336 A Walk from 



times by the flux and reflux .,of this conflict, having 

 been burnt twice, and put under the ordeal of other 

 calamities brought upon it when free-booting was both 

 the business occupation and pastime of knighted chief- 

 tains and their clansmen. It is now a thrifty, manu- 

 facturing town, lying in the trough of the sea, or of 

 the lofty hills that resemble waves hardened to earth 

 in their crests. Just opposite the Temperance Inn in 

 which I had my quarters, was the Tower Hotel, once 

 a palatial mansion of the Buccleuchs. There the 

 Duchess of Monmouth used to hold her drawing-rooms 

 in an apartment which many a New England journey- 

 man mechanic would hardly think ample and comfort- 

 able enough for his parlor. There is a curious conical 

 mound in the town, called the Moat-hill, which looks 

 like a great, green carbuncle. It is thought by some 

 to be a Druidical monument, but is quite involved 

 in a mystery which no one has satisfactorily solved. 

 It is strange that no persistent and successful effort 

 has been made to let day-light through it. Some 

 workmen a long time ago undertook to perforate it, 

 but were frightened away by a thunder-storm, which 

 they seemed to take as a reproof and threatened 

 punishment for their profanity. The great business 

 of Hawick is the manufacture of a woollen fabric 

 called Tweeds. It came to this name in a singular 



