Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/159

Rh the Edinburgh boy's pandy (mediæval dominie's "pande palmam," stretch out your palm), nor the Saxon "loofie" of the Glasgow one, was known in Fife. Village education was at a low ebb then. Too often it was a poor choice between the antiquated stickit minister who couldn't teach and the bumptious "laddie in a jekkit" from the Normal, who knew little that was worth teaching. Not much effort was made to put any soul or meaning into what was read. A boy of those days, encountering in his text-book the lines,—

and so on—had a vision of an untidy drudge "troking" about the kitchen, for such was the import of the mysterious "fagot" in the local vernacular. The kitchen was the common room of humble households. The door, secured by a sneck, opened upon a short passage, the trance, connecting the butt and the ben. Against its wall stood the trap (Ger. Treppe) or ladder leading to the garret. The wily, pawky flatterer was familiarly known as an "auld sneck-drawer." The centre of the kitchen was the well-caumed fireside, the saut-girnal in the jambs, the goodman's settle (bink) between the lowe and the crusie, and pussy bawdrons, or cheetie-pussie, not far from the warmth of the ace (ashes). Thrift prescribed a big gatherin' coal backed by chows (small coal) or, at the worst, coom (dross). On the mother's knee began the knowledge of the vernacular. How the peekin', dwinin' bairn was brightened up by "Creepie, crappie, &c.," or "Bree, bree, brentie, &c.," or,—