d pshaws, which rather seemed to regard the
interruption of his disquisition than the retardation of his journey.

The first of these stops was occasioned by the breaking of a spring,
which half an hour's labour hardly repaired. To the second, the
Antiquary was himself accessory, if not the principal cause of it; for,
observing that one of the horses had cast a fore-foot shoe, he apprized
the coachman of this important deficiency. "It's Jamie Martingale that
furnishes the naigs on contract, and uphauds them," answered John, "and
I am not entitled to make any stop, or to suffer prejudice by the like
of these accidents."

"And when you go to--I mean to the place you deserve to go to, you
scoundrel,--who do you think will uphold you on contract? If you don't
stop directly and carry the poor brute, to the next smithy, I'll have
you punished, if there's a justice of peace in Mid-Lothian;" and,
opening the coach-door, out he jumped, while the coachman obeyed his
orders, muttering, that "if the gentlemen lost the tide now, they could
not say but it was their ain fault, since he was willing to get on."

I like so little to analyze the complication of the causes which
influence actions, that I will not venture to ascertain whether our
Antiquary's humanity to the poor horse was not in some degree aided by
his desire of showing his companion a Pict's camp, or Round-about,
a subject which he had been elaborately discussing, and of which a
specimen, "very curious and perfect indeed," happened to exist about a
hundred yards distant from the spot where this interruption took place.
But were I compelled to decompose the motives of my worthy friend (for
such was the gentleman in the sober suit, with powdered wig and slouched
hat), I should say, that, although he certainly would not in any case
have suffered the coachman to proceed while the horse was unfit for
service, and likely to suffer by being urged forward, yet the man of
whipcord escaped some severe abuse and reproach by the agreeable mode
which the traveller found out to pass the interval of delay.

So much time was consumed by these interruptions of their journey, that
when they descended the hill above the Hawes (for so the inn on the
southern side of the Queensferry is denominated), the experienced eye
of the Antiquary at once discerned, from the extent of wet sand, and
the number of black stones and rocks, covered with sea-weed, which were
visible along the skirts of the