Part 2
"Plucked!" 36
Popularity Tested by the Collection 118
Practical Piety 172
Practical Thrift 75
"Prayer, with Thanksgiving" 206
Praying for Wind 109
Pretending to Make a Will 133
Prince Albert and the Ship's Cook 77
Prison Piety 61
Prof Aytoun's Courtship 209
Prophesying 130
Providing a Mouthful for the Cow 149
Pulpit Aids 76
Pulpit Eloquence 183
Pulpit Familiarity 165
Pulpit Foolery 138
"Purpose," not "Performance," Heaven's Standard 147
Putting off a Duel and Avoiding a Quarrel 206
Quaint Old Edinburgh Ministers 215
Qualifications for a Chief 26
Question and Answer 127
Quid pro Quo 34
Radically Rude 168
Reasons For and Against Organs in Kirk 31
"Reflections" 28
Refusing Information 85
Relieving His Wife's Anxiety 168
Religious Loneliness 61
Remarkable Presence of Mind 86
Remembering Each Other 115
Reproving a Miser 83
"Rippets" and Humility 170
Rival Anatomists in Edinburgh University 49
Rivalry in Prayer 179
Robbing on Credit 75, 127
Rustic Notion of the Resurrection 128
Sabbath Breaking 85
Sabbath Zeal 123
"Saddling the Ass" 102
Salmon or Sermon 104
Sandy's Reply to the Sheriff 120
Sandy Wood's Proposal of Marriage 49
Satisfactory Security 114
Scoring a Point 13
Scotch Caution versus Suretiship 105
Scotch "Fashion" 18
Scotch Ingenuity 137
Scotch Literalness 98
Scotch "Paddy" 35
Scotch Provincialism 100
Scotch Undergraduates and Funerals 39
Scotchmen Everywhere 180
Scottish Negativeness 96
Scottish Patriotism 147
Scottish Vision and Cockney Chaff 197
Scripture Examination 87
Sectarian Resemblances 166
Seeking, Not Help, but Information--and Getting It 34
Sending Him to Sleep 152
Shakespeare--Nowhere! 159
Sharpening His Teeth 92
Sheridan's Pauses 208
"Short Commons" 137
Short Measure 57
Significant Advice 204
Silencing English Insolence 48
Simplicity of a Collier's Wife 108
Sleepy Churchgoers 170
Speaking Figuratively 112
Speaking from "Notes" 74
Speeding the Parting Guest 192
Spiking an Old Gun 156
Spinning It Out 100
Splendid Use for Bagpipes 171
Square-Headed 84
Strange Reason for Not Increasing a Minister's Stipend 183
Strangers--"Unawares"--Not Always Angels 28
Stratagem of a Scotch Pedlar 80
Steeple or People? 159
Stretching It 69
Sunday Drinking 181
Sunday Shaving and Milking 70
Sunday Thoughts on Recreation 167
"Surely the Net is Spread in Vain in the Sight of Any Bird" 64
Taking a Light Supper 128
"Terms--'Cash Down'" 132
"The" and "The Other" 197
The Best Crap 210
The Best Time to Quarrel 146
The Book Worms 148
The Chieftain and the Cabby 88
The End Justifying the Means 45
The Fall of Adam and Its Consequences 85
The Fly-fisher and the Highland Lassie 101
The Force of Habit 204
The Highlander and the Angels 82
The Horse that Kept His Promise 146
The Importance of Quantity in Scholarship 35
The Journeyman Dog 60
The Kirk of Lamington 149
The Man at the Wheel 156
The Mercy of Providence 59
The "Minister's Man" 177
The Parson and His "Thirdly" 136
The Philosophy of Battle and Victory 154
The Prophet's Chamber 160
The Queen's Daughters--or "Appearances were Against Them" 116
The "Sawbeth" at a Country Inn 180
The Scotch Mason and the Angel 135
The Speech of a Cannibal 162
The Scottish Credit System 35
The Selkirk Grace 151
The Shape of the Earth 178
The Shoemaker and Small Feet 137
The Same with a Difference 139
"The Spigot's Oot" 193
The "Tables" of "the Law" 110
The Value of a Laugh in Sickness 92
"The Weaker Vessel" 79
"There Maun Be Some Faut" 172
"Things which Accompany Salvation" 192
"Though Lost to Sight--to Memory Dear" 153
Three Sisters All One Age 19
Tired of Standing 61
"To Memory 'Dear'" 78
Too Canny to Admit Anything Particular 42
Too Much Light--and Too Little 31
Touching Each Other's Limitations 165
True (perhaps) of Other Places than Dundee 133
Trying One Grave First 90
Trying to Shift the Job 94
Turning His Father's Weakness to Account 36
"Two Blacks Don't Make a White" 158
Two Good Memories 83
Two Methods of Getting a Dog Out of Church 174
Two Questions on the Fall of Man 162
Two Views of a Divine Call 58
Two Ways of Mending Ways 160
Unanswerable 75
"Uncertainty of Life," from Two Good Points of View 148
"Unco' Modest" 30
Unusual for a Scotchman 134
"Ursa Major" 207
Using Their Senses 24
Vanity Scathingly Reproved 203
"Verra Weel Pitched" 118
Virtuous Necessity 27
Was He a Liberal or a Tory? 123
Walloping Judas 56
Watty Dunlop's Sympathy for Orphans 18
Wersh Parritch and Wersh Kisses 198
"What's the Lawin', Lass?" 190
When Asses may not be Parsons 62
Why Israel made a Golden Calf 92
Why Janet Slept During Her Pastor's Sermon 99
Why Not? 133
Why Saul Threw a Javelin at David 182
Why the Bishops Disliked the Bible 139
Will any Gentleman Oblige "a Lady"? 150
Winning the Race Instead of the Battle 207
Wiser than Solomon 152
"Wishes Never Filled the Bag" 141
Wit and Humor Under Difficulties 198
LIST OF KNOWN WORKS AND AUTHORITIES QUOTED
(_Indicated in the Text by a Corresponding Number_)
1 _Life and Labor_ (Smiles)
2 (Robert Burns)
3 (Pall Mall Gazette)
4 (Dr. Chas. Stewart)
5 (Norman Macleod)
6 (Dr. Begg)
7 (Dean Ramsay)
8 _National Fun_ (Maurice Davies)
9 _Anecdotes of the Clergy_ (Jacob Larwood)
10 (William Arnott)
11 (Moncure D. Conway)
12 _Rab and His Friends_ (Rev. John Brown)
13 _Memoir of R. Chambers_ (William Chambers)
14 _Memorials_ (Lord Cockburn)
15 (Dr. Guthrie)
16 (Anonymous)
17 (Daily News)
18 _Turkey in Europe_ (Colonel J. Baker)
19 _All the Year Round_ (Charles Dickens)
20 _Red Gauntlet_ (Sir Walter Scott)
21 (Chambers' Journal)
22 (Dr. Hanna)
23 (Sir W. Scott)
24 (James Hogg)
25 (Rev. D. Hogg)
26 (J. Smith)
Scotch Wit and Humor
=Scoring a Point=
A young Englishman was at a party mostly composed of Scotchmen, and though he made several attempts to crack a joke, he failed to evoke a single smile from the countenances of his companions. He became angry, and exclaimed petulantly: "Why, it would take a gimlet to put a joke into the heads of you Scotchmen."
"Ay," replied one of them; "but the gimlet wud need tae be mair pointed than thae jokes."
=A Cross-Examiner Answered=
Mr. A. Scott writes from Paris: More than twenty years ago the Rev. Dr. Arnott, of Glasgow, delivered a lecture to the Young Men's Christian Association, Exeter Hall, upon "The earth framed and fitted as a habitation for man." When he came to the subject of "water" he told the audience that to give himself a rest he would tell them an anecdote. Briefly, it was this: John Clerk (afterwards Lord Eldon) was being examined before a Committee of the House of Lords. In using the word water, he pronounced it in his native Doric as "watter." The noble lord, the chairman, had the rudeness to interpose with the remark, "In England, Mr. Clerk, we spell water with one 't.'" Mr. Clerk was for a moment taken aback, but his native wit reasserted itself and he rejoined, "There may na be twa 't's' in watter, my lord, but there are twa 'n's' in manners." The droll way in which the doctor told the story put the audience into fits of laughter, renewed over and over again, so that the genial old lecturer obtained the rest he desired. [3]
=One "Always Right," the Other "Never Wrong"=
A worthy old Ayrshire farmer had the portraits of himself and his wife painted. When that of her husband, in an elegant frame, was hung over the fireplace, the gudewife remarked in a sly manner: "I think, gudeman, noo that ye've gotten your picture hung up there, we should just put in below't, for a motto, like, 'Aye richt!'"
"Deed may ye, my woman," replied her husband in an equally pawkie tone; "and when ye got yours hung up ower the sofa there, we'll just put up anither motto on't, and say, 'Never wrang!'"
="A Nest Egg Noo!"=
An old maid, who kept house in a thriving weaving village, was much pestered by the young knights of the shuttle constantly entrapping her serving-women into the willing noose of matrimony. This, for various reasons, was not to be tolerated. She accordingly hired a woman sufficiently ripe in years, and of a complexion that the weather would not spoil. On going with her, the first day after the term, to "make her markets," they were met by a group of strapping young weavers, who were anxious to get a peep at the "leddy's new lass."
One of them, looking more eagerly into the face of the favored handmaid than the rest, and then at her mistress, could not help involuntarily exclaiming, "Hech, mistress, ye've gotten a nest egg noo!"
=Light Through a Crack=
Some years ago the celebrated Edward Irving had been lecturing at Dumfries, and a man who passed as a wag in that locality had been to hear him.
He met Watty Dunlop the following day, who said, "Weel, Willie, man, an' what do ye think of Mr. Irving?"
"Oh," said Willie, contemptuously, "the man's crack't."
Dunlop patted him on the shoulder, with a quiet remark, "Willie, ye'Il aften see a light peeping through a crack!" [7]
=A Lesson to the Marquis of Lorne=
The youthful Maccallum More, who is now allied to the Royal Family of Great Britain, was some years ago driving four-in-hand in a rather narrow pass on his father's estate. He was accompanied by one or two friends--jolly young sprigs of nobility--who appeared, under the influence of a very warm day and in the prospect of a good dinner, to be wonderfully hilarious.
In this mood the party came upon a cart laden with turnips, alongside which the farmer, or his man, trudged with the most perfect self-complacency, and who, despite frequent calls, would not make the slightest effort to enable the approaching equipage to pass, which it could not possibly do until the cart had been drawn close up to the near side of the road. With a pardonable assumption of authority, the marquis interrogated the carter: "Do you know who I am, sir?" The man readily admitted his ignorance.
"Well," replied the young patrician, preparing himself for an effective _dénouement_, "I'm the Duke of Argyll's eldest son!"
"Deed," quoth the imperturbable man of turnips, "an' I dinna care gin ye were the deevil's son; keep ye're ain side o' the road, an' I'll keep mine."
It is creditable to the good sense of the marquis, so far from seeking to resist this impertinent rejoinder, he turned to one of his friends, and remarked that the carter was evidently "a very clever fellow."
=Lessons in Theology=
The answer of an old woman under examination by the minister, to the question from the Shorter Catechism, "What are the _decrees_ of God?" could not have been surpassed by the General Assembly of the Kirk, or even the Synod of Dart, "Indeed, sir, He kens that best Himsell."
* * * * *
An answer analogous to the above, though not so pungent, was given by a catechumen of the late Dr. Johnston of Leith. She answered his own question, patting him on the shoulder: "Deed, just tell it yersell, bonny doctor (he was a very handsome man); naebody can tell it better."
* * * * *
A contributor (A. Halliday) to _All the Year Round_, in 1865, writes as follows:
When I go north of Aberdeen, I prefer to travel by third class. Your first-class Scotchman is a very solemn person, very reserved, very much occupied in maintaining his dignity, and while saying little, appearing to claim to think the more. The people whom you meet in the third-class carriages, on the other hand, are extremely free. There is no reserve about them whatever; they begin to talk the moment they enter the carriage, about the crops, the latest news, anything that may occur to them. And they are full of humor and jocularity.
My fellow-passengers on one journey were small farmers, artisans, clerks, and fishermen. They discussed everything, politics, literature, religion, agriculture, and even scientific matters in a light and airy spirit of banter and fun. An old fellow, whose hands claimed long acquaintance with the plow, gave a whimsical description of the parting of the Atlantic telegraph cable, which set the whole carriage in a roar.
"Have you ony shares in it, Sandy?" said one.
"Na, na," said Sandy. "I've left off speculation since my wife took to wearing crinolines; I canna afford it noo."
"Fat d'ye think of the rinderpest, Sandy?"
"Weel, I'm thinking that if my coo tak's it, Tibbie an' me winna ha' muckle milk to our tay."
The knotty question of predestination came up and could not be settled. When the train stopped at the next station, Sandy said: "Bide a wee, there's a doctor o' deveenity in one o' the first-class carriages. I'll gang and ask him fat he thinks aboot it." And out Sandy got to consult the doctor. We could hear him parleying with the eminent divine over the carriage door, and presently he came running back, just as the train was starting, and was bundled in, neck and crop, by the guard.
"Weel, Sandy," said his oppugner on the predestination question, "did the doctor o' deveenity gie you his opinion?"
"Ay, did he."
"An' fat did he say aboot it?"
"Weel, he just said he dinna ken an' he dinna care."
The notion of a D.D. neither kenning nor caring about the highly important doctrine of predestination, so tickled the fancy of the company that they went into fits of laughter. [38]
=Double Meanings=
A well-known idiot, named Jamie Frazer, belonging to the parish of Lunan, in Forfarshire, quite surprised people sometimes by his replies. The congregation of his parish had for some time distressed the minister by their habit of sleeping in church. He had often endeavored to impress them with a sense of the impropriety of such conduct, and one day when Jamie was sitting in the front gallery wide awake, when many were slumbering round him, the clergyman endeavored to awaken the attention of his hearers by stating the fact, saying: "You see even Jamie Frazer, the idiot, does not fall asleep as so many of you are doing." Jamie not liking, perhaps, to be designated, coolly replied, "An' I hadna been an idiot I wad ha' been sleepin', too." [7]
* * * * *
Another imbecile of Peebles had been sitting in church for some time listening to a vigorous declamation from the pulpit against deceit and falsehood. He was observed to turn red and grow uneasy, until at last, as if wincing under the supposed attack upon himself personally, he roared out: "Indeed, meenister, there's mair leears in Peebles than me." [7]
* * * * *
A minister, who had been all day visiting, called on an old dame, well known for her kindness of heart and hospitality, and begged the favor of a cup of tea. This was heartily accorded, and the old woman bustled about, getting out the best china and whatever rural delicacies were at hand to honor her unexpected guest. As the minister sat watching these preparations, his eye fell on four or five cats devouring cold porridge under the table.
"Dear me! what a number of cats," he observed. "Do they all belong to you, Mrs. Black?"
"No, sir," replied his hostess innocently; "but as I often say, a' the hungry brutes i' the country side come to me seekin' a meal o' meat."
The minister was rather at a loss for a reply.
=Scotch "Fashion"=
The following story, told in the "Scotch Reminiscences" of Dean Ramsay, is not without its point at the present day: "On a certain occasion a new pair of inexpressibles had been made for the laird; they were so tight that, after waxing hot and red in the attempt to try them on, he _let out_ rather savagely at the tailor, who calmly assured him, 'It's the fashion--it's the fashion.'
"'Eh, ye haveril, is it the fashion for them _no' to go on_?'" [7]
=Wattie Dunlop's Sympathy for Orphans=
Many anecdotes of pithy and facetious replies are recorded of a minister of the South, usually distinguished as "Our Wattie Dunlop." On one occasion two irreverent young fellows determined, as they said, to "taigle" (confound) the minister. Coming up to him in the High Street of Dumfries, they accosted him with much solemnity: "Maister Dunlop, hae ye heard the news?" "What news?" "Oh, the deil's dead." "Is he?" said Mr. Dunlop, "then I maun pray for twa faitherless bairns." [7]
=Highland Happiness=
Sir Walter Scott, in one of his novels, gives expression to the height of a Highlander's happiness: Twenty-four bagpipes assembled together in a small room, all playing at the same time different tunes. [23]
=Plain Scotch=
Mr. John Clerk (afterwards Lord Eldon), in pleading before the House of Lords one day, happened to say in his broadest Scotch accent: "In plain English, ma lords."
Upon which a noble lord jocosely remarked: "In plain Scotch, you mean, Mr. Clerk."
The prompt advocate instantly rejoined: "Nae matter! in plain common sense, ma lords, and that's the same in a' languages, ye'll ken."
=Caring for Their Minister=
A minister was called in to see a man who was very ill. After finishing his visit, as he was leaving the house, he said to the man's wife: "My good woman, do you not go to any church at all?"
"Oh yes, sir; we gang to the Barony Kirk."