'Davy, next to whom I chanced to be riding, laid his whip about the fern like an experienced hand, but cracked many a joke, too, upon his own jack-boots; and, surveying the long eager battalion of bush-rangers, exclaimed: "Good Heavens, is it thus that I visit the scenery of the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel'!" He then kept muttering to himself as his glowing eye (the finest and brightest that I ever saw) ran over the landscape, some of those beautiful lines from the conclusion of the 'Lay': "But still When summer smiled on sweet Bowhill, And July's eve with balmy breath Waved the blue bells on Newark heath, When throstles sang on Hareheadshaw, And corn was green in Catterhaugh, And flourished, broad, Blackandro's oak, The aged harper's soul awoke," etc., etc. 'Mackenzie ("The Man of Feeling"), spectacled though he was, saw the first sitting hare, gave the word to slip the dogs, and spurred after them like a boy. All the seniors, indeed, did well as long as the course was upwards; but when puss took down the declivity, they halted, and breathed themselves upon the knoll, cheering gaily, however, the young people who dashed past and below them. Coursing on such a mountain is not like the same sport over a set of fine English pastures. There were gulfs to be avoided, and bogs enough to be threaded; many a stiff nag stuck fast, many a bold rider measured his length among the peat-hags; and another stranger to the ground besides Davy plunged neck-deep into a treacherous well-head, which, till they were floundering in it, had borne all the appearance of a piece of delicate green turf. When Sir Humphry emerged from his involuntary bath, his habiliments garnished with mud, slime, and mangled water-cresses, Sir Walter received him with a triumphant "_Encore!_" But the philosopher had his revenge; for, joining soon after in a brisk gallop, Scott put Sibyl Grey to a leap beyond her prowess, and lay humbled in the ditch, while Davy, who was better mounted, cleared it and him at a bound. Happily there was little damage done, but no one was sorry that the "sociable" had been detained at the foot of the hill.