The "Engineer" guards and drivers
with scarlet coats, white hats, and overflowing boots, and all the
coaching paraphernalia so minutely described by Dickens, then passed
away, and the solitary remnant of these good old times was "Sandy"
Elder the old Landlord of the "Cross Keys" on Canonbie Lea.
Soon after leaving the "Cross Keys" we came to a wood where we saw a
"Warning to Trespassers" headed "Dangerous," followed by the words
"Beware of fox-traps and spears in these plantations." This, we
supposed, was intended for the colliers, for in some districts they were
noted as expert poachers. Soon afterwards we reached what was called the
Scotch Dyke, the name given to a mound of earth, or "dyke," as it was
called locally, some four miles long and erected in the year 1552
between the rivers Esk and Sark to mark the boundary between England and
Scotland. We expected to find a range of hills or some substantial
monument or noble ruin to mark the boundary between the two countries,
and were rather disappointed to find only an ordinary dry dyke and a
plantation, while a solitary milestone informed us that it was
eighty-one and a half miles to Edinburgh.
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