THE RAID. 189 



himself to the porridge ; the farmer's wife meaiiAvhile 

 secretly despatched a wee lassie to report to those 

 whom she shortly expected to their evening meal, 

 what was going on at the house. Dish after dish 

 of the porridge speedily went down the tinker's throat ; 

 but just as the last one was following in the wake 

 of the first, the ploughmen and the shepherds appeared 

 on the scene. Seeing some six or eight powerfully- 

 built fellows arrayed against him, and feeling, under 

 the circumstances, that " discretion was the better part 

 of valour," the tinker took to his heels, and running 

 towards the river, bounded over it at this wild cascade, 

 leaving his chagrined pursuers on the other side, to 

 retrace their steps homewards and w^ait till a second 

 supper was prepared. From the date of this feat, the 

 spot has been known by the name of the " Tinkler's 

 Loup." 



The Deugh, from the point of its junction with the 

 Ken, takes the name of the latter river, and for the next 

 four miles consists of a series of splendid, rough, boulder 

 streams, fringed with huge blocks of whinstone or granite, 

 and of magnificent salmon pools which, every now and 

 then, are shut in by such deep, rugged, and perpendicular 

 rocks, as not only to challenge the approach of the keenest 

 angler, or the most adventuresome quadruped, but which, 

 if ever angled, must have been before the dry land was 

 called " earth," or the waters " sea." Some of these rock- 

 encircled pools are exceedingly wild, picturesque, and 

 grand. In this section of the river the Ken receives a 

 few tributaries, the chief being the Pulmaddy and 



