He came back in a few minutes, crying, "Hae!"
The minister, too eager to be scrutinising, took a long, deep pinch, and
then said, "Whaur did you get it?" "I soupit[41] the poupit," was John's
expressive reply. The minister's accumulated superfluous Sabbath snuff
now came into good use.
It does not appear that at this time a similar excess in _eating_
accompanied this prevalent tendency to excess in drinking. Scottish
tables were at that period plain and abundant, but epicurism or gluttony
do not seem to have been handmaids to drunkenness. A humorous anecdote,
however, of a full-eating laird, may well accompany those which
appertain to the _drinking_ lairds.--A lady in the north having watched
the proceedings of a guest, who ate long and largely, she ordered the
servant to take away, as he had at last laid down his knife and fork. To
her surprise, however, he resumed his work, and she apologised to him,
saying, "I thought, Mr. ----, you had done."
"Oh, so I had, mem; but I just fan' a doo in the _redd_ o' my plate." He
had discovered a pigeon lurking amongst the bones and refuse of his
plate, and could not resist finishing it.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Distinguished examples of these are to be found in the Old
Greyfriars' Church, Edinburgh, and in the Cathedral of Glasgow; to say
nothing of the beautiful specimens in St. John's Episcopal Church,
Edinburgh.
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