Meetings of Bei wickshi/re Naturalists' Club, by J . Hardy. 423 



We approach. Ashiesteel through the lands of Peel, pertaining 

 to the Duke of Buccleuch. In Sir Walter Scott's time Peel was 

 farmed by Robert Laidlaw, a distant kinsman of the author of 

 " Lucy's Flittin." The Laidlaws were doomed to be all landless 

 men within nine generations ; and his weird, despite his parsi- 

 monious frugality, at last overtook him. (Lockhart's Life 

 of Scott). Robert Laidlaw's only daughter was married in July, 

 1825, to Dr Nathaniel Paterson, then minister of Galashiels, 

 afterwards of Glasgow, the author of the well-known charming 

 treatise "The Manse Garden." In this work he wrote of the 

 Holly in such terms of admiration, both for its utility and beauty, 

 that the nurserymen could not supply the demand which arose 

 when that work made its appearance.* 



Ashiesteel is now so closely grown up with trees, as to be 

 almost undiscoverable till it is dropped upon at the end of the 

 avenue. It can no longer look " waste" in the winter and early 

 spring, as Sir Walter used to think. Scott had all a townsman's 

 shivering dread of winter scenes, as Professor Yeitch remarks. f 

 A good deal of the wood in Peel wood is natural alder, hazel, 

 oak, mountain ash, and birch ; and a portion of the timber at 

 Ashiesteel is also natural. At the lodge a guide, deputed by 

 Miss Russell, the proprietrix, conducted the party by a field 

 road, still called the " Shirra's road," to the " Shirra's knowe," 

 which is on Peel farm. This bell-shaped eminence, apparently 

 a kaim, claims attention, as having once been a favourite seat of 

 Sir Walter Scott. While Mr Laidlaw held Peel, he took special 

 care to keep the turf on the Shirra's knowe in good repair. The 

 trees on the knoll are birches and oaks (Quercus sessilifloraj ; the 

 minor herbage consists of grasses, rockrose Cistus, tormentil, 

 dog-violet, primrose, devil' s-bit scabious, white lady's bedstraw, 

 heath-pea, and the male speedwell. Parti-coloured fungi spot 

 the sward, and the decaying birches are studded with white 

 Polypori. Close beneath, hid amid tangled greenwood is " Glen- 

 kinnon's rill ;" here shaded with oaks, mountain-ashes, birches, 

 and hazels ; but farther up, where it issues from the moorlands, 

 it is embowered in feathery birches. The height before us, 

 brown with heather and fern, is Craighill, or Craig-fell, a 

 pendicle of Yair; that behind, beyond Ashiesteel, with, a keel 



* Letters to his Family, by N. Patterson, D D., pp. 19, 25. 

 t Hist, and Poetry of the Scottish Border, p. 511. 



2a 



