The chief resorts alike of shepherds and of anglers are the villages of Alwinton and Harbottle, distant about two miles from each other, and near to where the Coquet winds out of the hills and flows between rich meadow-lands, that slope away to the distant Cheviots on the one hand, and to the nearer Simonside Hills on the other. Alwinton has the large allowance of two inns to about eleven houses. It is one of the most ancient of the Border villages, and had a church in 1293, to which fled one Thomas de Holm, escaped from the prison of the neighbouring town, but taken by Simon Smart and Benedict Grey, who "beheaded him at Simonsett, and hung his head up on the gallows at Harbottle," as a warning to all like evil-doers. Alwinton has its peel-tower, at about half a mile from the present village; but at Harbottle there are far more striking memorials of a stirring past. There is Harbottle Castle, for example, a ruined mass of masonry on the summit of a steep hill between the village and the river. It must anciently have been almost the strongest place on the Borders, when what is now a small village was doubtless a fairly considerable town. "Here Botl," the place of the army--such is the name which it is said to have borne before the Conquest, when it contained a stronghold held by Milred, the son of Ackman. "Robert with the Beard," the lord of Prudhoe, founder of the family of De Umfraville, came into possession of all the surrounding lands in 1076, on condition of defending the countryside against wolves and the enemies of the king. The castle, of which there are portions still remaining, was built in the reign of Henry II., and was the prison and place of execution of all offenders taken in the liberty of Redesdale. Sitting by the castle of Harbottle in these days, and listening to the joyous music of the Coquet stream, the imagination vainly endeavours to piece together the meagre fragments of the past into some consistent whole; for the quiet aspect of things, the sweet rural peace, and this "Place of slumber and of dreams Remote among the hills," make it seem incredible that a great Scottish army can ever have sat down before it, and that the place can have been strong enough to resist a determined siege. [Illustration: THE COQUET AT FARNHAM.] When Harbottle has been left behind, the river no longer strains through narrow passes or hurries by great ramparts of riven cliff. It broadens out, indeed, into a quiet, smiling stream, with a brown shingly bed, and with occasional large masses of reeds, in which an otter may hide. There are now frequent small villages along its course, the most interesting of these being Holystone, where there is a well in which, as Alexander Smith has related-- "The king and all his nobles and his priests, Were by Paulinus in Christ's name baptised, And solemnly unto his service sealed. And then Paulinus lifted up his hands, And blessed them and the people."