Observing an old man, who had been long about the place, looking very attentively at all that was going on, Sir Alexander said:
"Wonderful things people can do now, Robby?"
"Ay, indeed, Sir Alexander," said Robby; "I'm thinking that if Solomon was alive now, he'd be thought naething o'!" [[7]]
Knox and Claverhouse
The shortest chronicle of the Reformation, by Knox, and of the wars of Claverhouse (Claver'se) in Scotland, which we know of, is that of an old lady who, in speaking of those troublous times remarked: "Scotland had a sair time o't. First we had Knox deavin' us wi' his clavers, and syne we've had Claver'se deavin' us wi' his knocks."
A Scotch Fair Proclamation of Olden Days
"Oh, yes!—an' that's e'e time. Oh, yes!—an' that's twa times. Oh, yes!—an that's the third and last time. All manner of person or persons whatsover let 'em draw near, an' I shall let 'em ken that there is a fair to be held at the muckle town of Langholm, for the space of aught days, wherein any hustrin, custrin, land-hopper dub-shouper, or gent-the-gate-swinger, shall breed any hurdam, durdam, rabble-ment, babble-ment or squabble-ment, he shall have his lugs tacked to the muckle throne with a nail of twa-a-penny, until he's down on his bodshanks, and up with his muckle doup, and pray to ha'en nine times, 'God bless the King,' and thrice the muckle Laird of Reltown, paying a goat to me, Jemmy Ferguson, baillie to the aforesaid manor. So you've heard my proclamation, and I'll gang hame to my dinner."
"Though Lost to Sight—to Memory Dear!"
Some time ago a good wife, residing in the neighborhood of Perth, went to town to purchase some little necessaries, and to visit several of her old acquaintances. In the course of her peregrinations she had the misfortune to lose a one-pound note. Returning home with a saddened heart she encountered her husband, employed in the cottage garden, to whom she communicated at great length all her transactions in town, concluding with the question: "But man you canna guess what's befaun me?"