Guy Mannering.

258 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
Latch, the road's no near sae saft, and we'll show them
fair-play for't."
They soon came to the place he named, a narrow channel, through which soaked, rather than flowed, a small
stagnant stream, mantled over with bright green mosses.
Dinmont directed his steed towards a pass where the
water appeared to flow with more freedom over a harder
bottom; but Dumple backed from the proposed crossingplace, put his head down as if to reconnoitre the swamp
more nearly, stretching forward his fore-feet, and stood
as fast as if he had been cut out of stone.
"Had we not better," said Brown, "dismount, and
leave him to his fate?-or can you not urge him through
the swamp?"
" Na, na," said his pilot, "we maun cross Dumple at
no rate-he has mair sense than mony a Christian." So
saying, he relaxed the reins, and shook them loosely.
" Come now, lad, take your ain way o't-let's see where
ye'll take us through."
Dumple, left to the freedom of his own will, trotted
briskly to another part of the latch, less promising, as
Brown thought, in appearance, but which the animal's
sagacity or experience recommended as the safer of the
two, and where, plunging in, he attained the other side
with little difficulty.
"I'm glad we're out o' that moss," said Dinmont,
"where there's mair stables for horses than changehouses for men-we have the Maiden-way to help us
now, at ony rate." Accordingly, they speedily gained a
sort of rugged causeway so called, being the remains of
an old Roman road, which traverses these wild regions in
a due northerly direction. Here they got on at the rate
of nine or ten miles an hour, Dumple seeking no other