e of
inclosures, 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.

Choosing his steps with care and deliberation, the young officer
proceeded along a path that sometimes sunk between two broken black banks
of moss earth, sometimes crossed narrow but deep ravines filled with a
consistence between mud and water, and sometimes along heaps of gravel
and stones, which had been swept together when some torrent or waterspout
from the neighbouring hills overflowed the marshy ground below. He began
to ponder how a horseman could make his way through such broken ground;
the traces of hoofs, however, were still visible; he even thought he
heard their sound at some distance, and, convinced that Mr. Dinmont's
progress through the morass must be still slower than his own, he
resolved to push on, in hopes to overtake him and have the benefit of his
knowledge of the country. At this moment his little terrier sprung
forward, barking most furiously.

Brown quickened his pace, and, attaining the summit of a small rising
ground, saw the subject of the dog's alarm. In a hollow about a gunshot
below him a man whom he easily recognised to be Dinmont was engaged with
two others in a desperate struggle. He was dismounted, and defendin