That put me in an eerie swither.
Burns
Leaving "Gamershaw," I "sceawrt eendway," as Collier says. Here I had the advantage of an intelligent companion, with a rich store of local anecdote in him. He was not a man inclined to superstition: but he said he once had an adventure at this spot, which startled him. Walking by "Gamershaw," on a pitch-dark night, and thinking of anything but boggarts, he heard something in the black gloom behind, following his footsteps with a soft, unearthly trot, accompanied by an unmistakable rattle of chains. He stopt. It stopt. He went on; and the fearful sounds dogged him again, with malignant regularity. "Gamershaw Boggart, after all, and no mistake," thought he: and in spite of all reason, a cold sweat began to come over him. Just then the goblin made a fiendish dash by, and went helter-skelter down the middle of the road, trailing the horrible clang of chains behind it, with infernal glee; and then dived into the midnight beyond. To his relief, however, he bethought him that it was a large dog belonging to a farmer in the neighbourhood. The dog had got loose, and was thus making night hideous by unconsciously personifying "Gamershaw Boggart."
And now my companion and I whiled away the time from Gamershaw with a pleasant interchange of country anecdote. I have just room for one, which I remember hearing in some of my rambles among the moorland folk of my native district. It is a story of a poor hand-loom weaver, called "Thrum," trying to sell his dog "Snap" to a moorland farmer. I have put it in the form of a dialogue, that it may be the more understandable to the general reader. It runs thus:—
Thrum. Maister, dun yo want a nice bull-an-tarrier?
Farmer. A what?
Thrum. A bull-an-tarrier dog, wi' feet as white as snow! Brass wouldn't ha' parted me an' that dog, iv there hadn't bin sich ill deed for weyvers just neaw,—it wouldn't, for sure. For aw'd taen to th' dog, an' the dog had taen to me, very mich, for o' at it had nobbut thin pikein' sometimes. But poverty parts good friends neaw and then, maister.
Farmer. A bull-an-tarrier, saysto?
Thrum. Ay; an' th' smartest o'th breed at ever ran at a mon's heels! It's brother to that dog o' Lolloper's, at stoole a shoolder o' mutton, an' ran up a soof with it.