woman" (with an elevated voice)--then apart, "Old
doited hag, she's as deaf as a post--I say, Mrs. Macleuchar!"

"I am just serving a customer.--Indeed, hinny, it will no be a bodle
cheaper than I tell ye."

"Woman," reiterated the traveller, "do you think we can stand here all
day till you have cheated that poor servant wench out of her half-year's
fee and bountith?"

"Cheated!" retorted Mrs. Macleuchar, eager to take up the quarrel upon a
defensible ground; "I scorn your words, sir: you are an uncivil
person, and I desire you will not stand there, to slander me at my ain
stair-head."

"The woman," said the senior, looking with an arch glance at his
destined travelling companion, "does not understand the words of
action.--Woman," again turning to the vault, "I arraign not thy
character, but I desire to know what is become of thy coach?"

"What's your wull?" answered Mrs. Macleuchar, relapsing into deafness.

"We have taken places, ma'am," said the younger stranger, "in your
diligence for Queensferry"--"Which should have been half-way on the road
before now," continued the elder and more impatient traveller, rising
in wrath as he spoke: "and now in all likelihood we shall miss the tide,
and I have business of importance on the other side--and your cursed
coach"--

"The coach?--Gude guide us, gentlemen, is it no on the stand yet?"
answered the old lady, her shrill tone of expostulation sinking into a
kind of apologetic whine. "Is it the coach ye hae been waiting for?"

"What else could have kept us broiling in the sun by the side of the
gutter here, you--you faithless woman, eh?"

Mrs. Macleuchar now ascended her trap stair (for such it might be
called, though constructed of stone), until her nose came upon a level
with the pavement; then, after wiping her spectacles to look for
that which she well knew was not to be found, she exclaimed, with
well-feigned astonishment, "Gude guide us--saw ever onybody the like o'
that?"

"Yes, you abominable woman," vociferated the traveller, "many have seen
the like of it, and all will see the like of it that have anything to do
with your trolloping sex;" then pacing with great indignation before
the door of the shop, still as he passed and repassed, like a vessel who
gives her broadside as she comes abreast of a hostile fortress, he
shot down complaints, threats, and reproaches, on the embarrassed Mrs.
Macleuchar. He would take a post-chaise--he would call a hackney coach