Well did I know the moors we were marching over, having hunted and hawked on every acre of ground in very different times.

So I waited, you see, till I was on the edge of Errickstane-brae--Ye ken the place they call the Marquis's Beef-stand, because the Annandale loons used to put their stolen cattle in there ?' Fairford intimated his ignorance, 'Ye must have seen it as ye came this way; it looks as if four hills were laying their heads together, to shut out daylight from the dark hollow space between them.

A d--d deep, black, blackguard-looking abyss of a hole it is, and goes straight down from the roadside, as perpendicular as it can do, to be a heathery brae.

At the bottom, there is a small bit of a brook, that you would think could hardly find, its way out from the hills that are so closely jammed round it.' 'A bad pass, indeed,' said Alan.
'You may say that,' continued the laird.

'Bad as it was, sir, it was my only chance; and though my very flesh creeped when I thought what a rumble I was going to get, yet I kept my heart up all the same.