One of them, looking more eagerly into the face of the favored handmaid than the rest, and then at her mistress, could not help involuntarily exclaiming, "Hech, mistress, ye've gotten a nest egg noo!"
Light Through a Crack
Some years ago the celebrated Edward Irving had been lecturing at Dumfries, and a man who passed as a wag in that locality had been to hear him.
He met Watty Dunlop the following day, who said, "Weel, Willie, man, an' what do ye think of Mr. Irving?"
"Oh," said Willie, contemptuously, "the man's crack't."
Dunlop patted him on the shoulder, with a quiet remark, "Willie, ye'Il aften see a light peeping through a crack!" [[7]]
A Lesson to the Marquis of Lorne
The youthful Maccallum More, who is now allied to the Royal Family of Great Britain, was some years ago driving four-in-hand in a rather narrow pass on his father's estate. He was accompanied by one or two friends—jolly young sprigs of nobility—who appeared, under the influence of a very warm day and in the prospect of a good dinner, to be wonderfully hilarious.
In this mood the party came upon a cart laden with turnips, alongside which the farmer, or his man, trudged with the most perfect self-complacency, and who, despite frequent calls, would not make the slightest effort to enable the approaching equipage to pass, which it could not possibly do until the cart had been drawn close up to the near side of the road. With a pardonable assumption of authority, the marquis interrogated the carter: "Do you know who I am, sir?" The man readily admitted his ignorance.