A number of stories in the Bishop's note-book are connected with Scotland and Ireland. Both of these countries were resorted to from time to time by him for purposes of the annual fishing holiday, and it is not too much to say that he made many friends in each among the ghillies and others who accompanied him on his various excursions on loch and riverside. Great was the amusement of two Highland boatmen, who many years ago were rowing him on a Sutherlandshire loch, when during an hour when the fish were very "stiff," he sang them, "Hame cam our gude mon at e'en," an old Scotch ballad by Wilson. The Irish boatmen, he used to think, were more melancholy, and he expressed his surprise at the character for rollicking fun which is often given them in books. At the same time he now and then drew out a real witticism, and more than once he notes with delight a real Irish "bull." Here are some of the stories, not all gleaned from the actual countries, but all referring to persons of these two nationalities:
An Irish clergyman, a neighbour of mine, thought it his duty to speak to a lady who had unhappily lost her faith in Christianity, and after a few arguments he ended by saying, "Well, you will go to hell, you know, and I shall be very sorry indeed to see you there."
A well-known Irish judge in the Insolvent Court once detected a witness kissing his thumb instead of the Book in taking the oath, and in rebuking him sternly said, "You may think to deceive God, sir, but you won't deceive me."
The Reverend G. B——, of Bridgenorth, told me that on a recent visit to Ireland he heard a preacher conclude his sermon with these words: "My brethren, let not this world rob you of a peace which it can neither give nor take away."
At the conclusion of the Irish Church Disestablishment in the House of Commons an enthusiastic Irish member got up and thanked God that at last the bridge was broken down which had so long separated Catholics and Protestants in Ireland.
An Englishman was driving through a beautiful glen in county Wicklow, and asked the driver the name of the valley, to which he replied, "Sure, and it's the divil's glen, yer honour." A little further on the stranger again asked, and the driver said, "Sure, and it's still the divil's glen, yer honour." They afterwards drove through another valley, and the stranger said, "And pray what do you call this?" "It's the divil's kitchen, yer honour," was the reply. The stranger then remarked, "He seems to have a good deal of property in these parts." "Indade, yer honour, he has," said the driver, "but he's mostly an absentee, and lives in London."
An Irish professor created a laugh, when called upon to speak at the Birmingham Church Congress, by beginning, with a rich brogue, "Before I begin to speak, let me say——" No one heard any more of the sentence.
At Bishop Lonsdale's first Ordination at his palace at Eccleshall there were a large number of young men, and at dinner a young Irish deacon called out from the other end of the table to the Bishop, "Me Lord, do you happen to have read my sermon on Justification by Faith?" "No," said the Bishop, "I don't happen to have met with it; but surely, Mr. ——, you have chosen rather a difficult subject." "Not at all, me Lord," the young deacon called out, "and when you've read my sermon you'll find no difficulty in the subject at all!"
A former Dean (an Irishman) in one of his sermons, speaking, as he often did, disparagingly of the Fathers of the early Church, said, "As for unanimity, there was no unanimity in any one of them." In another sermon the same dignitary spoke about "Standing on the seashore and watching the ever-receding horizon." Again, in another he urged his hearers to "take their immovable stand on the onward path of progress."
An Irishman of a certain church in Shrewsbury spoke one day of "the narrow way in which there was only room for one to walk abreast."