er one boy in particular; he had no hat on, and only had a
grey plaid wrapped about him. It is nothing to describe, but on a bare
moor, alone with his sheep, standing, as he did, in utter quietness and
silence, there was something uncommonly impressive in his appearance, a
solemnity which recalled to our minds the old man in the corn-field. We
passed many people who were mowing, or raking the grass of the common; it
was little better than rushes; but they did not mow straight forward,
only here and there, where it was the best; in such a place hay-cocks had
an uncommon appearance to us.

After a long descent we came to some plantations which were not far from
Douglas Mill. The country for some time had been growing into
cultivation, and now it was a wide vale with large tracts of corn; trees
in clumps, no hedgerows, which always make a country look bare and
unlovely. For my part, I was better pleased with the desert places we
had left behind, though no doubt the inhabitants of this place think it
'a varra bonny spot,' for the Scotch are always pleased with their own
abode, be it what it may; and afterwards at Edinburgh, when we were
talking with a bookseller of our travels, he observed that it was 'a fine
country near Douglas Mill.' Douglas Mill is a single house, a large inn,
being one of the regular stages between Longtown and Glasgow, and
therefore a fair specimen of the best of the country inns of Scotland.
As soon as our car stopped at the door we felt the difference. At an
English inn of this size, a waiter, or the master or mistress, would have
been at the door immediately, but we remained some time before anybody
came; then a barefooted lass made her appearance, but she only looked at
us and went away. The mistress, a remarkably handsome woman, showed us
into a large parlour; we ordered mutton-chops, and I finished my letter
to Mary; writing on the same window-ledge on which William had written to
me two years before.

After dinner, William and I sat by a little mill-race in the garden. We
had left Leadhills and Wanlockhead far above us, and now were come into a
warmer climate; but there was no richness in the face of the country.
The shrubs looked cold and poor, and yet there were some very fine trees
within a little distance of Douglas Mill, so that the reason, perhaps,
why the few low shrubs and trees which were growing in the gardens seemed
to be so unluxuriant, might be, that there being no hedgerow