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A Lanarkshire minister (who
died within the present century) was one of those unhappy persons who, to
use the words of a well-known Scottish adage, "can never see any green
cheese but their een reels." He was extremely covetous, and that not only
of nice articles of food, but of many other things which do not generally
excite the cupidity of the human heart. The following story is in
corroboration of this assertion. Being on a visit one day at the house of
one of his parishioners, a poor, lonely widow, living in a moorland part
of the parish, Mr L------became fascinated by the charms of a little
cast-iron pot, which happened at the time to be lying on the hearth, full
of potatoes for the poor woman's dinner, and that of her children. He had
never in his life seen such a nice little pot. It was a perfect conceit of
a thing. It was a gem. No pot on earth could match it in symmetry. It was
an object altogether perfectly lovely.
"Dear sake! minister," said
the widow, quite overpowered by the reverend man's commendations of her
pot; "if ye like the pot sae weel as a' that, I beg ye'll let me send it
to the manse. It's a kind o' orra pot wi' us; for we've a bigger ane, that
we use oftener, and that's mair convenient every way for us. Sae ye'll
just tak a present o't. I'll send it ower the morn wi' Jamie, when he
gangs to the schule."
"Oh," said the minister, "I
can by no means permit you to be at so much trouble. Since you are so good
as to give me the pot, I'll just carry it home with me in my hand. I'm to
much taken with it, indeed, that I would really prefer carrying it
myself."
After much altercation
between the minister and the widow, on this delicate point of politeness,
it wan agreed that he should carry home the pot himself.
Off, then, he trudged,
bearing this curious little culinary article alternately in his hand and
under his arm. as seemed most convenient to him. Unfortunately, the day
was warm, the way long, and the minister fat; so that he became heartily
tired of his burden before he had got half-way home. Under these
distressing circumstances, it struck him that if, instead of carrying the
pot awkwardly at one side of his person, he were to carry it on his head,
the burden would be greatly lightened ; the principles of natural
philosophy, which he had learned at college, informing him, that when a
load presses directly and immediately upon any object, it is far less
onerous than when it hangs at the remote end of a lever. Accordingly,
doffing his hat, which he resolved to carry home in his hand, and having
applied his handkerchief to his brow, he clapped the pot in inverted
fashion upon his head, where, as the reader may suppose, it figured much
like Mambrino's helmet upon the crazed capital of Don Quixote, only a
great deal more magnificent in shape and dimensions. There was at first
much relief and much comfort in this new mode of carrying the pot; but
mark the result. The unfortunate minister having taken a by-path to escape
observation, found himself, when still a good way from home, under the
necessity of leaping over a ditch, which intercepted him in passing from
one field to another. He jumped; but surely no jump was ever taken so
completely in, or, at least, into, the dark as this. The concussion given
to his person in descending, caused the helmet to become a hood: the pot
slipped down over his face, and resting with its rim upon his neck, stuck
fast there; enclosing his whole head as completely as ever that of a
new-born child was enclosed by the filmy bag with which nature, as an
indication of future good fortune, sometimes invests the noddles of her
favourite offspring. What was worst of all, the nose, which had permitted
the pot to slip down over it, withstood every desperate attempt on the
part of its proprietor to make it slip back again ; the contracted part or
neck of the patera being of such a peculiar formation as to cling fast to
the base of the nose, although it found no difficulty in gliding along its
hypothenuse. Was ever minister in a worse plight? Was there ever
contretemps so unlucky? Did ever any man—did ever any minister— so
effectually hoodwink himself, or so thoroughly shut his eyes to the plain
light of nature? What was to be done? The place was lonely; the way
difficult and dangerous; human relief was remote, almost beyond reach. It
was impossible even to cry for help. Or, if a cry could be uttered, it
might reach in deafening reverberation the ear of the utterer; but it
would not travel twelve inches farther in any direction. To add to the
distresses of the case, the unhappy sufferer soon found great difficulty
in breathing. What with the heat occasioned by the beating of the sun on
the metal, and what with the frequent return of the same heated air to his
lungs, he was in the utmost danger of suffocation. Everything considered,
it seemed likely that, if he did not chance to be relieved by some
accidental wayfarer, there would soon be Death in the Pot.
The instinctive love of
life, however, is omni-prevalent: and even very stupid people have been
found when put to the push by strong and imminent peril, to exhibit a
degree of presence of mind, and exert a degree of energy, far above what
might have been expected from them, or what they have ever been known to
exhibit or exert under ordinary circumstances. So it was with the
pot-ensconced minister of C------. Pressed by the urgency of his
distresses, he fortunately recollected that there was a smith's shop at
the distance of about a mile across the fields, where, if he could reach
it before the period of suffocation, he might possibly find relief.
Deprived of his eyesight, he could act only as a man of feeling, and went
on as cautiously as he could, with his hat in his hand. Half crawling,
half sliding, over ridge and furrow, ditch and hedge, somewhat like Satan
floundering over chaos, the unhappy minister travelled, with all possible
speed, as nearly as he could guess in the direction of the place of
refuge. I leave it to the reader to conceive the surprise, the mirth, the
infinite amusement of the smith and all the hangers-on of the "smiddy,"
when, at length, torn and worn, faint and exhausted, blind and breathless,
the unfortunate man arrived at the place, and let them know (rather by
signs than by words) the circumstances of his case. In the words of an old
Scottish song,
Out cam the gudeman, and
high he shouted;
Out cam the gudewife, and low she louted;
And a' the town-neighbours were gathered about it;
And there was he, I trow!
The merriment of the
company, however, soon gave way to considerations of humanity. Ludicrous
as was the minister, with such an object where his head should have been,
and with the feet of the pot pointing upwards like the horns of the great
Enemy, it was, nevertheless, necessary that he should be speedily restored
to his ordinary condition, if it were for no other reason than that he
might continue to live. He was accordingly, at his own request, led into
the smithy, multitudes flocking around to tender him their kindest
offices, or to witness the process of his release; and having laid down
his head upon the anvil, the smith lost no time in seizing and poising his
goodly forehammer.
"Will I come sair on,
minister?" exclaimed the considerate man of iron in at the brink of the
pot.
"As sair as ye like," was
the minister's answer; "better a chap i' the chafts than dying for want of
breath."
Thus permitted, the man let
fall a hard blow, which fortunately broke the pot in pieces without
hurting the head which it enclosed, as the cook-maid breaks the shell of
the lobster without bruising the delicate food within. A few minutes of
the clear air, and a glass from the gudewife's bottle, restored the
unfortunate man of prayer; but assuredly the incident is one which will
long live in the memory of the parishioners.— Edinburgh Literary Journal.
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