Donald is not easily knocked down. -- He calmly contemplates
Death, especially other People's. -- A thoughtful Wife. -- A
very natural Request. -- A Consolable Father. -- "Job," 1st
Chapter, 21st Verse. -- Merry Funerals. -- They manage Things
better in Ireland. -- Gone just in Time. -- Touching Funeral
Orations.
If folks do not laugh much at a wedding in Scotland, they make up for it
at a funeral.
Let me hasten to say, that I am sure it would be insulting the reader's
intelligence to tell him that this applies only to the lower classes.
As a good Christian and a man who has led a busy and useful life, Donald
calmly contemplates the approach of death--especially other people's.
Death is always near, he says to himself, and a wise man should not be
alarmed at its approach.
Thus fortified with wisdom, he calmly looks the evil in the face, and
lets it not disturb his little jog-trot existence. This does not imply
that he is wanting in affection, it only means that he accepts the
inevitable without murmuring, and that in him reason has the mastery
over sentiment.
A _guid_ wife would say to her husband in the most natural way in the
world:
"Donald, I do not think you have long to live. Have you any special
request to make me? Whom would you like invited to your funeral? Do you
wish Jamie to be chief mourner?" and so on.
An Edinburgh lady told me that her housemaid one morning came and asked
her for leave of absence until six in the evening, saying that her
sister was to be buried that day.
The permission was granted, of course.
The Scotch know how to keep their word. At six o'clock precisely the
maid returned, but wanted to know whether she might have the evening
free as well.
"What do you want the evening for?" asked her mistress.
"Oh! ma'am," replied the lassie, "the rest of the family want to finish
the day at the theatre, and they asked me to go with them."
Impossible to refuse so natural a request.
* * * * *
This trait of the Scotch character is often to be met with in the
superior classes also.
Here is a very striking example of it.
One of my friends, an eminent professor at one of the great English
public schools, had taken to Braemar with him a young Scotchman of great
promise whom he wished not to lose sight of during the long summer
vacation.
The mornings and evenings were devoted to study. The hot afternoons were
spent with Horace and Euripides, on the bank of the Dee, in the shade
of the trees that crowd down to the water's brink, as if they were all
eager to gaze at their own reflection in the river.
During the dry season the stream is fordable in several places, and many
times had the young Scotchman crossed it.
Wishing to pass a week with his family before school reopened, the pupil
had told his professor that he wished to leave Braemar before him.
The day before that which he had fixed for his departure, a fearful
storm had burst over the neighbourhood.
Arrived with his knapsack on his back at the banks of the Dee, he saw
before him, not a peaceful stream, but an angry torrent, swollen and
lashed to fury by the storm.
The young Scotchman was not to be intimidated. He had crossed many
times, and he would do it again. Besides, the only other way of getting
to the station was by going two or three miles further down and taking
the boat. He prepared to ford the stream.
Next day the poor young fellow's corpse, bruised and mangled, was found
a mile down the river.
It would be beyond my powers to describe the despair of the professor,
when he heard of the terrible catastrophe. Entrusted with the care of
the young man, he felt as if guilty of his death. What could he say to
the unhappy parents?
A telegram was despatched to the father, who arrived the day after. My
friend went to meet him at the station. What was his relief when he
heard this father say to him: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken
away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
And he added:
"This sublime passage is from _Job_, first chapter and twenty-second
verse--let me see, is it the twenty-first or the twenty-second verse? It
is the twenty-first, I am pretty sure."
"I fear I cannot say," replied my friend.
They walked, discussing the Book of _Job_ the while, to the house where
lay the remains of the unfortunate youth.
Do not suppose that the Scotchman ran to imprint a farewell kiss on the
brow of his dead son. He seized upon a Bible that lay on the
drawing-room table, turned to the Book of _Job_, and having found the
passage he had quoted, said with a triumphant look at the professor:
"It is the twenty-first verse--I knew I was right."
* * * * *
In days gone by, Scotch funerals were made the occasions of visiting and
great drinking. During the week that preceded the actual burying, open
house was kept for the relatives and friends of the _corpse_,[C] and
prodigious quantities of whisky were consumed. These scenes took place
among the aristocracy and the gentry as well as among the lower classes,
and they culminated in a general drinking bout on the day of the
interment.
[C] It was thus that the defunct was referred to until after
the funeral was over.
The route of the funeral procession might be traced by the victims of
Scotch hospitality to be seen lying helplessly inebriated by the
wayside, and only a small remnant of it reached the graveyard. More than
once was the coffin, which was carried by hand, left by the hedge, and
the burial put off until the morrow. After several stages the defunct
reached his long home.[D]
[D] Dean Ramsay relates that in Inverness, forty years ago, the
coffin of a certain laird only reached the cemetery at the end
of a fortnight.
To-day such scenes would excite as much disgust in Scotland as anywhere
else. Scotch manners and customs have greatly toned down.
In the lower classes, however, the burial of a relative is still an
occasion for Bacchanalian festivities, and the day is finished up, as we
have seen, at the theatre or other place of entertainment, where a
pleasant evening can be spent.
But what is this in comparison with that which still goes on in Ireland
in our day? That is where the thing is brought to perfection.
As I fear I might be taxed with imposture, if I attempted to give a
description of the Irish wake, I will pass the pen to an English
journalist.
A woman having died suddenly at Waterford, the Coroner had, according to
law, ordered an inquest. Here is the deposition of the police
constable; I extract it from my newspaper (May 8th, 1887):
"When I entered the house last night, I found all the family in the room
where the coffin was. They were all drunk. The deceased had been raised
to a sitting posture in the coffin, and, by means of cords attached to
her hands and feet, was being made to execute all kinds of marionette
performances. It was like a _Punch and Judy_ show, at which the corpse
played the part of _Punch_. One of the sons was seated near the coffin
playing a concertina. When they saw me enter, the young men quarrelled
over the body, and danced around madly to the sound of the instrument. I
had the greatest difficulty to get possession of the corpse for the
inquest."
One would think one was reading a description of some scene of life in
an out-of-the-way island of Oceania, instead of the sister-isle of
civilised England.
* * * * *
One more anecdote to show that Donald views the approach of dissolution
in his neighbour, without alarm.
An old Scotchman, feeling death at hand, had bidden all his family to
his bedside.
"I have sent for you," he said to them, "in order to give you my last
commands. I leave my house and all that belongs to it to my son Donald,
as well as all my cattle."
"Puir old father, he keeps his faculties to the last," said Donald to
his neighbour.
"As for my personal property, I desire that it may be divided equally
between...."
Here the old man's voice failed. He made a last effort to speak. His
children bent down to catch his words.
He was dead.
"Puir father," cried Donald, "he is gone just as he was beginning to
rave."
* * * * *
Here is a touching funeral oration.
Donald had just had the misfortune to lose on the same day his wife and
his cow.
"Oh, my poor Janet," he lamented, "why have ye left me? Wha 'll gie me
back my Janet?"
"Nonsense! you will soon get over it," said a friend, "times cures every
ill. You'll marry again by-and-by."
"It may be, I dinna say no; but wha 'll gie me back my Janet?"
Janet, as the reader may have divined, was the name of the "coo."