Guy Mannering.

268 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
" Wha kens?" answered he; "they're queer deevils;
-may be I might just have'scaped ae gang to meet the
other. And yet I'll no say that neither; for if that
randy wife was coming to Charlies-hope, she should have
a pint bottle o' brandy and a pound o' tobacco to wear
her through the winter. They're queer deevils; as my
auld father used to say —they're warst where they're
warst guided. After a', there's baith gude and ill about
the gipsies."
This, and some other desultory conversation, served as
a "shoein(-horn" to draw on another cup of ale, and
another cheerer, as Dinmont termed it in his country
phrase, of brandy and water. Brown then resolutely
declined all further conviviality for that evening, pleading
his own weariness and the effects of the skirmish,being well aware that it would have availed nothing to
have remonstrated with his host on the danger that
excess might have occasioned to his own raw wound
and bloody coxcomb. A very small bed-room, but a
very clean bed, received the traveller, and the sheets
made good the courteous vaunt of the hostess, " that they
would be as pleasant as he could find ony gate, for they
were washed wi' the fairy-well water, and bleached on
the bonny white gowans, and bittled by Nelly and hersell; and what could woman, if she was a queen, do mair
for them? "
They indeed rivalled snow in whiteness, and had, besides, a pleasant fragrance from the manner in which they
had been bleached. Little Wasp, after licking his master's hand to ask leave, couched himself on the coverlet at
his feet; and the traveller's senses were soon lost in
grateful oblivion.