coauET SIDE. 503 



the hounds to be coupled up, and invites as many of the sportsmen as 

 choose to accompany him <f to gang wi' him, an' see if there's ous 

 (any thing) in the bottle at Ryehope Hill." As he turns away from 

 the spot, however, he mutters, " I'm wae for poor Dandie ; but nae- 

 body can deny that Dinmont's the maist varmint dog in a' Coquet dale !" 

 A wide ample kitchen, that might almost be called a hall; huge oak 

 joists, extending from wall to wall, hung thick with flitches of bacon, 

 hams, dried sides and legs of mutton, kippered salmon ; guns of 

 every bore, Hesters of every size, fishing tackle of every kind, an old 

 broadswordsuspended above the yawning chimney-opening, and a hun- 

 dred other matters which decorate the otherwise naked sides of the 

 room, attract the attention of the stranger in entering one of those sub- 

 stantial farm onsteads, which, in former times, served as towers of de- 

 fence against the moss-troopers. A chain of them extended formerly 

 from Coquet-head to Warkworth, and many of them still stand nearly 

 entire, chiefly in Rothbury Forest, where they are known by the name 

 of Bastile Buildings. At least a score of sportsmen have accepted the 

 invitation of our host, and now clatter over the stone floor to their 

 seats, round a huge deal table, whereon are already, smoking, beef^ 

 mutton, greens, and potatoes, while at the head is presently placed a 

 dish of our own trouts. Three sturdy, ruddy-cheeked and ruddy- 

 armed wenches ply about between the table and the fire, and supply 

 in profusion all the necessaries that men who have fasted and hunted 

 for twelve hours require. Dreadful is the clattering of knives, forks, 

 and trenchers for at least half an hour, when the vast, savoury round 

 of beef has shrunk into a wafer, mountains of greens have dis- 

 appeared, old Dinmorit is slobbering up the last of the trouts, and the 

 guests having each swallowed a dram, throw themselves back upon 

 their chairs or settles in easy postures, and while the water boils for 

 the toddy, begin again to resume the faculty of speech. Strange it is, 

 to see these sturdy dalesmen seated in rude groups round the relics 

 of their as rude feast, wanting nothing but the jack-boots and leathern 

 under-dress frayed with their armour, to offer the same appearance 

 which this apartment presented two hundred years ago. The thick 

 oaken joists, the arched doorway, the rugged walls, are the same as 

 then; and the fish-spears and guns ranged around them may supply the 



Elace of the weapons of warfare, which formerly occupied the very 

 ooks upon which the more peaceable implements now hang. At the 

 head of the table, in a most massive and ancient carved arm-chair, 

 sits our jstal worth host, his giant frame, and rough, but good-hu- 

 moured face, forming a favourable representation of one of the nobler 

 freebooters of these wilds. Among the curious relics of the olden 

 time that meet the eye on every side, there is one more incompre- 

 hensible than all the rest : it consists in the broken pieces of some iron 

 bars, which are fixed into the stone jamb on one side of the vast 

 chimney, and which have evidently, at a former period, passed across 

 to the other side, like a grate placed above the fire. The story, which 

 is somewhat relunctantly told by our host, in explanation of this cu- 

 rious relic, is altogether so original, and so horribly characteristic of 

 the ferocious manners of the border troopers, that we shall give it in 

 his own words : 



