|Returning{355} to the neighbourhood of Tweed, on the bank of a little burn tributary to Biggar Water stands the village of Broughton, reminiscent of Mr. "Evidence" Murray, the Prince's Secretary, who saved his own life after the '45 by turning King's Evidence. Broughton House, his old home, was burned to the ground about 1775, (a couple of years prior to Murray's death on the Continent,) and the estate was afterwards sold to the famous Lord Braxfield, the original of Stevenson's "Weir of Hermiston." Higher up Tweed, on the farther bank, is Stanhope, in the eighteenth century the property of Murray of Broughton's nephew, Sir David Murray, who lost his all in the '45; and not many miles farther up the river is Polmood, where the dishonoured uncle lay hid, and was taken, in June 1746, losing thereafter more than the life he saved--honour and the respect of his fellow men. "Neither lip of me nor of mine comes after Mr. Murray of Broughton's!" cried Sir Walter Scott's father as he threw out of window the cup from which the apostate had but then drunk tea. And:--"Do you know this witness?" was asked of Sir John Douglas of Kelhead, a prisoner after the '45, before the Privy Council at St. James's, when Murray was giving evidence. "Not I," said Douglas, "I once knew a person who bore the designation of Murray of Broughton,--but that was a gentleman and a man of honour, and one that could hold up his head!" {356}Of old, Polmood--the name, I believe, means the "wolf's burn," or stream--was a hunting seat of Scottish kings; In times more modern it was chiefly remarkable for an interminable law plea which dragged its weary length along for forty years and more, probably in the end with ruin to both parties to the suit. Before coming to Polmood, however, we pass Mossfennan, sung of in two ballads, one of the seventeenth century, the other (of which but a fragment remains) of much more ancient date. On the roadside a little further up is a sign-post that points dejectedly towards a dilapidated-looking tree which stands solitary on the haugh below. Here, says the legend on the post, was the site of Linkumdoddie, whereof Burns wrote a song. But to find any point of interest in the scene, or in the identity of Linkumdoddie or of the lady celebrated, t requires, I think, that the gazer should be possessed of a most perfervid admiration of the poet.