238 FIELD AND FERN. 



worse than a weary way. Large floes of ice stretclied 

 across the path, and, mare in hand, we had to chmb 

 the hill to get round the syke head, and more than 

 once we were all on our sides together. After this 

 rough experience of sheep-walk solitudes, it was like 

 enchantment to look down into a rich vale once more 

 among woollen manufactories, half-breds, and holly 

 standards, macadamized roads like iron, and rusty 

 iron gates, inscribed with 1745, leading np an avenue 

 to the ancestral grange of the Earls of Traquair, that 

 breathed of old family portraits and English quarter 

 sessions. "The shallow brawling Tweed^^ was ice- 

 bound, and there were hundreds of torch-light 

 skaters upon it as we cantered past, and fairly groped 

 our way to Biggar among such shady ways by Stobo 

 Castle, that the very darkness, as at Belvoir, might 

 be felt. It lingered, in one sense, at Biggar, as the 

 landlady, after going into committee with her hus- 

 band and the waitress on the point, sent up the 

 latter as a deputation to inquire if the muffins we 

 had asked for were " a kind of pickle." 



We own to a little twinge at having been so near 

 Ettrick without seeing it ; but the mare had done 

 her two-and-forty miles as it was, and not even a 

 winter's tale was to be got out of the spot now that 

 the " Shepherd" was gone. His old associates speak 

 of him as a good runner at weddings till he was well 

 on to middle life, and he certainly acted up to the 

 spirit of the lines, 



•' Nae wooer like the ladclie 

 Who rows me in liis plaidie," 



