[Original]
But what a place for game of all kinds this forest must then have been. One may learn from the place-names which still linger among the hills what manner of beasts formerly inhabited this part of the Border: Ox-cleuch, Deer-law, Hart-leap, Hynd-hope, Fawn-burn, Wolf-cleuch, Brock-hill, Swine-brae, Boar-cleuch, Cat-slack. The Hart's-leap is said to have got its name owing to an incident that occurred during King James's expedition in 1530; a deer, in sight of the king, is said to have cleared at one bound a distance so remarkable that James directed his followers to leave a memorial of the leap. Two grey whinstones here, twenty-eight feet apart, are said to be those which were then set up. Ox-cleuch was probably so named from some ancient adventure with a Urus, or wild bull, or possibly because it was a favourite haunt of those formidable beasts. Their skulls are still occasionally dug up during the process of draining swampy lands among our Border hills. There is a very fine specimen now at Synton (between Selkirk and Hawick), home of one of the oldest branches of the Scott family.
[Original]
If one may judge from that skull, the horns must have been something like twice the size of the ox of the present day. He was the ancestor, I suppose, of the fierce wild cattle of Chillingham. Half a mile, or a little more, above the inn at Tushielaw—a comfortable hostelry, and a good fishing centre—the Rankle Burn flows into Ettrick.
[Original]
Up this burn's right bank, through the lonely vale and over the hills runs a road leading to Hawick, and on your right, as you head in that direction, a few miles up is Buccleuch, one of the earliest possessions in the Border of the great Scott clan. Near the road, in a deep ravine or cleuch, is pointed out the spot where, they say, the buck was slain from which' originated the title of the present ducal house. Farther on, just upon the water-shed between Ettrick and Teviot, is Bellenden, which became the Scotts' mustering place and whose name was the clan's slogan. As Mr. Thomson's sketches show, it is a wild country enough; in winter its bleakness at times is surely past the power of words to tell. It must be a hardy race that can live and thrive here. A land of swamp, and sullen, dark, moss-hag, this must have been in days of old. Still among the hills, bogs and lochs innumerable are scattered: of the latter, Clearburn, Ringside, Crooked Loch, Windylaw, Hellmuir, Alemuir, and various others, all within a few miles, but not many, I think, such as need tempt the wandering fisher.