Our traveller, at last coming up to an old man breaking
stones, asked him if there was _any_ traffic on this road--was it at
_all_ frequented? "Ay," he said, coolly, "it's no ill at that; there was
a cadger body yestreen, and there's yoursell the day." No English
version of the story could have half such amusement, or have so quaint a
character. An answer even still more characteristic is recorded to have
been given by a countryman to a traveller. Being doubtful of his way, he
inquired if he were on the right road to Dunkeld. With some of his
national inquisitiveness about strangers, the countryman asked his
inquirer where he came from. Offended at the liberty, as he considered
it, he sharply reminded the man that where he came from was nothing to
him; but all the answer he got was the quiet rejoinder, "Indeed, it's
just as little to me whar ye're gaen." A friend has told me of an answer
highly characteristic of this dry and unconcerned quality which he heard
given to a fellow-traveller. A gentleman sitting opposite to him in the
stage-coach at Berwick complained bitterly that the cushion on which he
sat was quite wet. On looking up to the roof he saw a hole through which
the rain descended copiously, and at once accounted for the mischief. He
called for the coachman, and in great wrath reproached him with the evil
under which he suffered, and pointed to the hole which was the cause of
it.
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