Another part in this concert was sustained by the incessant
yelping of a score of idle useless curs, which followed, snarling,
barking, howling, and snapping at the horses' heels; a nuisance at
that time so common in Scotland, that a French tourist, who, like other
travellers, longed to find a good and rational reason for everything
he saw, has recorded, as one of the memorabilia of Caledonia, that the
state maintained in each village a relay of curs, called COLLIES, whose
duty it was to chase the CHEVAUX DE POSTE (too starved and exhausted
to move without such a stimulus) from one hamlet to another, till their
annoying convoy drove them to the end of their stage. The evil and
remedy (such as it is) still exist: but this is remote from our present
purpose, and is only thrown out for consideration of the collectors
under Mr. Dent's dog bill.
As Waverley moved on, here and there an old man, bent as much by toil as
years, his eyes bleared with age and smoke, tottered to the door of his
hut, to gaze on the dress of the stranger, and the form and motions of
the horses, and then assembled with his neighbours, in a little group
at the smithy, to discuss the probabilities of whence the stranger came,
and where he might be going.
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