210 PIELD AND FERN. 



landers once liked to buy tlieir tups as shearlings, but 

 now they have taken more to two-year-olds. They 

 used also to pay higher prices for them, but of late 

 years the supply has quite exceeded the demand. 

 There was a reaction in favour of the black- 

 faces when the winter of ^60 sent the Cheviots 

 to par ; but still, there are very few in Roxburgh- 

 shire, and the Cheviots have not yielded up their 

 Selkirkshire heights. In the upper walks of Lanark- 

 shire, Dumfriesshire, Selkirkshire, and Peeblesshire 

 the half-breds are found as high as 600 feet above sea- 

 level on partly cultivated and partly hill holdings. 

 Higher up, taste rather than elevation decides the 

 Cheviot or ^^ curly-horn character of the flock," un- 

 less land be very bleak indeed. Sometimes black- 

 faces are surrounded by Cheviots, and even grazed 

 at lower elevations on inferior lands. 



Davie Kyle of Broad Lee, beloved of Lord John 

 Scott, could not be called, like Scott of Singlee, " a 

 singular grand divine among sheep," but he was 

 quite a shepherd^s friend in his line, and though he 

 might be led at first in the hunt, no shepherd could 

 live with him till the close of day. He would not 

 keep a shepherd who could not hunt, and his brother 

 Arthur was nearly as keen. Kyle once ran against 

 Routledge, laird of The Flatt at Christenburj^ Creggs, 

 near Newcastleton. He never met a better man, ac- 

 cording to his own confession, but Routledge thought 

 himself as good, "bar louping the hags." Davie had 

 no great hound language, but he loved to have all 



