The Master of the Teviotdale. 17 



next day, and he positively refused to handle the one 

 or believe the other till a mutual friend solemnly 

 vouched for it. Even when he read it out in kirk, he 

 was in fear and trembling, and "thought the Doctor 

 might be getting himself into trouble with another of 

 his odd tricks." The great fear among the Hawick 

 " lads" when the secret came out that Sunday was, 

 that the days of the Teviotdale pack were numbered 

 No such thing. The whole of the premises in Hawick 

 were knocked down, and new opes of a very different 

 stamp grew out of the same spot in their place. 

 Horses and dogs lived pro tern, just where they could 

 among the debris. The brown pony of the fair " first 

 whip" (Mrs. G.) was located in a little boarded corner 

 of the barn, with Frank, the terrier (a staunch badger 

 dog, but unentered at otter) in perpetual attendance. 

 The grey half-Arab mare, a rare goer on the road, and 

 a wonderfully steady one when you come to a wade 

 in " silver Teviot's tide," and the bay whose life was 

 spent between the rubbish cart and professional tours 

 in the gig were stabled in a house without a gable 

 end, where three " families" used to live. The pack 

 found shelter in the old hunting-break shed, and the 

 break was poked away behind divers roof beams and 

 laths. Slash, the big black Labrador of io81bs. 

 weight, was tied up in the back surgery with the 

 turtledove of apocryphal age, which has lollowed the 

 Doctor's fortunes from three houses in Hawick. The 

 black had been so accustomed to watch for poachers, 

 that before he fairly understood " Hints on Etiquette" 

 in the house, he was suspicious when he winded a 

 patient after dark, and on one occasion he made a 

 well-meant effort to eat a flesher, who had come to 

 have his tooth drawn. 



Billy and Bobby generally lived with two cats in 

 the garret, and the latter, when he was in an ill- 

 humour, kept the tabbies in strong exercise. Billy 

 paid off a servant-girl, against whom he had a slight 



C 



