John Prentice of Carnwath put his plaint in a more pleasant form. “Hech wow!” he would say, when told of the death of any person. “Ay, man, an’ is So-and-So dead? Weel, I wad rather it had been anither twa!”
A person once asked John Prentice if he considered himself at liberty to pray for his daily bread. “Dear sake, sir,” he answered, “the Lord’s Prayer tells us that, ye ken.”
“Ay, but,” said the querist, “do you think you can do that consistently with the command which enjoins us to wish no evil to our neighbours?”
“My conscience!” cried John, in astonishment, “the folk maun be buried!”
“Rin awa’ hame, bairns,” a well-known Perthshire beadle was in the habit of saying to such of the children as curiosity or playfulness had brought to the churchyard. “Awa’ wi’ ye! an’ dinna come here again on yer ain feet.”
Just after an interment one day in the same churchyard, and as the mourners were returning towards the gate, one of the party gave a cough, which caused the beadle to prick his ears, and, looking towards a friend who stood by, “Wha ga’e yon howe hoast (hollow cough)?” said he. “He’ll be my way gin March!”
“I’m gettin’ auld an’ frail noo, Jamie,” said a timorous and “pernickity” old lady one day to this same functionary; “there’s a saxpence to ye to buy snuff. An’ if I sud be ta’en awa’ afore I see ye again, Jamie, ye’ll mind an’ lay me in oor wastmost lair.”
“A’ richt,” said Jamie, “but there may be ithers i’ the family that wad like the wastmost lair as weel as you, so, to save disappointment, ye’d better hurry up an’ tak’ possession.”
The late Rev. Mr. Barty, of Ruthven, was a man brimful of humour, and many good stories are told of him. A vacancy having occurred in the office of gravedigger, one, Peter Hardie, made application for the appointment. The parish is small, consisting of five farms. The rate per head having been duly fixed, the minister and Peter had just about closed the bargain, when Peter, with an eye to self-interest, said, “But am I to get steady wark?” “Keep’s a! Peter,” answered Mr. Barty, “wi’ steady wark ye wad bury a’ the parish in a fortnicht!”
But the beadle sometimes meets with folks as inhumanly practical as himself.