102 MR HENDERSON ON THE LOCAL PROVERBS OF BERWICKSHIRE. 



" She's yours — she's yours — 

 She's nae mair ours ; — 

 Owre the kirk-stile, 

 And away wi' her." 



10. ** You're like a Lauderdale ha'penny, not much worth." 

 The Duke of Lauderdale, who was at the head of affairs during the 



•• persecuting times," had, it appears, a principal hand in some ob- 

 noxious coinage.* The hawhees which were issued from the mint at 

 that time, soon became base coin ; and the " Lauderdale halfpenny" 

 was branded with infamy. Hence the application of the saying is 

 obvious. 



11. '* The buttered peas of Lauderdale." 



*' Buttered peas" have been recommended as a specific in a certain 

 disease ; but those who wish to have some notion of this disease, had 

 better read the graphic ballad of " The Auld Wife o' Lauderdale," in 

 Lyle's Ancient Ballads and Songs, London 1827. The " buttered 

 peas o' Lauderdale" are often mentioned by country folks ; and 

 natives of that district say, in the words of the song— 



" Of ilka place it is the wale, 

 The sweet and pleasant Lauderdale,*' 



12. ** In the howe hole o' the Merse a' the folk are bannock-fed." 

 The men of the Merse, have reason to be thankful for this dis- 

 tinction. The saying points to a period when barley instead of wheat 

 was the staple grain of that fertile district ; and my father remembers 

 the time, when a cadger went once a- week from Chirnside to Berwick 

 for eighteenpence worth of wheaten bread, and he had often much 

 difficulty in disposing of that quantity, which served the village and 

 neighbourhood for a whole week ; — -nobody then, about sixty years 

 since, eating wheaten bread except infants and sick people. Pease- 

 and-barley bannocks were then the staff of life ; — these are now 

 scarcely ever seen, except in the houses of the hinds and cottars. 



13. " Ca' away callant, for the deil a bit o' yon man I like." * 

 This is a very popular proverb in the east end of Berwickshire, and 



it had its origin in the following incident : — Many years ago, an 

 old man lived in West Reston, who was a maker of baskets, a 

 mender of clocks, and in short, a Jack-of-all-trades ; and the word 

 went that he was otherwise than honest, having been detected more 

 than once making rather free with some of his neighbours' coals, corn, 



♦ The Duke of Lauderdale was no relative of the present family. 



