380 FIELD AND FERN. 



the statues are true to the love of the leash. Mr. 

 Jardine has a flock of about 1,400 ewes and ewe 

 hoggs, and uses Aitchison, Brydon_, and Borthwick 

 tups. After the fourth crop of lambs, they are 

 brought from the heights on to the improved pasture 

 for a crop of half-bred lambs, which feed far quicker 

 than the Cheviot, although all have not the rich 

 o-razins: of Minsca and Torbeck Hill. The half-bred 

 system begins at Burnfoot, and branches when it 

 reaches Langholm, not only six miles down Ewes- 

 dale, where it stops and is resumed again nearer Ha- 

 wick, but away by Cannobie, one of the five kirks of 

 Eskdale, into Cumberland. The Cheviot wedder 

 lambs are sold at Carlisle, and the seconds and the 

 shots of the ewe lambs go to Lockerby and Melrose 

 fairs, to be used as dams of half-breds in flocks where 

 not a Cheviot is bred. 



We bad to sit a short time, waiting for the grey- 

 hounds ; but with the help of a telescope we sighted 

 Willie Keddie coming down from the Crag, with 

 the short-tempered Owersby following meekly at 

 heels. Willie was once a shepherd with Mr. Elliot 

 of Hindhope. He was quite a noted sheep -clipper, 

 and in the greyhound training profession of later 

 years he has clipped the wings of a few when they 

 least looked for it. There was quite a troop behind 

 him that morning, and among them "Fly''' or Old 

 Border Union by Jeff'rey from Ladylike, " a good 

 steady one, who placed herself well to the game like 

 her dam, but was short of pace for the flat." 



