able, and played his knife and fork like
a true epicure. "An extrornry crater is that wee Heelan-man o' mine,
gentlemen, he can conduc himsel' as weel's ony Christan man at table,
and aft when I'm pennin' a bit rhyme 'thegither, the crater'll lowp up
'ith chair anent me and tak' up a pen, in exac emeetation o' me, and
keck into my 'een in his cunnin way, as if he was speering me what to
write aboot; he surely maun ha' a feck o' thocht in his heed if are
could gar him spak it; but ye ken his horsemanship beats a'. I had a
spire-haired collie, a breed atween a Heelan lurcher, a grew, and a
wolf, dog, a meety, muckle collie he is for sure--weel, gentlemen, do
ye ken, he a' rides on him when we hoont the tod (fox), an' to see him
girt a screep o' red flannin on for a saddle, that the neer-do-weel
toor fra a beggar-wife's tattered duds ane day; an' then to see him
lowp on like a mountebank, and sit skreighin an' chatrin, an' cronkin
like a paddock on a clud o'yearth. O, its a lachin teeklesome sicht
for sure--an' then hee'l thud, thud, thud his wee bit neive 'ith
shouther 'oth collie, an' steek his toes in his side, just for a'
the world like a Newmarket jockey, an' then hee'l turn him roon
behint-afore an' play treeks, till collie gerns at him; an' then beway
o' makin friens again, hee'l streek an' pat him, an' peek the ferlie
oot o' his hurdles; an' then when we're a' ready for gannin awa, to be
sure what a dirdum an' stramash do they twa keek up; an' then aff they
flee like the deevil in a gale o' wind, an' are oot o' sicht before ye
can say owr the border an' far awa. But I ha' just been speerin the
forester aboot the tod (fox), an' he gars me gang owr the muir to
Ettric Forest, an' leuk in a cleuch in a rock there is there, an'
I shall find the half-peckit banes o' a joop o' mine that stray'd
yestreen. So, gentlemen, if yer fond o' oor kin o' sportin, ye shall
hae such a sicht o' rinnin an' ridin as ye ne'er saw heretofore we
your twa een."

We readily accepted the invite, and off we set in company with the
"Ettric Shepherd" and his monkey, and certainly it was a "_teeklesome
sicht_" to see him mounted on the long, lank, wire-haired, shaggy
wolf-dog-grew-lurcher, while he in play was scouring round and round
the wild and barren moor; away and away as swift as the wind, over
brae and bourn and bog they went, like a red petticoated witch on a
besom, flying in the storm.

On our way we fell in with the foresters, who wer