innocently asked, “Ay, sir; whare ye gaun?  I’m sure ye’re aye best at hame;” supposing that, if there were to be any disruption, it must be the master who would change the place.  An example of a similar fixedness of tenure in an old servant was afforded in an anecdote related of an old coachman long in the service of a noble lady, and who gave all the trouble and annoyance which he conceived were the privileges of his position in the family.  At last the lady fairly gave him notice to quit, and told him he must go.  The only satisfaction she got was the quiet answer, “Na, na, my lady; I druve ye to your marriage, and I shall stay to drive ye to your burial.”  Indeed, we have heard of a still stronger assertion of his official position by one who met an order to quit his master’s service by the cool reply, “Na, na; I’m no gangin’.  If ye dinna ken whan ye’ve a gude servant; I ken whan I’ve a gude place.”

It is but fair, however, to give an anecdote in which the master and the servant’s position was reversed, in regard to a wish for change:—­An old servant of a relation of my own with an ungovernable temper, became at last so weary of his master’s irascibility, that he declared he must leave, and gave as his reason the fits of anger which came on, and produced such great annoyance that he could not stand it any longer.  His master, unwilling to lose him, tried to coax him by reminding him that the anger was soon off.  “Ay,” replied the other very shrewdly, “but it’s nae suner aff than it’s on again.”  I remember well an old servant of the old school, who had been fifty years domesticated in a family.  Indeed I well remember the celebration of the half-century service completed.  There were rich scenes with Sandy and his mistress.  Let me recall you both to memory.  Let me think of you, the kind, generous, warm-hearted mistress; a gentlewoman by descent and by feeling; a true friend, a sincere Christian.  And let me think, too, of you, Sandy, an honest, faithful, and attached member of the family.  For you were in that house rather as a humble friend than a servant.  But out of this fifty years of attached service there sprang a sort of domestic relation and freedom of intercourse which would surprise people in these days.  And yet Sandy knew his place.  Like Corporal Trim, who, although so familiar and admitted to so much familiarity with my Uncle Toby, never failed in the respectful address—­never forgot to say “your honour.”  At a dinner party Sandy was very active about changing his mistress’s plate, and whipped it off when he saw that she had got a piece of rich pate upon it.  His mistress, not liking such rapid movements, and at the same time knowing that remonstrance was in vain, exclaimed, “Hout, Sandy, I’m no dune,” and dabbed her fork into the “pattee” as it disappeared, to rescue a morsel.  I remember her praise of English mutton was a great annoyance to the Scottish prejudices of Sandy.  One day she was telling me of a triumph