As one proceeds up Jed from the ancient royal burgh, probably the first thing that forces itself on the mind is that the old coach road was not constructed for present-day traffic. In less than a couple of miles the river is crossed no fewer than four times by bridges which are curiously old fashioned, turning blindly across the stream in some instances almost at right angles to the road, and in the steepness of their ascent and descent conveying to the occupant of a motor car a sensation similar to that given to a bad sailor by a vessel at sea when she is surmounting "the league-long rollers." Nor are some of the gradients on the road a few miles farther out such as entirely commend themselves to motorists, two or three of them being as abrupt as one in twelve, and one in thirteen. {125}Nevertheless the beauties of road and country are great, especially if it should chance that a visit is paid to the district when the tender flush of early Spring lies sweet on Jed's thick-wooded banks, and the trout have begun to think at last of rising again freely to the natural fly. Or better still, perhaps, when the green and gold, the russet and yellow, the crimson of Autumn combine with and melt into the crumbling red cliffs,--surely more generous tinted than ever were cliffs before. Above, a sky of tenderest blue, an air windless yet brisk, and just a leaf here and there fluttering leisurely into the amber clear water that goes wandering by; and from the hushes the sweet thin pipe of a robin, or the crow of pheasant from some copse. That is the Indian Summer of Scotland, her pleasantest time of year,--if it were not for the shortening days, and the recollection that trout fishing is dead till another season. It was a heavily wooded district this in former days, and one or two of the giants of old still survive,--the widespreading "Capon tree," for instance, that you pass on the road a mile from Jedburgh (but why "Capon" it passes the knowledge of man to decide); and the "King of the Woods," near Fernihirst, a beautiful and still vigorous oak, with a girth of 17 feet, four feet from the ground.