Skip to main content

‹‹‹ prev (184)

(186) next ›››

(185)
125
Hawick.
{Inns:—The Tower; The Commercial. Population 6683.] ]
On the line of the North British Bailway.
! This town is situated upon a haugh, at the junction of the
Rivers Slitterick and Teviot. The inhabitants are principally
engaged in the manufacture of woollen cloth. The Slitterick is
crossed by an antique bridge, and at the head of the town is a
moat-hill, where the brave Sir Alexander Ramsay was acting
in his capacity of Sheriff of Teviotdale, when he was seized by
Sir William Douglas, the “ Dark Knight of Liddesdale,” and
i plunged into one of the dungeons of Hermitage Castle, where
he perished of hunger. Hawick is noted among topers for its
i “ gill.” A Hawick gill is well known in Scotland to be half a
I mutchkin, equal to two gills.
“ Weel she loo’ed a Hawick gill,
And leuch to see a tappit hen.”
Anirtw and. his Cuttie Gun.
[A tappit hen is a frothing measure of claret.]
K- On the right bank of the Teviot, about two miles above
jlHawick, stands the ancient tower of Goldielands, one of the
; most entire now extant upon the Border. The proprietors of
i this tower belonged to the clan of Scott. The last of them is
said to have been hanged over his own gate for march treason.
Branksome Tower, the principal scene of the “ Lay of the
Last Minstrel,” and during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
i the residence of the Barons of Buccleuch, is about two miles
and a half from Hawick. The place was famous of yore for the