Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/135

Rh against my face; I never felt a vapour so strange and offensive. As I proceeded to consider the various kinds of exhalations which arise from forest or fen, I saw a large and hungry dog come out of the wood. It uttered a cry of discovery, half howl and half bark, and, coming near, seemed willing to leap at my throat. I threw it a piece of cheese; it caught and devoured it, and renewed its clamour. It was soon joined, to my utter dismay, by a human being. I never beheld a man with a look so startled and threatening. He was tall and strong-built, with hair long and matted, the colour of ashes, while his eyes, large and staring and raw, looked, as Lancie Lauborde the tailor said, 'like scored collops bordered with red plush.'

"He addressed me in a tone that in nowise redeemed his savage appearance. 'Weel met, quoth the wolf to the fox; weel met, my crafty lad. So ye have found out the bonnie bee-byke at last, as the boy said when he thrust his hand into the adder's den. I maun ken more about ye, my lad; so tell me thy tale cleverly; else, I swear by the metal worm through which my precious drink dribbles, I will feast the fox and her five cubs on thy spool-bane. On my conscience, lad, as ye brew, so shall ye drink; and that's o'er fair a law for a gauger.' What this depraved being meant by his mysterious language, and what calling he followed, were alike matters of conjecture; his manner was certainly hostile and threatening. I told him I was passing towards the vale of Ae, and had lost my way in the mist. 'Lost your way in the mist, and found the way ye were seeking for, my wylie lad, I'll warrant; but I shall come at the bare truth presently.' So saying, he laid the flap of his shaggy coat aside, and, showing me a brace of pistols, and the hilt of a dirk stuck in a belt of rough leather, motioned me to follow him.

"Resistance was hopeless; we descended from the rock by a winding and secret way, concealed among the ivy, and the branches of a spreading spruce fir. This brought us to a rude structure, resembling a shepherd's shed, half cavern and half building, and nearly hidden under the involving branches of two luxuriant firs. My guide half pushed me into this unpromising abode; a miserable hovel, loathsome and foul, and filled with a thick and noisome vapour. I was greeted on my entrance by a squat, thick-set, and squalid being, who, starting up from a couch of straw,