"Ay, ay, the fule things, they often fa' ower the pier," she answered coolly.
"God bless me! Lost of course?"
"Na, na," was the reply; "noo and then, to be sure, a bairn's drooned, but unfortunately there's maistly some idle body in the way to fish oot the deevils!"
Sabbath Zeal
The reverence for the Sabbath in Scotland sometimes takes a form one would have hardly anticipated. An old Highland man said to an English tourist: "They're a God-fearin' set o' folks here, 'deed they are, an' I'll give ye an instance o't. Last Sabbath, just as the kirk was skalin', there was a drover chiel frae Dumfries along the road, whistlin' and lookin' as happy as if it was ta middle o' ta week. Weel, sir, our laads is a God-fearin' set o' laads, and they yokit upon him an' a'most killed him."
At the End of His Tether
An old Scotch lady was told that her minister used notes. She disbelieved it. Said one: "Go into the gallery and see!"
She did so, and saw the written sermon. After the luckless preacher had concluded his reading on the last page, he said: "But I will not enlarge."
The old woman cried out from her lofty position: "Ye canna! ye canna, for yer paper's give oot!"
A Thrifty Proposal