Friend Mac Donald

CHAPTER I

A Word to Donald. – The Scotch Anecdote and its Character. – The Scotch painted by Themselves.

Ah! my dear Donald, what good stories you told me in the few months that I had the pleasure of passing with you! How you stuffed and saturated me with them!

And the English pretend that nobody laughs in Scotland!

Don't they though! and with the right sort of laughter, too: a laugh that is frank, and full of finesse and good-humour.

You will be astonished, perhaps, that a three or four months' sojourn in Scotland should permit me to write a little volume on your dear country, and you will, may be, accuse me of having visited you with the idea of seeking two hundred pages for the printer.

You would be very wrong in your impression, if you thought so.

To tell the truth, I did not take a single note in Scotland; but, on my return home, all those delicious anecdotes came back to my memory, and I could not resist the temptation of telling a few of them to my compatriots.

After all, Scotland is almost a closed letter to the French; and I thought I might make myself useful and agreeable in offering French readers a picture of the manners and character of the Caledonians.

If, in order to be a success, a book of travels must be full of the strange and the horrible, it is all up with this one. But such is not the case; and he who advanced this opinion calumniated the public.

I have as much right as anyone to contradict such an assertion; for the public has been pleased to give the kindest reception to my books on England, and I certainly never had any other aim or ambition than that of telling the truth according to Horace's principle, Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat?

Scotland is perhaps the only country whose anecdotes alone would suffice to give an exact idea of her inhabitants.

Irish anecdotes are exceedingly droll; but they only tend to show the thoughtless side of the Irish character. They are very amusing bulls; but while they divert, they do not instruct.

In Scotland, on the contrary, you find in the anecdotes a picture of the Scotch manners and character, as complete as it is faithful.

The Scot has kept the characteristics of his ancestors; but his manners have been toned down, and the language he speaks is growing more and more English: he is a changed man, and, in good society, you might be puzzled to tell him from an Englishman.

This is not a compliment, for he has no desire to pass for other than Scotch.

Among those characteristics, there are two which he has preserved intact to the present day: finesse and matter-of-fact good-humour. You will find these two traits in every grade of Scotch life – in tradesman, mechanic, and peasant.

This is why, setting aside the upper classes, the Scotch differ essentially from the English.

It is because of that good-humour that the Scot is more communicative than the Englishman. He knows his failings, and does not mind talking about them; in fact, he will give you anecdotes to illustrate them, and this because they are national, and he loves to dwell on anything which reminds him that Scotland is a nation.

I might have entitled this volume, "The Scotch painted by themselves," for I do but write down what I saw and heard. I owe the scenes of life I describe to the Scotch who enacted them before me, and the anecdotes to those who were kind enough to tell them to me.

CHAPTER II

Donald, a British subject, but no Englishman. – Opinion of the greatest English Wit on the Scotch, and the worth of that Opinion. – The Wit of Donald and the Wit of the Cockney. – Intelligence and Intellectuality. – Donald's Exterior. – Donald's Interior. – Help yourself and Heaven will help you. – An Irish and a Scotch Servant facing a Difficulty. – How a small Scotchman may make himself useful in the Hour of Danger. – Characteristics. – Donald on Train Journeys. – One Way of avoiding Tolls.

In the eyes of the French, the Scot is a British subject – in other words, an Englishman – dressed in a Tam-o'-Shanter, a plaid, and kilt of red and green tartan, and playing the bagpipes; for the rest, speaking English, eating roast beef, and swearing by the Bible.

For that matter, many English people are pleased to entertain the same illusions on the subject of the dwellers in the north of Great Britain.

Yet, never were two nations1 so near on the map, and so far removed in their ways and character.

The Scots English! Well, just advance that opinion in the presence of one, and you will see how it will be received.

The Scotchman is a British subject; but if you take him for an Englishman, he draws himself up, and says:

"No, Sir; I am not English. I am a Scotchman."

He is Scotch, and he intends to remain Scotch. He is proud of his nationality, and I quite understand it.

Of all the inhabitants of the more-or-less-United Kingdom, Friend Donald is the most keen, sturdy, matter-of-fact, persevering, industrious, and witty.

The most witty! Now I have said something.

Yes, the most witty, with all due respect to the shade of Sydney Smith.

So little do the English know the Scotch, that when I spoke to them of my intention to lecture in Scotland, they laughed at me.

"But don't you know, my dear fellow," they exclaimed, "that it is only by means of a pickaxe that you can get a joke into the skull of a Scotchman?"

And the fact is, that since the day when Sydney Smith, of jovial memory, pronounced his famous dictum, that it required a surgical operation to make a Scotchman understand a joke, poor Donald has been powerless to prevent past and present generations from repeating the phrase of the celebrated wit.

All in vain did Scotland produce Smollett, Robert Burns, Walter Scott, and Thomas Carlyle, in the eyes of the English, the Scotchman has remained the personification of slow-wittedness – a poor fellow incapable of making much beyond prayers and money, and the Londoner who has never travelled – the poor Cockney who still firmly believes that the French are feeble creatures, living on snails and frogs – this Londoner, the most stupid animal in the world (after the Paris badaud, perhaps), goes about repeating to all who will listen to such nonsense:

"Dull and heavy as a Scotchman!"

Give a few minutes' start to a hoax, and you will never be able to overtake it.

To tell the truth, the wit of, I will not say, an Englishman, but a Cockney, is not within the reach of the Scot. Jokes, play upon words, and bantering are not in his line. A pun will floor him completely; but I hope to be able to prove, by means of a few anecdotes, that Donald has real wit, and humour above all – humour of the light, subtle kind, that would pass by a Cockney without making the least impression.

I do not wish to say that there is more intelligence in Scotland than in England; but I can in all security say there is more intellectuality.

The Cockney must have his puns and small jokes. On the stage, he delights in jigs; and to really please him, the best of actors have to become rivals of the mountebanks at a fair. A hornpipe delights his heart. An actor who, for an hour together, pretends not to be able to keep on his hat, sends him into the seventh heaven of delight; and I have seen the tenants of the stalls applaud these things. Such performances make the Scotch smile, but with pity. The Cockney! When you have said that you have said everything: it is a being who will find fault with the opera of Faust, because up to the present time no manager has given the Kermess scene the attraction of an acrobat turning a wheel or standing on his head.

No, no; the Scotchman has no wit of this sort. In the matter of wit, he is an epicure, and only appreciates dainty food. A smart repartee will tickle his sides agreeably; he understands demi-mots; he is good-tempered, and can take a joke as well as see through one. His quick-wittedness and the subtlety of his character make him full of quaint remarks and funny and unexpected comparisons. He is a stranger to affectation – that dangerous rock to the would-be wit; he is natural, and is witty without trying to be a wit.

Yes, Donald is witty; but he possesses more solid qualities as well.

We will make acquaintance with his intellectual qualities presently.

As to his exterior – look at him: he is as strong as his own granite, and cut out for work.

A head well planted on a pair of broad shoulders; a strong-knit, sinewy frame; small, keen eyes; iron muscles; a hand that almost crushes your own as he shakes it; and large flat feet that only advance cautiously and after having tried the ground: such is Donald.

Needless to say that he generally lives to a good old age.

I never knew a Christian so confident of going to Paradise, or less eager to set out.

Why does the Scotchman succeed everywhere? Why, in Australia, New Zealand, and all the other British Colonies, do you find him landowner, director of companies, at the head of enterprises of all kinds? Again, why do you find in almost all the factories of Great Britain that the foreman is Scotch?

Ah! it is very simple.

Success is very rarely due to extraordinary circumstances, or to chance, as the social failures are fond of saying.

The Scot is economical, frugal, matter-of-fact, exact, thoroughly to be depended upon, persevering, and hard-working.

He is an early riser; when he earns but half-a-crown a day, he puts by sixpence or a shilling; he minds his own business, and does not meddle with other people's.

Add to these qualities the body that I was speaking of – a body healthy, bony, robust, and rendered impervious to fatigue by the practice of every healthful exercise – and you will understand why the Scotch succeed everywhere.

His religion teaches him to trust in God, and to rely upon his own resources – an eminently practical religion, whose device is:

Help yourself and Heaven will help you.

If a Scotchman were wrecked near an outlandish island in Oceania, I guarantee that you will find him, a few years later, installed as a landed proprietor, exacting rents and taxes from the natives.

Where the English, the Irish especially, will starve, the Scotch will exist; where the English can exist, the Scotch will dine.

The following little scene, which took place in my house, enlightened me very much as to why one finds the Scotch farming their own land in the colonies, while the Irish are doing labourers' work.

I had an Irish cook, an honest woman if ever there was one, faithful, and of a religion as sincere as it was unpractical.

The housemaid, a true-born Scotch girl, came down one morning to find the poor cook on her knees in the act of imploring Heaven to make her fire burn.

"But your wood is damp," she exclaimed; "how can ye expect it to burn? Pray, if ye will, but the Lord has a muckle to mind; and ye'd do weel to pit your wood in the oven o' nights, instead of bothering Him wi' such trifles."

"It was faith, nevertheless," said a worthy lady, to whom I told the matter.

It was idleness, thought I, or very much like it.

Doctor Norman Macleod tells how he was once in a boat, on a Highland lake, when a storm came on, which menaced him and his companions with the most serious danger. The doctor, a tall, strong man, had with him a Scotch minister, who was small and delicate. The latter addressed himself to the boatman, and, drawing his attention to the danger they were in, proposed that they should all pray.

"Na, na," said the boatman; "let the little ane gang to pray, but first the big ane maun tak' an oar, or we shall be drouned."

Donald is the most practical man on earth.

He is a man who takes life seriously, and whom nothing will divert from the road that leads to the goal.

He is a man who monopolises all the good places in this world and the next; who keeps the Commandments, and everything else worth keeping; who swears by the Bible – and as hard2 as a Norman carter; who serves God every Sabbath day and Mammon all the week; who has a talent for keeping a great many things, it is true, but especially his word, when he gives it you.

He is not a man of brilliant qualities, but he is a man of solid ones, who can only be appreciated at his true worth when you have known him some time. He does not jump at you with demonstrations of love, nor does he swear you an eternal friendship; but if you know how to win his esteem, you may rely upon him thoroughly.

He is a man who pays prompt cash, but will have the value of his money.

If ever you travel with a Scotchman from Edinburgh to London, you may observe that he does not take his eyes off the country the train goes through. He looks out of the window all the time, so as not to miss a pennyworth of the money he has paid for his place. Remark to him, as you yawn and stretch yourself, that it's a long, tiring, tiresome journey, and he will probably exclaim:

"Long, indeed, long! I should think so, sir; and so it ought to be for £2 17s. 6d.!"

I know of a Scot, who, rather than pay the toll of a bridge in Australia, takes off his coat, which he rolls and straps on his back, in order to swim across the stream.

He is not a miser; on the contrary, his generosity is well known in his own neighbourhood. He is simply an eccentric Scot, who does not see why he should pay for crossing a river that he can cross for nothing.

CHAPTER III

All Scots know how to reckon. – Rabelais in Scotland. – How Donald made two pence halfpenny by going to the Lock-up. – Difference between buying and stealing. – Scotch Honesty. – Last words of a Father to his Son. – Abraham in Scotland. – How Donald outdid Jonathan. – Circumspection, Insinuations, and Negations. – Delicious Declarations of Love. – Laconism. – Conversation reduced to its simplest Expression. – A, e, i, o, u. – A visit to Thomas Carlyle. – The Silent Academy of Hamadan. – With the Author's Compliments.

All the Scotch know how to read, write, and reckon.

Especially reckon.

The following adventure happened but the other day.

A wily Caledonian, accused of having insulted a policeman, was condemned by the Bailie of his village to pay a fine of half-a-crown, with the alternative of six days' imprisonment.

As there are few Scots who have not half-a-crown in their pockets, you will perhaps imagine that Friend Donald paid the money, glad to get out of the scrape so cheaply.

Not at all: when you are born in Scotland, you do not part with your cash without a little reflection.

So Donald reflected a moment.

Will he pay or go to jail? His heart wavers.

"I will go to jail," he exclaims, suddenly struck with a luminous idea.

Now the prison was in the chief town of his county, and it so happened that he had a little business to arrange there, but the railway fare was two shillings and eight pence halfpenny.

He passes the night in the lock-up, and in the morning is taken off by train to the prison.

Once safely there, Donald pulls half-a-crown from his purse, and demands a receipt of the governor, who has no choice but to give it him and set him at liberty. Our hero, proud as a king at the success of his plan, and the two pence halfpenny clear profit it has brought him, steers for the town and arranges his business.

Rabelais was not more cunning when he hit upon his stratagem for getting carried to Paris.

The Scotch themselves are fond of telling the following:

Dugald – "Did ye hear that Sandy McNab was ta'en up for stealin' a coo?"

Donald – "Hoot, toot, the stipit body! Could he no bocht it, and no paid for 't."

This explains why the Scotch prisons are relatively empty. Donald is often in the county court, but seldom in the police-court.

A good Scot begins the day with the following prayer:

"O Lord! grant that I may take no one in this day, and that no one may take me in. If Thou canst grant me but one of these favours, O Lord, grant that no one may take me in."

He would be a clever fellow, however, who could take in Donald.

There is no country where compacts are more faithfully kept than in Scotland. When you have the signature of a Scotchman in your pocket, you may make your mind easy; but, if you sign an agreement with him, you may be certain that he runs no risk of repenting of the transaction.

He is rarely at fault in his reckoning; but if, by chance, an error escapes him, it is not he who suffers by it.

I must hasten, however, to say that the honesty of the Scotch in England is proverbial. I have always heard the English say they liked doing business with Scotch firms, because they had the very qualities desirable in a customer: straight-forwardness and solvency.

Donald's honesty is all the more admirable, because he is firmly convinced in his heart, that he will go straight to Paradise whatever he may do. You will confess that there is danger about a Christian who feels sure that many things shall be forgiven him.

Perhaps his honesty may be the result of reflection, if the following little anecdote that was told me in Scotland is any criterion:

A worthy father, feeling death at hand, sends for his son to hear his last counsels.

"Donald," he says to him, "listen to the last words of your old father. If you want to get on in the world, be honest. Never forget that, in all business, honesty is the best policy. You may take my word for it, my son, —I hae tried baith."

This worthy Scot deserved an epitaph in the style of that one which the late Count Beust speaks of having seen on a tombstone at Highclere:

"Here lies Donald, who was as honest a man as it is possible to be in this world."

The Jews never got a footing in Scotland: they would have starved there.

They came; but they saw … and gave it up.

You may find one or two in Glasgow, but they are in partnership with Scotchmen, and do not form a band apart. They do not do much local business: they are exporters and importers.

The Aberdonians tell of a Jew who once came to their city and set up in business; but it was not long before he packed up his traps and decamped from that centre of Scotch 'cuteness.

"Why are you going?" they asked him. "Is it because there are no Jews in Aberdeen?"

"Oh, no," he replied; "I am going because you are all Jews here."

An American was so ill-inspired as to try his hand there where even a Jew had been beaten.

The good folk of Aberdeen are very proud of telling the following anecdote, which dates from only a few months back, and was in everyone's mouth at the time of my visit to the city of granite:

An American lecturer had signed an agreement with an Aberdonian, by which he undertook to go and lecture in Aberdeen for a fee of twenty pounds.

Dazzled by the success of his lectures, which were drawing full houses in all parts of England, the American bethought himself that he might have made better terms with Donald. Acting on this idea, he soon sent him a telegram, running thus:

"Enormous success. Invitations numerous. Cannot do Aberdeen for less than thirty pounds. Reply prepaid."

The Scot was not born to be taken in.

On the contrary.

Donald, armed with the treaty in his pocket, goes calmly to the telegraph office and wires:

"All right. Come on."

Jonathan, encouraged by the success of this first venture, rubs his hands, and, two days later, sends a second telegram, as follows:

"Invitations more and more numerous. Impossible to do Aberdeen for less than forty pounds."

Donald thinks the thing very natural, and laughs in his sleeve. He bids the messenger wait, and without hesitation he scribbles:

"All right. Come on."

Jonathan doubtless rubbed his hands harder than ever, and might have been very surprised if he had been told that Donald was rubbing his too.

However, he arrived in Aberdeen radiant, gave his lecture, and at the end was presented by Donald with a cheque for twenty pounds.

"Twenty pounds – but it is forty pounds you owe me!"

"You make a mistake," replied Donald, quietly: "here is our treaty, signed and registered."

"But I sent you a telegram to tell you that I could not possibly come for less than forty pounds."

"Quite so," replied Donald, unmoved.

"And you answered – 'All right. Come on.'"

"That is true."

"Well then?"

"Well, my dear sir, it is all right: you have come – now, you may go."

Like the crow in La Fontaine's fable, Jonathan registered a vow … but a little late.

"Ah!" cried the Aberdonian who told me the story, "Jonathan will not go back to America to tell his compatriots that he took in a Scotchman." And his eyes gleamed with national pride as he added: "It was no harm to try."

He considered the conduct of the American quite natural, it was clear.

As for me, I thought that "All right – come on," a magnificent example of Scotch diplomacy and humour.

Donald has a still cooler head than his neighbour John Bull, and that is saying a good deal. In business, in love even, he never loses his head. He is circumspect. He proceeds by insinuations, still oftener by negations, and that even in the most trifling matters. He does not commit himself: he doubts, he goes as far as to believe; but he will never push temerity so far as to be perfectly sure. Ask a Scotchman how he is. He will never reply that he is well, but that he is no bad ava.

I heard a Scotchman tell the butler to fill his guests' glasses in the following words:

"John, if you were to fill our glasses, we wadna be the waur for 't."

Remark to a Highlander that the weather is very warm, and he will reply:

"I don't doubt but it may be; but that's your opinion."

This manner of expressing themselves in hints and negations must have greatly sharpened the wits of the Scotch.

Here, for instance, is a delicious way of making a young girl understand that you love her, and wish to marry her. I borrow it from Dr. Ramsay's Reminiscences.

Donald proposes to Mary a little walk.

They go out, and in their ramble they pass through the churchyard.

Pointing with his finger to one of the graves, this lover says:

"My folk lie there, Mary; wad ye like to lie there?"

Mary took the grave hint, says the Doctor, and became his wife, but does not yet lie there.

Much in the same vein is an anecdote that was told me in an Edinburgh house one day at dessert:

Jamie and Janet have long loved each other, but neither has spoken word to the other of this flame.

At last Donald one day makes up his mind to break the ice.

"Janet," he says, "it must be verra sad to lie on your death bed and hae no ane to houd your han' in your last moments?"

"That is what I often say to mysel, Jamie. It must be a pleasant thing to feel that a frien's han' is there to close your ee when a' is ower."

"Ay, ay, Janet; and that is what mak's me sometimes think o' marriage. After all, we war na made to live alone."

"For my pairt, I am no thinkin' o' matrimony. But still, the thoucht of livin' wi' a mon that I could care for is no disagreeable to me," says Janet. "Unfortunately, I have not come across him yet."

"I believe I hae met wi' the woman I loe," responds Jamie; "but I dinna ken whether she lo'es me."

"Why dinna ye ask her, Jamie?"

"Janet," says Jamie, without accompanying his words with the slightest chalorous movement, "wad ye be that woman I was speakin' of?"

"If I died before you, Jamie, I wad like your han' to close my een."

The engagement was completed with a kiss to seal the compact.

The Scot, in his quality of a man of action, talks little; all the less, perhaps, because he knows that he will have to give an account of every idle word in the Last Day.

He has reduced conversation to its simplest expression. Sometimes even he will restrain himself, much to the despair of foreigners, so far as to only pronounce the accentuated syllable of each word. What do I say? The syllable? He will often sound but the vowel of that syllable.

Here is a specimen of Scotch conversation, given by Dr. Ramsay: