Robert Ford

“ Beauty, agreeably surprised, gave the charming Prince her hand to rise; they went together into the castle, and Beauty was overjoyed to find, in the great hall, her father and his whole family, whom the beautiful lady, that appeared to her in her dream, had conveyed thither.
"Beauty," said this lady, "come and receive the reward of your judicious choice; you are going to be a great Queen. I hope the throne will not lessen your virtue, nor make you forget yourself. As for you, ladies," said the fairy to Beauty's two sisters, "I know your hearts and all the malice they contain. ”

“ Every one who has seen much of country life has noticed with what patient skill and anxiety a ploughman builds, say, a load of hay or straw which he is afterwards to cart to the town, and the pride there is in his eye as he marches with it along the road, guiding his pair of horses with cheering words and gentle touches of the reins. Not many years ago a Perthshire ploughman was proceeding in the manner indicated when, in a narrow part of the road, he was met by a hearse and a funeral party on foot behind it. ”

“ At length Jack took over the bridge, the Giant with full speed pursuing after him, with his iron club. But coming to the middle of the drawbridge, the weight of his body, and the most dreadful steps which he took, it broke down, and he tumbled into the water, where he rolled and wallowed like a whale.
Jack standing at the side of the moat laughed at the Giant, and said, "You would grind my bones to powder; you have water, pray, where is your mill?" ”

“ In this manner, Dick heard of the great city called London; how the people who lived there were all fine gentlemen and ladies; that there were singing and music in it all day long; and that the streets were paved all over with gold.
One day a waggoner, with a large waggon and eight horses, all with bells at their heads, drove through the village while Dick was lounging near his favourite sign-post. The thought immediately struck him that it must be going to the fine town of London; and taking courage, he asked the waggoner to let him walk by the side of the waggon. ”

“ Regarding the humorous side of the Waverley novels alone, which is all that concerns us here, one has only to think of Caleb Balderston, of Edie Ochiltree, of Cuddie Headrigg, of Andrew Fairservice; has but to utter aloud to himself the familiar “Ma conscience!” of Bailie Nicol Jarvie; the “Prodigious!” of Dominie Samson; the “Jeanie, woman!” of the Laird of Dumbiedikes—to have his mind peopled like a market-place with familiar figures, and his memory serving his tongue with passage upon passage, page upon page, and all with the freedom and rapidity of electric telegraphy. ”

“ JACK AND THE BEAN-STALK.
In days of yore, there lived a widow who had a son named Jack. Being an only child, he was too much indulged, and became so extravagant and careless that he wasted the property which his mother possessed, until at last there remained only a cow, the chief support of her and her son.
One day the poor woman, with tears in her eyes, said to Jack—"O, you wicked child, by your ungrateful course of life you have brought me to beggary in my old age; cruel boy! I have not money to buy even a bit of bread, and we must now sell the cow. ”

“ Sydney Smith would never have misguided even the most hopelessly opaque of [33] his own countrymen. No humour in Scotch folk! No humour in Scotland! There is no country in the world that has produced so much of it. Of no other country under the sun can it be so truly said that humour is the common inheritance of the people. Much of the kind of humour that drives an Englishman into an ecstacy of delight, would, of course, only tend to make a Scotsman sad; but that is no evidence that the Scotch are lacking in their perceptions of the humorous. ”

“ My heart is good, though I am a monster."
"Among mankind," said Beauty, "there are many that deserve that name more than you, and I prefer you, just as you are, to those who, under a human form, hide a treacherous, corrupt, and ungrateful heart."
Beauty ate a hearty supper, and had almost conquered her dread of the monster; but she had like to have fainted away when he said to her, "Beauty, will you be my wife?" ”

“ No writer of any time—Burns alone excepted—has handled the native tongue to better purpose for the expression of every feeling of the human heart than has Sir Walter Scott; and in Jeanie Deans’ plea to the Queen for her sister’s life there is the finest example of simple pathos, dashed with the passion of hope struggling with despair, that is to be met with anywhere in literature. ”

“ At this very instant, the young fairy came out from behind the curtains, and spoke these words aloud:— "Assure yourselves, O king and queen, that your daughter shall not die of this disaster. It is true I have not power to undo what my elder has done. The princess shall indeed pierce her hand with a spindle; but instead of dying, she shall only fall into a profound sleep, which shall last a hundred years, at the expiration of which a king's son shall come, and awake her from it." ”

“ Humour, I have already asserted, is part and parcel of a Scotsman’s being, and is common to all classes of the Scottish people; and the remark receives point from the fact that even the daft folk in our land are touched with a rough-and-ready sense of it. Idiocy, unhappily, has obtained in all countries, and among all peoples, and “Naturals,” and persons of sadly inferior intellect, have not been uncommon in Scotland. Like many another familiar figure in recent Scottish life, the village or parish idiot, however, is no longer apparent in the native highways and byways. ”

“ Just at this moment the fairy entered the room, and touching Cinderella's clothes with her wand, made her all at once appear more magnificently dressed than they had seen her before.
The two sisters immediately perceived that she was the beautiful princess they had seen at the ball. They threw themselves at her feet, and asked her forgiveness for the ill treatment she had received from them. Cinderella helped them to rise, and, tenderly embracing them, said that she forgave them with all her heart, and begged them to bestow upon her their affection. ”

“ It only shows that “some folks are no ill to please.” “The Cockney must have his puns and small jokes,” says Max O’Rell. “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. Such performances make the Scotch smile—but with pity. The Scotsman has no wit of this sort. In the matter of wit he is an epicure, and only appreciates dainty food.” ”

“ The poor child bore all this with the greatest patience, not daring to complain to her father, who, she feared, would only reprove her, for she saw that his wife governed him entirely. When she had done all her work she used to sit in the chimney corner among the cinders; so that in the house she went by the name of Cinderbreech: the youngest of the two sisters, however, being rather more civil than the eldest, called her Cinderella. And Cinderella, dirty and ragged as she was, as often happens in such cases, was a thousand times prettier than her sisters, drest out in all their splendour. ”

“ The Scottish Law Courts have been long and justly celebrated as an arena of wit and humour of the richest sort. But the facetious counsel and the witty and eccentric judge, like the humorous and quaint divine, no longer prevail; and the current collector of the native legal facetiæ who would present brilliant specimens and illustrations must riddle the records of past generations to find them, or else adopt the simpler method, which has been most frequently followed, of riddling the riddlings of those who have successfully riddled the records before them. ”

“ But just then it flashed upon her mind that "God made man in His own image," and looking up with brightening eye, she said—"To God's Kingdom, sire." The King was moved. A tear stood in his eye. He placed his hand on the child's head, and said, most devoutly—"God grant that I may be accounted worthy of that Kingdom." Thus did the words of a common child, you see, move the heart of a King. But, oh, we are all the same. It is only the environment that is different. And the distinction there even is not so great as one, not knowing, may be disposed to imagine. ”

“ Hawkie’s besetting sin was an inveterate love of ardent spirits. “I am surprised, Hawkie,” said a person remonstrating with him one day on his dissolute life, “that a person of your knowledge and intellect can degrade himself by drinking whisky until you are deprived of reason, and with whom the brute could justly dispute pre-eminence. I would allow you two glasses per day, if you can’t want it, but not more.”
“Now, that’s fair,” replied the wit; “but will ye lodge’t in a public-house? Man, ye dinna ken what I hae to do. ”

“ The merchant had no heart to eat, but Beauty endeavoured to appear cheerful, sat down to table, and helped him. Afterwards, thought she to herself, "Beast surely has a mind to fatten me before he eats me, since he provides such a plentiful entertainment." When they had supped, they heard a great noise, and the merchant, in tears, bid his poor child farewell, for he thought Beast was coming. Beauty was sadly terrified at his horrid form, but she took courage as well as she could, and the monster having asked her if she came willingly, "Y-e-s," said she, tremblingly. ”

“ Woe to the man who offends his pride or vanity! ‘I may forgive, but I cannot forget,’ is a favourite saying. He will stand by a friend to the last; but let a breach be once made, and it is most difficult ever again to repair it as it once was. The grudge is immortal.” Here is a case in proof:—
A Highlander was visited on his death-bed by his clergyman, who exhorted Donald to prepare himself for another world by a sincere repentance of all the crimes he had committed on earth, and strongly urged the absolute necessity of forgiving his enemies. ”

“ He waits, and Jack rides full speed. When he came to the castle, he knocked with such a force that he made all the neighbouring hills to resound. The Giant, with a voice like thunder, roared out, "Who's there?"
Jack answered, "None but your own cousin Jack. Dear uncle, heavy news, God wot."
"Prithee, what heavy news can come to me? I am a Giant with three heads, and besides thou knowest I can fight five hundred men."
"O! but," quoth Jack, "here's the King's son coming with one thousand men to kill you." ”

“ His inclination at length growing too powerful for him, he began to make secret preparations for his journey, and, on the longest day, arose as soon as it was light, ascended the bean-stalk, and reached the top. He arrived at the giant's mansion in the evening, and found his wife standing, as usual, at the door. Jack had disguised himself so completely that she did not appear to have the least recollection of him; however, when he pleaded hunger and poverty in order to gain admittance, he found it very difficult indeed to persuade her. ”

“ JAMIE FLEEMAN, THE LAIRD OF UDNY’S FOOL
Jamie Fleeman, the Laird of Udny’s Fool, the most illustrious, was probably the very last of his order in Scotland. A real “natural,” Jamie had, notwithstanding, rare “glimmerings of common-sense,” as Bailie Nicol Jarvie avowed concerning the Dugal Craitur, and possessed a pungency of ready wit and humour and withering sarcasm which caused him to be dreaded as a foe and trusted as a friend. ”

“ One day a gentleman walking down a street observed a little boy seated on a doorstep. Going up to him, he said, "Well, my little chap, how is it you are sitting outside on the doorstep, when I see through the window all the other young folks inside playing games and having a good time? Why aren't you inside joining in the fun?" "I guess, stranger, that I'm in this game." replied the boy. "But how can you be, when you are out on the doorstep, and the others are all inside?" "Oh, I'm in the show right enough. You see, we're playing at being married. I'm the baby, and I'm not born yet!" ”

“ He is a shrewd, canny-going, scranky-looking individual. Fond of snuff, and susceptible to the allurements of a sly dram. He is proud of his office—the more solemn and conspicuous duties of which he performs with a dignity of deportment and solemnity of countenance which casts the minister almost hopelessly into the shade. ”

“ If I find one, he will do very well for a postilion."
"Well thought of, my child!" said her godmother; "make what haste you can."
Cinderella brought the rat-trap, which to her great joy, contained three of the largest rats ever seen. The fairy chose the one which had the longest beard, and touching him with her wand, he was instantly turned into a smart, handsome postilion, with the finest pair of whiskers imaginable.
She next said to Cinderella, "Go again into the garden, and you will find six lizards behind the watering-pot; bring them hither." ”

“ O, madam, if ever ye kend what it was to sorrow for and with a sinning and a suffering creature, whase mind is sae tossed that she can be neither ca’d fit to live or dee, hae some compassion on our misery! Save an honest house from dishonour, and an unhappy girl, not eighteen years of age, from an early and dreadful death! Alas! it is not when we sleep saft and wake merrily oursel’s that we think on other people’s sufferings. Our hearts are waxed light within us then, and we are for righting our ain wrangs and fighting our ain battles. ”

“ The Giant, with glaring eyes, followed after like a walking castle, making the earth to shake at every step. Jack led him a dance three or four times round the moat, that the ladies and gentlemen might take a full view of this huge monster who followed him, but could not overtake him by reason of his Shoes of swiftness. ”

“ Every parish has its daft Jamie, daft Willie, or daft Davie, as the case might be; and being all touched, less or more, with a sense of humour, as we have said, and daring to give audible speech to unpleasant truths, which sane persons dared not more than think, many good stories are told of them. Not unfrequently they exhibited a degree of cunning and readiness of wit quite unlooked for in members of their class. Thus, whilst lounging listlessly along the roadside one day, a North country natural was accosted by a late Professor in one of our Universities. ”

“ What pleasing recollections of his own early childhood many a father has had when, sitting with his child on his knee, he has demonstrated and chanted that rude rhyme by the fireside o' nights far, as often [Pg 11] has been the case, from the scene where he learned it! To know such is to realise one, at least, of the various reasons why the old delight in the frolics of the young.
This is a rhyme which "every child has joyed to hear." Its origin, as told in the records of the Boston (U.S.) Historical Society, is not more curious than beautiful and significant. ”

“ In England the punning and eccentric epitaph has prevailed to a greater extent even than in Scotland. Every representative collection of tombstone literature reveals this fact. Scotland alone, however, has produced an abundant crop. So much, indeed, as to form quite a distinct and interesting department of the humour of the country. The utter unpreparedness of the mind for the reception of humour in such a place as a kirkyard has occasionally, no doubt, helped what was incongruous to pass for humorous, as from the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step ”

“ The friends of the bride did not, on this occasion, wait to be invited, so impatient were they to see all the riches and magnificence she had gained by marriage, for they had been prevented from paying their wedding visit by their aversion to the blue beard of the bridegroom.
No sooner were they arrived than they impatiently ran from room to room, from cabinet to cabinet, and then from wardrobe to wardrobe, examining each with the utmost curiosity, and declaring that the last was still richer and more beautiful than what they had seen the moment before. ”

“ Old customs, like old prejudices, no matter how absurd they may be, die hard; but with the general advance of education in Scotland, and the dissemination of cheap and healthy literature, the people are becoming day by day more distinctly convinced of the many ludicrous absurdities connected with our social habits, particularly with the old-fashioned ideas relating to hospitality and conviviality, and with the practice of persistent and indiscriminate dram-drinking. ”

“ The moment Jack got down the bean-stalk, he ran for a hatchet. Just at that instant the giant was beginning to descend, but Jack with his hatchet cut the bean-stalk close off at the root, which made the giant fall headlong into the garden, and the fall killed him.
At this instant the fairy appeared; she charged Jack to be dutiful to his mother, and to follow his father's good example, which was the only way to be happy. She then disappeared, after recovering her hen and her harp, which Jack gave to her most thankfully, having acquired great riches and revenged the tragical death of his father. ”

“ Quite like that is the story of a small boy into whose head a teacher was one day labouring almost in vain to get, as he thought, even the faintest correct notion of the first rule in arithmetic. "Look here now, Johnnie," he said at length, "if I were to give you two rabbits and your father were to give you three rabbits, how many rabbits would you then have?" "Six." "No, no;" and the teacher set out bits of chalk to show how he could only have five. "Ah, but," drawled out Johnnie, "I have a rabbit at hame already." ”

“ CHILDREN'S HUMOUR AND QUAINT SAYINGS.
The humours of little folks, fresh and original, and invariably of the unconscious variety, and their quaint sayings, unrehearsed and uttered regularly without regard to effect—though with merciless honesty often—form a never-palling treat; and every man and woman who has reared a family, or has had joy in the society of other people's children, has his and her own budget, comprising tit-bits at once interesting, startling, and amusing. ”

“ When the giant had counted over the gold till he was tired, he put it up, if possible, more secure than he had put up the silver before; he then fell back on the chair by the fireside, and fell asleep. He snored so loud that Jack compared the noise to the roaring of the sea in a high wind, when the tide is coming in. At last, Jack, being certain that he was asleep, stole out of his hiding-place and approached the giant, in order to carry off the two bags of money ”

“ Beauty dressed herself; and in the meantime they sent to her sisters, who hastened thither with their husbands. They were both of them very unhappy. The eldest had married a gentleman, extremely handsome, indeed, but so fond of his own person that he neglected his wife. The second had married a man of wit, but he only made use of it to plague and torment every one. Beauty's sisters sickened with envy when they saw her dressed like a Princess, and look more beautiful than ever. ”

“ As to the giant's possessions, you may seize on all you can, for everything he has belongs either to you or to me; for you must know that, not satisfied with the gold he carried off from your father, he broke into my house and stole the two greatest curiosities ever possessed even by a fairy, and would have killed me as he did your father, if it could have been possible to kill a fairy. ”

“ In the meantime, all in the palace awaked, every one thinking on his particular business; and as all of them were not in love, they were ready to die with hunger. The chief lady of honour, being as sharp set as the others, grew very impatient, and told the princess aloud that the supper was served up. The prince helped the princess to rise, she being entirely dressed, and very magnificent, though his royal highness did not forget to tell her that she was dressed like his grandmother, and had a point-band peeping over a high collar ”

“ The king was so much charmed with the amiable qualities and noble fortune of the Marquis of Carabas, and the young princess too had fallen so violently in love with him, that when the king had partaken of the collation, and drank a few glasses of wine, he said to the Marquis, "It will be your own fault, my lord Marquis of Carabas, if you do not soon become my son-in-law." ”

“ Jack, thou shalt have them, and pray keep them for my sake, for they are things of excellent use. The Coat will keep you invisible, the Cap will furnish you with knowledge, the Sword cuts asunder whatever you strike, and the Shoes are of extraordinary swiftness ”

“ Beauty spent three months very contentedly in the place. Every evening Beast paid her a visit, and talked to her during supper very rationally, with plain, good common-sense, but never with what the world calls wit; and Beauty daily discovered some valuable qualifications in the monster, till seeing him often had so accustomed her to his deformity, that, far from dreading the time of his visit, she would often look on her watch to see when it would be nine, for the Beast never missed coming at that hour. ”

“ As soon as he was out of her sight, he galloped away to the old woman's cottage, and knocked.
"Who's there?" asked the old woman, in a feeble voice.
"Little Red Riding Hood," said the wolf, imitating a little girl's voice. "Mother has sent you a cake and a pot of butter.
"Lift up the latch and walk in," said the grandmother; "I'm ill in bed, and can't come to the door."
So the wolf lifted the latch and sprang in, and gobbled up the poor old grandmother in a moment. Then he put on her nightgown and nightcap, got into bed, and pulled up the bedclothes. ”

“ It happened that the king's son gave a ball, to which he invited all the persons of fashion in the country: our two misses were of the number; for the king's son did not know how disagreeable they were; but supposed, as they were so much indulged, that they were extremely amiable. He did not invite Cinderella, for he had never seen or heard of her.
The two sisters began immediately to be very busy in preparing for the happy day: nothing could exceed their joy; every moment of their time was spent in fancying such gowns, shoes, and head-dresses as would set them off to the greatest advantage. ”

“ The giant, who intended to murder both of you, having found her in that state, for a short time repented of the dreadful crime he had committed, and granted your mother and you your lives, but only upon condition that she should never inform you who your father was, nor answer any questions concerning him, assuring her that, if she did, he would certainly put both of you to death in the most cruel manner. ”