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‘Oh, I merely asked if you saw Gretna Green, where there used to be so many runaway weddings?’

‘Oh ay! But there was no blacksmith’s shop at the bridge end, as folk nowadays say there was. There were three or four postillions at the next public-house, laughing of how they’d driven post-haste from Penrith that morning, with two couple of gentlefolks. No doubt the gentlefolks themselves were in the house, but we didn’t see them.

‘After four days of hard travelling we had crossed the mountains behind Moffatt, and were getting near to Stirling. John Todd had again and again said this pace could not last, and now the sheep began to get more into command. Every day saw a mile or two less than the one before, till we got down to a steady twenty-one miles per day. The sheep were many of them quite footsore, and our dogs could hardly raise a run. I remember quite well Stirling, with its great castle pitched on top of a tall crag, and with the beck in the valley below. Now we began to rest our flock every third day, and so crossed the lowlands and approached the mountains. Folks began to stare at the English shepherds, and wherever we stopped there was a crowd to ask us questions. The country began to look different. To Perth every field was cultivated; they grew the same crops as on the lower land in Westmorland, and a fair good yield there seemed to be. So far we had been easily able to get a lodging each night, and a field to put the sheep in, but now there came to be fewer and fewer houses by the roadsides, and even inns were scarce.