tother. Even their fast days--they ca' it fasting when they hae the best
o' sea-fish frae Hartlepool and Sunderland by land carriage, forbye
trouts, grilses, salmon, and a' the lave o't, and so they make their very
fasting a kind of luxury and abomination; and then the awfu' masses and
matins of the puir deceived souls--But I shouldna speak about them, for
your honour will be a Roman, I'se warrant, like the lave."

"Not I, my friend; I was bred an English presbyterian, or dissenter."

"The right hand of fellowship to your honour, then," quoth the gardener,
with as much alacrity as his hard features were capable of expressing,
and, as if to show that his good-will did not rest on words, he plucked
forth a huge horn snuff-box, or mull, as he called it, and proffered a
pinch with a most fraternal grin.

Having accepted his courtesy, I asked him if he had been long a domestic
at Osbaldistone Hall.

"I have been fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus," said he, looking
towards the building, "for the best part of these four-and-twenty years,
as sure as my name's Andrew Fairservice."

"But, my excellent friend, Andrew Fairservice, if your religion and your
temperance are so much offended by Roman rituals and southern
hospitality, it seems to me that you must have been putting yourself to
an unnecessary penance all this while, and that you might have found a
service where they eat less, and are more orthodox in their worship. I
dare say it cannot be want of skill which prevented your being placed
more to your satisfaction."

"It disna become me to speak to the point of my qualifications," said
Andrew, looking round him with great complacency; "but nae doubt I should
understand my trade of horticulture, seeing I was bred in the parish of
Dreepdaily, where they raise lang-kale under glass, and force the early
nettles for their spring kale. And, to speak truth, I hae been flitting
every term these four-and-twenty years; but when the time comes, there's
aye something to saw that I would like to see sawn,--or something to maw
that I would like to see mawn,--or something to ripe that I would like to
see ripen,--and sae I e'en daiker on wi' the family frae year's end to
year's end. And I wad say for certain, that I am gaun to quit at
Cannlemas, only I was just as positive on it twenty years syne, and I
find mysell still turning up the mouls here, for a' that. Forbye that, to
tell your honour the evendown truth, there's nae better p