166 years later...

The ghost of my great-great-grandfather yesterday stood on the bank of the cutting which carved through the heath land of Torwoodlee. He saw the train pass, on its way to cross the Gala Water. He had in mind his small contribution to the opening of the Waverley Route when in the middle of the nineteenth century he permitted the North British Railway to build the line across land which was in his stewardship. When the first train ran in in 1849 Queen Victoria, then the thirty-year-old monarch to whom the Scot owed his fealty,  was not on board. But yesterday Victoria's great-great granddaughter traveled on the train which officially re-opened the line. The ghost of Robert Thomson, Steward of the Pringle estate at Kiln Knowe, waved snd doffed his cap and smiled with great satisfaction.