Report of Meetings for 188G. By J. Hardy. 391 



A story, the parallel in some respects of "Bessie Bell and 

 Mary Grey," is applicable to Allanhaugh Peel, to which two 

 young maidens retired " during a famine and fended themselves 

 on oat-meal and a barrel of snails ; and it is further said that on 

 this diet they had thriven very well, and were fair and plump, 

 while all around were almost famished." (F. Hogg in Trans. 

 Hawick, Arch. Soc. 1878, p. 205.) * The snail myth is not con- 

 fined to Teviotdale. It is told of two old women at Coldingham, 

 that in a period of distress they had kept themselves alive by 

 means of a barrel of black slugs which they had salted. " Slugs 

 and snails were anciently, and are to this day, a popular remedy 

 in consumptive complaints." (Johnston's Introd. to Conchology, 

 p. 77, London, 1850.) 



We turned up abruptly at Vails or Vailles into a country hill- 

 road to go to the Chapelhill Forts, the southern hills gradually 

 unfolding themselves as we emerged from the vale of the Teviot, 

 which we now left. We reached a strip of oak plantation, where 

 sward gay with the blossoms of Geranium si/lvaticum, shewed 

 old occupancy by that plant ; then turned round through pasture 

 grounds marked with old culture, and climbed the steep ascent 

 to the camps, which are of great strength, and stand out fully in 





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Sc&Z&'^h J<cvb 



«^6 no so o s<ro 200 3fo *o v STre feet 

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Chapelhill Fori*. 

 * Leyden places the scene in Denholm Dean.— Poetical Works, edited by 

 Thomas Brown, Edin. 1875. pp. 26-27, and note p. 288. 



