COQUET SIDE. 507 



they sank into silence. The night had now completely blosed in, and 

 the sportsmen finishing their glasses, were about to leave the board, 

 when a man of the tallest size, straight as an arrow, though evidently 

 up in years, entered the door. He had a fishing-rod in his hand, and 

 a creel of vast dimensions on his back. His hair was white, his fea- 

 tures ruddy, more perhaps from good living than the mere effect of 

 exercise, his shoulders and chest immense, and the sturdy calves of 

 his legs corroborated the tale of undecayed vigour, which his firm 

 steady tramp told to the listener. " Bill Green, the Northumberland 

 Piper ! by a' that's gude \" burst from a dozen voices, almost before 

 these little obvious facts could be noticed ; and the next moment the 

 whole company were astir, to disencumber the new guest of his creel 

 and rod, to ask him a hundred questions, and in every possible way 

 to show that he was a welcome guest. A burly chiel is Bill, and a 

 rough customer he must have been in his younger days. Six feet one 

 in his stocking-soles does the Northumbrian piper stand, all, even 

 yet, clean muscle and sinew, barring the small adipose deposits which 

 will gather about the best men after they have crossed the equator of 

 a century. In his younger days, if any body could match Bill for 

 speed in two hundred yards upon the level sward, let the remains of 

 the old Northumbrian militia tell, and now that threescore years 

 have laid their snows upon the mountains (for Bill's head is a perfect 

 Chimboraza), if any can come near him for dropping a fly, like down, 

 upon a given spot in any water ; or for slily slipping his bait through 

 the bushes, behind the old tree-roots, in the clear pools of a drouthy 

 June ; or for trolling, or for dressing, or for catching any thing, from 

 a flat to a goldfinch but, dearer, better, and above all, for touching 

 up his moorland pipe, till melody seems the natural language of the 

 soul, and Bill Green the great philologist thereof; if any one can or 

 dare offer to equal our piper in any of these things, let him speak to 

 the first lad he meets between Felton and Cheviot, and he may make 

 his wager, and lose his money, whenever he chooses, and to any tune. 

 Often, often, and we are thankful for it, have we listened to Bill's in- 

 imitable chanter, and more than once hath the melody of his moor- 

 land music made us sit till the tenth glass of brandy was pouring its 

 influence into the recesses of our soul. In brief, we have at divers 

 times been intoxicated by his pipe, though drinking alcohol to an 

 enormous extent in order to counteract the magical influence. 



And now the Northumbrian phenomenon has devoured in silence 

 a plate of ham and eggs, he has deposited two caulkers of smuggled 

 whiskey where no exciseman can seize them, and he looks solemnly 

 around upon the company, like one who knows his importance. 

 te Ye'll maybe hae your pipes, Maister Green ?" asks some one, in a 

 timid tone. The colossus throws back his ample coat, touches the 

 silver- rimmed ivory chanter of his instrument, and uttering no word, 

 betakes himself to concoct a glass of toddy, strong enough to make a 

 cockney faint to look at it alone. The hint, however, is enough for 

 some of the dalesmen, who know the musician's manner ; they slip 

 out, and before he has finished his first glass, and recounted his 

 angling adventures, they reappear, bringing with them from the 

 neighbouring homesteads half-a-dozen lasses, ruddy as clover in June, 

 wild as highland deer, and each one an individual Terpsichore. The 



