
 test. They were to decree a prize to him who should best ex-
 
 214 SCOTTISH CHARACTEKISTICS. 
 
 ecntc a favorite piece of Highland music. The same air was 
 therefore to be played by all competitors. 
 
 " In about half an hour a folding-door opened at the bottom 
 of the room, and to my great surprise I saw a Highlander ad- 
 vance, playing upon the bagpipe. He was dressed in the an- 
 cient Roman habit of his country. He walked up and down 
 the empty space with rapid steps and a martial air, blowing his 
 noisy instrument, the discordant sounds of which were suffi- 
 cient to rend the ear. The tune was a kind of sonata, divided 
 into three parts. Smith requested me to pay my whole atten- 
 tion to the music, and to explain to him afterward the impres- 
 sion it made upon me. 
 
 ' ' But I confess that at first I could not distinguish either air 
 or design in the music. 1 was only struck with the piper 
 marching continually backward and forward with great rapid- 
 ity, and still presenting the same warlike countenance. He 
 made incredible efforts with his body and his fingers to bring 
 into play the different reeds of his instrument, which emitted 
 sounds that were to me almost insupportable. 
 
 ' ' He received, however, great applause. A second musician 
 succeeded, who was also left alone in the intermediate area, 
 which he traversed with the same rapidity as the former. His 
 countenance was no less dignified and martial than that of his 
 predecessor. He appeared to excel the first competitor ; and 
 clapping of hands and cries of ' Bravo ! ' resounded on every 
 side. During the third part of the air I observed that tears 
 flowed from the eyes of a number of the audience. 
 
 " Having listened with much attention to eight pipes in suc- 
 cession, I at last began to discover that the first part of the air 
 was a warlike march ; the second seemed to describe a san- 
 guinary action ; the musician endeavored by a rapid succession 
 of loud and discordant sounds to represent the clashing of arms, 
 the shrieks of the wounded, and all the horrors of a field of 
 battle. In this part the performer appeared convulsed ; his 
 pantomimic gestures resembled those of a man engaged in com- 
 bat. His arms, his hands, his head, his legs, were all in mo-
 
 XORTTTF.RN" LIGHTS. 215 
 
 tion. He called forth all the various sounds of his instrument 
 at the same moment, and his singular disorder made a great 
 impression upon the company. 
 
 " With a rapid transition the piper passed to the third part, 
 which was in a kind of andante. His convulsive motions sud- 
 denly ceased. His countenance assumed an air of deep sor- 
 row. The sounds of his instrument were plaintive, languid, 
 and melancholy. They were lamentations for the slain the 
 wailings of their friends who carried them from the field of 
 battle. This was the part which drew tears from the eyes of 
 the beautiful Scotch ladies." 
 
 The surprised listener regarded this as a very extraordinary 
 entertainment, and began to reason very closely with himself 
 concerning the different impressions produced upon the audi- 
 ence, and the lively emotion excited, as contrasted with what 
 seemed to him to be discordant sounds. He probably rightly 
 described the cause, when he attributed the impressions pro- 
 duced upon those around him to an association of ideas which 
 connected the discordant sounds of the bagpipe with some his- 
 torical facts thus brought forcibly to the recollection of the 
 audience. He goes on to say, somewhat ungraciously, that he 
 admired none of the airs ; they were all equally disagreeable ; 
 " the music and the instrument constantly reminded me of a 
 bear's dance." Afterward he goes on to describe all the com- 
 petitors forming themselves into a line and marching to Edin- 
 burgh Castle, upon which he says, ' ' the union of so many bag- 
 pipes produced a most hideous noise." 
 
 This is perhaps the severest description we remember to have 
 met with of the celebrated national music. Johnson, who 
 grumbled at everything where it was possible to grumble during 
 his tour in Scotland, makes no such uncomplimentary remarks ; 
 he does give us an account of the air which was played while 
 he was sitting at dinner at Sir Alexander Macdonald's in the 
 Isle of Skye. " We were entertained," he says, " with the 
 melody of the bagpipe. Everything in these countries has its 
 history. As the bagpiper was playing, an elderly gentleman in-
 
 216 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 formed us that in some remote time the family of the Macdon- 
 alds had been injured, or offended, or thought themselves so, 
 by the inhabitants of Cullodon, so they resolved to have justice 
 or vengeance, and they came to Cullodon one Sunday while all 
 the inhabitants were in church ; they shut all the people up in 
 church, then set fire to it ; ' and this tune,' said the old gen- 
 tleman, ' which your piper is playing, is that which Macdon- 
 ald's piper played while the people of Cullodon were burning in 
 their church.' ' 
 
 But the bagpipes are not peculiar to Scotland, as our readers 
 will well remember ; it is common throughout the East, and we 
 have all seen the Piedmontese exile in our streets attempting 
 to win a penny by his skill upon this rough music. It is said 
 that the Italian peasant believes that this is the best beloved 
 music of the Virgin Mary, also that it is the instrument upon 
 which the shepherds expressed their joy when they visited the 
 manger-cradle of our Lord. "When the Italian peasant visits 
 Rome on the anniversary of the advent of our Saviour, we are 
 told, he always carries his bagpipes with him, and his favorite 
 tune is that so well known in our congregations, the Sicilian 
 Mariners. And it is said there is a Dutch missal in the library 
 of King's College, Old Aberdeen, in which one of the angels 
 of the first advent is represented as playing himself on the bag- 
 pipe ; and in another old picture we have seen an angel playing 
 on the bagpipes, and apparently keeping time with King David 
 on the harp in the music of the heavenly places. In several 
 engagements the bagpipe has roused and rallied troops in dis- 
 order. At the battle of Quebec, 1760, the general complained 
 to a field officer in Frazer's regiment of the bad conduct of his 
 corps. " Sir," said the officer with some warmth, " you did 
 very wrong in forbidding the pipers to play ; nothing inspirits 
 the Highlanders so much, even now they would be of some 
 use." " Let them blow up in God's name, then," said the 
 general. It was done, and they all rushed on to a victorious 
 charge. 
 
 We believe such stories are abundant, but there is one, of a
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 217 
 
 humorous character, we should like to tell. It occurs in an old 
 number of the London Magazine, and it recites the story of a 
 statue gone, no doubt, now but which was to be seen very 
 conspicuous, when the story was first told, in a garden on the 
 terrace in Tottenham Court Road. It refers to the period of 
 the last Great Plague of London. The statue was an exquisite 
 piece of sculpture, by the famous artist Gibber, the father of 
 the celebrated Colley Gibber, the comedian ; it was the figure 
 of a man, a bagpiper, sitting and playing on his pipes, with his 
 dog and a keg of liquor by his side. It is the figure of a poor 
 piper who was wont to stand at the bottom of Holborn Hill, 
 by St. Andrew's Church, and picked up a precarious but suffi- 
 cient living from the odd pence thrown him by those who 
 chose thus to reward the exercise of his musical talents ; but, 
 alas ! there came a day when he made his pipes scream out 
 with extraordinary affluence to welcome a countryman from the 
 Highlands ; the consequence was that he made too free with 
 the keg of whiskey, and beneath the influence of repeated 
 potations he went to sleep on the very steps of St. Andrew's 
 Church. That was not a time for such dangerous indulgence. 
 While lying there, either in or toward nightfall, the dead-cart 
 came by, going its rounds. The carter, seeing him lie 
 there, supposed him to be dead, and did not too nicely inquire 
 into his condition ; he made no scruple to put his fork under 
 the piper's belt, and with some assistance hoisted him into the 
 cart ; and there seemed likely to be an end of the Scotch musi- 
 cian. The piper, however, always had a faithful dog with 
 him, and now the dog protested in the strongest canine fashion 
 against the unceremonious removal. He jumped into the cart, 
 which was nearly full, and, placing himself by his master, con- 
 tinued his loud remonstrances, suffering, however, no one to 
 come near him, but he constituted himself chief mourner, and 
 kept up a most lamentable howling. The way was long and 
 very rough ; the cart jolted in such a manner as we may well 
 conceive, and the dog howled ; and between the two, the jolt- 
 ing and the howling, the piper awoke. It was very dark ; he
 
 218 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 knew not where he was, nor what was being done with him ; 
 but he felt instinctively for his pipes they were by his side 
 and he struck up perhaps the wildest and most fearful of his 
 Scotch dissonances. It had the happy effect of terrifying to 
 the last degree the carters, who wondered whatever creature 
 they had got in their conveyance. A little inquiry, however, 
 put all to rights ; lights were got, and it turned out that the 
 noisy corpse was a living piper, who was thus joyfully saved 
 from a premature interment. After this most unpleasant excur- 
 sion the poor piper himself fell very ill and no wonder ! A 
 gentleman who had been a benefactor, and had inquired after 
 the musical maestro of St. Andrew's Steps, supported him dur- 
 ing his illness, and, impressed by the incident, it was he who em- 
 ployed Gibber to perpetuate the piper in stone, accompanied by 
 the cause of his danger and his redemption the keg of liquor 
 and the dog. This was purchased by John, the great Duke 
 of Argyle, and after his death came into the possession of the 
 owner of the garden in Tottenham Court Road. Where is it 
 now ? Editors of Notes and Queries, Where is it now ? 
 
 Instrumental music appears, however, to have been regarded 
 as inconsistent with a grave religious profession, and especially 
 with the ministerial character, by many of the stern old Pres- 
 byterian fathers, perhaps especially of the New Light and Anti- 
 Burgher persuasions. We remember to have met with a droll 
 story of no less venerable a character than Ralph Erskine, 
 altnough we have seen it attributed to Ebenezer. The only 
 amusement in which this celebrated man indulged was playing 
 on the violin. He was so great a proficient on this instrument, 
 and so often beguiled his leisure hours with it, that the people 
 of Dunfermline believed he composed his sermons to its tones, 
 as a poet writes a song to a particular air. They tell the follow- 
 ing traditionary anecdote connected with the subject : A poor 
 man, in one of the neighboring parishes, having a child to bap- 
 tize, resolved not to employ his own clergyman, with whom 
 he was at issue on certain points of doctrine, but to have the 
 office performed by some minister of whose tenets fame gave a
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 219 
 
 better report. With the child in his arms, therefore, and at- 
 tended by the full complement of young and old women who 
 usually minister on such occasions, he proceeded to the manse 
 of , some miles off (not that of Mr. Erskine), where he in- 
 quired if the clergyman was at home. " Na ; he's no at hamc 
 yenoo," answered the servant lass ; "he's down the burn, fish- 
 ing ; but I can soon cry him in." " Ye needna gie yoursel 
 the trouble," replied the man, quite shocked at this account of 
 the minister's habits ; " nane o' your fishin' ministers shall 
 bapteeze my bairn." Off he then trudged, followed by his 
 whole train, to the residence of another parochial clergyman, at 
 the distance of some miles. Here, on his inquiring if the min- 
 ister was at home, the lass answered, " Deed, he's no at hame 
 the day ; he's been out since sax i' the morning at the shoot- 
 ing. Ye needna wait, neither ; for he'll be sae made out 
 (fatigued) when he comes back that he'll no be able to say bo 
 to a calf, let-a-be kirsen a wean !" " Wait, lassie !" said the 
 man in a tone of indignant scorn ; " wad I wait, d'ye think, 
 to haud up my bairn before a minister that gangs out at six i' 
 the morning to shoot God's creatures ? I'll awa down to gude 
 Mr. Erskine at Dunfermline, and he'll be neither out at the 
 fishing nor shooting, I think." The whole baptismal train 
 then set off for Dunfermline, sure that the father of the seces- 
 sion, although not now a placed minister, would at least be 
 engaged in no unclerical sports to incapacitate him from per- 
 forming the sacred ordinance in question. On their arriving, 
 however, at the house of the clergyman, which they did not do 
 till late in the evening, the man, on rapping at the door, antici- 
 pated that he would not be at home any more than his breth- 
 ren, as he heard the strains of a fiddle proceeding from an 
 upper chamber. " The minister will no be at hame," he said, 
 with a sly smile, to the girl who came to the door, " or your 
 lad (sweetheart) wadna be playing that gate t'ye on the fiddle." 
 " The minister is at hame," quoth the girl, " mair by token 
 it's himsel that's playing, honest man ; he aye takes a tune at 
 night before gangin to bed. Faith, there's nae lad o' mine can
 
 220 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 play that gate ; it wad be something to tell if ony o' them 
 could." "That the minister playing !" cried the man, in a 
 degree of astonishment and horror far transcending what he 
 had expressed on either of the former occasions. " If he does 
 this, what may the rest not do ! Weel, I fairly gie them up 
 a'thegither. I have travelled this haill day in search o' a godly 
 minister, and never man met wi' mair disappointment in a 
 day's journey. I'll tell ye what, gudewife," he added, turn- 
 ing to the disconsolate party behind, " we'll just awa back to 
 our ain minister after a' ! He's no a'thegither sound, it's 
 true ; but, let him be what he likes in doctrine, deil hae me if 
 ever I kenned him fish, shoot, or play on the fiddle a' his 
 lays!" 
 
 This anecdote seems to reveal a dour kind of character, but 
 we have not noticed yet a characteristic of which we have many 
 instances a singular absence of mind, committing itself to un- 
 expected drolleries of expression, something like those we may 
 have noticed above. Strang mentions an anecdote of the emi- 
 nent Dr. Freer, who, in the zeal and enthusiasm of his profes- 
 sion, was often plunged into this entire obliviousness. Visiting 
 a young woman, for whom he had the day before prescribed a 
 large and severe blister for the breast, sitting down by her side, 
 feeling the pulse with one hand, and holding his gold repeater 
 in the other, he began to put the never-varying primary inqui- 
 ries : " How are ye to day ? Are ye any better or are ye any 
 worse, or are ye in much the same way ?" To which the 
 young creature replied, " I canna weel say, sir." "I'm glad 
 of it," said the doctor, "Pm glad of it. Did the blister do ?" 
 exclaimed the physician. " Oh, yes, sir ; it rose very much 
 indeed." u Pm glad of it, I'm glad of it," said the doctor. 
 " Oh, yes ; and," continued the patient, evidently suffering 
 very much from her exertion, " it gave me very much pain and 
 great uneasiness." "Pm glad of it, Pm glad of it," contin- 
 ued the doctor, and hurried away delighted with the success of 
 his prescription, but leaving the poor patient not a little sur-
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 221 
 
 prised at the odd way in which he had expressed his sense of 
 its success. 
 
 This "I'm glad of it, I'm glad of it !" reminds us of an- 
 other Scotch worthy, whose similar automatic catch of speech 
 was "Such as it is." It was his favorite jerk of expression 
 upon every occasion ; for any book which he admired, " It's 
 very well, such as it is ;" for any sermon he heard, " Very 
 well, such as it is." It was sometimes his own mode of mod- 
 est depreciation of his own deserts ; it was sometimes also the 
 way in which he expressed his admiration for any topic which 
 happened to be the subject of conversation, " Verra, well, such 
 as it is." But a friend of ours who was not aware of his 
 idiosyncrasy was a little puzzled one evening, when, after din- 
 ing with him, the good doctor stood by his door, extending to 
 him his hand, and thanking his guest for his company and his 
 conversation, added his usual singular qualification, " such 
 a* it is." It is quite curious how a little instance like this 
 really illustrates a great deal of what must be called the humor 
 of the Scottish character growing out of a singular absenteeism 
 of mind. To the same order we owe the droll, solemn antici- 
 pation of the Scotchman who, standing by the family grave, 
 said, " There lie my gran' father and my gran' mother, and my 
 ain father and mither, and there lies my brither Bob, and my 
 puir girl Jeannie, and there lies my wife, and, if I'm spared, 
 here I'll lie too." 
 
 This absenteeism to which we have before referred finds illus- 
 tration in many anecdotes. Colonel Fergusson says : " Two 
 men more unlikely to find communion of idea it would be hard 
 to imagine than Mr. Erskine and Lord Balmuto. But his lordship 
 had an intense admiration for his companion's humor and con. 
 versation, though not always able at the moment to appreciate 
 their beauties. One of the best known stories of Mr. Erskine 
 refers to an occasion when, after a long and silent walk by the 
 side of his friend, Lord Balmuto burst into a roar of laughter, 
 exclaiming, ' I hae ye noo, Harry ! I hae ye noo.' The mean-
 
 222 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 ing of one of Mr. Erskine's good things uttered that morning 
 in court had just dawned upon him ; and he did not easily get 
 over his delight, but continued to chuckle and murmur at inter- 
 vals, ' I hae ye noo,' all the way home." 
 
 Professor Simpson, the very eminent mathematician, fur- 
 nishes many instances of extraordinary absence of mind. One 
 is recorded by Dr. Strang of the professor on his way to the 
 Anderston Club. One Saturday, while proceeding toward An- 
 derston, counting his steps as he was wont, the professor was 
 accosted by a person who, we may suppose, was unacquainted 
 with his singular peculiarity. At this moment the worthy 
 geometrician knew that he was just five hundred and teventy- 
 three paces from the college toward the snug parlor which was 
 anon to prove the rallying point of the hen-broth amateurs ; and 
 when arrested in his progress, kept repeating the mystic num- 
 ber, at stated intervals, as the only species of mnemonics then 
 known. " I beg your pardon," said the personage, accosting 
 the professor : " one word with you, if you please." " Most 
 happy 573 !" was the response. " Nay," rejoined the gen- 
 tleman, merely one question. " Well," added the professor 
 " 5j3 !" " You are really too polite," interrupted the 
 stranger ; " but from your known acquaintance with the late 
 
 Dr. B , and for the purpose of deciding a bet, I have taken 
 
 the liberty of inquiring whether I am right in saying that that 
 individual left five hundred pounds to each of his nieces?" 
 <4 Precisely !" replied the professor-" 573 !" " And there 
 were only four nieces, were there not ?" rejoined the querist. 
 " Exactly !" said the mathematician'' 573 !" The stran- 
 ger, at the last repetition of the mystic sound, stared at the 
 professor, as if he were mad, and muttering sarcastically 
 " 573 !" made a hasty obeisance and passed on. The profes- 
 sor, seeing the stranger's mistake, hastily advanced another 
 step, and cried after him, " No, sir, four to be sure 574 !" 
 The gentleman was still further convinced of the mathema- 
 tician's madness, and hurried forward, while the professor 
 paced on leisurely toward the west, and at length, happy in not
 
 XORTIIEKX LIGHTS. 223 
 
 being baulked in his calculation, sat down delighted amid the 
 circle of the Anderston Club. 
 
 We have already referred to the intense homeliness of the 
 Scottish character. To this how many of the most charming 
 novelists of that country bear testimony by the scenes in their 
 pages ; and the poets, and most eminently young Robert Nic- 
 oll, abound in such pleasing delineations ; so also in a number 
 of delightful, although almost unknown, old pieces, songs, and 
 ballads. But we shall quote here a piece of rare, and we vent- 
 ure to say now quite unknown, verse. In all our reading of 
 countless Scottish books, we never remember to have seen it 
 quoted. 
 
 To any persons to whom old Scotch is interesting, this char- 
 acteristic fireside picture must be a delightful reading. The 
 burden of the song, "Three threeds an 1 a thrum," is the trans- 
 Jatidu given to the sound of the cat's purring, by the Scotch, 
 from the similarity which exists between it and the " birring 11 
 of a spinning-wheel, to which "Three threeds an 1 a thrum''' 
 evidently refers ; the refrain of the piece seems to represent 
 the deep breathing of the cat upon the hearth, and the whirr 
 of the spinning-wheel as keeping chime together ; it is called - 
 
 AULD BAWTHKEN'S SANG, 
 A' 'a Scotch Ingleside. 
 
 11 The gudewife birrs wi' the wheel a' day, 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 A walth o' wark, an' sma' time for play, 
 Wi' the lint sae white, and worset gray, 
 Work fu' hard she maun, while sing I may, 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum. 
 
 Three threeds an" a thrum. 
 
 " The gudewife rises frae out her bed, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum. 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 Wi' her cosey nichk-mutch round her head, 
 To steer the fire to a blaze sae red ;
 
 224 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 Her feet I rub wi' welcome glad, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum. 
 
 " I daumder round her wi' blythesome birr, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 An' rub on her legs my sleek warm fur ; 
 Wi' sweeps o' my tail I welcome her, 
 An' round her rin, wherever she stir, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum. 
 
 " The men-folks' time for rest is gye sma' 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 
 They're out in sunshine an' out in snaw ; 
 
 Tho' cauld winds whistle, or rain should fa', 
 
 I, i' the ingle, dae nought ava', 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum. 
 
 " I like the gudeman, but loe the wife, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 
 Days mony they've seen o' leil and strife ; 
 
 O' sorrow human hours are rife ; 
 
 Their hand's been mine a' the days o' my life 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum. 
 
 " Auld bawthren's gray, she kitten' d me here, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 An' wha was my sire I ne'er did spier ; 
 Brithers an' sisters smoor' d i' the weir, 
 Left me alane to my mither dear, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum. 
 
 " An' syne she loe'd me muckle mair, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 Three threeds an' a thrum,
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 225 
 
 For want o' her weans, near a' ta'en frae'r, 
 Her only kitten ahe couldna spare, 
 I a healing was to her heart sae sair. 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum. 
 
 *' As I grew a cat, wi* look sae douse, 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 She learnt me to catch the pilf'rin' mouse ; 
 Wi' the thief -like rottons I had nae truce, 
 But banish'd them frae the maister's house, 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum. 
 
 " Mither got fushonless, auld, an' blin', 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 The bluid in her veins was cauld an' thin ; 
 Her claws were blunt, an' she conldna rin, 
 An' t'her forbears was sune gather' d in, 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum. 
 
 " Now I sit hurklin' aye i' the ase, 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 The queen I am o' that cosey place ; 
 As wi' ilka paw I dicht my face, 
 I sing an* purr, wi' mickle grace, 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum, 
 
 Three threeds an' a thrum." 
 
 That old cat was keeping up a terrible thinking, but she gives 
 us a very pleasant insight of a Scottish ingleside of the olden 
 time. 
 
 There are some phases of Scottish life and character to which 
 we have made no reference not much to what may be called 
 a certain " sly and sleikit" way which the canny Scot has pos- 
 sessed from time immemorial the power to lay flattery on 
 thick when it seems likely to serve a necessity ; but of this
 
 226 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 trait the following address of the Town Council of the good 
 town of Dumfries to James I., when on his way to the English 
 throne, is certainly a not less curious than astounding illustra- 
 tion. 
 
 " On Monday," it is said by way of prelude, " the ferd of 
 August, 1617, his Majestic, returning to England, past Dum- 
 fries, where, at the entrie of the towne, this speech was deliv- 
 ered by Mr. James Halyday (of Pibloche, advocate, son of 
 John Halyday, of Tullyboill, advocate), Commissar there. 
 
 " ' Your Royall Majestic, in whose sacred person the King 
 of kings hath miraculouslie united so many glorious kingdoms, 
 under whose scepter the whyte and the reid crocies are so pro- 
 portionablie interlaced, the lion and the leopard draw up one 
 equall yok, and the most honorable orders of the thistle and 
 garter march togidder, is most heartelie welcome to this your 
 Majestic' s ever loyall towne, whose magistrats and people, now 
 beholding your long-desired face, do imitat the lizard. For no 
 diamonts nor carbuncles by lustre can so allure the eyes, as 
 doeth the brightness of your countenance our eyes and hearts. 
 Hence it is that the mynds of your good subjects are filled with 
 such incomprehensible joy. And considering the innumerable 
 comforts which this your Majestic' s ancient and unconquered 
 Scotland (unica vicinis toties pulsata procellis, Externi immunis) 
 hath received under your happie government, both in Kirk and 
 Politic, what merveill is it to see the flamme of their love kyth 
 in their faces and tongues, two infallible witnesses of their 
 hearts ? To recken all it wer impossible, to speake of none it 
 were ungrateful ; if I speake out of one, which is Peace, they 
 who, with bleeding hearts and weeping eyes, did daylie taist of 
 the bitter fruietes of discord, inward and outward broyles, shall 
 acknowledge even that onlie Peace to bee all they could have 
 wished, and more than ever they could have hoped for. For 
 what is to be wished that wee doe not enjoy with it ? Omnia 
 pace vigent. Now Justice hath unsheathed her sword ; now 
 basse assentation hath no place, and sycophants ar put to 
 .-ilence ; now is not sucked out the marrow of the people by
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 227 
 
 odious and unjust monopolies ; now is not the husbandman his 
 face worne with the grindstone of extortion, but sitting under 
 his owne aple-trie, he in peace eateth the fruietes of his labors ; 
 Relligion hath her place ; Law is in vigor ; Naboth bruketh his 
 own vin-yard, Achitopell his just reward ; siraonie preferreth 
 not Balaam ; no doeth corrupting gold set up a judge in Israel ; 
 but everie place is provided with some one fitting and suitable 
 for the same. 
 
 " ' If silent in these things, should wee not be convinced of 
 ingratitude to Almightie God, by whose grace wee have this 
 oure Solomon, by whose providence under God, these good 
 things are procured unto us, and at the fountaine of whose wis- 
 dome so many kingdoms and states get daylie refreshment ? 
 Who wold essey to speake worthelie of your worthie, rare, 
 Royall, and heroicall vertues, should have eloquence for his 
 tongue ; and let any speake what hee can, what can hee speake 
 but that which everie man doeth know ? For there is no corner 
 of the earth which hath not heard of your Majestic, that yee are 
 not onlie a mirour but a master of kings ; not only a pattern e 
 to their lyfe, but also a patrone of their cause. Doeth not 
 your Royall practise and penning prove all these ? and knoweth 
 hee anything to whom your Basilikon Down, and your learned 
 writings against the supporters of the Antichristian Hierarchic, 
 is not knowne ? 0, sir, your Majestic oweth much unto your 
 King, that King of kings by whome so much unto you is be- 
 stowed. That wee see the face of him whome God hath 
 anoynted so above his fellowes, is the ground of all these joyes 
 which we enjoy this day. In the fulnesse of which joyes this 
 one thing breeds us anguish, that this your Majestie's ever 
 loyall towne (whose ever were, are, and shall be resolved to 
 sacrifice their lyvesin their Prince's service, and of which God 
 made choice that it shud be the place where your Majestie's 
 most Royall Ancester, the waliant Bruce, killed the Comyn, 
 extirpated the Baliol blood, and re-established the Royall race 
 of our native Princes), now should bee the last period of youi 
 Majestie's progresse within your most ancient kingdome.
 
 228 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 Would God it could bee circular, as that of our other sunne, 
 that all your Majestic' s subjects might enjoy the comfort of 
 your presence be vicissitude ! But let God's will and your 
 Majestic' s weel be the measure of our desires. 
 
 " ' And since we perceive the force of our loadstone failing, 
 so that it hath no more power of retention ; seeing your 
 Majestic will southward, wee would wish your course more 
 meridionall, even trans-alpine, that the Romish idol, the whore 
 of Babel, might repent of her too presumptuous sitting in the 
 Kirk of God, in God's owne chaire, above the crownes of 
 kings. Let her feel the furie of your sword, let her knowe the 
 sharpness of your pike, as weel as of your pen ; in that expedi- 
 tion shall not be last mavoritia pectora Scoti. For, may we not 
 now, by God's assistance, in like courage and magnanimitie, 
 levell with the ground their walls there, as wee did heere of 
 these monstrous heapes of stones and rampires reared by their 
 Emperour Severus and Hadrian ? Espcciallie now, having the 
 concurrence of that bellicose and resolute natione which God 
 hath made to come under your standard with us, how can wee 
 but have hope to cause all them who will fight against God for 
 Babylon, like as many hoards of animals scattered on Mount 
 Aventine and Appennine, will make jacks of old dyks ? But, 
 remitting this and all other your Majestic' s desigenes to God's 
 gratious dispensation and your worthie disposition, we close up 
 our speach, praying Almightie God that you and your High- 
 nesse's Royall progenie may sit upon the thrones of your domin- 
 ions with increasse of all heavenlie and earthlie blessings, so 
 long as the sunne and moone shall have place in the firmament 
 of heaven. Amen.' ' 
 
 There is a feature of Scottish life and character of which 
 many interesting instances may be given ; the character we 
 ordinarily call the fool, the half-witted one. " Whistle Binkie" 
 was the sobriquet of one of these poor " naturals," a noted 
 character o* >St. Andrews the Earl of Buchan was very friendly 
 to, and one Sunday said to him, " What for are ye looking so 
 sad the day, Whistle Binkie?" "Weel, my lord, the
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 229 
 
 Almighty asked me just the same question yester-e'en, saying 
 unto me, ' Whistle Binkie, why art thou cast down ? ' and I 
 answered and said, ' Because they have thrust me out from the 
 Presbytery of St. Andrews, neither will they suffer me to enter 
 therein.' And the Lord said unto me, ' Be not thou cast 
 down on that account, Whistle Binkie, for I the Lord have 
 been striving to get into the Presbyteiy of St. Andrews this 
 forty years, and I have not won once yet.' ' But, from the 
 many, one of the most interesting was Jamie Fleeman, the 
 Laird of Udney's fool, near Aberdeen. A little story of his 
 life and death is published, and the edition in our hands is the 
 thirty-fourth thousand. Like so many of his singular class, 
 his life was redundant in witty saws which kept, and still keep, 
 not merely the good old town of Aberdeen, but all Aberdeen- 
 shire laughing. A minister in the neighborhood, a Mr. Cragie, 
 had been rather free in calling Jamie " a fool." Jamie picked 
 up a horseshoe in the road, and seeing Cragie coming along, 
 took it to him to ask him if he could tell him what it was. 
 " That," said the minister, " that's a horseshoe, you fool !" 
 " Ah," said Fleeman with a sigh, " an sic a blessing as it is to 
 be weel lamed ; I could na tell whether it was a horse's shoe or 
 a mare's shoe !" Once, after church, somebody asked him 
 where was the text. " In the tenth chapter of Ephcsians," 
 said Jamie. " And what verse ?" " Na, na, now you want 
 to know too much," he said ; "ye wish to ken a' things ; if 
 you find the chapter, ye' 11 be sure to find the verse." A man 
 met him who thought to play upon his credulity, saying, 
 "Jamie, have ye heard the news?" "No; what news, 
 man ?" " Oh, that seven miles of the sea are burned up at 
 Newburgh this morning." " Ah," said Jamie, " now I know 
 why I just now saw a flock of haddocks flying to the woods ; 
 they were going to build there !" Poor Jamie ! While he 
 was dying, the poor creature heard a conversation by his bed- 
 side. One said, " I wonder if he has any sense of another 
 world or a future reckoning !" " Oh, no," was the reply ; 
 4 ' he's a fool, he's a fool ; what can he know of such things ?"
 
 230 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 Jamie heard the conversation, opened his eyes, and looked the 
 last speaker in the face, saying, " I never heard that God 
 seeks what He did not give ; but I am a Christian, and dinna 
 bury me like a beast." They were his last words ; but, in 
 fact, the love of neighbors carried him very affectionately to 
 the grave, and even raised a modest granite stone over his re- 
 mains, bearing his last prayer, " Dinna bury me like a beast !" 
 \Ve suppose no stranger will be many hours in old Aberdeen 
 even to-day without hearing of this wandering oddity perhaps 
 the last of Scotland's chartered " fools." 
 
 Characters not so innocent, but something of the same order 
 odd and wandering wits meet us in the larger cities, like 
 Glasgow and Edinburgh ; Dougal Grahame, Bowed Joseph, the 
 last so called because he was the hunchback of Edinburgh. 
 Bowed Joseph and Dougal Grahame were, however, men of 
 great power over the multitudes and mobs, with their snatches 
 of song and wild speeches. 
 
 The following interesting anecdote is handed down concern- 
 ing Bowed Joseph, which proves his strong love of justice, as 
 well as the humanity of his heart. A poor man in the Pleasance, 
 from certain untoward circumstances, found it impossible to 
 pay his rent at Martinmas ; and his hard-hearted landlord, 
 refusing a portion of the same, with a forlorn promise of the 
 remainder being soon paid, sold off the whole effects of the 
 tenant, and threw him, with a family of six children, in a most 
 miserable condition, upon the wide world. The unfortunate 
 man, in a fit of despair, immediately put an end to his exist- 
 ence, by which the family were only rendered still more desti- 
 tute. Bowed Joseph, however, did not long remain ignorant 
 of the case. As soon as the affair became generally known 
 throughout the city, he shouldered on his drum, and after half 
 an hour's beating through the streets, found himself followed 
 by a mob of ten thousand people. With this enormous army 
 he marched to an open space of ground, now almost covered 
 by Eldin Street, named in former times Thompson's Park, 
 \vliore, mounted on the shoulders of six of his lieutenant-gen-
 
 NORTHERN MOHTS. 231 
 
 erals, he harangued them in the true " Cambyses vein," con- 
 cerning the flagrant and fatal proceeding, for the redress of 
 which they were assembled. He concluded by directing his 
 men to seek the premises of the cruel landlord ; and as his 
 house lay directly opposite the spot in the Pleasance, there was 
 no time lost in executing his orders. The mob entered, and 
 seized upon every article of furniture that could be found ; and 
 in ten minutes the whole was packed in the park. Joseph set 
 fire to them with his own hands, though the magistrates stood 
 by with a guard of soldiers, and entreated him to desist. The 
 eight-day clock is said to have struck twelve just as it was con- 
 signed to the flames. When such was the strength and organ i- 
 xation of an Edinburgh mob, so late as the year 1780, we need 
 scarcely be surprised at the instance on which the tale of " The 
 Heart of Mid-Lothian" is founded, happening, as it did, at a 
 much earlier period, and when the people were prompted to 
 their terrible purpose by sternest feelings of personal re- 
 venge. 
 
 In the exercise of his perilous, self-constituted office, it does 
 not appear that Bowed Joseph ever drew down the vengeance 
 of the more lawfully constituted authorities of the land. He 
 was, on the contrary, in some degree countenanced by the 
 magistrates of the city, who frequently sent for him to the 
 council chamber, in cases of emergency, to consult him on the 
 best means to be adopted for appeasing and dispersing the 
 mob. On an occasion of this moment, he was accustomed to 
 look very large and consequential. " With one hand carelessly 
 applied to his side, and the other banged resolutely down upon 
 the table, and with as much majesty as four feet, and a head of 
 as many weeks old could assume, and with as much turbulence 
 in his tiery little eye as if he was himself a mob, he would 
 stand before them pleading the cause of his compeers, or direct- 
 ing the trembling council to the most expedient method of 
 assuaging their fury. The dismissal of a mob, on these occa- 
 sions, was usually accomplished at the expense of a few hogs- 
 heads of ale, broached on Carlton Hill, and by the subsequent
 
 232 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 order of their bowed general, expressed in the simple words, 
 ' Disperse, my lads ! ' ' 
 
 Having for many years exercised an unlimited dominion over 
 the affections of the rabble, " Bowed Joseph" met his death at 
 last in a manner most unworthy of his character and great repu- 
 tation. He fell from the top of a Leith coach in a state of in- 
 toxication, and broke his neck, which caused instantaneous 
 death. He had been at the Leith race, and was on his return 
 to Edinburgh, when the accident took place ; and his skeleton 
 has the honor of being preserved in the anatomical class-room 
 of the college of Edinburgh. Though fifty years have elapsed 
 since his decease, Bowed Joseph is not yet forgotten in the 
 town where he governed ; for many an old man in Pauls Worth 
 and Leith Wynd will call his grandchildren about him of a 
 king's birth eve, and tell them of the immortal achievement of 
 the bowed ancestor of General Joseph Smith. 
 
 In this age of change, the changes which have been brought 
 about in Scotland are among the most startling and astonishing. 
 It would seem that from the time of the suppression of the 
 Rebellion, in 1746, Scotland has gone on rapidly but steadily 
 improving. Trade and commerce have not been so much im- 
 proved as created. In London, in Ayrshire, we read that, in 
 1731, there were two carts and wagons in the parish ; in 1792 
 there were two hundred and fifty ; we do not know how many 
 there may be now. The minister of a Lowland parish in Angus 
 gives a very amusing account and comparison of the state of 
 the country at two periods of time 1760 and 1790 both 
 periods witnessed by himself : " In 1760 land was rented at 
 six shillings an acre ; at 1790 land is rented at thirty shillings. 
 In 1760 no English cloth was worn but by the minister and a 
 Quaker ; in 1790 there are few who do not wear English cloth 
 several, the best superfine. In 1760 men's stockings in gen- 
 eral were what was called plaiding hose, made of white woollen 
 cloth. The women wore coarse plaids. Not a cloak nor bon- 
 net was worn by any woman in the whole parish. In 1790 
 cotton and thread stockings were worn by both sexes, masters
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 233 
 
 and servants ; some have silk ones. The women who wear 
 plaids have them fine and faced with silk ; silk plaids, cloaks, 
 and bonnets are very numerous. In 1760 there were only two 
 hats in the parish (he does not think it necessary to explain 
 that they were his own and his friend the Quaker's) ; in 1790 
 few bonnets (meaning men's caps, known as ' Kilmarnock bon- 
 nets ') are worn ; the bonnet-maker trade in the next parish is 
 given up. In 1760 there was only one eight-day clock in the 
 parish, six watches, and one tea-kettle ; in 1790 there are 
 thirty clocks, above a hundred watches, and at least one hun- 
 dred and sixty tea-kettles, there being scarce a family but hath 
 one, and many that hath two. In 1760 the people in this 
 parish never visited each other but at Christmas. The enter- 
 tainment was broth and beef. The visitors sent to an alehouse 
 for five or six pints of ale (Scotch pints, reader, each equal to 
 four English), and were merry over it, without any ceremony. 
 In 1790 people visited each other often. A few neighbors are 
 invited to one house to dinner. Six or seven dishes are set on 
 the table, elegantly dressed. After dinner a large bowl of rum 
 punch is drunk ; then tea ; again another bowl ; after that, 
 supper ; and what they call the ' grace drink. ' ' 
 
 Travellers accustomed in these latter years to skirt for their 
 enjoyment the banks of Loch Lomond, and to recreate them- 
 selves among the beautiful grounds of the Hotel of Tarbet, and 
 the ample accommodations on the opposite side, Inversnayde, 
 will perhaps find no little amusement at the unfortunate advent- 
 ures of Saint Fond, whom we have already quoted, in these 
 neighborhoods : ' ' But we had scarcely proceeded a mile on the 
 banks of the lake, when night came on, and deprived us of the 
 prospect ; we saw only a few islands, which appeared very 
 picturesque. It was ten o'clock when we arrived at Luss. 
 This place being marked on the map, I expected that it was a 
 village, or at least a hamlet. It was, however, only one house, 
 and such a miserable habitation that I believed I was entering 
 into a fishing hut ; but our astonishment was great indeed, 
 upon observing that signs were made us not to speak, which
 
 234 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 seemed to signify that there was a person sleeping, whose 
 repose we ought not to disturb. We believed that there was 
 some person very much indisposed in the house, for this was 
 what the expressive gestures of the mistress and three servants 
 seemed to announce. We therefore did not venture to open 
 our mouths, but what we wanted seemed to be understood ; we 
 were, however, conducted, or rather driven, into a kind of 
 stable, where we received an audience ; indeed, it was not a 
 long one. ' The justiciary lords, ' said the hostess, ' do me the 
 honor to lodge here when they are on this circuit. There is 
 one of them here at present. He is asleep, and nobody must 
 disturb him. His horses are in the stable ; so you see there is 
 no room for yours, and it is needless for you to stay.' ' But, 
 mistress,' said one of our drivers for we durst not venture to 
 speak ' look at our poor horses, and consider this terrible 
 rain.' ' How can I help it ? ' replied she. We went off, and 
 she shut the door after us, and double-locked it ; but first 
 called out to us, ' Make no noise ; his lordship must not be 
 disturbed. Everybody should pay respect to the law. God 
 bless you ! farewell ! ' 
 
 " We could not avoid laughing at this laconic kind of elo- 
 quence, which admitted of no reply, and this singular mode of 
 showing respect for a judge. We were, however, obliged to 
 proceed on our journey, feeling much more for our poor drivers 
 and the horses than we did for ourselves. Unluckily we had 
 still to travel fifteen miles in a dark and stormy night, along 
 the banks of the lake, before we could meet any habitation. 
 Never in my life did I make so disagreeable a journey, nor one 
 which appeared so long. Our horses, though good, were 
 fatigued, and with difficulty carried us forward. Our drivers 
 wished all the judges in Scotland a hundred times to the devil, 
 and lavished a hundred curses on the landlady of Luss. We 
 endeavored to console them in the best manner we could, by 
 promising them a recompense, which indeed they justly 
 earned. ; for they were wet to the skin with a cold rain. At 
 last we got to the end of our tedious and painful journey, arriv-
 
 NORTHERN" LTOHTS. 235 
 
 ing at half-past three in the morning at a place called Taibet, 
 which was also a single house." 
 
 The troubles of our ancient French geologist, however, were 
 not even as yet at an end ; the people of the house rose readily 
 from their beds, and the horses found good stabling ; there 
 was no judge within, whose judicial slumbers compelled rever- 
 ing silence ; but there were what was, if possible, worse a 
 batch of jurymen on their way to Inverary who had taken pos- 
 session of all the beds. So after something to eat, and some 
 tea, our travellers, or some of them, had to pass the remainder 
 of the night in their carriages, while the landlady drew the 
 mattresses from her own bed and provided for the rest on the 
 floor. This presents Tarbet in a very different aspect to that 
 by which it is known now to travellers on Loch Lomond ; 
 although the beds there, according to our very recent experi- 
 ence, are hard enough still. 
 
 The following semi-burlesque description of an old Scottish 
 roadside inn is, in fact, more amusing than consistent with 
 truth though some resemblances are not altogether incorrect 
 at this distance of time among the bleak and thinly populated 
 mountains. Arrived at mine host's, early or late, " if you are 
 wet, the fire will be lighted by the time you are dry ; at least, 
 if the peat is not wet too. The smoke of wet peat is 
 wholesome ; and if you are not used to it, the inmates are, 
 which is the very same thing. There is neither poker nor 
 tongs you can stir the fire with your umbrella ; nor bellows 
 you can blow it, unless you are asthmatic, with your mouth ; 
 or what is better still, Peggy will fan it with her petticoat. 
 ' I >e ggy> ' s the supper coming ? ' In time come mutton, called 
 chops (Qy. collops), then mustard, by and by a knife and 
 fork ; successively a plate, candle, and salt. When the mutton 
 is cold, the pepper arrives, and then the bread, and lastly the 
 whiskey. The water is reserved for the second course. By 
 this time the fire is dying, and Peggy waits till it is dead, and 
 the whole process of the peats and petticoats is to be gone over 
 again. .' Peggy, is the bed ready ? ' By the time you have
 
 236 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 fallen asleep once or twice, it is ready. When you enter, it is 
 damp ; but how should it be dry in such a climate ? The 
 blankets feel so heavy that you expect to get warm in time. 
 Not at all ; they have the property of weight without warmth ; 
 though there is a fulling mill at Kilmahog. You awake at two 
 o'clock, very cold, and find that they have slipped over on the 
 floor. You try to square them again ; but such is their weight 
 they fall on the other side ; and, at last, by dint of kicking 
 and pulling, they become immediately entangled, sheets and 
 all ; and sleep flies, whatever King Harry may think, to take 
 refuge on other beds and other blankets. 
 
 " It is in vain you try again to court the drowsy god, and 
 you get up at five. Water being so contemptibly common, it 
 is probable that there is none present ; or if there is, it has 
 a delicious flavor of stale whiskey ; so that you may almost 
 imagine the Highland hills to run grog. There is no soap in 
 Mrs. Maclarty's house. It is prudent also to learn to shave 
 without a looking-glass ; because, if there be one present, it is 
 so furrowed, and stripped, and striated, either crossways, per- 
 pendicularly, or diagonally, that, in consequence of what Sir 
 Isaac Newton might call its fit of irregular reflection and trans- 
 mission, you cut your nose if it distorts you one way, and your 
 ears if it protracts you in the opposite direction. 
 
 " The towel being either wet or dirty, or both, you wipe 
 yourself with the moreen curtains, unless you prefer the sheets. 
 When you return to your sitting-room, the table is covered 
 with glasses and mugs, and circles of dried whiskey and porter. 
 The fireplace is full of white ashes. You labor to open a win- 
 dow, if it will open, that you may get a little of the morning 
 air, and there being no sash-line, it falls on your fingers, as it 
 did on Susannah's. Should you break a pane, it is of no con- 
 sequence, as it will never be mended again. The clothes which 
 you sent to be washed are brought up wet, and those which 
 you sent to be dried, smoked." 
 
 Well, all this is altered now, although we have introduced 
 this burlesque description here for the purpose of saying that
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 23? 
 
 the present writer could recite experiences, scarcely less odd or 
 disagreeable, of some of his wanderings, and especially above 
 Perth, some thirty -five years since. 
 
 And, indeed, how pleasant it would be to double the size of 
 this volume from the quantity of material, unrevealed, lying all 
 around us. As it is, here we must close, trusting that in our 
 pages we have not too much offended the prejudices of any 
 Spot, however we may have inadequately expressed our admira- 
 tion for a country and a people, however small, among the most 
 interesting on the long scroll of human history. 
 
 " A country," to adopt the words of an eloquent preacher, 
 " where Providence seems to have repaid in moral advantages 
 all that has been withheld in the indulgence of nature. Men," 
 continues he, " are ripened in these northern climes, and every 
 country becomes tributary to that which by skill and industry 
 knows how to draw from the stores of all. Strangers to lux- 
 ury, undaunted by danger, unsubdued by danger, undismayed 
 by hardships, your countrymen are found wherever arts, agri- 
 culture, and commerce extend, contributing to the improvement 
 and sharing in the prosperity of every civilized people under 
 heaven. What country in the world scatters from a scanty 
 population so numerous a train of hardy, intrepid adventurers, 
 who follow wherever gain or glory mark the way, braving all 
 the extremities of climate and every vicissitude of fortune ? 
 Nay, as if the accessible parts of the globe afforded too limited 
 a sphere for enterprise, they embrace with eagerness every 
 project for extending their boundaries. To the insatiable ardor 
 and indefatigable perseverance of one of your countrymen, the 
 Nile first disclosed its mysterious source ; and who has yet for- 
 gotten, or remembers without the applauding, or sympathetic 
 sigh of deep regret, those who but lately went out from us, never 
 to return those who, in the ardor of unconquerable hope, 
 promised not to return from Afric's burning and unfrequented 
 wild till they should have traced for us the pathless windings 
 of the howling ' desert through which the Niger rolls its 
 mighty, and, at length, explored stream ? ' And even now,
 
 238 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 when hope seems to catch enthusiasm from danger, and many 
 thoughts have been suspended on a perilous enterprise when 
 the torrid zone darts its burning rays, and the northern blasts 
 burst their icy fetters, unlock the bars of imprisoned seas, and 
 break up the masses of its tremendous winter, the accumula- 
 tion of centuries who have been or are so ready as Scotchmen 
 to dare the terrors of the equatorial summer, or the deadly 
 blast of the nipping Arctic winter, and impel their adventurous 
 prows among the scorching and pestilential tropical heats, and 
 betwixt the floating fields and frost-reared precipices that guard 
 the secrets of the Pole ?" 
 
 The scientific spirit thus eulogized, characterizes the Low- 
 lander especially. The military spirit is common to him and 
 the Highlander ; if, indeed, it do not distinguish the latter in 
 a full higher degree. The blended race of the Saxon and the 
 Gael unites all the manly virtues. They are, truly, in the 
 words of one of their own poets, 
 
 " A nation fam'd for song and beauty's charms ; 
 Zealous, yet modest ; innocent, though free ; 
 Patient of toil ; serene amid alarms ; 
 Inflexible in faith ; invincible in arms. ' ' 
 
 And here we close this slight collection of Scottish character- 
 istics, for which the writer claims little more credit than for the 
 inky string which tics them together ; the collection might have 
 been much larger, the allusions much more various. It is 
 notable that people generally regarded as among the most 
 hard-headed should be so redundant in pathos. We have 
 referred already to the sweetness of Scottish song, its strength 
 and manliness ; we find every variety in Stenhouse's " Illustra- 
 tions of the Lyric Poetry and Music of Scotland ;" many of 
 them are among the most prized and most frequently sung in 
 our own English homes. How fine is the spirit of that song 
 by Alexander Both well, Esq., M.P., of Auchinleck, " The Od 
 Chieftain's Farewell to His Sons :"
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 23'J 
 
 " Good-night, and joy be wi' ye a" ; 
 
 Your harmless mirth has cheer' d my heart ; 
 May life's fell blasts out-o'er ye blaw ! 
 In sorrow may ye never part ! 
 My spirit lives, but strength is gone, 
 The mountain fires now blaze in vain : 
 Remember, sons, the deeds I've done, 
 And in your deeds I'll live again ! 
 
 " When on yon muir our gallant clan 
 Frae boasting foes their banners tore, 
 Who show'd himself a better man, 
 Or fiercer waved the red claymore ? 
 But when in peace then mark me there, 
 When thro' the glen the wanderer came, 
 I gave him of our hardy fare, 
 I gave him here a welcome hame. 
 
 " The auld will speak, the young maun hear, 
 Be canty, but be good and leal ; 
 Your ain ills ay hae heart to bear, 
 Anither's ay hae heart to feel ; 
 So, ere I set, I' 11 see you shine, 
 I'll see you triumph ere I fa' ; 
 My parting breath shall boast you mine, 
 Good-night, and joy be wi' ye a.'" 
 
 How long, amid the changes which are passing, not only 
 over the face, but through the very heart of society, the Scot- 
 tish character may retain its individuality and hold, who shall 
 say ? The Scotchman travels ever the face of the earth, but 
 he does not cease to remember the hills, the muirlands, and 
 lochs of his country. Some months since, when in Boston, in 
 Massachusetts, the writer was requested by a Scottish corpora- 
 tion to give an oration on Burns, and he was surprised to find 
 himself addressing a multitude in Highland costume, with 
 bonnet and plaid, the claymore, the spuggen and targe ; and it 
 did not seem so much to be a kind of child's play as an affec- 
 tionate desire to seize the opportunity for putting on the 
 garb of nationality. But Scottish traditions, and legends, and
 
 240 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 poetry, they do not seem to be passing out of date. Judging 
 by the number of editions, cheap or costly, of his works, Sir 
 Walter is now read as much or more than ever in England, in 
 Australia, in Canada, and in the United States. The life of 
 Scottish legend has been eloquently expressed by a recent 
 writer, in language the eloquence of which, as we cannot im- 
 prove, we may, perhaps, without being regarded as guilty of 
 literary theft, be permitted to quote, and so give a Scotchman 
 the last word in closing the volume. 
 
 " Happily the era of Blood and Iron in the Borders has long 
 since passed away ; but the age of Poetry and Romance passes 
 never. The cattle on the crag stands tenantless and alone ; the 
 knight has ridden forth to return no more, and the bower of 
 his lady is deserted and still. The wave of the Reformation, 
 in its sweep across these valleys, has carried with it into undis- 
 turbed oblivion the lordly abbot and all his brotherhood of 
 friars. The hammer has been lifted up upon the carved work, 
 and the frail yet splendid fragments left to us of their homes 
 and temples are the sole memorials of a departed hierarchy 
 whose word cut sharper and deeper than the baron's sword. 
 The cowled priest and the plumed warrior have alike disap- 
 peared ; the book and bell lie mouldering with the spear and 
 the shield. Only the minstrel and the minstrel's art remain to 
 repeople the waste places of the past, and to restore to us the 
 memory of the men that are no more. The fugitive rhymes 
 and fragmentary ballads of a bygone age have been collected 
 and pieced together by skilful and loving hands ; and the same 
 spirit of varied inspiration which gave us Kinmont Willie and 
 The Widow 1 s Lament, has flung the magic folds of its mantle 
 round such singers as Scott and Hogg and Ley den, and the 
 world has hung entranced upon the music of their song. The 
 wand of these magicians has been waved across the tombs and 
 sleeping-places of departed generations, and the dead in grave 
 shake off their slumbers, and walk with us again in the light of 
 day. The dark knight of Liddesdale is no longer a thing of 
 dust and ashes, but still rides scowling forth with lance in rest,
 
 NORTHERN" LIGHTS. 241 
 
 the curse of the dead Dalhousie lying heavy on his soul. The 
 wondrous wizard, Michael Scott, stirs uneasily beneath the 
 marble in Melrose Abbey, for a stronger hand than his has 
 come and snatched away his Book of Might. The Flower of 
 Yarrow once more looks forth from Dryhope Tower, and the 
 Maid of Neidpath still waits for her lover on the castle walls. 
 Johnny Armstrong has survived his execution on the Carlin 
 Kig, and the outlaw Murray may still be heard marshalling his 
 lawless following in Ettrick Forest. St. Mary's Loch lies 
 hushed and still, and St. Mary's bells have long done ringing ; 
 but the brier and the rose still ' meet and plait ' above the hal- 
 lowed graves of the hapless lovers. The bride of the dead 
 Cockburn still sits beneath Henderland towers, sewing his 
 shroud and ' making her mane,' her heart forevermore 
 enchained in his yellow hair. Lord William and Lady Mar- 
 garet may yet be seen fleeing for life by the Blackhouse 
 heights, and * lichtin doon by the wan water, ' with the heart's 
 blood of the lover still reddens as it flows. The apple hangs 
 as of yore from the rock in Yarrow, and the dead maiden veils 
 with her golden locks the pallid face of her slaughtered knight. 
 The hardy moss-troopers again ride forth beneath ' the lee light 
 of the moon, ' waking the midnight echoes with their ghostly 
 laughter. Lord Soulis glares from his castle wall in Hermit- 
 age ; and the murdered peddler, all ' mishackered and ghastly,' 
 is yet moaning and groaning under Thirlestane Mill. The 
 Baron of Smailholm, as cf old, rises by day and girds his 
 armor on, spurring forth with sword on thigh and revenge at 
 his heart ; and ere evening close the bloody work is done, 
 and 
 
 ' The Dryburgh bells ring, 
 And the white monks they sing, 
 For Sir Richard of Coldinghame.' 
 
 "It is such mingled memories as these, standing out dim 
 and mysterious on the tablets of tradition, that combine with 
 the natural beauties of the district in weaving that exquisite
 
 242 SCOTTISH CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 network of fancies which takes the imagination captive. The 
 silver Tweed flows, a charmed river through a charmed land. 
 Every league of its course is marked by its own peculiar associ- 
 ations, and every tributary stream sends down its added quota 
 of poetry and romance. The Talla, dashing over its rugged 
 linns, brings memories of the slaughtered Covenanters to whom 
 Dundee's dragoons gave bloody burial in the quaking depths 
 of Talla Moss. The Manor Water, circling through scenes of 
 sylvan beauty, tells of St. Gordian and early apostleship among 
 the wild yet beautiful hills that guard its source, and of the 
 later mysteries which the Author of Waverley has woven round 
 the Black Dwarf's name and habitation there. Lower down, 
 the Quair ' runs sweet among the flowers,' its plaintive mur- 
 murs recalling the tears of Lucy, as 
 
 ' Doon the lang glen she gaed slow vri' her flittin', 
 And fare ye weel, Lucy, was every bird's sang.' 
 
 " Dashing from the broad brown slopes of Windlestrae Law 
 comes the Leithen Water, brimful of the recollections with 
 which a master- hand has restored the faded glories of St. Ro- 
 nan's Well. Laden with the burden of many a fairy tale sung 
 by the Shepherd who now slumbers at its source, the Ettrick 
 sweeps down between its shingly shores, bringing with it the 
 waters of the mournful Yarrow, and all the melancholy of its 
 ' dowie holms.' Fronting the towers and turrets of Abbots- 
 ford, the Gala comes rushing from its far recesses in the hills, 
 as if eager to make its exit from the Valley of Woe. From 
 lonely hills that overlook Glendearg, the silver-voiced Ellwyn 
 brattles along, filling -with its limpid music the Nameless Dean, 
 and many another nook of bosky beauty. Sweet by wooded 
 height and pastoral holm glides down the crystal Leader, bring- 
 ing eerie memories of haunted Ercildoune, and fragrance of 
 yellow broom from Cowdenknowes. Past Dryburgh Abbey, 
 where rests the Mighty Minstrel in his dreamless sleep, and we 
 have the mingled waters of the Jed and the Teviot, reminding
 
 NORTHERN LIGHTS. 243 
 
 us of Branksome and Ferniehirst, of Minto Crags and Hazel- 
 dean, and of many a doughty deed of arms fought in the rough 
 old days when Buccleuch was lord of the cairn and the scaur. 
 The Tweed is, in truth, a lovely river in a lovely land ; and 
 few who have wandered by its silver tide, and mused in the 
 deep shadow of its woods and glens, can fail to feel in after 
 years the beauty and the rapture which these recollections 
 awaken." * 
 
 * " The Haigs of Bemenide ; A Family History." By James 
 Russell. 1881.
 
 INDEX 
 
 ABSENT-MINDEDNESS, 10; mathematical, 
 
 222 
 
 ADVERTISEMENTS, Humorous, 53. 
 ADVOCATE, The profesclon of the, 132. 
 ANDERSTON Relief C'hurch, 48. 
 APPARITIONS, Four orders of, 77. 
 ASSOCIATIONS, Historical, legendary, 
 
 and natural, 241. 
 AUCHENCROW. 184. 
 " AULD Bawthren's Sang," 223. 
 
 B. 
 
 BAGPIPE, Scottish, 311 ; Italian, 216 ; 
 
 origin of its melodies, 216 ; a good 
 
 story, 217. 
 
 BALL-ROOM scenes, 166. 
 BARNARD, Lady Anne, 156 
 BETTY'S marriage, 38. 
 BKTRWELL, Alexander, M.P., his poem, 
 
 239. 
 
 BREWSTER, Sir David, 74. 
 BROWN, Dr. John, 13. 
 BURNS, Robert, proverbs in his poems, 
 
 176. 
 
 BURTON, John, 94. 
 KITLEH, Widow, 165. 
 
 C. 
 
 CANHT humor, 26. 
 CANONOATE, Traditions of, 139. 
 CARLYLB, Thomas, bis opinion of Dr. 
 
 Lawson, 16 ; his estimate of Scottish 
 
 character, 174 ; his nse of proverbs, 
 
 176. 
 CARBICK, Robin, 57 ; his penuriousnese, 
 
 59. 
 
 CASUISTRY, A case of. 191. 
 CHALMERS, Dr., 11 ; imposed upon, 14 ; 
 
 bis mild whiskey, 16. 
 CHAMBERS, Robert, 143. 
 CIVILIZATION, its gains and losses, 44. 
 CI.ERK. John, Chief Justice, 117. 
 CLUBS, Drinking, 149. 
 COCKBURN'S memorials. Lord, 114 ; 
 
 sketches hid colleague.", 129 ; pictures 
 
 of O.d Edinburgh, 137. 
 
 COLDINOHAM moor, 183. 
 
 COMMUNION Sabbaths, Scottish, 183; 
 poem on, 194 ; in Africa, 196. 
 
 CONTRADICTIONS in Scottish character, 
 46 
 
 CONVIVIALITY, Scottish, 126 ; in Edin- 
 burgh, 149. 
 
 COURTSHIP and marriage, A, 38. 
 
 Cow, The intemperate, 128. 
 
 D. 
 
 DEATH scene, 19. 
 
 DEVIL, The, iii Scottish proverbs, 173. 
 
 DIALECT, Scottish, The humor of 103 ; 
 dying out, 107; difficulties of, 109: 
 a poem on, 109 ; powerful in vowels, 
 110 ; of use to the student, 113. 
 
 DREAMS, Remarkable, 91. 
 
 DRINKINO anecdote, 61 ; another in- 
 stance, 118. 
 
 DROLLERY ol the old Scottish minister, 
 17. 
 
 E. 
 
 EDINBURGH, its ghost stories, 83. 
 EDINBURGH. Old, 134 : compared with 
 
 other cities, 135 ; noted in literature, 
 
 137; its romantic character, 150. 
 ERSKINE, Henry. 31. 
 ER.ORINE, Rev. Dr. John, 31 ; his even 
 
 temper. 35. 
 ESKGROVE, Lord, 114. 
 ETTRICK Shepherd. The, 107; on the 
 
 Sabbath, 190. 
 
 P. 
 
 FAMILY worship, 83. 
 FATALISM in Scottish proverbs, 177. 
 FEMALE bravery, 48. 
 FEUCIITERSI.EBEN, quoted, 65. 
 FLATTP.RY, Power of. 225. 
 FOOL, The Scottish, 228.
 
 246 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 G. 
 
 GRANT, Mrs., of Laggan, 79. 
 GRAY, Andrew, the Moorish leader, 140. 
 GUTHRIE, Dr. M., on the Scottish Sab- 
 bath, 190. 
 
 H. 
 
 HAGGIS, 103 ; Burns on, 104. 
 " HEART of Mid-Lothian." 144. 
 HEAVEN, A letter from, 20, 
 HODGE-PODGE. 104 ; Bell on, 105. 
 HOME-LIFE, 19 ; in olden times, 44 ; a 
 
 poem on, 223. 
 HONOR, St-nse of, 72. 
 HOUNDWOOD, the haunted house, 88. 
 HUME, David, 158. 
 HUMOR, Scottish, 83. 
 
 I. 
 
 IMAGINATION and superstition, 85. 
 IMPERTURBABILITY. Scottish, 63. 
 INN, An old Scottish, 235. 
 INSCRIPTIONS on houses, 146. 
 INTERNATIONAL intercourse, 132. 
 
 L. 
 
 LADY, The old Scottish, 151 ; her aris- 
 tocratic character, 155 ; poem, on, 168. 
 
 LAUDER, Sir Thomas Dick, 66. 
 
 LAWN Market, The, 143. 
 
 LAWSON, Dr. George, 16. 
 
 LAWYERS and law courts, 114. 
 
 LEGAL lyrics, 203. 
 
 LEGEND,' The life of Scottish, 240. 
 
 LBIGHTON, Robert, 109. 
 
 LEYDEN, John, 78. 
 
 LITIGATION, Love of, 114 ; not exclu- 
 sively Scottish, 132. 
 
 LOCKHABT, on the Scottish minister, 12. 
 
 M 
 
 MACDONALD, George, 107. 
 
 MACLEOD, Dr. Norman, 6 ; his ready 
 answer, 24 ; his story of a snow storm, 
 163 ; his picture of a Scotch hater, 205. 
 
 " MARTYR.*," tune of, 195. 
 
 MEDICAL profession, its humors, 54. 
 
 MILLER, Husrh. 75 ; hit* ghost stories, 78. 
 
 MIND, the Scottish, its logical charac- 
 ter. 9. 
 
 MINERALOGY, not appreciated, 28. 
 
 MINISTER, The old Scottish, 5 ; his 
 character, 7 ; respect paid to, 11 ; his 
 drollery, 17 ; his devout nature, 20. 
 
 MODES of legal procedure, 131. 
 
 MONKEY ntory. A, 208. 
 
 MORAY House, The, 142, 
 
 Music. Scottish, 210 ; instrumental mu- 
 sic disliked, 218. 
 
 " MYSTIFICATIONS," 152. 
 
 N. 
 
 NATURAL scenery and popular charac- 
 ter, 200. 
 
 NICHOLL, Robert, his poetry, 55. 
 
 'NOCTBS Ambrui^iauae,'' 107; charge 
 against Englishmen, 199. 
 
 NORTHERN Lights, 198. 
 
 O. 
 
 ORGAN, The prejudice against, 25. 
 OUTRAM, George, 203. 
 
 P. 
 
 PARK, Mungo, 77. 
 
 PARLIAMENT House, The, in Edinburgh, 
 131. 
 
 PASTORAL visitation, 9. 
 
 PENURIOUSNESS, illustrated, 57. 
 
 PERSEVERANCE rewarded, 181 ; illus- 
 trated, 182. 
 
 PIG story, A, 109. 
 
 PLEYDELL, Scott's, 123. 
 
 PRAYERS, Rather humorous, 32. 
 
 PRIDE, decent and moral, 55. 
 
 PROVERBIAL philosophy, Scottish, 171. 
 
 PROVERBS, of nations, 171 ; their de- 
 cline. 172; philosophical character of, 
 173 ; use by nov diets, 173. 
 
 PROVERBS, Scottish, fossilized history, 
 180 ; their beauty and religious char- 
 acter, 180. 
 
 PSALMS, The, translated into Scottish, 
 112. 
 
 PUDDINGS, 106. 
 
 Q- 
 
 QUARANTINE regulations, 148. 
 
 R. 
 
 KETICKNCE, 23. 
 
 RUSSELL, James, quotation from, 240. 
 
 s. 
 
 SABBATH, The old Scottish, 190 ; severe 
 restrictions, 102 : prosperity connect- 
 ed with its sanctity, 197; beautiful 
 pictures of, 198. 
 
 SAINT Foud, 211; his opinion of the 
 bagpipe, 215; his hotel experience, 
 233. 
 
 SCANDINAVIAN family, The, and the 
 Lowland Scotch, 175. 
 
 "SCOT, The, Abroad," 94: a keen tra- 
 der, 96 ; in Sweden, 97 ; in Germany, 
 97 ; in America, 98 ; in Turkey, 99 ; 
 in Prance, 100 ; in India, 101. 
 
 SCOTLAND, herstrength in " The Union," 
 95 ; her grim character in history, 147; 
 her grand scenery, 199 ; her religious
 
 INDEX. 
 
 247 
 
 and patriotic association*, 300 ; her ' 
 illii!-t rums* names, 202 ; change* and . 
 improvements in, 230 ; glowing eulogy 
 upon, 237 ; scientific spirit praised, 
 238 : her lyric poetry, 238. 
 
 SCOTT, Sir Walter, his use of proverbs, 
 175 : hie perseverance, 182 ; his works 
 increasing in fame, 240. 
 
 SCOTTICISMS, 111. 
 
 SCOTTISH character, how made up, 174; 
 pugnacious, 202 ; shrewd, 210. 
 
 SERMONS read, prejudice against, 13. 
 
 SHAIRP'S principal poem, 15*4. 
 
 SIIA * ING on i he Sabbath, 191. 
 
 SHEPHERD*' nv-etings, 176. 
 
 SINCLAIR. Archdeacon, 164. 
 
 SKINNER, John. 5. 
 
 SLOWNESS of character, 27. 
 
 SMITH, Adam, 212. 
 
 SMITH, Walter, Dr., 168. 
 
 SNOW-STORMS, Scottish, IBS 
 
 SUPERSTITIONS, varieties of, 74 ; of fish- 
 ermen, 79 : of the Highlands, 79 ; on 
 the wane, 82. 
 
 SWEDEN. Scottish legends in, 96. 
 
 SWEDISH Sabbaths, reeemblvuce to the 
 Scottish, 194. 
 
 T. 
 
 TEA-TABLES of olden times, 161. 
 TEXTUAL perplexity, 13. 
 TITLES, love of, indigenous, 86. 
 TOLBOOTH, Tue old, 144. 
 TRICKERY outwitted, 69. 
 
 U. 
 
 UNCONSCIOUSNESS, grim, 806. 
 
 W. 
 
 WADI-BLI., P. Ha'ely, LL.D., 112. 
 
 WEATHER, a subject for criticism, 49. 
 
 WBIB. Major, 83. 
 
 WELLINGTON, Duke of, 204. 
 
 WIG, The judge's, 120 
 
 WITCHES of Edencraw, The, a poem, 
 
 185. 
 WOLVES, in Scotland, 68 ; the last one 
 
 killed, 69.