Erchie, My Droll Friend — Reading Notes

ng day, and when the worthy beadle had locked the door after dismissal and joined me on the pavement, “Man,” he said, “it was a puir turn-oot yon--hardly worth puttin’ on fires for. It’s aye the wye; when I mak’ the kirk a wee bit fancy, and jalouse there’s shair to be twa pound ten in the plate, on comes a blash o’ rain, and there’s hardly whit wid pay for the starchin’ o’ the Doctor’s bands.

“Christmas! They ca’t Christmas, but I could gie anither name for’t. I looked it up in the penny almanac, and it said, ‘Keen frost; probably snow,’ and I declare-to if I hadna nearly to soom frae the hoose.

“The almanacs is no’ whit they used to be; the auld chaps that used to mak’ them maun be deid.

“They used to could do’t wi’ the least wee bit touch, and tell ye in January whit kind o’ day it wad be at Halloween, besides lettin’ ye ken the places whaur the Fair days and the ‘ool-markets was, and when they were to tak’ place-a’ kind o’ information that maist o’ us that bocht the almanacs couldna sleep at nicht wantin’. I’ve seen me get up at three on a cauld winter’s mornin’ and strikin’ a licht to turn up Orr’s Penny Commercial and see whit day was the Fair at Dunse. I never was at Dunse in a’ my days, and hae nae intention o’ gaun, but it’s a grand thing knowledge, and it’s no’ ill to cairry. It’s like poetry-’The Star o’ Rabbie Burns’ and that kind o’ thing-ye can aye be givin’ it a ca’ roond in your mind when ye hae naething better to dae.

“Oh, ay! A puir turn-oot the day for Kenti-gern’s; that’s the drawback o’ a genteel congregation like oors-mair nor half o’ them’s sufferin’ frae Christmas turkey and puttin’ the blame on the weather.”

“The bubbly-jock is the symbol o’ Scotland’s decline and fa’; we maybe bate the English at Bannockburn, but noo they’re haein’ their revenge and underminin’ oor constitution wi’ the aid o’ a bird that has neither a braw plumage nor a bonny sang, and costs mair nor the price o’ three or four ducks. England gave us her bubbly-jock and took oor barley-bree.

“But it’s a’ richt; Ne’erday’s comin’; it’s begun this year gey early, for I saw Duffy gaun up his close last nicht wi’ his nose peeled.

“‘Am I gaun hame, or am I comin’ frae’t, can ye tell me?’ says he, and he was carryin’ something roond-shaped in his pocket-naipkin.

“‘Whit’s wrang wi’ ye, puir cratur?’ I says to him.

“‘I was struck wi’ a sheet o’ lichtnin’,’ says he, and by that I ken’t he had been doon drinkin’ at the Mull o’ Kintyre Vaults, and that the season o’ peace on earth, guid-will to men was fairly started.

“‘MacPherson,’ he says, wi’ the tear at his e’e, ‘I canna help it, but I’m a guid man.’

“‘Ye are that, Duffy,’ I says, ‘when ye’re in your bed sleepin’; at ither times ye’re like the rest o’ us, and that’s gey middlin’. Whit hae’ye in the naipkin?’

“He gied a dazed look at it, and says, ‘I’m no shair, but I think it’s a curlin’-stane, and me maybe gaun to a bonspiel at Carsbreck.’

“He opened it oot, and found it was a wee, roond, red cheese.

“‘That’s me, a’ ower,’ says he--‘a Christmas for the wife,’ and I declare there was as much drink jaupin’ in him as wad hae done for a water-’shute.’

“Scotland’s last stand in the way o’ national customs is bein’ made at the Mull o’ Kintyre Vaults, whaur the flet half-mutchkin, wrapped up in magenta tissue paper so that it’ll look tidy, is retreatin’ doggedly, and fechtin’ every fit o’ the way, before the invadin’ English Christmas caird. Ten years ago the like o’ you and me couldna’ prove to a freen’ that we liked him fine unless we took him at this time o’ the year into five or six public-hooses, leaned him up against the coonter, and grat on his dickie. Whit dae we dae noo? We send wee Jennie oot for a shilling box o’ the year afore last’s patterns in Christmas cairds, and show oor continued affection and esteem at the ha’penny postage rate.