COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 191 



boots and Garibaldi shirt, and ordered us up forth- 

 with. It had been a busy night in Hawick. Mem- 

 bers and followers of the Buccleuch Hunt had arrived, 

 §ome from a radius of thirty miles round. The sup- 

 ply of hacks was exhausted, and about a score of men 

 had been scouring the country for horses, and made 

 nothing out. Some had got horses, and failed to get 

 saddles, though they had spoken with many a night- 

 capped agriculturist at the lattice. One of the latter, 

 as the story went next morning, was " pat up five 

 times," till he wished Malakhoff and all the concern far 

 enough. An unhappy man who did come out with 

 nothing but his handkerchief on a sharp back-bone, 

 and thereby laid the basis of erysipelas, rued the day 

 he was born. A certain lender was most magnani- 

 mous, as he sent his black pony specially for our- 

 selves, and a pair of spurs with it. There was a 

 good watch kept on the Doctor by the Hawick 

 lads all night, to see that he did not steal away 

 before them ; but the lights in the bed and break- 

 fast-room windows reassured their vedette. 



Even the police lent a hand, and kindly took their 

 station at the head of ^^ Walter^s Wynd,^' while the 

 Doctor quietly slipped the most noisy of his pack, one 

 by one down it, to AYalter, at the river side, before 

 he brought out the body. And- now, by twos and 

 threes, the hunters, horse and foot, came dropping 

 down the street, in the misty morning, through which 

 the illuminated clock struggled faintly to tell of 

 twenty to three ; and still some would not believe 



