"
"That's a different consideration."
"Ony way, I wadna ha' liked to have offended Mr. Treddles. He
was a wee toustie when you rubbed him again the hair; but a kind,
weel-meaning man."
I wanted to get rid of this species of chat, and finding myself
near the entrance of a footpath which made a short cut to
Duntarkin, I put half a crown into my guide's hand, bade him
good-evening, and plunged into the woods.
"Hout, sir--fie, sir--no from the like of you. Stay, sir, ye
wunna find the way that gate.--Odd's mercy, he maun ken the gate
as weel as I do mysel'. Weel, I wad Iike to ken wha the chield
is."
Such were the last words of my guide's drowsy, uninteresting tone
of voice and glad to be rid of him, I strode out stoutly, in
despite of large stones, briers, and BAD STEPS, which abounded in
the road I had chosen. In the interim, I tried as much as I
could, with verses from Horace and Prior, and all who have lauded
the mixture of literary with rural life, to call back the visions
of last night and this morning, imagining myself settled in same
detached farm of the estate of Glentanner,--
"Which sloping hills around enclose--
Where many a birch and brown oak grows,"
when I should have a cottage with a small library, a small
cellar, a spare bed for a friend, and live more happy and more
honoured than when I had the whole barony.
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