XOTES ON CUMMERTREES. 89 



tower and keep a watch in it to light a beacon to announce the 

 hostile movements of the English on the border. And so on. 

 Probably the correct explanation is that the name was given in 

 jest, as the object evidently was to bring the thieves of Annan- 

 dale and the English side to give up their lawless proceedings. 

 Connected with the name of the building there is a bo7i fnof, as 

 it has been called, which has come down from Reformati(m 

 times. A Sir Richard Steel, when one day iu the neighbourhood 

 of the tower, came upon a herd-boy lying on the ground and 

 reading the Bible. On asking if he could tell him the way to 

 Heaven, the toy replied : " Yes. sir, you must go by that tower " 

 — Repentance. Some years ago a preacher, who had made some 

 use of the story in a sermon on repentance, had it suggested to 

 him by a learned friend immediately afterwards that the gentle- 

 man was not really asking the way to Heaven, but only to 

 Hoddom, when to his chagrin he felt that something of the hon 

 had departed from his discourse. 



A very little to the west of the tcjwer. and on a lower level, 

 stood the ancient Chapel of Trailtrow. Nothing remains of it to 

 show what it was like, or even where its site was. Trailtrow was 

 one of the preceptories jsf the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, but 

 apparently a very poor one, and though there was a parish of the 

 name, it does not seem that the preceptors had possession of the 

 benefice unless as mere lay patrons. It was probably a perpetual 

 vicarage. This Order having been put an end to at the Reforma- 

 tion, the house and lands at Trailtrow passed into the hands of 

 Lord Herries, and the parish was united to that of Cummertrees 

 in 1609. 



Before quitting Repentance Hill it may be noticed that Thomas 

 Carlyle spent one of the most important years of his life there. 

 During- his visit to London in 1824, growing weary of the great 

 city and liking its literary society less and less, he conceived the 

 idea of getting a farm near home, where he could have quietness, 

 plenty of fresh air, and full liberty to do as he hked. Having 

 seriously broached the idea in a letter to his mother, the farm of 

 lloddom Hill, the house and isteading of which were at a short 

 distance from Repentance Tower, and looked towards the Solway, 

 was taken for him at a rent of £100 a year. When he returned 

 from London in the spring of 1825 he found them putting in the 

 crops, his brother Alexander and some other members of the family 



