Field Meetings. 109 



and the workmen, probably because it was Saturday, looked 

 bright and happy at their laborious tasks. Not a solitary horse 

 was in evidence, the entire haulage evidently being accomplished 

 by means of rails and locomotives. Seated in a rude truck in 

 genuine Bohemian order, we enjoyed a short journey on a natural 

 switchback from the quarry to the large shed in which the hewing 

 and sawing processes are executed, and the necessary workshops 

 centralised. Here Mr Lamb took admirable pains to describe to 

 the antiquarians the secrets of the electric plant now in course 

 of adoption by this enterprising Company. Already an electrical 

 engineer is employed, and the machinery in the shed driven by 

 electricity from dynamos of American origin, and with a measure 

 of economy in the matter of generating fuel, which, as compared 

 with steam, might well give the Company's happy shareholders 

 a hint of coming riches " beyond the dreams of avarice." We 

 were shown with what .startling convenienceand economy the electric 

 motor-force may be detached, conveyed, stored. The portable 

 crane used inside the great shed is worked by an electric motor, 

 and it was easy to anticipate the best results every way from 

 this departure. Mr Lamb's courtesy, his intelligence, his earnest 

 desire to gratify the visitors were much appreciated. 



In common with the country all over nowadays, the Kirtle 

 valley suggests the contrast between successful modern indus- 

 trialism and the romance of antiquity. Leaving the former at 

 the Cove Quarries, we passed into the heart of the latter on our 

 way to Springkell, and this in the brilliant .sunshine of a recovered 

 day. The towers of Woodhouse and Bonshaw interested us 

 rising out of the hospitably wooded lands of tlie Irvings, and we 

 passed the Merkland Cross, associated in Border history with the 

 foul murder towards the close of the fifteenth century of one of 

 tlie Caerlaverock Maxwells, killed from a motive of revenge by 

 his own vassal, one Gass of Cummertrees. We did not stay to 

 examine this pathetic monumental reminiscence of mediaeval 

 Border manners, which looked an elegant stone as it stood on a 

 grassy slope not many yards from the road, and surrounded by, 

 green bushes. Kirtlebridge Junction recalled the antiquarian 

 mind again to modern comforts, and the thriving village of 

 Eaglesfield suggested thoughts of the competence and peace 

 accessible to such small rural communities, where each house- 

 holder, whether he should read Barrie and Ian Maclaren, or not, 

 may sing- 

 There grows a bonnie briar bush in our kailyard. 



