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104 situations as afford a ready escape either into a waste country, or into another jurisdiction; nor are the features of their character much softened. Their numbers, however, are so greatly diminished, that, instead of one hundred thousand, as calculated by Fletcher, it would now perhaps be impossible to collect above five hundred throughout all Scotland.

A tribe of these itinerants, to whom Meg Merrilies appertained, had long been as stationary as their habits permitted, in a glen upon the estate of Ellangowan. They had there erected a few huts, which they denominated their "city of refuge," and where, when not absent on excursions, they harboured unmolested as the crows that roosted in the old ash-trees around them. They had been such long occupants, that they were considered in some degree as proprietors of the wretched sheelings which they inhabited. This protection they were said anciently to have repaid, by service to the laird in war, or,