Progress."

In my schoolhouse, however, I seem to see the square most readily in
the Scotch mist which so often filled it, loosening the stones and
choking the drains. There was then no rattle of rain against my
window-sill, nor dancing of diamond drops on the roofs, but blobs of
water grew on the panes of glass to reel heavily down them. Then the
sodden square would have shed abundant tears if you could have taken it
in your hands and wrung it like a dripping cloth. At such a time the
square would be empty but for one vegetable cart left in the care of a
lean collie, which, tied to the wheel, whined and shivered underneath.
Pools of water gather in the coarse sacks, that have been spread over
the potatoes and bundles of greens, which turn to manure in their
lidless barrels. The eyes of the whimpering dog never leave a black
close over which hangs the sign of the Bull, probably the refuge of the
hawker. At long intervals a farmer's gig rumbles over the bumpy,
ill-paved square, or a native, with his head buried in his coat, peeps
out of doors, skurries across the way, and vanishes. Most of the
leading shops are here, and the decorous draper ventures a few yards
from the pavement to scan the sky, or note the effect of his new
arrangement in scarves. Planted against his door is the butcher,
Henders Todd, white-aproned, and with a knife in his hand, gazing
interestedly at the draper, for a mere man may look at an elder. The
tinsmith brings out his steps, and, mounting them, stealthily removes
the saucepans and pepper-pots that dangle on a wire above his
sign-board. Pulling to his door he shuts out the foggy light that
showed in his solder-strewn workshop. The square is deserted again. A
bundle of sloppy parsley slips from the hawker's cart and topples over
the wheel in driblets. The puddles in the sacks overflow and run
together. The dog has twisted his chain round a barrel and yelps
sharply. As if in response comes a rush of other dogs. A terrified
fox-terrier tears across the square with half a score of mongrels, the
butcher's mastiff and some collies at his heels; he is doubtless a
stranger who has insulted them by his glossy coat. For two seconds the
square shakes to an invasion of dogs, and then, again, there is only
one dog in sight.

No one will admit the Scotch mist. It "looks saft." The tinsmith
"wudna wonder but what it was makkin for rain." Tammas Haggart and
Pete Lunan dander into sight bare