S. R. Crockett

“ Whatever brings in money in the exercise of a trade, whatever must be finished within a given time, that needs the co-operation of others or prolonged and consecutive effort on his own part, is merely anathema to the Do-Nothing. ”

“ The conditions of Scottish life are generally so strenuous, and the compulsions of "He that will not work, neither shall he eat" so absolute that we cannot afford more than one local Do-Nothing in a village or rural community. Equally certainly, however, one is necessary. The business of the commonwealth could not be carried on without him. Besides, he is needed to point the indispensable moral.
"There's that guid-for-naething Jacob Irvin' sittin' wi' a' the misleared boys o' the neighbourhood aboot him!" ”

“ The knife was to be used in delicate surgical work upon the deceased at a pig-killing, and the resin was for splicing fishing-rods.
After a while I began by severe study to get to the bottom of a Do-Nothing's philosophy. To do the appointed task for the performance of which duty calls, man waits, and money will be paid, that is work to be avoided by every means—by procrastination, by fallacious promise, by prevarication, and (sad to have to say it) by the plainest of plain lying. ”

“ As the community grows larger, however, there is less and less room for the amiable Do-Nothing. He is, indeed, only seen to perfection in a village or rural parish. In Cairn Edward, for instance which thinks itself quite a town, he does not attain the general esteem and almost affectionate reprobation which, in my native Whinnyliggate, follow Jacob Irving about like his shadow. ”

“ But in Whinnyliggate, in Dullarg, in Crosspatrick, and in the surrounding parishes, the conditions for the growth of the Do-Nothing approach as near perfection as anything merely mundane can be expected to do. Jacob Irving is hardly a typical specimen, for he has a trade. The genuine Do-Nothing should have none. It is true that Jacob's children might reply, like the boy when asked if his father were a Christian, "Yes, but he does not work at it much!" ”

“ In fact, a clerical Do-Nothing of the highest class.
Now, to begin with, I will aver that there is no scorn in all this. "Jaimsie" is more to me than many worthy religious publicists, beneficed, parished, churched, stipended, and sustentationed to the eyes. He was not a very great man. He was in no sense a successful man, but—he was "Jaimsie." ”

“ Even my father, accustomed as he was to carry all matters ecclesiastical with a high hand, found it convenient to have some harness to clean in the stable, or the lynch-pin of a cart to replace in the little joiner's shop where he passed so much of his time.
"I'll no hae the craitur aboot the hoose," my mother would cry; "I telled ye sae the last time he was here—sax weeks in harvest it was—and then had maist to be shown the door. (Haud oot o' my road, weans! Can ye no keep frae rinnin' amang my feet like sae mony collie whaulps? Tak' ye that!) ”