"I am thinking ye will be mista'en," said Meg; "there's nae room for bags or jaugs here--ye've mista'en your road, neighbour--ye maun e'en bundle yoursell a bit farther down hill." "I see you have not got the letter I sent you, Mistress Dods?" said the guest. "How should I, man?" answered the hostess; "they have ta'en awa the post-office from us--moved it down till the Spa-well yonder, as they ca'd." "Why, that is but a step off," observed the guest. "Ye will get there the sooner," answered the hostess. "Nay, but," said the guest, "if you had sent there for my letter, you would have learned"---- "I'm no wanting to learn ony thing at my years," said Meg. "If folk have ony thing to write to me about, they may gie the letter to John Hislop, the carrier, that has used the road these forty years. As for the letters at the post-mistress's, as they ca' her, down by yonder, they may bide in her shop-window, wi' the snaps and bawbee rows, till Beltane, or I loose them. I'll never file my fingers with them. Post-mistress, indeed!--Upsetting cutty! I mind her fu' weel when she dree'd penance for ante-nup"---- Laughing, but interrupting Meg in good time for the character of the post-mistress, the stranger assured her he had sent his fishing-rod and trunk to her confidential friend the carrier, and that he sincerely hoped she would not turn an old acquaintance out of her premises, especially as he believed he could not sleep in a bed within five miles of Saint Ronan's, if he knew that her Blue room was unengaged. "Fishing-rod!--Auld acquaintance!--Blue room!" echoed Meg, in some surprise; and, facing round upon the stranger, and examining him with some interest and curiosity,--"Ye'll be nae bagman, then, after a'?" "No," said the traveller; "not since I have laid the saddle-bags out of my hand." "Weel, I canna say but I am glad of that--I canna bide their yanking way of knapping English at every word.--I have kent decent lads amang them too--What for no?--But that was when they stopped up here whiles, like other douce folk; but since they gaed down, the hail flight of them, like a string of wild-geese, to the new-fashioned hottle yonder, I am told there are as mony hellicate tricks played in the travellers' room, as they behove to call it, as if it were fu' of drunken young lairds." "That is because they have not you to keep good order among them, Mistress Margaret." "Ay, lad?" replied Meg, "ye are a fine blaw-in-my-lug, to think to cuittle me off sae cleverly!" And, facing about upon her guest, she honoured him with a more close and curious investigation than she had at first designed to bestow upon him.