370 FIELD AND FERN. 



out the blacks. Bilham, the farm of one of " Chris- 

 topher North^s" sons, lies in a hollow to our right, 

 and we pass close by the steading of Borthwick of 

 Hopesrigg, who has fought and won at the High- 

 land Society, and sells forty to fifty of his tups at 

 Hawick each September. The spur and wings on a 

 sign tell that Westerhall is nigh ; and tying our mare 

 to the gate, we saunter up the plantation walk lead- 

 ing to the pillar which was erected to the memory 

 of Sir Frederick Johnstone. 



"Waterford/' ^^ Greene," "Moore," Musgrave,'^ 

 " Macdonald," and many an associate of his merry 

 Melton days have gone, like him, to the land of 

 shadows. The villagers told us, in their simple way, 

 what a man he was, and, with an emphasis that three- 

 and-twenty years had not deadened one whit, that he 

 was '^sair likit in the country-side" — "like a gallop- 

 ing horse with his harriers ;" how he ran on foot, 

 and hunted all Eskdale, Ewesdale, and Annandale 

 as well, and how he used to van the pack from 

 Westerhall to the meet, before he got the Falford 

 kennels. The evening sun was just lighting up the 

 shadows on Whita, the hill of the monument, as we 

 emerged from quite a shady alcove on to the "muckle 

 toune" of Langholm, or rather of Malcolm Brothers. 

 The statue of Sir John, one of the foremost minds 

 in the Indian Council, looks down its greeting from 

 the bleak hill above to Sir Pulteney in the market 

 place. They were honoured with high confidence 

 from strictly opposite quarters. The one was the 



