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It's unco late, and it's sax miles an' a bittock doun the water; I doubt if we can find man and horse the night, mair especially as they hae mounted a sentinel before the gate.
That native "just little way" is worse than the Scotch "mile and a bittock"; indeed, the natives have poor notion of distance in general, and miles have as vague meaning to them as kilometres have to the average Anglo-Saxon. On and on we pushed, mile after mile, and still no cabin.
See But and ben. Besom, a broom. Bide, stay. Bittock, a little bit. Blatherskite, a babbling person, a good-for-nothing. Blethering, talking nonsense. Bonny, pretty, beautiful, charming. Bracken, brake, a species of tall fern. Braw, fine, handsome. Burn, a brook. But and ben, outside and in. But the house means out of the house.
It's unco late, and it's sax miles an' a bittock doun the water; I doubt if we can find man and horse the night, mair especially as they hae mounted a sentinel before the gate.
'No a bittock, answered Kirsty, who felt awe anywhere on hilltop, in churchyard, in sunlit silent room but never fear. 'It's as like the place I was tellin ye aboot 'Ay, the cat-place! interrupted Steenie. 'The place wi' the pictur, returned Kirsty. Steenie darted forward, shot head-first into the hole as he had seen Kirsty do, and crept undismayed to the bottom of the slope.
"Weel, I'm obleeged to ye," replied the old woman. "There's been but feow o' yer kin, be their fau'ts what they micht, wad forget ony 'at luikit for a kin' word or a kin' deed! Aggie, lass, ye'll convoy him a bittock, willna ye?"
All were agog at the sight something would be sure to come o' this here would be an encounter worth the speaking o'. But the Deacon, having toddled forward a bittock on his thin shanks, stopped half-roads, took snuff, trumpeted into his big red handkerchief, and then, feebly waving, "I'll thee ye again, Dyohn," clean turned tail and toddled back to his cronies. A roar went up at his expense.
"A town ca'd Glasgow!" echoed Andrew Fairservice. "Glasgow's a ceety, man. And is't the way to Glasgow ye were speering if I ken'd? What suld ail me to ken it? it's no that dooms far frae my ain parish of Dreepdaily, that lies a bittock farther to the west. But what may your honour be gaun to Glasgow for?" "Particular business," replied I.
We continued, however, to ride on without pause and even when night fell and overshadowed the desolate wilds which we traversed, we were, as I understood from Mr. Jarvie, still three miles and a bittock distant from the place where we were to spend the night.
"We were then, maybe, a hunder and fifty mile westsou'west o' Slyne Head, by dead reckonin'. Next day we made a hunder an' thirty ye'll note we were not racin-boats an' the day after a hunder an' sixty-one, an' that made us, we'll say, Eighteen an' a bittock west, an' maybe Fifty-one an' a bittock north, crossin' all the North Atlantic liner lanes on the long slant, always in sight o' the Grotkau, creepin' up by night and fallin' awa' by day.
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