Jedburgk. 89 



wood, remnants of the fine forests which at one 

 time had covered the country. An inland scene 

 was new to me, and I was never tired of admiring 

 the tree-crowned scaurs or precipices, where the rich 

 glow of the red sandstone harmonized so well with 

 the autumnal tints of the foliage. 



We often bathed in the pure stream of the Jed. 

 My aunt always went with us, and was the merriest 

 of the party; we bathed in a pool which was 

 deep under the high scaur, but sloped gradually 

 from the grassy bank on the other side. Quiet and 

 transparent as the Jed was, it one day came down 

 with irresistible fury, red with the debris of the 

 sandstone scaurs. There had been a thunderstorm 

 in the hills up-stream, and as soon as the river 

 began to rise, the people came out with pitchforks 

 and hooks to catch the hayricks, sheaves of corn, 

 drowned pigs, and other animals that came sweeping 

 past. My cousins and I were standing on the 

 bridge, but my aunt called us off when the water 

 rose above the arches, for fear of the bridge giving 

 way. We made expeditions every day ; sometimes 

 we went nutting in the forest ; at other times we 

 gathered mushrooms on the grass parks of Stewart- 

 field, where there was a wood of picturesque old 

 Scotch firs, inhabited by a colony of rooks. I still 

 kept the habit of looking out for birds, and had the 



