“The funeral pomp set forth,” says he, “saulies with their batons and gamphions of tarnished white crape. Six starved horses, themselves the very emblems of mortality, well cloaked and plumed, lugging along the hearse, with its dismal emblazonry, crept in slow pace towards the place of interment, preceded by Jamie Duff, an idiot, who, with weepers and gravat made of white paper, attended on every funeral, and followed by six mourning coaches filled with the company.”
It was the free and ample feast of fat things, of course, that generally proved the attraction; and it serves as a commentary on the social life of Scotland, in the days of our grandfathers, to find a “natural” declaring that a certain funeral, which he had attended, “was a puir affair; there wasna a drunk man at it.”
Asked why he never went to church, a Fife “natural”—at least a Fifer more Fifish than his fellows—struck a dramatic attitude and exclaimed—“I love the lark that rises from the green sod with the dew sparkling from his breast, and soars far up in the blue heavens—that’s my religion.” Many perfectly sane persons have not so much. And your “natural” could admonish a stinging reproof when the occasion seemed to demand it. About the year 1820, at the time of the trial of Queen Caroline, Dr. Wightman was the popular and esteemed minister of Kirkmahoe, in the County of Dumfries, and he, like all the old Established clergymen, had been ordered to omit the Queen’s name from his public prayers. In those days the Doctor was often seen in the streets of the County town on market days, and on one of those occasions he happened to meet with daft Jock Gordon, and as usual stopped to have a little chat with him.
“Good morning, Jock, and how are you to-day?” said the kindly divine.
“Oh, gaily weel, gaily weel, Doctor,” replied Jock; “but, man, they tell me ye dinna pray for the Queen noo.”
“Quite true, Jock, for I’m afraid she is not a good woman,” replied Dr. Wightman.
“God bless me, Doctor, ye ken I’m a puir daft creature, and maybe kens nae better,” said Jock, “but I aye thocht, the waur a body was they aye wanted the prayin’ for the mair.”
Dr. Wightman felt he had been justly rebuked, and quietly slipped away.
It has become a proverb that “everybody has his bubblyjock,” and the well-known aphorism rose from the remark of a Scottish half-wit. The circumstances which produced it occurred in the experience of Sir Walter Scott, and deserves to be told.