Dougal Graham

“ I made myself a chapman when very young, in great hopes of being rich when I became old but fortune was fickle and so was I; for I had not been a chapman above two days, until I began to consider the danger of deep ditches, midden dubs, biting dogs and bogles in barns, bangster wives and wiet sacks; And what comfort is it, to ly in a cows ouxter, the length of a cold winter night ”

“ Tom. No, Pady, it is not that I mean, was you sorry, or did you weep for her?
Teag. Weep for her; by shaint Patrick I would not weep nor yet be sorry, suppose my own mother and all the women in Ireland had died seven years before I was born.
Tom. What did you do with your children when she died?
Teag. Do you imagine I was such a big fool as bury my children alive, along with a dead woman: Arra, dear honey, we always commonly give nothing along with a dead person, but an old shirt, a winding sheet, a big hammer, with a long candle, and an Irish silver three-penny piece? ”

“ In what other works, or series of works—even those professedly dealing with the subject—can there be obtained such a knowledge of how the common people lived a century or two ago? We venture to affirm that such cannot be found. The life of the people is the life of the nation; and if it be a virtue to write personal biography like Boswell, it is surely more so to record the inner life of a nation, like Graham. ”

“ O no, said he, he preaches every Sunday; and what does he preach? said I, is it to harden your hearts? haud well together? have no charity? hate strangers? hunger the poor? eat and drink all yourselves? better burst your bellies than give it to beggars, or let good meat spoil? If your minister be as naughty as his people, I'm positive he'll drive a louse to London for the hide and tallow. ”

“ To kill a man for rumple groans.
I’m clean of rapine, blood, and thefts,
Could I convert my farts to rifts;
Since I, the first, for farting die,
Close up the place from whence they fly;
To commit my crime, I think ye’ll scarce,
If once you do cork up your arse.
And now since women stones do carry,
Men need not in the world tarry.
Judge if such women be chaste complete,
With forty stones between their feet.
But since ’tis so, ye will come on,
The greatest whore throw the first stone. ”

“ Upon Sunday thereafter John comes with Uncle Rabby's auld wide coat, a muckle grey lang tail'd wig an a big bonnet, which cover'd his face, so that he seem'd more like an old pilgrim than a young fornicator; mounts the creepy with a stiff stiff back as he had been a man of sixty, every one looked at him, thinking he was some old stranger that knew not the stool of repentance by another seat, so that he passed the first day unknown but to very few, yet or the second it came to be known, that the whole parish and many more came to see him ”

“ Pady. O my dear shoy, Tom, you know nothing of the matter; for, when I die, they will bury my body, flesh, blood, dirt and bones, only my skin will be blown up full of wind and spirit, my dear shoul I mean; and then I will be blown over to the other world, on the wings of the wind; and after that I shall never be kill’d hang’d nor drowned, nor yet die [202] in my bed, for when any hits me a blow, my new body will play buff upon it like a bladder. ”

“ The goodman ordered me the pottage-pot to lick; for, says he, it is an old property to chapmen. Well, I had no sooner begun to it, then out came a great big mastiff-dog from below the bed, and grips me by the breast, then turns me over upon my back, and takes the pot himself. Ay, ay, said the goodman, I think your brother pot-licker and you cannot agree about your breakfast! A well, said I, goodman, you said that pot-licking was a chapman's property, but your dog proves the contrary. So away I comes, and I meeting the good wife at the door, bid her farewell for ever. ”

“ There is good ground for the remark that the Merry Exploits of George Buchanan ‘is a terrible libel on an eminent man; never was mental greatness so “let down” in the popular estimation as by this vulgar performance; by and through which Buchanan’s humble countrymen were taught, not to look up to him, but down upon him as a coarse buffoon.’ [30] It must be admitted, however, that there is strong reason to suspect that many of the stories were current before the issue of the chap-book, but it, of course, would help to perpetuate the libels. ”

“ I considering what sort of a pish-the-bed supper I was to get if I staid there, thought it fit to set out, but takes up a piteher of water, and fills up the pot until it was running over, and then takes up my paek, and comes about a mile farther that night, leaving the honest woman and her son to sup their watery witched sowens at their own pleasure. ”

“ I dang the de’il out o’ them, and dadded them like a wet dish-clout till they did my bidding: But now the bairns are brought up to spit fire in their mither’s face, and cast dirt at their auld daddies: How can they be good who never saw a sample of it; or reverence old age, who practised no precepts in their youth? How can they love their parents, who gave them black poison instead of good principles? Who shewed them no good, nor taught them no duties! No marvel such children despise old age, and reverence their parents as an old horse does his father. ”

“ It is not, however, on the merits of this work, that Graham’s fame rests. Had he only written it, we believe he never would have occupied our thoughts for a moment; but as one who subsequently contributed largely to the amusement of the lower classes of his countrymen, we love to think of the facetious bellman. To his rich vein of gross comic humour, laughable and vulgar description, great shrewdness of observation, and strong, though immeasurably coarse sense, every one of us, after getting out of toy books and fairy tales, has owed much. ”

“ Then dear shoy, I’m shure it is in a kingdom.
Tom. And what is the reason you have come and left your own dear country?
Teag. Arra dear honey, by shaint Patrick, they have got such comical laws in our country, that they’ll put a man to death in perfect health; so to be free and plain with you, neighbour, I was obliged to come away, for I did not choose to stay among such a people that can hang a poor man when they please, if he either steals, robs, or kills a man.
Tom. Ay, but I take you to be more of an honest man, than to steal, rob, or kill a man. ”

“ I heard a young plowman so sweetly to sing,
And as he was singing, these words he did say,
No life is like the plowman’s in the month of May.
The lark in the morning rises from her nest,
And mounts in the air with the dew on her breast,
And with the jolly plowman she’ll whistle and she’ll sing,
And at night she’ll return to her nest back again.’
It is interesting to notice that Cromek has attributed lines almost identical with these to Robert Burns, [21] and the most eminent editors of the works of the Ayrshire Bard have followed him. ”

“ Any one who is at all acquainted with life among the lower classes, must admit that these descriptions are true to nature, and that a study of them is necessary before we can know thoroughly upon what the present superstructure of Scottish civilisation has been built. Graham, perhaps unintentionally, has held ‘the mirror up to nature,’ has shown ‘virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.’
It would be difficult, again, to over-estimate the value of Dougal Graham’s works as affording illustrations of the folk-lore of Scotland. ”

“ Pady. Arra, dear shoy, I am a mountain sailor, and my supplication is as follows,
PADY’S HUMBLE PETITION, OR SUPPLICATION. Good Christian people behold me a man! who has com’d thro’ a world of wonders, a hell full of hardships, dangers by sea, and dangers by land, and yet I am alive, you may see my hand crooked like a fowl’s foot, and that is no wonder at all, considering my sufferings and sorrows: Oh! oh! oh! good people I was a man in my time who had plenty of the gold, plenty of the silver, plenty of the clothes, plenty of the butter, the beer, beef, and bisket. ”

“ Add to these virtues that Dougal is never out of humour, always laughing and gossiping, drinking and telling old tales. His laughter, also, is contagious; we cannot contain ourselves. All his stories are full of people who laugh “like to burst,” and one cannot help but join them in their cacchinations. ”

“ As I was an able bodied man in the face, I thought to be made a brigadeer, a grandedeer, or a fuzeleer, or even one of them blew gowns that holds the fiery stick to the bung-hole of the big cannons, when they let them off, to fright away the French; I was as sure as no man alive ere I came from Cork, the least preferment I could get, was to be riding-master to a regiment of marines, or one of the black horse itself.
[197]
Tom. Well Pady, you seem to be a very clever man, to be all in one body, what height are you?
Teag. Arra, dear shoy, I am five foot nothing, all but one inch. ”

“ Until this time, Graham is not known to have made any effort in the direction of literature, though, in view of the magnitude of the task he set before himself on the conclusion of the rebellion, it is not improbable he may have courted the Muses from afar, and indulged in poetical, or rhythmical, fancies for the amusement of his customers and entertainers in his youthful chapman days. However that may be, Dougal, immediately after the disaster at Culloden, rapidly made his way homewards, and set about committing to verse a narrative of the expedition of Prince Charles. ”

“ Pady. Because they have a liberty to eat flesh in lent, and every thing that’s fit for the belly.
Tom. What, Pady, are you such a lover of flesh that you would change your profession for it?
Pady. O yes, that’s what I did, I love flesh of all kinds, sheep’s beef, swine’s mutton, hare’s flesh, and hen’s venison; but our religion is one of the hungriest in all the world, ah! but it makes my teeth to weep, and my belly to water, when I see the Scotch Presbyterians and English churchmen, in time of lent, feeding upon bull’s bastards, and sheep’s young children. ”

“ The opinions Sir Walter Scott and William Motherwell had of Dougal Graham’s writings have already been shown, and their estimate of the value of the literature for which he wrote has been clearly brought out.
No one need regret that the days of chap-books are gone, but the human mind has a tendency to turn with a loving look to the past, as if life in it had been easier than in the present. ”

“ Why, says George, I know one town where there is a hundred bone bridges in it; another town where there are fifty draw-bridges in it; another town where, tho’ a man commits murder, treason, or owes never so much money, he runs to that town, and gets in below a stair, no laws nor justice can harm him. The nobleman offered immediately to stake a hundred pounds, that there was no such towns in Europe, besides in Scotland. ”