The oddness of the expressions, and the earnestness with which they were pronounced, had an effect on the labourer which few things had. They induced him to pause in his work, to raise his head, and to look in the face of the speaker, which he did with a smile of undefinable meaning. It was the first full look he had taken of him, and it discovered to him a countenance open and pleasing in its expression, but marked with deep melancholy, and telling, in language not to be misunderstood, a tale of heart-sickness of the most racking and depressing kind.
"Has your lot been ill cast, young man, that ye envy the bits o' burds o' the air the freedom and the liberty that God has gien them?" said the old man, eyeing the stranger scrutinizingly, with a keen, penetrating grey eye, that had not even yet lost all its fire.
"It has," replied the latter. "I have been unfortunate in the world. I have struggled hard with my fate, but it has at length overwhelmed me."
The old man muttered something unintelligibly, and, without vouchsafing any other reply, resumed his labours. After another pause of some duration, which, however, he had evidently employed in thinking on the declaration of unhappiness which had just been made him—
"Some folly o' your ain, young man, very likely," said he, carelessly, and still knapping the stones, whose bulk it was his employment to reduce.
"No," replied the young man, blushing; but it was a blush which he who caused it did not see. "I cannot blame myself."
"Nae man does," interposed the stone-breaker; "he aye blames his neighbours."
"Perhaps so," rejoined the stranger; "but you will allow that it is perfectly possible for a man to be unfortunate without any fault on his own part."
"I hae seldom seen't," replied the ungracious and unaccommodating old man; and he hammered on.
"Well, perhaps so," said the youth; "but I hope you will not deny that such things may be."