CHAPTER II.

Gallows and knock are too powerful on the highway.

Winter's Tale..

C

THE hint of the hospitable farmer was not lost on Brown. But, while he paid his reckoning, he could not avoid repeatedly fixing his eyes on Meg Merrilies. She was, in all respects, the same witchlike figure as when we first introduced her at Ellangowan-Place. Time had grizzled her raven locks, and added wrinkles to her wild features, but her height remained erect, and her activity was unimpaired. It was remarked of this woman, as of others of the same description, that a life of action, though not of labour, gave her the perfect command of her limbs and figure, so that the attitudes into which she most naturally threw herself, were free.

unconstrained, and picturesque. At present, she stood by the window of the cot tage, her person drawn up so as to shew to full advantage her masculine stature, and her head somewhat thrown back, that the large bonnet, with which her face was shrouded, might not interrupt her steady gaze at Brown.. At every gesture he made, and every tone he uttered, she seemed to give an almost imperceptible start. On his part, he was surprised to find that he could not look upon this singular figure without some emotion. "Have I dreamed of such a figure?" he said to himself, "or does this wild and singular-looking woman recal to my recollection some of the strange figures I have seen in our Indian pagodas ?"

While he embarrassed himself with these discussions, and the hostess was engaged in rummaging out silver in change of halfa-guinea, the gypsey suddenly made two strides, and seized Brown's hand. He expected, of course, a display of her skill in

palmistry, but she seemed agitated by other feelings.

"Tell me," she said, "tell me in the name of God, young man, what is your name, and whence you came ?"

"My name is Brown, mother, and I come from the East Indies."

"From the East Indies!" dropping his hand with a sigh," it cannot be then-I am such an auld fool, that every thing I look on seems the thing I want maist to see. But the East Indies!-that cannot be Weel, be what ye will, ye hae a face and a tongue that puts me in mind of auld timės. Good day-make haste on your road, and if ye see ony of our folk, meddle not and make not, and they'll do you nae harm."

Brown, who had by this time received his change, put a shilling into her hand, bade his hostess farewell, and, taking the route which the farmer had gone before, walked briskly on, with the advantage of being guided by the fresh hoof-prints of

his horse. Meg Merrilies looked after him for some time, and then muttered to herself, “I maun see that lad again—and I maun gang back to Ellangowan too. The Laird's dead-a weel, death pays a' scores -he was a kind man ance.-The Sheriff's flitted, and I can keep canny in the bush -so there's no muckle hazard o' scouring the cramp-ring.-I would like to see bonny Ellangowan again or I die."

Brown, meanwhile, proceeded at a round pace along the moorish track called the Waste of Cumberland. He passed a solitary house, towards which the horseman who preceded him had apparently turned up, for his horse's tread was evident in that direction. A little farther, he seemed to have returned again into the road. Mr Dinmont had probably made a visit there either of business or pleasure. "I wish," thought Brown, "the good farmer had staid till I came up; I should not have been sorry to ask him a few questions

about the road, which seems to grow wilder and wilder."

In truth, nature, as if she had designed this track of country to be the barrier between two hostile nations, has stamped upon it a character of wildness and desolation. The hills are neither high nor rocky, but the land is all heath and morass; the huts poor and mean, and at a great distance from each other. Around them there is generally some little attempt at cultivation; but a half-bred foal or two, straggling about with shackles on their hind-legs, to save the trouble of inclosures, intimate the farmer's chief resource to be the breeding of horses. The people, too, are of a ruder and more inhospitable class than are elsewhere to be found in Cumberland, arising partly from their own habits, partly from their intermixture with vagrants and criminals, who make this wild country a refuge from justice. So much were the men of these districts in