of cabbage:  on his declining, the Duchess good-humouredly remarked, “Why, boiled beef and ‘greens’ seem so naturally to go together, I wonder you don’t take it.”  To which the honest farmer objected, “Ah, but your Grace maun alloo it’s a vary windy vegetable,” in delicate allusion to the flatulent quality of the esculent.  Similar to this was the naive answer of a farmer on the occasion of a rent-day.  The lady of the house asked him if he would take some “rhubarb-tart,” to which he innocently answered, “Thank ye, mem, I dinna need it.”

A Highland minister, dining with the patroness of his parish, ventured to say, “I’ll thank your leddyship for a little more of that apple-tart;” “It’s not apple-tart, it’s rhubarb,” replied the lady.  “Rhubarb!” repeated the other, with a look of surprise and alarm, and immediately called out to the attendant, “Freend, I’ll thank you for a dram.”

A characteristic table anecdote I can recall amongst Deeside reminiscences.  My aunt, Mrs. Forbes, had entertained an honest Scotch farmer at Banchory Lodge; a draught of ale had been offered to him, which he had quickly despatched.  My aunt observing that the glass had no head or effervescence, observed, that she feared it had not been a good bottle, “Oh, vera gude, maam, it’s just some strong o’ the aaple,” an expression which indicates the beer to be somewhat sharp or pungent.  It turned out to have been a bottle of vinegar decanted by mistake.

An amusing instance of an old Scottish farmer being unacquainted with table refinements occurred at a tenant’s dinner in the north.  The servant had put down beside him a dessert spoon when he had been helped to pudding.  This seemed quite superfluous to the honest man, who exclaimed, “Tak’ it awa, my man; my mou’s as big for puddin’ as it is for kail.”

Amongst the lower orders in Scotland humour is found, occasionally, very rich in mere children, and I recollect a remarkable illustration of this early native humour occurring in a family in Forfarshire, where I used in former days to be very intimate.  A wretched woman, who used to traverse the country as a beggar or tramp, left a poor, half-starved little girl by the road-side, near the house of my friends.  Always ready to assist the unfortunate, they took charge of the child, and as she grew a little older they began to give her some education, and taught her to read.  She soon made some progress in reading the Bible, and the native odd humour of which we speak began soon to show itself.  On reading the passage, which began, “Then David rose,” etc., the child stopped, and looked up knowingly, to say, “I ken wha that was,” and on being asked what she could mean, she confidently said, “That’s David Rowse the pleuchman.”  And again, reading the passage where the words occur, “He took Paul’s girdle,” the child said, with much confidence, “I ken what he took that for,” and on being asked to explain, replied at once, “To bake ’s bannocks on;” “girdle” being in the north the name for the iron plate hung over the fire for baking oat cakes or bannocks.