country while this fine frosty weather serves, and Dudley, almost as good a walker as myself, goes with me for some part of the way. We part on the borders of Cumberland, when he must return to his lodgings in Marybone, up three pair of stairs, and labour at what he calls the commercial part of his profession. There cannot, he says, be such a difference betwixt any two portions of existence as between that in which the artist, if an enthusiast, collects the subjects of his drawings, and that which must necessarily be dedicated to turning over his portfolio, and exhibiting them to the provoking indifference, or more provoking criticism, of fashionable amateurs. During the summer of my year,' says Dudley, 'I am as free as a wild Indian, enjoying myself at liberty amid the grandest scenes of nature; while, during my winters and springs, I am not only cabined, cribbed, and confined in a miserable garret, but condemned to as intolerable subservience to the humour of others, and to as indifferent company, as if I were a literal galley-slave.' I have promised him your acquaintance, Delaserre ;-you will be delighted with his specimens of art, and he with your Swiss fanaticism for mountains and torrents. "When I lose Dudley's company, I am informed that I can easily enter Scotland, by stretching across a wild country in the upper part of Cumberland; and that route I shall follow, to give the Colonel time to pitch his camp ere I reconnoitre his position.-Adieu! DelaserreI shall hardly find another opportunity of writing till I reach Scotland." CHAPTER XXII. Jog on, jog on, the footpath way, WINTER'S TALE. LET the reader conceive to himself a clear frosty November morning, the scene an open heath, having for the back-ground that huge chain of mountains in which Skiddaw and Saddleback are pre-eminent; let him look along that blind road, by which I mean the track so slightly marked by the passengers' footsteps, that it can but be traced by a slight shade of verdure from the darker heath around it, and, being only visible to the eye when at some distance, ceases to be distinguished while the foot is actually treading it along this faintly-traced path advances the object of our present narrative. His firm step, his erect and free carriage, have a military air, which corresponds well with his well-proportioned limbs, and stature of six feet high. His dress is so plain and simple, that it indicates nothing as to rank it may be that of a gentleman who travels in this manner for his pleasure or of an inferior person, of whom it is the proper and usual garb. Nothing can be on a more reduced scale than his travelling equipment. A volume of Shakspeare in each pocket, a small bundle with a change of linen slung across his shoulders, an oaken cudgel in his hand, complete our pedestrian's accommodations; and in this equipage we present him to our readers. Brown had parted that morning from his friend Dudley, and began his solitary walk towards Scotland. The first two or three miles were rather melancholy, from want of the society to which he had of late been accustomed. But this unusual mood of mind soon gave way to the influence of his natural good spirits, excited by the exercise and the bracing effects of the frosty air. He whistled as he went along,-not "from want of thought," but to give vent to those buoyant feelings which he had no other mode of expressing. For each peasant whom he chanced to meet, he had a kind greeting or a good-humoured jest: the hardy Cumbrians grinned as they passed, and said, "That's a kind heart, God bless un!" and the market-girl looked more than once over her shoulder at the athletic form, which corresponded so well with the frank and blithe address of the stranger. A rough terrier dog, his constant companion, who rivalled his master in glee, scampered at large in a thousand wheels round the heath, and came back to jump up on him, and assure him that he participated in the pleasure of the journey. Dr. Johnson thought life had few things better than the excitation produced by being whirled rapidly along in a post-chaise; but he who has in youth experienced the confident and independent feeling of a stout pedestrian in an interesting country, and during fine weather, will hold the taste of the great moralist cheap in comparison. Part of Brown's view in choosing that unusual tract which leads through the eastern wilds of Cumberland "What a into Scotland, had been a desire to view the remains of the celebrated Roman Wall, which are more visible in that direction than in any other part of its extent. His education had been imperfect and desultory; but neither the busy scenes in which he had been engaged, nor the pleasures of youth, nor the precarious state of his own circumstances, had diverted him from the task of mental improvement." And this, then, is the Roman Wall," he said, scrambling up to a height which commanded the course of that celebrated work of antiquity: people! whose labours, even at this extremity of their empire, comprehended such space, and were executed upon a scale of such grandeur! In future ages, when the science of war shall have changed, how few traces will exist of the labours of Vauban and Coehorn, while this wonderful people's remains will even then continue to interest and astonish posterity! Their fortifications, their aqueducts, their theatres, their fountains, all their public works, bear the grave, solid, and majestic character of their language; while our modern labours, like our modern tongues, seem but constructed out of their fragments." Having thus moralized, he remembered that he was hungry, and pursued his walk to a small public-house at which he proposed to get some refreshment. The alehouse, for it was no better, was situated in the bottom of a little dell, through which trilled a small rivulet. It was shaded by a large ash tree, against which the clay-built shed, that served the purpose of a stable, was erected, and upon which it seemed partly to recline. In this shed stood a saddled horse, employed in eating his corn. The cottages in this part of Cumberland partake of the rudeness which characterizes those of Scotland.— The outside of the house promised little for the interior, notwithstanding the vaunt of a sign, where a tankard of ale voluntarily decanted itself into a tumbler, and a hieroglyphical scrawl below attempted to express a promise of "good entertainment for man and horse." Brown was no fastidious traveller-he stopped and entered the cab aret. *It is fitting to explain to the reader the locality described in this chapter. There is, or rather I should say there was, a little inn, called Mump's Hall, that is, being interpreted, Beggar's Hotel-near to Gilsland, which had not then attained its present fame as a Spa. It was a hedge alehouse, where the Border farmers of either country often stopped to refresh themselves and their nags, in their way to and from the fairs and trysts in Cumberland, and especially those who came from, or went to Scotland, through a barren and lonely district, without either road or pathway, emphatically called the Waste of Bewcastle. At the period when the adventures described in the novel are supposed to have taken place, there were many instances of attacks by freebooters on those who travelled through this wild district; and Mump's Ha' had a bad reputation for harbouring the banditti who committed such depredations. An old and sturdy yeoman belonging to the Scottish side, by surname an Armstrong or Elliott, but well known by his sobriquet of Fighting Charlie of Liddesdale, and still remembered for the courage he displayed in the frequent frays which took place on the Border fifty or sixty years since, had the following adventure in the Waste, which suggested the idea of the scene in the text: Charlie had been at Stagshaw-bank Fair, had sold his sheep or cattle, or whatever he had brought to market, and was on his return to Liddesdale. There were then no country banks where cash could be deposited, and bills received instead, which greatly encouraged robbery in that wild country, as the objects of plunder were usually fraught with gold. The robbers had spies in the fair, by means of whom they generally knew whose purse was best stocked, and who took a lonely and desolate road homeward,-those, in short, who were best worth robbing, and likely to be most easily robbed. All this Charlie knew full well;-but he had a pair of excellent pistols, and a dauntless heart. He stopped at Mump's Ha', notwithstanding the evil character of the place. His horse was accommodated where it might have the necessary rest and feed of corn; and Charlie himself, a dashing fellow, grew gracious with the landlady, a buxom |