Oo! Brawlies!

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXX, Issue 8683, 7 January 1905, Page 2 (Supplement)

Oo! Brawlies!

(By Alec Alan.)

This assenting Scotch reply has its nearest cognate English equivalent in. "Oh ■ Bravely!" It is synonymous in Scotch with "Wed eneueh!" (Well enough!), but has a sort of drawback that scarcely lowers it to "So-so!" or "TolcraMy!" It varies in meaning between the latter and "Finely!" according to the intensity to bo imparted to the root "brave," and what has to be contended with. Its force can bo ascertained to some extent by noting the tone of voice or other personal expression of the speaker. With Roger's Tarn it ran through the gamut of all the variations of intensity, from "Very badly!" to "Tip-top !" in his own mind.; but as. he was ever a "selfcontained" man, desirous of being allowed to manage his own affairs in his own way, the expression served him, in all the vicissitudes of life, to stem curiosity with a short, but polite, reply. He seemed to scent inquisitiveness, and to all inquiries made through curiosity alone, ho had few or no words. He thus .passed as a very taciturn person, and many a "speerm' Scotch wife" thought and spoke of him as "a dour auld brute.' His monosyllables had hurt their "armour propre." Tradition, in the locality of his birth, held that it was his grandmother who gave such a set-back to Sir Robert A of that ilk and a by-gone generation The baronet, had been making close inquiries about a new "laird" of the neighborhood, and finished by asking her, "And what do ye think of him, Hetty?" "Oo!" she answered promptly, "he's just a speerin' brut© like yersel, Sir Rubbert" But Tarn, in his manhood and old age, had a gwd deal more to say for himself than "Oo ! Brawlies !" In his capacity of

"the minister's faither at the manse," the writer has enjoyed many hours of excellent converse with him, although he spoke always in terse and simple Scotch Because I was .able to understand his drolleries couched in that language, and made my remarks in it- also, he was drawn out wonderfully His son and daughter-in-law both came to hail my visits to the manse more as a pleasure for "grandpa" than as a mere friendly one to them

The minister had a true gentlemanly love for his lowly-bred old father, and ever honored him as the commandment dictates. What was a pleasure to the old man was looked upon as a kind of intellectual treat to every member of the family. "Tarn" —under that common name I am biding his real one, —Tarn and I were ever ready to "swap" ' (exchange) stories in the mother tongue. Listening to these and finding equivalent English expression of tliem, brought out the intelligence of all around the fireside or table. To the minister's wife, whose home circle and schools had admitted little or none of the vernacular of Scotland, the speech of her husband's father offered a ready means by which she- could arrive at an understanding of the talk of the common people of tlie parish. Luckily for her husband she had determined to become a thorough helpmate as far as she could in his parish work, and 6he looked upon herself as unfortunate in not being able at first to understand the speech of the poor. But soon, by dint of patient daily conversations with her father-in-law, and cross examinations of her husband, she was able at least to listen with intelligence.

My evenings at the manse wore-, she told me, a solid help to her; for she could always question me as to her dim' cultiea without being misunderstood. Her husband knew partially only one dialect of Scotch—his father's, and sometimes tried to read phonetic attempts of it and others that lie found in the newspapers, or in the works of Barrio, Crockett, and other approved '"kailyard" authors. "Oo! Brawlies!" was Tarn's stand-by from earliest boyhood. It was ever on the tip of his tongue, ready for utterance; so much so that it often troubled inconsequently into his more lengthened attempts at converse. But Tarn was, and is, not alone in having meaningless superfluities mingling with his talk. Who has not heard people, some with high pretensions to good breeding and education, who, nevertheless are addicted to the reiteration of phrases?—"Of course, you know," or "Of course, you know, of course," has thousands devoted to its use; while "Awfully jolly, don't you know," and "So funny, you know '" give pleasure and a certain conversational area, to hundreds of affected noodles of eitlier sex.

Most of these reiterations one, with a little care and effort, can avoid; and listeners can avoid them with loss effort. When duty, however, calls people to listen, say in church, to a never-ending reutterance of almost meaningless phrases and sentimental platitudes, then the duty becomes irksome, and prayer and foreign occupation of tho mind become necessary. In a Fife parish, an old woman, returning weary and disgusted from Sunday service performed by a clergyman, famed for his repetitions, was asked, "Weel, Jenny, what was the minister on the day?" "Oo! aye the auld hech-how!"

"Oo! Brawlies!" was a common expression of Roger's Tarn's father. "As tho old cock crows the young one learns," runs as well in Scotch as in English, and the truth of it is borne out even in colonial experience. It was no wonder, therefore, that Roger's Tam should copy the expression, and have it ready for use in school. Thus where the schoolmaster thought he could be understood in giving a short- form of the Shorter Catechism question, "How are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ?" Tarn, —intelligent Tam, —thought that he, too, could shorten the reply without detriment to the matter in hand, and out came his readiest speech, "Oo! Brawlies !"

£ nave called Tam intelligent. Taciturnity is not a mark of want of intelligence. It needs some wisdom to know when to be silent; and those who can hold their tongues learn much from those to whom talking is a gift (?). The old saying "Speech is silvern, but silence is golden" is a very true one; and I am certain that much of the wisdom of Tarn's adult life, and much of the rare dry humor which I met with in him at the manse fireside, were the result of his habit of listening and thinking in silence. As to the 'detriment' of the purpose of the Shorter Catechism that a further shortening of them might bring about I am in a position to state a case. I was well acquainted with a teacher who, to save time, and give brightness and sharpness to the daily diet of 'caTritch' [corr. of rhymes -with "parritch" (porridge), the food of the Scotchman's body as the former is supposed to be of bis soul], prepared for his classes a shortened copy with the alliterative title, 'The Shorter Catechism Shorter iStill, und -Fur-' theT Fitted for Folk of Feeble Faculties." He taught his classes for twelve months

on such "short commons," and got the Catechism better understood by his pupils than he ever hid in any previous year. He looked forward ■with pleasure to the annual examination by the Presbytery. This -was five or six years before 1870, when the Scottish Education Act put an end to the jurisdiction of Presbyteries in respect to the parish schools within their l:-iLir.ds. My friend was sadly disappointed. The Ministers came with their longwinded questions, Which the children did rot understand, and could not answer. He was asked whether they ki:ew the Gatechisnss at all. "Yes, c-?r:;u;i3y. ho repli^J.

■'Will yon question them then?" 'With pleasure." He got short answers to about hnlf a dozen of'his short queries, without hesitation, when he was peremptorily stopped, and, in the presence of the whole school and visitors, was reprimanded for departing from the words and formula? set down in "The Shorter Catechism according to the Assembly of Divines at Westminster and ordered to be taught in schools." He collapsed. When next I saw him he gave me his own copy of his "Shorter Catechism," which I still have.

According to Shakespeare's seven ages of man, we should now r.iiiow Tarn into his courtship. But the sweet converse of that period of his life is sealed. Whether lie took any of tho peculiarly pawky Scotch methods of proposing; or whether she took advantage of a leap year to elicit her eligibility to be his wife, and caught him with .'his ever-ready "Oo ! Brawlies !" is not known. They were a quiet couple, marrying rather late in life for her. Tain was rallied by his old mates, but he took everything very quietly. The only speech recorded to have been made by him in this connection was again "Oo! Brawlies !" in answer to one who wished to know how the pair were getting along together, asking, in the metaphoric speech of the locality, how he liked his scone. It is of similar origin to the expression ''His cake's dough." In one phrase it seems to ask information concerning all a man's domestic relations and comforts. Tarn repelled further inquiry by the simple directness and comprehensiveness of his plyTo the couple was born one child, and the mother never fairly recovered strength. The minister came to administer baptism to the boy by her bedside. Before the small gathering of neignbors and officials he did not wish to dilate on the bearing of the Sacrament. He fenced the rite and at the same time contented himself with the one simple question referring to Tarn's faith and religious knowledge. "Do you think you can hold it up'r" Tarn, bracing his body to the act, about which, for thetime being, he was mostly troubled, answered truthfully, '-Oo ! Brawlies !" The minister understood and the ceremony proceeded. From its birth almost, Tarn handled and nursed his infant son. The neighbors all bore witness to his good and kindly care of the child. They said he was "nae feckless faither, but feckly bure his burden," this is, "he was no purposeless father, but effectively bore the extra weight of responsibility that his wife's weakness had laid upon him." There was nothing in the household economy of his humble home that would have fallen upon his wife, but he did with as much effectiveness as any woman crtuld. Ho earned his daily bread, and literally baked it, too, with his wife looking on. His aptitude and readiness were a source of wonder to every neighbor whose interference was as much disliked by him as it was undosired. Only the "curious" or inquisitive dared to question him as to his domestic affairs, and these got the inevitable rebuff, Oo! Brawlies!"

Even when his wife died, when grief made speech almost an impossibility to him,—with the same words he gently but effectively warded off inquiries as to his reed of help. To sympathy and condolence he dumbly listened. With his own people he was open and kindly natural: to outsiders, not minding their own business, he had no other reply than that which, at length became his nickname, Oc ! Brawlies ■' "Last scene of all"—his deathbed. Round it were gathered his son, the minister, and his wife, with their children, now all pleasant, well-grown lads and lasses. "Tarn is holding the liand of the youngest, named after the dead grandmother "bonnie Jean." In his eyes "little Jean" was singularly like her dead, but everbeloved grandma, as memory pictured her to the true man's eye, as first he saw her in her youth, and during all the years of bnshfulness and boldness that made up the slow time of their courtship. The married life passed all too swiftly for him to forget the features so fondly cherished when mind and spirit were impressionable. The end is drawing near. The hold of his hand has tigntened, and little Jean's is drawn to his lips. His face is radiant and memory is back to the deathbed at which he was the only watcher, nearly half a century before. He murmurs, "My bonnie Jean, my bonnie Jean, in Heaven we'll meet in Heaven."

Little Jean does not see the presence of the "King of Terrors," and innocently asks, as is the wont of children, "Do ou think, dear grandpa, that you'll get theTe?"

With a look of triumphant joy— a 100k v almost of realisation, his answer to the prattled question expressed both faith and love, and was equally his farewell to earth and his passport to Heaven, —"Oo! Brawlies!"