512 RODERICK THE FAIR-HAIRED. 



derick was the complete abstraction of a true Highland dandy of the 

 old school. Over the breasts and broad skirts of his tartan jacket a 

 profusion of plated buttons, deployed in double columns, a fashion 

 still in splendid repute with the " hernes and gallow-glasses" of the 

 North. His ample plaid, or rauchan, was of a texture known by the 

 name of " Charlie's pattern," crossed at right angles, and formed into 

 regular divisions, like the chequers of a tavern door. A broad blue 

 bonnet, tastefully bound and decorated with ribbon, protruded over 

 his eyebrows like a hen in the act of hatching; whilst his hair, sandy- 

 yellow, hung over his shoulders in elf-locks, commingling with the 

 satin bands which fastened his bonnet behind ; and his hair combed 

 down in front to meet the intervening lines of two well-chiselled eye- 

 brows, giving to his countenance an expression lover-like and hand- 

 some; which, barring the deformity of his swivel-eyes, was marked 

 by traits of no ordinary sentiment, feeling, ingenuousness, and obser- 

 vation. 



The cloud of night, which had now set in, gave evidence of that 

 hallowed time when man desires to hold communings with his spirit, 

 and was rendered still more solemn and impressive by the sober and 

 chastened livery which all things wore around. Bauldy, the pony, 

 was led forth, every way " loth," from the shelter of his warm stall, 

 to accompany his master's lone pilgrimage across the distant moors, 

 whose gestures sufficiently indicated he had as lief be left behind. 

 To no purpose he pawed the green sward, and looked cross, as his 

 master was inexorable; though such an hour of night was calculated 

 to shake from its purpose any resolution, unimbued with the heroism 

 of affection, or a heart less sturdily constructed than honest Roderick's ; 

 he set off at a handy-gallop from the door-post of Bauldy's stable, 

 looking neither to the right band nor to the left, and leaving his aunt, 

 Tibby, a maiden resurrection of dry bones, and Jenny Glendinning, 

 a fair one who had long set her cap at him to little purpose, and the 

 heiress of a mud cottage and a yellow cow, to wind up the catas- 

 trophe of their mutual forebodings. Riding at a good round pace 

 for many miles, he arrived at the dreary mountain-pass of Glendhu, 

 where the hills stand out in bold relief, and are covered to their sum- 

 mits with brushwood and the pine, while the torrent rushes for ever at 

 their rocky foundations, which stand, unharmed, in mockery at the 

 wrath of ages. For miles around the air is rendered vocal with the 

 romantic melody of the clime. Here, from the mountain aloft, where 

 a coppice-wood embowered the brae, a human voice was heard, and 

 afterwards a rustling amongst the leaves and trees, demanding who 

 passed? Roderick, naturally disposed to civility, made answer as 

 mildly as his contempt for danger, and a sense of his own energy, 

 permitted, which was that sort of courage that animated the Celt 

 when he met the spirit of Loda, and plucked him by the beard 

 starting from his ambush, and snatching the colt's bridle with the 

 desperation and despair of one prepared for a sanguinary event, he 

 had almost gained the mastery, when, in their struggle, each disco- 

 vered in the other an old friend, the intruder being no other than 

 poor English, " a man more sinned against than sinning ;" who, 

 having beaten all the crack men of Starvitout at the old game of fisti- 



