At the Lyne Water ford, Michael Veitch was waiting for me. He waved his hat cheerfully, and cried, "Good luck to you, John, and see that you bide not too long away." I told him of a few things which I wished him to see to, and then left him, riding up the little burn which comes down between the Meldon hills, and whither lies the road to Eddleston Water. When I was out of sight of him, I seemed to have left all my home behind me, and I grew almost sorrowful. At the top of the ridge I halted and looked back. There was Barns among its bare trees and frosted meadows, with Tweed winding past, and beyond, a silvery glint of the Manor coming down from its blue, cold hills. There was Scrape, with its long slopes clad in firs, and the grey house of Dawyck nestling at its foot. I saw the thin smoke curling up from the little village of Lyne, and Lyne Kirk standing on its whin-covered brae, and the bonny holms of Lyne Water, where I had often taken great baskets of trout. I must have stayed there, gazing, for half an hour; and, whenever I looked on the brown moors and woods, where I had wandered from boyhood, I felt sorrowful, whether I would or no. "But away with such thoughts," I said, steeling my heart. "There’s many a fine thing awaiting me, and, after all, I will be back in a year or two to the place and the folk that I love." So I went down to the village of Eddleston whistling the "Cavalier’s Rant," and firmly shutting my mind against thoughts of home. I scarce delayed in Eddleston, but pushed on up the valley, expecting to get dinner at the inn at Leadburn, which stands at the watershed, just where the county of Edinburgh touches our shire of Tweeddale. The way, which is a paradise in summer, was rugged and cold at this season. The banks of the stream were crusted with ice, and every now and then, as I passed, I raised a string of wild duck, who fled noisily to the high wildernesses. I came to Leadburn about eleven o’clock in the forenoon, somewhat cold in body, but brisk and comforted in spirit. I had Maisie stabled, and myself went into the hostel and bade them get ready dinner. The inn is the most villainous, bleak place that I have ever seen, and I who write this have seen many. The rooms are damp and mouldy, and the chimney-stacks threaten hourly to come down about the heads of the inmates. It stands in the middle of a black peat-bog, which stretches nigh to the Pentland Hills; and if there be a more forsaken countryside on earth, I do not know it. The landlord, nevertheless, was an active, civil man, not spoiled by his surroundings; and he fetched me an excellent dinner—a brace of wild-fowl and a piece of salted beef, washed down with very tolerable wine.