“I say, Master Scott,
Can you change me a note?”
Mr. Scott’s reply was—
“I’m no very sure, but I’ll see.”
Then going into the back-room, he immediately returned and added—
“Indeed, Mr. Dewar,
It’s out o’ my power,
For my wife’s awa’ wi’ the key.”
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.