I know not how it may be with you, and the burghers of Edinburgh, but here we are content to cool our own porridge, and let others take their food hot or cold, as they choose." "I was not wishing you to give me so much your own ideas, as the common talk of the town; but I see that my question was indiscreet, and I ask your pardon." "I know you meant no harm, lad, and that your question was just one that any young man of your age might ask, without thinking that there was harm in it, or that the answering of it might lead to harm.

I can tell you that, whatever folk may think here in Dunbar, they say naught about it to their nearest neighbour.

We can talk of war with England, that is too common a thing for there to be harm in it; and as no one knows aught, one man's opinion is as good as another's; but the talk is general, and assuredly no man asks his neighbour what this great lord will do, or how matters will go.

There is no harm in two gossips wondering whether, if the English come, the town will hold out till help comes, or whether they will batter down the walls first.
"It is a kind of riddle, you see, and all the more that no one knows who may be by the king's side, when the storm breaks.

A generation back, men might make a fair guess; but now it were beyond the wisest head to say and, for my part, I leave the thinking to those whom it concerns.