“How many?”
“Nae less than ten.” {399}
“Well I, hope they are pretty large, for really I find I have a great deal more Ale than I have bottles for.”
“I’se warrant ye, Mem, ilka ane o’ them will hold twelve gallons.”
“O, that will do extremely well.”
Down goes the lady.
“I left them in the dining-room,” said Paterson. When the lady went in she found ten of the most bibulous old lairds of the North of Fife. She at once perceived the joke, and entered into it. After a hearty laugh had gone round, she said she thought it would be as well to have dinner before filling the greybeards, and it was accordingly arranged that the gentlemen should take a ramble and come in to dinner at two o’clock.
The extra ale is understood to have been duly disposed of.
Closely allied to the Greybeard was the Toby Philpot beer jug; it was, however, a more elaborate article, and represented the whole figure of a portly toper. Its origin is thus described in the humorous verses entitled Toby Philpot, by Francis Fawkes:—
Dear Tom, this brown jug, which now foams with mild ale, Out of which I now drink to sweet Nan of the Vale, Was once Toby Philpot, a thirsty old soul, As e’er crack’d a bottle, or fathom’d a bowl: In bousing about, ’twas his pride to excel, And amongst jolly topers he bore off the bell.