"Deil's in the wife," said Dandie Dinmont, shaking off his spouse's embrace, but gently and with a look of great affection;—"deil's in ye, Ailie—d'ye no see the stranger gentleman?"

Ailie turned to make her apology—"Troth, I was sae weel pleased to see the gudeman, that—But, gude gracious! what's the matter wi' ye baith?"—for they were now in her little parlour, and the candle showed the streaks of blood which Dinmont's wounded head had plentifully imparted to the clothes of his companion as well as to his own. "Ye've been fighting again, Dandie, wi' some o' the Bewcastle horse-coupers! Wow, man, a married man, a bonny family like yours, should ken better what a father's life's worth in the warld."—The tears stood in the good woman's eyes as she spoke.

"Whisht! whisht! gudewife," said her husband, with a smack that had much more affection than ceremony in it; "never mind—never mind—there's a gentleman that will tell you, that just when I had ga'en up to Lourie Lowther's, and had bidden the drinking of twa cheerers, and gotten just in again upon the moss, and was whigging cannily [*Cautiously] awa hame, twa land-loupers jumpit out of a peat-bog on me as I was thinking, and got me down, and knevelled [*Beat] me sair aneuch, or I could gar my whip walk about their lugs—and troth, gudewife, if this honest gentleman hadna come up, I would have gotten mair licks than I like, and lost mair siller than I could weel spare; so ye maun be thankful to him for it, under God." With that he drew from his side-pocket a large greasy leather pocket-book, and bade the gudewife lock it up in her kist. [*Chest]

"God bless the gentleman, and e'en God bless him wi' a' my heart—but what can we do for him, but to gie him the meat and quarters we wadna refuse to the poorest body on earth—unless (her eye directed to the pocket-book, but with a feeling of natural propriety which made the inference the most delicate possible), unless there was ony other way—" Brown saw, and estimated at its due rate, the mixture of simplicity and grateful generosity which took the downright way of expressing itself, yet qualified with so much delicacy; he was aware his own appearance, plain at best, and now torn and spattered with blood, made him an object of pity at least, and perhaps of charity. He hastened to say his name was Brown, a captain in the—regiment of cavalry, travelling for pleasure, and on foot, both from motives of independence and economy and he begged his kind landlady would look at her husband's wounds, the state of which he had refused to permit him to examine. Mrs. Dinmont was used to her husband's broken beads more than to the presence of a captain of dragoons. She therefore glanced at a tablecloth not quite clean, and conned over her proposed supper a minute or two, before, patting her husband on the shoulder, she bade him sit down for "a hard-headed loon, that was aye bringing himself and other folk into collie-shangies." [*Quarrels]

When Dandie Dinmont, after executing two or three caprioles, and cutting the Highland fling, by way of ridicule of his wife's anxiety, at last deigned to sit down, and commit his round, black, shaggy bullet of a head to her inspection, Brown thought he had seen the regimental surgeon look grave upon a more trifling case. The gudewife, however, showed some knowledge of chirurgery—she cut away with her scissors the gory locks, whose stiffened and coagulated clusters interfered with her operations, and clapped on the wound some lint besmeared with a vulnerary salve, esteemed sovereign by the whole dale (which afforded upon Fair nights considerable experience of such cases)—she then fixed her plaster with a bandage, and, spite of her patient's resistance, pulled over all a nightcap, to keep everything in its right place. Some contusions on the brow and shoulders she fomented with brandy, which the patient did not permit till the medicine had paid a heavy toll to his mouth. Mrs. Dinmont then simply, but kindly, offered her assistance to Brown.

He assured her he had no occasion for anything but the accommodation of a basin and towel.

"And that's what I should have thought of sooner," she said; "and I did think o't, but I durst na open the door, for there's a' the bairns, poor things, sae keen to see their father."

This explained a great drumming and whining at the door of the little parlour, which had somewhat surprised Brown, though his kind landlady had only noticed it by fastening the bolt as soon as she heard it begin. But on her opening the door to seek the basin and towel (for she never thought of showing the guest to a separate room), a whole tide of white-headed urchins streamed in, some from the stable, where they had been seeing Dumple, and giving him a welcome home with part of their four-hours scones; others from the kitchen, where they had been listening to auld Elspeth's tales and ballads; and the youngest half naked, out of bed, all roaring to see daddy, and to inquire what he had brought home for them from the various fairs he had visited in his peregrinations. Our knight of the broken head first kissed and hugged them all round, then distributed whistles, penny-trumpets, and Gingerbread, and, lastly, when the tumult of their joy and welcome got beyond bearing, exclaimed to his guest—"This is a' the gudewife's fault, Captain—she will gie the bairns a' their ain way."

"Me! Lord help me," said Ailie, who at that instant entered with the basin and ewer, "how can I help it?—I have naething else to gie them, poor things!"

Dinmont then exerted himself, and, between coaxing, threats, and shoving, cleared the room of all the intruders, excepting a boy and girl, the two eldest of the family, who could, as he observed, behave themselves "distinctly." For the same reason, but with less ceremony, all the dogs were kicked out, excepting the venerable patriarchs, old Pepper and Mustard, whom frequent castigation and the advance of years had inspired with such a share of passive hospitality, that, after mutual explanation and remonstrance in the shape of some growling, they admitted Wasp, who had hitherto judged it safe to keep beneath his master's chair, to a share of a dried wedder's skin, which, with the wool uppermost and unshorn, served all the purposes of a Bristol hearth-rug.

The active bustle of the mistress (so she was called in the kitchen, and the gudewife in the parlour) had already signed the fate of a couple of fowls, which, for want of time to dress them otherwise, soon appeared reeking from the gridiron-or brander, as Mrs. Dinmont denominated it. A huge piece of cold beef-ham, eggs, butter, cakes, and barley-meal bannocks in plenty, made up the entertainment, which was to be diluted with home-brewed ale of excellent quality, and a case-bottle of brandy. Few soldiers would find fault with such cheer after a day's hard exercise, and a skirmish to boot; accordingly Brown did. great honour to the eatables. While the gudewife partly aided, partly instructed, a great stout servant girl, with cheeks as red as her top-knot, to remove the supper matters, and supply sugar and hot water (which, in the damsel's anxiety to gaze upon an actual live captain, she was in some danger of forgetting), Brown took an opportunity to ask his host whether he did not repent of having neglected the gipsy's hint.

"Wha kens?" answered he;" they're queer deevils;—maybe I might just have 'scaped ae gang to' meet the other. And yet I'll no say that neither; for if that randy wife was coming to Charlies-hope, she should have a pint bottle o' brandy and a pound o' tobacco to wear her through the winter. They're queer deevils, as my auld father used to say-they're warst where they're warst guided. After a', there's baith guid and ill about the gipsies."

This, and some other desultory conversation, served as a "I shoeing-horn" to draw on another cup of ale and another cheerer, as Dinmont termed it in his country phrase, of brandy-and-water. Brown then resolutely declined all further conviviality for that evening, pleading his own weariness and the effects of time skirmish—being well aware that it would have availed nothing to have remonstrated with his host on the danger that excess might have occasioned to his own raw wound and bloody coxcomb. A very small bedroom, but a very clean bed, received the traveller, and the sheets made good the courteous vaunt of the hostess, "that they would be as pleasant as he could find ony gate, for they were washed wi' the fairy-well water, and bleached on the bonny white gowans, and bittled [*Beaten with wooden pestle.] by Nelly and herself, and what could woman, if she was a queen, do mair for them?"

They indeed rivalled snow in whiteness, and had, besides, a pleasant fragrance from the manner in which they had been bleached. Little Wasp, after licking his master's hand to ask leave, couched himself on the coverlet at his feet; and the traveller's senses were soon lost in grateful oblivion.



CHAPTER XXV.

—Give ye, Britons then Your sportive fury, pitiless to pour Loose on the nightly robber of the fold. Him from his craggy winding haunts unearth'd, Let all the thunder of the chase pursue. THOMSON'S Seasons.

Brown rose early in the morning, and walked out to look at the establishment of his new friend. All was rough and neglected in the neighbourhood of the house;—a paltry garden, no pains taken to make the vicinity dry or comfortable, and a total absence of all those little neatnesses which give the eye so much pleasure in looking at an English farm-house. There were, notwithstanding, evident signs that this arose only from want of taste, or ignorance, not from poverty, or the negligence which attends it. On the contrary, a noble cow-house, well filled with good milk-cows, a feeding-house, with ten bullocks of the most approved breed, a stable, with two good teams of horses, the appearance of domestics, active, industrious, and apparently contented with their lot; in a word, an air of liberal though sluttish plenty indicated the wealthy farmer. The situation of the house above the river formed a gentle declivity, which relieved the inhabitants of the nuisances that might otherwise have stagnated around it. At a little distance was the whole band of children, playing and building houses with peats around a huge doddered oak-tree, which was called Charlie's Bush, from some tradition respecting an old freebooter who had once inhabited the spot. Between the farm-house and the hill-pasture was a deep morass, termed in that country a slack—it had once been the defence of a fortalice, of which no vestiges now remained, but which was said to have been inhabited by the same doughty hero we have now alluded to. Brown endeavoured to make some acquaintance with the children, but "the rogues fled from him like quicksilver"—though the two eldest stood peeping when they had got to some distance. The traveller then turned his course towards the hill, crossing the foresaid swamp by a range of stepping-stones, neither the broadest nor steadiest that could be imagined. He had not climbed far up the hill when he met a man descending.

He soon recognised his worthy host, though a maud, as it is called, or a gray shepherd's-plaid, supplied his travelling jockey-coat, and a cap, faced with wild-cat's fur, more commodiously covered his bandaged head than a hat would have done. As he appeared through the morning mist, Brown, accustomed to judge of men by their thews and sinews, could not help admiring his height, the breadth of his shoulders, and the steady firmness of his step. Dinmont internally paid the same compliment to Brown, whose athletic form he now perused somewhat more at leisure than he had done formerly. After the usual greetings of the morning, the guest inquired whether his host found any inconvenient consequences from the last night's affray.

"I had maist forgotten't," said the hardy Borderer but I think this morning, now that I am fresh and sober, if you and I were at the Withershin's Latch, wi' ilka ane a gude oak souple in his hand, we wadna turn back, no for half a dizzen o' yon scaff-raff." [*Rabble.]

"But are you prudent, my good sir," said Brown, "not to take an hour or two's repose after receiving such severe contusions?"

"Confusions!" replied the farmer, laughing in derision; "Lord, Captain, naething confuses my head—I ance jumped up and laid the dogs on the fox after I had tumbled from the tap o' Christenbury Craig, and that might have confused me to purpose. Na, naething confuses me, unless it be a screed o' drink at an orra [*Occasional] time. Besides, I behooved to be round the hirsel this morning, and see how the herds were coming on—they're apt to be negligent wi' their footballs, and fairs, and trysts, when ane's away. And there I met wi' Tam o' Todshaw, and a wheen o' the rest o' the billies on the water side; they're a' for a fox-hunt this morning,—ye'll gang? I'll gie ye Dumple, and take the brood mare mysell."

"But I fear I must leave you this morning, Mr. Dinmont," replied Brown.

"The fient a bit o' that," exclaimed the Borderer—"I'll no part wi' ye at ony rate for a fortnight mair—Na, na; we dinna meet sic friends as you on a Bewcastle moss every night."

Brown had not designed his journey should be a speedy one; he therefore readily compounded with this hearty invitation, by agreeing to pass a week at Charlies-hope.

On their return to the house, where the gudewife presided over an ample breakfast, she heard news of the proposed fox-hunt, not indeed with approbation, but without alarm or surprise. "Dand! ye're the auld man yet—naething will make ye take warning till ye're brought hame some day wi' your feet foremost."

"Tut, lass" answered Dandie, "ye ken yourself I am never a prin the waur [*a pin the worse.] o' my rambles."

So saying, he exhorted Brown to be hasty in despatching his breakfast, as, "the frost having given way, the scent would lie this morning primely."

Out they sallied accordingly for Otterscopescaurs, the farmer leading the way. They soon quitted the little valley, and involved themselves among hills as steep as they could be without being precipitous. The sides often presented gullies, down which, in the winter season, or after heavy rain, the torrents descended with great fury. Some dappled mists still floated along the peaks of the hills, the remains of the morning clouds, for the frost had broken up with a smart shower. Through these fleecy screens Were seen a hundred little temporary streamlets, or rills, descending the sides of the mountains like silver threads. By small sheep-tracks along these steeps, over which Dinmont trotted with the most fearless confidence, they at length drew near the scene of sport, and began to see other men, both on horse and foot, making toward the place of rendezvous. Brown was puzzling himself to conceive how a fox-chase could take place among hills, where it was barely possible for a pony, accustomed to the ground, to trot along, but where, quitting the track for half a yard's breadth, the rider might be either bogged, or precipitated down the bank This wonder was not diminished when he came to the place of action.

They had gradually ascended very high, and now found themselves on a mountain ridge, overhanging a glen of great depth, but extremely narrow. Here the sportsmen had collected, with an apparatus which would have shocked a member of the Pychely Hunt; for, the object being the removal of a noxious and destructive animal, as well as the pleasures of the chase, poor Reynard was allowed much less fair play than when pursued in form through an open country. The strength of his habitation, however, and the nature of the ground by which it was surrounded on all sides, supplied what was wanting in the courtesy of his pursuers. The sides of the glen were broken banks of earth, and rocks of rotten stone, which sunk sheer down to the little winding stream below, affording here and there a tuft of scathed brushwood, or a patch of furze. Along the edges of this ravine, which, as we have said, was very narrow, but of profound depth, the hunters on horse and foot ranged themselves; almost every farmer had with him; it least a, brace of large and fierce greyhounds, of the race of those deer-dogs which were formerly used in that country, but greatly lessened in size from being crossed with the common breed. The huntsman, a sort of provincial officer of the district, who receives a certain supply of meal, and a reward for every fox he destroys, was already at the bottom of the dell, whose echoes thundered to the chiding of two or three brace of fox-hounds. Terriers, including the whole generation of Pepper and Mustard, were also in attendance, having been sent forward under the care of a shepherd. Mongrel, whelp, and cur of low degree, filled up the burden of the chorus. The spectators on the brink of the ravine, or glen, held their greyhounds in leash in readiness to slip them at the fox, as soon as the activity of the party below should force him to abandon his cover.

The scene, though uncouth to the eye of a professed sportsman, had something in it wildly captivating. The shifting figures on the mountain ridge, having the sky for their background, appeared to move in the air. The dogs, impatient of their restraint, and maddened with the baying beneath, sprung here and there, and strained at the slips, which prevented them from joining their companions. Looking down, the view was equally striking. The thin mists were not totally dispersed in the glen, so that it was often through their gauzy medium that the eye strove to discover the motions of the hunters below. Sometimes a breath of wind made the scene visible, the blue rill glittering as it twined itself through its rude and solitary dell. They then could see the shepherds springing with fearless activity from one dangerous point to another, and cheering the dogs on the scent, the whole so diminished by depth and distance that they looked like pigmies. Again the mists close over them, and the only signs of their continued exertions are the halloos of the men, and the clamours of the hounds, ascending as it were out of the bowels of the earth. When the fox, thus persecuted from one stronghold to another, was at length obliged to abandon his valley, and to break away for a more distant retreat, those who watched his motions' from the top slipped their greyhounds, which, excelling the fox in swiftness, and equalling him in ferocity and spirit, soon brought the plunderer to his life's end.

In this way, without any attention to the ordinary rules and decorums of sport, but apparently as much to the gratification bath of bipeds and quadrupeds as if all due ritual had been followed, four foxes were killed on this active morning; and even Brown himself, though he had seen the princely reports of India, and ridden a-tiger-hunting upon an elephant with the Nabob of Arcot, professed to have received an excellent morning's amusement. When the sport was given up for the day, most of the sportsmen, according to the established hospitality of the country, went to dine at Charlies-hope.

During their return homeward, Brown rode for a short time beside the Huntsman, and asked him some questions concerning the mode in which he exercised his profession. The man showed an unwillingness to meet his eye, and a disposition to be rid of his company and conversation, for which Brown could not easily account. He was a thin, dark, active fellow, well framed for the hardy profession which he exercised. But his face had not the frankness of the jolly hunter; he was down-looked, embarrassed, and avoided the eyes of those who looked hard at him. After some unimportant observations on the success of the day, Brown gave him a trifling gratuity, and rode on with his landlord. They found the gudewife prepared for their reception—the fold and the poultry-yard furnished the entertainment, and the kind and hearty welcome made amends for all deficiencies in elegance and fashion.



CHAPTER XXVI.

The Elliots and Armstrongs did convene, They were a gallant company. Ballad of Johnnie Armstrong.

WITHOUT noticing the occupations of an intervening day or two, which, as they consisted of the ordinary silvan amusements of shooting and coursing, have nothing sufficiently interesting to detain the reader, we pass to one in some degree peculiar to Scotland, which may be called a sort of salmon-hunting. This long-shafted trident called a waster, [*Or leister. The long spear is used for striking; but there is a shorter, which is cast from the hand, and with which an experienced sportsman hits the fish with singular dexterity.] is much practised at the mouth of the Esk, and in the other salmon rivers of Scotland. The sport is followed by day and night, but most commonly in the latter, when the fish are discovered by means of torches, or fire-grates, filled with blazing fragments of tar-barrels, which shed a strong though partial light upon the water. On the present occasion, the principal party were embarked in a crazy boat upon a part of the river which was enlarged and deepened by the restraint of a mill-wear, while others, like the ancient Bacchanals in their gambols, ran along the banks, brandishing their torches and spears, and pursuing the salmon, some of which endeavoured to escape up the stream, while others, shrouding themselves under roots of trees, fragments of stones, and large rocks, attempted to conceal themselves from the researches of the fishermen. These the party in the boat detected by the slightest indications; the twinkling of a fin, the rising of an air-bell, was sufficient to point out to these adroit sportsmen in what direction to use their weapon.

The scene was inexpressibly animating to those accustomed to it; but as Brown was not practised to use the spear, he soon tired of making efforts, which were attended with no other consequences than jarring his arms against the rocks at the bottom of the river, upon which, instead of the devoted salmon, he often bestowed his blow. Nor did he relish, though he concealed feelings which would not have been understood, being quite so near the agonies of the expiring salmon, as they lay flapping about in the boat, which they moistened with their blood. He therefore requested to be put ashore, and, from the top of a heugh or broken bank, enjoyed the scene much more to his satisfaction. Often he thought of his friend Dudley the artist, when he observed the effect produced by the strong red glare on the romantic banks under which the boat glided. Now the light diminished to a distant star that seemed to twinkle on the waters, like those which, according to the legends of the country, the water-kelpy sends for the purpose of indicating the watery grave of his victims. Then it advanced nearer, brightening and enlarging as it again approached, till the broad flickering flame rendered bank, and rock, and tree, visible as it passed, tinging them with its own red glare of dusky light, and resigning them gradually to darkness, or to pale moonlight, as it receded. By this light also were seen the figures in the boat, now holding high their weapons, now stooping to strike, now standing upright, bronzed, by the same red glare, into a colour which might have befitted the regions of Pandemonium.

Having amused himself for some time with these effects of light and shadow, Brown strolled homewards towards the farmhouse, gazing in his way at the persons engaged in the sport, two or three of whom are generally kept together, one holding the torch, the others with their spears, ready to avail themselves of the light it affords to strike their prey. As he observed one man struggling with a very weighty salmon which he had speared, but was unable completely to raise from the water, Brown advanced close to the bank to see the issue of his exertions. The man who held the torch in this instance was the huntsman, whose sulky demeanour Brown had already noticed with surprise.—"Come here, sir! come here, sir! look at this ane! He turns up a side like a sow."—Such was the cry from the assistants when some of them observed Brown advancing.

"Ground the waster weel, man! ground the waster weel!—haud him down—ye haena the pith o' a cat"—were the cries of advice, encouragement, and expostulation, from those who were on the bank, to the sportsman engaged with the salmon, who stood up to his middle in water, jingling among broken ice, struggling against the force of the fish and the strength of the current, and dubious in what manner he should attempt to secure his booty. As Brown came to the edge of the bank, he called out—"Hold up your torch, friend huntsman!" for he had already distinguished his dusky features by the strong light cast upon them by the blaze. But the fellow no sooner heard his voice, and saw, or rather concluded, it was Brown who approached him, than, instead of advancing his light, he let it drop, as if accidentally, into the water.

"The deil's in Gabriel said the spearman, as the fragments of glowing wood floated half blazing, half sparkling, but soon extinguished, down the stream—the deil's in the man! —I'll never master him without the light—and a braver kipper, could I but land him, never reisted abune a pair o' cleeks." [*See Note III. Lum Cleeks.]—Some dashed into the water to lend their assistance, and the fish, which was afterwards found to weigh nearly thirty pounds, was landed in safety.

The behaviour of the huntsman struck Brown, although he had no recollection of his face, nor could conceive why he should, as it appeared he evidently did, shun his observation.—Could he be one of the footpads he had encountered a few days before?—The supposition was not altogether improbable, although unwarranted by any observation he was able to make upon the man's figure and face. To be sure the villains wore their hats much slouched, and had loose coats, and their size was not in any way so peculiarly discriminated as to enable him to resort to that criterion. He resolved to speak to his host Dinmont on the subject, but for obvious reasons concluded it were best to defer the explanation until a cool hour in the morning.

The sportsmen returned loaded with fish, upwards of one hundred salmon having been killed within the range of their sport. The best were selected for the use of the principal farmers, the others divided among their shepherds, cottars, dependants, and others of inferior rank who attended. These fish, dried in the turf smoke of their cabins, or shealings, formed a savoury addition to the mess of potatoes, mixed with onions, which was the principal part of their winter food. In the meanwhile a liberal distribution of ale and whisky was made among them, besides what was called a kettle of fish,—two or three salmon, namely, plunged into a cauldron, and boiled for their supper. Brown accompanied his jolly landlord and the rest of his friends into the large and smoky kitchen, where this savoury mess reeked on an oaken table, massive enough to have dined Johnnie Armstrong and his merry men. All was hearty cheer and huzza, and jest and clamorous laughter, and bragging alternately, and raillery between whiles. Our traveller looked earnestly around for the dark countenance of the fox-hunter; but it was nowhere to be seen.

At length he hazarded a question concerning him. "That was an awkward accident, my lads, of one of you, who dropped his torch in the water when his companion was struggling with the large fish."

"Awkward!" returned a shepherd, looking up (the same stout young fellow who had speared the salmon), "he deserved his paikes [*Punishment] for't—to put out the light when the fish was on ane's witters! [*The barbs of the spear]—I'm well convinced Gabriel drapped the roughies [*When dry splinters, or branches, are used as fuel to supply the light for burning the water, as it is called, they are termed, as in the text, Roughies. When rags, dipped in tar, are employed, they are called Hards, probably from the French.] in the water on purpose-he doesna like to see onybody do a thing better than himself."

"Ay," said another, "he's sair shamed o' himself, else he would have been up here the night—Gabriel likes a little o' the gude thing as weel as ony o' us."

"Is he of this country?" said Brown.

"Na, na, he's been but shortly in office, but he's a fell hunter-he's frae down the country, some gate on the Dumfries side."

"And what's his name, pray?"

"Gabriel."

"But Gabriel what?"

"Oh, Lord kens that; we dinna mind folk's after-names muckle here, they run sae muckle into clans."

"Ye see, sir," said an old shepherd, rising, and speaking very slow, "the folks hereabout are a' Armstrongs and Elliats, [* See Note IV. Clan Surnames.] and sic like—twa or three given names—and so, for distinction's sake, the lairds and farmers have the names of their places that they live at—as for example, Tam o' Todshaw, Will o' the Flat, Hobbie o' Sorbietrees, and our good master here, o' the Charlies-hope.—Aweel, sir, and then the inferior sort o' people, ye'll observe, are kend by sorts o' by-names some o' them, as Glaiket Christie, and the Deuke's Davie, or maybe, like this lad Gabriel, by his employment; as for example, Tod Gabble, or Hunter Gabble. He's no been lang here, sir, and I dinna think onybody kens him by ony other name. But it's no right to rin him doun ahint his back, for he's a fell fox-hunter, though he's maybe no just sae clever as some o' the folk hereawa wi' the waster."

After some further desultory conversation, the superior sportsmen retired to conclude the evening after their own manner, leaving the others to enjoy themselves, unawed by their presence. That evening, like all those which Brown had passed at Charlies-hope, was spent in much innocent mirth and conviviality. The latter might have approached to the verge of riot but for the good women; for several of the neighbouring mistresses (a phrase of a signification how different from what it bears in more fashionable life!) had assembled at Charliesl hope to witness the event of this memorable evening. Finding the punch-bowl was so often replenished, that there was some danger of their gracious presence being forgotten, they rushed in valorously upon the recreant revellers, headed by our good Mistress Ailie, so that Venus speedily routed Bacchus. The fiddler and piper next made their appearance, and the best part of the night was gallantly consumed in dancing to their music.

An otter-hunt the next day, and a badger-baiting the day after, consumed the time merrily.—I hope our traveller will not sink in the reader's estimation, sportsman though he may be, when I inform him, that on this last occasion, after young Pepper had lost a fore-foot, and Mustard the second had been nearly throttled, he begged, as a particular and personal favour of Mr. Dinmont, that the poor badger, who had made so gallant a defence, should he permitted to retire to his earth without further molestation.

The farmer, who would probably have treated this request with supreme contempt had it come from any other person, was contented, in Brown's case, to express the utter extremity of his wonder. "Weel," he said, "that's queer aneugh!—But since ye take his part, deil a tyke shall meddle wi' him mair in my day—we'll e'en mark him, and ca' him the Captain's brock-and I'm sure I'm glad I can do onything to oblige you—but, Lord save us, to care about a brock!" [*Badger] After a week spent in rural sport, and distinguished by the most frank attentions on the part of his honest landlord, Brown bade adieu to the banks of the Liddel, and the hospitality of Charlies-hope. The children, with all of whom he had now become an intimate and a favourite, roared manfully in full chorus at his departure, and he was obliged to promise twenty times, that he would soon return and play over all their favourite tunes upon the flageolet till they had got them by heart.—"Come back again, Captain," said one little sturdy fellow, "and Jenny will be your wife." Jenny was about eleven years old—she ran and hid herself behind her mammy.

"Captain, come back," said a little fat roll-about girl of six, holding her mouth up to be kissed, "and I'll be your wife my ainsell."

"They must be of harder mould than I," thought Brown, "who could part from so many kind hearts with indifference. "The good dame too, with matron modesty, and an affectionate simplicity that marked the olden time, offered her cheek to the departing guest—"It's little the like of us can do," she said, "little indeed—but yet—if there were but anything—"

"Now, my dear Mrs. Dinmont, you embolden me to make a request—would you but have the kindness to weave me, or work me, just such a gray plaid as the goodman wears?" He had learned the language and feelings of the country even during the short time of his residence, and was aware of the pleasure the request would confer.

"A tait o' woo' [*Tuft of wool] would be scarce amang us," said the gudewife, brightening, "if ye shouldna hae that, and as gude a tweel as ever cam aff a pirn. I'll speak to Johnnie Goodsire, the weaver at the Castletown, the morn. Fare ye wee], sir!—and may ye be just as happy yourself as ye like to see a' body else—and that would be a sair wish to some folk." I must not omit to mention, that our traveller left his trusty attendant Wasp to be a guest at Charlies-hope for a season. He foresaw that he might prove a troublesome attendant in the event of his being in any situation where secrecy and concealment might he necessary. He, was therefore consigned to the care of the eldest boy, who promised, in the words of the old song, that he should have A bit of his supper, a bit of his bed, and that he should be engaged in none of those perilous pastimes in which the race of Mustard and Pepper had suffered frequent mutilation. Brown now prepared for his journey, having taken a temporary farewell of his trusty little companion.

There is an old prejudice in these hills in favour of riding. Every farmer rides well, and rides the whole day. Probably the extent of their large pasture farms, and the necessity of surveying them rapidly, first introduced this custom; or a very zealous antiquary might derive it from the times of the Lay o the Last Minstrel, when twenty thousand horsemen assembled at the light of the beacon-fires. [*It would be affectation to alter this reference. But the reader will understand it was inserted to keep up the author's incognito, as he was not likely to be suspected of quoting his own works. This explanation is also applicable to one or two similar passages, in this and the other novels, introduced for the same reason.] But the truth is undeniable; they like to be on horseback, and can be with difficulty convinced that any one chooses walking from other motives than those of convenience or necessity. Accordingly, Dinmont insisted upon mounting his guest, and accompanying him on horseback as far as the nearest town in Dumfriesshire, where he had directed his baggage to be sent, and from which he proposed to pursue his intended journey towards Woodbourne, the residence of Julia Mannering.

Upon the way he questioned his companion concerning the character of the fox-hunter; but gained little information, as he had been called to that office while Dinmont was making the round of the Highland fairs. "He was a shake-rag like fellow," he said, "and, he dared to say, had gipsy blood in his veins—but at ony rate he was nane o' the smacks [*Rogues] that had been on their quarters in the moss—he would ken them weel if he saw them again. There are some no bad folk amang the gipsies too, to be sic a gang," added Dandie; "if ever I see that auld randle-tree of a wife again, I'll gie her something to buy tobacco—I have a great notion she meant me very fair after a'."

When they were about finally to part, the good farmer held Brown long by the hand, and at length said, "Captain, the woo's sae weel up the year that it's paid a' the rent, and we have naething to do wi' the rest o' the siller when Ailie has had her new gown, and the bairns their bits o' duds [*Clothes]—now I was thinking of some safe hand to put it into, for it's ower muckle to ware on brandy and sugar—now I have heard that you army gentlemen can sometimes buy yoursells up a step; and if a hundred or twa would help ye on such an occasion, the bit scrape o' your pen would be as good to me as the siller, and ye might just take yere ane time o' settling it—it wad be a great convenience to me." Brown, who felt the full delicacy that wished to disguise the conferring an obligation under the show of asking a favour, thanked his grateful friend most heartily, and assured him he would have recourse to his purse, without scruple, should circumstances ever render it convenient for him. And thus they parted with many expressions of mutual regard.



CHAPTER XXVII.

If thou hast any love of mercy in thee, Turn me upon my face that I may die. Joanna Baillie.

Our traveller hired a post-chaise at the place where he separated from Dinmont, with the purpose of proceeding to Kippletringan, there to inquire into the state of the family at Woodbourne, before he should venture to make his presence in the country known to Miss Mannering. The stage was a long one of eighteen or twenty miles, and the road lay across the country. To add to the inconveniences of the journey, the snow began to fall pretty quickly. The postilion, however, proceeded on his journey for a good many miles, without expressing doubt or hesitation. It was not until the night was completely set in that he intimated his apprehensions whether he was in the right road. The increasing snow rendered this intimation rather alarming, for as it drove full in the lad's face, and lay whitening all around him, it served in two different ways to confuse his knowledge of the count and to diminish the chance of his recovering the right track. Brown then himself got out and looked round, not, it may be well imagined, from any better hope than that of seeing some house at which he might make inquiry. But none appeared—he could therefore only tell the lad to drive steadily on. The road on which they were, ran through plantations of considerable extent and depth, and the traveller therefore conjectured that there must be a gentleman's house at no great distance. At length, after struggling wearily on for about a mile, the post-boy stopped, and protested his horses would not budge a foot farther "but he saw," he said, "a light among the trees, which must proceed from a house; the only way was to inquire the road there." Accordingly, he dismounted, heavily encumbered with a long greatcoat, and a pair of boots which might have rivalled in thickness the sevenfold shield of Ajax. As in this guise he was plodding forth upon his voyage of discovery, Brown's impatience prevailed, and, jumping out of the carriage, he desired the lad to stop where he was, by the horses, and he would himself go to the house—a command which the driver most joyfully obeyed.

Our traveller groped along the side of the enclosure from which the light glimmered, in order to find some mode of approaching in that direction, and after proceeding for some space, at length found a stile in the hedge, and a pathway leading into the plantation, which in that place was of great extent. This promised to lead to the light which was the object of his search, and accordingly Brown proceeded in that direction, but soon totally lost sight, of it among the trees. The path, which at first seemed broad and well marked by the opening of the wood through which it winded, was now less easily distinguishable, although the whiteness of the snow afforded some reflected light to assist his search. Directing himself as much as possible through the more open parts of the wood, he proceeded almost a mile without either recovering a view of the light, or seeing anything resembling a habitation. Still, however, he thought it best to persevere in that direction. It must surely have been a light in the hut of a forester, for it shone too steadily to be the glimmer of an ignis fatuus. The ground at length became broken, and declined rapidly, and although Brown conceived he still moved along what had once at least been a pathway, it was now very unequal, and the snow concealing those breaches and inequalities, the traveller had one or two falls in consequence. He began now to think of turning back, especially as the falling snow, which his impatience had hitherto prevented his attending to, was coming on thicker and faster.

Willing, however, to make, a last. effort, he still advanced a little way, when, to his great delight, he beheld the light opposite at no great distance, and apparently upon a level with him. He quickly found that this last appearance was deception, for the ground continued so rapidly to sink, as made it obvious there was a deep dell or ravine of some kind, between him and the object of his search. Taking every precaution to preserve his footing, he continued to, descend, until he reached the bottom of a very steep and narrow glen, through which winded a small rivulet, whose course was then almost choked with snow. He now found himself embarrassed among the ruins of cottages, whose black gables, rendered more distinguishable by the contrast with the whitened surface from which they rose, were still standing; the sidewalls had long since given way to time, and, piled in shapeless heaps, and covered with snow offered frequent and embarrassing obstacles to—our traveller's progress. Still, however, he persevered, crossed the rivulet, not without some trouble, and at length, by exertions which became both painful and perilous, ascended its opposite and very rugged bank, until he came on a level with the building from' which the gleam proceeded.

It was difficult, especially by so imperfect a light, to discover the nature of this edifice; but it seemed a square building of small size, the upper part of which was totally ruinous. It had, perhaps, been the abode, in former. times, of some lesser proprietor, or a place of strength and concealment, in case of need, for one of greater importance. But only the lower vault remained, the arch of which formed the roof in the present state of the building. Brown first approached the place from whence the light proceeded, which was a long narrow slit or loophole, such as usually are to be found in old castles. Impelled by curiosity to reconnoitre the interior of this strange place before he entered, Brown gazed in at this aperture. A scene of greater desolation could not well be imagined. There was a fire upon the floor, the smoke of which, after circling through the apartment, escaped by a hole broken in the arch above. The walls, seen by this smoky light, had the rude and waste appearance of a ruin of three centuries old at least. A cask or two, with some broken boxes and packages, lay about the place in confusion. But the inmates chiefly occupied Brown's attention. Upon a lair composed of straw with a blanket stretched over it, lay a figure, so stilly that, except that it was not dressed in the ordinary habiliments of the grave, Brown would have concluded it to be a corpse. On a steadier view he perceived it was only on the point of becoming so, for he heard one or two of these low, deep, and hard-drawn sighs, that precede dissolution when the frame is tenacious of life. A female figure, dressed in a long cloak, sat on a stone by this miserable couch; her elbows rested upon her knees, and her face, averted from the light of an iron lamp beside her, was bent upon that of the dying person. She moistened his mouth from time to time with some liquid, and between whiles sung, in a low monotonous cadence, one of those prayers, or rather spells, which, in some parts of Scotland and the north of England, are used by the vulgar and ignorant to speed the passage of a parting spirit, like the tolling, of the bell in catholic days. She accompanied this dismal sound with a slow rocking motion of her body to and fro, as if to keep time with her song. The words ran nearly thus—

Wasted, weary, wherefore stay, Wrestling thus with earth and clay? From the body pass away;— Hark! the mass is singing,

From thee doff thy mortal weed, Mary Mother be thy speed, Saints to help thee at thy need;— Hark! the knell is ringing.

Fear not snow-drift driving fast Sleet, or hail, or levin blast; Soon the shroud shall lap thee fast, And the sleep be on thee cast

That shall ne'er know waking.

Haste thee, haste thee, to be gone, Earth flits fast, and time draws on,— Gasp thy gasp, and groan thy groan, Day is near the breaking.

The songstress paused, and was answered by one or two deep and hollow groans, that seemed to proceed from the very agony of the mortal strife. "It will not be," she muttered to herself—"He cannot pass away with that on his mind—it tethers him here—

"Heaven cannot abide it, Earth refuses to hide it." [*See Note V. Gipsy Superstitions.]

I must open the door;" and, rising, she faced towards the door of the apartment, observing heedfully not to turn back her head, and, withdrawing a bolt or two (for, notwithstanding the miserable appearance of the place, the door was cautiously secured), she lifted the latch, saying,

"Open lock end strife, Come death, and pass life." Brown, who had by this time moved from his post, stood before her as she opened the door. She stepped back a pace, and he entered, instantly recognising, but with no comfortable sensation, the same gipsy woman whom he had met in Bewcastle. She also knew him at once, and her attitude, figure, and the anxiety of her countenance assumed the appearance of the well-disposed ogress of a fairy tale, warning a stranger not to enter the dangerous castle of her husband. The first words she spoke (holding up her hands in a reproving manner) were, "Said I not to ye, Make not, meddle not?—Beware of the redding straik! [*The redding straik, namely, a blow received by a peacemaker who interfere betwixt two combatants, to red or separate them, is proverbially said to be the most dangerous blow a man can receive.] you are come to no house o' fairstrae [*Natural] death." So saying, she raised the lamp, and turned its light on the dying man, whose rude and harsh features were now convulsed with the last agony. A roll of linen about his head was stained with blood, which had soaked also through the blankets and the straw. It was, indeed, under no natural disease that the wretch was suffering. Brown started back from this horrible object, and, turning to the gipsy, exclaimed, "Wretched woman, who has done this?"

"They that were permitted," answered Meg Merrilies, while she scanned with a close and keen glance the features of the expiring man.—"He has had a sair struggle—but it's passing—I kenn'd he would pass when you came in.—That was the death-ruckle—he's dead."

Sounds were now heard at a distance, as of voices. "They are coming," said she to Brown; "you are a dead man if ye had as mony lives as hairs." Brown eagerly looked round for some weapon of defence. There was none near. He then rushed to the door, with the intention of plunging among the trees, and making his escape by flight, from what he now esteemed a den of murderers, but Merrilies held him with a masculine grasp. "Here," she said, "here be still and you are safe—stir not, whatever you see or hear, and nothing shall befall you."

Brown, in these desperate circumstances, remembered this woman's intimation formerly, and thought he had no chance of safety but in obeying her. She caused him to couch down among a parcel of straw on the opposite side of the apartment from the corpse, covered him carefully, and flung over him two or three old sacks which lay about the place. Anxious to observe what was to happen, Brown arranged, as softly as he could, the means of peeping from under the coverings by which he was hidden, and awaited with a throbbing heart the issue of this strange and most unpleasant adventure. The old gipsy, in the meantime, set about arranging the dead body, composing its limbs, and straightening the arms by its side. "Best to do this," she muttered, "ere he stiffen." She placed on the dead man's breast a trencher, with salt sprinkled upon it, set one candle at the head, and another at the feet of the body, and lighted both. Then she resumed her song, and awaited the approach of those whose voices had been heard without.

Brown was a soldier, and a brave one; but he was also a man, and at this moment his fears mastered his courage so completely that the cold drops burst out from every pore. The idea of being dragged out of his miserable concealment by wretches, whose trade was that of midnight murder, without weapons or the slightest means of defence, except entreaties, which would be only their sport, and cries for help, which could never reach other ear than their own—his safety entrusted to the precarious compassion of a being associated with these felons, and whose trade of rapine and imposture must have hardened her against every human feeling—the bitterness of his emotions almost choked him. He endeavoured to read in her withered and dark countenance, as the lamp threw its light upon her features, something that promised those feelings of compassion, which, females, even in their most degraded state, can seldom altogether smother. There was no such touch of humanity about this woman. The interest, whatever it was, that determined her in his favour, arose not from the impulse of compassion, but from some internal, and probably capricious, association of feelings, to which he had no clew. It rested, perhaps, on a fancied likeness, such as Lady Macbeth found to her father in the sleeping monarch. Such were the reflections that passed in rapid succession through Brown's mind, as he gazed from his hiding-place upon this extraordinary personage. Meantime the gang did not yet approach, and he was almost prompted to resume his original intention of attempting an escape from the hut, and cursed internally his own irresolution, which had consented to his being cooped up where he had neither room for resistance nor flight.

Meg Merrilies seemed equally on the watch. She bent her ear to every sound that whistled round the old walls. Then she turned again to the dead body, and found something new to arrange or alter in its position. "He's a bonny corpse, she muttered to herself, "and weel worth the streaking."—And in this dismal occupation she appeared to feel a sort of professional pleasure, entering slowly into all the minutiae, as if with the skill and feelings of a connoisseur. A long dark-coloured sea-cloak,—Which she dragged out of a corner, was disposed for a pall. The face she left bare, after closing the mouth and eyes, and arranged the capes of the cloak so as to hide the bloody bandages, and give the body, as she muttered, a mair decent appearance."

At once three or four men, equally ruffians in appearance and dress rushed into the hut. "Meg, ye limb of Satan, how dare you leave the door open?" was the first salutation of the party.

"And wha ever heard of a door being barred when a man was in the dead-thraw?—how d'ye think the spirit was to get awa through bolts and bars like thae?

"Is he dead, then?" said one who went to the side of the couch to look at the body.

"Ay, ay—dead enough," said another—"but here's what shall give him a rousing lykewake." So saying, he fetched a keg of spirits from a corner, while Meg hastened to display pipes and tobacco. From the activity with which she undertook the task, Brown conceived good hope of her fidelity towards her guest. It was obvious that she wished to engage the ruffians in their debauch, to prevent the discovery which might take place if, by accident, any of their should approach too nearly the place of Brown's concealment.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

Nor board nor garner own we now, Nor roof nor latched door, Nor kind mate, bound by holy vows To bless a good man's store. Noon lulls us in a gloomy den, And night is grown our day; Uprouse ye, then, my merry men! And use it as ye may. JOANNA BAILLIE.

Brown could now reckon his foes—they were five in number; two of them were very powerful men, who appeared to be either real seamen, or strollers who assumed that character; the other three, an old man and two lads, were slighter made, and, from their black hair and dark complexion, seemed to belong to Meg's tribe. They passed from one to another the cup out of which they drank their spirits. "Here's to his good voyage!" said one of the seamen, drinking; "a squally night he's got, however, to drift through the sky in."

We omit here various execrations with which these honest gentlemen garnished their discourse, retaining only such of their expletives as are least offensive.

"'A does not mind wind and weather—'A has had many a north-easter in his day."

"He had his last yesterday," said another gruffly; "and now old Meg may pray for his last fair wind, as she's often done before."

"I'll pray for nane o' him," said Meg, "nor for you neither, you randy dog. The times are sair altered since I was a kinchin-mort. [*Girl.] Men were men then, and fought other in the open field, and there was nae milling in the darkmans. [*Murder by night.] And the gentry had kind hearts, and would have given baith lap and pannel [*Liquor and food] to ony puir gipsy; and there was not one, from Johnnie Faa the upright man, [*The leader (and greatest rogue) of the gang.] to little Christie that was in the panniers, would cloyed a dud [*Stolen a rag] from them. But ye are a' altered from the gude auld rules, and no wonder that you scour the cramp-ring, and trine to the cheat [*Get imprisoned and hanged.] sae often. Yes, ye are a' altered-you'll cat the gudeman's meat, drink his drink, sleep on the strammel [*Straw] in his barn, and break his house and cut his throat for his pains! There's blood on your hands, too, ye dogs—mair than ever came there by fair fighting. See how ye'll die then—lang it was ere he died—he strove, and strove sair, and could neither die nor live;—but you—half the country will see how ye'll grace the woodie."

The party set up a hoarse laugh at Meg's prophecy. "What made you come back here, ye auld beldame?" said one of the gipsies; "could ye not have staid where you were, and spaed fortunes to the Cumberland flats?—Bing out and tour, [*Go out and watch] ye auld devil, and see that nobody has scented; that's a' you're good for now."

"Is that a' I am good for now?" said the indignant matron. "I was good for mair than that in the great fight between our folk and Patrico Salmon's; if I had not helped you with these very fambles (holding up her hands), Jean Baillie would have frummagem'd you, [*Throttled you] ye feckless do-little!"

There was here another laugh at the expense of the hero who had received this amazon's assistance.

"Here, mother," said one of the sailors, "here's a cup of the right for you, and never mind that bully-huff."

Meg drank the spirits, and, withdrawing herself from further conversation, sat down before the spot where Brown lay bid, in such a posture that it would have been difficult for any one to have approached it without her rising. The men, however, showed no disposition to disturb her.

They closed around the fire, and held deep consultation together; but the low tone in which they spoke, and the cant language which they used, prevented Brown from understanding much of their conversation. He gathered in general, that they expressed great indignation against some individual. "He shall have his gruel,"—said one, and then whispered something very low into the ear of his comrade.

"I'll have nothing to do with that," said the other

"Are you turned hen-hearted, Jack?"

"No, by G-d, no more than yourself,—but I won't—it was something like that stopped all the trade fifteen or twenty years ago you have heard of the 'Loup'?"

"I have heard him (indicating the corpse by a jerk of his head) tell about that job. G-d, how he used to laugh when he showed us how he fetched him off the perch!"

"Well, but it did up the trade for one while," said Jack.

"How should that be?" asked the surly villain.

"Why," replied Jack, "the people got rusty about it, and would not deal, and they had bought so many brooms [*Got so many warrants out] that—"

"Well for all that," said the other. "I think we should be down upon the fellow one of these darkmans, and let him get it well."

"But old Meg's asleep now," said another; "she grows a driveller, and is afraid of her shadow. She'll sing out, [*To sing out or whistle in the cage, is when a rogue, being apprehended, peaches against his comrades.] some of these odd-come-shortlies, if you ,don't look sharp."

"Never fear," said the old gipsy man Meg's true-bred; she's the last in the gang that will start—but she has some queer ways, and often cuts queer words."

With more of this gibberish, they continued the conversation, rendering it thus, even to each other, a dark obscure dialect, eked out by significant nods and signs, but never expressing distinctly, or in plain language, the subject on which it turned. At length one of them, observing Meg was still fast asleep, or appeared to be so, desired one of the lads "to hand in the black Peter, that they might flick it open." The boy stepped to the door, and brought in a portmanteau, which Brown instantly recognised for his own. His thoughts immediately turned to the unfortunate lad he had left with the carriage. Had the ruffians murdered him? was the horrible doubt that crossed his mind. The agony of his attention grew yet keener, and while the villains pulled out and admired the different articles of his clothes and linen, he eagerly listened for some indication that might intimate the fate of the postilion. But the ruffians were too much delighted with their prize, and too much busied in examining its contents, to enter into any detail concerning the manner in which they had acquired it. The portmanteau contained various articles of apparel, a pair of pistols, a leathern cast with a few papers, and some money, etc. etc. At any other time it would have provoked Brown excessively to see the unceremonious manner in which the thieves shared his property, and made themselves merry at the expense or the owner. But the moment was too perilous to admit any thoughts but what had immediate reference to self-preservation.

After a sufficient scrutiny into the portmanteau, and an equitable division of its contents, the ruffians applied themselves more closely to the serious occupation of drinking, in which they spent the greater part of the night. Brown was for some time in great hopes that they would drink so deep as to render themselves insensible, when his escape would have been an easy matter. But their dangerous trade required precautions inconsistent with such unlimited indulgence, and they stopped short on this side of absolute intoxication. Three of them at length composed themselves to rest, while the fourth watched. He was relieved in—this duty by one of the others, after a vigil of two hours. When the second watch had elapsed, the sentinel awakened the whole, who, to Brown's inexpressible relief, began to make some preparations as if for departure, bundling up the various articles which each had appropriated. Still, however, there remained something to be done. Two of them, after some rummaging, which not a little alarmed Brown, produced a mattock and shovel, another took a pickaxe from behind the straw on which the dead body was extended. With these implements two of them left the hut, and the remaining three, two of whom were the seamen, very strong men, still remained in garrison.

After the space of about half an hour, one of those who had departed again returned, and whispered the others. They wrapped up the dead body in the sea-cloak which had served as a pall, and went out, bearing it along with them. The aged sibyl then arose from her real or feigned slumbers. She first went to the door, as if for the purpose of watching the departure of her late inmates, then returned, and commanded Brown, in a low and stifled voice, to follow her instantly. He obeyed; but, on leaving the hut, he would willingly have repossessed himself of his money, or papers at least, but this she prohibited in the most peremptory manner. It immediately occurred to him that the suspicion of having removed anything, of which he might repossess himself, would fall upon this woman, by whom, in all probability, his life had been saved. He therefore immediately desisted from his attempt, contenting himself with seizing a cutlass, which one of the ruffians had flung aside among the straw. On his feet, and possessed of this weapon, he already found himself half delivered from the dangers which beset him. Still, however, he felt stiffened and cramped, both with the cold, and by the constrained and unaltered position which he had occupied all night. But as he followed the gipsy from the door of the hut, the fresh air of the morning, and the action of walking, restored circulation and activity to his benumbed limbs.

The pale light of a winter's morning was rendered more clear by the snow, which was lying all around, crisped by the influence of a severe frost. Brown cast a hasty glance at the landscape around him, that he might be able again to know the spot. The little tower, of which only a single vault remained, forming the dismal apartment in which he had spent this remarkable night, was perched on the very point of a projecting rock overhanging the rivulet. It was accessible only on one side, and that from the ravine or glen below. On the other three sides the bank was precipitous, so that Brown had on the preceding evening escaped more dangers than one; for, if he had attempted to go round the building, which was once his purpose, he must have been dashed to pieces. The dell was so narrow that the trees met in some places from the opposite sides. They were now loaded with snow instead of leaves, and thus formed a sort of frozen canopy over the rivulet beneath, which was marked by its darker colour, as it soaked its way obscurely through wreaths of snow. In one place, where the glen was a little wider, leaving a small piece of flat ground between the rivulet and the bank, were situated the ruins of the hamlet in which Brown had been involved on the preceding evening. The ruined gables, the insides of which were japanned with turf-smoke, looked yet blacker, contrasted with the patches of snow which had been driven against them by the wind, and with the drifts which lay around them.

Upon this wintry and dismal scene, Brown could only at present cast a very hasty glance; for his guide, after pausing an instant, as if to permit him to indulge his curiosity, strode hastily before him down the path which led into the glen. He observed, with some feelings of suspicion, that she chose a track already marked by several feet, which he could only suppose were those of the depredators who had spent the night in the vault. A moment's recollection, however, put his suspicions to rest. —It was not to be thought that the woman, who might have delivered him up to her gang when in a state totally defenceless, would have suspended her supposed treachery until he was armed, and in the open air, and had so many better chances of defence or escape. He therefore followed his guide in confidence and silence. They crossed the small brook at the same place where it previously had been passed by those who had gone before. The footmarks then proceeded through the ruined village, and from thence down the glen, which again narrowed to a ravine, after the small opening in which they were situated. But the gipsy no longer followed the same track: she turned aside, and led the way by a very rugged and uneven path up the bank which overhung the village. Although the snow in many places bid the pathway, and Rendered the footing uncertain and unsafe, Meg proceeded with a firm and determined step, which indicated an intimate knowledge of the ground she traversed. At length they gained the top of the bank, though by a passage so steep and intricate, that Brown, though convinced it was the same by which he had descended on the night before, was not a little surprised how he had accomplished the task without breaking his neck. Above, the country opened wide and unenclosed for about a mile or two on the one hand, and on the other were thick plantations of considerable extent.

Meg, however, still led the way along the bank of the ravine out of which they had ascended, until she heard beneath the murmur of voices. She then pointed to a deep plantation of trees at some distance.

"The road to Kippletringan," she said, is on the other side of these enclosures—Make the speed ye can; there's mair rests on your life than other folk's. But you have lost all—stay." She fumbled in an immense pocket, from which she produced a greasy purse—"Many's the awmous your house has gi'en Meg and hers—and she has lived to pay it back in a small degree;"—and she placed the purse in his hand.

"The woman is insane," thought Brown; but it was no time to debate the point, for the sounds he heard in the ravine below probably proceeded from the banditti. "How shall I repay this money," he said "or how acknowledge the kindness you have done me?"

"I hae twa boons to crave," answered the sibyl, speaking low and hastily; one, that you will never speak of what you have seen this night; the other, that you will not leave this country till you see me again, and that you leave word at the Gordon Arms where you are to be heard of; and when I next call for you, be it in church or market, at wedding or at burial, Sunday or Saturday, meal-time or fasting, that ye leave everything else and come with me."

"Why, that will do you little good, mother."

"But 'twill do yourself muckle, and that's what I'm thinking o'.—I am not mad, although I have had eneugh to make me sae—I am not mad, nor doating, nor drunken—I know what I am asking, and I know it has been the will of God to preserve you in strange dangers, and that I shall be the instrument to set you in your father's seat again.—Sae give me your promise, and mind that you owe your life to me this blessed night."

"There's wildness in her manner, certainly," thought Brown; "and yet it is more like the wildness of energy than of madness."

"Well, mother, since you do ask so useless and trifling a favour, you have my prornise. It will at least give me an opportunity to repay your money with additions. You are an uncommon kind of creditor, no doubt, but—"

"Away, away, then!" said she, waving her hand. "Think not about the goud—it's a' your ain; but remember your promise, and do not dare to follow me or look after me." So saying, she plunged again into the dell, and descended it with great agility, the icicles and snow-wreaths showering down after her as she disappeared.

Notwithstanding her prohibition, Brown endeavoured to gain some point of the bank from which he might, unseen, gaze down into the glen and with some difficulty (for it must be conceived that the utmost caution was necessary), he succeeded. The spot which he attained for this purpose was the point of a projecting rock, which rose precipitously from among the trees. By kneeling down among the snow, and stretching his head cautiously forward, he could observe what was going on in the bottom of the dell. He saw, as he expected, his companions of the last night, now joined by two or three others. They had cleared away the snow from the foot of the rock, and dug a deep pit, which was designed to serve the purpose of a grave. Around this they now stood, and lowered into it something wrapped in a naval cloak, which Brown instantly concluded to be the dead body of the man he had seen expire. They then stood silent for half a minute, as if under some touch of feeling for the loss of their companion. But if they experienced such, they did not long remain under its influence, for all hands went presently to work to fill up the grave; and Brown, perceiving that the task would be soon ended, thought it best to take the gipsy-woman's hint, and walk as fast as possible until he should gain the shelter of the plantation.

Having arrived under cover of the trees, his first thought was of the gipsy's purse. He had accepted it without hesitation, though with something like a feeling of degradation, arising from the character of the person by whom he was thus accommodated. But it relieved him from a serious though temporary' embarrassment. His money, excepting a very few shillings, was in his portmanteau, and that was in possession of Meg's friends. Some time was necessary to write to his agent, or even to apply to his good host at Charlies-hope, who would gladly have supplied him. In the meantime, he resolved to avail himself of Meg's subsidy, confident he should have a speedy opportunity of replacing it with a handsome gratuity. "It can be but a trifling sum," he said to himself, "and I dare say the good lady may have a share of my bank-notes to make amends."

With these reflections he opened the leathem purse, expecting to find at most three or four guineas. But how much was he surprised to discover that it contained, besides a considerable quantity of gold pieces, of different coinages and various countries, the joint amount of which could not be short of a hundred pounds, several valuable rings and ornaments set with jewels, and, as appeared from the slight inspection he had time to give them, of very considerable value.

Brown was equally astonished and embarrassed by the circumstances in which he found himself, possesses, as he now appeared to be, of property to a much greater amount than his own, but which had been obtained in all probability by the same nefarious means through which he had himself been plundered. His first thought was to inquire after the nearest justice of peace, and to place in his hands the treasure of which he had thus unexpectedly become the depositary, telling, at the same time, his own remarkable story. But a moment's consideration brought several objections to this mode of procedure. In the first place, by observing this course, he should break his promise of silence, and might probably by that means involve the safety, perhaps the life, of this woman, who had risked her own to preserve his, and who had voluntarily endowed him with this treasure,—a generosity which might thus become the means of her ruin. This was not to be thought of. Besides, he was a stranger, and, for a time at least, unprovided with means of establishing his own character and credit to the satisfaction of a stupid or obstinate country magistrate.—"I will think over. . ,the matter more maturely," he said; "Perhaps there may be a regiment quartered at the county town, in which 'case my knowledge of the service, and acquaintance with many officers of the army, cannot fail to establish my situation and character by evidence which a civil judge could not sufficiently estimate.—And then I shall have the commanding officer's assistance in; managing matters so as to screen—this unhappy madwoman, whose mistake or prejudice has been so fortunate for me. A civil magistrate might think himself obliged to send out warrants for her at once, and the consequence in case of her being taken is pretty evident. No, she has been upon honour with me if she were the devil, and I will be equally upon honour with her—she shall have the privilege of a court-martial, where the point of honour can qualify strict law. Besides I may see her at this place, Kipple-Couple—what did she call it?—and then I can make restitution to her, and e'en let the law claim its own when it can secure her. In the meanwhile, however, I cut rather an awkward figure for one who has the honour to bear his Majesty's commission, being little better than the receiver of stolen goods."

With these reflections, Brown took from the gipsy's treasure three or four guineas, for the purpose of his immediate expenses, and tying up the rest in the purse which contained them, resolved not again to open it, until he could either restore it to her by whom it was given, or put it into the hands of some public functionary. He next thought of the cutlass, and his first impulse was to leave it in the plantation. But when he considered the risk of meeting with these ruffians, he could not resolve on parting with his arms. His walking-dress, though plain, had so much of a military character as suited not amiss with his having such a weapon. Besides, though the custom of wearing swords by persons out of uniform had been gradually becoming antiquated, it was not yet so totally forgotten as to occasion any particular remark towards those who chose to adhere to it. Retaining, therefore, his weapon of defence, and placing the purse of the gipsy in a private pocket, our traveller strode gallantly on through the wood in search of the promised high road.



CHAPTER XXIX.

All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence, We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, Have with our needles created both one flower, Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, Both warbling of one song, both in one key, As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds, Had been incorporate. A Midsummer Nights Dream.

JULIA MANNERING TO MATILDA MARCHMONT.

How can you upbraid me, my dearest Matilda, with abatement in friendship, or fluctuation in affection? Is it possible for me to forget that you are the chosen of my heart, in whose faithful bosom I have deposited every feeling which your poor Julia dares to acknowledge to herself? And you do me equal injustice in upbraiding me with exchanging your friendship for that of Lucy Bertram. I assure you she has not the materials I must seek for in a bosom confidante. She is a charming girl, to be sure, and I like her very much, and I confess our forenoon and evening engagements have left me less time for the exercise of my pen than our proposed regularity of correspondence demands. But she is totally devoid of elegant accomplishments, excepting the knowledge of French and Italian, which she acquired from the most grotesque monster you ever beheld, whom my father has engaged as a kind of librarian, and whom he patronises, I believe, to show his defiance of the world's opinion. Colonel Mannering seems to have formed a determination, that nothing shall be considered as ridiculous, so long as it appertains to or is connected with him. I remember in India he had picked up somewhere a little mongrel cur, with bandy legs, a long back, and huge flapping cars. Of this uncouth creature he chose to make a favourite, in despite of all taste and opinion; and I remember one instance which he alleged, of what he called Brown's petulance, was, that he had criticised severely the crooked legs and drooping ears of Bingo. On my word, Matilda, I believe he nurses his high opinion of this most awkward of all pedants upon a similar principle. He seats the creature at table, where he pronounces a grace that sounds like the scream of the man in the square that used to cry mackerel, flings his meat down his throat by shovelfuls, like a dustman loading his cart, and apparently without the most distant perception of what he is swallowing,—then bleats forth another unnatural set of tones, by way of returning thanks, stalks out of the room, and immerses himself among a parcel of huge worm-eaten folios that are as uncouth as himself! I could endure the creature well enough, had I anybody to laugh at him along with me; but Lucy Bertram, if I but verge on the border of a jest affecting this same Mr. Sampson (such is the horrid man's horrid name), looks so piteous, that it deprives me of all spirit to proceed, and my father knits his brow, flashes fire from his eye, bites his lip, and says something that is extremely rude, and uncomfortable to my feelings.

"It was not of this creature, however, that I meant to speak to you—only that, being a good scholar in the modern, as well as the ancient languages, he has contrived to make Lucy Bertram mistress of the former, and she has only, I believe, to thank her own good sense or obstinacy, that the Greek, Latin (and Hebrew, for aught I know), were not added to her acquisitions. And thus she really has a great fund of information, and I assure you I am daily surprised at the power which she seems to possess of amusing herself by recalling and arranging the subjects of her former reading. We read together every morning, and I begin to like Italian much better than when we were teased by that conceited animal Cicipici,—this is the way to spell his name, and not Chichipichi—you see I grow a connoisseur.

'" But perhaps I like Miss Bertram more for the accomplishments she wants, than for the knowledge she possesses. She knows nothing of music whatever, and no more of dancing than is here common to the meanest peasants, who, by the way, dance with great zeal and spirit. So that I am instructor in my turn, and she takes with great gratitude lessons from me upon the harpsichord, and I have even taught her some of La Pique's steps, and you know he thought me a promising scholar.

"In the evening papa often reads, and I assure you he is the best reader of poetry you ever heard—not like that actor, who made a kind of jumble between reading and acting, staring, and bending his brow, and twisting his face, and gesticulating as if he were on the stage, and dressed out in all his costume. My father's manner is quite different—it is the reading of a gentleman, who produces effect by feeling, taste, and inflection of voice, not by action or mummery. Lucy Bertram rides remarkably well, and I can now accompany her on horseback, having become emboldened by example. We walk also a good deal in spite of the cold—So, upon the whole I have not quite so much time for writing as I used to have.

"Besides, my love, I must really use the apology of all stupid correspondents, that I have nothing to say. My hopes, my fears, my anxieties about Brown are of a less interesting cast, since I know that he is at liberty, and in health. Besides, I must own, I think that by this time the gentleman might have given me some intimation what he was doing. Our intercourse may, be an imprudent one, but it is not very complimentary to me, that Mr. Vanbeest Brown should be the first to discover that such is the case, and. to break off in consequence. I can promise him that we might not differ much in opinion should that happen to be his, for I have sometimes thought I have behaved extremely foolishly in that matter. Yet I have so good an opinion of poor Brown, that I cannot but think there is something extraordinary in his silence.

"To return to Lucy Bertram—No, my dearest Matilda, she can never, never rival you in my regard, so that all your affectionate jealousy on that account is without foundation. She is, to be sure, a very pretty, a very sensible, a very affectionate girl, and I think there are few persons to whose consolatory friendship I could have recourse more freely in what are called the real evils of life. But then these so seldom come in one's way, and one wants a friend who will sympathise with distresses of sentiment, as well as with actual misfortune. Heaven knows, and you know, my dearest Matilda, that these diseases of the heart require the balm of sympathy and affection as much as the evils of a more obvious and determinate character. Now Lucy Bertram has nothing of this kindly sympathy—nothing at all, my dearest Matilda. Were I sick of a fever, she would sit up night after night to nurse me with the most unrepining patience; but with the fever of the heart, which my Matilda has soothed so often, she has no more sympathy than her old tutor. And yet, what provokes me is, that the demure monkey actually has a lover of her own, and that their mutual affection (for mutual I take it to be) has a great deal of complicated and romantic interest. She was once, you must know, a great heiress, but was ruined by the prodigality of her father, and the villainy of a horrid man in whom he confided. And one of the handsomest young gentlemen in the country is attached to her; but as he is heir to a great estate, she discourages his addresses on account of the disproportion of their fortune.

"But with all this moderation, and self-denial, and modesty, and so forth, Lucy is a sly girl—I am sure she loves young Hazlewood, and I am sure he has some guess of that, and would probably bring her to acknowledge it too, if my father or she would allow him an opportunity. But you must know the Colonel is always himself in the way to pay Miss Bertram those attentions which afford the best indirect opportunities for a young gentleman in Hazlewood's situation. I would have my good papa take care that he does not himself pay the usual penalty of meddling folks. I assure you, if I were Hazlewood, I should look on his compliments, his bowings, his cloakings, his shawlings, and his handings, with some little suspicion; and truly I think Hazlewood does so too at some odd times. Then imagine what a silly figure your poor Julia makes on such occasions! Here is my father making the agreeable to my friend; there is young Hazlewood watching every word of her lips, and every motion of her eye; and I have not the poor satisfaction of interesting a human being—not even the exotic monster of a parson, for even he sits with his mouth open, and his huge round goggling eyes fixed like those of a statue, admiring—Mess Baartram!

"All this makes me sometimes a little nervous, and sometimes a little mischievous. I was so provoked at my father and the lovers the other day for turning me completely out of their thoughts and society, that I began an attack on Hazlewood, from which it was impossible for him, in common civility, to escape. He insensibly became warm in his defence—I assure you, Matilda, he is a very clever, as well as a very handsome young man, and I don't think I ever remember having seen him to the same advantage—when, behold, in the midst of our lively conversation, a very soft sigh from Miss Lucy reached my not ungratified ears. I was greatly too generous to prosecute my victory any further, even if I had not been afraid of papa. Luckily for me, he had at that moment got into a long description of the peculiar notions and manners of a certain tribe of Indians, who live far up the country, and was illustrating them by making drawings on Miss Bertram's work-patterns, three of which he utterly damaged, by introducing among the intricacies of the pattern his specimens of Oriental costume. But I believe she thought as little of her own gown at the moment as of the India turbans and cummerbands. However, it was quite as well for me that he did not see all the merit of my little manoeuvre, for he is as sharp-sighted as a hawk, and a sworn enemy to the slightest shade of coquetry.

"Well, Matilda, Hazlewood heard this same half-audible sigh, and instantly repented his temporary attentions to such an unworthy object as your Julia, and, with a very comical expression of consciousness, drew near to Lucy's work-table. He made some trifling observation, and her reply was one in which nothing but an ear as acute as that of a lover, or a curious observer like myself, could have distinguished anything more cold and dry than usual. But it conveyed reproof to the self-accusing hero, and he stood abashed accordingly. You will admit that I was called upon in generosity to act as mediator. So I mingled in the conversation, in the quiet tone of an unobserving and uninterested third party, led them into their former habits of easy chat, and, after having served awhile as the channel of communication through which they chose to address each other, set them down to a pensive game at chess, and very dutifully went to tease papa, who was still busied with his drawings. The chess-players, you must observe, were placed near the chimney, beside a little work-table, which held the board and men, the Colonel, at some distance, with lights upon a library table,—for it is a large old-fashioned room, with several recesses, and hung with grim tapestry, representing what it might have puzzled the artist himself to explain.

'Is chess a very interesting game, papa?'

'I am told so,' without honouring me with much of his notice. "'I should think so, from the attention Mr. Hazlewood and Lucy are bestowing on it.'

"He raised his head hastily, and held his pencil suspended for an instant. Apparently he saw nothing that excited his suspicions, for he was resuming the folds of a Mahratta's turban in tranquility, when I interrupted him with—'How old is Miss Bertram, sir?'

'How should I know, Miss? about your own age, I suppose.'

"'Older, I should think, sir. You are always telling me how much more decorously she goes through all the honours of the tea-table—Lord, papa, what if you should give her a right to preside once and for ever!'

'Julia, my, dear,' returned papa 'you are either a fool outright, or you are more disposed to make mischief than I have yet believed you.'

"'Oh, my dear. sir! put your best construction upon it—I would not be thought. a. fool for all the world. '

'Then why do you talk like one?' said my father.

'Lord, sir, I am sure there is nothing so foolish in what I said just now—everybody knows you are a very handsome man' (a smile was just visible), 'that is, for your time of life' (the dawn was over-cast), 'which is far from being advanced, and I am sure I don't know why you should not please yourself, if you have a mind. I am sensible I am but a thoughtless girl, and if a graver companion could render you more happy—'

"There was a mixture of displeasure and grave affection in the manner in which my father took my hand, that was a severe reproof to me for trifling with his feelings. 'Julia,' he said, 'I bear with much of your petulance, because I think I have in some degree deserved it, by neglecting to superintend your education sufficiently closely. Yet I would not have you give it the rein upon a subject so delicate. If you do not respect the feelings of your surviving parent towards the memory of her whom you have lost, attend at least to the sacred claims of misfortune; and observe, that the slightest hint of such a jest reaching Miss Bertram's ears would at once induce her to renounce her present asylum, and go forth, without a protector, into a world she has already felt so unfriendly.'

'What could I say to this, Matilda?—I only cried heartily, begged pardon, and promised to be a good girl in future. And so here am I neutralised again, for I cannot, in honour, or common good-nature, tease poor Lucy by interfering with Hazlewood, although she has so little confidence in me; and neither can I, after this grave appeal, venture again upon such delicate ground with papa. So I burn little rolls of paper, and sketch Turks' heads upon visiting cards with the blackened end—I assure you I succeeded in making a superb Hyder-Ally last night—and I jingle on my unfortunate harpsichord, and begin at the end of a grave book and read it backward.—After all, I begin to be very much vexed about Brown's silence. Had he been obliged to leave the country, I am sure he would at least have written to me—Is it possible that my father can have intercepted his letters? But no—that is contrary to all his principles—I don't think he would open a letter addressed to me to-night, to prevent my jumping out of window to-morrow—What an expression I have suffered to escape my pen! I should he ashamed of it, even to you, Matilda, and used in jest. But I need not take much merit for acting as I ought to do; this same Mr. Vanbeest Brown is by no means so very ardent a lover as to hurry the object of his attachment into such inconsiderate steps. He gives one full time to reflect, that must be admitted. However, I will not blame him unheard, nor permit myself to doubt the manly firmness of a character which I have so often extolled to you. Were he capable of doubt, of fear, of the shadow of change, I should have little to regret.

"And why, you will say, when I expect such steady and unalterable constancy from a lover, why should I be anxious about what Hazlewood does, or to whom he offers his attentions?—I ask myself the questions a hundred times a day, and it only receives the very silly answer, that one does not like to be neglected, though one would not encourage a serious infidelity.

"I write all these trifles, because you say that they amuse you,—and yet I wonder how they should. I remember, in our stolen voyages to the world of fiction, you always admired the grand and the romantic—tales of knights, dwarfs, giants, and distressed damsels, soothsayers, visions, beckoning ghosts, and bloody hands,—whereas I was partial to the involved intrigues of private life, or at furthest, to so much only of the supernatural as is conferred by the agency of an Eastern genie or a beneficent fairy. You would have loved to shape your course of life over the broad ocean, with its dead calms and howling tempests, its, tornadoes, and its billows mountain-high,—whereas I should like to trim my little pinnace to a brisk breeze in some inland lake or tranquil bay where there was just difficulty of navigation sufficient to give interest and to require skill, without any sensible degree of danger. So that, upon the whole, Matilda, I think you should have had my father, with his pride of arms and of ancestry, his chivalrous point of honour, his high talents, and his abstruse and mystic studies—You should have had Lucy Bertram too for your friend, whose fathers, with names which alike defy memory and orthography, ruled over this romantic country, and whose birth took place, as I have been indistinctly informed, under circumstances of deep and peculiar interest—You should have had, too, our Scottish residence, surrounded by mountains, and our lonely walks to haunted ruins—And I should have had, in exchange, the lawns and shrubs, and greenhouses, and conservatories, of Pine Park, with your, good, quiet, indulgent aunt, her chapel in the morning, her nap after dinner, her hand at whist in the evening, not forgetting her fat coach-horses and fatter coachman. Take notice, however, that Brown is not included in this proposed barter of mine—his good-humour,

lively conversation, and open gallantry, suit my plan of life, as well as his athletic form, handsome features, and high spirit, would accord with a character of chivalry. So as we cannot change altogether out and out, I think we must e'en abide as we are."



CHAPTER XXX.

I renounce your defiance; if you parley so roughly I'll barricado my gates against you.—Do you see yon bay window? Storm,—I care not, serving the good Duke of Norfolk. Merry Devil of Edmonton.

JULIA MANNERING TO MATILDA MARCHMC)NT.

"I rise from a sick-bed, my dearest Matlida, to communicate the strange and frightful scenes which have just passed. Alas! how little we ought to jest with futurity! I closed my letter to you in high spirits, with some flippant remarks on your taste for the romantic and extraordinary in fictitious narrative. How little I expected to have had such events to record in the course of a few days! and to witness scenes of terror, or to contemplate them in description, is as different, my dearest Matilda, as to bend over the brink, of a precipice holding by the frail tenure of a half-rotted shrub, or to admire the same precipice as represented in the landscape of Salvator. But I will not anticipate my narrative.

"The first part of my story is frightful enough, though it had nothing to interest my feelings. You must know that this country is particularly favourable to the commerce of a set of desperate men from the Isle of Man, which is nearly opposite. These smugglers are numerous, resolute, and formidable, and have at different times become the dread of the neighbourhood when any one has interfered with their contraband trade. The local magistrates, from timidity or worse motives, have become shy of acting against them, and impunity has rendered them equally daring and desperate. With all this, my father, a stranger in the land, and invested with no official authority, had, one would think, nothing to do. But it must be owned, that, as he himself expresses it, he was born when Mars was lord of his ascendant, and that strife and bloodshed find him out in circumstances and situations the most retired and pacific.

"About eleven o'clock on last Tuesday morning, while Hazlewood and my father were proposing to walk to a little lake about three miles' distance, for the purpose of shooting wild ducks, and while Lucy and I were busied with arranging our plan of work and study for the day, we were alarmed by the sound of horses' feet, advancing very fast up the avenue. The ground was hardened by a severe frost, which made the clatter of the hoofs sound yet louder and sharper. In a moment, two or three men, armed, mounted, and each leading a spare horse loaded with packages, appeared on the lawn, and, without keeping upon the road, which makes a small sweep, pushed right across for the door of the house. Their appearance was in the utmost degree hurried and disordered, and they frequently looked back like men who apprehended a close and deadly pursuit. My father and Hazlewood hurried to the front door to demand who they were, and what was their business. They were revenue officers, they stated, who had seized these horses, loaded with contraband articles, at a place about three miles off. But the smugglers had been reinforced, and were now pursuing them with the avowed purpose of recovering the goods, and putting to death the officers who had presumed to do their duty. The men said that their horses being loaded, and the pursuers gaining ground upon them, they had fled to Woodboume, conceiving, that as my father had served the king, he would not refuse to protect the servants of government, when threatened to be murdered in the discharge of their duty.

"My father, to whom, in his enthusiastic feelings of military loyalty, even a dog would be of importance if he came in the king's name, gave prompt orders for securing the goods in the hall, arming the servants, and defending the house in case it should be necessary. Hazlewood seconded him with great spirit, and even the strange animal they call Sampson stalked out of his den, and seized upon a fowling-piece, which my father had laid aside, to take what they call a rifle-gun, with which they shoot tigers, etc., in the east. The piece went off in the awkward hands of the poor parson, and very nearly shot one' of the excisemen. At this unexpected and involuntary explosion of his weapon, the Dominie (such is his nickname) exclaimed, 'Prodigious!' which is his usual ejaculation when astonished. But no power could force the man to part with his discharged piece, so they were content to let him retain it, with the precaution of trusting him with no ammunition. This (excepting the alarm occasioned by the report) escaped my notice at the time, you may easily believe; but in talking over the scene afterwards, Hazlewood made us very merry with the Dominie's ignorant but zealous valour.