‘“From Selkirk! Ah! I was certain: General! It is true. They are from Selkirk.” Upon which his companion came up, who, looking at one of the lads for a while, exclaimed: ‘“I am sure you are the son of ze, ze, leetle fat man who kills ze sheep!” ‘“Faith! Ye’re recht!” said the astonished Scot. “My father was Tudhope, the flesher!” ‘Upon which the more effusive of the officers fairly took him round the neck, and gave him a hearty embrace. Making themselves known as two of the old French prisoners, they insisted on the lads remaining in their company, loaded them with kindness, and never tired of asking them questions about their place of exile, and all its people, particularly the sweethearts they and their comrades had left behind them.’ PEEBLES Although Peebles was not established as a parole town until 1803, a great many French prisoners, not on parole, were here in 1798–9, most of them belonging to the thirty-six-gun frigates _Coquille_ and _Résolue_, belonging to the Brest squadron of the expedition to Ireland, which was beaten by Sir John Warren. They were probably confined in the town jail. The first parole prisoners were Dutch, Belgians, and Danes, ‘all of whom took to learning cotton hand-loom weaving, and spent their leisure time in fishing’, says Mr. W. Chambers. In 1810 about one hundred French, Poles, and Italians came: ‘Gentlemanly in manner, they made for themselves friends in the town and neighbourhood, those among them who were surgeons occasionally assisting at a medical consultation. They set up a theatre in what is now the public reading-room, and acted Molière and Corneille. In 1811 all the “midshipmen” (gardes-marines) among them were suddenly called to the Cross, and marched away to Valleyfield, possibly an act of reprisal for Bonaparte’s action against English midshipmen.’[16] Shortly after their removal, all the other prisoners were sent away from Peebles, chiefly to Sanquhar. This removal is _said_ to have been brought about by the terror of a lady of rank in the neighbourhood at so many enemies being near Neidpath Castle, where were deposited the arms of the Peeblesshire Militia. Mr. Sanderson, of the Chambers Institute at Peebles, my indefatigable conductor about and around the pleasant old Border town, told me that there is still in Peebles a family named Bonong, said to be descended from a French prisoner; that a Miss Wallink who went to Canada some years ago as Mrs. Cranston, was descended from a Polish prisoner; that there was recently a Mr. Lenoir at the Tontine Hotel (traditionally the ‘hotle’ which was Meg Dodd’s bugbear in _St. Ronan’s Well_), and that a drawing master named Chastelaine came of French prisoner parentage. In the Museum of the Chambers Institute are four excellent specimens of French prisoner-made ship models, and on the plaster walls of a house are a couple of poorly executed oil frescoes said to have been painted by prisoners.