vagabonds, full of quaint turns of speech, unconscious Borrovians.
With these samples his disillusionment was speedy. The party was
made up of a ferret-faced man with a red nose, a draggle-tailed
woman, and a child in a crazy perambulator. Their conversation was
one-sided, for it immediately resolved itself into a whining
chronicle of misfortunes and petitions for relief. It cost him half
a crown to be rid of them.

The road was alive with tramps that day. The next one did
the accosting. Hailing Mr. McCunn as "Guv'nor," he asked to be told
the way to Manchester. The objective seemed so enterprising that
Dickson was impelled to ask questions, and heard, in what appeared
to be in the accents of the Colonies, the tale of a career of
unvarying calamity. There was nothing merry or philosophic about
this adventurer. Nay, there was something menacing. He eyed his
companion's waterproof covetously, and declared that he had had one
like it which had been stolen from him the day before. Had the
place been lonely he might have contemplated highway robbery,
but they were at the entrance to a village, and the sight of a
public-house awoke his thirst. Dickson parted with him at the cost
of sixpence for a drink.

He had no more company that morning except an aged stone-breaker
whom he convoyed for half a mile. The stone-breaker also was soured
with the world. He walked with a limp, which, he said, was due to
an accident years before, when he had been run into by "ane of thae
damned velocipeeds." The word revived in Dickson memories of his
youth, and he was prepared to be friendly. But the ancient would
have none of it. He inquired morosely what he was after, and, on
being told remarked that he might have learned more sense.