Years after it chanced that I was one day diverting
myself with a Waverley Novel, when what should I come upon but the
identical narrative of my green-coated gentleman upon the moors!
In a moment the scene, the tones of his voice, his northern accent,
and the very aspect of the earth and sky and temperature of the
weather, flashed back into my mind with the reality of dreams. The
unknown in the green-coat had been the Great Unknown! I had met
Scott; I had heard a story from his lips; I should have been able
to write, to claim acquaintance, to tell him that his legend still
tingled in my ears. But the discovery came too late, and the great
man had already succumbed under the load of his honours and
misfortunes.
Presently, after giving us a cigar apiece, Scott bade us farewell
and disappeared with his daughter over the hills. And when I
applied to Sim for information, his answer of 'The Shirra, man!
A'body kens the Shirra!' told me, unfortunately, nothing.
A more considerable adventure falls to be related. We were now
near the border. We had travelled for long upon the track beaten
and browsed by a million herds, our predecessors, and had seen no
vestige of that traffic which had created it. It was early in the
morning when we at last perceived, drawing near to the drove road,
but still at a distance of about half a league, a second caravan,
similar to but larger than our own.
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