"An' it wad set me to waur't (PUZZLE ME TO
SPEND IT) better to my ain min' nor servin' yersel', i' the
sma'est, sir."
The laird thanked him, and sat down. Cosmo placed himself on a
stool beside him.
"I hae naething upo' han' the day," Jeames Merson went on, "but a
watch o' Jeames Gracie's, up at the Know--ane o' yer ain fowk,
laird. He tells me it was your gran'father, sir, gied it til his
gran'father. It's a queer auld-fashiont kin' o' a thing--some
complicat; an'whiles it's 'maist ower muckle for me. Ye see auld
age is aboot the warst disease horses an' watches can be ta'en wi':
there's sae little left to come an' gang upo'!"
While the homely assayer thus spoke, he was making his
preparations.
"What for no men as weel's horses an' watches?" suggested the
laird.
"I wadna meddle wi' men. I lea' them to the doctors an' the
ministers," replied Jeames, with another wide, silent laugh.
By this time he had got a pair of scales carefully adjusted, a
small tin vessel in one of them, and balancing weights in the
other. Then he went to the rack over the dresser, and mildly
lamenting his wife's absence and his own inability to lay his hand
on the precise vessels he wanted, brought thence a dish and a
basin. The dish he placed on the table with the basin in it and
filled the latter with water to the very brim. He then took the
horse, placed it gently in the basin, which was large enough to
receive it entirely, and set basin and horse aside.
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