London to John O' Groat's. 335 



in the past. But it IB a patriotism that has its day 

 and its rule ; then both its eyes are opened, and it 

 looks upon the firmament of the future broadside on, 

 and sees a constellation where it once saw and half 

 worshipped a solitary star. Better to be the part of 

 a great WHOLE than the whole of a little nothing. 



These continental Border-lands may see the faces 

 of their future history in the mirror of England's 

 annals. They are quaking now with the impetuous 

 emotions of local nationality. They are blackened 

 and scarred in the contest for the Welsh and Scotch 

 independence of centuries agone. But over those 

 boundary wastes the grass shall yet grow soft, fair 

 and green, and there, too, the white lambs shall lie 

 in the sun. 



My walk lay over the most inhospitable and un- 

 peopled section I ever saw. Calling at a station on 

 the railway that passes through it, I was told by the 

 master that the nearest church or chapel was sixteen, 

 miles in one direction, and over twenty in another. It 

 is doubtful if so large a churchless space could be found 

 in Iowa or even Kanzas. I was glad to reach Hawick, 

 a good, solid town but a little way inside of the Scottish 

 border, where I spent the sabbath and the following 

 Monday. This was a rallying and sallying point in 

 the old Border "Wars, and was inundated two or three 



