was passing the minister's glebe, where
haymaking was in progress. The minister asked Will if he thought the
weather would keep up, as it looked rather like rain. "Weel," said Will,
"I canna be very sure, but I'll be passin' this way the nicht, an' I'll
ca' in and tell ye." "Well, Will," said his master one day to him,
seeing that he had just finished his dinner, "have you had a good dinner
to day?" (Will had been grumbling some time before.) "Ou, vera gude,"
answered Will; "but gin onybody asks if I got a dram after't, what will
I say?" This poor creature had a high sense of duty. It appears he had
been given the charge of the coal-stores at the Earl of Eglinton's.
Having on one occasion been reprimanded for allowing the supplies to run
out before further supplies were ordered, he was ever afterwards most
careful to fulfil his duty. In course of time poor Will became "sick
unto death," and the minister came to see him. Thinking him in really a
good frame of mind, the minister asked him, in presence of the laird and
others, if there were not one _great_ thought which was ever to him the
highest consolation in his hour of trouble. "Ou ay," gasped the
sufferer, "Lord be thankit, a' the bunkers are fu'!"

The following anecdote is told regarding the late Lord Dundrennan:--A
half silly basket-woman passing down his avenue at Compstone one day,
he met her, and said, "My good woman, there's no road this way." "Na,
sir," she said, "I think ye're wrang there; I think it's a most
beautifu' road."

These poor creatures have invariably a great delight in attending
funerals. In many country places hardly a funeral ever took place
without the attendance of the parochial idiot. It seemed almost a
necessary association; and such attendance seemed to constitute the
great delight of those creatures. I have myself witnessed again and
again the sort of funeral scene portrayed by Sir Walter Scott, who no
doubt took his description from what was common in his day:--"The
funeral pomp set forth--saulies with their batons and gumphions of
tarnished white crape. Six starved horses, themselves the very emblems
of mortality, well cloaked and plumed, lugging along the hearse with its
dismal emblazonry, crept in slow pace towards the place of interment,
preceded by Jamie Duff, an idiot, who, with weepers and cravat made of
white paper, _attended on every funeral_, and followed by six mourning
coaches filled with the company."--_Guy Mannering_.