Trimmy came near, laid her paw on her master’s knee, and looked him in the face, but she could not tell him what was the reason that she would not hunt with the king’s two beagles, Mooly and Scratch.
“I say, tell me my good Trimmy, what you ail at these beautiful hounds? You wont to be the best follower of a track in all the Merse and Leader; but now, whenever you hear the sound of the horn, and the opening swell of the harriers, you take your tail between your legs and set off for home, as there were something on the hill that were neither good nor cannie. You are a very sensible beast, Trimmy, but you have some strange fancies and prejudices that I cannot comprehend.”
Trimming cocked her ears, and looked towards the Abbey, then at her master, and then at the Abbey again.
“Ah! I fear you hear them coming that you are cocking your ears at that rate. Then if that be the case, good morning to you, Trimmy.”
It was neither the king nor his snow-white beagles that Trimmy winded, but poor Croudy, Gale’s neighbour shepherd, who was coming sauntering up the brae, with his black lumpish dog at his foot, that was fully as stupid as himself, and withal as good-natured. Croudy was never lifting his eyes from the ground, but moving on as if he had been enumerating all the little yellow flowers that grew on the hill. Yet it was not for want of thought that Croudy was walking in that singular position, with his body bent forward, and the one ear turned down towards the ground, and the other up. No, no! for Croudy was trying to think all that he could; and all that he could do he could make nothing of it. Croudy had seen and heard wonderful things! “Bless me and my horn!” said he, as he sat down on a stone to rest himself, and try if he could bring his thoughts to any rallying point. It was impossible—they were like a hive of bees when the queen is taken from their head.
He took out the little crooked ewe-horn that he kept as a charm; he had got it from his mother, and it had descended to him from many generations; he turned it round in the one hand, and then round in the other hand—he put it upon his finger and twirled it. “Bless me an’ my horn!” said he again. Then leaning forward upon his staff, he looked aslant at the ground, and began to moralize. “It is a growing world—ay—the gerse grows; the lambs eat it—they grow—ay—we eat them—we grow—there it goes!—men, women, dogs, bairns, a’ eat—a’ grow; the yird eats up a’—it grows—men eat women—they grow—what comes o’ them?—Hoh! I’m fixed now!—I’m at the end o’ my tether.—I might gang up the hill to Gale, an’ tell him what I hae seen an’ what I hae heard; but I hae four great fauts to that chiel. In the first place, he’s a fool—good that! In the second place, he’s a scholar, an’ speaks English—bad! In the third place, he likes the women—warst ava!—and, fourthly and lastly, he misca’s a’ the words, and ca’s the streamers the Roara Boriawlis—ha! ha! ha!—Wha wad converse wi’ a man, or wha can converse wi’ a man, that ca’s the streamers the Roara Boriawlis? Fools hae aye something about them no like ither fock! Now, gin I war to gang to sic a man as that, an’ tell him that I heard a dog speakin’, and another dog answering it, what wad he say? He wad speak English; sae ane wad get nae sense out o’ him. If I war to gang to the Master o’ Seaton an’ tak my aith, what wad he say? Clap me up i’ the prison for a daft man an’ a fool. I couldna bide that. Then again, if we lose our king—an’ him the last o’ the race—Let me see if I can calculate what wad be the consequence? The English—Tut! the English! wha cares for them? But let me see now—should the truth be tauld or no tauld?—That’s the question. What’s truth? Ay, there comes the crank! Nae man can tell that—for what’s truth to ane is a lee to another—Mumps, ye’re very hard on thae fleas the day—Truth?—For instance; gin my master war to come up the brae to me an’ say, ‘Croudy, that dog’s useless,’ that wadna be truth to me—But gin I war to say to him, ‘Master, I heard a dog speak, an’ it said sae an’ sae; an’ there was another dog answered it, an’ it said sae an’ sae,’ that wad be truth to me; but then it wadna be truth to him—Truth’s just as it is ta’en—Now, if a thing may be outher truth or no truth, then a’ things are just the same—No—that disna haud neither—Mumps, ye’re no gaun to leave a sample o’ thae fleas the day, man—Look up, like a farrant beast—have ye nae pity on your master, nor nae thought about him ava, an’ him in sic a plisky?—I wadna be just sae like a stump an’ I war you, man——Bless me an’ my horn! here’s the Boreawlis comin’ on me—here’s the northern light.”
“Good-morrow to you, Croudy.”