easy. Many of the roads in that country lay along the sea-beach,
and were liable to be flooded by the tides, which rise with great
height,--and advance with extreme rapidity. Others were
intersected with creeks and small inlets, which it was only safe to
pass at particular times of the tide. Neither circumstance would
have suited a dark night, a fatigued horse, and a traveller
ignorant of his road. Mannering resolved, therefore, definitely to
halt for the night at the first inhabited place, however poor, he
might chance to reach, unless he could procure a guide to this
unlucky village of Kippletringan.--

A miserable hut gave him an opportunity to execute his purpose. He
found out the door with no small difficulty, and for some time
knocked without producing any other answer than a duet between a
female and a cur-dog, the latter yelping as if he would have barked
his heart out, the other screaming in chorus. By degrees the human
tones predominated; but the angry bark of the cur being at the
instant changed into a howl, it is probable something more than
fair strength of lungs had contributed to the ascendency.

"Sorrow be in your thrapple [*Throat] then these were the first
articulate words,--"will ye no let me hear what the man wants, wi'
your yaffing?" [* Barking]

"Am I far from Kippletringan, good dame?"

"Frae Kippletringan!!!" in an exalted tone of wonder, which we can
but faintly express by three points of admiration; "Ow, man! ye
should hae hadden eassel to Kippletringan--ye maun gae back as far
as the Whaap, and haud the Whaap [*The Hope, often pronounced