Page:A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland.djvu/120

102 you cannily: I will be bound for it, they'll gang the last mile better than the first."

Necessity has no law, I was therefore obliged to be silent. Presently I observed the good old man at the head of the horses, twirling his fingers at their snaffles, with pieces of slender packthread. "What is all that for, friend? what are you doing now?"—"Only making reins, my Lady."—"We cannot, surely, go with safety, with reins of that twine, up such hills as are before us?"—"Never you heed, my Lady, I'll answer for your safety; after a wee bit, we shall gang weel and cantily." When this very slender tackle was completed, the honest man mounted his seat, and we soon crossed the bridge over the Ewes, which at Langholm joins the Esk, and came to a prodigiously steep hill; here my heart failed me, not being able to walk, by reason of the hard rain and almost a hurricane of wind. The old Scot, however, quitted his perch, and took hold of the head of the should-be riding beast; I ordered my man to lead the off horse; and, what with whipping, hooting, and coaxing, the poor lame creatures at length got the chaise up that first hill, where they stopped to recover a little the dreadful pull. The