“Don’t stand there, sir, and collect a crowd,” exclaimed a gentleman in blue to him one day.
“Man,” responded Hawkie, “there’s a power o’ hearers, but few believers.”
Calling on a shopkeeper somewhat late one evening soliciting a trifle to help to pay his lodgings, the merchant remarked that he had surely come little speed during the day when he had not made so much as would defray that small matter.
“That’s a’ ye ken,” replied Hawkie; “my lodging costs mair than yours does.”
“How do you make that out?” was asked.
“I’ll tell ye,” said the vagrant. “In the first place, it tak’s fifteenpence to mak’ me drunk—boards and banes mak’ up the bed and contents, and unless I were drunk I couldna sleep a wink—the bed that I hae to lie doon on wad mak’ a dog yowl to look at; and then the landlady maun be paid, though a week’s lodgings wad buy a’ the boards an’ bowls that’s in the house. I hae made but little the day. I was up at the Cowcaddens, whar they hae little to themsel’s, an’ less disposition to spare; an’, wearied oot, I lay doon on the roadside to rest me. The laddies as they passed were sayin, ‘Hawkie’s drunk! Hawkie’s drunk!’ An’, man, my very heart was like to brak’, I was sae vex’d to think it wasna true.”
Some forty years ago, when the Very Rev. Bishop Murdoch was Bishop in Glasgow, Hawkie, in his rambles often made his way to the Bishop’s residence in Great Clyde Street, and as the Bishop was well acquainted with Hawkie and his pawky sayings, he often rewarded him with a plate of soup or a glass of spirits, whichever he appeared to be most in need of. On one occasion a clergyman from the Highlands was paying a visit to the Bishop, and as they both chanced to be standing at the window conversing, they saw Hawkie slowly making his way in their direction. The Bishop, turning to the clergyman, told him that that was one of Glasgow’s characters, famous for his witty sayings, etc., and that he would call him in, when he would probably hear for himself. Accordingly, Hawkie was brought in and shown into the room beside the reverend gentlemen. The Bishop spoke a few words to him, and then, as he saw Hawkie looking at the pictures on the walls, he asked him if he knew any of them.
“Maybe,” was the answer.
The Bishop, pointing to a likeness of himself which was hanging on the wall, asked him if he knew it, and if it was a good likeness.
“Ou, ay,” said Hawkie, “it’s no bad.”