HAWICK TO MOSS PAUL. 203 



round him. Once at Frostley Brook, '^ that uncom- 

 monly cold name/^ and we are among the Cheviots at 

 last, and the somewhat variable pasture changes into 

 the uniformly hard and sound lea of far-famed Teviot- 

 dale. It ascends with a slight gradient as far as 

 Moss Paul Inn, whose post-boys were therefore said 

 to follow the Teviot to Hawick and the Ewes to 

 Langholm. 



" The braw braes of Linliope 

 And lofty Moss Paul" 



have long been linked in song. Mr. Aitchison^s 

 ewes crop the Linhope Lea, and nothing but a peace- 

 ful knoll of that name is left to remind the Bor- 

 derers how " Jeannie HalPs tongue^^ was wont to 

 wake the echoes, when she spied Jemmy Telfer on 

 another of his raids. Like that watchful wife or 

 spinster, the inn is a tale of the past. Peacocks 

 scream in those ancient silences, and there is no relic 

 of the old regime save Jemmy Ferguson, who has 

 been ostler, man and boy, " eight- and-forty years 

 come Martinmas." The very stables of his heart 

 have been unroofed before his eyes, ^^ forty-two 

 stalls," as he says so mournfully, "for bye loose- 

 boxes, and sic grand hay -lofts." Gowanlock, the 

 landlord, lived to see the last of the posting, ten 

 miles to Langholm and twelve, to Hawick, and to 

 hear the last horn tune of the mails and the Locomo- 

 tive, but he was gone before the Engineer took its 

 final journey in the June of ^62. Black-cocks still 

 club on the heights behind the house, where the 



