Frequently, too, these robbers were in league with the keepers of low
roadside public-houses, where passengers on their homeward way were
encouraged--nothing loth, as a rule--to halt and refresh steed and
rider, and possibly whilst they drank their pistols were tampered with.
Who does not remember the meeting of Harry Bertram and Dandie Dinmont in
such a place? And who has not read in the author's notes to _Guy
Mannering_, Sir Walter's account of the visit to Mump's Ha' of Fighting
Charlie of Liddesdale, and what befell him thereafter? In spite of a
head that the potations pressed on him by an over-kind landlady had
caused to hum like an angry hive of bees, Charlie had sense enough,
after he had travelled a few miles on his homeward way, to examine his
pistols. Finding that the charges had been drawn and tow substituted,
Charlie, now considerably sobered, carefully reloaded them, a precaution
which certainly saved his money, and possibly his life as well, for he
was presently attacked by a party of armed men, who, however, fled on
finding that "the tow was out."
Mump's Ha' was in Cumberland, near Gilsland. In olden days it was a
place of most evil repute, but one may question if in ill name it could
take precedence of a similar establishment which in the days of our
great-grandfathers stood on Soutra Hill, on the Lauder road.
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