Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/50

46 but the day may soon come when to thee I shall go hat in hand to beg a boon, and find thee lady of thy lands again, and the noble house of Lanercost risen anew from its briars and desolation.' I understood better than I wished to appear this mysterious address of my entertainer, and was saved from the confusion of a reply, either direct or oblique, by the forward tongue of his wife. 'Marry, and God forbid,' said she, 'that ever old Lady Popery should hold rule in men's homes again! Not that I wholly hate the old dame either; she has really some good points in her character; and if she would put fat flesh in her pot o' Fridays, and no demand o' one a frank confession of failings and frailties, she might hold rule i' the land again for aught I care; though I cannot say I think well of the doctrine that denies nourishment to the body in the belief of bettering the soul. That's a sad mistake in the nature of us moorland people; if a shepherd lacks a meal a minute beyond the sounding of the horn, all the house hears on't: it's a religion, my lady, that will never take root again in this wild place, where men scorn the wheat and haver food, and make, for lack o' kitchen, the fat mutton eat the lean.'

"The good woman of the house was interrupted in her curious speech by the arrival of one of those personages, who, with a horse and pack, distribute the luxuries and the comforts of the city over the mountainous regions of the provinces. His horse, loaded with heavy panniers, came foremost, anxious for a resting-place; and behind came the owner, a middle-aged man, tall and robust, with hair as black as the raven, curled close beneath a very broad bonnet, and in his hand one of those measuring rods of root-grown oak, piked with iron at the under end, and mounted with brass at the upper, which seemed alike adapted for defending or measuring his property. He advanced to the spot where we were seated, like an old acquaintance, asked for and obtained lodgings for the evening, and having disposed of his horse, he took out a small box resembling a casket, which he placed on the grass, and, seating himself beside it, assumed one of those looks of mingled gravity and good humour, prepared alike for seriousness or mirth.

"He was not permitted to remain long in silence. 'Ye come from the North, Simon Packpin,' said one of the menials; 'one can know that by yere tongue; and as ye are a cannie lad at a hard bargain, ye can tell us, in yere own sly