I have still another specimen of this national, cool, and deliberative view of a question, which seems characteristic of the temperament of our good countrymen.  Some time back, when it was not uncommon for challenges to be given and accepted for insults, or supposed insults, an English gentleman was entertaining a party at Inverness with an account of the wonders he had seen and the deeds he had performed in India, from whence he had lately arrived.  He enlarged particularly upon the size of the tigers he had met with at different times in his travels, and by way of corroborating his statements, assured the company that he had shot one himself considerably above forty feet long.  A Scottish gentleman present, who thought that these narratives rather exceeded a traveller’s allowed privileges, coolly said that no doubt those were very remarkable tigers; but that he could assure the gentleman there were in that northern part of the country some wonderful animals, and, as an example, he cited the existence of a skate-fish captured off Thurso, which exceeded half-an-acre in extent.  The Englishman saw this was intended as a sarcasm against his own story, so he left the room in indignation, and sent his friend, according to the old plan, to demand satisfaction or an apology from the gentleman, who had, he thought, insulted him.  The narrator of the skate story coolly replied, “Weel, sir, gin yer freend will tak’ a few feet aff the length o’ his tiger, we’ll see what can be dune about the breadth o’ the skate.”  He was too cautious to commit himself to a rash or decided course of conduct.  When the tiger was shortened, he would take into consideration a reduction of superficial area in his skate.

A kind correspondent has sent me about as good a specimen of dry Scottish quiet humour as I know.  A certain Aberdeenshire laird, who kept a very good poultry-yard, could not command a fresh egg for his breakfast, and felt much aggrieved by the want.  One day, however, he met his grieve’s wife with a nice basket, and very suspiciously going towards the market; on passing and speaking a word, he was enabled to discover that her basket was full of beautiful white eggs.  Next time he talked with his grieve, he said to him, “James, I like you very well, and I think you serve me faithfully, but I cannot say I admire your wife.”  To which the cool reply was, “Oh, ’deed, sir, I’m no surprised at that, for I dinna muckle admire her mysel’.”

An answer very much resembling this, and as much to the point, was that of a gudewife on Deeside, whose daughter had just been married and had left her for her new home.  A lady asked the mother very kindly about her daughter, and said she hoped she liked her new home and new relations.  “Ou, my lady, she likes the parish weel eneuch, but she doesna think muckle o’ her man!”