George considered himself eighty pounds richer in substance than six months ago.  It so happened that on every side of George but one were nomads, shepherd-kings—­fellows with a thousand head of horned cattle, and sheep like white pebbles by the sea; but on his right hand was another small bucolical, a Scotchman, who had started with less means than himself, and was slowly working his way, making a halfpenny and saving a penny after the manner of his nation.  These two were mighty dissimilar, but they were on a level as to means and near neighbors, and that drew them together.  In particular, they used to pay each other friendly visits on Sunday evenings, and McLaughlan would read a good book to George, for he was strict in his observances; but after that the pair would argue points of husbandry.

But one Sunday that George, admiring his stock, inadvertently proposed to him an exchange of certain animals, he rebuked the young man with awful gravity.

“Is this a day for warldly dealings?” said he.  “Hoo div ye think to thrive gien y’offer your mairchandeeze o’ the Sabba day!” George colored up to the eyes.  “Ye’ll may be no hae read the paurable o’ the money changers i’ the temple, no forgettin’ a wheen warldly-minded chields that sell’t doos, when they had mair need to be on their knees—­or hearkening a religious discourse—–­or a bit psaum—­or the like.  Aweel, ye need na hong your heed yon gate neether.  Ye had na the privileege of being born in Scoetland, ye ken—­or nae doot ye’d hae kenned better, for ye are a decent lad—­deed are ye.  Aweel, stap ben led, and I’se let ye see a drap whisky.  The like does na aften gang doon an Englishman’s thrapple.”

“Whisky?  Well, but it seems to me if we didn’t ought to deal we didn’t ought to drink.”

“Hout! tout! it is no forbedden to taste—­thaat’s nae sen that ever I heerd’t—­C-way.”

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

GEORGE heard of a farmer who was selling off his sheep about fifty miles off near the coast.  George put money in his purse, rose at three, and walked the fifty miles with Carlo that day.  The next he chaffered with the farmer, but they did not quite agree.  George was vexed, but he knew it would not do to show it, so he strolled away carelessly toward the water.  In this place the sea comes several miles inland, not in one sheet, but in a series of salt-water lakes very pretty.

George stood and admired the water and the native blacks paddling along in boats of bark no bigger than a cocked hat.  These strips of bark are good for carriage and bad for carriage; I mean they are very easily carried on a man’s back ashore, but they won’t carry a man on the water so well, and sitting in them is like balancing on a straw.  These absurd vehicles have come down to these blockheads from their fathers, so they won’t burn them and build according to reason.  They commonly paddle in companies of three; so then whenever one is purled the other two come on each side of him, each takes a hand and with amazing skill and delicacy they reseat him in his cocked hat, which never sinks—­only purls.  Several of these triads passed in the middle of the lake, looking to George like inverted capital “T’s.”  They went a tremendous pace—­with occasional stoppages when a purl occurred.