Winter's TaleThe hint of the hospitable farmer was not lost on Brown. But, while he paid his reckoning, he could not avoid repeatedly fixing Iris eyes on Meg Merrilies. She was, in all respects, the same witch-like 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 cottage, her person drawn up so as to show 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 Idreamed of such a figure?" he said to himself, "or does this wild and singular-looking woman recall 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 half a guinea, the gipsy 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, 'I 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 everything 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 times. 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--aweel, death pays a'
scores--he was a kind man ance.--The Sheriffs flitted, and I can keep canny in the bush--so there's no muckle hazard o' scouring the cramp-ring. [*To scour the cramp-ring, is said metaphorically for being thrown into fetters, or, generally, into prison.]--I would like to see bonny Ellangowan again or I die."Brown, meanwhile, proceeded northward at a round pace along the moorish tract 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. Alittle 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 Icame 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 tract of country to be the barrier between two hostile nations, has stamped upon it n 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 front each o,. her. Immediately 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 enclosures, 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 early times the objects of suspicion and dislike to their more polished neighbours, that there was, and perhaps still exists, a by-law of the corporation of Newcastle, prohibiting any freeman of that city to take for apprentice a native of certain of these dales. It is pithily said, "Give a dog an ill name and hang him;" and it may be added, if you give a man, or race of men, an ill name, they are. very likely to do something that deserves hanging. Of this Brown had heard something, and suspected more, from the discourse between the landlady, Dinmont, and the gipsy; but he was naturally of a fearless disposition, had nothing about him that could tempt the spoiler, and trusted to get through the Waste with daylight. In this, last particular, however, he was likely to be disappointed.
The way proved longer than he had anticipated, and the horizon began to grow gloomy, just as he entered upon an extensive morass.
