keport of Meetings fur 1888. By J. Hardy. 18? 



in sight of the windows, was then a narrow burn running under 

 banks shaggy with thorns; where the flower-garden is now, 

 stood a dismal little church in a corner dark with yews, and 

 dreary with unkept graves ; the manse, surrounded Ly a few 

 untidy cottages, overlooked the little glen, and was near enough 

 to the house for the minister to see the family as they sat at 

 dinner in the round room on the ground-floor, known as the 

 ' big room ' by uncles and aunts, and as the ' school-room ' by the 

 children of to-day. The rocks may have been finer then when 

 no woods hung like drapery on their sides, but from the old 

 castle one must have looked down on muirs and heaths where 

 now lie the woods of the Lamblairs, or the green slopes and 

 corn-tields which smile in pleasant Teviotdale. 



The green hills are possibly the only feature in the place 

 which remain unchanged, though the village which clusters at 

 their feet is new. 



In those days roads were few, and drains were not, and the 

 duellers in a land where high farming triumphs will sometimes 

 lament the days when fences were odious and turnips undiscovered. 

 Yet, on the whole, though sunny days may then have shown 

 bright stretches of whin or of heather which have disappeared 

 now, we must admit that we live on a drier soil, and in a more 

 ' innerlie ' country, and have a greater variety of cheerful 

 pleasures than fell to the lot of our forefathers.''* 



The house was open to the company. In the entrance hall 

 there is a Canadian and Chinese collection of spoils of the chase, 

 weapons, and curiosities ; also a series of Tasmanian and 

 Australian Mammalia, Birds, etc., brought home by Sir Henry 

 Elliot. The Library where the books were in excellent bindings ; 

 Lord Minto's room; the family portraits, and the paintings were 

 leisurely examined to every one's satisfaction. A party was 

 formed to botanise Minto Crags ; while others preferred to look 

 at the old churchyard, the gardens, and the finely wooded dean 

 below the mansion. It is pleasant to know that the inmates of 

 the manse, and the family when resident here, were on the most 

 amicable terms. Dr. Somerville, in l7<>4-9, then unmarried, 

 appears to have been an inmate in Sir Gilbert Elliot's house, 

 where he had partial charge of his two sons, Mr Elliot afterwards 

 Governor-General of India, and first Earl of Minto; and Mr 

 Hugh Elliot subsequently Governor of Madras. f There is a 



♦Memoirs of the Right Hon. Hugh Elliot, pp, 72, 73. 

 t Somerville' s Life and Times, p. 125, 



