, sometimes led to very provoking, and sometimes to very
ludicrous, exhibitions of importance. A friend told me of a dinner scene
illustrative of this sort of interference which had happened at Airth in
the last generation. Mrs. Murray, of Abercairney, had been amongst the
guests, and at dinner one of the family noticed that she was looking for
the proper spoon to help herself with salt. The old servant, Thomas, was
appealed to, that the want might be supplied. He did not notice the
appeal. It was repeated in a more peremptory manner, "Thomas, Mrs.
Murray has not a salt-spoon!" to which he replied most emphatically,
"Last time Mrs. Murray dined here we _lost_ a salt-spoon." An old
servant who took a similar charge of everything that went on in the
family, having observed that his master thought that he had drunk wine
with every lady at table, but had overlooked one, jogged his memory with
the question, "What ails ye at her wi' the green gown?"

In my own family I know a case of a very long service, and where, no
doubt, there was much interest and attachment; but it was a case where
the temper had not softened under the influence of years, but had rather
assumed that form of disposition which we denominate _crusty_. My
grand-uncle, Sir A. Ramsay, died in 1806, and left a domestic who had
been in his service since he was ten years of age; and being at the time
of his master's death past fifty or well on to sixty, he must have been
more than forty years a servant in the family. From the retired life my
grand-uncle had been leading, Jamie Layal had much of his own way, and,
like many a domestic so situated, he did not like to be contradicted,
and, in fact, could not bear to be found fault with. My uncle, who had
succeeded to a part of my grand-uncle's property, succeeded also to
Jamie Layal, and, from respect to his late master's memory and Jamie's
own services, he took him into his house, intending him to act as house
servant. However, this did not answer, and he was soon kept on, more
with the form than the reality of any active duty, and took any light
work that was going on about the house. In this capacity it was his
daily task to feed a flock of turkeys which were growing up to maturity.
On one occasion, my aunt having followed him in his work, and having
observed such a waste of food that the ground was actually covered with
grain which they could not eat, and which would soon be destroyed and
lost, naturally remonstr