Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/122

98 speaks of "The likes of you." The archaic is twisted, too, into doing duty as current. A favourite with Mr. Crockett in a forced sense is awsome, as "It's an awsome nice scene." This is but an abuse of the old and very interesting "ugsome," still heard in the Border counties. A favourite with him, too, is the wicks, applied to the corners of the mouth. The curler is familiar with "wickin a bore," but I have never met with anything like the novelist's use of "wicks." A much more successful artist is the clever and amusing lady who writes "Penelope in Scotland." Her plan was much after the orthodox Kailyard fashion. "Then we made a list of Scottish idols—pet words, national institutions, stock phrases, beloved objects—convinced that if we could weave them in we should attain atmosphere. Here is the first list:—Thistle, tartan, haar, haggis, kirk, claymore, parritch, broom, whin, sporran, whaup, plaid, scone, collops, whisky, mutch, cairngorm, oatmeal, brae, kilt, brose, heather, fowk o' Fife, Paisley bodies, gentlemen of the North, men of the South." Her greatest triumph is a rhymed "Farewell to Edinburgh," into one line of which she contrives to put the delightful hotch-potch, "hoots, losh, havers, blethers."

On such lines must the Scottish vernacular be written in these days. Hear, however, what Stevenson, the last of the makkars, has to say on the existence of dialect in Scotland:—

"I note again, that among our new dialecticians, the local habitat of every dialect is given to the square mile. I could not imitate this nicety if I desired; for I simply wrote my Scots as I was able, not caring if it hailed from Lauderdale or Angus, Mearns or Galloway; if I had ever heard a good word I used it without shame; and when Scots was lacking, or the rhyme jibbed I was glad (like my betters) to fall back on English. For all that I own to a friendly feeling for the tongue of Fergusson and of Sir Walter, both Edinburgh men; and I confess that Burns's has always sounded in my ear like something partly foreign. And indeed I am from the Lothians myself; it is there I heard the language spoken about my childhood; and it is in the drawling Lothian voice that I repeat it to myself. Let the precisians call my speech that of the Lothians, and if it be not pure, alas! what matters it? The day draws near when this illustrious and malleable tongue shall