As the coach jogged along on its weary journey, not even the bracing surroundings of Robbie's present elevated and exposed position had the effect of keeping him actively awake.

He dozed in short snatches and awoke with slight shudders, feeling alternately hot and cold.
In one of his intervals of wakefulness he heard fragments of a conversation which was being sustained by the strangers behind him.
Robbie had neither activity nor curiosity to waste on their talk, but he could not avoid listening.
"He would have been the best agent in the King's service to a certainty," said one.

"He's the 'cutest man _I_ ever tackled.

It's parlish odd how he baffles us." The speaker was clearly a Cumbrian.
"Shaf!" replied his companion, in a kind of whisper, "he's a pauchtie clot-heed.

I'll have him at Haribee in a crack." The second speaker was as clearly a Scot who was struggling against the danger there might be of his speech bewraying him.
"Well, you're pretty smart on 'im.