According to the Koran there were four archangels: Azrael, the angel of death; Azrafil, who was to sound the trumpet at the resurrection; Gabriel, the angel of revelations, who wrote down the divine decrees; and Michael, the champion, who fought the battles of faith,—and it was this Michael whose figure Sir Walter Scott described as appearing full in the midst of the east oriel window "with his Cross of bloody red," which in the light of the moon shone on the floor of the abbey and "pointed to the grave of the mighty dead" into which the Monk and William of Deloraine had to descend to secure possession of the "Mighty Book."

After passing the old abbey and the shade of the walls and trees to find our way to the narrow and rough road along which we had to travel towards Hawick, we halted for a few moments at the side of the road to arrange the contents of our bags, in order to make room for the small purchases we had made in the town. We had almost completed the readjustment when we heard the heavy footsteps of a man approaching, who passed us walking along the road we were about to follow. My brother asked him if he was going far that way, to which he replied, "A goodish bit," so we said we should be glad of his company; but he walked on without speaking to us further. We pushed the remaining things in our bags as quickly as possible, and hurried on after him. As we did not overtake him, we stood still and listened attentively, though fruitlessly, for not a footstep could we hear. We then accelerated our pace to what was known as the "Irishman's Trig"—a peculiar step, quicker than a walk, but slower than a run—and after going some distance we stopped again to listen; but the only sound we could hear was the barking of a solitary dog a long distance away. This was very provoking, as we wanted to get some information about our road, which, besides being rough, was both hilly and very lonely, and more in the nature of a track than a road. Where the man could have disappeared to was a mystery on a road apparently without any offshoots, so we concluded he must have thought we contemplated doing him some bodily harm, and had either "bolted" or "clapp'd," as my brother described it, behind some rock or bush, in which case he must have felt relieved and perhaps amused when he heard us "trigging" past him on the road.


LILLIESLEAF AND THE EILDON HILLS.

We continued along the lonely road without his company, with the ghostly Eildon Hills on one side and the moors on the other, until after walking steadily onwards for a few miles, we heard the roar of a mountain stream in the distance. When we reached it we were horrified to find it running right across our road. It looked awful in the dark, as it was quite deep, and although we could just see where our road emerged from the stream on the other side, it was quite impossible for us to cross in the dark. We could see a few lights some distance beyond the stream, but it was useless to attempt to call for help, since our voices could not be heard above the noise of the torrent. Our position seemed almost hopeless, until my brother said he thought he had seen a shed or a small house behind a gate some distance before coming to the stream. We resolved to turn back, and luckily we discovered it to be a small lodge guarding the entrance to a private road. We knocked at the door of the house, which was in darkness, the people having evidently gone to bed. Presently a woman asked what was wanted, and when we told her we could not get across the stream, she said there was a footbridge near by, which we had not seen in the dark, and told us how to find it a little higher up the stream. Needless to relate, we were very pleased when we got across the bridge, and we measured the distance across that turbulent stream in fifteen long strides.

We soon reached the lights we had seen, and found a small village, where at the inn we got some strange lodgings, and slept that night in a bed of a most curious construction, as it was in a dark place under the stairs, entered by a door from the parlour. But it was clean and comfortable, and we were delighted to make use of it after our long walk.

(Distance walked thirty miles.)

Wednesday, October 11th.

We had been warned when we retired to rest that it was most likely we should be wakened early in the morning by people coming down the stairs, and advised to take no notice of them, as no one would interfere with us or our belongings. We were not surprised, therefore, when we were aroused early by heavy footsteps immediately over our heads, which we supposed were those of the landlord as he came down the stairs. We had slept soundly, and, since there was little chance of any further slumber, we decided to get up and look round, the village before breakfast. We had to use the parlour as a dressing-room, and not knowing who might be coming down the stairs next, we dressed ourselves as quickly as possible. We found that the village was called Lilliesleaf, which we thought a pretty name, though we were informed it had been spelt in twenty-seven different ways, while the stream we came to in the night was known by the incongruous name of Ale Water. The lodge we had gone back to for information as to the means of crossing was the East Gate guarding one of the entrances to Riddell, a very ancient place where Sir Walter Scott had recorded the unearthing of two graves of special interest, one containing an earthen pot filled with ashes and arms, and bearing the legible date of 729, and the other dated 936, filled with the bones of a man of gigantic size.

A local historian wrote of the Ale Water that "it is one thing to see it on a summer day when it can be crossed by the stepping-stones, and another when heavy rains have fallen in the autumn—then it is a strong, deep current and carries branches and even trees on its surface, the ford at Riddell East Gate being impassable, and it is only then that we can appreciate the scene." It seemed a strange coincidence that we should be travelling on the same track but in the opposite direction as that pursued by William Deloraine, and that we should have crossed the Ale Water about a fortnight later in the year, as Sir Walter described him in his "Lay" as riding along the wooded path when "green hazels o'er his basnet nod," which indicated the month of September.