THE BLOODY DOCTOR 97 



Leaving Teviot, with Leyden for a guide you 

 walk, or drive, 



Where Bortha hoarse, that loads the meads with sand, 

 Rolls her red tide. 



Not that it was red when we passed, but electro 

 purior. 



Through slaty hills whose sides are shagged with thorn, 

 Where springs, in scattered tufts, the dark green corn, 

 Towers wood-girt Harden far above the vale. 



And very dark green, almost blue, was the corn in 

 September, 1888. Upwards, always upwards, goes 

 the road till you reach the crest, and watch far 

 below the wide champaign, like a sea, broken by 

 the shapes of hills, Windburg and Eildon, and 

 Priesthaughswire, and ' the rough skirts of stormy 

 Ruberslaw,' and Penchrise, and the twin Maidens 

 shaped like the breasts of Helen. It is an old 

 land of war, of Otterburn, and Ancrum, and the 

 Raid of the Fair Dodhead ; but the plough has 

 passed over all but the upper pastoral solitudes. 

 Turning again to the downward slope you see the 

 loch of Alemoor, small and sullen, with Alewater 

 feeding it. Nobody knows much about the trout 



II 



