ANECDOTES ABOUT THE QUEEN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XI, Issue 44, 4 November 1893, Page 382

ANECDOTES ABOUT THE QUEEN.

The truth of the following is vouched for by Society. It was back in the sixties, and the Queen was staying with her best friend, the first wife of the late Duke of Sutherland, at Dunrobin Castle, when one day she took a long morning walk, attended only by one of her ladies. The morning was a delightful one, and the ladies soon found themselves nearly four miles from the castle. Coming to a little cottage they saw an old woman knitting stockings by the door, and asked her permission to enter and sit down to rest themselves, which was accorded with all the hospitality of the Highlands. The old woman, resuming her knitting, began to chat about her son Donald, who had just joined a Highland regiment. ‘ I’ll be thinkin’, noo, that you fine leddies come a’ the way frae Lunnon maybe,’ she said, looking at the two milk drinkers. The sovereign nodded assent. * Weel, when ye gae back, aiblins, ye’ll pr’aps tell Donald ye just had a wee bit sup with his auld mither.’ The Queen wrote the name and the number of his regiment down in her tablets, and I remember that not long afterwards Donald became a sergeant. But when the Queen rose to go, she asked to look at the tartan stocking the old woman was knitting. The stocking was handed over, and Her Majesty tried the threecorner stitch, which she had been steadily watching the old lady perform for ten minutes, and soon got the skein into a hopeless tangle. The Hieland mither, looking at her disdainfully, said, ‘ Leddy, it’s to he hoped that your gudeman buys his stockings ready-made.’ A good story is being told of the early days of Dr. Jowett which will bear repitition here. In his undergraduate days he was one of the wildest of many wild spirits, one of whose postimes was the purloining of public-house signs. It is said that one morning while young Jowett was reading hard he was waited upon by two unwelcome visitors in the persons of Proctor’s * bull-dogs,’ who informed him that they were in search of certain ‘ signs,’ and gently insinuated that Jowett’s room might reveal the wished for treasures. They ransacked bis rooms throughout, but found nothing. They were crestfallen and about to beat a hasty retreat after a most humble apology, but Jowett had not finished with them. Laying aside for a moment the book be was reading and turning on them a look of mingled scorn and wisdom, he said, ‘ A foolish and perverse generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given unto it.’ The joke was the talk of Oxford for many days.