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.
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