No, we could have no stabling. Their own horses would be home in half an hour.

She followed me out.

“Half an hour’s rest,” I said, “out of the sun will do my poor nags some good.”

“I tell ye, ye canna have it,” she snapped.

“Then we can have a bucket or two of water, I suppose?”

“Never a drop. We’ve barely enough for ourselves.”

I offered to pay for it I talked almost angrily.

“Never a drop. You’re no so ceevil.”

Talking of Northumbrian inns, I remember once having a good laugh.

A buxom young lassie, as fresh as a mountain-daisy, had served me, during a halt, with some ginger-ale.