Then the vigour and variety of the Scottish idiom as a vehicle of description has perhaps never received better illustration than in Andrew Fairservice’s account of Glasgow Cathedral:—“Ay! it’s a brave Kirk,” said Andrew. “Nane o’ yere whigmaleeries and curliwurlies and open steek hems aboot it—a’ solid, weel-jointed mason wark, that will stand as lang as the warld, keep hands and gunpowther aff it. It had amaist a douncome lang syne at the Reformation, when they pu’d doon the Kirks of St. Andrews and Perth, and thereawa’, to cleanse them o’ Papery, and idolatry, and image-worship, and surplices, and sic like rags o’ the muckle hure that sitteth on the seven hills, as if ane wasna braid enough for her auld hinder end. Sae the commons o’ Renfrew, and o’ the Barony, and the Gorbals, and a’ aboot, they behoved to come into Glasgow a’e fair morning, to try their hand on purging the High Kirk o’ Popish nick-nackets. But the townsmen o’ Glasgow, they were feared their auld edifice might slip the girths in gaun through siccan rough physic, sae they rang the common bell, and assembled the train-bands wi’ took o’ drum. By gude luck, the worthy James Rabat was Dean o’ Guild that year (and a gude mason he was himsell, made him keener to keep up the auld bigging). And the trades assembled, and offered downright battle to the commons, rather than their Kirk should coup the crans, as others had done elsewhere. It wasna for love o’ Papery—na, na!—nane could ever say that o’ the trades o’ Glasgow. Sae they sune came to an agreement to tak a’ the idolatrous statues o’ sants (sorrow be on them) out o’ their neuks—and sae the bits o’ stone idols were broken in pieces by Scripture warrant, and flung into the Molendiner burn, and the Auld Kirk stood as crouse as a cat when the flaes are kaimed aff her, and a’ body was alike pleased. And I hae heard wise folk say that if the same had been dune in ilka Kirk in Scotland, the Reform wad just hae been as pure as it is e’en now, and we wad hae mair Christianlike Kirks; for I hae been sae lang in England, that naething will drive out o’ my head, that the dog-kennel at Osbaldistone-Hall is better than mony a house o’ God in Scotland.”
No man, it is well known, had ever more command of the native vernacular than Robert Burns. In a letter written at Carlisle, in June 1787, to his friend William Nicol, Master of the High School, Edinburgh, he has left a curious testimony at once to the capabilities of the language and his own skill in it. “Kind, honest-hearted Willie,” he writes, “I’m sitten doon here, after seven-and-forty miles’ ridin’, e’en as forjeskit and forniaw’d as a forfoughten cock, to gie you some notion o’ my land-lowper-like stravaigin’ sin’ the sorrowfu’ hour that I sheuk hands and parted wi’ Auld Reekie.
“My auld ga’d gleyde o’ a meere has huchyall’d up hill and doun brae in Scotland and England, as teuch and birnie as a vera deevil wi’ me. It’s true, she’s as puir’s a sang-maker, an’ as hard’s a kirk, and tipper taipers when she tak’s the gate, jist like a lady’s gentlewoman in a minuwae, or a hen on a het girdle; but she’s a yauld, poutherie girran for a’ that, and has a stamach like Willie Stalker’s meere, that wad hae digeested tumbler-wheels, for she’ll whip me aff her five stimparts o’ the best aits at a down-sitten’, and ne’er fash her thoom. Whan ance her ring-banes and spavies, her crucks and cramps, are fairly soupl’d, she beets to, beets to, and aye the hindmost hour the tightest. I could wager her price to a thretty pennies, that for twa or three wooks, ridin’ at fifty miles a day, the deil-stickit a five gallopers acqueesh Clyde and Whithorn could cast saut on her tail.
“I hae dander’d owre a’ the country frae Dunbar to Selcraig, and ha’e forgather’d wi’ mony a gude fallow, and mony a weel-faur’d hizzie. I met wi’ twa dink queynes in particular. Ane o’ them a sonsie, fine, fodgel lass, baith braw and bonnie; the ither was a clean-shankit, straught, tight, weel-faur’d wench, as blythe’s a lintwhite on a flowerie thorn, and as sweet and modest’s a new blawn plum-rose in a hazel shaw. They were baith bred to mainers by the beuk, and ony ane o’ them had as muckle smeddum and rumblegumption as the half o’ some Presbytries that you and I baith ken. They played me sic a deil o’ a shavie, that I daur say if my harigals were turn’d out ye wad see twa nicks i’ the heart o’ me like the mark o’ a kail-whittle in a castock.
“I was gaun to write you a lang pystle, but, Gude forgi’e me, I gat mysel’ sae noutourously bitchify’d the day, after kail-time, than I can hardly stoiter but and ben.
“My best respecks to the guidwife and a’ our common friens, especiall Mr. and Mrs. Cruikshank, and the honest guidman o’ Jock’s Lodge.
“I’ll be in Dumfries the morn gif the beast be to the fore, and the branks bide hale.
“Gude be wi’ you, Willie! Amen!”
That letter might fairly be made the “Shibboleth” in any case of doubt regarding one’s ability to read Scotch. It would shiver the front teeth of some of your counterlouper gentry. Yet it is not an overdone example of the Scotch Doric as it was spoken in Edinburgh drawing-rooms a hundred years ago—vide, Henry Cockburn’s Memorials. Between it and the “braid Scotch” of half a century earlier there is a marked difference.