Scotland/Scots > Reminiscences of a Highland parish

THE HIGHLAND PEASANTRY.
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families, he may possess thousands, but he never
commands the same reverence as the poor man
who has yet “ the blood ” in him. The “ pride
and poverty ” of the Gael have passed into a
proverb, and express a fact.
They consider it essential to good manners
and propriety never to betray any weakness or
sense of fatigue, hunger, or poverty. They are
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great aamirers in others of physical strength
and endurance: those qualities which are most
frequently demanded of themselves. When, for
example, a number of Highland servants sit
down to dinner, it is held as proper etiquette
to conceal the slightest eagerness to begin to
eat; and the eating, when begun, is continued
with apparent indifference—the duty of the elder
persons being to coax the younger, and especially
any strangers that are present, to resume opera¬
tions after they have professed to have partaken
sufficiently of the meal. They always recognise
liberal hospitality as essential to a “ gentleman,”
and have the greatest contempt for narrowness or
meanness in this department of life. Drunken¬
ness is rarely indulged in as a solitary habit, but