On their return to the house, where the goodwife presided over an ample breakfast, she heard news of the proposed fox-hunt, not indeed with approbation, but without alarm or surprise. "Dand! ye're the auld man yet—naething will make you take warning till you're brought hame some day with your feet foremost."
"Tut, lass! ye ken yoursell I am never a prin the waur o' my rambles."
So saying, he exhorted Brown to be hasty in dispatching his breakfast, as, "the frost having given way, the scent would lie this morning primely."
Out they sallied accordingly for Otterscope-scaurs, the farmer leading the way. They soon quitted the little valley, and involved themselves among hills as steep as they could be without being precipitous. The sides often presented gullies, down which, in the winter season, or after heavy rain, the torrents descended with great fury. Some dappled mists still floated along the peaks of the hills, the re-
