(N.B.
Please mark the self-control with which I repeat Scotch remarks,
without rushing into weird spelling; a senseless performance, it
seems to me. For if you know already how old Margery pronounces
"porridge," you can read her pronunciation into the sentence; and if
you do not know it, no grotesque spelling on my part could convey to
your mind any but a caricatured version of the pretty Scotch accent
with which Margery says: "Stir the porridge, Nurse Gray." In fact, I
am agreeably surprised at the ease with which I understand the
natives, and the pleasure I derive from their conversation; for,
after wrestling with one or two modern novels dealing with the
Highlands, I had expected to find the language an unknown tongue.
Instead of which, lo! and behold, old Margery, Maggie the housemaid,
Macdonald the gardener, and Macalister the game-keeper, all speak a
rather purer English than I do; far more carefully pronounced, and
with every R sounded and rolled. Their idioms are more
characteristic than their accent.
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