328 



Former Lines of Road about Ashiesteel. By Miss 

 Russell of Ashiesteel. 



A CURIOUS, or at least interesting, story about Sir Walter 

 Scott, which, I think, is quite unknown otherwise, has been 

 unearthed by Mr Andrew Lang in a little book called 

 "Reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott," published before 

 Lockhart's Life. 



But, as in so many other cases connected with him, the 

 locality seems to have been quite forgotten. In one of his 

 papers, entitled "Angling Sketches," Mr Lang mentions "the 

 ghost Sir Walter saw at Ashiesteel " ; while in another 

 paper, in the same singularly agreeable book, it appears 

 that Sir Walter saw it when riding home over the moor to 

 Ashiesteel, which shows it cannot have been anywhere near 

 the place, as there is nothing that can be called a moor at 

 Ashiesteel, or beyond it, as the shoulders of Minchmoor come 

 down more or less steeply to the Tweed, all the way to the 

 westward as far as Inverleithen, where a fresh range of hills 

 begins. But to the east of Ashiesteel and the Peel is the 

 Craig Hill, nearly the only hill in the country which stands 

 by itself, and is not part of a group. On the map it is 

 seen to be nearly triangular, and both to the south of it, 

 and to the northeast, is level ground, which might be called 

 a moor. It is cultivated and regularly enclosed now in both 

 places, and the track to the south of the hill broken up ; 

 but by one or other of these lines Sir Walter must have 

 gone and returned every time he was at his work in Selkirk, 

 and when on horseback he would naturally take that by the 

 south of the hill, for, besides that it was somewhat the 

 shorter, the other, though now a sort of cartroad, was at 

 that time the highroad ; and the first would be turf. 



The story in question, as apparently told by himself, was 

 that, riding home over the moor after sunset, on a clear 

 summer evening, he saw a man before him, who, when he 

 came to the place, had disappeared. Riding on, he looked 

 back, and saw the same man at the same spot ; he turned 

 and rode back full speed, with the same result, that the man 

 was not there. After this, he said, "neither he nor the 

 mare cared to wait longer." Riding a fidgetty horse on a 



