"Here I'm, sir," uttered a shrill voice from a back seat.
"Aweel," said Mr. Brown; "I have fand ye a bed; ye're to sleep wi' Johnnie Fife's lass."
"Wishes Never Filled the Bag"
There are always pointed anecdotes against houses wanting in a liberal and hospitable expenditure in Scotland. Thus, we have heard of a master leaving such a mansion, and taxing his servant with being drunk, which he had too often been after country visits. On this occasion, however, he was innocent of the charge, for he had not the opportunity to transgress. So, when his master asserted, "Jemmy, you are drunk!" Jemmy very quietly answered, "Indeed, sir, I wish I wur."
Not Used to It
On one occasion an eccentric Scotchman, having business with the late Duke of Hamilton at Hamilton Palace, the Duke politely asked him to lunch. A liveried servant waited upon them, and was most assiduous in his attentions to the duke and his guest. At last our eccentric friend lost patience, and looking at the servant, addressed him thus: "What the deil for are ye dance, dance, dancing about the room that gait; can ye no' draw in your chair and sit down? I'm sure there's plenty on the table for three." [[7]]
"Effectual Calling"
Maitland, the Jacobite historian of Edinburgh, relates with infinite zest the following anecdote of the Rev. Robert Bruce, the zealous Presbyterian minister who boldly bearded King James I: "1589, August 15.—Robert Bruce, one of the four ministers of Edinburgh, threatening to leave the town" (the reason from what follows, may be easily guessed at), "great endeavors were used to prevent his going; but none, it seems, so prevalent as that of the increase of his stipend to one thousand merks, which the good man was graciously pleased to accept, though it only amounted to one hundred and forty merks more than all the stipends of the other three ministers."
Motive for Church-Going
An old man, who for years walked every Sunday from Newhaven to Edinburgh to attend the late Dr. Jones' church, was one day complimented by that venerable clergyman for the regularity of his appearance in church. The old man unconsciously evinced how little he deserved the compliment by this reply: "'Deed, sir, its very true; but I like to hear the jingling o' the bells and see a' the braw folk." [[9]]