370 Mr Hardy on Langleyford Vale and the Cheviots. 



felspar crystals, giving it a peculiar mottled appearance, is 

 believed to be of Shap Fell granite. It now belongs to Mr 

 Wigbtman, at Wooler, who also possesses a fragment of 

 another of tbe same kind from Kilham. Mr Riddell has two 

 additional examples from Bewick Folly. In the Berwick 

 Museum there are two querns of this kind of rock : one 

 obtained at a great depth under soil, on the surface of the 

 limestone at Scremerston quarries ; the other from near 

 Branxton. An ancient traffic in these implements had sub- 

 sisted between the eastern and western British tribes. In 

 ascending Hedgehope during the autumn, while the sun 

 shone opposite in the west and some driving mists were 

 creeping across the hollow beneath, behind, almost obscuring 

 the Housy Crag, I was delighted, on turning round, to see a 

 gigantic shadow of myself projected across the interval, with 

 a halo encircling the head. The halo was ever shifted and 

 re-formed. On the same occasion, on looking from the apex 

 across the mossy ground on the neck between this height 

 and Coomb Fell, the rain having recently tilled the pools, a 

 most dazzling reflection of brilliant points, like the fragments 

 of great mirror, sparkled from amidst the black setting of the 

 peat-bogs of that extremely dreary expanse of broken ground. 

 Between Standrop and Hedgehope is a syke ; and near to it, 

 a Highlandman named " Black Rory " had his whisky-still. 

 A green spot near it is called Rory's Gair ; gair being a 

 small strip of green ground among heather or ferns. Mr 

 Tate once told me, that a huge rock standing out from one 

 of the Hedgehope heights has a quadrangular face, and a thin 

 bed overlies a very thick bed. It is hence called " Kate's 

 Kist," from its resemblance to a chest ; and a lichen which 

 is attached to the eastern face is called " Kate's Hair." 

 There is another rock with a tale attached to it, called the 

 Hanging stone, situated more towards the Scottish side, 

 above Langleyford. A hapless packman was once resting 

 upon it, with his burden of cloth too near the edge, when the 

 pack slipped over, and tightening round his neck, strangled 

 him. A similar story is told about a robber and a stolen 



Let us now revert to Langleyford, which has been ever a 

 bright spot in the Club's history. Has it not also been sung ? 



" Hedgehope and Cheviot are pleasant bits of ground, 

 But such a place as Langleyford is rarely to be found." 



