The laugh was effectually raised against his opponent, whose arguments and assertions he then proceeded to demolish at his leisure.
When a former Prince of Wales was married, a Highland minister at Greenock was praying for the happiness and welfare of the royal couple. He was somewhat embarrassed as to how he should join the two names, but at length he got over it thus:
"Lord bless _her_ royal highness the Prince of Wales, and _his_ royal highness the _she_ prince!"
At a breakfast there was abundance of Highland cheer, towering dishes of scones, oatcakes, an enormous cheese, fish eggs and a monstrous grey-beard of whiskey ready, if required; fumes of tobacco were floating in the air, and the whole seemed an embodiment of the Highlander's grace, "Oh, gie us rivers of whiskey, chau'ders o' snuff, and tons o' tobacco, pread an' a cheese as pig as the great hill of Ben Nevis, and may our childer's childer be lords and lairds to the latest sheneration." On repeating this grace to an old hillsman of eighty, leaning on his stick, he thoughtfully answered: "Weel, it's a goot grace--a very goot grace--but it's a warldly thing!"
On Henry Erskine being told that Knox, who had long derived his livelihood by keeping the door of the Parliament House, had been killed by a shot from a small cannon on the king's birthday, he observed that "it was remarkable that a man should live by the civil and die by the can(_n_)on law."
A Scottish gentleman, while walking in a meadow with some ladies, had the impudence to snatch a kiss from one, unperceived by the rest. She said indignantly, "Sir, I am not accustomed to such freedom."
"It will be the greater rarity, then, madam."
She flew from him, and ran towards her mother, who, alarmed at her seeming terror, inquired what was the cause.
"She has taken fright at a rash buss," said the gentleman.
"O, ye idiot," said the mother, "go back this instant."
She returned, smiling, and said, "Do't again, it's no' forbidden."
An old lady was telling her grandchildren about some trouble in Scotland, in the course of which the chief of her clan was beheaded.
"It was nae great thing of a head, bairns, to be sure," said the good lady, "but it was a sad loss to him."