Sez I, “It’s a pity there wuzn’t one here a hundred years ago!” Sez I, “Probble it would have saved poor Burns from a good deal that he went through, and,” sez I, “it would be a-settin’ a different sample before young folks from the one that wuz sot, and is still a-settin’—a sample his genius, and noble qualities, and his light-hearted good nater tempt ’em to foller.”
Sez Josiah, “Hain’t you got a Temperance Pledge round you, Samantha, or some badges, or some banners, or white ribbins, or sunthin’?”
Sez he ironacly, “I could carry a banner with ‘Temperance’ or ‘W. C. T. U.’ on it jest as well as not, and I’d ruther lug it round and be done with it than to have to everlastin’ly hear on’t.”
“Wall,” sez I soothin’ly, “we will go back now and have a good lunch.”
And as we wended along, I meditated that mebby I hadn’t gin enough thought to my pardner’s feelin’s. For truly mortals have not now any more than in the time of Burns the “gift to see oursels as ithers see us.”
But I wuz upheld by thinkin’ I’d talked on principle, and that is a dretful upholdin’ thought.
CHAPTER XIII.
EDINBURGH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.
Wall, from Glasgow we went to Edinburgh, and we found that that wuz a beautiful city, beautiful, with the ancient castle perched up on the rocks four hundred feet above, and old Edinburgh a-lyin’ at its feet, like old Vassals that gathers round their Chieftan; all on ’em aged, but loth to part.
The streets of old Edinburgh are so narrer that you can almost reach to both sides of ’em and touch the houses.