Ten or half-past get off from Innerleithen Station, southwards, in early days of January. Before you might know it you are over the Tweed, a Scotch river which has already acquired an ‘English accent.’ There is plenty of water in its tributaries, and their little daughters; the whole country is abustle with them. You catch no sight of the beautiful old house as you pass through Traquair Village and cross Quair Water.

The scene soon gets to business. Before you are beyond the last fir plantation and straggling, bad-tempered-looking birches, it is evident that the country is of a high quality; and if you turn to verify the steepness of the ascent, the view of Moorfoot, seldom disappointing, is fine. It is Newhall Burn against which you are walking; the road in time leaves it deep on the right in the valley, the far side of which has become a vast wall of pasture. Only get the sun upon it and any sort of blue sky, and the effect is admirable : the grass tends to be quite pale; the bracken, squirrel-colour of course, provides the striking accent; the heather is sepia, and a scanty element. A few pockets of snow help; as may later the nearly black of a peat cutting; but not the outbreaking stone, blueish. The sheep are blueish too; here is a flock of ewes, watching the departure of a ram, refractory without hope against the tactic of a fine border lad and two young bitches.