If ye want it ye can come up tae my office at twa the morn and put your ain questions tae the gentleman." That was a' I could get frae him, for he's a close man and a hard one at a bargain--which shall profit him leetle in the next life, though he lay by a store o' siller in this.

When the day comes there'll be a hantle o' factors on the left hand o' the throne, and I shouldna be surprised if Maister McNeil found himsel' amang them.
Weel, on the morn I gaed up to the office and there I foond the factor and a lang, thin, dour man wi' grey hair and a face as brown and crinkled as a walnut.

He looked hard at me wi' a pair o' een that glowed like twa spunks, and then he says, says he: "You've been born in these pairts, I understan' ?" "Aye," says I, "and never left them neither." "Never been oot o' Scotland ?" he speers.
"Twice to Carlisle fair," says I, for I am a man wha loves the truth; and besides I kenned that the factor would mind my gaeing there, for I bargained fur twa steers and a stirk that he wanted for the stockin' o' the Drumleugh Fairm.
"I learn frae Maister McNeil," says General Heatherstone--for him it was and nane ither--"that ye canna write." "Na," says I.
"Nor read ?" "Na," says I.
"It seems tae me," says he, turnin' tae the factor, "that this is the vera man I want.

Servants is spoilt noo-a-days," says he, "by ower muckle eddication.

I hae nae doobt, Stakes, that ye will suit me well enough.