SOME AFTER DINNER STORIES
So sang George Outram. The barley bree is peculiarly national, and is responsible for an extraordinary amount of wit and humour. Of course there are the tragic and the pathetic sides. But, as is related elsewhere, “A kirk withoot a hell’s just no worth a d—— docken.” If there had been less harm there would have been less fun in whisky. When could lemonade make a man “Glorious, o’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious!” What a pathetic little scene is that of Hawkie, the well-known Glasgow “character,” as he himself describes it. “Wearied out, I lay down at the roadside to rest me, an’ a’ the laddies were saying as they passed, ‘Hawkie’s drunk,’ an’ vext was I that it wasna true.”
“Was ye ever drunk, sir,” inquired a Perthshire blacksmith of the Free Church minister who was remonstrating with him for excessive indulgence. “No, Donald,” said the minister, “I am glad to say I never was.” “I thocht as muckle,” said the smith; “for man, if ye was ance richt drunk, ye wad never like to be sober a’ your days again.”
A Perthshire village tradesman got on the “batter” and did not return home until after the lapse of several days. His wife met him in the door with the question, “Whaur hae ye been a’ this time?” “Perth,” was the sententious reply. “Perth!” echoed the wife. “An’ what was ye doin’ sae lang in Perth? Nae mortal man could be doin’ gude stayin’ in Perth for three hale days on end.” “Awa! an’ no haiver, woman,” was the dry reply, “plenty o’ fouk stay a’ their days in Perth an’ do brawly.”
“There’s death in the cup!” exclaimed a violent teetotal lecturer as he rushed up to where an old farmer was carefully toning his dram with water from a huge decanter. More of the pura had flowed forth than was intended, and eyeing his glass critically, “Hech, an’ I think ye’re richt, freend,” was the response, “for I’ve droon’d the miller.”
Here is a peculiar form of “drunk.” The grandfather of the author of “Oor Ain Folk” sent his man Donald to dispose of a skep of bees at Edzell market. The seductions of the fair, etc., were too much for Donald, who arrived home nearly “blin’ fou” and could only give a long, rambling rigmarole of the most imaginative character about the lost siller. Seeing clearly, however, what had happened, the old minister in great irritation cut him short with the following outburst of broadest vernacular: “Hoots! ye leein’ sumph, ye’ve drucken the haill hypothec; I can hear the vera bees bizzen i’ yer wame!”
Johnnie Baxter, of Montrose, was ordered by the doctor to give his wife some whisky. Shortly afterwards the doctor called again, and, being rather dubious of Johnnie’s moral rectitude when whisky was in question, asked him point blank, “Weel, Johnnie, did ye get yer wife the stimulant I ordered?”, “Ou ay,” said Johnnie with a hiccough, “I got the steemulant.” “Ay, but did ye administer it?” Then Johnnie, with a fine outburst of drunken candour, said: “Weel, as fac’s deith, doctor, I got the whusky for her, but ye see ye tell’t me she couldna last till mornin’, and that naethin’ would dae her ony guid, so I jist thocht it’s a peety tae waste guid whusky, and so, doctor” (this with a sigh), “I jist took the drappie masel’;” but he hastened to add, seeing a look of strong disgust on the doctor’s face, “I gied her the hooch o’t.”
For the pure “peat reek” one must go away to the far north. There whisky was a “mercy,” something sent by an all-wise Providence to comfort the sons of men in all their troubles. Old Andrew Creach, of Caithness, was the reverse of a bigoted teetotaler. A shepherd accused him of being drunk, and quoted Scripture to the effect that no drunkard should inherit the Kingdom of God. Andrew retorted, “Ye know nothing about it, shir; what does the Scripture say? ‘Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.’ That’s the Gospel call, and I tell ye, shir, I hope I’ll go singing fu’ ower Jordan.”
A hard-working weaver had a less Scriptural explanation. Recognizing that the only social relaxation he could possibly enjoy was when he met his cronies to interchange ideas over a tumbler of toddy, and on being reproached by his good minister for having allowed himself to be overcome by the seductions of the potent national spirit, he said, as the minister expressed his astonishment that he would allow his love for whisky to overcome the better part of his nature: “Ah, meenister, it’s no the whisky, it’s the ‘here’s t’ye’ that dis a’ the mischief.”
There is an old story of one man coming into a public-house and asking for a glass of whisky because he was hot, another asking for one because he was cold, and a third because he liked it.
A young countryman went a considerable distance to pay a visit to his uncle and aunt and cousins, who were reputed a family of strict teetotalers. During his first meal at his kinsman’s table the young man commented on the absence of spirituous liquors. “We’re a’ temperance folk here, ye ken,” interrupted the old man. “No spirituous liquors are allowed to enter this house.” After dinner the old man went upstairs to take his customary “forty winks,” the girls started off to Sunday School, and the boys lounged away to smoke in the stable. As soon as Aunt Betty found herself alone in the kitchen she put her fore finger to her lips, to enjoin silence on the part of her youthful nephew, and going to a dark nook in the pantry, she drew therefrom a little black bottle, and filling a glass, held it out to him and said, “Here, John, tak’ a taste o’ that. Our gudeman’s sic a strict teetotaler that I daurna let him ken that I keep a wee drap in the hoose—just for medicine. So dinna mention it.” A few minutes later the old man cried from the stairhead, “Are you there, John?” The nephew went upstairs, when the head of the house took him to his own bedroom, where he promptly produced a gallon-jar of whisky from an old portmanteau under the bed, and, pouring out a hearty dram, said: “Teetotalin’ doesna prevent me frae keepin’ a wee drap o’ the ‘rale peat reek’ in case o’ illness or that; so here, lad, put ye that in yer cheek; but (confidentially) not a word aboot it to your auntie, or the laddies.” Strolling out of doors after this second surprise, and entering the stable, the cousins beckoned their relative into the barn, where after fumbling among the straw for a few seconds, they handed him a black bottle, with the encouraging—“Tak’ a sook o’ that, cousin, ye’ll find it’s gude; but not a word to the old fouks, mind, for twa mair infatuated teetotalers were never born.” Such things happen also in the State of Maine they say. [Ed.
John and Betty M’Dougal went to a temperance lecture and signed the pledge. On their way home they bought a bottle of whisky to have in the house in case of illness—“medicine,” they called it. About a week after John complained of not feeling well, and said, “Betty, wuman, I’m no weel; I’ve a terrible sair stamach. Fetch the medicine; quick, wuman, quick.” Betty brought the bottle and held it up to the light, and said, “I wush, John, there may be a gless in it, for I’ve had a terrible sair stamach mysel’ every day this week!”
Three drovers in a roadside inn met and celebrated—in whiskey. There was but one glass and that with no foot to it. One after the other they filled and refilled it, one of them saying gravely each time it came to his turn, “I think we wadna be the waur of some water,” but he never used any.
It was a Scotchman who said that porter was a wholesome beverage if you did not drink more than a dozen bottles!
It may have been the same man who observed, “Na, na, I never knew onybody killed wi’ drinking; but I hae kenned some that deed in the training.”
“Bend well to the Madeira at dinner, for here you’ll get little o’t after,” was the advice given to a fellow guest at the table of a friend the latter was visiting for the first time.
A stag party below stairs broke up late, or rather early in the morning. The wife, who was thrifty, could not sleep for the thought of the quantity of whiskey that must have been consumed. She eagerly called down the stairs to the maid, “How many bottles of whiskey have they used, Betty?” The girl, who had not to pay for the whiskey but who had to fetch water from the well, replied, “I dinna ken, mem, but they’ve drunken sax gang o’ watter.”
When men used to drink till they fell under the table, one of a party who did not wish to go to excess followed the example of some and slid to the floor; presently he felt a small pair of hands about his throat. On asking what he was doing there came the reply, “Sir, I’m the lad to lowse the neckties.”