Lady Macneil supplies an excellent pendant to Miss Stewart's story about the jack going on the Sunday. Her henwife had got some Dorking fowls, and on Lady M. asking if they were laying many eggs, she replied, with great earnestness, "Indeed my leddy, they lay every day, no' excepting the blessed Sabbath."
There were, however, old persons at that time who were not quite so orthodox on the point of Sabbath observance; and of these a lady residing in Dumfries was known often to employ her wet Sundays in arranging her wardrobe. "Preserve us!" she said on one occasion, "anither gude Sunday! I dinna ken whan I'll get thae drawers redd up."
In connection with the awful subject of death and all its concomitants, it has been often remarked that the older generation of Scottish people used to view the circumstances belonging to the decease of their nearest and dearest friends with a coolness which does not at first sight seem consistent with their deep and sincere religious impressions. Amongst the peasantry this was sometimes manifested in an extraordinary and startling manner. I do not believe that those persons had less affection for their friends than a corresponding class in England, but they had less awe of the concomitants of death, and approached them with more familiarity. For example, I remember long ago at Fasque, my sister-in-law visiting a worthy and attached old couple, of whom the husband, Charles Duncan, who had been gardener at Fasque for above thirty years was evidently dying. He was sitting on a common deal chair, and on my sister proposing to send down for his use an old arm-chair which she recollected was laid up in a garret, his wife exclaimed against such a needless trouble: "Hout, my leddy, what would he be duin' wi' an arm-chair? he's just deein' fast awa." I have two anecdotes, illustrative of the same state of feeling, from a lady of ancient Scottish family accustomed to visit her poor dependants on the property, and to notice their ways. She was calling at a decent cottage, and found the occupant busy carefully ironing out some linens. The lady remarked, "Those are fine linens you have got there, Janet." "Troth, mem," was the reply, "they're just the gudeman's deed claes, and there are nane better i' the parish." On another occasion, when visiting an excellent woman, to condole with her on the death of her nephew, with whom she had lived, and whose loss must have been severely felt by her, she remarked, "What a nice white cap you have got, Margaret." "Indeed, mem, ay, sae it is; for ye see the gude lad's winding sheet was ower lang, and I cut aff as muckle as made twa bonny mutches" (caps).
There certainly was a quaint and familiar manner in which sacred and solemn subjects were referred to by the older Scottish race, who did not mean to be irreverent, but who no doubt appeared so to a more refined but not really a more religious generation.
It seems to me that this plainness of speech arose in part from the sincerity of their belief in all the circumstances of another condition of being. They spoke of things hereafter as positive certainties, and viewed things invisible through the same medium as they viewed things present. The following is illustrative of such a state of mind, and I am assured of its perfect authenticity and literal correctness:--"Joe M'Pherson and his wife lived in Inverness. They had two sons, who helped their father in his trade of a smith. They were industrious and careful, but not successful. The old man had bought a house, leaving a large part of the price unpaid. It was the ambition of his life to pay off that debt, but it was too much for him, and he died in the struggle. His sons kept on the business with the old industry, and with better fortune. At last their old mother fell sick, and told her sons she was dying, as in truth she was. The elder son said to her, 'Mother, you'll soon be with my father; no doubt you'll have much to tell him; but dinna forget this, mother, mind ye, tell him the house is freed. He'll be glad to hear that.'"
A similar feeling is manifest in the following conversation, which, I am assured, is authentic:--At Hawick the people used to wear wooden clogs, which make a clanking noise on the pavement. A dying old woman had some friends by her bedside, who said to her, "Weel, Jenny, ye are gaun to heeven, an' gin you should see oor folk, you can tell them that we're a' weel." To which Jenny replied, "Weel, gin I should see them I'se tell them, but you manna expect that I am to gang clank clanking through heevan looking for your folk."
But of all stories of this class, I think the following deathbed conversation between a Scottish husband and wife is about the richest specimen of a dry Scottish matter-of-fact view of a very serious question:--An old shoemaker in Glasgow was sitting by the bedside of his wife, who was dying. She took him by the hand. "Weel, John, we're gawin to part. I hae been a gude wife to you, John." "Oh, just middling, just middling, Jenny," said John, not disposed to commit himself. "John," says she, "ye maun promise to bury me in the auld kirk-yard at Stra'von, beside my mither. I couldna rest in peace among unco folk, in the dirt and smoke o' Glasgow." "Weel, weel, Jenny, my woman," said John soothingly, "we'll just pit you in the Gorbals first, and gin ye dinna lie quiet, we'll try you sine in Stra'von."
The same unimaginative and matter-of-fact view of things connected with the other world extended to a very youthful age, as in the case of a little boy who, when told of heaven, put the question, "An' will faather be there?" His instructress answered, "of course, she hoped he would be there;" to which he sturdily at once replied, "Then I'll no gang."
We might apply these remarks in some measure to the Scottish pulpit ministrations of an older school, in which a minuteness of detail and a quaintness of expression were quite common, but which could not now be tolerated. I have two specimens of such antiquated language, supplied by correspondents, and I am assured they are both genuine.
The first is from a St. Andrews professor, who is stated to be a great authority in such narratives.