Series 3 > Letters of James the Fourth, 1505-1513

LETTERS OF JAMES IV xi
I fancy, who, at the time of the 1905-6 election, persuaded
him to join the group of four University teachers—
Professor John Burnet, W. R. Scott the economist, and
Herkless himself were the other members—who went
crusading on behalf of Free Trade among the fishermen
and farmers of East Fife and the St. Andrews Burghs.
Some of them, to the delight of their students, did not
show to advantage in the rough and tumble of heckling
and impromptu debate. Hannay was different. Requests
for his services came from neighbouring constituencies,
‘ The evening’s experience was memorable and exhilarating
in the highest degree,’ wrote one who heard him when he
presided at a Liberal rally in East Perthshire.1 ‘He first
gave a rattling party-speech with all the arguments for
Free Trade—we thought then it had come to stay !—
tellingly put, which the old Liberal stalwarts of that hard-
headed and argumentative community, born hecklers
every man of them, snuffed up with infinite relish. These
points he illustrated and reinforced with one or two
exceedingly funny and unhackneyed stories, which bowled
everybody over, and were, no doubt, retailed next day at
the factory to those who had not the good fortune to be
present. Then he sang—accompanying himself, as he
always did, with consummate artistry—one or two songs
which his audience all knew by heart, but had never heard
rendered in such a fashion before. Finally, in response
to insistent demands for an encore, he gave that tour de
force of his, “The Eelephant,” and then the meeting—
nine-tenths Liberal and the minority Tory, dispersed in
the gayest of humours, leaving a Committee overflowing
with delight and gratitude to the “ Purfessor,” as they
insisted on dubbing him, long before he had won the title.
... It is thirty-six years ago,2 but that night of the Liberal
meeting in the Williamson Hall at Abernethy remains not
only as a vivid memory, but gave me an insight into
Robert Hannay such as possibly few who had come across
him in other capacities had an opportunity of forming of
The late Rev. W. T. Cairns, D.D.
2 Written in 1941.