His servant early one morning called out at the laird's door in great excitement that "Christmas had run away, and nobody knew where he had gone." He coolly turned in his bed with the ejaculation, "I only wish he had taken Whitsunday and Martinmas along with him." I do not know a better illustration of quiet, shrewd, and acute Scottish humour than the following little story, which an esteemed correspondent mentions having heard from his father when a boy, relating to a former Duke of Athole, who had _no family of his own_, and whom he mentions as having remembered very well:--He met, one morning, one of his cottars or gardeners, whose wife he knew to be in the _hopeful way_.

Asking him "how Marget was the day," the man replied that she had that morning given him twins.

Upon which the Duke said,--"Weel, Donald; ye ken the Almighty never sends bairns without the meat." "That may be, your Grace," said Donald; "but whiles I think that Providence maks a mistak in thae matters, and sends the bairns to ae hoose and the meat to anither!" The Duke took the hint, and sent him a cow with calf the following morning.
I have heard of an amusing scene between a laird, noted for his meanness, and a wandering sort of Edie Ochiltree, a well-known itinerant who lived by his wits and what he could pick up in his rounds amongst the houses through the country.

The laird, having seen the beggar sit down near his gate to examine the contents of his pock or wallet, conjectured that he had come from his house, and so drew near to see what he had carried off.

As the laird was keenly investigating the mendicant's spoils, his quick eye detected some bones on which there remained more meat than should have been allowed to leave his kitchen.
Accordingly he pounced upon the bones, declaring he had been robbed, and insisted on the beggar returning to the house and giving back the spoil.
He was, however, prepared for the attack, and sturdily defended his property, boldly asserting, "Na, na, laird, thae are no Tod-brae banes; they are Inch-byre banes, and nane o' your honour's"-- meaning that he had received these bones at the house of a neighbour of a more liberal character.