A fine day. I had no rain but Helen1 told me there was a heavy shower about 1. Breakfasted at 7 + cycled to Brotherstone2, where the hounds met, via Darnick + Newstead. It is exactly 12 miles. They found immediately on the hill behind the farm + I saw the run splendidly from the top for more than an hour when they ran to ground + killed. After that they found again in a field below the farm but I came away home via Clintmains + St Boswells to Eastfield.3 Got back at 2.15. Very tired + hungry. After lunch cycled to Dunsdale + Philiphaugh Cottages. Saw Charlie Herdman.4 Spoke to Summers5 who said the scent was bad.
1 Helen Frances ‘Mousey’ Muir (1880-1963), Dr Muir’s third daughter and sometime housekeeper.
2 Brotherstone, Mertoun, grid reference NGR NT615,353.
3 Dr Muir seems to have crossed the Mertoun Bridge and returned home via Eastfield, Bowden, just south of the Selkirk – St Boswells road [1921 Census], where he had been attending Robert Ballantyne (1905-), see Dr Muir’s diary entry for 28 October 1923.
4 Charles William ‘Charlie’ Herdman (1880-1956), Proprietor Occupier, Friarshaugh, Friarshall and Fauhope Mains, Melrose, Roxburghshire [1922 Valuation Rolls, VR011600033-/933, Roxburgh County, page 933 of 972VR011600033-/934, and page 934 of 972]. Born 1880, Newington, he was at Melrose until about 1930, appears in the 1939 Register at Shipston-On-Stour, Warwickshire, with his wife Lucy Cameron Grace Campbell (1896–1981) and son John C Herdman (1931-2014), and died at The Grange, Kemerton, Worcestershire [not Gloucestershire as noted in some sources, where it had not been since boundary changes in 1931].
5 George Dever Summers (1872-1948), huntsman to the Duke of Buccleuch Hunt 1902-48. Inhabitant Occupier of a house at The Kennels, St Boswells, 1922 Valuation Roll and 1921 Census. At that time he lived there with his wife Louise Montier Summers née Strange and their daughter Mabel Louise Summers (1899-), though Mabel had married Hugh Robert Alexander Thomson of Musselburgh earlier in 1923.
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/26, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1923]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 