It occurred after dinner, the laird being a little mellow, for as to being drunk, oceans of liquor would have failed to produce that effect, at least to the length of prostration. The unhappy querist began: “Macnab, are you acquainted with Macloran of Dronascandlich, who has lately purchased so many thousand acres in Inverness-shire?” This was more than enough to set the laird off in a furious tilt on his genealogical steed. “Ken wha? the paddock-stool o’ a cratur they ca’ Dronascandlich, wha no far bygane dawred (curse him) to offer siller, sir, for an auld ancient estate, sir. An estate as auld as the flude, sir; an infernal deal aulder, sir. Siller, sir, scrappit thegither by the meeserable deevil in India, sir, not in an officer or gentlemanlike way, sir; but (Satan burst him) makin’ cart wheels and trams, sir, and harrows, and the like o’ that wretched handiwork. Ken him, sir? I ken the cratur weel, and whae he comes frae, sir; and so I ken that dumb tyke, sir, a better brute by half than a score o’ him!” The querist interjected, “Mercy on us, Macnab, you surprise me. I thought from the sublime sound of his name and title, he had been, like yourself, a chief of fifteen centuries’ standing at least.” The instant this comparison was drawn, the laird’s visage grew ghastly with rage. His eyes caught fire and he snorted like a mountain whirlwind. But for the climax of this storm, worthy of Meg Dods or of Meg Merrilies, the reader may be referred to my authority, with the hint that it will be wasted on who cannot interpret the vernacular eloquence then familiar at lordly dinner-tables as in kailyard “cracks.”