feet at once and moved by long
easy bounds like an Antelope.
The country along this road was very
hilly with fine woods & many oaks &
beeches. Tits were numerous in the pines.
Saw several birds flying which had a
note very nearly like Acanthis linaria.
They must have been either Redpolls or
Linnets.
  Returned to lunch & at 2.30 walked
out to "Chesters", a Roman camp,
very interesting. Marks of chariot wheels
in market place, building heated by
furnaces, the flues perfect. Also drains in
perfect order with baked earthen pipes.
A bird [illus] sculpture, lettered either
"Necko" or "Necro" on one of the walls. 
Pouring rain during our stay.
  Took 5 P.M. for Melrose arriving at 8.
Cheviot Hills very fine with great expanses
of purple heather. Saw four Kestrels.
Melrose.
  Aug. 28. Clear and cool with high wind and
a few dashes of rain.
  Started at 10 A.M. for Abbottsford with C. [Caroline] & E. [Elizabeth].
in landau. Pretty drive, the country hilly
with patches of woods & fields of ripe oats,
and the swift flowing river. Abbottsford
very unlike what I expected, the grounds
exceedingly artificial in the Italian style.
The house was too ornate exteriorly but very
attractive within. Saw the study, library
gun room & armory. In the gun-room
many curious guns, one double barrel
(flint lock) with one barrel directly over
the other. Rob Roy's gun is a single
barrel of beautiful workmanship, the
barrel long & apparently old fashioned
Damascus, the stock symmetrical.
Hedge Sparrows, Chaffinches and Robins
about the house.
  Returned through town. Yellow Hammer [sic] [Yellowhammer]
in full song by roadside. Thence on
to Dryburgh Abbey. Left carriage
at river, crossed foot bridge & walked