“Weel, weel, sir, since there be no help for it, Donald will forgive her; but,” he added, turning to his two sons, “may G⸺d d⸺n you, Duncan and Rory, if you’ll forgive her too!”
To be the means of causing a Highlander to emigrate from one locality to another, either by purchasing the property on which he resides, or obtaining a lease without his concurrence, is a sin not to be forgiven. A Glasgow gentleman wished to feu the patch of ground on which the Bellman’s house stood at Kilmun, with the stripe of garden attached to it, at which the Highland ire of the latter could scarcely be restrained.
“Did you’ll know?” queried he at an acquaintance, “a fellow—shentleman he is not; no, nor his mother before him—from your Glasgow, is going to put me away from my wee placie, where I was for all my days, an’ they’ll call her Macsmall—eh?”
“No,” replied the Glaswegian, “I don’t.”
“I was thought so, nor no decent mans. Well, maybe ay, and maybe no. A stone will put up his house or a stone will put it down; I’ll never did a mischiefs to no bodie, and I’ll not put my hand to a murder too. But, you see, there’s many friends in the glen will take a friend’s part—and they’ll be taking walks up the hill, an’ there’s many bigger stones there nor a house itself, and they’ll just be in the way, so they will; a bit dunch with the foot will make them come down without any carts and wheels, they’re heavy—very heavy—teet are they, and no easy to put a stop to when rinnin’, poor dumb creatures; and they canna help though they were taking the house of this trouster mosach (dirty scoundrel) with her. I wad just like, quietly between ourselfs, to see his house, six weeks after it was biggit, and the sclates on’t. Ay would I.”
Donald is dour and “thrawn as the wuddie,” and is consequently loath to eat his words. Yet there have been occasions when he has made the amende honorable. A notable case of the kind occurred not many years ago on board one of the West Highland steamers. One of the deck porters, whom we shall here call Duncan—just because his name was Donald—was much annoyed by a “pernickity” and, to say the least of it, rather troublesome lady passenger, who, without on any occasion producing the expected “tip,” kept Duncan shifting her baggage here and there about the boat. Greatly irritated by these frequent interruptions, Duncan at length so far forgot himself as to tell her to “go to Jericho,” or some other place in that direction. The lady, greatly shocked and insulted, complained to the captain, and insisted on an apology, failing which, she would communicate with the owners of the steamer. The captain promised to see the matter righted, and forthwith summoned Duncan to the state-room.
“Duncan,” said he, “you have been charged with gross incivility to a lady passenger, who threatens that, unless you apologise, she will inform the owners of the boat as soon as she reaches Glasgow. Now, you have just until we reach Greenock to do so. Off you go and apologise to her at once.”
Duncan bit his lip pretty hard, but the thing had to be done, so he went upstairs and snooved about rather sulkily until, by and by, he discovered the object of his quest, approaching whom, he said, with half-averted face, and eyes fixed on vacancy—
“Was you the old lady I was told to go to Jericho?”
“Yes,” replied the lady, snappishly.