the voice from the interior, "are ye lying routing there, and a.
young gentleman seeking the way to the Place? Get up, ye fause
loon, [*Young fellow] and show him the way down the muckle loaning.
--He'll show you the way, sir, and I'se warrant ye'll be weel put
up; for they never turn awa naebody frae the door; and ye'll be
come in the canny moment, I'm thinking, for the Laird's servant--
that's no to say his body-servant, but the helper like--rade
express by this e'en to fetch the houdie, [*Midwife] and he just
staid the drinking o' twa pints o' tippenny, to tell us how my
leddy was ta'en wi' her pains."

"Perhaps," said Mannering, "at such a time a stranger's arrival
might be inconvenient?"

"Hout, na, ye needna be blate about that; their house is muckle
eneugh, and clecking [*Hatching time] time's aye canty time."

By this time Jock had found his way into all the intricacies of a
tattered doublet, and more tattered pair of breeches, and sallied
forth, a great white-headed, bare-legged, lubberly boy of twelve
years old, so exhibited by the glimpse of a rush-light, which his
half-naked mother held in such a manner as to get a peep at the
stranger, without greatly exposing herself to view in return. Jock
moved on westward, by the end of the house, leading Mannering's
horse by the bridle, and piloting, with some dexterity, along the
little path which bordered the formidable jaw-hole, whose vicinity
the stranger was made sensible of by means of more organs than
one. His guide then dragged the weary hack along a broken and
stony cart-track, next over a ploughed field, then broke down a
slap, [*A gap] as he called it, in a dry-stone fence, and lugged