Ye wad hae thocht she had been gaein' to The Bothie; but gin she had been that, there wad hae been a cairriage to meet her,' said Crookit Caumill, the ostler.
The Bothie was the name facetiously given by Alexander, Baron Rothie, son of the Marquis of Boarshead, to a house he had built in the neighbourhood, chiefly for the accommodation of his bachelor friends from London during the shooting-season.
'Haud yer tongue, Caumill,' said the shoemaker.

'She's nae sic cattle, yon.' 'Haud up the bit bowat (stable-lantern), man, and lat Robert here see the direction upo' them.

Maybe he'll mak' something o't.

He's a fine scholar, ye ken,' said another of the bystanders.
The ostler held the lantern to the card upon one of the boxes, but Robert found only an M., followed by something not very definite, and a J., which might have been an I., Rothieden, Driftshire, Scotland.
As he was not immediate with his answer, Peter Lumley, one of the group, a lazy ne'er-do-weel, who had known better days, but never better manners, and was seldom quite drunk, and seldomer still quite sober, struck in with, 'Ye dinna ken a' thing yet, ye see, Robbie.' From Sandy this would have been nothing but a good-humoured attempt at facetiousness.

From Lumley it meant spite, because Robert's praise was in his ears.
'I dinna preten' to ken ae hair mair than ye do yersel', Mr.Lumley; and that's nae sayin' muckle, surely,' returned Robert, irritated at his tone more than at his words.
The bystanders laughed, and Lumley flew into a rage.
'Haud yer ill tongue, ye brat,' he said.