as_, a little inn, called
Mumps's Hall--that is, being interpreted, Beggar's Hotel--near to
Gilsland, which had not then attained its present fame as a Spa. It
was a hedge alehouse, where the Border farmers of either country often
stopped to refresh themselves and their nags, in their way to and from
the fairs and trysts in Cumberland, and especially those who came from
or went to Scotland, through a barren and lonely district, without
either road or pathway, emphatically called the Waste of Bewcastle. At
the period when the adventure about to be described is supposed to have
taken place, there were many instances of attacks by freebooters, on
those who travelled through this wild district; and Mumps's Hall had
a bad reputation for harbouring the banditti who committed such
depredations.

An old and sturdy yeoman belonging to the Scottish side, by surname an
Armstrong or Elliot, but well known by his sobriquet of Fighting Charlie
of Liddesdale, and still remembered for the courage he displayed in
the frequent frays which took place on the Border fifty or sixty years
since, had the following adventure in the Waste, one of many which gave
its character to the place:--

Charlie had been at Stagshaw-bank fair, had sold his sheep or cattle, or
whatever he had brought to market, and was on his return to Liddesdale.
There were then no country banks where cash could be deposited, and
bills received instead, which greatly encouraged robbery in that wild
country, as the objects of plunder were usually fraught with gold. The
robbers had spies in the fair, by means of whom they generally knew
whose purse was best stocked, and who took a lonely and desolate road
homeward--those, in short, who were best worth robbing, and likely to be
most easily robbed.

All this Charlie knew full well; but he had a pair of excellent pistols,
and a dauntless heart. He stopped at Mumps's Hall, notwithstanding the
evil character of the place. His horse was accommodated where it might
have the necessary rest and feed of corn; and the landlady used all the
influence in her power to induce him to stop all night. The landlord was
from home, she said, and it was ill passing the Waste, as twilight must
needs descend on him before he gained the Scottish side, which was
reckoned the safest. But fighting Charlie, though he suffered himself to
be detained later than was prudent, did not account Mumps's Hall a safe
place to quarter in during the night. He tor