"Ye can kick as lang as ye like, noo."
Not Qualified to Baptize
The only amusement in which Ralph Erskine, the father of the Scottish Secession, indulged, was playing the violin. He was so great a proficient on this instrument, and so often beguiled his leisure hours with it, that the people of Dumfermline believed he composed his sermons to its tones, as a poet writes a song to a particular air. They also tell the following anecdote connected with the subject:
A poor man in one of the neighboring parishes, having a child to baptize, resolved not to employ his own clergyman, with whom he was at issue on certain points of doctrine, but to have the office performed by some minister of whose tenets fame gave a better report.
With the child in his arms, therefore, and attended by the full complement of old and young women who usually minister on such occasions, he proceeded to the manse of ——, some miles off (not that of Mr. Erskine), where he inquired if the clergyman was at home.
"Na; he's no' at hame yeenoo," answered the servant lass; "he's down the burn fishing; but I can soon cry him in."
"Ye needna gie yoursel' the trouble," replied the man, quite shocked at this account of the minister's habits; "nane o' your fishin' ministers shall bapteeze my bairn."
Off he then trudged, followed by his whole train, to the residence of another parochial clergyman, at the distance of some miles. Here, on inquiring if the minister was at home, the lass answered:
"'Deed he's no' at home the day, he's been out since sax i' the morning at the shooting. Ye needna wait, neither; for he'll be sae made out when he comes back, that he'll no' be able to say bo to a calf, let-a-be kirsen a wean!"