“Deil a bit on my side o’ the wa’,” answered the sturdy beggar; “I never deal in mistakes, they aye bring mischances.--Now, Monkbarns, that young gentleman, that’s wi’ your honour, thinks little of a carle like me; and yet, I’ll wager I’ll tell him whar he was yestreen at the gloamin, only he maybe wadna like to hae’t spoken o’ in company.” Lovel’s soul rushed to his cheeks, with the vivid blush of two-and-twenty. “Never mind the old rogue,” said Mr. Oldbuck; “don’t suppose I think the worse of you for your profession; they are only prejudiced fools and coxcombs that do so. You remember what old Tully says in his oration, pro Archia poeta, concerning one of your confraternity--quis nostrum tam anino agresti ac duro fuit--ut--ut--I forget the Latin--the meaning is, which of us was so rude and barbarous as to remain unmoved at the death of the great Roscius, whose advanced age was so far from preparing us for his death, that we rather hoped one so graceful, so excellent in his art, ought to be exempted from the common lot of mortality? So the Prince of Orators spoke of the stage and its professor.” The words of the old man fell upon Lovel’s ears, but without conveying any precise idea to his mind, which was then occupied in thinking by what means the old beggar, who still continued to regard him with a countenance provokingly sly and intelligent, had contrived to thrust himself into any knowledge of his affairs. He put his hand in his pocket as the readiest mode of intimating his desire of secrecy, and securing the concurrence of the person whom he addressed; and while he bestowed on him an alms, the amount of which rather bore proportion to his fears than to his charity, looked at him with a marked expression, which the mendicant, a physiognomist by profession, seemed perfectly to understand.--“Never mind me, sir--I am no tale-pyet; but there are mair een in the warld than mine,” answered he as he pocketed Lovel’s bounty, but in a tone to be heard by him alone, and with an expression which amply filled up what was left unspoken. Then turning to Oldbuck--“I am awa’ to the manse, your honour. Has your honour ony word there, or to Sir Arthur, for I’ll come in by Knockwinnock Castle again e’en?” Oldbuck started as from a dream; and, in a hurried tone, where vexation strove with a wish to conceal it, paying, at the same time, a tribute to Edie’s smooth, greasy, unlined hat, he said, “Go down, go down to Monkbarns--let them give you some dinner--Or stay; if you do go to the manse, or to Knockwinnock, ye need say nothing about that foolish story of yours.”