LET us rest awhile by this sunlit stretch of road, where the red roofs of distant farmsteads alone hint of life; always excepting the humming telegraph wires whispering messages to Edinburgh and the Far North, or perhaps the summer breeze bringing across country the distant echo of a train. If it does, why then the sound renders our solitude the more complete, and gives flight to a lagging imagination. It reminds us that it was here, and not there, three miles away over the meadows in a railway cutting, that the traffic of two kingdoms went, sixty years ago. These green selvedges of grass that border the highway so delightfully were not then in existence. They were a part of the road itself, which was, for all that, not too wide for the mail-coaches, the stages, the fly-wagons, private chariots, post-chaises, and especially the runaway couples _en route_ for Gretna Green, who travelled along it. “The dullest road in the world, though the most convenient,” quoth Sir Walter Scott, in his diary, when journeying to Abbotsford in 1826. Dull scenically, but not historically. Had it been an unlettered cyclist who had made this criticism, a thousand critical lashes had been his portion—and serve him right; but what shall we say of the author of _Waverley_? Dull! why, the road is thronged with company. One can—any one can who has the will to it—call spirits from the vasty deep with which to people the way. No need to ask, “Will they come?” They cannot choose but do so; they are here.