"This will never do, good dame! my horse is almost quite knocked up —can you not give me a night's lodgings?"
"Troth can I no—I am a lone woman, for James he's awa to Drumshourloch fair with the year-aulds, and I daurna for my life open the door to ony o' your gang-there-out sort o' bodies."
"But what must I do then, good dame? for I can't sleep here upon the road all night."
"Troth, I kenna, unless ye like to gae down and speer [*Ask] for quarters at the Place. I'se warrant they'll tak ye in, whether ye be gentle or semple."
"Simple enough, to be wandering here at such a time of night," thought Mannering, who was ignorant of the meaning of the phrase; "but how shall I get to the place, as you call it?"
"Ye maun haud wessel by the end o' the loan, and take tent o' the jaw-hole."
"Oh, if ye get to eassel and wessel [*Eastward and Westward] again, I am undone!—Is there nobody that could guide me to this place? I will pay him handsomely."
The ward pay operated like magic. "Jock, ye villain," exclaimed the voice from the interior, "are ye lying routing there, and a. young gentleman seeking the way to the Place? Get up, ye fause loon, [*Young fellow] and show him the way down the muckle loaning. —He'll show you the way, sir, and I'se warrant ye'll be weel put up; for they never turn awa naebody frae the door; and ye'll be come in the canny moment, I'm thinking, for the Laird's servant— that's no to say his body-servant, but the helper like—rade express by this e'en to fetch the houdie, [*Midwife] and he just staid the drinking o' twa pints o' tippenny, to tell us how my leddy was ta'en wi' her pains."
"Perhaps," said Mannering, "at such a time a stranger's arrival might be inconvenient?"
"Hout, na, ye needna be blate about that; their house is muckle eneugh, and clecking [*Hatching time] time's aye canty time."