!" and Sim frequently assuring me in an aside that for "a rale
auld stench bitch there was na the bate of Candlish in braid Scotland."
The two dogs appeared to be entirely included in this family compact,
and I remarked that their exploits and traits of character were
constantly and minutely observed by the two masters. Dog-stories
particularly abounded with them; and not only the dogs of the present
but those of the past contributed their quota. "But that was naething,"
Sim would begin: "there was a herd in Manar, they ca'd him
Tweedie--ye'll mind Tweedie, Can'lish?" "Fine, that!" said Candlish.
"Aweel, Tweedie had a dog--" The story I have forgotten; I dare say it
was dull, and I suspect it was not true; but indeed my travels with the
drovers had rendered me indulgent, and perhaps even credulous, in the
matter of dog-stories. Beautiful, indefatigable beings! as I saw them at
the end of a long day's journey frisking, barking, bounding, striking
attitudes, slanting a bushy tail, manifestly playing to the spectator's
eye, manifestly rejoicing in their grace and beauty--and turned to
observe Sim and Candlish unornamentally plodding in the rear with the
plaids about their bowed shoulders and the drop at their snuffy nose--I
thought I would rather claim kinship with the dogs than with the men! My
sympathy was unreturned; in their eyes I was a creature light as air;
and they would scarce spare me the time for a perfunctory caress or
perhaps a hasty lap of the wet tongue, ere they were back again in
sedulous attendance on those dingy deities, their masters--and their
masters, as like as not, damning their stupidity.

Altogether the last hours of our tramp were infinitely the most
agreeable to me, and I believe to all of us; and by the time we came to
separate there had grown up a certain familiarity and mutual esteem that
made the parting harder. It took place about four of the afternoon on a
bare hillside from which I could see the ribbon of the great north road,
henceforth to be my conductor. I asked what was to pay.

"Naething," replied Sim.

"What in the name of folly is this?" I exclaimed. "You have led me, you
have fed me, you have filled me full of whisky, and now you will take
nothing!"

"Ye see we indentit for that," replied Sim.

"Indented?" I repeated; "what does the man mean?"

"Mr. St. Ivy," said Sim, "this is a maitter entirely between Candlish
and me and the auld wife Gilchrist. You had naething to say to