Where we are standing is the spot Scott speaks of when writing to Joanna Baillie about her new tragedies--"Were it possible for me to hasten the treat I expect in such a composition with you, I would promise to read the volume _at the silence of noonday upon the top of Minchmoor_. The hour is allowed, by those skilful in demonology, _to be as full of witching_ as midnight itself; and I assure you I have felt really oppressed with a sort of fearful loneliness when looking around the naked towering ridges of desolate barrenness, which is all the eye takes in from the top of such a mountain, the patches of cultivation being hidden in the little glens, or only appearing to make one feel how feeble and ineffectual man has been to contend with the genius of the soil. It is in such a scene that the unknown and gifted author of _Albania_ places the superstition which consists in hearing the noise of a chase, the baying of the hounds, the throttling sobs of the deer, the wild hollos of the huntsmen, and the 'hoof thick beating on the hollow hill.' I have often repeated his verses with some sensations of awe, in this place." The lines--and they are noble, and must have sounded wonderful with his voice and look--are as follows. Can no one tell us anything more of their author?-- "There oft is heard, at midnight, or at noon, Beginning faint, but rising still more loud, And nearer, voice of hunters, and of hounds; And horns, hoarse-winded, blowing far and keen! Forthwith the hubbub multiplies; the gale Labours with wilder shrieks, and rifer din Of hot pursuit; the broken cry of deer Mangled by throttling dogs; the shouts of men, And hoofs thick beating on the hollow hill. Sudden the grazing heifer in the vale Starts at the noise, and both the herdman's ears Tingle with inward dread--aghast he eyes The mountain's height, and all the ridges round, Yet not one trace of living wight discerns, Nor knows, o'erawed and trembling as he stands, To what or whom he owes his idle fear-- To ghost, to witch, to fairy, or to fiend; But wonders, and no end of wondering finds." We listened for the hunt, but could only hear the wind sobbing from the blind "_Hopes_."[3]