and indications of a
degree of mental activity have been recorded. These persons seem to have
had a partiality for getting near the pulpit in church, and their
presence there was accordingly sometimes annoying to the preacher and
the congregation; as at Maybole, when Dr. Paul, now of St. Cuthbert's,
was minister in 1823, John M'Lymont, an individual of this class, had
been in the habit of standing so close to the pulpit door as to overlook
the Bible and pulpit board. When required, however, by the clergyman to
keep at a greater distance, and not _look in upon the minister_, he got
intensely angry and violent. He threatened the minister,--"Sir, baeby
(maybe) I'll come farther;" meaning to intimate that perhaps he would,
if much provoked, come into the pulpit altogether. This, indeed,
actually took place on another occasion, and the tenure of the
ministerial position was justified by an argument of a most amusing
nature. The circumstance, I am assured, happened in a parish in the
north. The clergyman, on coming into church, found the pulpit occupied
by the parish natural. The authorities had been unable to remove him
without more violence than was seemly, and therefore waited for the
minister to dispossess Tam of the place he had assumed. "Come down, sir,
immediately!" was the peremptory and indignant call; and on Tam being
unmoved, it was repeated with still greater energy. Tam, however,
replied, looking down confidentially from his elevation, "Na, na,
minister! juist ye come up wi' me. This is a perverse generation, and
faith they need us baith." It is curious to mark the sort of glimmering
of sense, and even of discriminating thought, displayed by persons of
this class. As an example, take a conversation held by this same John
M'Lymont, with Dr. Paul, whom he met some time after. He seemed to have
recovered his good humour, as he stopped him and said, "Sir, I would
like to speer a question at ye on a subject that's troubling me." "Well,
Johnnie, what is the question?" To which he replied, "Sir, is it lawful
at ony time to tell a lee?" The minister desired to know what Johnnie
himself thought upon the point. "Weel, sir," said he, "I'll no say but
in every case it's wrang to tell a lee; but," added he, looking archly
and giving a knowing wink, "I think there are _waur lees than ithers_"
"How, Johnnie?" and then he instantly replied, with all the simplicity
of a fool, "_To keep down a din, for instance_. I'll no say but a