22 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



On my demanding a reason for it, I was told, " It was more 

 gain when the horses gallop." " Gallop F said I ; " why you 

 'never gallop, do you ?" " A wee bit now and then, ?; was the 

 reply ; but this was not one of his " now and then" days, for I 

 saw none of it. But this I saw ; I saw the ring of his off 

 wheeler's hames nearly worn through, and all I got for directing 

 his attention to it was " Wall, to be sure, 'tis no good ; but it 

 will hawd (hold) on yet." The prettiest things I saw in this 

 day's journey were, the iron gates into Sir Matthew Ridley's 

 park, at Blagdon, certainly a chef d'ceuvre of the sort ; and a 

 sirloin of roast beef at Alnwick, where the coach stopped to dine. 

 I was disappointed in not finding more turnips than I did, be- 

 tween Morpeth and Alnwick, and surprised at seeing a great 

 deal of poor land. I could see nothing of Alnwick-castle, for it 

 was getting dark when we passed it ; but I saw a pillar erected 

 by the noble owner's tenants, which is rightly called " The 

 Farmers' Folly." 



They had better have kept their money in their pockets to 

 help them to grow wheat at four shillings the bushel, but I 

 suppose they would have thought you mad if you had told them 

 it would ever have come to this. Finding I had nothing to learn 

 from the coachman of the Royal William, and nothing to look 

 at, as night came on, I got inside of the drag the remainder of 

 the road to Berwick, and, like Ulysses in Ithaca, arrived in 

 Scotland asleep. When I come to recount some of my doings 

 there, it may appear almost miraculous that I came out of it 

 awake. 



IT has been justly observed that " Scott directed all men's eyes 

 to the Borders ;" but, wizard as he was, he could not transport 

 their bodies thither scot free, or I should have been booked by 

 that coach long ago. Never, then, having before visited this 

 interesting portion of his Majesty's dominions, yet having lived 

 on terms of great intimacy with a friend, now gathered to his 

 fathers, who possessed a fishery under its walls which netted him 

 six hundred pounds a year, and an estate hard by of nearly as 

 many thousands (but who, like myself, had never seen either), 

 I had heard so much of Berwick-upon-Tweed from himself, and 

 of Barrick from his Scotch bailiff, that I was wofully disappointed 

 when I looked out of my window on the morrow, at the mean 

 and sombre appearance of this neither Scotch nor English town. 

 Nevertheless, its being one of the few British towns surrounded 

 by walls, and I believe the only one by those in a regular state 

 of fortification in addition to its " old-soldier-like accuracy of 



