HAWICK TO MOSS PAUL. 205 



■with the performance, that he vowed then and there 

 — '^ Jf I could do it like Priesthauyh, I would not envy 

 the author of ' Paradise Lost/ ^' Like the old school 

 of the Regency, Priesthaugh was not averse to the 

 Fancy. Oliver v. Carter, at Gretna Green, was 

 quite " a leading case" with him, and he could illus- 

 trate Tom S averts style most accurately, when he 

 had seen him put on the gloves at Carlisle. 



Elliot of Lymecleuch was known far and wide as 

 a Cheviot breeder and dealer from Falkirk to Stag- 

 shaw Bank, and round by Settle and Rosley Hill. 

 A great spirit was old Lymecleuch, "very quaint, and 

 a famous plucked one/^ Free Trade never had a 

 sterner advocate, and it and " Sailors^ Rights'^ com- 

 prised his political creed. Why he took up the latter 

 topic no one could ever tell, as he lived inland, and 

 hardly knew a jibboomfrom a shoulder-of-muttonsail. 

 Gowanlock surveyed him, as each club day blenched 

 his locks, and did not decrease his waist-band, with 

 increasing admiration and silent awe. At last he 

 could hold out no longer. '^ If I had a stable full of 

 horses/^ he said, ^' ivith that man's constitution, in 

 these days of opposition coaching, Pd run Croall and 

 the whole lot of them clean off the road." 



Peter Brodie of Clarielaw, who drew 23 stone, once 

 upbraided " Lymey" with being a '^ toom hemlock.'-' 

 At this Laidlaw of Falnash bristled up, and although 

 it did not just look like ^'^a good thing,'-' he backed him 

 then and there for an even sovereign against Peter 

 on the scales. It was not recorded in the club 



