the
mail-coach tragedy of 1831, when MacGeorge and his companion,
Goodfellow, perished in the snow in a heroic attempt to get the bags
through to Tweedshaws. At Tweedsmuir, (the name of the parish--disjoined
from Drumelzier in 1643)--eight miles down, the valley opens somewhat,
and vegetation properly begins. Of Tweedsmuir Kirk--on the peninsula
between Tweed and Talla--Lord Cockburn said that it had the prettiest
situation in Scotland. John Hunter, a Covenant martyr, sleeps in its
bonnie green kirk-knowe--the only Covenant grave in the Border Counties
outside Dumfries and Galloway. Talla Linns recalls the conventicle
mentioned in the "Heart of Midlothian," at which Scott makes Davie Deans
a silent but much-impressed spectator. In the wild Gameshope Glen, close
by, Donald Cargill and James Renwick, and others lay oft in hiding. "It
will be a bloody night this in Gemsop," are the opening words of Hogg's
fine Covenant tale, the "Brownie of Bodsbeck." The Talla Valley contains
the picturesque new lake whence Edinburgh draws its augmented water
supply. Young Hay of Talla was one of Bothwell's "Lambs," and suffered
death for the Darnley murder. At the Beild--regaining the Tweed--Dr.
John Ker, one of the foremost pulpiteers of his generation, was born in
1819. Oliver Castle was the home of the Frasers, Lords of Tweeddale
before they were Lords of Lovat. The Crook Inn was a noted "howff" in
the angling excursions of Christopher North and the Ettrick Shepherd.
Mr. Lang thinks that possibly the name suggested the "Cleikum Inn" of
"St. Ronan's Well." At the Crook, William Black ends his "Adventures of
a Phaeton" with the climax of all good novels, an avowal of love and a
happy engagement. Polmood, near by, was the scene of Hogg's lugubrious
"Bridal of Polmood," seldom read now, one imagines. Kingledoors in two
of its place-names preserves the memory of Cuthbert and Cristin, the
Saint and his hermit-disciple. Stanhope was a staunch Jacobite holding,
one of its lairds being the infamous Murray of Broughton, Prince
Charlie's secretary, the Judas of the cause. Murray, by the way, was
discovered in hiding after Culloden at Polmood, the abode of his
brother-in-law, Michael Hunter. Linkumdoddie has been immortalized in
Burns's versicles beginning, "Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed"--a study in
idiomatic untranslateable Scots. Here is the picture of Willie's wife--a
philological puzzle.

"She's bow-hough'd, she's hein-shinn'd,
Ae li