* * * * *
A moment now he slacked his speed,
A moment breathed his panting steed;
Drew saddle-girth and corslet-band,
And loosen'd in the sheath his brand.
On Minto-crags the moonbeams glint,
Where Barnhills hew'd his bed of flint;
Who flung his outlaw'd limbs to rest,
Where falcons hang their giddy nest
Mid cliffs, from whence his eagle eye
For many a league his prey could spy;
Cliffs, doubling, on their echoes borne,
The terrors of the robber's horn!
We passed through a cultivated country on the verge of the moors, where
we saw some good farms, one farmer telling us he had 900 acres of arable
land with some moorland in addition. He was superintending the gathering
of a good crop of fine potatoes, which he told us were "Protestant
Rocks." He was highly amused when one of us suggested to the other that
they might just have suited a country parson we knew in England who
would not have the best variety of potatoes, called "Radicals," planted
in his garden because he did not like the name. He was further amused
when we innocently asked him the best way to reach Hawick, pronouncing
the name in two syllables which sounded like Hay-wick, while the local
pronunciation was "Hoike.
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