me? for I can't sleep here upon the road
all night.'

'Troth, I kenna, unless ye like to gae down and speer 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 baud wessel by the end o' the loan, and take tent o' the
jaw-hole.'

'O, if ye get to eassel and wessel again, I am undone! Is there nobody
that could guide me to this Place? I will pay him handsomely.'

The word 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, 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, 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 decking time's aye canty time.'

By this time Jock had found his way into all the intricacies of a
tattered doublet and more tattered pair of breeches, and sallied forth, a
great white-headed, bare-legged, lubberly boy of twelve years old, so
exhibited by the glimpse of a rush-light which his half-naked mother held
in such a manner as to get a peep at the stranger without greatly
exposing herself to view in return. Jock moved on westward by the end of
the house, leading Mannering's horse by the bridle, and piloting with
some dexterity along the little path which bordered the formidable
jaw-hole, whose vicinity the stranger was made sensible of by means of
more organs than one. His guide then dragged the weary hack along a
broken and stony cart-track, next over a ploughed field, then broke down
a slap, as he called it, in a drystone fence, and lugged the unresisting
animal through the breach, about a rood of the simple masonry giving way
in the splutter with which he passed. Finally, he led the way through a
wicket into something