THE SCOT AT AN ARGUMENT.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11279, 21 May 1902, Page 4

THE SCOT AT AN ARGUMENT.

BY lAN MACI_ARKX (Author of "The Bourne Briar Bush," etc.) It is difficult, toy gjwb nation to perfectly _„_eis}___. a„_t_e_, and there is a certain quality of the Scots intel ect which is apt to try the patience of an Englishman. It is said that an Englishman was once so exasperated by the arguing of a Scot,' who took the opposite side on every subject from the weather to politics, that at last he cried out in despair: '"You wiil admit at least that two and two make four," to which the delighted Scot replied with celerity, "I'll admit naething, but I'm willing to argue the proposition." It is not recorded whether the Scot escaped alive, but it is hardvy possible to be- ! lieve that be was net assaulted. ! You may be the most conciliatory of people, and may even be cleansed from all . positive opinions—one of those people who are ___d to be agreeable because they agree with everybody—and yet a thoroughbred Scot will in ten minutes or leas have you into a tangle of prickly arguments, and hold you at his mercy, although afterwards you cannot remember how you were drawn from the main road into the bramble patch, and you are sore that the only result was the destruction of your peace of mind for an afternoon. But the Scot enjoyed himself immensely, and goes on with keen nest to ambush some other passenger. What evil spirit of log ; c has possessed this race? -an English person cannot help complaining, and why should, any human being find his pleasure in wordy debate? From his side of the Tweed and of human nature the Scot is puzzled and pained by [ the inconsequence and opportunism of the English mind. After a Scot, for instance, has proved to his Southern opponent that | some institution is absolutely illogical, that it ought never to have existed, and ought at once to be abolished, and after the Scot, pursuing his victorious way of pure reason, has almost persuaded himself that a thing so absurd never has existed, the Englishman, who has been very much bored by the elaborate argument, witt ask with a monstrous callousness whether the institution does not work well, and put forward with brazen effrontery the plea that if an institution works well, it does not matter whether it be logical or not. Then it is that the Scot will look at an Englishman in mournful silence, and wonder upon what principle he was created. The traveller no sooner crosses the border from the genial and irresponsible South than he finds himself in a land where a heresy hunt takes the place of a fox hunt, and people make serious work of their pleasures, where a nation forms one huge debating society, and there in a note of interrogation in the very accent of speech. When an English tourist asked his driver what was the reason of so many ref.igious denominations in Scotland, and the driver, looking down on a village beneath, with six different kirks, answered, "juist bad temper, naething else," he was indulging his cynicism and knew very well that he waa munnforming the stranger. While it is absolutely impossible to make plain to an average Englishman the difference between one kirk and another in Scotland, yet every one has had its owtf logical basis, and, indeed, when one considers the subtlety and restlessness of .fljbe^ I Scots intellect ha wonders, art that th-te" have been so many divisions, bat tha. Hmcw ' hate been so few in Soots rdigiem. | By preference a Scot discusses theology, because it is the deepest subject and gives him the widest sphere for his dialectic 1 powers, but in default of theology he is ready to discuss anything else, from the ' Game Laws to the character of Mary Queen , of Scots. .■'._. He is the guardian of correct speech, and 'will not allow any inaccuracy to pass, and, therefore, you never know when in the hurry |' of life you may not be caught and rebuked. I When I asked a porter in Stirling Station <_te afternoon at what hour the train for !• Aberfoyl. )eft, I made a mistake of which II speedily rep«nted* "The" train for Aberfoyle—l had assumed there was only one [ tram tiiat aft_t__>oa for this beautiful, bat I remote, s*_~ ! place. : Very good, that was then the position I had taken up and must defend. The porter 'licked his lips with anticipation of victory for lw held another view. I "The' t___afor____tfoyl«.' *-*c repeated, triumphantly. "Whatna train dr. ye mean?" then severely, as one exposing a hasty assumption, "there's a train at 3.10,. ■there's another at 3.50, there's another at 5.30" (or some such hours); he challenged mc to reply or withdraw, and his voice was ringing with controversy. When I made an abject surrender he was not aatkfied, but pursued mc and gained soother victory. "Very gpod,*' I said, "then what train should I taker He wr.. now regarding mc with something like eontemp*;, an . adversary whom it waa hardly worth fighting with. "What train should'l go by? That depended on circumstances be did not know, and purposes which I lad not told him. He could only pity mc. "How can I tell,*' he said, "what train ye should go by, ye can go by any train that suits ye, but yir luggage, being booked through, will travel by the 3.10." During our conversation my portmanteau which I had placed under his charge, was twice i .moved from its barrow in the .hitting of the luggage, and as my friend watched its going* (without interfering) he relaxed from his intellectual severity and allowed himself a jest suitable to my I capacity. "That"s a lively portmanteau o' yours. I'm judging that if ye set it ' on the road it would go to Aberfoyle itse_." When we parted on a basis of free silver he still implied a reproach, "so ye did conclude to go by the 3.10, but" (showj ing bow poor were my reasoning tacultie. even after I had used them) "ye would have been as soon by the 3.50." For a sustained and satisfying bout of argument one must visit a Scot in his home and have an evening to spar.. Was it not Carlyle's father who wrote to Tom that a man had com. to the village with a fine ability for argument,- and that he only wish- j ed his ten were with them and then he would set Tom on one side of the table and j this man on the other place, and "a propo- j section" between them, and hear them argue for .the night? But one may get pleasant glimpse, of the national sport on railway journeys, and by the roadside. A farmer came into the carriage one summer afternoon, as I was travelling through Ayrshire, who had been attending market, and had evidently dined. He had disposed of the lighter affairs of life in the sale of stock and the buying of a reaping machine, and now he was ready for th* more serious business of theological discussion. He examined mc curiously, but did not judge mc worthy, and, after one or two remarks on the weather, with which I hastened to agree, he fell into a regretful silence, as of one losing his time. Next station a minister entered, and th? ■imisnt my fsllow-pssssngsr saw the whist

tie him eyes glisUned, and in about three j minutes'they, were activtty cigaged, the] faroM. and the minister, discussing the doctrine ~of j_sti____.i__. The minister, a. ] in duty bound, took the side of justification ] by faith, and tlie farm.., simply, I suppose, to mute debate, arid certainly with a noble disregard of personal interests ■ — for he had evidently dined—took ths sid. of works. Perhaps it may seem as if it was an .unequal match between the minister and the' fanner, since the one was a professional scholar, and the other a rustic amateur. But the difference was not so great as a stranger might imagine, for if a minister be as it were a theological specialist, every man in Scotland is a general practitioner. And if the latter had his own difficulties in pronouncing words, he was always right in the text he in.ended. They conducted their controversy with much ability till we came to the fanner's station, and then he left still arguing, and with my last glimpse of that admirable Scot he was steadying himself against a post at the extremity of the platform, and this wa. his _____ fling. "I grant ye Paul and the Romans, but I take my stand on James." Wonderful" country where the farmers, even after they hare dined, take to theology as a pastime. What could that man not have done before he dined! There was in earlier days, the far back days of youth, a rural Scot whose square and thickset figure was a picture of ha sturdy and indomitable mind. He was slow of speech, and slow aim of mind, but what he knew he held with the grip of a vice, and he would yield nothing in odnversation. If you said it was raining (when it might be pouring) he would reply that it waa showery. If you declared a field of corn to be fine, he said that be had "seen waur" (worse), and if you praised a sermon he granted that it "wasna bad;" and in referring to a minister distinguished throughout the (and for his samtliness he volunteered the judgment that there was "naething positively veecious in him." Many a time did I try, sometimes to browbeat him, and sometime, to beguile him -to a positive statement and to get him to take up a position from which he could not withdraw. I was always beaten, and yet once was within an ace of success. We had bought, a horse on the strength of a good' character from a dealer, and w_re learning tha vanity of speech in all horse transactions, for there was nothing that bsast did ■ not do of the things no horse ought to do; and- one morning after it had tried to get at James with its hind legs, and then tried I to break him down with its fore legs, and done its best to bite him, and also manoeuvred to ______ him against a wall, I hazarded the suggestion that our new purchase was a vicious brute. i He caught the note of assurance in my ' voice, and saw that he had been trapped; he cast an almost pathetic look at mc -as if I was inviting him to deny his national character and betray an historic past of unbroken resistance. He hesitated and looked for a way of escape while he skilfully ward- : ed off another attack, this time with the teeth, and his face brightened. "Na!" he replied, • Til no admit that the horse is veecious, we maun hae more experience o' him afore we can pass sic a judgment, but," and now he just escaped a playful tap from the horse's fore-leg, "I'm prepared to admit that thu moron' he is a wee tbingie Uteegious." And so victory, was snatched from my hand, and I was again worsted. If the endless arguing of the Scot be wearlsoine to strangers and, one would guess,., a tardea to himself, yet it has its *dva_*a«-«. Ith_a-*«* difdp_____Tt__ I" Soots -___d, and the codices disputations on doctrine and kirks, as well as more trifling matters like history and politics, have | toughened the Scots brain and brought it to a fine edge. When I hear a __cc._a.ul Scot speak light. ly of the Shorter Catechism, then I am amazed and tempted to despise him, for it was by that means that he was sent forth so acute and e_-_rpr_dng a man, and any 1 fortune he ban made be. owes to its training. He has. been trained to think and to reason, to separate what is true from what is false, to use the principle- of speech sad test the subtlest meaning of words. And therefore, if he be in business, be is a banker by preference, because that is the science of commerce, and if he be an artisan he becomes an engineer because Jfcsl is the i most skilful trade, and as a doctor he is spread all over the world. _. Wherever hard thinking and a determined will tell in the world's work this self-redians and uncompromising man is sure to succeed, and if hk mind has not the geniality snd flexibility of the English, if it secretly hates the English principle of common-sense, and suspect- the English standard of compromise, if it be too unbending and even unreasonably logical, this only proves that no one nation, not eren tbe Scots, can possess the whole earth.