Galt's books - "the Larger Catechism of the Scottish language"

In John Galt's novel the Annals of the Parish - (p10, Year 1760), Thomas Thorl speaks to the Rev Micha Balwhidder -  

“Come in, sir, and ease yoursel’: this will never do: the clergy are God’s gorbies, and for their Master’s sake it behoves us to respect them.  There was no ane in the whole parish mair against you than mysel’; but this early visitation is a symptom of grace that I couldna have expectit from a bird out of the nest of patronage.”

The language used is everyday speech for Thorl. In the 1895 Blackwoods Edition of the Annals of the Parish, edited by David Storrar Meldrum, the author Samuel Rutherford Crockett (1859-1914) in his introduction, compares Galt's use of language with that of the Bard –

“Practically he [Galt] writes the Scots of Robert Burns.  His vocabulary is not so extensive, his adjectives scantly so trenchant.  He is by no means so “free in his discourse” as the poet.  But they are essentially shoots of the same stem.  They learned, as it were, at one parent’s knee.”

Crockett continues, comparing Galt's use of Scots with that of the Scottish authors Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) and Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) - 

"Galt’s variety of his Scottish tongue is full of fine old grandmotherly words, marrow with pith and sap.  Scott, like Stevenson, wrote his vernacular a little from the heights.  But Galt writes his Scots like one who has been cradled in it, who lisped it in the doorways and cried it to other loons across the street.  He lived among men and women who habitually spoke it.”

Another great example of the speech of Galt's ordinary, everyday folk can be found in The Entail (p120) when the Leddy speaks to Jamie Walkinshaw - 

“Haud your tongue, and dinna terrify folk wi’ ony sic impossibility!” exclaimed the Leddy – “Poor man, he has something else to think o’ at present.  Is no your aunty brought nigh unto the gates o’ death?  Would ye expek him to be thinking o’ marriage settlements and wedding banquets, when death’s so busy in his dwelling?  Ye’re an unfeeling creature, Jamie.  But the army’s the best place for sic graceless getts."

Crockett remarks on Galt's use of Scots - 

“Galt spares no pains to introduce every old and recondite Scots word he knows.  His books are, indeed, the Larger Catechism of the Scottish language, in so far that they are by no means written for those of weaker understanding.”

The language used by Galt in many of his works will be very familiar to a lot of Scottish people.  It makes his characters come to life and become more real - just by the way they use everyday language of their time and place.