She came
in one day greatly disturbed at the extremely backward state of
knowledge of domestic affairs amongst the Londoners. She had been to so
many shops and could not get "a great broon pig to haud the butter in."
From a relative of the family I have received an account of a still
worse confusion of ideas, caused by the inquiry of a Mrs. Chisholm of
Chisholm, who died in London in 1825, at an advanced age. She had come
from the country to be with her daughter, and was a genuine Scottish
lady of the old school. She wished to purchase a table-cloth of a cheque
pattern, like the squares of a chess or draught board. Now a
draught-board used to be called (as I remember) by old Scotch people a
"dam[61] brod[62]." Accordingly, Mrs. Chisholm entered the shop of a
linen-draper, and asked to be shown table-linen a _dam-brod pattern_.
The shopman, although, taken aback by a request, as he considered it,
so strongly worded, by a respectable old lady, brought down what he
assured her was the largest and widest made. No; that would not do. She
repeated her wish for a dam-brod pattern, and left the shop surprised at
the stupidity of the London shopman not having the pattern she
asked for.
_Silly_ has in genuine old Scottish use reference to weakness of body
only, and not of mind. Before knowing the use of the word, I remember
being much astonished at a farmer of the Mearns telling me of the
strongest-minded man in the county that he was "uncommon silly," not
insinuating any decline of mental vigour, but only meaning that his
bodily strength was giving way.
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