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. Three or four village girls, returning from the
well or brook with pitchers and pails upon their heads, formed more
pleasing objects, and, with their thin short-gowns and single petticoats,
bare arms, legs, and feet, uncovered heads and braided hair, somewhat
resembled Italian forms of landscape. Nor could a lover of the
picturesque have challenged either the elegance of their costume or the
symmetry of their shape; although, to say the truth, a mere Englishman in
search of the COMFORTABLE, a word peculiar to his native tongue, might
have wished the clothes less scanty, the feet and legs somewhat protected
from the weather, the head and complexion shrouded from the sun, or
perhaps might even have thought the whole person and dress considerably
improved by a plentiful application of spring water, with a quantum
sufficit of soap.
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