Occasionally, indeed, when such a
consummation seemed inevitable, a watchful old grandam, with her close
cap, distaff, and spindle, rushed like a sibyl in frenzy out of one of
these miserable cells, dashed into the middle of the path, and snatching
up her own charge from among the sunburnt loiterers, saluted him with a
sound cuff, and transported him back to his dungeon, the little
white-headed varlet screaming all the while, from the very top of his
lungs, a shrilly treble to the growling remonstrances of the enraged
matron. Another part in this concert was sustained by the incessant
yelping of a score of idle useless curs, which followed, snarling,
barking, howling, and snapping at the horses' heels; a nuisance at that
time so common in Scotland, that a French tourist, who, like other
travellers, longed to find a good and rational reason for everything he
saw, has recorded, as one of the memorabilia of Caledonia, that the state
maintained, in each village a relay of curs, called collies, whose duty
it was to chase the chevaux de poste (too starved and exhausted to move
without such a stimulus) from one hamlet to another, till their annoying
convoy drove them to the end of their stage.
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