stranger on account
of the fashion of her attire, yet she had the good sense to alter those parts of
her dress which attracted ill-natured observation. Her chequed screen was
deposited carefully in her bundle, and she conformed to the national
extravagance of wearing shoes and stockings for the whole day. She confessed
afterwards, that, »besides the wastrife, it was lang or she could walk sae
comfortably with the shoes as without them; but there was often a bit saft
heather by the road-side, and that helped her weel on.« The want of the screen,
which was drawn over the head like a veil, she supplied by a bon-grace, as she
called it; a large straw bonnet like those worn by the English maidens when
labouring in the fields. »But I thought unco shame o' mysell,« she said, »the
first time I put on a married woman's bon-grace, and me a single maiden.«
    With these changes she had little, as she said, to make »her kenspeckle when
she didna speak,« but her accent and language drew down on her so many jests and
gibes, couched in a worse patois by far than her own, that she soon found it was
her interest to talk as little and as seldom as possible. She answered,
therefore, civil salutations of chance passengers with a civil courtesy, and
chose, with anxious circumspection, such places of repose as looked at once most
decent and sequestered. She found the common people of England, although
inferior in courtesy to strangers, such as was then practised in her own more
unfrequented country, yet, upon the whole, by no means deficient in the real
duties of hospitality. She readily obtained food, and shelter, and protection at
a very moderate rate, which sometimes the generosity of mine host altogether
declined, with a blunt apology,- »Thee hast a long way afore thee, lass; and
I'se ne'er take penny out o' a single woman's purse; it's the best friend thou
can have on the road.«
    It often happened, too, that mine hostess was struck with »the tidy, nice
Scotch body,« and procured her an escort, or a cast in a waggon, for some part
of the way, or gave her a useful advice and recommendation respecting her
resting-places.
    At York our pilgrim stopped for the best part of a day, partly to recruit
her strength, - partly because she had the good luck to obtain a lodging in an
inn kept