“True, indeed!” said the drovers, eating bannocks and cheese.
“'Twixt heaven and hell,” said the fellow with the coarse hose, “is but a spang. It's so easy for some folk to deserve the one gate—so many their gifts—that the cock-sureness leaves them careless, and they wander into the wrong place.”
“You were speaking?” said Baldi, a little angry, though he heard but half.
“I said thy son was a fellow of many gifts,” answered the drover, in a confusion.
“He had no unfriends that I ken of,” said the old man, busy at the shoes; “young or old, man or woman.”
“Especially woman,” put in another drover, wrinkling at the eyes.
“I've had five sons: three in the King's service, and one in the Low-country; here's my young wanderer, and he was—he is—the jewel of them all!”
“You hear of him sometimes?”
“I heard of him and from him this very day,” said Baldi, busy at the brogues, white and drawn at the face and shaking at the lips. “I have worked at these shoes since morning, and little time is there to put bye on them, for at Inneraora town must they be before breakfast. Solomon Carrier, passing at three, gives me a cry and takes them.”
“They're a fine pair of shoes.”