Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/51

Rh and cannie way, if it be true that the Highland gentlemen are coming to try if they can set with targe and claymore the crown of both lands on the brow it was made for.' I looked at the person of the querist, a young man of the middle size, with a firm limb and a frank martial mien, and something in his bearing which bespoke a higher ambition than that of tending flocks; his face, too, I thought I had seen before, and under very different circumstances. 'Good-sooth, Wattie Graeme,' said another of the menials, 'ye might as well try to get back butter out o' the black dog's throat, as extract a plain answer from Sleekie Simon. I asked him no further than a month ago, if he thought we would have a change in the land soon. "The moon," quoth he, "will change in its season, and so maun all things human." "But do you think," said I, "that the people will continue to prefer the cold blood of the man who keeps the chair to the warm kindly, English blood o' him that's far away?" "Ay, ay," quoth he; "nae doubt, nae doubt, when we would drink ditch-water rather than red wine." "But," said I, "would it not be better for the land that we had the throne made steadfast under our own native king, than have it shaken by every blast that blows, as I hear it will soon be?" "Say ye sae?" said he, "say ye sae? Better have a finger off than aye wagging." And so he continued for an hour to reply to every plain question with such dubious responses of northern proverb, that I left him as wise as I found him.'

"This historical sketch of the pedlar obtained the notice of the farmer's wife, who, with the natural impatience of womankind, thus abruptly questioned him: 'We honest moorland people hate all mystery: if you are a man loyal in your heart, and upright in your dealings, you may remain and share our supper; but if ye be a spy from these northern marauders, who are coming with houghs as bare as their swords to make a raid and a foray upon us—arise, I say, and depart! But stay, tell us truly when this hawk of the old uncannie nest of the Stuarts will come to wreck and herrie us?' To all this Simon the pedlar opposed a look of the most impenetrable serenity, and turning over his little oaken box, undid a broad strap and buckle, applied a key to the lock, took out combs, and knives, and spectacles, and some of his cheap ornaments for the bosom and the hair, and all the while he continued chanting over the following curious song, addressed