A Vigorous Translation
"What is the meaning of ex nihilo nihil fit?" asked a Highlander of a village schoolmaster.
"Weel, Donald," answered the dominie, "I dinna mind the literal translation; but it just means that ye canna tak' the breeks aff a Highland-man."
"Before the Provost!"
The magistrates of the Scottish burghs, though respectable men, are generally not the wealthiest in their respective communities. And it sometimes happens, in the case of very poor and remote burghs, that persons of a very inferior station alone can be induced to accept the uneasy dignity of the municipal chair.
An amusing story is told regarding the town of L——, in B——shire, which is generally considered as a peculiarly miserable specimen of these privileged townships. An English gentleman approaching L—— one day in a gig, his horse started at a heap of dry wood and decayed branches of trees, which a very poor-looking old man was accumulating upon the road, apparently with the intention of conveying them to town for sale as firewood. The stranger immediately cried to the old man, desiring him in no very civil terms, to clear the road that his horse might pass. The old man, offended at the disrespectful language of the complainant, took no notice of him, but continued to hew away at the trees.
"You old dog," the gentleman then exclaimed, "I'll have you brought before the provost, and put into prison for your disregard of the laws of the road."
"Gang to the de'il, man, wi' your provost!" the woodcutter contemptuously replied; "I'm provost mysel'."
Denominational Graves
For a short time after the disruption, an unkindly feeling existed between the ministers of the Established Church and their protesting brethren. Several "free" parishioners of Blackford, Perthshire, waited on Mr. Clark, the established minister, and requested that they might have the services of a non-Erastian sexton.