158 FIELD AND FERN- 



breed Kelso half-bred sale tups, and so keep up the 

 Cheviot hardihood. Still, although half-bred on 

 half-bred has been a good deal tried, yet Leicester 

 on half-bred has done best. They are very particu- 

 lar about the dams of these tups, and some farmers 

 go to Sutherland for picked ewes. Regular breeders 

 vrill buy half-bred lambs from another birsel, and pay 

 as high as 28s. 6d. for them. All who breed half- 

 breds give the ewes six to eight weeks of turnips in 

 winter, or they could never nurse their much -heavier 

 lambs. It is therefore no wonder that half-bred 

 lambs increase so much for Melrose. There have 

 been as many as 90,000 there, with ewes and 

 wedders always separated, whereas twenty years 

 since fully half of them were Cheviots. 



We did not step aside to see the gipsy Scone at 

 Kirk Yetholm. King Charles Blyth slept with his 

 fathers on August 19th, 1861, and Queen Esther, or 

 Esther Faa Blyth (the widow of "Jeddart Jock''), who 

 reigns in his stead, holds levees daily in her neat 

 little cottage. We might have heard more from her 

 of Will Faa her kinsman, with his " eye as keen as 

 a hawk and as black as a sloe,'' and who handled his 

 leister on the Tweed with the eye of an Indian,'^" but 



* We extract the follo-\vin?r from an annual flysheet entitled " Present State 

 of the Gipsies in Yetholm :" " It is noticed that their circmnstances, humble 

 as they are, are somewhat declinins: ; their potteiy wares are becoming less 

 abundant, and a greater number of indi\'iduals depend upon the making of 

 besoms, baskets, &c., than formerly. Only two families regularly keep horses 

 and carts, the others who aspu-e to such a dignity being occasionally obhged 

 to sell theirs to relieve themselves from pressing difficulties. Dm-ing the last 

 two smnmers many have made a. considerable amount (it would be impossible 

 to saj^ how much) from wool. They buy the ofial of the folds from the farmers, 

 and, after much labour in cleaning, sell it at a high price ; yet winter finds 

 them, as usual, badly prepared for it, and at present several are niiserablj' fed 



