Scottish shepherds and their dogs. A snow-storm among the Southern
Uplands. Scottish inns of an old type. Reminiscences of some
Highland inns. Revival of roadside inns by cyclists. Scottish
drink. Drinking customs now obsolete.
The shepherds in the pastoral uplands of the south of Scotland are
a strong, active, and intelligent race. I have spent many a happy
day among them, living in their little shielings, on the friendliest
footing with them, their families, and their dogs. The household at
Talla Linnfoot, in Peeblesshire, was a typical sample of one of these
families. Wattie Dalgleish, the shepherd there when I first went into
the district, was becoming an elderly man, no longer able for the
stiff climbs and long walks that were needed to look after the whole
of his wide charge. His young and vigorous son was able to relieve him
of the more distant ground, which was shared with another man, not of
the family, who slept in one of the outhouses. Wattie’s active wife
and daughter looked well after the domestic concerns of the household.
His laugh had the clear, hearty ring of a frank, honest, and kindly
nature. He delighted to recount his experiences of field and fell, and
his Doric was pure and racy. One evening I had come up from Tweedsmuir
and described to him a man whom I had seen at work there, planing a
shutter which he had placed on tressels in the very middle of the
road. This worthy wore large round-eyed spectacles, a tattered apron
in front of him, and a red-tasselled blue bonnet on his head. The
shepherd recognised the man from my description, and at once asked,
‘And did he speir (enquire) the inside out o’ ye?’ He had certainly put
a good many questions. He turned out to be a kind of factotum down the
valley of the Tweed--‘barber, cook, upholsterer, what you please’--of
whom I afterwards heard much. As among his avocations was that of
paper-hanging, he was once employed by a proprietor in Broughton parish
to paper a bedroom. In the afternoon, when the master of the house came
to see how the work was getting on, he found that the paper had been
stuck on the walls just as it came, without the selvages being cut off.
‘Tammas, Tammas,’ exclaimed the laird, ‘what is the meaning of this?
Why have you not cut off these ugly borders?’ Tammas looked at the
laird for a moment through his great goggles, and then with a toss of
his head remarked, ‘That may be your taste, sir, but on Tweedside we
like it best _this_ way,’ and went on with his pasting.
[Sidenote: PAPER-HANGING ON TWEEDSIDE]
Wattie Dalgleish had a collie which, like himself, was getting
somewhat aged, and no longer fit for the severer work of the hill. The
dog would accompany him in his short rounds and return early in the
afternoon to the cottage. Some hours later I would come back from my
rambles, and as I descended the steep slope opposite, and came within
old ‘Tweed’s’ sight and hearing, he would signify his recognition of
me by a loud barking, which I could always distinguish from other
canine performances, for it showed neither surprise nor anger, but
had an element of kindly welcome in it. As I drew nearer, the barking
underwent a curious change into a sort of short intermittent howl of
delight, and as I came up to the enclosure, the dear old creature would
burst into a loud guffaw. He was the only dog I ever knew that had what
one might fairly call a true honest laugh. And how his tail would wag,
as if it would surely be twisted off, while he marched in front of me
to announce in his own way that the guest of the family had come back.
[Sidenote: SHEPHERDS’ DOGS]
There were so many dogs in the household that one could study the
idiosyncrasies of canine nature on a basis of some breadth. It struck
me then that perhaps there might be more truth than one had been
inclined to suppose in Butler’s facetious remark:
As some philosophers
Have well observ’d, beasts that converse
With man, take after him.
Certainly there did appear to be in that shepherd’s shieling a curious
similarity of disposition between the dogs and their respective
masters. My old friend ‘Tweed’ was a kind of four-footed duplicate of
the honest Wattie, down even to the hearty laugh. On the other hand,
the stranger shepherd had a collie that closely reproduced his own
characteristics. The man was sullen and taciturn, did not mingle with
the family, but sat apart, and retired soon to his own quarters. The
dog usually lay below his master’s chair, refused to fraternise with
the other dogs, receiving them with a snarl or growl when they came
too near, and marching off with the shepherd when he retired for the
night. I tried hard to be on cordial terms with the man, and still
harder to ingratiate myself with the dog, but was equally unsuccessful
in both directions.
The Talla valley is narrow and deep, the hills rising steeply from
1000 to 1400 feet above the flat alluvial haugh at the bottom, which
is about 900 feet above the sea. It must be sadly changed now, when it
has become the site of one of the great Edinburgh water-reservoirs.
But in the days of which I am speaking it was a lonely sequestered
glen, silent save for the bleat of the sheep or the bark of the dogs.
In wet weather the wind drove up or down the defile, separating the
rain into long vertical shafts, which chased each other like pale
spectres. In the narrower tributary gorge of the Gameshope, these
ghost-like forms are even more marked, hence they are known in the
district as the ‘White Men of Gameshope.’ Above Talla Linnfoot, the
ground rises steeply up into the heights around Loch Skene and the
weird hollows of the White Coomb. With my early school-fellow and
colleague in the Geological Survey, the late Professor John Young, of
Glasgow University, I have wandered into every recess and over every
summit of that fascinating ground. On one occasion we extended our
ramble to the Yarrow valley, with the intention of spending the night
under the hospitable roof of Tibbie Shiels, who was then in still
vigorous old age. Next morning we found the ground buried under some
six inches of snow, which still continued to fall. As a return over
the trackless hills was then impossible, we were shut up for several
days, during which we shared in various domestic employments, among the
rest in learning to churn butter. Tibbie encouraged us in our labours
by various recollections of Wilson, Hogg, and other personages of the
_Noctes Ambrosianae_.
[Sidenote: TIBBIE SHIELS]
When the storm ceased and the sun shone out again, the whole landscape
was white up to the crests of the hills, save St. Mary’s Loch and the
Loch of the Lowes, between which the little hostelry stands. These
waters were still unfrozen, and wore a look of inky blackness by
contrast with the surrounding ground. One unlooked-for effect of the
wintry covering was to reveal the surface features of the hills with a
clearness never before realised. These uplands in their ordinary guise
are so rich in colour, and the distribution of the varying tints has
so little relation to the forms of the ground, that most of the minor
details of the topography are lost to the eye. But now that colour was
wholly eliminated, every little dimple and ridge stood out marked by
its delicate violet shadows in the pure white snow.
One of the notabilities of this district was the widow of another
shepherd who occupied the little cottage of Birkhill at the head
of Moffatdale. She had not only lost her husband, but her son had
been smothered in a snow-drift not many yards from her door. Yet she
remained cheerful and contented, with a kindly welcome and a warm
fireside for wayfarers who sought her hospitality. Many a time have I
slept in the little box-bed in her ‘ben,’ and partaken of her ‘scones’
and other good cheer. One of my colleagues in the Survey, who made her
house his station for weeks at a time, discovered that grouse take some
time to get accustomed to the dangers of a wire-fence. Such a line of
division between two sheep-farms had been run up the hillside near
Birkhill, and the grouse when flying low would strike against the wires
and be killed on the spot. Coming down in the evening he used sometimes
to bring with him several brace of dead birds, decapitated or otherwise
mangled, but none the less a welcome addition to his commissariat.
[Sidenote: THE SOUTHERN UPLANDS]
After my marriage I had occasion to revisit Birkhill, and brought my
wife with me. Jenny gave her a kindly greeting, and in parting offered
her this piece of friendly advice: ‘Noo, my leddy, ye’ll mind never
to anger him, and ye’ll see that he ay has a pair o’ dry stockins to
put on when he comes hame at nicht.’ Poor old soul! She had had some
experience of stormy scenes under her own roof, and life in these
uplands had taught her that wet boots are the common lot of humanity
and the beginning of many ailments.
No one who has sojourned for weeks and months among these pastoral
hills can fail to have come more or less under their spell. They show
none of the grandeur and ruggedness of the Highlands. The hills, on
the whole, have smooth, rounded outlines, save here and there, where
some crag of grey rock protrudes from the pervading mantle of green
bent and purple heath. Yet the topography is sufficiently varied not to
become monotonous, while the slopes in every season of the year glow
with colour, spread over them like a delicate sheet of enamel. There is
beauty enough in the landscape of itself to please, and even here and
there to fascinate. Its attractions, however, are infinitely increased
by the human associations which cling to every part of the surface,
with a halo of legend, romance, and poetry.
Meek loveliness is round it spread,
A softness still and holy;
The grace of forest charms decayed
And pastoral melancholy.
The houses of Tibbie Shiels and Jenny of Birkhill showed the simplest
and most rudimentary form of inns. They varied little from the ordinary
shepherds’ cottages, the most notable difference being that they sold
excisable liquors. They were at least clean, with homely comfort, and
simple but wholesome fare.
The want of cleanliness in the Scottish hostelries, even those of
the chief towns, in the previous century, is continually referred to
by English travellers in the country. Sydney Smith, while praising
Scotland and its natives, among whom he made his home near the close
of the eighteenth century, confessed that they ‘certainly do not
understand cleanliness.’
[Sidenote: SCOTCH DRINK]
The inns or change-houses in country districts remained still in a
state of grievous untidiness and squalor. To many a village and little
town Scott’s lines might have been applied:
Baron o’ Bucklyvie,
The muckle deevil drive ye,
And a’ to pieces rive ye
For biggin’ sic a town,
Where there’s neither man’s meat, nor horse meat,
Nor a chair to sit down.
Nevertheless, already before railways had spread their network across
the kingdom, when the country roads were more frequented than now
by stage-coaches, post-carriages, and pedestrians, many modest and
comfortable little inns had come into existence, and were to be met
with by the roadside. These have now unhappily in great measure
disappeared, or have sunk into mere public-houses, kept open only for
the sake of selling drink. My impression is that proportionately much
more whisky is now consumed by the artizan and labouring classes than
in those days when various kinds of light or heavy ale were in demand.
The ‘tippeny’ of Burns’ time, his ‘reaming swats that drank divinely,’
the ale that ‘richly brown, reams ower the brink in glorious faem,’
were still familiar forms of ‘Scotch drink.’ But nowadays the labourer
no longer ‘sighs for cheerful ale’; when he enters the public-house,
it is usually whisky that he calls for.
In my boyhood a custom still prevailed, which I think must now be
obsolete--that of placing a ‘spelding,’ or dried salt haddock, beside
the glass of ale ordered by a caller at a public-house or roadside inn.
Bitter beer had not yet come into vogue in Scotland. Instead of it, all
the liquors supplied were of native brewing, from the light ‘tippeny,’
which was a refreshing and innocent drink, up to the strongest
Edinburgh ale--a liquor which required to be quaffed with great
moderation. When a few drops of it ran down the glass they glued it
so firmly to the table that some force was needed to pull it off. The
salt fish was, of course, served that it might provoke thirst enough to
require more liquid.
[Sidenote: WHISKY AND GOLF]
Another recollection of these old days brings back the excise-officers
who used to be on the watch at the English frontier to examine the
luggage of passengers from the north. One of the surviving relics of
Scottish independence was to be found in the inland revenue duties,
which, as they differed on the two sides of the border until they were
equalised in 1855, led to a good deal of smuggling. Whisky was then
contraband, and liable to extra duty when taken into England. At
that time, this liquor was hardly known south of the Tweed, save to
the Scots who imported it from their native country. But now it has
made its way everywhere, and has almost completely supplanted the gin
that had previously filled its place. It is prescribed by the medical
faculty as, on the whole, a safer drink than much of the wine that
comes from abroad. The quantity of it made every year is enormously
larger than it was fifty years ago. Not only is it to be found
everywhere in this country, but on the continent, and indeed wherever
English-speaking people travel. If one were asked to name the two most
conspicuous gifts which Scotland has made in recent times to the United
Kingdom, one could hardly go wrong in answering Whisky and Golf.
There used to be, and probably still are, many quiet, unpretending, but
remarkably comfortable little inns in Galloway. The innkeepers were
also farmers, and probably in many cases their farms formed the chief
and most profitable part of their avocations. Fresh farm produce was
supplied to their guests with the amplest liberality--excellent beef
and mutton, fowls, eggs, butter, milk, and such cream as one seldom
met with in other parts of the country.
A notable reform of the last half century in the Highlands has been
seen in the improvement of the inns. I can remember the primitive
condition of some of them which have been enlarged into what are now
pompously called hotels. Many years ago I had occasion to spend a
night or two in one of these antique and uncomfortable houses in Skye.
One Sunday morning I was in bed and awake, when the bedroom door was
quietly opened, and by degrees a half-dressed female figure stealthily
entered. She looked at the bed to see if I were still asleep, and as
I kept my eyes half closed, she thought herself unobserved. Stepping
gently across to the dressing-table, she opened my razor-case, and
having possessed herself of one of the razors, as quietly retreated. I
lay conjecturing what use the landlady (for it was she) would make of
the implement. Visions of murder floated through my mind, but after a
time the door once more opened, and my hostess, as quietly as before,
stalked across the room and replaced the razor in the case. She seemed
too calm for a murderess, and there had been no noise in the house,
but the razor had evidently served some definite purpose. I got up,
dressed, and came down to breakfast. My host met me at the foot of
the staircase with a smile on his face, which on the previous evening
had been ‘rough and razorable,’ but had now lost its stubbly beard
of a week’s growth. I then saw one use at least to which my razor
had probably been put. Whether the old lady had any further private
manipulations of her own in which the implement played a part, I never
found out.
[Sidenote: INNS IN SKYE]
One of the defects of the old Skye inns was the absence of any weights
to the window-sashes, and commonly also the want of any means of
keeping the windows open. The glass was seldom cleaned, though the
outside surface was washed more or less clean by the battering of the
rain. The doors, too, could not always be fastened, and the visitor
who wished to secure privacy might have to barricade the entrance by
getting some chairs and his portmanteau piled up against the door. Even
these precautions, however, were sometimes of no effect. I was once in
an inn at Portree where one of the guests, on awaking in the morning,
found another head reposing on the pillow near him. His first impulse
was to kick out the intruder, who was sound asleep, but on second
thoughts he jumped out of bed and rapidly dressed. Before leaving the
room he recognised that the head in question was that of the waiter,
who had evidently pushed the door open during the night and got into
bed. After taking a walk for an hour the tourist returned to the inn,
which he found in great commotion. On enquiring of the landlord, he was
told that their waiter, a most respectable and trustworthy man, had
disappeared; he had left his clothes in his own room, and must have
gone out and drowned himself in the loch, for they had been searching
for him everywhere, and he could not be found either in the house or
anywhere else; if it were not the Sabbath they would have the loch
dragged for his body, but they would do that next morning. The visitor,
after expressing due sympathy with the distress of the household, asked
whether they had looked into his bedroom. ‘Your bedroom!’ exclaimed the
host somewhat angrily, as if he thought fun were being made of him, on
such a solemn occasion, ‘Your bedroom! No, of course we haven’t. What
should make us look there?’ ‘Well,’ said his guest, ‘you might at least
try.’ And there sure enough was the somnolent waiter, still asleep,
and happily unconscious of all the stir he had caused. It then turned
out that, unknown to the family at the inn, who had recently engaged
him, he was liable to occasional fits of sleep-walking. All’s well that
ends well; but the only consolation the injured visitor ever received
from the landlord was the remark, ‘What a blessing it was your room; it
might else have ruined my business.’
[Sidenote: OLD HIGHLAND INNS]
There is a small inn on one of the north-western sea-lochs, where
in the year 1860 I spent a night with my old chief, Sir Roderick
Murchison. It was in a shocking state of neglect and dirt, with little
more in the way of provisions than oat-cakes, potatoes, and whisky. It
boasted of only one bedroom, which had two beds that did not appear to
have been slept in for many a day. Twenty years later I came back to
the same inn, hoping that the general improvement would have reached
that place too, but I found that as nothing in the way of repair had
been done to it in the interval, it was more dilapidated and untidy
than ever. I had as a travelling companion a well-known man of science,
who, never having been up in that part of Scotland, was glad of the
opportunity of seeing it. We occupied the same double-bedded room as
I had formerly known. Awaking betimes in the morning, I lay for a
while contemplating the ceiling and the undulations and cracks in its
plaster. There was a large downward bulge, like a full-bellied sail,
right above my friend’s head. As I was looking at it, this piece of the
plaster suddenly gave way and fell in a mass upon him, with a shower
of dust all over the bed. Of course he started up in great alarm,
but fortunately he had received no serious injury. It was his first
experience of a Highland inn of the old type.
A distinct revival of the roadside inn can be traced to the wide spread
of bicycle-riding. Wheelmen appear to be ‘drouthy cronies,’ who are not
sorry to halt for a few minutes at an inviting change-house; but many
of them take up their quarters for a night at such places, and this
demand for sleeping-room has led to the resuscitation of little inns
that had almost gone to decay. It is to be hoped that this revival will
continue to spread, and that not only will the old inns come to life
again, but that new and better houses of entertainment will be erected
in parts of the country where the attractions are many, while the
accommodation is but scant.
[Sidenote: AN IRISH PUBLICAN IN SCOTLAND]
From inns one naturally turns to drink, which forms the theme of so
large a proportion of Scottish stories. It must be admitted that this
prominence is a sad indication of the extent to which for generations
past alcoholic liquors of all kinds have been consumed in the country.
I used to imagine that the ‘trade,’ that is, the calling of publican,
was in the hands of Scotsmen, who were themselves entirely to blame not
only for the drinking, but for the selling of whisky. On a visit to
Antrim, however, I learned that others besides natives of Scotland have
a share in the traffic. In driving out from Ballymena on an Irish car,
my talkative ‘jarvie’ noticed me looking at a new villa that was in
course of erection not far from the town.
‘That’ll be a foin place, sorr,’ said he. ‘That’s Mr. O’Donnel’s, sorr.’
‘Who is Mr. O’Donnel?’ I asked.
‘Oh, he was born in Ballymena, and left it when he was a boy. He went
abroad and made his fortune, and now he’s come back and he’s bought
the tinnant roight of the land and he’s puttin’ up that house and them
greenhouses, and plantin’ them trees and layin’ out the garden. Oh,
it’ll be a foin place, that it will, sorr.’
‘You say he went abroad; where did he go to?’
‘To Scotland, sorr.’
‘To Scotland! And how did he come to make his fortune there?’
‘Keepin’ public-houses, sorr.’
The question is often asked why so much whisky should be consumed in
Scotland. One explanation assigns as the reason the moist, chilly
climate of the country, and this cause may perhaps be allowed to have
some considerable share in producing the national habit. No small
proportion of the spirit, especially in the Highlands, is drunk by men
who are certainly not at all drunkards, and who can toss off their
glass without being any the worse of it, if, indeed, they are not,
as they themselves maintain, a good deal the better. But it must be
confessed that, especially among the working classes in the Lowlands,
tipsiness is a state of pleasure to be looked forward to with avidity,
to be gained as rapidly and maintained as long as possible. To many
wretched beings it offers a transient escape from the miseries of life,
and brings the only moments of comparative happiness which they ever
enjoy. They live a double life--one part in the gloom and hardship of
the workaday world, and the other in the dreamland into which whisky
introduces them. The blacksmith expressed this view of life who, when
remonstrated with by his clergyman for drunkenness, asked if his
reverend monitor had himself ever been overcome with drink, and, on
receiving a negative reply, remarked: ‘Ah, sir, if ye was ance richt
drunk, ye wadna want ever to be sober again.’
[Sidenote: SCOTTISH DRUNKENNESS]
The desire of getting quickly intoxicated is perhaps best illustrated
among the miners in the great coal-fields. Thus an Ayrshire collier was
heard discoursing to his comrades about a novel way he had found out of
getting more rapidly drunk: ‘Jist ye putt in thretty draps o’ lowdamer
(laudanum) into your glass and ye’re fine an’ fou’ in ten minutes.’ In
the same county a publican advertised the potent quality of the liquor
he sold by placing in his window a paper with this announcement: ‘Drunk
for three bawbees, and mortal for threepence.’
The quality of the whisky is often bad, since much of what is sold
is raw-grain spirit, sometimes adulterated with water and then
strengthened with some cheap liquid that will give it pungency. There
was some truth in the reply of the Highlander to the minister who was
warning him against excess, and assuring him that whisky was a very
bad thing: ‘’Deed an’ it is, sir, specially baad whusky.’ The mere
addition of water would do no harm, rather the reverse; but it would
be detected at once by the experienced toper. ‘This is no’ a godly
place at all, at all,’ said a discontented labourer in the Perthshire
Highlands. ‘They dinna preach the gospel here--and they wahtter the
whusky.’
Strangers are often astonished at the extent of the draughts of
undiluted whisky which Highlanders can swallow, without any apparent
ill effects. Burt tells us that in his time, that is in the third
decade of the eighteenth century, Highland gentlemen could take ‘even
three or four quarts at a sitting, and that in general the people that
can pay the purchase, drink it without moderation.’ In the year 1860,
in a walk from Kinlochewe through the mountains to Ullapool, I took
with me as a guide an old shepherd who had lived there all his life.
The distance, as I wished to go, amounted to thirty miles, mostly of
rough, trackless ground, and among the refreshments for the journey a
bottle of whisky was included. Not being used to the liquor, I hardly
tasted it all day, but when we reached the ferry opposite Ullapool,
Simon pitched the empty bottle into the loch. He had practically drunk
the whole of its contents, and was as cool and collected as when we
started in the morning.
[Sidenote: ASSUMED RELUCTANCE TO DRINK]
All over the Highlands ‘a glass’ serves as ready-money payment for any
small service rendered, such as when a driver has brought a guest to a
farm or country-house from some distance, when a workman has completed
his repairs and has some miles to walk back to his home, or when a
messenger has come from a neighbour and waits to take back your answer.
A piper who has marched round behind the chairs of a dinner party at
a great Highland laird’s, blowing his pipes till it seems as if the
windows should be broken, ends his performance by halting at the side
of the lady of the house, to whom is brought and from whom he receives
a full glass of the native beverage.
It is a characteristic feature of the Scot that, although usually ready
for a glass of whisky, he feigns an unwillingness that it should be
poured out for him, or at least deprecates that the glass should be
filled up to the top. As an illustration of this national habit, the
story may be quoted of two Highlanders who were discussing the merits
of a gentleman well known to them both. ‘Weel, Sandy, ye may say what
ye like, but I think he canna be a nice man, whatefer.’ ‘But what ails
ye at him, Donald?’ ‘Weel, then, I’ll just tell ye. I wass in his hoose
last week, and he wad be pourin’ me out a glass o’ whusky; and of
course I cried out “Stop, stop!” and wad ye believe it?--he stoppit!’
To prevent any such unwelcome arrest of the liquor, and at the same
time to ‘save the face’ of the would-be participant, he has been known
to arrange beforehand with the host or hostess that, while he is to
protest as usual against the glass being poured out for him, his
scruples are to be peremptorily overcome--‘ye maun gar me tak’ it!’
Should any untoward incident deprive a man of a glass plainly intended
for him, his annoyance may find loud vent. Among curling circles there
is a current anecdote of a well-known adept at the ‘roaring play,’ who
used to be distinguished by a remarkable fur cap which covered not only
his head, but his ears. Appearing one day without this conspicuous
headgear, he was at once questioned by his friends as to the cause
of its disappearance. ‘Ay,’ said he sadly, ‘ye’ll never see that
cap again; it’s been the cause o’ a dreadfu’ accident.’ ‘Accident!’
exclaimed they; ‘where? how? have you been hurt?’ ‘Weel, I’ll no’ just
say I’ve been hurtit. But, ye see, the laird o’ Dumbreck, they tell me,
was ahint me, and he was offerin’ me a glass of whisky----and I never
heard him!’
[Sidenote: EFFECTS OF WHISKY]
Many stories have been told of the efforts of mistresses of households
to avoid the bestowal of strong drink on those employed by them. One of
these ladies had supplied a workman with a liberal dinner, but without
any whisky or alcoholic liquor. Coming back she found that he had
proved a much less efficient trencherman than she supposed he would be,
and she rallied him on his bad appetite. His reply was: ‘Weel, mem, I
canna eat mair, but it wad dae your heart guid to see me drink.’
A whole volume might be filled with the published anecdotes recording
in more or less ludicrous form the effects of whisky. I will only give
one or two, which I have never seen in print. A man who was wending his
way homeward very unsteadily from a lengthened carouse was heard to
address the whisky inside of him, ‘I could ha’ carryit ye easier in a
jar.’ The quantity of liquor he had consumed may be imagined from the
size of the vessel he required to contain it.
Sir Charles Lyell used to tell with great glee a story from his own
county of Forfar, belonging to the days of deep potations, when it
was the belief that ‘drinking largely sobers us again.’ A party had
met at a country-house, and continued their debauch so long that the
laird, Powrie by name, had fallen below the table, while most of the
other guests had gone to sleep. Two or three of them, however, who had
managed to evade the deepest potations, resolved to play off a trick on
the laird. One accordingly climbed up to the roof of the old mansion
and, at the risk of his neck, reached the chimney of the dining-room,
down which he roared in his loudest voice, ‘Powrie, Powrie, it’s the
Day o’ Judgment’; whereupon the laird was heard, by those outside the
door, to raise himself on his elbow and hiccup out, ‘Eh, Lord forgie
me, and me fou’.’
A drunken fellow was found lying at the side of the road by a
policeman, who asked him for his name. The answer was, ‘“My name is
Norval, on the Grampian Hills,”----but _Hicks_ is on the door.’
[Sidenote: AN OLD SCOTTISH TOAST]
With the heavy drinking of those days various connected customs have
nearly or wholly disappeared. One still meets with old-fashioned
gentlemen, especially at public dinners, who ‘take wine with you.’
But the rounds of toasts and sentiments, that must have been such an
insufferable burden to our grandfathers and grandmothers, have happily
vanished. One of the oddest survivals of these toasts was one I heard
proposed by the old landlady of a little inn not far from the scene of
the Battle of Drumclog. Belonging to the type of landlord
Who takes his chirping pint and cracks his jokes,
she welcomed her chance guests into her roomy and clean kitchen, with
its bright coal-fire flanked on either side by an empty arm-chair.
Having to spend a night in her house, I was invited to one of these
chairs, while she took that on the opposite side of the hearth, and
her family attended to the household work. Honoured thus far, I knew
my duty would be to call for something ‘for the good of the house,’
and soon found that my worthy hostess was not unwilling to partake of
my ‘brew.’ Accordingly I made her a glass of toddy of the strength
and sweetness she preferred, which she accepted, with the following
preface: ‘Here’s to a’ your fouk an’ a’ oor fouk, an’ a’ the fouk
that’s been kind to your fouk an’ oor fouk; an’ if a’ fouk had aye been
as kind to fouk as your fouk’s been to oor fouk, there wad aye hae been
guid fouk i’ the warld, sin’ fouk’s been fouk.’
The change of dinner customs, however, has led to whimsical incidents
of another kind from those of the old days of hard drinking. A story
is told in Forfarshire of an inexperienced lad who was improvised to
do duty at a dinner party, and was instructed by the lady of the house
as to what he was to do with the different wines, particularly as to
the claret, of which one kind was to be served with the dinner, and the
other, of better quality, with the dessert. When the dessert came, she
was dismayed to hear him begin at the far end of the table and ask each
guest in a loud voice: ‘Port, sherry, or inferior clāret.’