RD'S BIRTHPLACE. 1 

 [By R. P. Leitcb.] 



the Esk near the hamlet of 

 Wester kirk. John Telford's 

 cottage was little better 

 than a shieling, consisting 

 of four mud walls, spanned 

 by a thatched roof. It stood upon a knoll near the 

 lower end of a deep gully worn in the hillside by the 

 torrents of many winters. The ground stretches away 

 from it in a long sweeping slope up to the sky, and is 

 green to the top, except wiiere the bare grey rocks in 

 some places crop out to the day. From the knoll may 

 be seen miles on miles of hills up and down the valley, 

 winding in and out, sometimes branching off into smaller 

 glens, each with its gurgling rivulet of peaty-brown water 

 flowing down from the mosses above. Only a narrow 

 strip of arable land is here and there visible along the 



1 The engraving represents the valley of the Meggat, showing the cottages of 

 Glendinning in the distance. 



