Engineers know where folk need to go, and provide according to their knowledge. They like long valleys in which to place their sweetest lines at the service of men. Seldom do they desire to meddle with tracks made by sheep and the weather to destinations which have now lost much of their significance, with Kirkgates and Howgates. Here is one of the latter; take it. As to the gate, it is easy; men gang their ain gate in older speech; so let us, in both senses. But the How? It was not nothing once, whatever it be to-day, or the road to it would not have been tramped smooth, notwithstanding its other linear peculiarities. A shrine of sorts, to which innumerable feet tended, before people had the Mass, and a priestcraft, less rich in prophetic utterance, but more able in counsels of expiation.

Out and upward it drives, the Howgate, with the undecided obstination of the stream it often counters. Under its guidance cultivation deteriorates by small degrees from opulence to the derisory, even to piteous vestiges of abandoned effort. The rough; tenuous pasture; grouse and the curlew. For us the quality is improved with every mile; for our meditations are in a key which does not admit commiseration. Ancient images gather in us; there is no discord among them, and the spirit is stronger for this.