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BY DAVID BOYLE, Ph.D., TORONTO.
"TICKETS, Tickets,-
tickets please." This from the guard on a local train approaching
Edinburgh, as he addressed the obfuscated members of a brass band
returning from an engagement in an adjoining clachan. ir "Od, man!" said
the pounder of parchment as he fumbled vainly in his vest pooch, ''I've
lost ma ticket." ''That's nonsense," replied the guard, "You couldna
lose your ticket." "Could I no?" said the other with a sneer, "Man, I
lost the big drum," which was a fact! Mr. Steuart Ross, who tells the
story in his book, regards this as an exemplification of the statement
that a Scotsman is above all things logical-drunk or sober, but
especially drunk. Without going quite so far there can be no doubt
respecting the truth of the proposition in a general way, and it is
owing to this quality that we are twitted so often anent the necessity
of a "surgical operation." M. Paul Blouet (Max O'Rell) has assured the
writer that for keen appreciation of his points, he would prefer an
audience of Scottish crofters or fishermen to one of Oxford or of
Cambridge dons, and as this gentleman (for a wonder) does not claim to
be in any measure Scots, and is not of sufficient importance for us to
claim that he is, his evidence may be regarded as totally unbiased.
Whether the logical quality be connected with climate, historic and
domestic experiences, porridge, kail, haggis, the flavor of peat reek,
or the shorter catechism, or all of these, there can be no doubt as to
its existence.
Here and there you will
find a Scot who appreciates a pun or some other play on words, but it is
an acquired sense. Even when stern necessity drives him to perpetrate
such a verbal crime it is the logic of circumstances that appeals to his
mind, not merely the sound similarity, or the double entendre. When
Captain Villiers Beauchamp, exercising his regimental horse in very
awkward fashion, observed Airchie Drummock on the other side of a yett
with a square foot of smiles under his bonnet, inquired angrily as he
brought the animal to its haunches, "What are you laughing at me for,
sir? Did you never see a var-horse before ?" Airchie, without a motion
except that of his lips, replied, ''Oo ay, I've often seen a war-horse
afore, but gin ye wad allow me to mak' a remark, I wad juist like to say
I dinna think I e'er saw a waur rider." It was the bald fact that
appealed to Airchie's eye, and he used the sameness of sound merely to
aid him in making his point. He would have been affronted had he been
charged with punning.
What is popularly known
as a ''sell" is utterly thrown away on Sandy. He may ''drop into it," in
fact, is almost certain to do so, for in such matters he is as guileless
as a lamb; but when the great guffaw follows, accompanied with the
exclamation ''Sold again," the would-be wit becomes painfully conscious
that he himself has been badly ''sold," as his intended victim eyes him
with a look of pity, saying "What did ye sell? When did ye sell't afore?
Gin ye sauld it afore, what makes ye sell't ower again? an' hoo muckle
got ye for't?" It is unfathomable to Sands- where the laugh comes in,
for no bargain has been struck, and even if there had been, the occasion
is not one for merriment. In any event, he can trace no se-uence between
the premises and the conclusion, and his conclusion is that the other
fellow is a haiveril.
Sandy has listened
critically to too many sermons to be thrown off his balance by any such
quip—he has carried on too many discussions with antinomian and other
heterodox adversaries, and has pondered over too many Bostons and
Bunyans, and Howies, and Robert Dicks and Hugh Millers to see any point
where there is an absence of reasoning, and vet, when need be, he can
wound an opponent with his opponent's own dirk. Witness the thousands of
beadles who have slain ten thousand ministers ! When the Rev. Unes
Dreich complained with much iteration to Tammas, on entering the vestry,
that he was "wat through and through," the church officer consoled him
with, "Dinna min' that, Maister Dreich, ye'll be dry aneuch as sune's ye
gang intil the poopit," and when a certain Mess John on trial, following
several candidates whom the people did not consider very I soun," asked
the beadle what they thought about him, the information was anything but
gratifying when Hughie told him they thought he was ' naething but soun'
a' thegither."
These are old, old
stories, but nothing can better illustrate the logical character of
Scottish humor, for be it observed that the minister is the very last
man with whom the beadle or anybody else would care to get off a joke as
a joke, but in both instances candor demanded that the objectionable
persons should know the truth purely as a natural consequence of their
own remarks—and they got it. Yes, and it may be added that in all such
instances the deliverances were made with visages as expressionless of
levity as is the face of a boulder or of a tombstone. It is to this
imperturbability of countenance that much of what is called the grimness
of Scottish humor is due, but not seldom this same grimness is part and
parcel of the fact that the sayings contain so much truth, and this is
arrived at as a logical deduction from numerous observations, until at
last the observer feels it his duty to relieve himself, or, as one said,
"to trust."
Scottish humor, however,
is not always grim, although it is almost invariably logical. "How are
you to-day, David?' queried a five-foot nothing Free Kirk minister as he
looked up at a six-foot-six drover, and the reply came, "Oo! I'm weel
aneuch in pairts, ye ken, but there's owe muckle o' me to be a' weel at
ae time," and the force of the answer rendered the F. K. M. speechless,
for, as the drover knew, he was always boasting about his freedom from "towts."
As blood flowed (like the
oil on Aaron's beard) from a gash made on a minister's face by the
village barber who had been on a two days' fuddle, the victim, looking
up reproachfully, said, ''Oh! John, John, it's a te-r-r-rible thing this
drink." John felt guilty, but to acknowledge guilt was another matter.
He knew that if "drink" made the hand unsteady, it produced other
effects as well, and resolving not to be betrayed into a confession, he
replied quite readily as if he fully agreed with the observation. "Deed
aye, minister, ye may weel say that, for it maks the skin unco ten'er."
The conclusion was logical, but the implication was a surprise to the
divine.
Stories even about daft
bodies show the bent of the national mind, as when it is recorded of a
certain laird that on one occasion he passed a member of this class
without noticing him, but the following day spoke to him as he sat not
far from the "big hoose" "pykin' a bane."
Ay, ay, laird," said the
silly man, "it's the auld story ower again —plenty o' friens whan ye hae
ocht."
To illustrate further the
logic of this subject, one need only quote nearly the whole body of
printed and unprinted matter on Scottish humor. Cause and effect are
traceable throughout. Our neighbors poke fun at us because of our
metaphysical inclination. We hear of the milkmaid who avowed that she
had "nae objection whatever to love i' the abtrack," and of the
ploughman who assented that "in a meetapheesical sense there could be
nae doobt that man was but a clod." We accept the imputation, and like
the woman who confessed she was born in Paisley, we add, ''as sure's as
daith we canna help it."
The characteristic in
question may deprive many from indulgence in merriment over wretched
puns, vile conundrums, pot-house jokes, and low wit of various types,
but it has its compensations.
As the auld wife said to
her French lodger when he refused oatmeal, "Wed, weel, tastes differ ye
ken— some fowk like parritch, an' some like puddocks." |
