Chapter VIII (2)

The breakfast was produced; a quantity of black brochen and lentiles. The master of defence wist not how to break the ice by introducing a refusal of the proffered meal! but he considered himself as pledged to me, and his haughty spirit would not succumb. His looks were particularly embarrassed and amusing, and I saw that he would gladly have been free of his engagement, as he began a long palaver of general remarks. I kept up my good hopes, and gave him always an expecting look now and then, to make him hold to his resolution. The people of the house paid little attention to his harangue, till at length he concluded with these words:

"Such being the case, and such the state of the country, I am obliged now to claim all my rights, privileges, and dues from every vassal of my lord of Galloway, as well as from every subject of our liege lord the king, whose commission I bear. Goodman Latchie, I accept no more of black croudy and lentiles for breakfast: I claim, order, and command the best that is in this house. In place of that hog's meat, let us have a rasher on the coals, if you so please."

"The muckle fiend be atween your teeth, then, to choak you wi' the first bite!" said the goodwife.

"Farmer Latchie, I contend not with women," said the man of the sword: "Are you aware of my rights, or do you know and dispute them?"

"I consider yours as merely a nominal right," said he, "which no man is bound to fulfil, because no man does it. All my lord's vassals treat you with common fare. Why should I do more?"

With that a raw-boned young man stepped forward, with a black beard and a ruffian look. He was the farmer's eldest son, and his name was John.

"What is all this din about," said he: "Let me speak, will ye, Master Gorb? Either take that which is set before you, or go away without it. I say that."

"You say that? Do you, sir?" said my master.

"Yes; sure I do," said he: "I says that, and I'll say it again too, to be sure I will."

"Then there is my gage, sir. Do you know to what you have subjected yourself?" said my master, pulling out his sword, and laying it on the board: "You have given the king's ordained swordsman the denial; you must fight him, or find one on the instant to do it for you. If he kills you, he is entitled to take off your head and send it to the king; and if you kill him, you lose your head, and all the goods and chattels of your house are to be confiscate. Rescue or no rescue? Draw, craven! or yield me up the keys of your pantry, your chest, and your sunken cellar, you dog."

"I does nae see the sense o' that, Master Gorb," said John, with a countenance right sorely altered: "that a man maunna say his awn's his awn, or what's his father's is his father's, but that he maun tak up sword and swordsman. I does nae fear thee. It's no to say that I fears thee; but I winna be bullied intil aught; and I just tells thee, that I'll neither fight thee nor suffer thee to get a scrap o' aught better than is set afore thee; and gang and seek thy mends. Now I says that."

"Thou art a craven and a nincompoop," said my master, with the highest indignation; "and I lift my pledge, and will report thee to thy betters."

"Do if thou mayest," cried old Latchie, running to an armour chest, and taking from thence a sword and buckler. "Disgrace of my house! To give the challenge, and then to flinch. Have with thee, Bellwether! I will give you to know, that old masons are the best barrowmen."

"I ground my pledge again, and I take thee," said my master. But now the old woman came running between them, crying out, "Deil be i' your teeth! deil be i' your teeth! Tak a' that's i' the house an' haud you wi't: there are the keys; there are the keys! deil be i' your teeth, take a'--and let us alane o' your din." The Gorb waved the keys aside with his arm in high indignation; but the wife clung to her point. "I take you a' witnesses," cried she, "I take you a' witnesses, I have offered him the keys, and he has refused them. Here, young Gorb; young hing-by-the-gut, take ye them, take ye them. Deil be i' your teeth, take a' that's i' the house."

I took the keys lest they should be forgot in the hurry; the two old fellows took to the field with sword and buckler, while both the old dame and her son John strove to interfere; but the old yeoman silenced them both with a word, and I thought he would have struck his son down with the sword, so much was he enraged at his behaviour.

I had seen much sword play by this time in the way of amusement, or lesson-taking; but I had never seen two men meet in deadly foil, and I trembled for the event; for I judged, that if the old Gorb was killed, it would fare hardly with me, being conscious that I was the moving cause of the combat. My master's demeanour was altogether inimitable. He went through every thing as if it had been a matter of mere ceremony, first slipping gracefully to one side, crossing his hands on his breast, bowing profoundly, and then shaking hands with Latchie: then swimming gracefully to the other side, and repeating the same manoeuvre. Last of all, he wheeled about, cut some wild flourishes with his sword, and took his distance. The yeoman bit his lip, and appeared to be viewing all these things with disdain; but he set himself firm on his legs with his left foot foremost, and setting up his broad bonnet before, waited the onset. The Gorb on the contrary advanced with his right foot foremost; and, instead of availing himself of the buckler as the former did, he came forward bearing it up behind him as high as his head. He seemed to wear it merely because the other did, but he was too proud to make any use of it. Nothing ever did, or ever will exceed the singularity of that combat: the figures of the men, and their manner of fighting, being so different. Latchie was short and squat, the Gorb somewhat like the skeleton of a giant. The art of fighting which the former pursued was to shield himself behind his broad buckler, peep over it, and now and then make dreadful blows around it with the full swing of his body, as if he meant to cut my master through the middle, or shear off both his thighs. On such occasions the Gorb, beside parrying the stroke, made such tremendous springs off at a side, that he rather appeared like a spirit than any thing of bones, sinews, and blood, for as to flesh there was none on him; and at every one of these leaps he uttered a loud "Hoh!" as if he had been mortally wounded, or in great danger of having been so; yet all the while his face was so sublimely grave and serious as if every movement were to have been his last. He never attempted to hit the yeoman, and had apparently no other aim in fighting, than merely to show his dexterity in fencing, retreating, and advancing. I deemed that all was over with him, and began to be mortally afraid of myself; and any man would have acknowledged what good reason I had, if he had witnessed with what looks the wife and son regarded me. Every one of them thought the Gorb had the worst of it, and that the farmer was sure of the day. Indeed by this time there was little doubt of it. The old wife thrice clapped her hands, and screamed out, "Weel proven, goodman! that gars him scamper? Weel proven, Daniel Maclatchie! Lie to the breastleather." At these words I began to look over my shoulder, and meditate a most strenuous flight. But now the most novel scene of all occurred: my master still continued to change his ground, and to skip and fly about, until at length the yeoman, encouraged by his wife's words, came hard upon him, and, heaving up his shield a little, he came with a deadly stroke round below it, ettling to cut off both my master's legs. "Hoh!" cried the Gorb, as loud as he could vociferate; and as the little squat yeoman stooped to the stroke, he made such a spring into the air that he leaped fairly over his head; and as he passed like a meteor over above him, he gave him such a slap with the broad side of his sword on the hind cants of the head, that it made the farmer run forward and fall with his nose on the ground. He was again on his feet, however, in an instant, and faced about, while his eyes streamed with water from the sharpness of the stroke. This feat astonished the Latchies; but the wife cried out, "A barley! a barley! foul play!--he's fighting on springs."

"Emblem true of thy accursed country!" cried the Gorb, and kicking off his sandals at her head, he took his ground on his bare soles. The combatants set to it again; but the yeoman was now on his guard, and fought shy, standing on the defensive. My master soon grew tired of this way of fighting; and, after two or three flying feints at an attack, in a moment he wrenched Latchie's sword from his grasp, and threw it into the air like a sling-stone. The lookers on gazed in amazement,--and the astonished yeoman traced the course of his erratic weapon, which, after forming an arch like a rainbow, lighted at the distance of forty yards. John, the farmer's son, was the first who ventured a remark on the phenomenon, which he did with his accustomed shrewdness, and in the Cumberland brogue, which he had learned by living some years in that district.

"Feyther, I thinks thou hast thrown away thee swoard."

"Ay," said his father, biting his lip, and looking after it.

By this time the Gorb had his sword at Latchie's throat, crying, "Rescue, or no rescue, I say? Yield, traitor, or die."

Latchie paid no regard to him. He only bit his lip, looked after his sword, and stood his ground firm without moving, showing a most unyielding and dauntless spirit.

The Gorb repeated his threat, but the yeoman paid no further attention to it than before.

"What an unlucky accident!" said he. "Had I not thrown away my sword, I would have humbled you."

"Do you regret the loss of your sword so much?" said the Gorb. "Will you promise, on the honour of a good yeoman, not to throw it away in like manner again?"

"Promise?" said the other: "I will swear on it, and by it, never to part with it in like manner again."

"Young man," said my master to me, "run and bring me this brave yeoman's sword."

I brought it, and he took it by the point, and delivered it back to the owner with all manner of courtesy. Latchie took it in his hand, and let the point of it slant towards the ground in token of submission.

"Nay, nay, I deliver it," cried my master. "I would not see such a man show fear or pusillanimity for any thing. Exchange me three times three, and no more; and God stand by the right. I counsel thee, moreover, to assume thy best defence, as I propose to do thee all manner of injury."

"So be it. I defy you still," said Latchie, and took his ground a second time. His wife and son spoke a great deal by way of interference, but were totally disregarded. The combat began again with more fury than ever; but at the second or third time of crossing their weapons, Daniel Maclatchie's sword betook itself again into the firmament, and after tracing nearly the same course as formerly, alighted on the same spot.

"You are the devil and none else," said Latchie, "and I yield to my conqueror. I am at your disposal."

"And I will use my advantage, as in duty and in honour bound," said the Gorb: "Rise up my friend and brother; you are a man of true genuine spirit. I honour you, and I estimate your country more this morning, for your sake, than I have hitherto done. I claim your friendship as a brother in arms. You shall not have cause to repent this spirited encounter."

The farmer was greatly flattered by this speech. I gave up the keys; and there was no end of kindness and endearment between the two old fellows. We had our rasher on the coals; and I think I have scarcely risen from a better diet than I did that day. I got the greater part to myself, for the rest were all so busy talking and drinking cold ale, that they hardly thought of the bacon. It was nicely toasted, and the fat stood on it like small drops of honey. But I must not dwell on the recollection else I shall faint.

At our meal the yeoman offered my master a new war cloak, with belts, bands, and haversack, if he would tell him by what means he disarmed him with such ease, and in so extraordinary a manner; but the other absolutely refused.

"It is allowable in chivalry," said he, "to learn and practice any mode of manual defence, and to keep that mode a secret till you prove it on your opponent. That is my secret, and by that mode I would forfeit my life, nay my character itself, to disarm any man that ever pointed a two-edged sword at my breast."

* * * * *

"I should have liked very much to have known that secret of his," said Charlie Scott.

* * * * *

I found it out privately with the most perfect certainty, continued Tam; but durst never let him know that I understood aught of the matter. It was owing to his sword's handle, which was made for the purpose. It had an inner shell of steel polished like glass; then an outer one of basket-work, formed with rounded bars in such a manner that, by turning his hand in a slight degree to humour the position of the opponent's sword, and dashing his hilt against the point of it, that entered between those of the cross-bars, and, running up the polished steel within, bent and fixed itself; then by a sudden wrench against his opponent's thumb, of which he was a perfect master, he not only disarmed him to a certainty, but generally left his arm powerless. After I had discovered it, I went by myself to try the experiment, fixed my own sword, and taking my master's in my hand, I pushed the basket of that slightly against the point of the other, and behold it fixed in it so close, that with all my might, and all my art, I could not extricate it without breaking it in two, and, in that case, I saw I would leave the point sticking where it was, which I durst not do for my life. At length it came into my head to do as my master did. This had the effect at once; the vibration in the blade caused by the swing and jerk, made it loosen, and it flew away through the air like a fiery dragon.

* * * * *

"Master Michael Scott," said Gibbie, "and my friends, I again appeal to you all if this man has not fallen through his tale. It is turning out no tale at all, but merely an offputting of time, till we shall all perish of hunger."

"The story of the hapless maiden Kell, and of our hero's first essays in love, I did admire and prize," said the poet.

"Od help your crazed head," said Charlie: "I wadna gie that duel atween the twa auld chaps for a creelfu' o' love stories."

"Lo, the tale is good," said the friar; "but it goeth here and there, without bound or limit; and wherefore should not a man relate all that befalleth unto him. I suppose it behoveth our friend to go on, without turning aside to the right hand or to the left.

"My tale is indeed long, but to me it is momentous. I should stop here pleasantly; but life is sweet,--and, to give me a fair chance for mine, I beg to be permitted to relate one adventure more." This, after some demur, was granted, and Tam went on:

* * * * *

After spending several years among the hills of Galloway, and being approved of by the Gorb (as he was called by every body, though his name was Macdougald) for a good swordsman, I tired of the country, being persuaded that the ground did not fatten the cattle properly; and from the moment I began to suspect that, I had no more satisfaction in the place, but utterly despised it. I perceived that their beef was never above an inch thick in the ribs, and what was worse, it was not properly mixed with white layers of fat; even the doubles in the broad bone of the shoulder were nothing but pure red lire. This will never do, thought I. How I despise the people that can put up with such a country as this!

"Master," says I, one day, "I am quite tired of this country, and am going to leave it."

"Wherefore are you going to leave it, Thomas? Have not I been better and kinder to you than to myself?"

"For all that, master, I am resolved not to sojourn another week in it."

"I warned you that they were a deceitful people before," said he; "but we must take them as they are. We cannot make mankind as we would wish to have them."

"It is not for the men, nor for the women either, that I dislike the country so much," said I.

"What is it then for?" said he.

"It is," said I, "because I suspect that their grass is not of a good quality."

I will never forget the look that the Gorb turned on me. He was walking somewhat before me, but when he heard my reason for disliking Galloway he wheeled about, and, taking one of his most striking upright positions, with his lean shoulders set up like two pins, he stared at me with his mouth wide open; and then put the following questions to me at long intervals.

"Grass! eh! How do you mean?"

"Look at it," said I; "What substance is in that wiry stuff, and on these hills of black heather!"

The Gorb's jaws fell down with dismay. He visibly thought that I was deranged, but he answered me mildly to humour my malady.

"True, the grass is not good; it never was, and never will be so. But I have not observed that you ever eat much of it; nor can I see how a man's happiness any way depends upon the quality of the grass of a country."

"If that be all the sense that you have," thought I, "I will disdain for my part to exchange another word with you on the subject. Since you think that a man's happiness can depend on _any thing else_ but good grass, you shall be followed no longer by me."

"Well," continued he, after waiting a while for an answer, "I see you are sulky about this whim, but I will humour it. I have nearly finished my terms among the mountains, and we shall descend upon the shores, where there is as good grass as any in Scotland, and I promise you full liberty to go into every field that you chuse, and take your bellyful of it. I have likewise many things to teach you, which will amuse you in the highest degree, and which belong to the sublime art of legerdemain."

"What is that?" said I.

"It is the art," said he "that enables us to see things and people as they really are. There is scarcely any thing on this earth really what it appears to be; and this art I have yet to teach you."

From that day forward he began and performed feats that entirely bewildered my senses, but which furnished, wherever we were, a great fund of amusement; all the young people believed him to be in compact with the devil. I have forgot them all but one, which I will remember as long as I live.

We came to a wealthy yeoman's house on the river Urr, where we were to remain several days; and while he exercised the farmer's sons in fencing, I kept the young peasants in exercise--and then in the hall in the evenings he went on with his cantrips. There was a delicious shoulder of bacon hanging up on the farmer's brace, among many meaner hams and pieces of wretched dried flesh. I believe I had fixed my eyes on it, and perhaps my heart a little too. Whether the Gorb noticed this and dreaded the consequences or not, I cannot tell, but he began a speech about things not being what they appeared to be, and offered to give us a striking instance."

"Take down the choicest and best ham among all these above the fire," said he. I did so, taking down the shoulder of bacon with great alacrity.

"Take down the worst," said he. I did so; it was one of venison dried like a crooked stick.

"Which do you account the best?" said he. I told him. "Well, you are mistaken," said he; "and I'll convince you of it. Roll them both neatly up in straw, or as you will."

I did so.

"Now, do you know the one from the other?"

"Yes."

"Very well: heave them up again that you may not be mistaken in the weight. Now, cross your hands, and heave them with different hands. Quite sensible they are the same?"

"Quite sensible."

"Very well. Take them aside by yourself and look at them. You will now see them as they really are, not as they appeared to your eyes."

I hastened and opened out the shoulder of bacon. It was nothing but three dried bones, hanging together by tendons, and stuffed up into the shape of an overgrown shoulder of bacon with brawn, which was covered round with a piece of a sow's hide. I shed some tears at this blighting discovery; for though the bacon was not mine, I felt in my heart that I did not know how matters were to come about. I hung the two hams up as they were, and was cured of my itching eye; but no man can tell how things will come round to the advantage of an acute and clever fellow.

While we were at that house, the country was raised to follow the Lord of Galloway into Cumberland. It was a great rising, the utmost quota being demanded of every yeoman in the country, in terms of his villanage. Our landlord got a charge to find five, whereas he had none to send save three, unless he and his eldest son both went, which would have been grievously against him at that time; so he applied to my master and me to go on his behoof, offering large conditions, which were soon accepted. The principal, if not the sole thing that induced me to go out on that raide, was the stipulation that I was to have my choice of all the meat in the house, to the amount of what I could conveniently carry on my back in a march. After a great deal of choosing, I fixed on a small beef-ham, because it was solid, and no bones in it, and blest my master's ingenuity that had let me into the secret of the deceitful shoulder of bacon. The next that came after me was a blade of endless frolic and humour, named Harestanes. He instantly snapped at the bacon-ham, and popped it into his goatskin wallet, nodding his head, and twisting his mouth at me, as much as if he had said, "What a taste you have! I am glad you had not the sense to take this." I could easily have prevented him, by revealing the secret; but he had always been trying to make a fool of me, therefore I could scarcely contain my mirth at his mistake, and resolved to enjoy his disappointment in full. He was a sprightly handsome youth, and had such a forward and impertinent manner that he contrived to make friends in every family that we passed by, particularly with the women, so that he lacked nothing that he desired; and tho' I watched him night and day for fear of losing the sport, he never took out his bacon to break it up till the fourth day after our departure. My beef-ham was by that time more than half done. It was a most wretched piece of meat, being as hard as wood, and bitter as gall; but I was still comforted with this, that it was so much better than my comrade's.

It was about eight o'clock on a morning, on the English side of the Border, that Harestanes first loosed out his wallet to make a breakfast of his bacon; and he being very hungry, I sat down beside him to enjoy the sport, taking out my black beef likewise. All that I could do I could not retain my gravity while he was loosening the cords, and taking the straw from about his ham, which made him look wistfully at me, and ask what the fool meant? But when I saw him look seriously and greedily at it, and then take out his knife to cut off a great slice, I lost all power, and fell on the ground in a convulsion of laughter, while my voice went away to a perfect wheezle. He could not comprehend me in the least degree, and actually began to cut! yes, he actually began to cut through the bristly skin, while I lay spurring the ground, and screaming with anticipation of the grand joke that was to ensue. Before I could recover my sight from amid the tears of extravagant mirth, the scene was changed; and I shall never forget the position in which the puppy sat, when my eyes cleared. No, it is impossible I ever can forget it! Conceive a wicked impertinent frolicksome whelp of a tailor, for he was nothing better, who had been with Sir Robert Graham's maids all the night, and was so hungry that you might almost have cast a knot on him, sit down to take a hearty luncheon of his bacon ham; and then conceive his looks when he found he had nothing but rubbish and dry bones. If you conceive these, you will conceive the very scene that I saw, at least that I conceived and saw in my mind's eye. How could I but laugh? No! It was impossible I could abstain from laughter;--but yet, for all that, things turned out quite the reverse. He had actually sliced off a rasher of bacon, the fattest, the whitest, and the most beautiful rasher of bacon ever I had seen in my life! There were three distinct layers of lire and fat, curving alternately through it like quarter moons. No man ever beheld such a sight! He sliced out another piece, which was still more perfectly beautiful than the preceding one. My eyes darkened. I had seen enough to shew me the enormity of my folly, and my irreparable loss! He roasted his rashers on the fire. The fat fried out of them, and flamed among the embers; and when he laid them on his bread, they soaked it all with pure liquid fat. And there was I sitting beside him, gnawing at my piece of infernal beef, the sinewy hip of some hateful Galloway stott that had died of the blackleg, and, having been unfit for ought else, had been dried till the hateful substance was out of it. Yet I had my choice of both, and took this. I shall never wish any friend of mine to suffer such pangs as I did that morning; for all that I had suffered in my dangers and disappointments was nothing to them. I would fain have slain the Gorb privately; but not daring to do that, I resolved never to see his face again, after the vile trick he had played. All my hopes and all my enjoyments of the foray being now ended, I resolved on taking my departure, and that by the time my enemy had the first slice of bacon eaten.

We had orders to halt all that day, for the Johnstons and the Jardines were a day's march before us. Their advanced columns had fallen back; and as the troops were sleeping or straggling about, I prepared for my departure. My comrade having been with the knight's women all the night, a set of creatures madder than himself, he was quite worn out; and as soon as he got his inside lined with the salutary beverage, he fell fast asleep. An inward light now began to dawn on my heart, brighter than the sun at noon day, and lighting my steps forward to future felicity. My breath cut short with ecstatic delight, and my knees trembled as I formed the resolution of changing hams with my hopeful comrade. His wallet was lying open--not so the tailor's eyes: I might have exchanged coats, and shoes too, for him. The great work was done in an instant. I whipped out his shoulder of bacon, and put my piece of black timber in its place. "Take you that, honest man," said I to myself: "Time about is fair play. I have given you something that will exercise your jaws for a while."

When I found that I had this most delicious of all morsels on my back, I was so light that I scarcely felt my feet touch the ground; and there being no time now to lose, I made straight away into England, for I durst not turn towards Scotland, the sentinels being so very thick on that quarter. Our advanced guard was composed of the Gordons from the Ken,--a set of desperate raggamuffins whom I durst not have gone among had it not been fair forenoon. I had my wallet on my back and my sword by my side; and when I saw any of them eying me, I went up to them and asked how far the Johnstons were before us?

"What the devil was I wanting with the Johnstons?"

"O, I was afraid there might be a battle fought before I saw it, which I would not should happen for any thing in the world."

"Hear to the coulter-nibbit piper," said one.

"He is as like supping a pint o' fat brose as killing an Englishman," said another.

"I wadna trust him wi' ought beyond a litter o' English pigs," said a third.

"Let him gang forrit, and fiend that he get his chafts clawn the first sword that's drawn! I wadna that his name were Gordon for a hunder civis."

Accordingly I got liberty to pass; but as soon as I got out of sight, I turned to the left, and escaped to the moors of Bewcastle. I had now found out the invaluable art of flint and frizzle, and could kindle a fire whenever I pleased. So I sought out a lonely wild dell, and lighting a fire of birns and strong heather, roasted two slashing slices of my shoulder of bacon. I also took a good shave of bread from my friend the tailor's hearth-bannock; but after all I could not think of adulterating the savoury delicious fare by any unnatural intermixture,--so I ate up the dry bread by itself, and then smacked up the bacon afterwards. I cannot describe my sensations of delight, not only in my meal, but in contemplating the beauty of the object. I sat long feasting my eyes on the beauty of the slices before I committed them to the coals. They were curved so beautifully in semi-circles, the fat and the lire time about, that, unless for such an object, the term _beauty_ would have no meaning. They lay alternately, as if it were this way, and this way, and this way.

* * * * *

"I protest against your drawing of your pictures on my shoulder," cried Gibbie; "and also against the party being any longer mocked with such fulsome trash in place of a story. Do you not perceive, Sir Master, and do you not all perceive, that he is havering and speaking without end or aim? He is sensible that he has failed in his story; and that a dismal fate awaits him, and all that he is now intent on is driving of time."

"I confess that I am sick of the bacon and other fat things," said Charlie.

"My soul disdains the abject theme," said the poet: "Its tantalizing sight is like the marshfire's vacant gleam to the bewildered wight. 'Tis throwing meat to hungry souls, with fainting sore opprest; or drink unto the parched lips, whereof they may not taste."

"Let us show some spirit, wretched as we are," said Gibbie, "and protest with one assent against being farther sickened, as well as mocked by such loathsome stuff."

This is unfair, and using undue influence," cried Tam. "None of you were thus interrupted, but got time to finish your stories as you liked. Mine is not done; the best part of it is yet to come, and I say it is unfair. Great Master, you sit as judge; I appeal to you. My life has been varied. Let them chuse what sort of a theme they want, and I will fit them, only suffer me to relate one other exploit."

The Master, on whom hunger seemed to make no impression, thought the request was reasonable; but in making choice, every one of them, young and old, pitched on a different subject, so that Tam could not get proceeded; neither can this chapter, as an extraordinary incident befel, which naturally brings it to an end.

END OF VOL. II.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes

This text is a reproduction of the 1822 edition. It includes many dialect and archaic words and spellings, as well as many typographical errors and inconsistencies which have not been changed.

Chapters are inconsistently headed "CHAPTER" or "CHAP."

Inconsistently spelled words include:

Corby and Corbie

Gibby and Gibbie

collie and colley

chace and chase

inclosed and enclosed

raggamuffians, raggamuffins, and ragamuffin

spier and speer

camstairy and camstary

The text includes many examples of inconsistent hyphenation. The following are inconsistently hyphenated or printed as two words:

bacon ham and bacon-ham

bed side and bed-side

dare say and dare-say (the latter was hyphenated over a line break)

day light and day-light

hind legs and hind-legs

look out and look-out

pike staff and pike-staff

Tersit moor and Tersit-moor

well springs and well-springs

The following are inconsistently hyphenated or printed as one word:

goatskin and goat-skin

gunpowder and gun-powder

outdone and out-done

staircase and stair-case (one occurrence of the latter hyphenated over a
line break)

weatherbeaten and weather-beaten

The following are inconsistently printed as one or two words:

has na and hasna

liege man and liegeman

maybe be, maybe, and may-be (some hyphenated over line breaks)

mean time and meantime

mean while and meanwhile

some body and somebody

The text contains the following apparent errors:

p. 10 mis-spelling "ignominous"

p. 27 missing space ("the shapes o'men?")

p. 55 missing full stop ("behold he was wanting")

p. 59 missing quotation mark ("till I speak t'ye, said")

p. 104 mis-spelling "cutfing"

p. 113 missing comma "Come away/Elfin grey,")

p. 121 mis-spelling "quite" ("all was quite and gloomy")

p. 124 comma instead of full stop ("the whole party in its
consequences,")

p. 137 comma instead of full stop ("exclamatory sound, Charlie had")

p. 172 "22" instead of "21" ("22. So I borrowed me")

p. 179 "she" instead of "he" ("21. And she said, Blessed")

p. 188 missing space ("or a good shareo' ilka")

p. 197 missing quotation mark ("afore I gi'e my gully")

p. 212 comma instead of full stop ("thorns above them, "Now!"")

p. 226 duplicate word ("all mankind it must must shock;")

p. 229 extra quotation mark ("ane o' the best."")

p. 229 duplicate word ("how to take care care o'")

p. 261 mis-spelling "ty'e"

p. 261 missing quotation mark ("sae ye may, my man!")

p. 289 mis-spelling "espepecially"

p. 300 duplicate word ("I was in one so so profound,")

p. 337 missing quotation mark (" to the right hand or to the left.")

p. 341 missing comma ("said he "that enables")

p. 342 extra quotation mark ("give us a striking instance."")

p. 352 missing quotation mark ("This is unfair, and")