Miss Cheyne of Essilmont, Volume 3 by James Grant

'Twa heads are better than ane, though they are but sheep's anes,' remarked Archie Auchindoir, with a smirk on his wrinkled face, to old Mrs. Prune, as he gave her a lesson in the art of cooking mutton to imitate venison, with minced onions and ham, parsley and port wine, to please the fastidious palate of his ailing master Sir Ranald, who dearly doted on many things he could not procure now, and of course longed for venison. So these two old servitors were again to their joy installed with the little household once more at Chilcote.

And most welcome again to Alison was old silver-haired Archie, with his genuine ancient Scottish fidelity 'to the auld family' -- a species of fidelity as beautiful and unselfish as it is rare now-a-days.