-rude--artless--unscientific. But we say no--it is
your only coursing. Gods! with what a bounding bosom the schoolboy
salutes the dawning of the cool--clear--crisp, yes, crisp October morn
(for there has been a slight frost, and the almost leafless hedgerows
are all glittering with rime); and, little time lost at dress or
breakfast, crams the luncheon into his pouch, and away to the
Trysting-hill Farmhouse, which he fears the gamekeeper and his grews
will have left ere he can run across the two long Scotch miles of moor
between him and his joy! With step elastic, he feels flying along the
sward as from a spring-board; like a roe, he clears the burns and bursts
his way through the brakes; panting, not from breathlessness but
anxiety, he lightly leaps the garden fence without a pole, and lo, the
green jacket of one huntsman, the red jacket of another, on the plat
before the door, and two or three tall raw-boned poachers--and there is
mirth and music, fun and frolic, and the very soul of enterprise,
adventure, and desperation, in that word; while tall and graceful stand
the black, the brindled, and the yellow breed, with keen yet quiet
eyes, prophetic of their destined prey, and though motionless now as
stone statues of hounds at the feet of Meleager, soon to launch like
lightning at the loved halloo!

Out comes the gudewife with her own bottle from the press in the spence,
with as big a belly and broad a bottom as her own, and they are no
trifle--for the worthy woman has been making much beef for many years,
is moreover in the family way, and surely this time there will be twins
at least--and pours out a canty caulker for each crowing crony,
beginning with the gentle, and ending with the semple, that is our and
her self; and better speerit never steamed in sma' still. She offers
another with "hinny," by way of Athole brose; but it is put off till
evening, for coursing requires a clear head, and the same sobriety then
adorned our youth that now dignifies our old age. The gudeman, although
an elder of the kirk, and with as grave an aspect as suits that solemn
office, needs not much persuasion to let the flail rest for one day,
anxious though he be to show the first aits in the market; and donning
his broad blue bonnet, and the shortest-tailed auld coat he can find,
and taking his kent in his hand, he gruffly gives Wully his orders for
a' things about the place, and sets off with the younkers for a holiday.
Not a man on eart