330 A RAMBLE ROUND YETHOLM 



made from the delightfully varied flora around the Loch ; 

 but the purpose of the excursion having been attained, and 

 the day being very well advanced, a bee-line through the 

 grounds of Lochside in the direction of Town Yetholm was 

 taken, and the comfortable hostelry there was reached long 

 before sundown. 



Next day broke fair and bright, but found my companion 

 unable to take part in the labour allotted to it. Unwilling 

 to lose the opportunity of visiting Graden Moss and Hoselaw 

 Loch, and at the bidding of my guide, I set out on foot by 

 the main road to Kelso, and continuing Northward to the 

 Moor-house plantation, where the Linton road crosses it at 

 right angles, I made, as was suggested, a hurried examination 

 of the wood to ascertain whether the diminishing of the shade 

 occasioned by a recent uprooting of old timber had affected 

 the growth of Goodyera repens, formerly reported from this 

 place, and whether any traces could be found of the classical 

 Linncea horealis. The results of a hasty survey showed that 

 the former creeper, though less plentiful and vigorous, continued 

 to flourish, and that the latter apparently had not established 

 itself. Following the road to the East, which passes Old 

 Graden, and the chapel of Hoselaw (recently erected through 

 the energy of his son, the present incumbent of the parish, 

 to the memory of the late Very Rev. Thomas Leishman, 

 D.D., minister at Linton, on a site adjacent to an ancient 

 sanctuary of the same name), I cut down the head-rig of a 

 turnip-field, baked hard and unyielding to the tread, to enter 

 the Moss which lies between the farm of Graden and the 

 loch of Hoselaw, and is so overgrown with heather as 

 to conceal from view the many pitfalls that have been laid 

 for the incautious traveller. Little used to the ways of bogs, 

 I had not proceeded far when on stooping to gather some 

 Cranberries of the type met with on the day preceding, I 

 made one of those discoveries which serve as a discipline for 

 a life-time, by plunging almost to the middle into a disused 

 moss-hag, whence the inhabitants of former days had dislodged 

 their fuel. Discomfiture was of necessity my portion, as I 

 endeavoured to scrape off the peculiarly adhesive matter that 

 lay hidden in the depths that had entrapped me, and realised 

 the misery of being without a change. " Wariness, be my 



