The Laird's work consisted of about half-a-dozen small copy books, such as schoolboys are in the practice of using, two or three of them with marble covers; on one I observed a parrot, and on another the ruins of Palmyra. The penmanship was not very legible; it was narrow, crampt, and dotty, and the orthography made me pause at the first sentence.
"Ye're troubled wi' my hand o' wrote." said he, "and deed I must own it's no schoolmaister's, but wi' a thought o' pains ye'll soon be able to read it."
"I think, Laird, I could make my way with the writing, but the spelling is not for a man in haste." (The Last of the Lairds, 1826, Ch. 3)
John Galt is a master of Scots dialect. He claimed that Scottish writers had the advantage over English writers because they also had possessed the magnificent Scotch vocabulary.*
The Provost's Provost writes in a mishmash of proper English and Scots dialect:
For many a year, one Robin Boss had been town drummer; he was a relic of some American-war fencibles, and was, to say the God's truth of him, a divor body, with no manner of conduct, saving a very earnest endeavour to fill himself fou as often as he could get the means; the consequence of which was, that his face was as plooky as a curran' bun, and his nose as red as a partan's tae. (Ch. 32)
"Divor" means bankrupt. "Partan's tae" is a crab's claw. Do any of the other words need translation? "Fill himself fou" is vivid enough, right? And a face as plooky as a currant bun - that takes care of itself. That's great.
I know that some people just hate dialect writing, no matter how well done, no matter for what purpose. So Galt is not for such a reader, not until he overcomes that prejudice. Galt's novels now come with glossaries. The Last of the Lairds comes with two!** Is the anti-dialectician now happy? I thought not.
I don't have it quite right when I emphasize Galt's dialect writing. He's really interested in voice, and uses whatever tools are needed to make his characters convincing. So The Provost has to mimic the voice of a proud and successful but only lightly educated man who has never written a book before. The Annals of the Parish (1821), a companion to The Provost, is "written" by a minister, more sophisticated, more educated, so his writing is more Latinate and somewhat less Scotch ("Poor old Mr Kilfuddy of the Braehill got such a clash of glar on the side of his face, that his eye was almost extinguished," Ch. 1). The parliamentarian of The Member is barely Scottish at all.*** The Ayrshire Legatees (1820) is a Humphrey Clinker-like epistolary novel, requiring distinct voices for four letter-writers, plus a separate set of letter-readers.
For Galt, the concept is primary. The character, the realistic voice, trumps plot. The conceptual purity of the voice of Ringan Gilhaize (1823) almost destroys the book. That's a complicated case that I'll save for next week, along with The Entail (1822), where voice, dialect, character and plot all come together perfectly.
* Reference sadly misplaced.
** One character is an idiotic Nabob who speaks in a bizarre pudding of English mixed with Indian and military words. "My aubdaar will cool it for you, with a whole seer of saltpetre: for my ice-house has gone wrong, you know, by the mason leading the drain wash-house through it, like a d--d old fool as he was." (Ch 17).
*** The glossary of The Member is a page and a half long, and many of the words are political jargon rather than Scots. The Last of the Lairds has an amazing six pages. "begrutten" = tear-stained. "wally-waeing" = lamentation. And "pawkie," the name of the narrator of The Provost, = sly.
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