“Eh, John,” she replied “there’s few things in the warld I cud bear to refuse ye, but I canna brak’ on that bit ham. It’ll tak’ it a’ to ser’ the fouk at the funeral.”
A farmer not far from Coupar-Angus happened to go into the bothy and seeing all his men sitting by the fire doing nothing, he said he would bring them some books to read. On going back some weeks after he saw his books lying up on a shelf with about an inch of dust on them, and he asked if they had been reading them. One of the ploughmen said they hadn’t much time, and he said he would take them back then, and did so. After he had gone one of the men said, “Does the eediot think we will wirk his wark and read his books for the same siller?”
That is humour of the unconscious type. The next illustration belongs to the other class, and is quite as fresh, being as a matter of fact only a few months old. A Glasgow dignitary, with a very fine handle to his name, was recently rusticating in Western Perthshire; and expressing the desire to his host to know at first hand the feeling of the rural mind on the subject of Disestablishment, he was taken to the nearest roadside smithy and introduced to the smith. On being interrogated on the matter, the smith’s reply was, “O’d, sir, I dinna ken verra weel what to say aboot it. This Kirk affair seems to me a’thegither just like a bee’s skep that’s cuisten twa or three times. First there was the Anti-Burgher, or auld Licht, hive that cam aff. Syne there was the Seceders, or U.P.’s, as ye ca’ them. Then there was the Free hive. An’ noo, because it’s no like to cast ony mair, they wad fain hae us to start an’ smeek the auld skep—a gey ungratefu’ like piece o’ wark.”
There is an old proverb which says—“Fules shudna use chappin’-sticks, nor weavers guns.” Drawing an inference therefrom, townspeople should be careful how they express themselves on country affairs to a country-bred person.
After the late Lord Cockburn had become proprietor of Bonaly, at the foot of the Pentland Hills, he was sitting on the hillside with his shepherd one day, and observing the sheep reposing in the coldest situation, he remarked—
“John, if I were a sheep, I would lie on the other side of the hill.”
“Ah, my Lord,” said the shepherd, “but if ye was a sheep, ye wad hae mair sense.”
“John, if I were a sheep, I would lie on the other side of the hill.” “Ah,” said the shepherd, “but if ye was a sheep, ye wad hae mair sense.”—[Page 328.]