After a week spent in rural sport, and distinguished by the most frank attentions on the part of his honest landlord, Brown bade adieu to the banks of the Liddel and the hospitality of Charlie’s Hope.  The children, with all of whom he had now become an intimate and a favourite, roared manfully in full chorus at his departure, and he was obliged to promise twenty times that he would soon return and play over all their favourite tunes upon the flageolet till they had got them by heart.  ‘Come back again, Captain,’ said one little sturdy fellow, ‘and Jenny will be your wife.’  Jenny was about eleven years old; she ran and hid herself behind her mammy.

‘Captain, come back,’ said a little fat roll-about girl of six, holding her mouth up to be kissed, ’and I’ll be your wife my ainsell.’

‘They must be of harder mould than I,’ thought Brown, ’who could part from so many kind hearts with indifference.’  The good dame too, with matron modesty, and an affectionate simplicity that marked the olden time, offered her cheek to the departing guest.  ‘It’s little the like of us can do,’ she said, ’little indeed; but yet, if there were but ony thing—­’

’Now, my dear Mrs. Dinmont, you embolden me to make a request:  would you but have the kindness to weave me, or work me, just such a grey plaid as the goodman wears?’ He had learned the language and feelings of the country even during the short time of his residence, and was aware of the pleasure the request would confer.

‘A tait o’ woo’ would be scarce amang us,’ said the goodwife, brightening, ’if ye shouldna hae that, and as gude a tweel as ever cam aff a pirn.  I’ll speak to Johnnie Goodsire, the weaver at the Castletown, the morn.  Fare ye weel, sir! and may ye be just as happy yoursell as ye like to see a’ body else; and that would be a sair wish to some folk.’

I must not omit to mention that our traveller left his trusty attendant Wasp to be a guest at Charlie’s Hope for a season.  He foresaw that he might prove a troublesome attendant in the event of his being in any situation where secrecy and concealment might be necessary.  He was therefore consigned to the care of the eldest boy, who promised, in the words of the old song, that he should have

     A bit of his supper, a bit of his bed,

and that he should be engaged in none of those perilous pastimes in which the race of Mustard and Pepper had suffered frequent mutilation.  Brown now prepared for his journey, having taken a temporary farewell of his trusty little companion.

There is an odd prejudice in these hills in favour of riding.  Every farmer rides well, and rides the whole day.  Probably the extent of their large pasture farms, and the necessity of surveying them rapidly, first introduced this custom; or a very zealous antiquary might derive it from the times of the ’Lay of the Last Minstrel,’ when twenty thousand horsemen assembled at the light of the beacon-fires.