Forty years since there lived at Priestlaw, in the heart of the Lammermuir Hills, a family of farmers, Darling by name, who were perhaps the most excellent examples of that type I have ever encountered. The farm had been tenanted by their forebears for several generations, and the occupants were now two brothers and a sister, all unmarried. Active, intelligent, kindly and honourable, they were universally respected and esteemed throughout Lammermuir far and near. One of the brothers was once riding home from a fair when he was attacked by one of the navvies who were engaged in draining a neighbouring farm. The ruffian had pinned the old man to the grassy bank by the side of the road, and was dealing him some heavy blows, when a group of farmers returning from the same fair came in sight and rushed forward to save life. When they saw who the victim proved to be, their indignation rose to such a height that, but for the intervention of the policeman who happened to come up with another large contingent of pedestrians, they would have executed summary justice themselves. Some of the party conveyed the injured farmer to Priestlaw, while the great majority of the company marched their prisoner off to Haddington, a distance of some twelve miles, and never relaxed their hold of him until they saw him locked up within the police-cell. The brothers were delightful men to converse with. The sister, besides the family charm, had a keen interest in natural history, and in all the legends and traditions of the hills. I had come to the district to carry on the Geological Survey there, and on making Miss Darling’s acquaintance, found from her that when a girl she had accompanied Sir James Hall and Professor Playfair in their excursions up the Fassney Water. She had seen no geologist since then, she said, some sixty years before, and she would fain hear something of what was thought and said about the history of the earth now. We exchanged wallets, I giving her such information as I had been able to gather regarding the rocks around her home, and she, on the other hand, retailing to me a most interesting series of traditions that clung to particular spots visible to us as we sat in her garden, looking over to the Whitadder and across into the heathy uplands. One of her tales has always seemed to me to carry a strong appeal in favour of the trustworthiness of persistent local tradition. Ever since the time of the Battle of Dunbar, she said, it had been handed down that Cromwell, finding his way barred by Leslie and the Covenanters, sought to discover some route through the hills practicable for his army, and sent out scouts for that purpose. Two of these men, disguised as peasants, had made their way down the valley of the Whitadder, as far as the mouth of a little dell or cleugh, when a gust of wind from the hollow blew their cloaks aside, and showed their military garb to some of Leslie’s emissaries who were on the outlook.