Guy Mannering, Vol. I

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'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 Charlie's 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 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 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 thewes 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 Withershins' 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 footballs, and fairs, and trysts, when ane's away. And there
I met wi' Tarn 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 Charlie's Hope.

On their return to the house, where the goodwife 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 Dandle, 'ye ken yoursell I am never a prin
the waur 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 Otterscope Scaurs, 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 at 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 foxhounds. 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
both 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 sports 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 Charlie's 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 goodwife
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
chase, in which the fish is pursued and struck with barbed spears,
or a sort of long-shafted trident, called a waster, 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 airbell, 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, tingeing 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 farm-house,
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.'[Footnote: See
Note 4] 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, dependents, 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 paiks for't,
to put out the light when the fish was on ane's witters! I'm weel
convinced Gabriel drapped the roughies in the water on purpose; he
doesna like to see ony body do a thing better than himsell.'

'Ay,' said another, 'he's sair shamed o' himsell, 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 afternames 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
Elliots,[Footnote: See Note 5] and sic like--two 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 Charlie's 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 Gabbie, or Hunter Gabbie. He's no been lang here, sir, and I
dinna think ony body 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 Charlie's 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 Charlie's 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 be
permitted to retire to his earth without farther 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 ony thing to oblige you,--but, Lord save us, to care about a
brock!'

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 Charlie's
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 ony thing--'

'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 grey 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.

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