by Walter Scott
NOTE 2, p. 198
It is fitting to explain to the reader the locality described in chapterxxii. There is, or rather I should say there WAS, a little inn calledMumps's Hall, that is, being interpreted, Beggar's Hotel, near toGilsland, which had not then attained its present fame as a Spa. It was ahedge alehouse, where the Border farmers of either country often stoppedto refresh themselves and their nags, in their way to and from the fairsand trysts in Cumberland, and especially those who came from or went toScotland, through a barren and lonely district, without either road orpathway, emphatically called the Waste of Bewcastle. At the period whenthe adventures described in the novel are supposed to have taken place,there were many instances of attacks by freebooters on those whotravelled through this wild district, and Mumps's Ha' had a badreputation for harbouring the banditti who committed such depredations.
An old and sturdy yeoman belonging to the Scottish side, by surname anArmstrong or Elliot, but well known by his soubriquet of Fighting Charlieof Liddesdale, and still remembered for the courage he displayed in thefrequent frays which took place on the Border fifty or sixty years since,had the following adventure in the Waste, which suggested the idea of thescene in the text:--
Charlie had been at Stagshawbank Fair, had sold his sheep or cattle, orwhatever he had brought to market, and was on his return to Liddesdale.There were then no country banks where cash could be deposited and billsreceived instead, which greatly encouraged robbery in that wild country,as the objects of plunder were usually fraught with gold. The robbers hadspies in the fair, by means of whom they generally knew whose purse wasbest stocked, and who took a lonely and desolate road homeward,--those,in short, who were best worth robbing and likely to be most easilyrobbed.
All this Charlie knew full well; but he had a pair of excellent pistolsand a dauntless heart. He stopped at Mumps's Ha', notwithstanding theevil character of the place. His horse was accommodated where it mighthave the necessary rest and feed of corn; and Charlie himself, a dashingfellow, grew gracious with the landlady, a buxom quean, who used all theinfluence in her power to induce him to stop all night. The landlord wasfrom home, she said, and it was ill passing the Waste, as twilight mustneeds descend on him before he gained the Scottish side, which wasreckoned the safest. But Fighting Charlie, though he suffered himself tobe detained later than was prudent, did not account Mumps's Ha' a safeplace to quarter in during the night. He tore himself away, therefore,from Meg's good fare and kind words, and mounted his nag, having firstexamined his pistols, and tried by the ramrod whether the charge remainedin them.
He proceeded a mile or two at a round trot, when, as the Waste stretchedblack before him, apprehensions began to awaken in his mind, partlyarising out of Meg's unusual kindness, which he could not help thinkinghad rather a suspicious appearance. He therefore resolved to reload hispistols, lest the powder had become damp; but what was his surprise, whenhe drew the charge, to find neither powder nor ball, while each barrelhad been carefully filled with TOW, up to the space which the loading hadoccupied! and, the priming of the weapons being left untouched, nothingbut actually drawing and examining the charge could have discovered theinefficiency of his arms till the fatal minute arrived when theirservices were required. Charlie bestowed a hearty Liddesdale curse on hislandlady, and reloaded his pistols with care and accuracy, having now nodoubt that he was to be waylaid and assaulted. He was not far engaged inthe Waste, which was then, and is now, traversed only by such routes asare described in the text, when two or three fellows, disguised andvariously armed, started from a moss-hag, while by a glance behind him(for, marching, as the Spaniard says, with his beard on his shoulder, hereconnoitred in every direction) Charlie instantly saw retreat wasimpossible, as other two stout men appeared behind him at some distance.The Borderer lost not a moment in taking his resolution, and boldlytrotted against his enemies in front, who called loudly on him to standand deliver; Charlie spurred on, and presented his pistol. 'D--n yourpistol,' said the foremost robber, whom Charlie to his dying dayprotested he believed to have been the landlord of Mumps's Ha','d--n yourpistol! I care not a curse for it.' 'Ay, lad,' said the deep voice ofFighting Charlie, 'but the TOW'S out now.' He had no occasion to utteranother word; the rogues, surprised at finding a man of redoubted couragewell armed, instead of being defenceless, took to the moss in everydirection, and he passed on his way without farther molestation.
The author has heard this story told by persons who received it fromFighting Charlie himself; he has also heard that Mumps's Ha' wasafterwards the scene of some other atrocious villainy, for which thepeople of the house suffered. But these are all tales of at least half acentury old, and the Waste has been for many years as safe as any placein the kingdom.
