_A tale of dialect told by Mr. Berkeley Hights, holder of the
twelfth ball_
"Hoot mon!"
The words rang out derisively on the cold frosty air of Drumtochty, as
Lang Tammas walked slowly along the street, looking for the residence of
Drumsheugh. The effect was electrical. Tammas stopped short, and turning
about, scanned the street eagerly to see who it was that had spoken. But
the highway was deserted, and the old man shook his stick, as if at an
imaginary foe.
"I'll hoot-mon the dour eediot that's eensoolted a veesitor to
Drumtochty!" he shouted. "I haena brought me faithfu' steck for
naething!" he added.
He glared about, now at this closed window, now at that, as if inviting
his enemy to come forth and be punished, but seeing no signs of life,
turned again to resume his walk, muttering angrily to himself. It was
indeed hardly to be tolerated that he, one of the great characters of
fiction, should be thus jeered at, as he thought, while on a friendly
pilgrimage from Thrums to Drumtochty, the two rival towns in the
affections of the consumers of modern letters; and having walked all the
way from his home at Thrums, Lang Tammas was tired, and therefore in no
mood to accept even a mild affront, much less an insult.
He had scarcely covered ten paces, however, when the same voice, with a
harsh cackling laugh, again broke the stillness of the street:
"Gang awa', gang awa'--ha, ha, ha!"
Tammas rushed into the middle of the way and picked up a stone.
[Illustration: "'HOOT MON!'"]
"Pit your bogie pate oot o' your weendow, me gillie!" he cried. "I'll
gie it a garry crack. Pit it oot, I say! Pit it oot!"
And the old man drew himself back into an attitude which would have
defied the powers of Phidias to reproduce in marble, the stone poised
accurately and all too ready to be hurled.
"Ye ramshackle macloonatic!" he cried. "Standin' in a weendow, where
nane may see, an' heepin' eensoolts on deecint fowk. Pit it oot--pit it
oot--an' get it crackit!"
The reply was instant:
"Gang awa', gang awa'--ha, ha, ha!"
Had Lang Tammas been a creation of Lever, he would at this point have
removed his coat and his hat and thrown them down violently to earth,
and then have whacked the walk three times with the stout stick he
carried in his right hand, as a preliminary to the challenge which
followed. But Tammas was not Irish, and therefore not impulsive. He was
Scotch--as Scotch as ever was. Wherefore he removed his hat, and, after
dusting it carefully, hung it up on a convenient hook; took off his coat
and folded it neatly; picked up his "faithfu' steck," and observed:
"I hae naething to do that's of eemportance. Drumsheugh can wait, an'
sae can ee. Pit it oot, pit it oot! Here I am, an' here I stay until ye
pit it oot to be crackit."
"Gang awa', gang awa'--ha, ha, ha!" came the reply.
Lang Tammas turned on the instant to the sources of the sound. He fixed
his eyes sternly on the very window whence he thought the words had
issued.
"Number twanty-three, saxth floor," he muttered to himself. "I will
call, and then we shall see what we _shall_ see; and if what we see gets
off wi'oot a thorough 'hootin',' then I dinna ken me beezniss."
[Illustration: "A SWEET-FACED NURSE APPEARED"]
Hastily discarding his outward wrath, and assuming such portions of his
garments as went with his society manner, Tammas walked into the lobby
of the apartment-house in which his assumed insulter lived. He pushed
the electric button in, and shortly a sweet-faced nurse appeared.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Me," said Lang Tammas, somewhat abashed. "I've called too see the head
o' the hoose."
"I am sorry," said the trained nurse, bursting into tears, "but the head
of the house is at the point of death, sir, and cannot see you until
to-morrow. Call around about ten o'clock."
"Hoots an' toots!" sighed Lang Tammas. "Canna we Scuts have e'er a story
wi'oot somebody leein' at the point o' death! It's most affectin', but
doonricht wearin' on the constitootion."
"Was there anything you wished to say to him?" asked the nurse.
"Oh, aye!" returned Lang Tammas. "I dinna ken hoo to deny that I hed
that to say to him, an' to do to him as weel. I'm a vairy truthfu' mon,
young lady, an' if ye must be told, I've called to wring his garry neck
for dereesively gee'in an unoffending veesitor frae Thrums by yelling
deealect at him frae the hoose-tops."
"Are you sure it was here?" asked the nurse, anxiously, the old
gentleman seemed so deeply in earnest.
"Sure? Oh, aye--pairfectly," replied Lang Tammas; but even as he spoke,
the falsity of his impression was proved by the same strident voice that
had so offended before, coming from the other side of the street:
"What a crittur ye are, ye cow! What a crittur ye are!"
"Soonds are hard to place, ma'am," said Lang Tammas, jerking about as if
he had been shot. It was a very hard position for the old man, for, with
the immediate need for an apology to the nurse, there rushed over him an
overwhelming wave of anger. Hitherto it was merely a suspicion that he
was being made sport of that had irritated him, but this last
outburst--"What a crittur ye are, ye cow!"--was convincing evidence that
it was to him that the insults were addressed; for in Thrums it is
history that Hendry and T'nowhead and Jim McTaggart frequently greeted
Lang Tammas's jokes with "Oh, ye cow!" and "What a crittur ye are!" But
the old man was equal to the emergency, and fixing one eye upon the
house opposite and the other upon the sweet-faced nurse, he darted
glances that should kill at his persecutor, and at the same time
apologized for disturbing the nurse. The latter he did gracefully.
"Ye look aweary, ma'am," he said. "An' if the head o' the hoose maun
dee, may he dee immejiately, that ye may rest soon."
And with this, pulling his hat down over his forehead viciously, he
turned and sped swiftly across the way. The nurse gazed anxiously after
him, and in her secret soul wondered if she would not better send for
Jamie McQueen, the town constable. Poor Tammas's eye was really so
glaring, and his whole manner so manifestly that of a man exasperated to
the verge of madness, that she considered him somewhat in the light of
a menace to the public safety. She was not at all reassured, either,
when Tammas, having reached the other side of the street, began
gesticulating wildly, shaking his "faithfu' steck" at the facade of the
confronting flat-house. But an immediate realization of the condition of
the sick man above led her to forego the attempt to protect the public
safety, and closing the door softly to, she climbed the weary stairs to
the sixth floor, and soon forgot the disturbing trial of the morning in
reading to her patient certain inspiring chapters from the Badminton
edition of _Haggert's Chase of Heretics_, relieved with the lighter
_Rules of Golf; or, Auld Putt Idylls_, by the Rev. Ian McCrockett, one
of the most exquisitely confusing humorous works ever published in the
Highlands.
Lang Tammas meanwhile was addressing an invisible somebody in the
building over the way, and in no uncertain tones.
"If I were not a geentlemon and a humorist," he said, impressively,
agitating his stick nervously at the building front, "I could say much
that nae Scut may say. But were I nae Scut, I'd say this to ye: 'Ye have
all the eelements of a confairmed heeritic. Ye've nae sense of deecint
fun. Ye're not a man for a' that, as most men air--ye're an ass, plain
and simple, wi' naether the plainness nor the simpleecity o' the
individual that Balaam rode. Further--more--'"
What Lang Tammas would have said furthermore had he not been a Scot the
world will never know, for from the other side of the street--farther
along, however--came the squawking voice again:
"Gang awa', gang awa', ye crittur, ye cow! Hoot mon--hoot mon--hoot mon!
Gang awa', gang awa'!" And this was followed by a raucous cry, which
might or might not have been Scottish, but which was, in any event,
distinctly maddening. And even as the previous insults had electrified
poor Tammas, so this last petrified him, and he stood for an
appreciable length of time absolutely transfixed. His mind was a curious
study. His coming had been prompted entirely by the genial spirit which
throbbed beneath his stony Scottish exterior. For a long time he had
been a resident of the most conspicuous Scotch town in all literature,
and he was himself its accepted humorist. Then on a sudden Thrums had a
rival. Drumtochty sprang forth, and in the matter of pathos, if not
humor, ran Thrums hard; and Lang Tammas, attracted to Drumsheugh, had
come this distance merely to pay his respects, and to see what manner of
man the real Drumsheugh was.
[Illustration: TAMMAS MEETS DRUMSHAUGH]
And this was his reception! To be laughed at--he, a Scotch humorist! Had
any one ever laughed at a Scotch humorist before? Never. Was not the
test of humor in Scotland the failure to laugh of the hearer of the
jest? Would Scotch humor ever prove great if not taken seriously? Oh,
aye! Hendry never laughed at his jokes, and Hendry knew a joke when
he saw one. McTaggart never smiled at Lang Tammas; and as for the little
Minister--he knew what was due to the humorist of Thrums, as well as to
himself, and enjoyed the exquisite humor of Tammas with a reserve well
qualified to please the Presbytery and the Congregation.
How long Lang Tammas would have stood petrified no man may say; but just
then who should come along but the person he had come to call
upon--Drumsheugh himself.
"_Knox et praeterea nihil!_" he exclaimed. "What in Glasgie hae we here?"
Lang Tammas turned upon him.
"Ye hae nowt in Glasgie here," he said, sternly. "Ye hae a vairy muckle
pit-oot veesitor, wha hae coom on an airand o' good-will to be gret wi'
eensoolts."
"Eensoolts?" retorted Drumsheugh. "Eensoolts, ye say? An' wha hae bin
eensooltin' ye?"
"That I know nowt of, save that he be a doonricht foo' a-heepin' his
deealect upon me head," said Lang Tammas.
"And wha are ye to be so seensitive o' deealect?" demanded Drumsheugh.
"My name is Lang Tammas--"
"O' Thrums?" cried Drumsheugh.
"Nane ither," said Tammas.
Drumsheugh burst into an uproarious fit of laughter.
"The humorist?" he cried, catching his sides.
"Nane ither," said Tammas, gravely. "And wha are ye?"
"Me? Oh, I'm--Drumsheugh o' Drumtochty," he replied. "Come along hame
wi' me. I'll gie ye that to make the eensoolt seem a compliment."
And the two old men walked off together.
An hour later, on their way to the kirk, Drumsheugh observed that after
the service was over he would go with Lang Tammas and seek out the man
who had insulted him and "gie" him a drubbing, which invitation Tammas
was nothing loath to accept. Reverently the two new-made friends walked
into the kirk and sat themselves down on the side aisle. A hymn was
sung, and the minister was about to read from the book, when the silence
of the church was broken by a shrill voice:
"Hoot mon! Hoot mon!"
Tammas clutched his stick. The voice was the same, and here it had
penetrated the sacred precincts of the church! Nowhere was he safe from
insult. Drumsheugh looked up, startled, and the voice began again:
"Gang awa' a-that, a-that, a-that--gang awa'! Oh, ye crittur! oh, ye
cow!"
And then a titter ran through that solemn crowd; for, despite the
gravity of the situation, even John Knox himself must have smiled. A
great green parrot had flown in at one of the windows, and had perched
himself on the pulpit, where, with front undismayed, he addressed the
minister:
"Gang awa', gang awa'!" he cried, and preened himself. "Hoot mon, gang
awa'!"
"_Knox nobiscum!_" ejaculated Drumsheugh. "It's Moggie McPiggert's
pairrut," and he chuckled; and then, as Lang Tammas realized the
situation, even he smiled broadly. He had been insulted by a parrot
only, and the knowledge of it made him feel better.
The bird was removed and the service proceeded; and later, when it was
over, as the two old fellows walked back to Drumsheugh's house in the
gathering shades of the night, Lang Tammas said:
"I acquet Drumtochty o' its eensoolts, Drumsheugh, but I've lairnt a
lesson this day."
"What's that?" asked Drumsheugh.
"When pairruts speak Scutch deealect, it's time we Scuts gae it oop,"
said Tammas.
"I think so mysel'," agreed Drumsheugh. "But hoo express our thochts?"
"I dinna ken for ye," said Lang Tammas, "but for me, mee speakee heathen
Chinee this timee on."
"Vairy weel," returned Drumsheugh. "Vairy weel; I dinna ken heathen
Chinee, but I hae some acqueentance wi' the tongue o' sairtain
Amairicans, and that I'll speak from this day on--it's vairy weel called
the Bowery eediom, and is a judeecious mixture o' English, Irish, and
Volapeck."
And from that time on Lang Tammas and Drumsheugh spoke never another
word of Scotch dialect; and while Tammas never quite mastered
pidgin-English, or Drumsheugh the tongue of Fadden, they lived happily
ever after, which in a way proves that, after all, the parrot is a
useful as well as an ornamental bird.