him. The farmer said that he met a boy with a dog about a mile forward. During this dialogue, the farmer’s dog came up to Duncan’s den, smelled upon him then upon Oscar,—cocked his tail, walked round them growling, and then behaved in a very improper manner to Duncan, who took all patiently, uncertain whither he was yet discovered. But so intent was the fellow upon the farmer’s intelligence, that he took no notice of the discovery made by the dog, but ran off without looking over his shoulder.
Duncan felt this a deliverance so great, that all his other distresses vanished; and as soon as the man was out of his sight, he arose from his covert and ran over the moor, and ere it was long, came to a shepherd’s house, where he got some whey and bread for his breakfast, which he thought the best meat he had ever tasted, yet shared it with Oscar.
Though I had this history from his own mouth, yet there is a space here which it is impossible to relate with any degree of distinctness or interest. He was a vagabond boy, without any fixed habitation, and wandered about Heriot Moor from one farm house to another, for the space of a year; staying from one to twenty nights in each house, according as he found the people kind to him. He seldom resented any indignity offered to himself, but whoever insulted Oscar, or offered any observations on the impropriety of their friendship, lost Duncan’s company next morning. He staid several months at a place called Dewar, which he said was hunted by the ghost of a piper;—the piper had been murdered there many years before, in a manner somewhat mysterious, or at least unaccountable; and there was scarcely a night but which he was supposed either to be seen or heard about the house. I shall give this story in Duncan’s own
