"I have a curiosity to ask some questions about this country," said the traveller, "and I was directed to you as an intelligent man who can answer them."
"Nae doubt, sir," said Cuddie, after a moment's hesitation. "But I would first like to ken what sort of questions they are. I hae had sae mony questions speered at me in my day, and in sic queer ways, that if ye kend a', ye wadna wonder at my jalousing a' thing about them. My mother gar 'd me learn the Single Carritch, whilk was a great vex; then I behoved to learn about my godfathers and godmothers to please the auld leddy; and whiles I jumbled them thegether and pleased nane o' them; and when I cam to man's yestate, cam another kind o' questioning in fashion that I liked waur than Effectual Calling; and the 'did promise and vow' of the tape were yokit to the end o' the tother. Sae ye see, sir, I aye like to hear questions asked befor I answer them."
"You have nothing to apprehend from mine, my good friend; they only relate to the state of the country."
"Country?" replied Cuddie; "ou, the country's weel eneugh, an it werena that dour deevil, Claver'se (they ca' him Dundee now), that's stirring about yet in the Highlands, they say, wi' a' the Donalds and Duncans and Dugalds, that ever wore bottomless breeks, driving about wi' him, to set things asteer again, now we hae gotten them a' reasonably weel settled. But Mackay will pit him down, there's little doubt o' that; he'll gie him his fairing, I'll be caution for it."
"What makes you so positive of that, my friend?" asked the horseman.
"I heard it wi' my ain lugs," answered Cuddie, foretauld to him by a man that had been three hours stane dead, and came back to this earth again just to tell him his mind. It was at a place they ca' Drumshinnel."
"Indeed?" said the stranger. "I can hardly believe you, my friend."
"Ye might ask my mither, then, if she were in life," said Cuddie; "it was her explained it a' to me, for I thought the man had only been wounded. At ony rate, he spake of the casting out of the Stewarts by their very names, and the vengeance that was brewing for Claver'se and his dragoons. They ca'd the man Habakkuk Mucklewrath; his brain was a wee ajee, but he was a braw preacher for a' that."
"You seem," said the stranger, "to live in a rich and peaceful country."
"It's no to compleen o', sir, an we get the crap weel in," quoth Cuddie; "but if ye had seen the blude rinnin' as fast on the tap o' that brigg yonder as ever the water ran below it, ye wadna hae thought it sae bonnie a spectacle."