Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/91

Rh retain the family features of a racial speech. They embody the inspiration of generations of nameless stylists, and form a record of social changes that is unique. The "wise saws" of the Scots—graphic, direct, homely—are instinct with the proverbial experience of a people of simple wants and limited outlook, but endowed with no common gifts of thought and expression. If daily converse must be coterie in kind and imitative, better the continual wedding of wise saws to modern instances than the shallow and tiresome iteration of such coster slang as bloomin', bally, and beastly, of slope, and oof, and chump. Proverbs photograph the life experience of an age. "It's nae lauchin wark to girn in a widdy" recalls the wild times of the Gallows Hill and Jeddart justice, when the poor wretch hung for days from a noose of heather or tough twigs (withes). How different the social attitude of these equivalents: "As weel be hanged for a sheep as a lamb," and "In for a penny, in for a pound!" The universal use of timber on the homestead at a time when iron had to be imported, and that in very modest quantities, gave point to the worldly wisdom that appreciated character in these saws,—

"It's a ticht caber (beam) 'at has neither knap (Ger. Knopf, knot, button) nae gaw (crack, flaw) in't;" "Him 'at hews aboon's head may get a speal (splinter) in's e'e," or "Whatever way the saw gangs the dust flees," which is another way of saying that the lawyer's mill is always sure to get grist. In the days when the winter's kitchen hung from the cross-beams instead of coming from the co-operative store the pig was a gentleman of importance whom everyone appreciated. He was familiarly addressed as "goosie! goosie!" A touch of Celticism appears in the name for his sty, a cruve (Gael. craobh, a tree) or "wattled cot," a term better known in connection with enclosures for securing salmon in tidal waters. The futility of half measures is emphasised in "Wha ploats his pig in loo water?" where loo is what the new generation calls tipt (tepid). English fails to render ploats, the soaking of the stuck pig in hot water to facilitate the scraping process. The tenderness of maternity is