“Me! what could I hinder him?—your honour wadna hae us contradict the captain e’en now, and him maybe deeing?”
“Dying!” said the alarmed Antiquary,—“eh! what? has he been worse?”
“Na, he’s no nae waur that I ken of.” *
* It is, I believe, a piece of free-masonry, or a point of conscience, among the Scottish lower orders, never to admit that a patient is doing better. The closest approach to recovery which they can be brought to allow, is, that the pairty inquired after is “Nae waur.”
“Then he must be better—and what good is a dog and a gun to do here, but the one to destroy all my furniture, steal from my larder, and perhaps worry the cat, and the other to shoot somebody through the head. He has had gunning and pistolling enough to serve him one while, I should think.”
Here Miss Oldbu
