272 Report of Meetings. By James Hardy. 



the middle stone, and part of her paper from the Club's Pro- 

 ceedings was read to the company. The letters could not well be 

 traced in the open li;f'ht of mid-day. The stone had formerly 

 been protected by a wooden paling, which cattle had broken 

 down ; and idle visitors had with knives been cutting at the 

 letters, and scratching the face of the stone. On Mr Eliott 

 Lockhart's attention being directed to this, it was promptly 

 remedied. 



About a mile onward and to the westward of this field on the 

 same side of the Yarrow, is the farm of Catslack-burn, its name 

 derived, as well as that of the Catslack-knowe, and not improb- 

 ably that of the first part of the Catrail, from the Wild-cats that 

 once frequented the neighbourhood of the slack, or concealed 

 themselves by day in the ditch of the earth-work. Another 

 evidence of their former prevalence is the Cat craig above 

 Tinnis, and there is also a Cat-car-wood, or Cather wood, in the 

 parish. 



" The Catrail, or rather the continuation of it, was here traced 

 by Professor Veitch and the late Dr. Eussell. It crosses the 

 river at Sundhope, and is lost on the ascent of Sundhope hill." 

 tSo Mr Currie tells us. We tried to have a glimpse of it both in 

 going and returning, but failed, although every decayed fail- 

 dike, on this bright day, was perceptible on the hill-slopes. Old 

 people who preferred going to Ettrick Church used to follow a 

 road across the hollow, between Sundhope and Ladhope. 



Yarrow-Peus is a long straggling village, first feud in 1792 

 from the Duke of Buccleuch. To the west a few miles we crossed 

 Mountbenger burn, and afterwards passed the place itself, once 

 occupied by the Ettrick Shepherd, being that unfortunate farm, 

 where according to his own confession he lost £2000. It was 

 hereabouts that old marks of cultivation by balks were re- 

 marked. We then reached the " Gordon Arms," said to have 

 been first established by one who had been a butler to a Duke 

 of Cordon, or some one else of the Gordon lineage. From this 

 branches off across the Yarrow, and then by Eldinhope and 

 Hartlea]j (so called from an incident in a hunt connected with a 

 Scottish King), a road to Tushielaw Inn, on the Ettrick. An- 

 other road to the north, up the Benger burn, leads to Traquair ; 

 and by this road the party received a contingent who had driven 

 from Innerleithen. The old grey tower of Dryhope, abode of 

 "Mary Scott, the flower of Yarrow," is now bare and comfort- 



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