Mr Hardy on Langleyford Vale and the Cheviots. 371 



Langleyford was of ancient note. A British road crossed the 

 country here. A Border night-watch in 1552 (6, Edw. VI.) 

 upon the west side of Till, ran from Langleyford to " Ryden 

 burn. " " Langley-ford, Preston, Byrkes, Hunt-roodes, 

 Dawson's-rode, to be watched with 11 men of the Inhabitors 

 of Mydleton-hall, Mydleton-South, Mydleton-North, West 

 Lylburne, the Newtone, and Chatton."* 



The Britons have left their traces on the first dry position, 

 above the present plantation, and facing the farm-house, in 

 their huts among a group of boulders. Proceeding along the 

 top of the bank, whence there is the best view of the birchen 

 groves that here cling to the stream, there is first an oblong ; 

 and farther on, where the boulders begin to multiply until 

 they monopolise the wide ferny space, the huts also abound 

 more and more. There are likewise more oblongs, and ruder 

 folds. In a recess in the wood, two natural cave-like 

 hollows have been adapted to contain sheep and cattle. 

 Concealment during an invasion was doubtless the object of 

 their adaptation. Higher up on the hill, and stretching 

 away towards the Hope, are many large and conspicuous 

 tumuli, which had depended for their construction on the 

 adjacent congregation of boulders. The highest that I have 

 noted is well up on the hill, in a line with the Hope ; and 

 the farthest up on the Hedgehope side, is also nearly opposite 

 that cottage. 



Conjoined with this, the greatest local collection of boulders 

 on this side of Cheviot, near the outlet of the Rae (or Roe) 

 burn,f are several fragments of what I take to be terminal 

 glacial moraines, consisting of strong mounds firmly com- 

 pacted ; which cross the defile between the hill-foot and the 

 bank of the burn, and face up the glen. From their being 

 lowered at the end next the burn, as if they had been removed 

 there, and from a depression lying above them, they 

 may also at one period have dammed back all the upper 

 waters issuing from Cheviot and Hedgehope, which may 

 have constituted a lake that subsequently burst its barriers. 

 This wonderful assemblage of rocks appears to be due also to 

 the same powerful instrumentality that piled together the 



* Nicolson's "Border Laws," p. 213. 

 f The Cat-loup, a deep gulph cloven by the stream by its passage through 

 the rocks— situated farther up the Harthope burn — recalls another extinct 

 member of the fauna, the wild-cat. 



