Various writers have attempted to define Scotch humour, but it is a difficult task, and in all my reading of the subject I do not remember to have ever seen a very satisfactory analysis of the subtle quantity. The famous Sydney Smith did not admit that such an element obtained in our “puir cauld country.” “Their only idea of wit which prevails occasionally in the North,” said he, “and which, under the name of ‘wut,’ is so infinitely distressing to people of good taste, is laughing immoderately at stated intervals.” Further to this, the same sublime authority declared that it would require a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. It has been presumed that the witty Canon was not serious in his remark; that it was a laboured effort of his to make a joke. This may be true; and the idea of a surgical operation was possibly suggested by feeling its necessity on himself in order to get his joke out. Be that as it may, but for the fact that the genial Charles Lamb, curiously, entertained a somewhat similar notion on the subject, the rude apothegm of the Rev. Sydney Smith would never have misguided even the most hopelessly opaque of his own countrymen. No humour in Scotch folk! No humour in Scotland! There is no country in the world that has produced so much of it. Of no other country under the sun can it be so truly said that humour is the common inheritance of the people. Much of the kind of humour that drives an Englishman into an ecstacy of delight, would, of course, only tend to make a Scotsman sad; but that is no evidence that the Scotch are lacking in their perceptions of the humorous. It only shows that “some folks are no ill to please.” “The Cockney must have his puns and small jokes,” says Max O’Rell. “On the stage he delights in jigs, and to really please him the best of actors have to become rivals of the mountebanks at a fair. A hornpipe delights his heart. An actor who, for an hour together, pretends not to be able to keep on his hat, sends him into the seventh heaven of delight. Such performances make the Scotch smile—but with pity. The Scotsman has no wit of this sort. In the matter of wit he is an epicure, and only appreciates dainty food.” In so far as the above quotation applies to the denizens of the “North,” it is perfectly true. In such circumstances the Scotch will “laugh immoderately at stated intervals,” but the laughs will be like angels’ visits, “few and far between.”

Superficially regarded, Scotland is a hard-featured land; yet Scotch folk are essentially humorous. Do not go to the places of public amusement—to the theatres and music halls—particularly in the larger towns, where the populations are so mixed; do not go there to learn the Scottish taste and humour. This practice has led to the proverbial saying that “a Scotchman takes his amusement seriously.” In such places you may learn something of the English character and humour, but nothing of the Scotch. For an Englishman’s wit (he has little or no humour) being an acquired taste, comes out “on parade”—it is a gay thing—while Scotch folks’ humour being the common gift of Nature to all and sundry in the land, differing only in degree, slips out most frequently when and where least expected. Famous specimens of it come down from our lonely hillsides—from the cottage and farm ingle-nooks. It blossoms in the solemn assemblies of the people—at meetings of Kirk Sessions, in the City and Town Council Chambers, in our Presbyteries, our Courts of Justice, and occasionally in the high Parliament of the Kirk itself. In testimony of this read the Reminiscences of Dean Ramsay, Dr. Rodgers’ Century of Scottish Life, The Laird of Logan, and other similar collections of the national humour; or study the humours of our Scottish life and character as they are abundantly reflected in the immortal writings of Burns, and Scott, and Galt, and Wilson.

One of the chief characteristics of Scotch humour, as I have already indicated, is its spontaneity, or utter want of effort to effect its production. Much of it comes out just as a matter of course, and without the slightest indication on the part of the creator that he is aware of the splendid part he is playing. Then it has nearly always a strong practical basis. The Scotch are characteristically practical people, and very much of what is most enjoyable in humorous Scotch stories and anecdotes, as Dean Ramsay truly says, arises “from the simple and matter-of-fact references made to circumstances which are unusual.”

There are others, of course, but these are the main characteristics of Scotch humour. Our best anecdotes illustrate this. Here is a good instance of the native wit and humour:—

“Jock,” cried a farmer’s wife to her cowherd, “come awa’ in to your parritch, or the flees ’ill be droonin’ themsel’s in your milk bowl.”

“Nae fear o’ that,” was Jock’s roguish reply. “They’ll wade through.”

“Ye scoondrel,” cried the mistress, indignantly, “d’ye mean to say that ye dinna get eneuch milk?”

“Ou, ay,” said Jock, “I get plenty o’ milk for a’ the parritch.”

The colloquy was richly humorous, and at the same time sublimely practical. The same may be said of the following:—

During the time of the great Russian War a countryman accepted the “Queen’s shilling,” and very soon thereafter was sent to the front. But he had scarcely time to have received his “baptism of fire” when he turned his back on the scenes of carnage, and immediately struck of in a bee line for a distant haven of safety. A mounted officer, intercepting his retreat, demanded to know where he was going.

“Whaur am I gaun?” said he. “Hame, of course; man, this is awfu’ walk; they’re just killin’ ane anither ower there.”

A brother countryman took a different view of the same, or a similar situation. Just before his regiment entered into an engagement with the enemy, he was heard to pray in these terms:—“O, Lord! dinna be on oor side, and dinna be on the tither side, but just stand ajee frae baith o’ us for an oor or twa, an’ ye’ll see the toosiest fecht that ever was fochen.” What a fine, rough hero was there!

Speaking of praying prior to entering into engagements, recalls another good and equally representative anecdote. It is told of two old Scottish matrons. They were discussing current events.

“Eh, woman!” said one, “I see by the papers that oor sodgers have been victorious again.”

“Ah, nae fear o’ oor sodgers,” replied the other. “They’ll aye be victorious, for they aye pray afore they engage wi’ the enemy.”

“But do you no think the French ’ill pray too?” questioned the first speaker.

“The French pray!” sneered her friend. “Yatterin’ craturs! Wha wad ken what they said?”

What a charmingly innocent auld wife! Surely it was this same matron who once upon a time entered the village grocery and asked for a pound of candles, at the same time laying down the price at which the article in question had stood fixed for some time.

“Anither bawbee, mistress,” said the grocer. “Cawnils are up, on account o’ the war.”

“Eh, megstie me!” was the response. “An’ can it be the case that they really fecht wi’ cawnil licht?”

A Scotch blacksmith, being asked the meaning of metaphysics, explained as follows:—“Weel, Geordie, ye see, it’s just like this. When the pairty that listens disna ken what the pairty that speaks means, an’ when the pairty that speaks disna ken what he means himsel’, that’s metapheesics.” Many a lecture of an hour’s length, I am thinking, has had no better results.

No anecdote can better illustrate the practical basis of the Scotch mind than the following:—“John,” said a minister to one of his congregation, “I hope you hold family worship regularly.”

“Aye,” said John, “in the time o’ year o’t.”

“In the time o’ year o’t! What do you mean, John?”

“Ye ken, sir, we canna see in the winter nichts.”

“But, John, can’t you buy candles?”

“Weel, I could,” replied John, “but in that case I’m dootin’ the cost would owergang the profit.”

And practical in the management of their devotional exercises, there is a practical side to the grief of Scotch folk. “Dinna greet amang your parritch, Geordie,” said one to another, “they’re thin eneuch already.” And the story is told of an Aberdeenshire woman who, when on the occasion of the death of her husband the minister’s wife came to condole with her, and said—“It is a great loss you have sustained, Janet.”

She replied, “Deed is’t, my lady. An’ I’ve just been sittin’ here greetin’ a’ day, an’ as sune as I get this bowliefu’ o’ kail suppit I’m gaun to begin an’ greet again.”

“You have had a sore affliction, Margaret,” said a minister once to a Scotch matron in circumstances similar to the heroine of the above story. “A sore affliction indeed; but I hope you are not altogether without consolation.”

“Na,” said Margaret, “an’ I’m no that, sir; for gin He has ta’en awa’ the saul, it’s a great consolation for me to think that He’s ta’en awa’ the stammick as weel.”

Ah, poor body! No doubt she gave expression to a thought that had for some time been having a prominent place in her mind. As Tom Moore reminds us, in the midst of a serious poem, “We must all dine,” and if the bread-winner has been laid aside for a time, the means of subsistence are sometimes difficult to obtain, and when “supply” is wholly cut off, a decrease in “demand” is sometimes not unwelcome.

A splendid instance of the matter-of-fact view of things celestial frequently taken by the Scotch mind is in that story which Dean Ramsay tells of the old woman who was dying at Hawick. In this Border seat of tweed manufacture the people wear wooden-soled boots—clogs—which make a clanking noise on the pavement. Several friends stood by the bedside of the dying person, and one of them said to her—

“Weel, Jenny, ye’re deein’; but ye’ve done the richt gaet here, an’ ye’ll gang to heaven; an’ when ye gang there, should you see ony o’ oor fouk, ye micht tell them that we’re a’ weel.”

“Ou,” said Jenny half-heartedly, “gin I see them I’se tell them; but ye maunna expect that I’m to be gaun clank, clankin’ about through heaven lookin’ for your fouk.”

Of all the stories of this class, however, the following death-bed conversation between a husband and wife affords perhaps the very best specimen of the dry humour peculiar to Scotch folk:—An old shoemaker in Glasgow was sitting by the bedside of his wife, who was dying. Taking her husband by the hand, the old woman said, “Weel, John, we’re to pairt. I hae been a gude wife to you, John.”

“Oh, middlin’, middlin’, Jenny,” said John, not disposed to commit himself wholly.

“Ay, I’ve been a gude wife to you, John,” says she, “an’ ye maun promise to bury me in the auld kirkyard at Stra’von, beside my ain kith and kin, for I couldna rest in peace among unoo fouk, in the dirt an’ smoke o’ Gleska’.”

“Weel, weel, Jenny, my woman,” said John, soothingly, “I’ll humour ye thus far. We’ll pit ye in the Gorbals first, an’ gin ye dinna lie quiet there, we’ll tak’ ye to Stra’von syne.”

And yet there is on record a retort of a Scotch beadle, which is almost equally moving. Saunders was a victim to chronic asthma, and one day, whilst in the act of opening a grave, was seized with a violent fit of coughing. The minister, towards whom Saunders bore little affection, at the same time entering the kirkyard, came up to the old man as he was leaning over his spade wiping the tears from his eyes, and said, “That’s a very bad cough you’ve got, Saunders.”

“Ay, it’s no very gude,” was the dry response, “but there’s a hantle fouk lyin’ round aboot ye that wud be gey glad o’t.”

Speaking of beadles reminds me of another good illustration of the “practicality,” if I may dare to coin a word, of the Scottish mind. A country beadle had had repeated cause to complain to his minister of interference with his duties on the part of his superannuated predecessor. Coming up to the minister one day, “John’s been interfeerin’ again,” said he, “an’ I’ve come to see what’s to be dune?”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear it,” said the minister, “but as I have told you before, David, John’s a silly body, and you should try, I think, some other means of getting rid of his annoyance than by openly resisting him. Why not follow the Scriptural injunction given for our guidance in such cases, and heap coals of fire on your enemy’s head.”

“Dod, sir, that’s the very thing,” cried David, taking the minister literally, and grinning and rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect of an early and effectual settlement of the long-standing feud. “Capital, minister; that’ll sort him; dod, ay—heap lowin’ coals on his head, and burn the wratch!”

We are proverbially a cautious people. “The canny Scot” is a world-wide term; but the Paisley man who described Niagara Falls as “naething but a perfect waste o’ water,” was canny to a fault. And yet the Moffat man—his more inspiring native surroundings notwithstanding—was scarcely more visibly impressed by the same scene. “Did you ever see anything so grand?” demanded his friend who had taken him to see the mighty cataract.

“Weel,” said the Moffat man, “as for grand, I maybe never saw onything better; but for queer, man, d’ye ken, I ance saw a peacock wi’ a wooden leg.”

How naturally the one thing would suggest the other will not readily appear to most folks.

He was more of a true Scot who, when the schoolmaster in passing along one day said to him, “I see you are to have a poor crop of potatoes this year, Thomas,” replied—

“Ay, but there’s some consolation, sir; John Tamson’s are no a bit better.”

“Hame’s aye hamely,”—some homes are more so than others. The “Paisley bodies” have some reason for being proud of their native burgh, as they are. I have heard of one who was on a visit to Edinburgh many years ago, and during his brief stay there was discovered by one of the city guides lying on his face on the Calton Hill, apparently asleep. The summer sun was scorching the back of his uncovered head, and the guide thought it his duty to rouse him up.

“I’m no sleepin’,” responded the Paisley man, to the touch of the guide’s staff, “I’m just lyin’ here thinkin’;” then turning himself round and looking up, “Ay, freend,” continued he, “I was just lyin’ thinkin’ aboot Paisley.”

“Well,” responded the guide, “I don’t see why any thought of Paisley should enter your head while you can feast your eyes on fair ‘Edina, Scotia’s darling Seat,’ as the Poet Burns has called our city here.”

“Maybe ay, an’ maybe no, freend; but it’s no easy gettin’ the thocht o’ Paisley oot o’ a Paisley man’s head, even although he is in the middle o’ Edinburgh. Up in yer braw college there, the maist distinguished professor in it is John Wilson, a Paisley man. In St. George’s kirk, ower there, yer precentor, R. A. Smith—an’ there’s no his marrow again in a’ Scotland—is a Paisley man. In the jail ower by fornent us there’s mair than a’e Paisley callan’ the noo. Syne, ye see the Register House doon there, weel, the woman that sweeps out the passages—an’ my ain kissen to boot—is a Paisley woman. An’ so ye see, freend, although ane’s in Edinburgh it’s no sae easy gettin’ thochts o’ Paisley kept oot o’ his head.”

The next illustration is also truly Scotch. Two Lowland crofters lived within a few hundred yards of each other. One of them, Duncan by name, being the possessor of “Willison’s Works,” a rarity in the district, his neighbour, Donald, sent his boy one day to ask Duncan to favour him with a reading of the book. “Tell your father,” said Duncan, “that I canna lend oot my book, but he may come to my hoose and read it there as lang as he likes.” Country folk deal all more or less in “giff-gaff,” and in a few days after, Duncan, having to go to the market, and being minus a saddle, sent his boy to ask Donald to give him the loan of his saddle for the occasion. “Tell your father,” said Donald, “that I canna lend oot my saddle; but it’s in the barn, an’ he can come there an’ ride on it a’ day if he likes.”

The cannyness characteristic of our countrymen, sometimes as a matter of course, is found manifesting itself in ways which, to say the least of them, are peculiar, as witness: A Forfar cobbler, described briefly as “a notorious offender,” was not very long ago brought up before the local magistrate, and being found guilty as libelled, was sentenced to pay a fine of half-a-crown, or endure twenty-four hours’ imprisonment. If he chose the latter, he would, in accordance with the police arrangements of the district, be taken to the jail at Perth. Having his option, the cobbler communed with himself. “I’ll go to Perth,” said he; “I’ve business in the toon at ony rate.” An official forthwith conveyed him by train to the “Fair City”; but when the prisoner reached the jail he said he would now pay the fine. The Governor looked surprised, but found he would have to take it. “And now,” said the canny cobbler, “I want my fare hame.” The Governor demurred, made inquiries, and discovered that there was no alternative; the prisoner must be sent at the public expense to the place where he had been brought from. So the crafty son of St. Crispin got the 2s. 8½d., which represented his railway fare, transacted his business, and went home triumphant, 2½d. and a railway journey the better for his offence.

Our next specimen is cousin-german to the above. It is of two elderly Scotch ladies—“twa auld maids,” to use a more homely phrase—who, on a certain Sunday not very long ago, set out to attend divine service in the Auld Kirk, and discovered on the way thither that they had left home without the usual small subscription for the “plate.” They resolved not to return for the money, but to ask a loan of the necessary amount from a friend whose door they would pass on the way. The friend was delighted to be able to oblige them, and, producing her purse, spread out on the table a number of coins of various values—halfpennies, pennies, threepenny, and sixpenny pieces. The ladies immediately selected a halfpenny each and went away. Later in the course of the same day they appeared to their friend again, and said they had come to repay the loan.

“Toots, havers,” exclaimed old Janet, “ye needna hae been in sic a hurry wi’ the bits o’ coppers; I could hae gotten them frae you at ony time.”

“Ou, but,” said the thrifty pair, in subdued and confidential tones, “it was nae trouble ava’, for there was naebody stannin’ at the plate, so we just slippit in an’ saved the bawbees.”

Now that is just the sort of anecdote which an Englishman delights to commit to memory and retail in mixed companies of his Scotch and English friends; and, lest he may have heard that one already—may have worn it threadbare, indeed—I will tell another which, if not quite so good, has the advantage of being not so well known. A Scotchman was once advised to take shower baths. A friend explained to him how to fit up one by the use of a cistern and colander, and Sandy accordingly set to work and had the thing done at once. Subsequently he was met by the friend who had given him the advice, and, being asked how he enjoyed the bath—

“Man,” said he, “it was fine. I liked it rale weel, and kept mysel’ quite dry, too.”

Being asked how he managed to take the shower and yet remain quite dry, he replied—

“Dod, ye dinna surely think I was sae daft as stand ablow the water without an umbrella.”

That’s truly Scotch. So is the next specimen, as you will presently perceive. Two or three nights before the advent of a recent Christmas, a Scotch laddie of ten years old, or so, was sitting examining very gravely a somewhat ugly hole in the heel of one of his stockings. At length he looked towards his mother and said—

“Mither, ye micht gie me a pair o’ new stockin’s?”

“So I will, laddie, by and by; but ye’re no sair needin’ new anes yet,” said his mother.

“Will I get them this week?”

“What mak’s ye sae anxious to hae them this week?”

“Because, if Santa Claus pits onything into thir anes it’ll fa’ oot.”

How naturally a Scotsman drops into poetry, too, will be seen from the following:—

Mr. Dewar, a shopkeeper in Edinburgh, being in want of silver for a bank note, went into the shop of a neighbour of the name of Scott, whom he thus addressed—

Mr. Scott’s reply was—

Then going into the back-room, he immediately returned and added—

It is by furnishing him with choice and representative examples that one can best convey to a stranger a knowledge of the characteristics of our national humour. So much of it depends often on the quaintness of the Scottish idiom, that it defies explanation, and must be seen, or better still, be heard, to be understood. This course I have pursued in the present paper; and the examples deduced, I think, fairly demonstrate the strong substratum of practical common-sense which underlies, and yet manifests itself in, the lighter elements of the Scottish character, frequently making humour where pathos was meant to be. Take a few more:—

The wife of a small farmer in Perthshire some time ago went to a chemist’s in the “Fair City” with two prescriptions—one for her husband, the other for her cow. Finding she had not enough of money to pay for both, the chemist asked her which she would take.

“Gie me the stuff for the coo,” said she; “the morn will do weel eneuch for him, puir body. Gin he were to dee I could sune get another man, but I’m no sure that I could sae sune get anither coo.”

The late Rev. Dr. Begg, was wont to tell of a Scotch woman to whom a neighbour said, “Effie, I wonder hoo ye can sleep wi’ sae muckle debt on your heid;” to which Effie quietly answered, “I can sleep fu’ weel; but I wonder hoo they can sleep that trust me.”

“Are you a native of this parish?” asked a sheriff of a witness who was summoned to testify in a case of distilling.

“Maistly, yer honour,” was the reply.

“I mean, were you born in this parish?”

“No, yer honour, I wisna born in this parish; but I’m maistly a native for a’ that.”

“You came here when you were a child I suppose, you mean?” said the sheriff.

“No, sir; I’m here just aboot sax year noo.”

“Then how do you come to be mostly a native of the parish?”

“Weel, ye see, when I cam here, sax year syne, I just weighed eight stane, an’ I’m fully seventeen stane noo; so, ye see, that aboot nine stane o’ me belangs to this parish, an’ I maun be maistly a native o’t.”

Not very long ago a countryman got married, and soon after invited a friend to his house and introduced him to his new wife, who, by the by, was a person of remarkably plain appearance. “What do you think o’ her John?” he asked his friend, when the good lady had retired from the room for a little. “She’s no’ very bonnie!” was the candid and discomforting reply. “That’s true,” said the husband; “she’s no muckle to look at, but she’s a rale gude-hearted woman. Positeevly ugly outside, but a’ that’s lovely inside.” “Lord, man, Tam,” said the friend gravely, “it’s a peety ye couldna flype her!”

At a feeing market in Perth a boy was waiting to be hired, when a farmer, who wanted such a servant, accosted him, and after some conversation, enquired if he had a written character. The lad replied that he had, but it was at home. “Bring it with you next Friday,” said the farmer, “and meet me here at two o’clock.” When the parties met again, “Weel, my man,” said the farmer, “ha’e ye got your character?” “Na,” was the reply, “but I’ve gotten yours, an’ I’m no comin’!”

“There’s anither row up at the Soutars’,” said Willie Wilson, as he shook the rain from his plaid and took his accustomed seat by the inn parlour fire. “I heard them at it as I cam’ by just noo.”

“Ay, ay; there’s aye some fun gaun’ on at the Soutars’,” said another of the company, with a laugh.

“Fun? I shouldn’t think there’s much fun in those disgraceful family disturbances,” said the schoolmaster.

“Aweel, it’s no’ so vera bad, after a’,” said the other, who had his share of matrimonial strife. “Ye see, when the wife gets in her tantrums she aye throws a plate or brush, or maybe twa or three, at Sandy’s head. Gin she hits him she’s gled, and gin she misses him he’s gled; so, ye see, there’s aye some pleasure to a’e side or the ither.”

The Laird of Balnamoon, riding past a high, steep bank, stopped opposite a hole in it, and said, “John, I saw a brock gang in there.”

“Did ye?” said John; “will ye haud my horse, sir?”

“Certainly,” said the Laird, and away rushed John for a spade.

After digging for half an hour, he came back nigh speechless to the Laird, who had regarded him musingly.

“I canna find him, sir,” said John.

“Deed,” said the Laird, very coolly, “I wad hae wondered if ye had, for it’s ten years an’ mair sin’ I saw him gang in.”

On one occasion, when the gallant Highlanders were stationed at Gibraltar, Sandy Macnab was sergeant of the guard, and in due course of duty had sent his corporal to make the last relief before four o’clock in the morning. Whilst proceeding to one of the outlying posts the corporal missed his footing, fell over the cliff, and was killed. Meantime Sergeant Macnab had been filling up the usual guard report, preparatory to dismounting. Now, at the foot of the form on which such reports are made out there is a printed inquiry—“Anything extraordinary occurred since mounting guard?”

Macnab, unaware of the accident to his corporal, filled the query space up with the word “Nil,” and, having no spare copy of the form, sent this in to the orderly-room to take its chance. When the Colonel and Adjutant attended in the orderly-room at ten o’clock, learned of the mishap, and read Macnab’s report, the latter was peremptorily ordered to appear before them.

“Macnab,” cried the Colonel, in a rage, “what the devil do you mean by filling up your guard report in this way? You say ‘Nothing extraordinary occurred since mounting guard,’ and yet your poor comrade fell over the cliff and was killed.”

Sandy, finding himself in a fix, pulled himself together, and after a moment or two of deliberation answered, coolly, “Weel, sir, I dinna see onything very extraordinar’ in that. It would hae been something very extraordinar’ if he hadna been killed; he fell fowr hunder feet!”

In Mr. Barrie’s Little Minister, a discussion takes place in the village Parliament as to whether it is possible for a woman to refuse to marry a minister. “I once,” said Snecky Hobart, “knew a widow who did. His name was Samson, and if it had been Tamson she would hae ta’en him. Ay, you may look, but it’s true. Her name was Turnbull, and she had another gent after her, named Tibbets. She couldna make up her mind atween them, and for a while she just keeped them dangling on. Ay, but in the end she took Tibbets. And what, think you, was her reason? As you ken, thae grand folk hae their initials on their spoons and nichtgowns. Ay, weel, she thocht it would be mair handy to take Tibbets, because if she had ta’en the minister, the T’s would have to be changed to S’s. It was thochtfu’ o’ her.”

Our next two specimens show how waggish the Scotch can be.

A farmer, returning from a Northern tryst, accompanied by his servant Pate, not many years ago, halted for refreshment at the Inn of Glamis, where, meeting with a number of friends, a jolly party was soon formed. Under the cheering hospitality of the gude wife of the inn they cracked their jokes and told their tales, till at length the farmer proposed that his attendant, Pate, should enliven the meeting with a song. One of the party, who professed to have an estimate of the shepherd’s vocal abilities, sneeringly replied, “Whaur can Pate sing?”

“What d’ye say?” answered the farmer. “Can Pate no sing? I’m thinkin’ he’s sung to as good fouk, an’ better than you, in his time. I’ll tell ye o’ a’e place whaur he has been kent to sing wi’ mair honour to himsel’ than ye can brag o’, and that’s before the Queen. Ay, an’ if it will heighten him ony in your estimation, I’ll prove to you, for the wager o’a bottle o’ brandy, that he even sleepit, an’ that no’ sae lang syne, in the same hoose she was in.”

Thinking this latter assertion outstretched the limits of all probability, the wager was immediately taken by the party, when, to the satisfaction of all the others present, the worthy farmer proved the truth of his allegations by telling how, accompanied by Pate, he had been to the Kirk of Crathie on the Sunday previous, and that during the service, and in presence of Her Royal Majesty, Pate had both sung and slept. The farmer won the wager, and the bottle circulated, amid continued outbursts of stentorian laughter.

A worthy laird in a Perthshire village made the, for him, wonderful journey to see the great Exhibition of 1851. On his return, his banker, a man who was well known to have the idea that he was by far the most influential and potent power in the shire, invited the laird, with some cronies, to a glass of punch. The banker meant to amuse the company at the old laird’s expense, to trot him out, and get him to describe the sights of London. “An’ what, laird, most of all impressed you at the great glass house?” asked the banker, with a sly wink at the company. “Ah, weel, sir,” replied the laird, as he emptied his glass, “I was muckle impressed wi’ a’ I saw—muckle impressed! But the thing abune a’ that impressed me maist was my ain insignificance. Losh, banker, I wad strongly advise you to gang; it would do you a vast amount o’ guid, sir!”

The next example affords the promise of an abundant harvest of humour off the rising generation of Scotsmen.

A little boy, whom we shall call Johnnie, just because that is his name, was not very long since employed as message-boy to a grocer in a small country town in the west, said grocer being an ardent advocate and supporter of the Conservative party in the State. One morning Johnnie was an hour or so late in turning out for duty, and on entering was promptly interrogated by his master as to the cause.

“The cat’s had kittlins this mornin’,” asseverated the lad, assuming a look of great earnestness; “four o’ them, an’ they’re a’ Conservatives.”[1]

“Get in bye and tidy up that back shop,” said the shopkeeper gruffly, not at the moment in a mood to enquire fully into the extraordinary feline phenomenon. One day, nearly a fortnight afterwards, the following sequel added itself, however, and there was a perfect understanding established. A commercial traveller, who is also a true-blue Tory, called at the shop, and was discussing with the grocer the chances of victory or failure to their party in an approaching bye-election. Said the grocer, “Our party is gaining strength in the country, of that I am convinced, and with reason; why, my message-boy was telling me recently that his mother’s cat has had kittens—four of them—and they are all Conservatives.” The traveller laughed, as only travellers who are anticipating an order can laugh. When Johnnie entered the premises with his basket on his arm and a tune in his mouth.

“Hillo, Johnnie!” exclaimed the commercial, “and so your cat has had kittens, has she? Eh?”

“Ay,” replied Johnnie, “four o’ them.”

“And all Conservatives, too, I believe?” remarked the traveller.

“Na,” said Johnnie: “they’re Leeberals.”

“Liberals! you told me a fortnight ago they were Conservatives,” interposed the master.

“Ou, ay; of course,” returned Johnnie, with the utmost gravity. “They were Conservatives yon time, but they’re seein’ noo!”

Just one more here. There is a cobbler in a little town in the North—a worthy old soul, as it would appear, whose custom has been for many years to hammer and whistle from morn to night in his little shop, and to discharge both functions so lustily as to be easily heard by the passers-by in the street. One day not long since the minister, happening to pass, missed the whistling accompaniment to the measured click on the lapstone, and looked in to ascertain the cause. “Is all well with you, Saunders?” he asked. “Na, na, sir; it’s far frae bein’ a’ weel wi’ me. The sweep’s gane an’ ta’en the shop ower my head.” “Oh, that’s bad news, indeed,” responded the minister, “but I think you might see your way out of the difficulty soon if, as I always urge in cases of emergency, you would make the matter a subject of earnest prayer.” Saunders promised to do this, and the preacher departed. In less than a week he returned, and found the old cobbler hammering and whistling away in his old familiar “might and main” fashion. “Well, Saunders, how is it now?” “Oh, it’s a’ richt, minister,” was the reply. “I did as ye tell’d me, an’—the sweep’s deid.”