"see with strange delight the snow clouds form When Ruberslaw conceives the mountain storm-- Dark Ruberslaw, that lifts his head sublime, Rugged and hoary with the wrecks of time; On his broad misty front the giant wears The horrid furrows of ten thousand years." Like many another wild Border hill, Ruberslaw was a favourite lurking place for the persecuted Covenanters, and near its top is a craggy chasm from which, it is said, Wodrow's "savoury Mr. Peden" used to preach to his scattered congregation. It was on this hill that the pursuing dragoons all but caught the preacher and his flock one day; they were caught, indeed, like rats in a trap, had it not been for Ruberslaw's well known character for breeding bad weather. The soldiers were advancing in full view of the conventicle. Way of escape there was none, nor time to disperse; mounted men from every quarter were scrambling up the steep face of the hill, and in that clear light what chance was left now to hide among the rocks and boulders!" "O Lord," prayed Peden with extreme fervour, "lap the skirts of thy cloak ower puir auld Sandy." And as if in answer to his petition, there came over the entire hill a thick "Liddesdale drow," so dense that a man might not see two feet around him. When the mist cleared again, there was no one left for the dragoons to take. Above Hassendean, but on the other side of Teviot, is one of the few remaining possessions in this country, namely Cavers, of the great and ancient House of the Black Douglases. The relics are a very old flag; its date and history are variously explained by family legend and by antiquaries. It is not a pennon, therefore not Hotspur's pennon taken by the Earl of Douglas before the battle of Otterburne. It is nothing of the Percys', for it bears the Douglas Heart and a Douglas motto. On the whole it seems to have belonged not to the Black, but to their rivals and successors, the Red Douglases, who were as unruly, and "ill to lippen to" by Scottish kings, as the elder branch. {185}The lady's embroidered glove, with the letters K.P., ought to have belonged to Hotspur's wife, who is Kate in Shakespeare, a better authority than you mere genealogists. [Illustration: 0205] As we ascend, the water of Teviot becomes more and more foul; varying, when last I shuddered at it, from black to a most unwholesome light blue. It is distressing to see such a fluid flowing through beautiful scenes; and possibly since I mingled my tears with the polluted stream, the manufacturers of Hawick have taken some order in the way of more or less filtering their refuse and their dyes.