While Dame Hetty was soliloquizing to the foregoing effect, the tinker and his companion proceeded at a quiet pace down the lane: the narrow road had a verdant margin on each side, of considerable breadth; it was broken into knolls in some parts, and here and there a hawthorn flourished, or a bramble sheltered a family of tall weeds: the thorns and briars bore evidence that sheep were occasionally permitted to pasture in the lane; a horse, with a huge log chained to one of his hind legs, to prevent him from roaming far, was quietly grazing on one side of the road; and nearly opposite him, a pig, wearing a collar, as an estoppel to his invading the fields, by creeping through their hedges, lay dozing on the other, near an old dung-heap that was nearly covered with “summer's green and flowery livery.” The travellers had proceeded but a few paces down the lane, when they observed a thin stream of smoke rising from behind a large bush, which grew within a little distance of the right-hand hedge, and they immediately turned their steps across the turf towards it. On approaching nearer, they discovered a tall, lean man, in a plaid cloak, actively engaged in raking together the embers of a fire, and placing bits of dry wood upon a little blaze that shot up from its centre. “Is this a gipsy's old place, I wonder?” said the Irishman; “and is the pedlar, for so I take him to be, making it up to cook his breakfast?--God save ye kindly!” continued he, as he came within hearing of the man in the plaid coat. “Whither awa', friend?” quoth the pedlar. “Is it to the revel ye're budging, Sawney?” “What would ye give to ken, Paddy?--And if I were ganging that gate, why for no, eh?--Ye seem to be cattle for that market yoursel'; wi' your bits o' ballads, and them scraps or fragments o' mortality ye've saved fra' the wars. Ye're some broken-down beggar, I doubt Sauf us a'! isn't it rare to see sic trash perk up to a travelling tradesman, and address an honest and respactable person wi' a plain 'Sawney?'--a mon, though I say it, whose bill for sax, ay, or aught pounds, in Bristol or Frome--” “Aisy! aisy, man!” interrupted the other; “aisy, or we'll quarrel, I'm sure;--and when I quarrel, I fight; and it isn't before breakfast I like fighting:--everything's good in its season; so we won't fight now. As for your bill, though, I'll make bold to say this,--so I will, any how--as for your bill, I wouldn't give the worst ballad I have, for the best bill you or the likes o' ye ever made:--but don't let's be quarrelling, for all that.--Do you mark, though? if you cast any more dirt upon my person or my goods, I'll indorse that bill of yours, that sticks up betuxt your two eyes, in the place of a nose, with the fist that's left me. I'll engage, if I put my hand to it, it won't add much to its value, if you wished to raise money on it: but aisy, both of us; quarrelling does no good.”