It was on a fine morning in the latter end of the month of October, that I took yard-wand in hand, and pack on back for the first time. The sun shone slanting and sweetly over wood, and vale, and hill-side; and the light and airy gossamer (at this season _only_ visible) lay in gleaming and floating lines, over grass fields and ploughed lands. I bent my way to the mountains, well knowing that there, at a distance from shop or market, I should most likely meet with a sale for my goods, and should, at the same time, fix the prices, without fear of check or detection. By the time that I had reached Locherben, the sun had set, and the twilight was still lingering on the tops of the twin Queensberries. The herds were coming in from the hills; the guidman was steeking some yetts in the inclosure of the in-fields; and the guidwife, with some half-a-dozen servant lasses, were busily employed in domestic arrangements. Dogs were everywhere to be seen, meeting in unity, or snarling defiance over some contested pot from which they were extracting a rather scanty meal. I leaned my pack on a fail or turf dike, which enclosed a few ill-thriven cabbages, and waited patiently an invitation from some chance inmate to enter. At last, a canny lass came out, with a tub full of sheeps entrails, which she proceeded to cleanse and scour in the passing stream. She took up her station near to where I leaned, and, blithely singing the while, proceeded, with kilted coats, and sleeves tucked up to the shoulders, to perform her work. Having cast a random glance around her, she immediately perceived that she was not alone--and, without any feeling or appearance of embarrassment, immediately proceeded to address me-- "And what are _you_, sitting there, like a craw in the mist? and what's that lying behint you, man?--Losh preserve us! hae ye gotten a coffin on yer back, or are ye just a kintra lad, gain hame wi' yer sister's kist on yer shoulders?--Speak, body, speak this minute, or I'll come alang yer chafts wi' a nievefu o' thairms!"--Thus saying, she actually left the pure water which she was so busy defiling, and, brandishing some score of yards of the tripe in her right hand, was in the act of accomplishing her threat, when I suddenly disengaged myself from the arm-strings of my pack, and, parrying the blow which was aimed at me, I closed at once with my fair adversary, and, ere she could raise a scream, sufficient to alarm the whole town land, I had taken as many favours from her as ever Apollo did from Daphne. To scream so loud and shrill as to bring down upon us half-a-dozen dogs, and nearly as many herds, was the work of an instant; but of an instant during which she was made distinctly to perceive that I was no lassie, but a young fellow of some spunk and mettle. "What's the matter wi' Jenny?" said a stout figure, snugly wrapped up in the shepherd's toga.