wicker shield, fairly cleared the brae of
their adversaries, whom they drove down headlong into the morass.

CHAPTER VIII

Expert climbers--The crags--Something red--The horrible edge--David
Haggart--Fine materials--The greatest victory--Extraordinary robber--The
ruling passion.

Meanwhile I had become a daring cragsman, a character to which an English
lad has seldom opportunities of aspiring; for in England there are
neither crags nor mountains. Of these, however, as is well known, there
is no lack in Scotland, and the habits of individuals are invariably in
harmony with the country in which they dwell. The Scotch are expert
climbers, and I was now a Scot in most things, particularly in language.
The Castle in which I dwelt stood upon a rock, a bold and craggy one,
which, at first sight, would seem to bid defiance to any feet save those
of goats and chamois; but patience and perseverance generally enable
mankind to overcome things which, at first sight, appear impossible.
Indeed, what is there above man's exertions? Unwearied determination
will enable him to run with the horse, to swim with the fish, and
assuredly to compete with the chamois and the goat in agility and
sureness of foot. To scale the rock was merely child's play for the
Edinbro' callants. It was my own favourite diversion. I soon found that
the rock contained all manner of strange crypts, crannies, and recesses,
where owls nestled, and the weasel brought forth her young; here and
there were small natural platforms, overgrown with long grass and various
kinds of plants, where the climber, if so disposed, could stretch
himself, and either give his eyes to sleep or his mind to thought; for
capital places were these same platforms either for repose or meditation.
The boldest features of the rock are descried on the northern side,
where, after shelving down gently from the wall for some distance, it
terminates abruptly in a precipice, black and horrible, of some three
hundred feet at least, as if the axe of nature had been here employed
cutting sheer down, and leaving behind neither excrescence nor spur--a
dizzy precipice it is, assimilating much to those so frequent in the
flinty hills of Northern Africa, and exhibiting some distant resemblance
to that of Gibraltar, towering in its horridness above the Neutral
Ground.

It was now holiday time, and having nothing particular wherewith to
occupy myself, I not unfrequently passed the greater p