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; -may be 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 gude and ill about the gipsies."

This, and some other desultory conversation, served as a "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 the 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 bed-room, 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 by Nelly and hersell; 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 unearthed,
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'sBush, from some tradition respecting an old freebooter who had once inhabited the spot. Between the farmhouse 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 steppingstones, 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 grey 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."

“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 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 foot-balls, 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 good-wife 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."