COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 193 



'moutVs principle, ^^ Never tell a man to do what you 

 dare not do yourself/^ He did it once this season 

 after Royal, and very nearly got drowned. 



Then came a regular rattling burst over a very 

 rocky part of the river, the non-mounted straggling 

 along as they could over scaur and shingle, through 

 "deep copses or oat crops, which left the dew-point 

 from the waist downwards, over meadows and along 

 the turnpike, sometimes in the water and sometimes 

 out of it, tailing off farther and farther, and so up to 

 Midshiels. Sandy and his pole ran well into the 

 front rank of course ; and Walter on his bay pony 

 Meg Merrilies, with a great bunch of couples behind 

 him, had been sent forward to the dreaded drain. 

 Poor Mr. Morrell delighted to tell how Jim Stracey 

 took his celebrated four-miler to the head of earths 

 at Wood Hill, on the Milton Hall day, and ^^ just 

 beat the fox by thrice the length of his boots — not an 

 inch farther.^ ^ Walter was not so lucky, as the old 

 one had " lapped up^^ his fishing for the night, and 

 scuttled down stream the two miles post-haste, 

 leaving his kind regards for Ringwood, in the shape 

 of his damp seal on the stones at the drain entrance. 

 As for taking up the drain in any part, and putting 

 in the terriers, it was hopeless. When Sir Wilfred 

 Lawson and Mr. Hilton Wybergh used to come from 

 West Cumberland to touch up these rivers with Tom 

 Johnstone, they were very fond of this fastness, and 

 opened it in the middle, to make a lying-up place for 

 otters out of the water level. ''It's guiles long^' said 



