While sufficient daylight remained to show the dress and appearance of a gentleman, these cross interrogatories were usually put in the form of a case supposed, as, 'Ye'll hae been at the auld abbey o' Halycross, sir?
there's mony English gentlemen gang to see that.'-- Or, 'Your honour will become frae the house o' Pouderloupat ?' But when the voice of the querist alone was distinguishable, the response usually was, 'Where are ye coming frae at sic a time o' night as the like o' this ?'--or, 'Ye'll no be o' this country, freend ?' The answers, when obtained, were neither very reconcilable to each other nor accurate in the information which they afforded.

Kippletringan was distant at first 'a gey bit'; then the 'gey bit' was more accurately described as 'ablins three mile'; then the 'three mile' diminished into 'like a mile and a bittock'; then extended themselves into 'four mile or thereawa'; and, lastly, a female voice, having hushed a wailing infant which the spokeswoman carried in her arms, assured Guy Mannering, 'It was a weary lang gate yet to Kippletringan, and unco heavy road for foot passengers.' The poor hack upon which Mannering was mounted was probably of opinion that it suited him as ill as the female respondent; for he began to flag very much, answered each application of the spur with a groan, and stumbled at every stone (and they were not few) which lay in his road.
Mannering now grew impatient.

He was occasionally betrayed into a deceitful hope that the end of his journey was near by the apparition of a twinkling light or two; but, as he came up, he was disappointed to find that the gleams proceeded from some of those farm-houses which occasionally ornamented the surface of the extensive bog.

At length, to complete his perplexity, he arrived at a place where the road divided into two.

If there had been light to consult the relics of a finger-post which stood there, it would have been of little avail, as, according to the good custom of North Britain, the inscription had been defaced shortly after its erection.