In this guise he ambled forth over hill and valley, the admiration of
every farm-yard which they passed in their progress, till, 'low down in a
grassy vale,' they found David Gellatley leading two very tall deer
greyhounds, and presiding over half a dozen curs, and about as many
bare-legged and bare-headed boys, who, to procure the chosen distinction
of attending on the chase, had not failed to tickle his ears with the
dulcet appellation of Maister Gellatley, though probably all and each had
hooted him on former occasions in the character of daft Davie. But this
is no uncommon strain of flattery to persons in office, nor altogether
confined to the barelegged villagers of Tully-Veolan; it was in fashion
Sixty Years Since, is now, and will be six hundred years hence, if this
admirable compound of folly and knavery, called the world, shall be then
in existence.
These Gillie-wet-foots, as they were called, were destined to beat the
bushes, which they performed with so much success, that, after half an
hour's search, a roe was started, coursed, and killed; the Baron
following on his white horse, like Earl Percy of yore, and magnanimously
flaying and embowelling the slain animal (which, he observed, was called
by the French chasseurs, faire la curee) with his own baronial couteau de
chasse.
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