But if winter was bad, surely in the better time of year there were pleasures that atoned for all they had suffered. In the long twilight of a summer's evening, when moorland scents fill all the air and the crow of grouse echoes from the heathery knolls, what pleasure more satisfying could there be in life than to sit behind a free-going team of bays, listening lazily to the rhythm of the chiming hoofs, to the ring of steel bitts and the merry jingle of the splinter-bars? And as the coach breasted the summit, and began to make up time on the down gradient, the glorious view that broke on the eye of the north bound passenger of itself would make amends for halt the ills of life. Away to the west, stretched ever more dim in the fading sunset glow, the long-flung line of Cheviots--Carterfell, the Carlin's Tooth (where springs the infant Jed), Peel Fell, Hartshorn Pyke, all blending, far down, into the round green {144}hills of Liddesdale; then, more to the north-westward, set in the wide expanse, the Windburgh Hill and Cauldcleuch Head; farther off, away over the high land of upper Teviotdale, "The far grey riot of the Ettrick hills," and the dim shapes of the mighty "Laws" of Peeblesshire--Broad Law, Dollar Law, Black Law. Then far below this vantage point on Catcleuch Shin, in middle foreground Edgerston's darkening woods; beyond, Ruberslaw, Minto Crags,--"where falcons hang their giddy nest,"--and the Dunion; then, to the right, Eildon's cloven peak, and, near-by, the Blac k Hill at Earlston, with the Lammermuirs in dimmest background; to the right again, Smailholme Tower, erect and watchful; east of that, the green Merse, wide-spread like a map, stretched almost to the sea, and on the extreme right, far off, Cheviot himself, blocking the view. What a truly magnificent sweep of country it is! A sense of space, and room to breathe, such as one finds seldom in this country. Three hundred and thirty-eight years ago, however, there were Scots and English assembled on that Catcleuch ridge one summer's day, who had no eyes for the view; "The seventh of July, the suith to say, At the Reidswire the tryst was set; Our Wardens they affixed the day, And, as they promised, so they met. Alas! that day I'll ne'er forget!" As was customary, the English and Scottish Wardens of the Marches had met for the discussion and settlement of Border claims and disputes, and for the redressing of wrongs. Sir John Carmichael in this instance acted for Scotland, Sir John Forster for England. The former was accompanied by the young Scott of Buccleuch,--according to Sir Walter the same who, twenty-one years later, was famous for the rescue of Kinmont Willie from Carlisle Castle,--by sundry Armstrongs, {145}Elliots, Douglases, Turnbulls of Rule Water, and other wild Borderers. "Of other clans I cannot tell