river or the sea. In the vicinity of this moss it was (in 1513) that the Scottish nobility, led on by Oliver Sinclair, sustained a defeat dishonourable to their arms, the news of which hurried the sensitive and youthful king of Scotland from the proud elevation of a throne to the lowest chamber of a monument.

THE SPIRITED NAG.

"On, on they hastened—and they drew

My gaze of wonder as they flew."

"De'il a fear, man,' answered the proprietor (Dandie Dinmont), Dumple could carry six folk, if his back was lang eneugh; but, God's sake, haste ye, get on, for I see some folk coming through the slack yonder, that it may be just as weel no to wait for.' Brown (Harry Bertram) was of opinion that this apparition of five or six men, with whom the other villains seemed to join company, coming across the moss towards them, should abridge ceremony: he therefore mounted Dumple en croupe, and the little spirited nag cantered away with two men of great size and strength, as if they had been children of six years old. The rider, to whom the paths of these wilds seemed intimately known, pushed on at a rapid pace, managing with much dexterity to choose the safest route, in which he was aided by the sagacity of the galloway, who never failed to take the difficult passes exactly at the particular spot, and in the special manner, by which they could be most safely crossed."

The reader of Guy Mannering will recollect the congress that was held, at the little inn of Mumps' Ha', between some of the principal actors in the fiction. As each character in that group had an original portrait, so the alehouse and the surrounding moors were sketched from nature. The Waste of Cumberland, or, more correctly, of Bewcastle, is situated in the ancient district of Gilsland, and in the Ward of Eskdale, about eleven miles from Brampton, and twenty from Carlisle. Being part of what was termed " the debateable land," the inhabitants of which were liable to lose their substance by occasional incursions of bordering enemies, their morality became as questionable or "debateable" as their territory. Cattle constituted their chief property, and robbery, from familiarity, amongst them assumed the character of fair reprisal: "they were gentlemen of the night-minions of the moon." Their cheerless land, sometimes styled, "Spade-adam Waste," occupied the north-eastern angle of the county, and was anciently included in the manor of Bewcastle. Brown is supposed to have taken the road across the heath in preference to one more public, in order to visit the Roman wall, the paved causeway, and the numerous traces of military architecture which adorn and give interest to the vicinity of Bewcastle. Mumps' Ha' (Beggar's Hotel), stood near to the Gilsland Spa of modern times; and the adventure of Dandie Dinmont with the footpads, on the Waste of Bewcastle, with only an alteration of names, formed a real scene in the life, or in the character enacted by a stout border yeoman, whose soubriquet was "Fighting Charlie of

Liddesdale," but true discriminative appellation, "Armstrong." The other peculiarities in the generous disposition of Dandie Dinmont, of Charlie's Hope, and the accompanying circumstance of his possessing a breed of terriers, whose generations he distinguished merely by a prefix little distinctive, "Auld Pepper, Auld Mustard-Young Pepper, Young Mustard-Little Pepper, Little Mustard," and so on through succeeding descendants, have contributed to the selection of Mr. Davison, of Hindlee, as the actual prototype of the novelist. So wide had the reputation of this gentleman, or rather of his terriers, spread, after the publication of Guy Mannering, that an English lady of rank was not only desirous of obtaining a couple of the Mustard and Pepper family, but was resolved upon imagining that their owner must be a real personage, and accordingly addressed her request (by post) to Mr. Dandie Dinmont, of Liddesdale. Mr. Davison acknowledged the fidelity of the portrait, and returned a brace of his favourite attendants. The death of this blunt, honest, country gentleman took place in the year 1820.

The possession of Bewcastle fortress, like that of Smailholm tower, with which the readers of Sir Walter Scott's ballads are familiar, was an object of jealousy to all border garrisons, time immemorial. The Romans fixed a station on the spot afterwards occupied by the castle-keep: and at the period of the Norman conquest, Both or Beuth Castle was the lordship of the chief whose name it bears. Henry II. granted the manor to Hubert de Vaux (Vaulx or Vallibus), which, after several lapses, forfeitures, and restorations, was conferred by Charles I. upon the Grahams of Netherby, in which family the proprietorship still continues. The outworks of the castle were razed during the civil or parliamentarian wars: the keep alone is perfect. At an early period this desolate tract participated in the neglect of all "debateable" lands; and the son-in-law of Hubert de Vaux, Thomas de Multon, lord of Burgh, his own domains being in a state of perfect cultivation, "suffered his tenants and vassals there to go with their cattle, in the summer season, into the large waste and mountainous part of Bewcastle."* The eastern district of the ward of Eskdale was formerly called Gilsland, from Gils-Bueth, a claimant of the lordship, who was treacherously slain by Bueth, at an interview to which he had invited him for the purpose of adjusting their dispute about boundaries. Across this ancient territory, the Roman causeway, called "The Maiden Way," passes. Some parts of this venerable work are perfect, and highly instructive to the scientific or practical inquirer; its mode of construction, by three strata of different-sized stones, being perfectly obvious. Rugged as the surface of such a worn and weather-beaten causeway must have been, Dandie Dinmont congratulated both his nag and its burden upon their safe arrival on the classic ground. "I am glad we are out o' that moss, where ther's mair stables for horses than change-houses for men; we have the Maiden-way to help us now, at any rate." It is uncertain how long this relic of that powerful people may have enjoyed its present appellation, "Maiden," which is, most probably, only a corruption of the Saxon compound, "Maj-Dun," the Great Hill, or Fort.

* Vide Nicholson and Burn's History of Cumberland and Westmorland.