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diff --git a/31678.txt b/31678.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2c25273 --- /dev/null +++ b/31678.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4289 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, In the Border Country, by W. S. (William +Shillinglaw) Crockett, Illustrated by James Orrock + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: In the Border Country + + +Author: W. S. (William Shillinglaw) Crockett + + + +Release Date: March 17, 2010 [eBook #31678] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE BORDER COUNTRY*** + + +E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Peter Vickers, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file + which includes the original illustrations in color. + See 31678-h.htm or 31678-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31678/31678-h/31678-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31678/31678-h.zip) + + + + + +IN THE BORDER COUNTRY + + * * * * * + +POPULAR BOOKS ON ART. + +Edited by W. Shaw Sparrow + +THE ART AND LIFE LIBRARY. 1. "THE BRITISH HOME OF TO-DAY" (_out of +print_). 2. "THE GOSPELS IN ART." 3. "WOMEN PAINTERS OF THE WORLD." 4. +"THE OLD TESTAMENT IN ART," Vol. I. 5. "THE MODERN HOME" (_out of +print_). 6. "THE OLD TESTAMENT IN ART," Vol. II. 7. "THE APOSTLES IN +ART." + +HISTORY, TRAVEL, RUSTIC LIFE. 1. "MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS," with 26 Pictures +in Colour by Sir James Linton, R.I., and James Orrock, R.I.; the text by +Walter Wood. 2. "IN THE BORDER COUNTRY," with 25 Pictures in Colour by +James Orrock, R.I., and Historical Notes by W. S. Crockett. 3. "IN +RUSTIC ENGLAND," with 25 Pictures in Colour by Birket Foster; the text +by A. B. Daryll. + +THE ART AND LIFE MONOGRAPHS. 1. "ETCHINGS BY VAN DYCK," in Rembrandt +Photogravure the full size of the Original Proofs. Also an Edition de +Luxe with Carbon Print Photographs of all the Etchings; the text by +Prof. Dr. H. W. Singer. 2. "INGRES--MASTER OF PURE DRAUGHTSMANSHIP." +Twenty-four Rembrandt Photogravures of important Drawings and Pictures; +the introductions by Arsene Alexandre and W. Shaw Sparrow. + +ARTISTS OF THE PRESENT DAY. I. "FRANK BRANGWYN, A.R.A." the +introductions by Leonce Benedite and W. Shaw Sparrow. 2. "LUCY E. +KEMP-WELCH," the introductions by Professor Hubert von Herkomer and +Edward F. Strange. + +SERIES OF BIBLE PICTURES. "THE SAVIOUR IN MODERN ART." + +London: Hodder & Stoughton + + * * * * * + +[Illustration] + + FRONTISPIECE + + VIEW OF DUNSTANBOROUGH + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + + + +IN THE BORDER COUNTRY + +With Pictures in Colour by + +JAMES ORROCK R I + +And Historical Notes by + +W. S. CROCKETT + +Edited by W. Shaw Sparrow + + + + + + + +Hodder & Stoughton +London 1906 + + + + + DEDICATED + TO THE MEMORY + OF + SIR WALTER SCOTT + + + + +PREFACE + + +Most of us prefer to spend our holiday tours +away from our own country. There is a +feeling of mild adventure when the land +we behold is unknown to us, and when the +language we hear filters into our questioning minds +through an interpreter's suavity and chatter. And +if we go to Switzerland we may earn even a +reputation for intrepid pluck among the friends +who listen to us on our return home, while the +unlucky guides, who found for our trembling feet +a pathway around each danger, will amuse their +families during the winter with little tales at our +expense, told with rough satire and with short, +gruff peals of laughter resembling the noise of a +crackling ice-sheet when it begins to slip downhill. + +No doubt, heroism on the hillside has a vast +attraction to brave, fearless hearts like our own; +but we should find, here in our own country, quite +as much adventure as is good for us, and quite as +much novelty also, if only we could bring ourselves +to believe that knowledge of native scenes and +traditions does not come to us in baptism or by +virtue of our birth as British folk. If you ask a +friend whether he knows the Border Country, he +will probably answer yes, and then go on to say +that he when a lad at school was a great reader +of Scott, and thank heaven! his memory is a good +one. Push the matter further, ask whether he has +verified the truth of Scott's descriptions by a visit +to the places described, and you will probably +hear that your friend would rather dream of the +North Pole or be bitten fiercely by the swarms of +lively insects treasured throughout Brittany in +every cottage and hotel. + +All this being somewhat commonplace, you may +wish to get closer to this subject, and your friend +at last, driven to bay, comes to the real point that +pricks and distresses him. "You see," he will +say, "a holiday tour at home is such a dickens of a +gamble. You can't say how much it will cost. +The only thing at all certain about it is that the +cost will be more than you can afford. Wherever +you go you become a goose to be plucked." + +Let us rebel against this iniquity! It is not +a question of cheating, it is a trait of the national +character. In Great Britain, as among the Americans, +the gift of long sight in business has become +very common, and few persons think it worth their +while to see the practical good things within easy +reach of the blessed short sight of common sense. +Our chief aim is not to keep a market open and +steady, but to glut it with over-production or +to block it with excessive prices. "Here is a +holiday-tripper, so let us make him pay!" That seems +to be the unconquerable maxim at all seaside resorts +and in every place where tired workers seek rest +and health. I have known a week's holiday in +the New Forest to cost as much as a tour of three +weeks in the beautiful and bracing Ardennes. +The Belgian is content to draw his customers back +to him, while the Englishman grasps all he can get +and sends us away discontented. + +It is true that the railway companies are doing +all in their power to make holidays at home welcome +and inexpensive. Their enterprise in this respect +has no limits. But we cannot live on cheap railway +tickets alone, whether single or return. Something +should be done--and the newspapers could help--to +establish in all attractive districts a reasonable +tariff for board and lodging. It is only thus that +Great Britain will be made popular during the +holiday season, and that the great stream of gold--the +holiday-making Pactolus--will be drawn +from the Continent to nourish our own country +sides and rural folk. + +It seems to be certain that, during the reign +of the old stage coach, life in rustic England was +cheaper than it is to-day. At any rate we must +account in some way or other for the immense +number of county histories and illustrated +topographical books which teemed from the press from +the middle of the eighteenth century to the time +of J. M. W. Turner. To study these works is to +be sure that our forefathers took the greatest +delight in their own country, and that huge sums +of money were spent in procuring fine sketches and +adequate engravings. Side by side with these +books on British topography were volumes on +foreign travel, like those by William Alexander, +who in 1792 accompanied Lord Macartney's +embassy to China, where he made many exquisite +sketches, brimful of humour and playful observation. +John Webber, R.A., in 1776, accompanied +Captain Cook on his third and last voyage, and +made a drawing of Cook's death, which Byrne and +Bartolozzi engraved. Two other Royal Academicians, +Thomas and William Daniell, made India +their sketching-ground, and in their great work on +"Oriental Scenery," published in 1808, they devoted +six volumes to a subject as fascinating as it was +unhackneyed. Many other artists, too, travelled +and made sketches for books, ranging from Girtin's +Paris Views to Turner's "Rivers of France," and +from Sir David Wilkie's Eastern sketches, reproduced +in lithography by Nash, to the familiar work of +Prout, Harding, J. F. Lewis, R.A., and Louis Haghe. + +But these books on foreign travel, admirable +as they were, did not eclipse the many volumes on +British scenery and landscape antiquities. All +the ablest men among the earlier water-colour +painters--Hearne, Malton, Dayes, Girtin, Turner, +Francia, Havell, De Wint, David Cox, Cotman--made +topographical sketches for illustrations, and +lucky is he who "finds" their earliest efforts. +To-day, happily, there are signs of renewed life in +the old taste for picture books on the beauty and +romance of our own country. It is a taste that +invigorates, storing the mind with tonic memories +and filling the eyes with beautiful scenes and +colours; and we may be sure that it needs for its +gratification books which are easy to carry and to +read. The great folio of other days, as heavy +almost as a country squire, is rightly treasured in +the British Museum, like the remains of the Neolithic +Man discovered in Egypt. + +The subject of the present book--the Border +Country--should set us thinking, not of one holiday, +but of many; and he who has once tasted the +Border's keen rich air will long to return both to +it and to the traditions that dwell among the vast +landscapes and in the ruined castles. The distinguished +connoisseur and painter whose sketches are here +reproduced, has gone back to the Border Country a +dozen times and more, always to find there a renewal +of his first pleasure and a host of fresh subjects, +that form a delightful connecting-link between each +to-day and the armoured epochs of the long ago. + +And if the Border Country, with its enchanted +places and memories, delights a landscape-painter, +it is equally attractive to students of architecture, +to lovers of folk-lore and literary history, to writers +of romance in search of traditions and local colour, +and to those of us also who indulge a passion for +collecting either as botanists or as geologists. +The rivers and streams have a rare fascination, +and anglers, having made their choice, can come +by all the sport which they desire. As to the hills, +they have a certain modesty of height deceptive +to the unwary, for although they have not won for +themselves a reputation for fatalities to be described +as Alpine, they are yet so dangerous when a mist +gathers about them and thickens, that a climber +may lose his life there quite comfortably, and +without enjoying more than the customary amount +of rashness or inexperience. Briefly, men may +find in the Border Country nearly all their hobbies, +and nearly all their professional studies. + +In this book the historical notes are written +by one who lives by the Tweed, and whose name +is associated with Border subjects. Mr. Crockett's +work is filled with the Past, while the outdoor +sketches by Mr. Orrock are at once so faithful +topographically, and so much in sympathy with the +classic traditions of English Water-Colour, that +they show us what the Border Country is to-day, +when seen through the medium of a painter's +observation and knowledge. + +W. SHAW SPARROW. + + + + + CONTENTS + + Page + + Title Page. By David Veazey 3 + + Dedication Page 5 + + Preface. By Walter Shaw Sparrow 7 + + Contents 12 + + + IN THE BORDER COUNTRY + BY W. S. CROCKETT + + Page + + I. Introduction 17 + + The Making of the Border 23 + + The Christianizing of the Border 26 + + Border Warfare 36 + + II. The English Border: Northumberland 44 + + "Merrie Carlisle" 60 + + III. The Tweed and Its Associations 75 + + IV. "Pleasant Teviotdale" 94 + + V. In the Ballad Country 105 + + VI. The Leader Valley 117 + + VII. Liddesdale 124 + + + + + PLATES IN COLOUR BY JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + FRONTISPIECE. + To face + + View of Dunstanborough Title page + + PLATE 2 + + Crag Loch and the Roman Wall 24 + + PLATE 3 + + Bamborough from Stag Rock 32 + + PLATE 4 + + Holy Island Castle: Harvest Time 36 + + PLATE 5 + + View of Norham Castle 40 + + PLATE 6 + + Twizel Bridge of the XIV. Century 44 + + PLATE 7 + + Flodden Field and the Cheviot Hills 48 + + PLATE 8 + + View of Warkworth 52 + + PLATE 9 + + View of Alnwick Castle 56 + + PLATE 10 + + View of Prudhoe-on-Tyne 60 + + PLATE 11 + + View of Carlisle 64 + + PLATE 12 + + View of Naworth Castle 68 + + PLATE 13 + + View of Lanercost Priory 72 + + PLATE 14 + + View of Bewcastle 76 + + PLATE 15 + + View of Melrose 80 + + PLATE 16 + + Melrose and the Eildons from Bemersyde Hill: + Scott's favourite View 84 + + PLATE 17 + + Dryburgh Abbey and Scott's Tomb 88 + + PLATE 18 + + The Remnant of Wark Castle 92 + + PLATE 19 + + Berwick-on-Tweed 96 + + PLATE 20 + + Hollows Tower (sometimes called Gilnockie + Tower) 100 + + PLATE 21 + + Goldilands, near Hawick 104 + + PLATE 22 + + "He passed where Newark's stately tower + Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower" 112 + + PLATE 23 + + View of New Abbey and Criffel 116 + + PLATE 24 + + Criffel and Loch Kindar 120 + + PLATE 25 + + Caerlaverock Castle 124 + + + + +I. INTRODUCTION + + +From Berwick to the Solway as the crow flies is little more than seventy +miles. Between these two points lies the line that divides England from +Scotland. But to follow this line literally along its every little in +and out means a distance of no fewer than forty good miles more. +Stretching diagonally across the country--north-east or south-west--we +have the river Tweed as eastmost boundary for a considerable +space--close on twenty miles; then comes the lofty barrier of the +Cheviots extending to thirty odd miles, constituting the middle portion +of the Border line; and finally, the Kershope Burn, with the Liddel and +Esk Waters, and the small stream of the Sark, make up the westmost +division, another twenty miles, at least. But to follow the Border on +foot, by every bend of Tweedside, and over every nick and nook of the +Cheviots, and the remaining water-marches, means, as has been indicated, +a walk of not less than one hundred and ten miles. Almost everywhere in +the land portion of the Border line--the Cheviots generally--the +boundary is such that one may stand with one foot in England and the +other in Scotland, and the rather curious fact will be noted, says one +who has made this Border pilgrimage _par excellence_, that Scotland +nowhere receives a single rivulet from England, whilst she sends to +England tiny head-streams of the Coquet and Tyne only. The delimitation +is thus a quite natural and scientific one, coinciding pretty closely to +the water-parting of the two countries. Upon either side of this line of +demarcation stretches the Border Country, famous in war and verse the +whole world over--Northumberland and Cumberland to the south-east on +English soil, and to the north-west, Berwickshire, Roxburghshire, with +part of Dumfriesshire, the distinctively Border counties on the Scottish +side. A wider radius, however, has been given to the Scottish Border +from a very early period. Old Scots Acts of Parliament, applying to the +Border district, embrace the counties of Peebles and Selkirk within the +term, though these nowhere touch the frontier line, and portions of +Lanarkshire and the Lothians have been also included. But on the face of +it, these latter lie entirely outside the true Border limit. A line +drawn on the map from Coquetmouth to "Merrie Carlisle," thence to the +town of Dumfries, and again, almost due north, to Tweedsmuir (the source +of the Tweed) in Peeblesshire, and to Peebles itself, and from Peebles +eastward by the Moorfoots and Lammermoors to the German Ocean at St. +Abbs, will give us for all practical purposes what may be regarded as +the Border Country in its widest signification, geographical and +historical. + +There is, of course, a narrower sense in which the phrase, the Border +Country, is used--the literary. That, however, applies almost entirely +to the Scottish side, for neither of the English Border counties owns a +tithe of the associations in literature and romance that belong to those +beyond the Tweed. The extraordinary glamour which has been cast over the +Tweed and its tributaries by the writings of Sir Walter Scott, the +Ettrick Shepherd, John Leyden, and others, has given a prominence to the +Scottish side which is nowhere shared by its southern neighbour. But to +say so is no disparagement to the English side. For what it lacks in +literature it makes up in other admirable characteristics. Both Borders +are rich in historical memories. Their natural features are not +dissimilar, and in commercial prosperity they are much akin. In union +they have long been happily wedded. + +The Border Country is a region of streams and hills which hardly rise to +the dignity of rivers and mountains. Unlike the Clyde, the Tweed has no +broad estuary laden with the commerce of the world. And the highest +summits, Broad Law (2754 feet) in Scotland, and the great Cheviot (2676 +feet) in England, have nothing in common with the rugged Highland peaks +except their height. Both, it has been said, are monuments of denudation +only, "lofty because they have suffered less wear than their +neighbours." + +It is difficult to imagine all this attractive Border Country as at one +period a vast ocean-bed, over which waves lashed in furious foam, and +sea-birds shrieked and flew amid the war of waters. Yet geology assures +us such was its condition ages ago. By-and-by, it became a great rolling +plain or table-land, and in age after age--how many and how long it were +vain to speculate--there was carried on that stupendous process by which +those fair green hills and glens have been so marvellously scooped out, +and moulded and rounded into the objects of beauty that we see about us +now. In the great glacier movements, in the working of the ice-sheets, +and under the influences of frost, beating rain, and a constant +water-flow operating through a countless series of years, we have the +scientific explanation of their present benign and comfortable-looking +appearance. The Border hills are of a purely pastoral type, grass-grown +from base to summit, and usually easy of ascent. Here and there one +meets with a distinctly Highland picture--in the deep dark glens down +Moffatdale, for instance, but in the main they exhibit "the sonsie, +good-humoured, buirdly look," for which Dr. "Rab" Brown expressed the +liveliest predilection. Once at the curiously plateau-like summit of +Broadlaw (out-topped in Southern Scotland by the Galloway Merrick only) +or Hart Fell (2651 feet), or the Cheviot, the feeling amounts to a kind +of awe even. Scott speaks of the silence of noonday on the top of +Minchmoor, and the acute sense of human littleness one always feels +amidst the "mountain infinities." "I assure you," he says, "I have felt +really oppressed with a sort of fearful loneliness when looking around +these naked towering ridges of desolate barrenness." The picture seen +from such a height is both an inspiring and a humbling one. Beneath, it +is a veritable earth-ocean that we are gazing upon. On all sides an +innumerable series of what look like huge elephant-backed ranges are +seen to be chasing each other like waves of the sea, as it were, ridge +after ridge, rising, flowing, falling, and passing into the one beyond +it, as far as the eye can reach. Enclosed between each we know are the +rushing hill-burns and broader streams by which the Border country is +everywhere so much blessed and beautified. At such a height we are +entirely outside the human touches--altogether alone with Nature at her +simplest and solemnest. The cry of a startled sheep and the summer hum +of insects on the hill-top-- + + "That undefined and mingled hum, + Voice of the desert, never dumb"-- + +are the only indications of life where all trace and feeling of man and +his work have disappeared. Occasionally we shall meet by chance with the +shepherd, maybe, who has his dwelling far down among the "hopes"--the +cul-de-sacs of the uplands. Amongst those hills he lives and moves and +has his being. All sorts of weather-conditions find him at his work. He +never thinks of the loneliness, and the winter storms have not the +terrors for him as for his predecessors. In some respects his life is an +ideal one, and his class has a goodly record for intelligence and fine +physique. The best specimens, indeed, of the country's manhood are drawn +from the agricultural labouring classes--the "herds" and "hinds" who +make up the bulk of the population in the purely rural districts. For +agriculture, it need scarcely be said, is the staple business of both +Borders. The Tweed industry, to be sure, affords employment to +thousands, but on the Borders, as elsewhere, the land is the crucial +problem. Within recent years many of the rural parishes have been +woefully depleted, and until the land question is fairly tackled there +seems small hope for a fresh and brighter chapter in the domestic +history of the Border Country. + +A hundred years have transformed the face of the Border Country in a +marked manner. The development of agriculture, and the growth of the +tree-planting spirit, which began to bestir itself about the beginning +of last century, have given to the Border its modern picturesqueness and +its look of prosperity. Sir Walter Scott himself may be said to be the +father of arboriculture in the South of Scotland. In the creation of +Abbotsford, forestry was his main out-of-doors hobby, and the example +set by one who had studied the subject thoroughly, and who discoursed +pleasantly upon it, was quickly followed by all the neighbouring lairds +and many others besides. Not that the country was altogether treeless +before Scott's day. Here and there "ancestral oaks" clumped themselves +about the great castles and mansions, with perhaps some further attempt +at embellishment. But that was rare enough. It needed a man like Scott +to popularize the notion, and to take the lead in an undertaking +fraught, as this age well sees, with results so beneficent. We do not +forget, of course, that in earlier historic times practically the whole +of the Border Country was covered with wood. Its inhabitants, whose very +names--Gadeni and Ottadini--signified "dwellers in the wood," were found +by the Romans in their dense forests, and the first settlements were +only possible through clearances of growing timber. Across the country, +from Cadzow, in Renfrewshire, to the Ettrick, there stretched the vast +Wood of Caledon (whence Caledonia), known at a later period as the +Forest of Ettrick, or simply as the Forest (_e.g._, the "Flowers of the +Forest"). There is no doubt that it was largely a forest in the ordinary +acceptation, and not a mere deer-forest use of the term. Over and over +again we have the various charters, as to the Abbeys, for instance, +authorising the monks to cut down for building purposes and fuel oaks +"from the forest," both in Selkirk and in Melrose, in Kelso and the +Ettrick. The original religious house of Melrose was entirely of oak. So +were the first churches founded by Kentigern and Cuthbert, and those +even of a later date. The Forest of Ettrick survived to the time of the +Stuarts, who had here their favourite hunting expeditions, James V. and +Queen Mary especially being frequent visitors to the Borderland. The +Forest of Megget, or Rodono (a sub-division of that of Ettrick), yielded +on one occasion no fewer than five hundred head of game, bird and beast +of the chase, and at another time eighteen score of red deer. In the +reign of Mary there was issued a proclamation limiting and prohibiting +the slaughter of deer in the Forest on account of their growing +scarcity. And by the time of James VI. the hunting possibilities of the +Border were at an end. + +More than anything else, the laying down of the great railway lines and +the immense road improvements of last century have opened up practically +every corner of the Border Country. There are now no places so utterly +inaccessible as Liddesdale was during Scott's visits. It is possible to +reach the most out-of-the-way parts with comparative comfort. And with +the dawn of the motor age, still greater hopes and possibilities appear +in store. + + PLATE 2 + + CRAG LOCH AND THE + ROMAN WALL + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 24, 44, 45, 71, 73_) + +[Illustration] + + +THE MAKING OF THE BORDER + +It is from the Roman historian Tacitus that the light of history falls +for the first time on the Border Country. It is a mere glimpse, however. +But it is enough to show us the calibre of the men who held its forests +and fastnesses at that remote period. They were the Brigantes, a branch +probably of the Celts, who were the first to reach Britain, coming from +the common home-land of the Ayrian race somewhere in Central Asia. Their +kingdom, Brigantia, embraced all the country between the Mersey and +Humber and the Links of Forth. They are spoken of as a strong, +courageous and warlike people, able for many years to keep the Roman +cohorts at bay and to check the northward progress of the invaders. The +Roman Conquest of Britain, as is well known, was begun by Julius Caesar +as far back as B.C. 55. It was not, however, till the time of Julius +Agricola (A.D. 78-84) that the Romans obtained a firm footing on the +island. Agricola's generalship was more than a match for the sturdy +Brigantes. He carried the Roman eagles to the Forth and Clyde, fixing +his main line of defence and his northmost frontier on the isthmus +between these two firths. But about A.D. 120, when the Emperor Hadrian +visited Britain, his chief work was the delimitation of the Roman +territory by the great stone wall still bearing his name, stretching +from the Tyne to the Solway, a distance of 73-1/2 miles. Twenty years +later, however, Lollius Urbicus, the Emperor's lieutenant in Britain, +appears to have revived and restored Agricola's boundary, so that what +we now know as the Border Country, for more than three hundred years +(A.D. 78-410), formed a part of the mightiest empire of the ancient +world. Hadrian's rampart, the great camps at Cappuck, near Jedburgh, at +Lyne in Peeblesshire, and Newstead at the base of the Eildons--the +undoubted Roman Trimontium--with the roads known as Watling Street +and the Wheel Causeway are the chief memorials of a singularly historic +Occupation. Following the withdrawal of the Roman legions the district +became the arena of constant warfare between Picts and Scots and +Britons, until the sixth century, when it appears again in history as a +kingdom of the Saxon Heptarchy under the name of Bernicia, and occupied +by a colony of Angles and Saxons from the Low Countries of the +Continent, the progenitors of the English-speaking race. Ida the Good +governed Bernicia, having for his capital the proud rock-fortress of +Bibbanburgh (so named from his queen Bibba), the modern Bamborough. In +the following century Bernicia was combined with Deira, its southern +neighbour (corresponding to Yorkshire) to form the powerful kingdom of +Northumbria, extending, as Brigantia had done, from the Humber to the +Forth. For the next three or four hundred years the story of the Border +was little more than a wild record of lawlessness and bloodshed. It had +grown to be a kind of happy hunting-ground for every hostile tribe +within fighting distance, and for some even who were drawn from long +distances, like the Danes, the latest of the invading hordes. But there +is nothing of importance to narrate at this period. From a monarchy, +Northumbria fell to the level of an Earldom in 954, and in 1018, the +Scots, consolidated to some extent under Malcolm II., crushed the Angles +of Northumbria in a great victory at Carham-on-Tweed (near Coldstream), +of which the result was the cession to Scotland of the district known as +Lothian--the land lying between the Tweed and Forth. Thus at the dawn +of the 11th century we have the Tweed constituting the virtual boundary +between the two countries. Cumberland, to be sure, was for a time Scots +territory, but this the intrepid Rufus wrested back in 1092. So that by +the close of that century the Border line appears to have taken the +quite natural course of delimitation--the Tweed, the Cheviots, and the +Solway, though it was not till as late as 1222 that a commission of both +countries was appointed to adjust the final demarcation. + + +THE CHRISTIANIZING OF THE BORDER + +It would be interesting to know precisely when and how the light of the +Christian faith first penetrated the Border Country, but neither the +time nor the manner can be ascertained with certainty. Indeed, it is +impossible to say who were the real pioneers of the Gospel within the +realm itself. The probability is that in the first instance it was the +beneficent work of the Romans in whose legions were to be found many +sincere Christians, many faithful soldiers of the Cross. From the +"saints of Caesar's household"--not a mere picturesque dream--mayhap the +Gospel found its way to the coasts of Britain, the greatest boon that +could be conferred on a nation. An unvarying Peeblesshire tradition, for +example, avers that among the first to witness for Christ and His truth +by the banks of the Tweed and its tributaries were Roman soldiers from +the great military station at Hall Lyne, and out of whose quiet +fellowship-meetings in the recesses of the Manor, sprang the church of +that valley, one of the oldest in the county, and dedicated to Saint +Gordian, either the Emperor of that name, or what is more likely, +"Gordian the well-beloved," Deputy of Gaul, who suffered martyrdom about +the year 362. Be that as it may, it is at any rate certain that long +before the departure of the Romans from Britain, Christianity had made +considerable headway in the island. St. Ninian's is the earliest +definite name which has come down to us, about the end of the 4th and +beginning of the 5th century. His labours were confined chiefly to the +Galloway side of the Border, where the remains of his Candida Casa, or +White House, may still be seen at Whithorn on the shores of Wigtown Bay. +It is more than possible that some of Ninian's missionaries, or a rumour +of his work and teaching at all events, had passed beyond the Solway to +the Clyde and Tweed watersheds. But, on the other hand, the difficulties +following the departure of the Romans in the constant incursions from +the Continent and the terrible internecine struggles of the time, would +be sufficient to extinguish whatever light had faintly begun to shine. +And it is not until well on in the 6th century that the darkness begins +to grow less dense. Such names as Augustine, Paulinus, Columba, +Kentigern or Mungo, Aidan and Cuthbert, come upon the scene, with each +of whom seems to rest, as it were, the hope of the Church of Christ in +Britain. In the year 597 Augustine arrived in Kent with forty monks in +his train. The incident, apocryphal perhaps, which led to his mission, +is at least interesting. The story has been told again and again, but it +will bear repeating. Aella, King of Deira, had defeated his northern +neighbour, and with a portion of the spoil hastened to fill the Roman +slave-market. Gregory the Great, in the days that preceded his +pontificate, passed one day through the market-place when it was crowded +with people, all attracted by the arrival of fresh cargoes of +merchandise; and he saw three boys set for sale. They were +white-complexioned, fair and light, and with noble heads of hair. Filled +with compassion, he enquired of the dealer from what part of the world +they had come, and was told "from Britain, where all the inhabitants +have the same fair complexion." He next asked whether the people of this +strange land were Christians or pagans, and hearing that they were +pagans he heaved a deep sigh, and remarked it was sad to think that +beings so bright and fair should be in the power of the Prince of +Darkness. He next enquired the name of their nation. "Angles," was the +reply. "'Tis well," he answered, playing on the word, "rightly are they +called _Angles_, for their faces are the faces of angels, and they ought +to be fellow-heirs with the angels of heaven." "And what is the name," +he proceeded, "of the province from which they have been brought?" "From +Deira," was the answer. Catching its name, he rejoined, "Rightly are +they named _Deirans_. Plucked from _ire_, and called to the mercy of +Christ." "And who," he asked once more, "is the King of this province?" +"Aella," was the reply. The word recalled the Hebrew expression of +praise, and he answered, "Allelujah! the praise of God shall be chanted +in that clime!" And as Green so beautifully puts it in his "Making of +England," "he passed on, musing how the angel faces should be brought to +sing it." And brought to sing it they were when the evangelist Paulinus +found his way in the best sense, to the heart of heathen Northumbria. +Paulinus, whom men long remembered, + + "Of shoulders curved, and stature tall, + Black hair, and vivid eye, and meagre cheek." + +had come from Rome with Bishop Justus in 601, and laboured with +Augustine in the evangelization of Kent. When Ethelburga, daughter of +Ethelbert of Kent, Augustine's convert, became wedded to Edwin, the +still idolatrous King of Northumbria, Paulinus accompanied her as +chaplain, and at the same time as missionary among the rude +Northumbrians. The field of his labours was a wide one. For a long time +he made no progress until Edwin himself, moved by his escape from +assassination at the hands of the King of Wessex, and by his victory +over Wessex, and under the gentle constraint of Paulinus, resolved that +both he and his nobles should be baptized, and this resolution was +carried into effect at York, in a hastily-built chapel (the precursor of +the Minster), on Easter Eve, 627. + +The conversion of Edwin was followed by a great social revolution. +Having convoked the National Assembly, he unfolded the reasons for his +change of faith. Everywhere he was applauded. Crowds of the nobility, +chiefs of petty states, and the great mass of the people followed the +example of their King. The worship of the ancient gods was solemnly +renounced, and even Coifi, the high priest, was the first to give the +signal for destruction by hurling his lance at an idol in the pagan +temple. Paulinus was now one of the most popular figures in Northumbria. +Wherever he preached, crowds gathered to hear him and to be received, +like their Overlord, into the Christian communion. Many spots in +Northumberland are identified with the name of this early and ardent +Apostle of the North. Pallinsburn, overlooking Flodden Field, is, of +course, Paulinus's Burn, where large numbers were baptized. In one of +his missionary journeys we are told (Bede) how he was occupied for six +and thirty consecutive days from early morn until nightfall, in teaching +the people and in "washing them with the water of absolution" in the +river Glen, which flowed by the royal "vill" of Yeavering (anciently +Ad-gebrin) in Glendale. At the Lady's Well near Holystone, in the vale +of the Coquet, about three thousand converts were welcomed into the +Church of Christ. A graceful Runic cross erected on the spot bears the +following inscription:-- + + +IN THIS PLACE + PAVLINVS THE BISHOP + BAPTIZED + THREE THOUSAND NORTHVMBRIANS. + EASTER, DCXXVII.+ + +But after six years of incessant labours, the death of Edwin in battle +with Penda, King of the Mercians, and Cadwallon of North Wales, put a +sudden stop to his work. He did not wait for the honour of martyrdom, +but went back with the widowed queen to Kent, where he became Bishop of +Rochester, and she the Abbess of Lyminge. Paulinus died in 644, and was +buried in the chapter-house at Rochester. + + PLATE 3 + + BAMBOROUGH FROM + + STAG ROCK + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 25, 58, 59_) + +[Illustration] + +But it is ever the darkest hour that precedes the dawn. It was +impossible that England should lose her faith and fall back under the +rule of a mere heathen conqueror. After the "thoughtful Edwin, +mightiest of all the kings of the isle of Britain," as he has been +called (he was, by the way, the founder of Edinburgh), there arose +another champion of the new light in the person of Oswald, Edwin's +nephew. Oswald's history connects him with Columba the Irishman, and +"Apostle of Scotland," to whose splendid work the nation owed its first +real religious advance. About 563, when in his forty-second year, and +accompanied by twelve companions, Columba found a resting-place on the +little island of Hy or Iona, off the west coast of Scotland, whence he +set himself to the great work of his life--the conversion of the Pictish +tribes beyond the Grampians. At Iona Oswald had sheltered during the +home troubles, and many valuable lessons he must have learned for the +strenuous life that lay in front of him. Called to lead his countrymen +against their oppressors, Oswald literally fought his way to the throne. +On a rising ground, a few miles from Hexham, near the Roman Wall, he +gathered in 634 a small force, which pledged itself to become Christian +if it conquered in the engagement. Causing a cross of wood to be hastily +made, and digging a hole for it in the earth, he supported it with his +own hands while his men hedged up the soil around it. Then, like Bruce +at Bannockburn years afterwards, he bade his soldiers kneel with him and +entreat the true and living God to defend their cause, which he knew to +be just, from the fierce and boastful foe. This done they joined battle, +and attacked Cadwallon's far superior forces. The charge was +irresistible. The Welsh army fled down the slope towards the +Deniseburn,--a brook near Dilston which has been identified with the +Rowley Burn,--and Cadwallon himself, the hero of fourteen battles and +sixty skirmishes, was caught and slain. This was the battle of +Hefenfelt, or Heaven's Field, as after-times called it. Not only was the +last hero of the old British races utterly routed, but Oswald, King of +once more reunited Bernicia and Deira, proved himself to the Christian +cause all that Edwin had been, and more, a prince in the prime of life, +and fitted by his many good qualities to attract a general enthusiasm of +admiration, reverence, and love. Resolved to restore the national +Christianity, and to realize the ambitions of his exile life, he turned +naturally to Iona and to the teachers of his youth for missionaries who +would accomplish the holy task. At his request, Aidan, one of the +fittest of the Columban band, was sent to carry on the work of +evangelization in Northumbria, which happy event may be reckoned as the +first permanent planting of the Gospel in the Eastern Border. The light +which he kindled was never afterwards quenched. And as Columba had +chosen Iona, so for Aidan there was one spot to which his heart went out +above all others. This was the island-peninsula of Lindisfarne, off the +Northumbrian coast, so called from the little river Lindis, which here +enters the sea, and the Celtic _fahren_, "a recess." Bede has a fine +passage which is worth quoting:--"On the arrival of the Bishop (Aidan) +King Oswald appointed him his episcopal see in the isle of Lindisfarne, +as he desired. Which place as the tide flows and ebbs twice a day, is +enclosed by the waves of the sea like an island; and again, twice in the +day, when the shore is left dry, becomes contiguous to the land. The +King also humbly and willingly in all cases giving ear to his +admonitions, industriously applied himself to build and extend the +church of Christ in his kingdom; wherein, when the Bishop, who was not +skilful in the English tongue, preached the gospel, it was most +delightful to see the King himself interpreting the Word of God to his +commanders and ministers, for he had perfectly learned the language of +the Scots during his long banishment. From that time many of the Scots +came daily into Britain, and with great devotion preached the word to +those provinces of the English over which King Oswald reigned, and those +among them that had received priest's orders, administered to them the +grace of baptism. Churches were built in several places; the people +joyfully flocked together to hear the Word; money and lands were given +of the King's bounty to build monasteries; the English, great and small, +were, by their Scottish masters, instructed in the rules and observance +of regular discipline; for most of them that came to preach were monks." +(Eccl. Hist. Bk. iii., c. 2). Than Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, as it +came to be called, there is no more sacred spot in Northumbria--in +England even. Its history is coeval with that of the nation, and it was +from that hallowed centre of Christian activity that the gospelizing of +both sides of the Border was planned and prayed over many an anxious +hour and day. Aidan's missionaries went forth planting churches in +various places. One of the best known of these settlements was Old +Melrose, the original shrine by the beautiful bend of the Tweed, a mile +or two down the river from the second and more celebrated Melrose. Here +Eata, "a man much revered and meek;" and Boisil, who gave his name to +the neighbouring St. Boswells; and Cuthbert, the most illustrious of +them all, served God with gladness. Of the latter, certainly the most +conspicuous Borderer of his day, something more must be said. Three +kingdoms claim his birthplace. The Irish Life of the Saint alleges him +to be sprung of her own blood royal; he is affirmed also to have come of +noble Northumbrian descent; whilst the Scottish tradition makes him the +child of humble parents, born and reared in Lauderdale, one of the +sweetest valleys of the Border. It is a fact, at any rate, that when the +light of record first falls upon him the youthful Cuthbert is seen as a +shepherd lad by the Leader; he is religiously inclined, and whilst his +comrades sleep, he spends whole nights in prayer and meditation. One day +he hears voices from out the unseen calling to him. Another night it is +a vision of angels that he fancies he beholds bearing the soul of the +sainted Aidan to the skies. Such was Cuthbert, a kind of mystic, a +dreamer of strange dreams, destined apostle and Bishop, and next to +Augustine himself the most illustrious figure in the annals of English +monasticism. The church of Channelkirk (anciently Childeschirche) +dedicated to the Saint, probably indicates his birth-spot. The Leader +valley is full of legends of his boyhood, the whole west of +Berwickshire, indeed, being haunted ground for Cuthbert's sake. Other +great names in the history of early Border Christianity are those of +Benedict Biscop, the founder of the monasteries of Jarrow and Monk +Wearmouth; Wilfrid, the founder of Hexham; and the Venerable Bede--the +"father of English learning"--whose "Church History of the English +People" is the greatest of the forty-five works that bear his name. + +By far the most flourishing epoch in the religious development of the +Border was the founding of the great Abbeys under David I.--"St. +David"--as he is often called, though he was never canonized. Whilst +still a Prince, he founded a monastery at Selkirk, and after his +accession to the throne, there arose the four stately fanes of Kelso +(1128), Melrose (1146), Jedburgh (1147), and Dryburgh (1150)--those rich +and peaceful homes of art and intellectual culture whose ruins now +strike us with marvel and regret. There is probably no other country +district equally small in area that can boast a group of ruins at once +so grand and interesting as those that lie within a few miles of each +other along the banks of the Tweed and Jed. Founded almost +contemporaneously, they were destroyed about the same time, by the same +ruthless hands. The story of each is the story of all--burned and +rebuilt, then spoiled and restored again, time after time, until finally +at the dismal Hertford Invasion, in 1545, they all received their +death-stroke. Other religious centres on the Scottish side were +Coldingham in Berwickshire, founded in 1098 by King Edgar, son of +Canmore and St. Margaret; Dundrennan, in Kirkcudbrightshire, founded in +1142 by Fergus, Lord of Galloway; and Sweetheart or New Abbey, founded +in 1275 by Devorgoil, great-great-granddaughter of David the First. On +the English side, the Church had a less vigorous growth, having no such +munificent patron as King David, but there, too, it could boast of +Carlisle Cathedral, the Abbey of Alnwick, the Priories of Lanercost, and +Hexham, and the still more renowned and classic Lindisfarne. The history +of the latter began, as we saw, with the year 635, when Saint Aidan +accepted the invitation of King Oswald to teach the new faith to the +Northumbrians. Aidan's church, built of wood, and thatched with the +coarse bents of the links, could not long withstand the storms or the +brands of the wild sea-rovers. And of the stone sanctuary reared under +the rule of succeeding bishops no portion of the present ruin can be +considered as forming a part. Sir Walter Scott has thrown the spell of +his genius around the picturesque ruins, but the tragical story of +Constance of Beverley has no foundation in fact. + + PLATE 4 + + HOLY ISLAND CASTLE: + + HARVEST-TIME + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 32, 33, 36_) + +[Illustration] + + +BORDER WARFARE + +Of Border warfare it were impossible to treat within the limits of a +library. In no part of the kingdom was the fighting and raiding spirit +more rampant. The Border clans were constantly at war with one another, +the slightest excuse provoking an attack, and not unfrequently was there +no _raison d'etre_ whatever for the accompanying ruin and desolation. It +ran apparently in the blood of those old Borderers to live on unfriendly +terms with their neighbours, and to seize every possible opportunity +against them. The record of the raids does not lean more to one side +than another for aggressiveness, though generally the Scot has been +credited for this quality. But as a matter of fact both sides were +equally at fault and equally determined. And the onslaughts were +often of the most savage and persistent kind, and were almost entirely +unchecked by the legal restraints which were set in force. The division +of the district into East, West and Middle Marches, with a sort of +vice-regal Warden appointed over each, was not always conducive to peace +and good feeling. At certain times, a day of truce was held when the +Wardens of both sides met and settled any questions that might be in +dispute between their followers, but occasionally the decision was +anything but harmonious--as in the case of the Reidswire, for instance. +In the "Debateable or Threep Lands," which lay partly in England and +partly in Scotland, between the Esk and the Sark, no end of worry and +difficulty was experienced. "Its chief families were the Armstrongs and +Grahams, both clans being noted as desperate thieves and freebooters. +They had frequently to be dealt with by force of arms till in the 17th +century, the Grahams were transported to Ireland, and forbidden to +return upon pain of death. Other districts of the Borders from time to +time called forth hostile visitations from the Scottish kings or their +commissioners, when great numbers of the robbers were frequently seized +and hanged. So late as 1606, the Earl of Dunbar executed as many as 140 +of them. The Union of the Crowns removed some obvious grounds of +contention between the English and Scottish people, and after the middle +of the 17th century the Borders gradually subsided into a more peaceful +condition." + +It was doubtless due to the exigencies occasioned by those frequently +recurring wars and raids from the 13th to the 16th century that the +whole country on both sides of the frontier became so thickly studded +with castles and peel-towers, the numerous ruins of which still form a +distinctive feature in Border scenery, although from times much earlier +the castles and strongholds were characteristic elements in the old +Scottish landscape. Alexander Hume, of Polwarth, the poet-preacher of +Logie, near Stirling, in his fine description of a "Summer's Day," thus +refers to them:-- + + "The rayons of the sunne we see + Diminish in their strength; + The shade of everie tower and tree, + Extended is in length. + Great is the calm for everie quhair + The wind is settlin' downe; + The reik thrawes right up in the air, + From everie tower and towne." + +Generally these towers were planted on heights overlooking the +river-valleys, and, as a rule, within sight of one another, in order +that the signals of invasion or alarm--flashed by means of the bale +fire--might be the more rapidly spread from point to point. Very few of +them are now entire--the best-preserved on the Scottish side being, +perhaps, Barns, at the entrance to the Manor valley; Bemersyde, still +inhabited; and Oakwood on the Ettrick, incorporated in the present farm +buildings; and on the English side, Corbridge and Doddington and +Whittingham. From a return made in 1460 we find that Northumberland +alone possessed 37 castles and 78 towers, and the Scottish side was +equally well strengthened and defended. Amongst the larger and more +important fortresses on the English side were the Castles of Alnwick, +Bothal, Carlisle, Cockermouth, Coupland, Dilston, Elsdon, Etal, Ford, +Naworth, Norham, Prudhoe, Wark, Warkworth; and on the Scottish side, +Berwick, Branxholme, Caerlaverock (the true Ellangowan of "Guy +Mannering"), Cessford, Ferniherst, Hermitage, Hume, Jedburgh, Neidpath, +Peebles, Roxburgh, Threave, Traquair, besides, as has been said, +hundreds of peel and bastle-houses scattered all over the country. + +It would be a quite impossible task to chronicle the incessant +clan-raids of the Border, and to narrate all the invasions that took +place on either side would be to repeat in great measure the general +history of England and Scotland. But at least two authentic reports, +covering little more than a year, may be quoted as showing the +extraordinary havoc and destruction caused by the latter. "In 1544 Sir +Ralph Evers and Sir Brian Latoun, with an English army, invaded the +Scottish Border, and between July and November they destroyed 192 towns, +towers, barmkyns, parish churches, etc.; slew 403 Scots and took 816 +prisoners; carried off 10,386 head of cattle, 12,492 sheep, 1296 horses, +200 goats, and 850 bolls of corn, besides an untold quantity of inside +gear and plenishing. In one village alone--that of Lessudden (now St. +Boswells)--Sir Ralph Evers writes that he burned 16 strong +bastle-houses. Again in September of the following year, the Earl of +Hertford a second time invaded the country, and between the 8th and the +23rd of that month, he razed and cast down the abbeys of Jedburgh, +Kelso, Dryburgh, and Melrose, and burned the town of Kelso. At the same +time he destroyed about 30 towns, towers and villages on the Tweed, 36 +on the Teviot, 12 on Rulewater, 13 on the Jed, 45 on the Kale, 19 on the +Bowmont, 109 in the parishes of Eccles and Duns in Berwickshire, with 20 +other towns and villages in the same county. The places destroyed are +all named in the report to the English king, along with a classified +list of that terrible sixteen days' destruction, embracing 7 monasteries +and friars' houses, 16 castles, towers and peels, 5 market-towns, the +immense number of 243 villages, with 13 mills, and 3 hospitals." + +It cannot be forgotten that upon Border soil were fought at least six of +the great historical battles of the nation, _viz._, Halidon Hill (1333); +Otterburn (1388); Homildon Hill (1402); Flodden (1513); Solway Moss +(1542); and Ancrum Moor (1544). Of mere internal contests there are the +fight at Arkinholm (Langholm, 1455), between Scotsmen, where James II. +broke the power of the Douglases; the battle of Hedgeley Moor (1464), +and of Hexham (1464) between the English adherents of Lancaster and +York, when the Lancastrians were defeated; the affair of Melrose +(Skirmish Hill, 1526) between Borderers under the Earl of Angus and +Buccleuch; and Philiphaugh (1645) when Leslie drove Montrose from the +field. Of what were purely faction fights and deeds of daring such as +the Raid of the Reidswire (1575), and the rescue of Kinmont Willie +(1596), the ancient ballads will keep their memory green for many a year +to come. + + PLATE 5 + + VIEW OF NORHAM + + CASTLE + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 39, 60, 93_) + +[Illustration] + +Two great incidents of Border warfare stand out before all +others--Otterburn and Flodden. Old Froissart has told the story of +Otterburn. The Scottish barons, tired of the fickleness and +inactivity of their king, determined to invade England, met at Aberdeen, +and arranged the preliminaries for a great gathering at Southdean, +beyond Jedburgh. On the day appointed the best blood in Scotland was +assembled. "There had not been for sixty years so numerous an +assembly--they amounted to twelve hundred spears and forty thousand +other men and archers." The Earl of Douglas, the Earl of March and +Dunbar, and the Earl of Moray, with three hundred picked lancers and two +thousand infantry, burst into Northumberland, rode south as far as +Durham, and laid waste the country. In one of their encounters before +Newcastle-on-Tyne the Earl of Douglas had a hand-to-hand combat with Sir +Henry Percy--- Hotspur,--who was overthrown, Douglas seizing his +pennon--the silken streamer bearing his insignia, which was fastened +near the head of his lance. In triumph he exclaimed: "I will carry this +token of your prowess with me into Scotland, and place it on the tower +of my castle at Dalkeith, that it may be seen from afar." "By God, Earl +of Douglas," replied Hotspur, "you shall not even bear it out of +Northumberland; be assured you shall never have this pennon to boast +of." "You must come then," answered Douglas, "this night and seek for +it. I will fix your pennon before my tent, and shall see if you will +venture to take it away." On the following evening the Scottish army +"lighted high on Otterburn," in Redesdale, and there Sir Henry and Ralph +Percy, with six hundred spears of knights and squires and upwards of +eight thousand infantry, fell upon the Scots, who were but three hundred +lances, and two thousand others. The fight that followed was one of the +most spirited in history, and ended in the death of Douglas, the capture +of Hotspur, the serious wounding of his brother, and the killing or +capture of one thousand and forty Englishmen on the field, the capture +of eight hundred and forty others in the pursuit, and the wounding of a +thousand more. The Scots lost only one hundred slain and two hundred +captured. "It was," says Froissart, "the hardest and most obstinate +battle ever fought." The tragic incidents of this encounter have been +kept alive not historically but poetically. It is the immortality of +song which preserves the memory of Otterburn. No contest was more +emphatically the "ballad-singer's joy." Two ballads, the one Scots, the +other English, give their respective versions of the event with those +natural discrepancies between the two, which may easily be accounted for +on patriotic grounds. That given in Scott's "Minstrelsy" is +unquestionably the finer, and contains the lines so often quoted by +Scott himself, and at no occasion more pathetically than during his +visit--pretty near the end--to the old Douglas shrines in Lanarkshire, +the locality of "Castle Dangerous": + + "My wound is deep. I fain would sleep; + Take thou the vanguard of the three, + And hide me by the braken bush + That grows on yonder lilye lea. + + "O bury me by the braken bush, + Beneath the blooming brier; + Let never living mortal ken + That ere a kindly Scot lies here." + +The story of Flodden is the darkest, perhaps, on the page of Scottish +history, and like Otterburn, has been written in strains grand and +majestic, and certainly the most heart-moving in the whole realm of +northern minstrelsy. There Scotland lost her King, the Archbishop of St. +Andrew's, James's natural son, two abbots, twelve earls, seventeen +lords, four hundred knights, and fifteen thousand others, all sacrificed +to the fighting pride of James IV. of Scotland. Pierced by several +strong arrows, the left hand hacked clean from the arm, the neck laid +open in the middle, James's body was carried mournfully to Berwick. He +had died a hero's death, albeit a foolish one. His last words have lived +in the lines of the rhymer: + + "Fight on, my men, + Yet Fortune she may turn the scale; + And for my wounds be not dismayed, + Nor ever let your courage fail. + + Thus dying did he brave appear + Till shades of death did close his eyes; + Till then he did his soldiers cheer, + And raise their courage to the skies." + +The era of Blood and Iron on the Borders has passed long since. Peace +and prosperity prevail on both sides of the Tweed. Old animosities are +seldom spoken of, and hardly ever remembered. A cordial amity and +good-will and co-operation evidence the strength of the cementing +element which no loyal heart, either north or south, can ever desire to +see broken. + + + PLATE 6 + + TWIZEL BRIDGE OF THE + + XIV. CENTURY + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_Famous in connection with Flodden Field_) + +[Illustration] + + + + +II. THE ENGLISH BORDER + +NORTHUMBERLAND + + +A line drawn from Berwick to Carlisle, and across England to the Coquet, +thence north again, coast-wise, to the old Tweedside borough will give +us, for all practical purposes, the English Border Country. Only a part +of the Roman Wall, as far as Crag Loch and Borcovicus (Housesteads), +will come within the present purview, which excludes Newcastle itself +and the "coaly Tyne." We are to deal with rural Northumberland rather, +and with a little corner of Cumberland, the immediate and true Border. +Even at this time of day much of the English Border is still a kind of +_terra incognita_ to the tourist and holiday-maker. For travelling +facilities have not been of the best hitherto. But it is a new order of +things now, and even the most outlying spots can be reached with a +wonderful degree of comfort impossible not so very long ago. Bewcastle, +for instance, and the once wild and trackless "Debateable Land" between +Canonbie and the Solway, have come within comparatively easy distance of +railroad and coaching centres. The crossing of the Solway Moss by the +Caledonian Route, and the opening out of the line from Alnwick to Wooler +and Cornhill, together with the numerous driving tours that are in daily +operation during the summer at least, have become the _open sesame_ to a +district practically shut up even less than a half century since. It is +now possible to breakfast in Carlisle, or Newcastle, or much further +south for that matter (or north), and within an hour or two to be +revelling in the most delightful rusticities at the foot of the +Cheviots, or in the very heart of them. The remotest localities are +rendered accessible even for a single day's outing, and a holiday on the +English Border is not likely to be a disappointing one. There is +something to suit every taste. If one is archaeologically inclined, for +instance, Northumberland has one of the finest collections of military +antiquities in the kingdom, from the rude circular camps and +entrenchments of the primitive inhabitants to the great castles and +peel-towers of mediaeval times. The Romans have left a mighty monument of +their power--none more significant--in the huge barrier thrown across +the lower half of the county, and in the stations and roads connected +with it. In some respects the Roman Wall may be accounted +Northumberland's principal attraction, and a pilgrimage between Tyne and +Solway must always repay itself. If one is artistically inclined, there +are beauty-spots for all canvases--as befits the birthplace of such +masters as Bewick and Foster. And as an angler's paradise the Cheviot +uplands have long been popular. The historical memories of the English +Border are outstanding. For centuries this little fringe of country was +a continuous warring-ground for the two nations that are now happily +one. Upon its soil were fought some of the bloodiest, and it must be +added, some of the most fool-hardy and unjustifiable fights on record. +In its religious story it has much to boast of. By its missionaries and +by its sword it won England from heathendom to the Christian Church. The +development of the monastic system in Northumbria did more than +anything else to civilise and colonise the entire realm, Scotland +included. "Its monasteries," as Green says, "were the seat of whatever +intellectual life the country possessed, and above all, it had been the +first to gather together into a loose political unity the various tribes +of the English people, and by standing at their head for nearly a +century to accustom them to a national life out of which England as we +have it now was to spring." + +The physical conditions, generally speaking, are similar on both sides +of the Border. Wide arable expanses, well-wooded and fertile, cover the +chief valleys and much of the Northumbrian coast-line. But in the main, +the landscape is purely pastoral for miles, showing few signs of human +life, and the nearest habitation often at a considerable distance. The +Northumbrian uplands are confined chiefly to the Cheviots, the Pyrenees +on a small scale; two-thirds of their whole three hundred square miles +are in the county, constituting perhaps the loveliest cluster of +pastoral hills in the island. Of this group, Cheviot--to be more +distinctive, _the_ Cheviot--(2676 feet) sits in the centre almost, +dignified and massive, the "recumbent guardian of the great lone +moorland." Others, taking them according to height, are Cairn Hill +(2545), Hedgehope (2348), Comb Fell (2132), Cushat Law (2020), Bloody +Bush Edge (2001), Windy Gyle (1963), Dunmore (1860), Carter Fell (1600), +and Yeavering Bell (1182)--a graceful cone overlooking the pretty hamlet +of Kirknewton. A climb to the broad back of the Cheviot, or the rounded +top of Yeavering, should be made by every tourist who rambles along the +Border. Both are reachable from the Scottish and English sides, as by +Bowmont and Colledge Waters, or by that loveliest of all the upland +dales, Langleeford. Despite the somewhat quagmire character of its flat +summit, the view from the Cheviot, as one might expect, is a truly +inspiring one, comprising the whole coast-line between Berwick and +Tynemouth, and the vast inland expanse from Midlothian to the +Solway--the Scottish Border _in toto_. The Cheviots are hills rather +than the "mountains blue" of poetic licence. Yet all are imposing to a +degree, and exhibit an excellent contour against the sky-line. They have +none of the wildness and savagery of the Highland ranges, and even the +steepest are grass-grown from skirt to summit, being easy of ascent, and +commanding the most varied and brilliant prospects. + +Robert Crawford sings of them as "Cheviot braes so soft and gay," and +Gilpin likens the hirsels browsing on the most acclivitous to pictures +hung on immense green walls. From time immemorial those charming uplands +have been grazed by the quiet, hardy, fine-wooled, white-faced breed of +sheep which bear their name; and in the days of the raids (for this is +the true "raider-land" of history) they were resonant, more than any +other part of Scotland, with the clang of freebootery and the yell of +strife. Mrs. Sigourney's apostrophe to the present day flocks may be +quoted: + + Graze on, graze on, there comes no sound + Of Border warfare here, + No slogan cry of gathering clan, + No battle-axe, or spear. + No belted knight in armour bright, + With glance of kindled ire, + Doth change the sports of Chevy-Chase + To conflict stern and dire. + + Ye wist not that ye press the spot, + Where Percy held his way + Across the marches, in his pride, + The "chiefest harts to slay;" + And where the stout Earl Douglas rode + Upon his milk-white steed, + With "fifteen hundred Scottish spears," + To stay the invaders' deed. + + Ye wist not, that ye press the spot + Where, with his eagle eye, + King James, and all his gallant train, + To Flodden-Field swept by. + The Queen was weeping in her bower, + Amid her maids that day, + And on her cradled nursling's face + Those tears like pearl-drops lay: + + Graze on, graze on, there's many a rill + Bright sparkling through the glade, + Where you may freely slake your thirst, + With none to make afraid. + There's many a wandering stream that flows + From Cheviot's terraced side, + Yet not one drop of warrior's gore + Distains its crystal tide. + + PLATE 7 + + FLODDEN FIELD AND + THE CHEVIOT HILLS + + FROM A WATER COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 40, 48, 99, 103, 121_) + +[Illustration] + +Of the river valleys running south of the Border line, the chief are the +Breamish, or the Till, as it is termed from Bewick Brig--the "sullen +Till" of "Marmion"; the Aln, from Alnham Kirk to the sand-banks of +Alnmouth, a glen emphatically rich in legendary lore; the Coquet, the +most picturesque and most popular trouting-stream in the North of +England; and Redesdale, redolent of "Chevy Chase," rising out of Carter +Fell, and joining the North Tyne at Redesmouth, a little below the +pleasant market-town of Bellingham. The chief towns are Berwick and +Alnwick, Hexham being outside our present delimitation. Many of the +smaller places, and the villages, are models of their kind. Wooler, at +the base of the Cheviots, is a choice mountaineering and angling centre, +from which, by way of Langleeford, is the favourite route to Cheviot +top. It was at the Whitsun Tryst or Wooler sheep fair, that Scott's +grandfather spent his old shepherd's thirty pounds in buying a horse +instead of sheep, but with such happy results in the sequel. And hither +came Scott himself in August, 1791, to imbue his mind with the legends, +the history, and scenery of the neighbourhood. "Behold a letter from the +mountains," he writes to his friend William Clerk, "for I am very snugly +settled here, in a farmer's house (at Langleeford), about six miles from +Wooler, in the very centre of the Cheviot hills, in one of the wildest +and most romantic situations, which your imagination, fertile upon the +subject of cottages, ever suggested. 'And what the deuce are you about +there?' methinks I hear you say. Why, sir, of all things in the world, +drinking goat's whey; not that I stand in the least need of it, but my +uncle having a slight cold, and being a little tired of home, asked me +last Sunday evening if I would like to go with him to Wooler; and I, +answering in the affirmative, next morning's sun beheld us on our +journey through a pass in the Cheviots, upon the backs of two special +nags, and man Thomas behind with a portmanteau, and two fishing-rods +fastened across his back, much in the style of St. Andrew's cross. Upon +reaching Wooler we found the accommodation so bad that we were forced to +use some interest to get lodgings here, where we are most delightfully +appointed, indeed. To add to my satisfaction we are amidst places +renowned by feats of former days; each hill is crowned with a tower, or +camp, or cairn; and in no situation can you be near more fields of +battle--Flodden, Otterburn, and Chevy Chase. Ford Castle, Chillingham +Castle, Coupland Castle and many another scene of blood are within the +compass of a forenoon's ride. Out of the brooks with which the hills are +intersected, we pull trouts of half a yard in length, as fast as we did +the perches from the pond at Pennicuik, and we are in the very country +of muirfowl.... My uncle drinks the whey here, as I do ever since I +understood it was brought to his bedside every morning at six, by a very +pretty dairymaid. So much for my residence. All the day we shoot, fish, +walk, and ride; dine and sup on fish struggling from the stream, and the +most delicious heath-fed mutton, barn-door fowls, pies, milk cheese, +etc, all in perfection; and so much simplicity resides amongst those +hills that a pen, which could write at least, was not to be found about +the house, though belonging to a considerable farmer, till I shot the +crow with whose quill I write this epistle." (See Lockhart, chapter +vi.). In this passage we have an interesting glimpse of what +Northumberland was a hundred years ago, and of the great author enjoying +a holiday while yet reading for the law, and before fame began to blow +her trumpet in his praise. + +Sweeter villages than Etal and Ford could scarcely be imagined out of +Arcadia. Etal Castle was destroyed by James IV. previous to Flodden, +and has never been restored. Ford Castle, built originally in 1287, has +been frequently renovated and enlarged, and is now a most excellent +example of the military style of architecture plus the modern mansion +house. Formerly held by the Herons, its chatelaine figures in "Marmion" +as the syren who detained the King when he ought to have been in the +field. The frescoes in Ford schoolroom, painted by the late Lady +Waterford, are objects not only of good art but of a well-conceived +philanthropy. Ancroft and Lowick, Chatton and Chillingham are delightful +summer resorts. Chillingham is famous for its Elizabethan Castle, but +still more so, perhaps, for its herds of wild cattle, the survivors of +the wild ox of Europe, and the supposed progenitors of our domestic +cattle. Other summer resorts are Belford and Doddington, but the whole +coast-line, indeed, is dotted with the most desirable holiday-nooks in +the county. + + PLATE 8 + + VIEW OF WARKWORTH + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 39, 51, 52, 56_) + +[Illustration] + +The Coquet bears the palm for picturesqueness amongst Northumbrian +valleys, and is about forty miles in length. From Alwinton, the first +village after crossing the Cheviots, where the Alwine joins the +Coquet--"a place of slumber and of dreams remote among the hills"--to +Warkworth Castle, the stream carries history and romance in every league +of its course. Here are such names as Biddlestone, the "Osbaldistone," +of "Rob Roy" (there are other claimants such as Chillingham and +Naworth); Harbottle, a hamlet of venerable antiquity; Holystone, +mentioned already in connection with Paulinus; Hepple, with the remnant +of a strong peel tower of the Ogles; and Rothbury, the capital of Upper +Coquetdale, a snug township in the midst of an amphitheatre of the +wild, stony Simonside hills. In the old days it was a reiving centre of +notoriety. All this part of Northumberland, indeed, was a constant +freebooting arena, neither Scots nor English being content without some +fray on hand. There is not a village, or a town, or farmhouse even, but +has some tale to tell of that uncanny period. Cragside, Lord Armstrong's +palatial seat, reclaimed, like Abbotsford, from the barren mountain +side, is within a mile of Rothbury. Then come Brinkburn Priory, "an +ancient fabric awful in repose," founded by William de Bertram, lord of +Mitford, in the reign of Henry I.; Felton, a neat little village, where +Alexander of Scotland received the homage of the Northumbrian barons; +and Warkworth, "proud of the Percy name," one of the quaintest and +oldest towns in Northumberland, and teeming with historical and romantic +associations. So near the sea, and with some of the rarest river scenery +in the county close at hand, the place is in high favour as a holiday +resort. A Saxon settlement, all interest centres around its dismantled +Castle, believed to have been built by Roger Fitz-Richard, to whom Henry +II. granted in 1158 the manor of Warkworth. Strengthened from time to +time, it became a Percy possession, and was the chief residence of the +family to the middle of the 15th century. At the height of its power it +must have been well-nigh impregnable, encircled on three sides by the +winding banks and overhanging woods of the Coquet, and on a commanding +eminence above it; and though time and many devastating hands have long +since riven its ancient walls, the pile still presents a splendid +example of a baronial stronghold, second to few on the Borders. + +Among Northumbrian towns, Alnwick (the county town) ranks next to +Newcastle. But whilst the rise of the latter and its prosperity and +colour have been each affected by the great industrial changes of the +century, Alnwick's development has been very different. Lying peacefully +amidst pastoral hills, by the side of a river unpolluted by modern +commerce, this ancient Border town still presents the plain and austere +aspect which it wore when the great stage-coaches passed through on +their way from London to Edinburgh. In Newcastle, despite its numerous +relics of antiquity, one's mind is ever dominated by the potent Present, +whereas in Alnwick, it is ever under the spell of the dreamy Past. The +quaint, irregular stone-built houses are touched with the sober hues of +antiquity, and seem to take their character from the great baronial +relic of feudal times. The history of the town is chiefly a record of + + "Old unhappy far-off things, + And battles long ago." + +It was founded by the Saxons, who styled it Alainwick, "the town on the +clear water." Like Carlisle, its history is largely one of attack and +retaliation. The Scottish Sovereigns were peculiarly unfortunate at +Alnwick. For here Malcolm Canmore was speared to death in 1093, and +William the Lion made prisoner in 1174, and inside the castle of to-day +with its gilded ceilings, luxurious upholstery, and majestic mantels of +Italian workmanship and marbles, are still to be seen the dour dungeons +in which many a Scot died miserably while the Percy and his retainers +feasted above. King John burned Alnwick to the ground in 1216, David I. +besieged and captured it. Each of the Edwards visited the place. It was +again devastated by the Scots in 1427. In 1463, it was held for Edward +IV., and in 1464 it fell into the hands of Queen Margaret. Royalists and +Roundheads occupied Alnwick during the wars between Charles and his +Parliament, but after 1700 it settled down to comparative quiet. The +Castle, of course, dominates the place. There is what William Howitt +calls "an air of solemn feudality" overhanging the whole town. Streets +and buildings, and the general tone harmonize well with the prevailing +conditions. Only one of its four gates survives--the gloomy, old, +weather-beaten Bondgate, built by the haughty Hotspur about the year +1450. The Cross dates from the same period. The most interesting and +venerable structure is the Church of St. Mary and St. Michael, founded +about the beginning of the 14th century, Perpendicular in style, and +abundant in Percy memorials. But the chief object of interest is the +Castle with the Castle enclosure (some five acres in extent). The Castle +itself is the most magnificent specimen of a feudal fortress in England, +a verdict in which all who see it will agree. What an extraordinarily +fascinating and profoundly impressive place, from the very stones of the +courtyard to the defiant-looking warrior figures on the battlements of +the barbican, and elsewhere. What an endless succession of towers and +turrets (some of them with distinctive names, Hotspur and Bloody Gap) +archways and corridors, walls and embrasures, and all the grim massive +paraphernalia of the past, apparently as doggedly determined as ever. +Perhaps, as one writer puts it, only a Percy could live quite at his +ease as master of Alnwick Castle. One cannot imagine the average man +making himself congenially at home here. But the inside comforts are an +overflowing compensation for a somewhat forbidding exterior. We are told +that even the towers at the angles of the encircling walls are museums +of British and Egyptian antiquities, and game trophies, collected by +members of the family. The fourth Duke has left much to show for the +quarter of a million he lavished upon the building--exquisite wood +carving, frescoes, marbles, and canvases. Mantovani, who restored the +Raphael frescoes in the Vatican, was not too great a man to be hired by +a Percy to adorn his Border castle. The walls of the grand staircase are +panelled with beautiful marbles. There are unique paintings: the +dining-room, a noble apartment, is pompous with Percys in fine frames, +bewigged, robed and plain; the first Duke and his wife, who helped him +to a dignity neither his money nor his courtly manners could have won +for him, hang suitably in the place of honour above the hearth. Vandyck, +Moroni, and Andrea del Sarto are worthily represented in the castle. +Giorgione, who did so well the comparatively little he had time for, is +here in his "Lady with the Lute." Raphael, Guido, and Titian are also +within these swarthy outer walls, Titian's landscape contribution being +specially notable, like Giovanni Bellini's "The Gods enjoying the Fruits +of the Earth." One looks from it to the fair Northumberland country +beyond the windows and then at the splendour and taste of the castle, +and fancies, inevitably, that the Percys themselves have in these later +days obtained quite their share of the privileges of Bellini's gods. +Nothing that makes for domestic pleasure is lacking at Alnwick Castle. +There is a stately library of some 15,000 books, with chairs for +dreaming and chairs for study; and, not to slight meaner comforts, there +is a kitchen that is a model of its baronial kind, about fifty yards +distant from the dining-hall, with which it communicates by an +underground passage. The first English possession acquired by the house +of Percy north of the Tees was Dalton, afterwards called Dalton-Percy. +Then came Alnwick, originally owned by the De Vescis, and purchased from +them about 1309; Warkworth; Prudhoe-on-Tyne, one of the most picturesque +of Northumbrian fortresses; Cockermouth; and Keeldar, in the Cheviots. +And what of the Percys who ruled, and still rule, at Alnwick in their +day of might? Very ancient is the name, numbering among its early +patriarchs such grand old heroes as Manfred the Dane, and + + "Brave Galfred, who to Normandy + With vent'rous Rollo came; + And from his Norman Castles won, + Assumed the Percy name." + +The pedigree traces the descent of Angus de Perci up to Manfred, and +that of Josceline de Louvain up from Gerberga, daughter and heiress of +Charles, Duke of Lorraine, to Charlemagne, and in the male line to the +ancient Dukes of Hainault. This same Josceline, who was brother-in-law +to King Henry I., married in 1168, Agnes, the great Percy heiress, and +assumed the name of his wife: + + "Lord Percy's heir I was, whose noble name + By me survives unto his lasting fame; + Brabant's Duke's son I wed, who, for my sake, + Retained his arms, and Percy's name did take." + +Their youngest son, Richard de Percy, then head of the family, was one +of the chief barons who extorted Magna Charta from King John, and the +ninth Lord, Henry, gave much aid to Edward I. in the subjugation of +Scotland. It was he who purchased Alnwick. His son--another +Henry--defeated David II. at Neville's Cross (1346); his grandson fought +at Crecy; his great-grandson, the fourth Lord Percy of Alnwick, was +marshal of England at the coronation of Richard II., and was created the +same day Earl of Northumberland. By far the greater part of the romance +of the Percys has centred round Harry Hotspur (eldest son of the +preceding), whom the dead Douglas defeated at Otterburn, and who fell +himself at Shrewsbury (1403) fighting against Henry IV. The soubriquet +of Hotspur was given him because "in the silence of the night, when +others were quietly sleeping, he laboured unwearied, as though his spur +were hot." + + PLATE 9 + + VIEW OF ALNWICK + CASTLE + + FROM A WATER COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 38, 49, and 53 to 58_) + +[Illustration] + +The first Earl was slain at Bramham Moor (1408). The second Earl fell +fighting for Henry VI. at St. Albans in 1455. The third at Towton +(1461), and it was his brother the fourth Earl who comforted himself as +he lay bleeding to death on Hedgley Moor (1464) that he had "saved the +bird in his bosom." The fifth Earl was murdered in 1489. The sixth Earl +was the lover of Anne Boleyn, maid of honour to Queen Catherine, and had +King Henry VIII. for his rival, who in great wrath commanded Cardinal +Wolsey to break off the engagement between them. The seventh Earl for +espousing the cause of Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded in 1572. The +eighth Earl in 1585 was found dead in bed with three pistol shots +through his breast, whether by suicide or murder. The ninth Earl was +imprisoned for fifteen years in the Tower on a baseless suspicion of +being privy to the Gunpowder Plot. The tenth Earl fought on the +Parliamentary side in the Civil War, and with the death of Josceline, +the eleventh Earl, in 1670, the male line of the family came to an end. +The eleventh Earl's only child--an heiress--married the Duke of +Somerset, who was created in 1749 Baron Warkworth, and Earl of +Northumberland, with remainder (having no male issue) to his son-in-law +Sir Hugh Smithson, of Stanwick, a Yorkshire knight who in his youth had +been an apothecary in Hatton Gardens. Sir Hugh succeeded to the Earldom +in 1750, and was created in 1766 Earl Percy and Duke of Northumberland. +The seventh Duke succeeded in 1899. + +From Alnwick it is fourteen miles to Bamborough, "King Ida's castle, +huge and square." No traveller along the great north road between +Alnwick and Berwick can fail to be struck with an object so boldly +prominent as Bamborough. Far and wide it meets the vision, and is the +more conspicuous from the flat character of its surroundings and the +very open coast. Its base is an almost perpendicular mass of basaltic +rock overlooking the sea, at a height of 150 feet. Founded in 547, it +suffered many a siege, most of all at the hands of the Danes in 933. In +the years that followed it was being constantly rebuilt, and as +constantly stormed and broken again. As the great bombards left it in +the fourth Edward's reign, so it lay dismantled for centuries. In 1720, +Lord Crewe, the philanthropic Bishop of Durham, purchased the Castle and +bequeathed it for charitable purposes--the reception and care of the +poor, etc. In 1894 it was acquired by the late Lord Armstrong, at a cost +of a quarter of a million, and fitted up as a convalescent home. The +charming village of Bamborough, nestling within easy distance, has some +celebrity as a health resort. The church in which St. Aidan died is one +of the oldest in the country, and the churchyard contains Grace +Darling's tomb. The Farne Islands, the scene of her brave exploit, are +easily visible from the shore. There are seventeen in all, forming three +distinct groups, Longstone, the heroine's home, lying farthest out. It +was from the lighthouse on this latter island that the noble maiden of +barely twenty-two descried the wreck of the _Forfarshire_, the 7th +September, 1838, and formed her resolve at rescue. "He that goes out and +sees the savage and iron nature of the rocks will not avoid wondering at +the desperate nature of the attempt," crowned by an almost superhuman +triumph. On the great Farne, or House Island, his favourite place of +retirement, St. Cuthbert died in 687. How his followers bore, from +shrine to shrine, the uncorrupted body of their Bishop is a tradition +well-known. "For the space of seven years," says Reginald of Durham, +"Saint Cuthbert was carried to and fro on the shoulders of pious men +through trackless and waterless places; when no house afforded him a +hospitable roof, he remained under covering of tents." Further, we are +told how the monks first carried their precious burden to the stone +church at Norham; thence towed it up the river to Tillmouth; on to +Melrose, the Saint's home-sanctuary by the Tweed; thence through the +Lowland glens towards the English Border where, descending the +head-waters of the Tyne, they came to Hexham; passing westward to +Carlisle in Cumberland, and Dufton Fells in Westmoreland, and over into +Lancashire; then once more eastward to the monastery at York; and +finally northward again to a last resting place in Durham, when + + "After many wanderings past, + He chose his lordly seat at last + Where his Cathedral, huge and vast, + Looks down upon the Wear." + + +"MERRIE CARLISLE" + +A glance at the outskirts of Carlisle suggests at once the fact that its +founders had considered the strategic value of the site. The old +Brigantes never planted their towns without due examination of the whole +lie of the land, and especially with a view to its defencibleness. The +river-junctions were often their favourite settling places. Hence the +origin of Carlisle, and many others of the Border towns--Hawick, +Selkirk, Kelso, etc. With its three encompassing streams--the Eden, the +Caldew, and the Petteril, which still enclose the Castle and Cathedral +hills in a sort of quasi-island, Carlisle has been aptly called "the +city of the waters." Its situation certainly is all but perfect, whilst +the picturesqueness and the extensiveness of its surrounding scenery are +the admiration of all who see it. Built upon a hill which its walls +once enclosed but which would now shut out its most populous suburbs, +Carlisle commands a prospect only limited by the lofty mountain chain +that encircles the great basin in which Cumberland lies. From the summit +of the Cathedral or from the Keep of the Castle, the eye sweeps without +interruption a vast prepossessing landscape, rich in wood and water and +fertile valleys, over which the light and shade are ever gambolling, and +the seasons spreading their variegated hues. Southward, across this fair +expanse, the majestic Skiddaw rears his noble crest, and Helvellyn his +wedge-like peak, radiant with the first and last rays of the sun. +Saddleback, and the lesser hills, link the apparently unbroken chain +with Crossfell and the eastern range; while further to the left the +Northumberland fells bound the horizon. Then come the uplands by +Bewcastle and the Border and the pastoral Cheviots. Away round to the +west, the magnificent belt is terminated by "huge Criffel's hoary top" +standing in solemn grandeur above the Solway. + + PLATE 10 + + VIEW OF PRUDHOE-ON-TYNE + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 39 and 56_) + +[Illustration] + +There are few fairer or wider panoramas in Britain, and none more +permeated with the very spirit of romance. What Lockhart said of +Sandyknowe is equally true of this singularly fascinating view-point. To +whichever hand we turn we may be sure there is "not a field but has its +battle, and not a rivulet without its song." + +Unlike Melrose, which may claim to be the literary capital of the Border +Country, Carlisle is the fighting capital. Its most stirring memories +are of raiders and rescues, and its very air is + + "full of ballad notes + Borne out of long ago." + +Despite its Cathedral, Carlisle is really more Scottish than English. A +town which proclaimed the Pretender must be Scottish enough. No other +English town fills so large a place in Scottish history. And even its +present manners and customs, and no little part of its dialect, are +coloured with Scottish sentiment and tradition. For which it cannot be a +whit the worse! Walk about Carlisle, and one is charmed with the +exquisite pleasantness of the place, the sense of comfort and prosperity +that reigns in its streets and suburbs, the steady flow of traffic +running through it, and the welcome geniality of its inhabitants. What a +delightful spot is Stanwix yonder, for instance! And the banks of the +Eden have something of those "Eden scenes" about them which Burns +claimed for the Jed. That Bridge is not unlike Rennie's at Kelso. The +public buildings are worth a more minute examination than the passing +stranger usually gives. An atmosphere of delicious semi-antiquity is the +crowning feature of "Merrie Carlisle," and one feels instinctively that +under the inevitable modernity of the place there is an older story +written on its stones-- + + "Old legends, of the monkish page, + Traditions of the saint and sage, + Tales that have the rime of age, + And chronicles of eld." + +It is so old a town that one cannot be certain of its origin. The name +is apparently British, derived probably from _Caer Lywelydd_, or simply +Caer Lywel, "the town or fort of Lywel," but whether this was a tribal, +or local, or personal name it would be hazardous to say. By the Romans +it was known as _Luguvallium_ or _Luguballia_, possibly "the town or +fort by the Wall." This the Saxons abbreviated and altered to _Luel_, +the original name, with the prefix _Caer_, hence Caer-Luel, Caerleil, +Carleol, Karluil, Karliol, Carliol, Carlile, and Carlisle. + +"No English city," says Bishop Creighton, "has a more distinctive +character than Carlisle, and none can claim to have borne its character +so continuously through the course of English history. Carlisle is still +known as 'the Border city,' and though the term 'the Border' has no +longer any historical significance, it still denotes a district which +has strongly marked peculiarities and retains a vigorous provincial +life. There was a time when the western Border was equally important +with the Border on the north, when the fortress on the Dee had to be +stoutly held against the foe, and when the town which rose among the +scrub by the upper Severn was a place of conflict between contending +races. But this struggle was not of long duration, and Chester and +Shrewsbury ceased to be distinctly Border towns. On the north, however, +the contest continued to be stubbornly waged, till it raised up a +population inured to warfare, who carried the habits of a predatory life +into a time when they were mere survivals of a well-nigh forgotten past. +Of this period of conflict Carlisle is the monument, and of this lawless +life it was long the capital. Berwick-upon-Tweed alone could venture to +share its glory or dispute its supremacy; but Berwick was scarcely a +town; it was rather a military outpost, changing hands from time to time +between the combatants; it was neither Scottish nor English, more than a +castle, but less than a town, an accidental growth of circumstances, +scarcely to be classed as an element of popular life. Carlisle, on the +other hand, traces its origin to times of venerable antiquity, and can +claim through all its changes to have carried on in unbroken succession +the traditions of an historic life. It was the necessary centre of a +large tract of country, and whether its inhabitants were British or +English its importance remained the same. It was not merely a military +position, but a place of habitation, the habitation of a people who had +to trust much to themselves, and who amidst all vicissitudes retained a +sturdy spirit of independence. This is the distinguishing feature of +Carlisle; it is 'the Border city.' But though this is its leading +characteristic which runs through all its history, it has two other +marks of distinction, when compared with other English towns. It is the +only town on British soil which bears a purely British name; and it is +the only town which has been added to England since the Norman +Conquest." + + PLATE 11 + + VIEW OF CARLISLE + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 44, and 60 to 70_) + +[Illustration] + +Briefly, the headlines of Carlisle's history are these. Founded +originally by the Britons, it was held by the Romans for close on four +centuries. Many Roman remains (coins, medals, altars, etc.) have been +unearthed, and Hadrian's big Wall (murus and vallum) is still traceable +in several quarters. A sad spoliation by Pict and Scot followed the +Roman withdrawal. They scarcely left one stone on another. Then came the +Saxon supremacy under the good King Egfrith, with the spiritual +oversight under Saint Cuthbert, to whom and his successors at +Lindisfarne were bestowed in perpetuity the city with fifteen miles +around it. But for Egfrith's death fighting the Picts on the far-off +moorland of Nechtansmere (Dunnichen in Forfarshire) Carlisle might have +risen early and rapidly to a sure place as one of the leading cities in +the land. From 685, however, to the Conquest (1066) the place was +virtually extinct. It was only then that a new epoch arose for the +broken city as for the whole of England. The Conqueror himself is said +to have commenced the rebuilding of Carlisle, but the town owes its +restoration rather to his son William the Red, who, on his return from +Alnwick, after concluding a peace treaty with the King of Scotland in +1092, "observed the pleasantness of its situation, and resolved to raise +it from its ruins." The Castle, the Priory, the once massive city walls, +were all the work of the Rufus regime, completed by Henry I., who gave +cathedral dignity to the church at Carlisle. David I., the "Sair Sanct," +raided Carlisle in 1136, and kept court for a time within its walls, +which he heightened. It was at Carlisle that his death took place in +1153. From that date to the 'Forty-five, Carlisle's history is mainly +that of a kind of "buffer-state" between the two kingdoms. Few cities +recall so many martial memories. It was Edward's base of operations in +his Scottish wars. It was besieged by Wallace in 1298, by Bruce in +1315--the year after Bannockburn, and again in 1322. Queen Mary's +captivity at Carlisle in 1568; Buccleuch's daring and gallant rescue of +Kinmont Willie in 1596, immortalised in the best of the Border ballads; +the protracted siege by General Leslie in 1644 during the Parliamentary +War; and the Pretender's short-lived triumph--these are the rest of its +leading events. + +Of the historic Carlisle little is left, the Castle, the Cathedral, and +the Guildhall being almost the sole relics of a long and notable past. +Yet how vastly changed the place is from the quiet little Border town of +a century ago even! Then it had barely ten thousand inhabitants, now +there are over forty thousand. As the county town of Cumberland, and +next to Newcastle the greatest railway centre in the north of England, +its prosperity has grown by leaps and bounds. It is the terminus of no +fewer than eight different lines, and its busy, never-at-rest Citadel +Station is known all the world over. Gates and walls have long since +vanished from "Merrie Carlisle." The streets are wide and airy, and +altogether it presents a most comfortable and thriving appearance. At +40, English Street, the chief thoroughfare, Prince Charlie slept for +four nights during the '45. And from 79 to 83, Castle Street, the corner +building (now a solicitor's office), between Castle Street and the +Green-market, Scott led Miss Carpenter to the altar. Carlisle Castle, a +huge, irregular reddish-brown stone structure, grim and defiant, with +its almost perfect specimen of a Norman Keep, and battlements frowning +towards the north, is still a place to see. + +But it is the Cathedral which is Carlisle's chief glory. Rising in the +centre of the city, high above all other buildings except the factory +chimneys, there is an air of importance about it not altogether +justifiable. The building is small and not of very great account, the +reason being that Carlisle was only erected into a See in 1133, and then +out of Durham. The result was that the parish church was promoted to the +dignity of a cathedral. Nevertheless, it has several striking +features--a delightful Early English choir and magnificent east window, +reputed to be unsurpassed by any other in the kingdom, if indeed in the +world. From 1092, the date of the original building, to 1400-19, in +Bishop Strickland's time, when the north transept was restored and the +central tower rebuilt, and down to the present day, the edifice contains +every variety of style, from Norman to Perpendicular, with admirable +specimens of nineteenth century work. Of the original Norman minster the +only parts remaining are two bays of the nave, the south transept, and +the piers of the tower. How long the church remained in its pristine +state it is impossible to say. The first alteration was probably the +enlargement of the choir, towards the middle and close of the thirteenth +century, immediately before the great fire of 1292, the worst the +cathedral has experienced in its four burnings. The work of +reconstruction after 1292 appears to have been somewhat slow, so slow +that little was done till the year 1352, when Bishop Welton and his +successor set themselves in earnest to the task. "The king, the city +treasury, and the leading families of the neighbourhood contributed +towards the restoration, in response to the urgent appeals of the +bishops and to the indulgences issued for the remission of forty days' +penance to such laity as should by money, materials, or labour, +contribute to the pious work." Towards the close of the reign of Edward +III. the renovated pile rose from it ruins. To this period belongs the +entire east end, with its grand window, the triforium, the carved +capitals of the arches, and the Decorated windows of the clerestory. +The ceiling was painted and gilded and panelled, the intersections +glowing with the armorial bearings of the rich donors by whose +liberality the work had been carried to completion. The windows were +filled with stained glass, and the nine lights of the east window with +figures. + + PLATE 12 + + VIEW OF NAWORTH + + CASTLE + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 39 and 74_) + +[Illustration] + +In this state the cathedral appears to have remained till 1392, when +another fire occurred, which destroyed the north transept. A lack of +funds was again felt, and it was not till the lapse of nine or ten years +that the restoration was completed. Only about a century later, however, +Carlisle shared the fate of the monastic institutions, and was +suppressed, and the church shorn of many of its enrichments. The Civil +Wars witnessed the worst acts of spoliation, when nearly the whole of +the nave, the chapter-house and cloisters were destroyed, the materials +being used for guard-house purposes in the city. The reign of the +"Puritan patchwork" may then be said to have begun, with plaster +partitions here and there in horrifying evidence, the niches emptied of +their treasures, and the fine old stained glass removed from the +windows--and all, as was declared, in the spirit of "repairing and +beautifying." "A great, wild country church," is its description about +this time, "and as it appeared outwardly, so it was inwardly, ne'er +beautify'd, nor adorn'd one whit." Not till 1853-57 was a general +restoration, costing L15,000, inaugurated. Both internally and +externally the edifice underwent a total renovation. Old and crumbled +portions were pulled down and rebuilt; other parts were fronted anew; +missing ornaments were supplied; ugly doorways were blocked up, and +one grand entrance made befitting the church. The renaissance was +complete as it was judicious. There was just sufficient of the old left +to show the original structure, and sufficient of the new imparted to +save the venerable fane from crumbling to pieces. Externally, the east +is certainly the finest part of the building, with its unrivalled +window--58 feet high and 32-1/2 feet wide, of nine lights, gracefully +proportioned, the head filled with the most exquisite tracery-work, +comprising no fewer than 263 circles. A uniquely ornamented gable, with +a row of crosses on either shoulder, and a large cross at the apex, +completes a highly finished centre. On either side stands out, in +massive relief, a majestic buttress, containing full length statues of +St. Peter, St. Paul, St James, and St. John, above which are light and +elegant pinnacles. These great buttresses are flanked by the lesser ones +of the aisles, tapering upwards with chastely carved spires--the whole +forming an eastern front of great beauty and richness. The main entrance +by a new doorway in the south transept is a triumph of the sculptor's +skill. The great tower, 112 feet high, has been thoroughly renovated, +and much of its former ornamentation restored. Of the interior, the nave +is in length 39 feet, and in width about 60 feet. The Scots are said to +have destroyed 100 feet of it in 1645, but that is quite uncertain. It +has never been rebuilt, and has a serious effect on the general +proportions, inducing a feeling of want of balance. Up to 1870 the nave +was used as the parish church of St. Mary, and it was here--close by the +great Norman columns--that Sir Walter Scott was married to Charlotte +Carpenter, on December 24th, 1797. The spot might well be indicated by a +small memorial brass. The richly-decorated choir, in no respect inferior +to that of any other English cathedral, is 134 feet long, 71 feet broad, +and 75 feet high. The warm red of the sandstone, the blue roof powdered +with golden stars, the great east window filled with stained glass, and +the dark oak of the stalls, make up a picture that enforces attention +before the architectural details can receive their due admiration. + +The Cathedral contains several interesting monuments. Here is the tomb +of Archdeacon Paley (1805), author of the "Evidences of Christianity" +and "Horae Paulinae," both written at Carlisle, and the richly-carved +pulpit inscribed to his memory. There are tablets to Robert Anderson +(1833), the "Cumberland Bard;" to John Heysham, M.D. (1834), the +statistician, and compiler of the "Carlisle Tables of Mortality;" George +Moore (1876), the philanthropist; M. L. Watson (1847), the sculptor; +Dean Cranmer (1848), Canon Harcourt (1870), and Dean Close (1882). +Several military monuments are in evidence. One of the windows +commemorates the five children of Archbishop Tait (then Dean), who died +between March 6th and April 9th, 1856. Recumbent figures of Bishop +Waldegrave (1869), Bishop Harvey Goodwin (1891) and Dean Close are by +Acton Adams, Hamo Thorneycroft, R.A., and H. H. Armistead, R.A., +respectively. The older altar-tombs and brasses to Bishop Bell, Bishop +Everdon, and Prior Stenhouse, should not be overlooked, and attention +may be drawn also to the quaint series of fifth-century paintings from +the monkish legends of St. Augustine, St. Anthony, and St. Cuthbert, and +to the misereres of the stalls. + +Scarcely less interesting than Carlisle itself is the immediate +neighbourhood of the Border city. And with what sterling picturesqueness +does it appeal to us! One does not wonder that Turner and others found +some of their masterpieces here. A wondrously historic countryside, too, +is all this pleasantly-rolling tableland, mile upon mile to the +Liddesdale and Eskdale heights with the Langholm Monument fairly visible +as a rule, and sometimes even the famous Repentance Tower opposite +Hoddom Kirk. Within twenty miles or so of Carlisle, up through the old +Waste and Debateable Lands, or over into the romantic Vale of the +Irthing, the dividing-point betwixt Cumberland and Northumberland, the +district is full of the most fascinating material for the geographer and +the historian. It is impossible to do more than mention a few of its +memory-moving names. At Burghby-Sands, Edward I., "the Hammer of the +Scots," having offered up his litter before the high altar at Carlisle, +vowing to reduce Scotland to the condition of a mere English province, +was forced to succumb to a grimmer adversary than lay anywhere beyond +the Solway. Bowness-by-the-Sea was the western terminus of the Roman +Wall. Arthuret has its name from the "Flower of Kings," one of whose +twelve battles is said to have been fought there. Archie Armstrong, +jester to King James VI., lies buried in its churchyard. At Longtown, on +the Esk, the Jacobite troops forded the river "shouther to shouther," as +Lady Nairne's lyric has it, dancing reels on the bank till they had +dried themselves. Netherby, the _locale_ of "Young Lochinvar," Lady +Heron's song in "Marmion," is in the near neighbourhood. So are +Gilnockie or the Hollows, Johnie Armstrong's home, and Gretna Green, +that once so popular but now defunct shrine of Venus. All this once +bleak and barren bog-land is under generous cultivation now to a large +extent, stretching from the Sark to the Esk, and eastward to Canonbie +Lea; it was the treacherously Debateable, or No Man's Land of +moss-trooping times, the most troubled and unsafe period of Border +history. Solway Moss, some seven miles in circumference, is not likely +to be forgotten--by Scotsmen, at any rate. It was the disastrous Rout of +the Solway which hastened James V.'s death from a broken heart. + + PLATE 13 + + VIEW OF LANERCOST + PRIORY + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 36 and 74_) + +[Illustration] + +The Irthing valley is replete with historical remains and literary +associations. Over there, to the north of Bewcastle (Beuth's Castle), +there is a celebrated Runic Cross nearly fifteen feet high, of the +Caedmon order, similar to that at Ruthwell. The Irthing flows through +the wide moorish wilderness known as Spade-Adam, or the Waste, crosses +the Roman Wall at Gilsland, thence courses amongst some of the richest +scenery in Cumberland until it meets the Eden. Gilsland Spa has long +been noted for the excellence of its waters and the remarkable salubrity +of the district. Scott stayed at the old Shaw's Hotel in July, 1797, not +the present palatial Convalescent Home (as it now is) which was rebuilt +after a fire about fifty years since. Charlotte Carpenter was a guest at +Wardrew House, directly opposite. They met often, and the result was +love and marriage. On a huge boulder by the banks of the Irthing, where +the glen comes to its steepest and wears its most enchanting aspect, +Scott is said to have "popped the question," and the "Kissing Bush" +where the compact was sealed is also pointed out close by. At Gilsland +it is interesting to recall that one is to some extent in "Guy Mannering +Land." A small private dwelling adjoining the Methodist Chapel claims to +stand on the site of the notorious Mumps Ha', "a hedge ale-house, where +the Border farmers of either country often stopped to refresh themselves +and their nags on their way to and from the fairs and trysts in +Cumberland." It was there that young Harry Bertram first met Dandie +Dinmont and the weird figure of Meg Merrilies, who, by the way, was not +buried at Upper Denton, as the guide-books say. It was the treacherous +landlady, Meg Mumps or Margaret Carrick, who is there interred. The more +important Meg--the real heroine of the story--was drowned in the Eden at +Carlisle. Gilsland is a centre for some delightful excursions. Much of +the Roman Wall may be visited from this centre, its two chief stations +Borcovicus (Housesteads) and Burdoswald being within easy distances. The +little Northumberland lakes, and the prettiest of them all, Crag Loch, +the Nine Nicks of Thirlwall, seen from the Shaws with fine effect, +Thirlwall and Blenkinsop Castles, Haltwhistle Church, all to the east, +are objects of deep and abiding interest. Westward are Burdoswald--the +Roman Amboglanna--covering an area of 5-1/2 acres, and overlooking a +singularly graceful bend of the Irthing (not unlike that on the Tweed at +Bemersyde); Lanercost Priory[A], founded by Robert de Vaux about 1166, +frequently plundered by the Scots, and used now partly as the parish +church and burial-place of the Carlisle family; Naworth,[B] the historic +seat of the Earl of Carlisle, whose ancestor, Lord William Howard, was +the famous "Belted Will" of Border story, who died in 1640:-- + + "His Bilboa blade, by marchmen felt, + Hung in a broad and studded belt; + Hence, in rude phrase, the Borderers still + Call noble Howard, 'Belted Will,'"-- + +and Triermain Castle, all but vanished, whence Scott's "Bridal of +Triermain"-- + + "Where is the Maiden of mortal strain, + That may match with the Baron of Triermain? + She must be lovely, and constant and kind, + Holy and pure, and humble of mind, + Blithe of cheer, and gentle of mood, + Courteous, and generous, and noble of blood-- + Lovely as the sun's first ray, + When it breaks the clouds of an April day, + Constant and true as the widow'd dove, + Kind as a minstrel that sings of love." + +[A] Lanercost is a fine example of Early English. The church consists of +a nave with north aisle, a transept with aisles on the east side used as +monumental chapels and choir, a chancel, and a low square tower. The +nave is used as the Parish Church. The crypt contains several Roman +altars from Burdoswald, etc. Some of the inscriptions are of great +interest. + +[B] Naworth is said to be one of the oldest and best specimens existing +of a baronial residence. It is associated largely with the turbulent +times of Border warfare. "Belted Will," a terror to all marauders, is +its best-known name, "a singular lover of venerable antiquities, and +learned withal," as Camden describes him. The British Museum contains +some of his letters, and his library is still preserved at Naworth. +"Belted Will's" Tower, to the north-east of the Castle, is the most +notable feature at Naworth. + + + + +III. THE TWEED AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. + + +"Both are good, the streams of north and south, but he who has given his +heart to the Tweed as did Tyro in Homer to the Enipeus, will never +change his love." So does Mr. Andrew Lang remind us of his affection for +Tweedside and the Border. Elsewhere he speaks of Tweed shrining the +music of his cradle song, and the requiem he would most prefer--may that +day be long in coming! + + "No other hymn + I'd choose, nor gentler requiem dear + Than Tweed's, that through death's twilight dim, + Mourned in the latest Minstrel's ear." + +Lockhart's description of Sir Walter's death-scene, so touching in its +very simplicity, has never been matched in literary biography. From the +first years of his life, Scott was wedded to the Tweed. It was his +ancestral stream. And it stood for all that was best and fairest in +Border story. It was by the Tweed that he won his greatest triumphs, and +faced his greatest defeats, where he spent the happiest as well as the +most strenuous period of his career. So that, to breathe his last breath +by its pleasant banks--a desire oft repeated--was as natural as it was +keen and eager. We know how at length he was borne back to Abbotsford, +the house of his dreams, and how on one of those ideal days during the +early autumn that crowning wish was realised; "It was a beautiful day, +so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly still that the +sound of all others most delicious to his ear--the gentle ripple of the +Tweed over its pebbles--was distinctly audible as we knelt around the +bed and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes." + +Of course, it is owing, in great measure, to Scott that the Tweed has so +exalted a place in literature. To speak of the Tweed at once recalls +Scott and all that the Tweed meant to him. Both in a sense are names +inseparable and synonymous. It is almost entirely for Scott's sake that +Tweedside has become one of the world-Meccas. What Scott did for the +Tweed--the Border--renders it (to speak reverently) holy ground for +ever. Hence the affection with which the world looks on Scott--as a +patriot,--as one who has helped to create his country, and as a great +literary magnet attracting thousands to it, and as the medium of some of +the most pleasurable of mental experiences. Of the great names on +Scotland's roll of honour, Scott, even more than all of them (even more +than Burns), has wedded his country to the very best of humankind +everywhere. But do not let us forget that Tweed had its lovers many +before Scott's day. Burns's pilgrimage to the Border was a picturesque +episode in his poetic history. "Yarrow and Tweed to monie a tune owre +Scotland rings," he wrote, and other lines represent a warm admiration +for the district. Tweed was a "wimpling stately" stream, and there were +"Eden scenes on crystal Jed" scarcely less fascinating. James Thomson, +the poet of the "Seasons," a Tweedsider, though the fact is often +forgotten, pays grateful homage to the Tweed as the "pure parent-stream, +whose pastoral banks first heard my Doric reed." Allan Ramsay and Robert +Crawford, West-country men both, came early under the spell of the +fair river. Crawford's lines are painted with the usual exaggeration of +the period: + + "What beauties does Flora disclose! + How sweet are her smiles upon Tweed! + Yet Mary's, still sweeter than those, + Both nature and fancy exceed. + No daisy, nor sweet blushing rose, + Not all the gay flowers of the field, + Not Tweed, gliding gently through those, + Such beauty and pleasure does yield." + +Hamilton of Bangour, best known for his "Braes of Yarrow," has an autumn +and winter description of Tweedside which naturally suggests the like +picture by Scott in the Introduction to Canto I. of "Marmion," and it is +more than probable that Sir Walter had this in his mind when penning his +own more perfect lines. + + PLATE 14 + + VIEW OF BEWCASTLE + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 44, 67, 72_) + +[Illustration] + +Robert Fergusson--Burns's "elder brother in the Muses," had his +imagination fired by the memories of the Border, and was one of the +first to celebrate that land over which lies the light of so much poetic +fancy: + + "The Arno and the Tiber lang + Hae run full clear in Roman sang; + But, save the reverence o' schools! + They're baith but lifeless dowy pools, + Dought they compare wi' bonny Tweed, + As clear as ony lammer-bead?" + +Wordsworth, too, sang of the "gentle Tweed, and the green silent +pastures," though his winsome Three Yarrows is the tie that most endears +him to the Lowland hearts. Since Scott's day the voices in praise of +Tweed have been legion. "Who, with a heart and a soul tolerably at ease +within him, could fail to be happy, hearing as we do now the voice of +the Tweed, singing his pensive twilight song to the few faint stars that +have become visible in heaven?" says John Wilson in his rollicking +"Streams" essay (no "crusty Christopher" there, at any rate). Thomas Tod +Stoddart, king of angling rhymers, + + "Angled far and angled wide, + On Fannich drear, by Luichart's side; + Across dark Conan's current," + +and all over Scotland, but found not another stream to match with the +Tweed: + + "Dearer than all these to me + Is sylvan Tweed; each tower and tree + That in its vale rejoices; + Dearer the streamlets one and all + That blend with its Eolian brawl + Their own enamouring voices!" + +Remember, too, Dr. John Brown's exquisite Tweed's Well meditation, a +prose sermon to ponder over any Sabbath, and Ruskin's homely reverie--"I +can never hear the whispering and sighing of the Tweed among his +pebbles, but it brings back to me the song of my nurse as we used to +cross by Coldstream Bridge, from the south, in our happy days-- + + "For Scotland, my darling, lies full in my view, + With her barefooted lasses, and mountains so blue." + +One thinks also of George Borrow's fascination for the Scottish Border, +when he asks ("Lavengro") "Which of the world's streams can Tweed envy, +with its beauty and renown?" and of Thomas Aird's pathetic +retrospect--"the ever-dear Tweed, whose waters flow continually through +my heart, and make me often greet in my lonely evenings." Nor do we +forget John Veitch, that truest Tweedsman of his time, always musing on +the Tweed, never at home but beside it, and of whose Romance and History +there has been no abler exponent. + +Of the name Tweed itself, the meaning and origin are uncertain, and it +is hopeless to dogmatize on the subject except to say that there is an +apparent connection with the Cymric Tay, Taff, Teith, and Teviot--more +properly "Teiott," the common pronunciation above Hawick. Mr. Johnston +("Place-Names of Scotland") traces it to the Celtic _twyad_--"a hemming +in"--from "_twy_ to check or bind," which is a not unlikely derivation. +As to the source of the Tweed there is the curious paradox that what +passes for its source is not the real _fons et origo_ of the stream. +Poetically, the Tweed is said to take its rise in the tiny Tweed's Well +among the Southern Highlands, 1250 feet above sea level, and close to +where the marches of Peeblesshire, Lanarkshire, and Dumfriesshire meet. +But strictly speaking, the correct source is the Cor or Corse Burn, a +little higher up, which, dancing its way to the glen beneath, receives +the outflow of the Well as a sort of first tributary. For purposes of +romance, however, Tweed's Well will always be reckoned as the source, as +indeed it must have been so regarded ages ago. The likelihood is that +Tweed's Well was one of the ancient holy wells common to many parts of +Scotland. And since tradition speaks of a Mungo's Well somewhere in +these solitudes, the probability is that we have it here in the heart of +these silent lonely hills. There is the tradition of a cross, too, at or +near Tweed's Well, borne out in the place-name Corse, which, we know, +is good Scots for Cross. That such a symbol of the ancient faith stood +here long since "to remind travellers of their Redeemer and to guide +them withal across these desolate moors," is more than a mere +picturesque legend. It is a prolific watershed this from which Tweed +starts its seaward race. South and west, Annan and Clyde bend their way +to the Solway and the Atlantic, as the quaint quatrain has it: + + "Annan, Tweed, and Clyde + Rise a' oot o' ae hillside, + Tweed ran, Annan wan, + Clyde brak his neck owre Corra Linn." + +Tweed turns its face to the north, and running for the most part, as old +Pennecuik puts it, "with a soft yet trotting stream," it pursues a +course of slightly over a hundred miles, and drains a basin of no less +than 1870 square miles, a larger area than any other Scottish river +except the Tay. + + PLATE 15 + + VIEW OF MELROSE + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 23, 35, 39, 60, 61, 89, 90, 91, 123_) + +[Illustration] + +Tweed's Well lies in the bosom of solemn, bare hills. There is nothing +attractive about the spot. Grey moorlands, riddled with innumerable inky +peat-bogs, the whaups crying as Stevenson heard them in his dreams, and +the bleat of an occasional sheep are the chief characteristics. There is +little heather, and the hills are hardly so shapely as their neighbours +further down the valley. A first glance is disappointing, but the +memories of the place are compensation enough. For what a stirring place +it must have been in the early centuries! Here, as tradition asserts, +the pagan bard Merlin was converted to Christianity through the +preaching of the Glasgow Saint Mungo. Here Michael Scot, the "wondrous +wizard," pursued his mysteries. And even the Flower of Kings himself +wandered amongst those wilds, "of fresh aventours dreaming." One of his +twelve battles is claimed for the locality. More historic, perhaps, is +the picture of the good Sir James of Douglas (red-handed from dirking +the Comyn) plighting his troth to the Bruce at Ericstane Brae, close to +Tweed's Well, which latter spot, by the way, Dr. John Brown +characteristically describes in one of his shorter "Horae" papers. +Readers of the "Enterkin" also will remember his reference to the +mail-coach tragedy of 1831, when MacGeorge and his companion, +Goodfellow, perished in the snow in a heroic attempt to get the bags +through to Tweedshaws. At Tweedsmuir, (the name of the parish--disjoined +from Drumelzier in 1643)--eight miles down, the valley opens somewhat, +and vegetation properly begins. Of Tweedsmuir Kirk--on the peninsula +between Tweed and Talla--Lord Cockburn said that it had the prettiest +situation in Scotland. John Hunter, a Covenant martyr, sleeps in its +bonnie green kirk-knowe--the only Covenant grave in the Border Counties +outside Dumfries and Galloway. Talla Linns recalls the conventicle +mentioned in the "Heart of Midlothian," at which Scott makes Davie Deans +a silent but much-impressed spectator. In the wild Gameshope Glen, close +by, Donald Cargill and James Renwick, and others lay oft in hiding. "It +will be a bloody night this in Gemsop," are the opening words of Hogg's +fine Covenant tale, the "Brownie of Bodsbeck." The Talla Valley contains +the picturesque new lake whence Edinburgh draws its augmented water +supply. Young Hay of Talla was one of Bothwell's "Lambs," and suffered +death for the Darnley murder. At the Beild--regaining the Tweed--Dr. +John Ker, one of the foremost pulpiteers of his generation, was born in +1819. Oliver Castle was the home of the Frasers, Lords of Tweeddale +before they were Lords of Lovat. The Crook Inn was a noted "howff" in +the angling excursions of Christopher North and the Ettrick Shepherd. +Mr. Lang thinks that possibly the name suggested the "Cleikum Inn" of +"St. Ronan's Well." At the Crook, William Black ends his "Adventures of +a Phaeton" with the climax of all good novels, an avowal of love and a +happy engagement. Polmood, near by, was the scene of Hogg's lugubrious +"Bridal of Polmood," seldom read now, one imagines. Kingledoors in two +of its place-names preserves the memory of Cuthbert and Cristin, the +Saint and his hermit-disciple. Stanhope was a staunch Jacobite holding, +one of its lairds being the infamous Murray of Broughton, Prince +Charlie's secretary, the Judas of the cause. Murray, by the way, was +discovered in hiding after Culloden at Polmood, the abode of his +brother-in-law, Michael Hunter. Linkumdoddie has been immortalized in +Burns's versicles beginning, "Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed"--a study in +idiomatic untranslateable Scots. Here is the picture of Willie's wife--a +philological puzzle. + + "She's bow-hough'd, she's hein-shinn'd, + Ae limpin leg a hand-breed shorter; + She's twisted right, she's twisted left, + To balance fair in ilka quarter; + She has a hump upon her breast, + The twin o' that upon her shouther; + Sic a wife as Willie had, + I wadna gie a button for her. + + "Auld bandrons by the ingle sits, + An' wi' her loof her face a-washin'; + But Willie's wife is nae sae trig + She dights her grunzie wi' a hushion; + Her walie nieves like midden-creels, + Her face wad 'fyle the Logan Water; + Sic a wife as Willie had, + I wadna gie a button for her." + +At Drumelzier Castle the turbulent, tyrannical Tweedies reigned in their +day of might. Of their ghostly origin, the Introduction to the +"Betrothed" supplies the key. They were constantly at feud with their +neighbours, specially the Veitches, and were in the Rizzio murder. See +their history (a work of genuine local interest) written quite recently +by Michael Forbes Tweedie, a London scion of the clan. In the same +neighbourhood, the fragment of Tinnis Castle (there is a Tinnis on +Yarrow, too,) juts out from its bold bluff, not unlike a robber's eyrie +on the Rhine. Curiously, this is a reputed Ossian scene (see the poem, +"Calthon and Colmal.") The "blue Teutha," is the Tweed--"Dunthalmo's +town," Drumelzier. Merlin's Grave, near Drumelzier Kirk, should not be +forgotten. Bower's "Scotichronicon" narrates the circumstances of his +death: "On the same day which he foretold he met his death; for certain +shepherds of a chief of a country called Meldred set upon him with +stones and staves, and, stumbling in his agony, he fell from a high bank +of the Tweed, near the town of Drumelzier (the ridge of Meldred), upon a +sharp stake that the fishers had placed in the waters, and which pierced +his body through. He was buried near the spot where he expired." + + "Ah! well he loved the Powsail Burn (_i.e._, the burn of the willows) + Ah! well he loved the Powsail glen; + And there, beside his fountain clear, + He soothed the frenzy of his brain. + + Ah! Merlin, restless was thy life, + As the bold stream whose circles sweep + Mid rocky boulders to its close + By thy lone grave, in calm so deep. + + For no one ever loved the Tweed + Who was not loved by it in turn; + It smiled in gentle Merlin's face, + It soughs in sorrow round his bourn." + +A prophecy of Thomas the Rhymer-- + + "When Tweed and Powsail meet at Merlin's Grave, + England and Scotland shall one monarch have," + +is affirmed to have been literally fulfilled on the coronation day of +James VI. and I. Passing on, we reach the resplendent Dawyck Woods. Here +are some of the finest larches in the kingdom, the first to be planted +in Britain, having that honour done them by the great Linnaeus himself, +it is said. Stobo--semi-Norman and Saxon--was the _plebania_ or +mother-kirk of half the county. Here lies all that is mortal of Robert +Hogg, a talented nephew of James Hogg. He was the friend and amanuensis +of both Scott and Lockhart, whom he assisted in the _Quarterly_. +Possessed of a keen literary sense, he would almost certainly have taken +a high place in literature but for the consumption which cut short his +promising career. (See "Life of Scott," vol. ix). At Happrew, in Stobo +parish, Wallace is said to have suffered defeat from the English in +1304. One of the most perfect specimens (recently explored) of a +Roman Camp is in the Lyne Valley, to the left, a little above the +Kirk of Lyne. On a height overlooking the Tarth and Lyne frowns the +massive pile of Drochil, planned by the Red Earl of Morton, who never +lived to occupy it, or to finish it, indeed, the "Maiden," in 1581, +cutting short his pleasures, his treacheries and hypocrisies. Now we +touch the Black Dwarf's Country--in the Manor Valley, to the right. +Barns Tower, a very complete peel specimen, stands sentinel at the +entrance to this "sweetest glen of all the South." It is around Barns +that John Buchan's "John Burnet of Barns" centres. The Black Dwarf's +grave is at Manor Kirk, and the cottage associated with his misanthropic +career is also pointed out. Scott, in 1797, visited Manor (Hallyards) at +his friend Ferguson's, and foregathered with David Ritchie, the +prototype of one of the least successful and most tedious of his +characters. (See William Chambers's account of the visit). St. Gordian's +Cross, mentioned in a previous chapter, is further up the valley, where +also are the ruins of Posso, a place-name in the "Bride of Lammermoor." +Presently we come to Neidpath Castle, dominating Peebles, the key to the +Upper Tweed fastnesses. When or by whom it was built is unknown. In +1795, it was held by "Old Q," fourth Duke of Queensberry. Wordsworth's +sonnet on the spoliation of its magnificent woods (an act done to spite +the heir of entail) stigmatises for all time the memory of one of the +worst reprobates in history. + + PLATE 16 + + MELROSE AND THE + EILDONS FROM BEMERSYDE + HILL: SCOTT'S + FAVOURITE VIEW + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 89 and 123_) + +[Illustration] + +Both Scott and Campbell have sung of the unhappy Maid of Neidpath spent +with grief and disease, waiting her lover on the Castle walls, and +beholding him ride past all unconscious of her identity. + + "He came--he passed--a heedless gaze, + As o'er some stranger glancing; + Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase, + Lost in his courser's prancing-- + The Castle arch whose hollow tone + Returns each whisper spoken, + Could scarcely catch the feeble moan + Which told her heart was broken." + +The literary associations of Peebles--a charming township--are +outstanding. William and Robert Chambers (founders of _Chambers's +Journal_) were natives. So were Thomas Smibert and John Veitch, poets +and essayists both. Mungo Park (a Gideon Gray prototype) was the town's +surgeon for a time--an eternal longing for Africa in his soul. "Meg +Dods," the best landlady in fiction, was one of its heroines. And +"Peblis to the Play," probably by James I., is a Scots classic. Traquair +is poetic ground every foot of it. At its "bonnie bush" how many singers +have caught inspiration from Crawford of Drumsoy in 1725, to Principal +Shairp in our own day! Shairp's lyric may well be quoted in full. It is +by far the finest contribution to modern Border minstrelsy. "Thank ye +again for this exquisite song; I would rather have been the man to write +it than Gladstone in all his greatness and goodness," was the exuberant +"Rab" Brown's compliment to the author: + + "Will ye gang wi' me and fare + To the bush aboon Traquair? + Owre the high Minchmuir we'll up and awa', + This bonny simmer noon, + While the sun shines fair aboon, + And the licht sklents saftly doun on holm and ha'. + + "And what would you do there, + At the bush aboon Traquair? + A lang dreich road, ye had better let it be; + Save some auld skrunts o' birk + I' the hillside lirk, + There's nocht i' the warld for man to see. + + "But the blithe lilt o' that air, + 'The Bush aboon Traquair,' + I need nae mair, it's eneuch for me; + Owre my cradle its sweet chime, + Cam' soughin' frae auld time, + Sae tide what may, I'll awa' and see. + + "And what saw ye there + At the bush aboon Traquair? + Or what did ye hear that was worth your heed? + I heard the cushies croon + Thro' the gowden afternoon + And the Quair burn singing doun to the Vale o' Tweed. + + "And birks saw I three or four, + Wi' grey moss bearded owre,-- + The last that are left o' the birken shaw, + Whar mony a simmer e'en + Fond lovers did convene, + Thae bonny, bonny gloamins that are lang awa'. + + "Frae mony a but and ben, + By muirland, holm, and glen, + They cam' ane hour to spen' on the greenwood swaird; + But lang hae lad an' lass I + Been lying 'neth the grass, + The green, green grass o' Traquair kirkyard. + + "They were blest beyond compare, + When they held their trysting there, + Among thae greenest hills shone on by the sun; + And then they wan a rest, + The lownest and the best, + I' Traquair kirkyard when a' was dune. + + "Now the birks to dust may rot, + Names o' lovers be forgot, + Nae lads and lasses there ony mair convene; + But the blithe lilt o' yon air + Keeps the bush aboon Traquair, + And the love that ance was there, aye fresh and green." + + PLATE 17 + + DRYBURGH ABBEY AND + SCOTT'S TOMB + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 35, 39, 91, 92, 103_) + +[Illustration] + +Traquair House--possibly Scott's Tully-Veolan, "pallid, forlorn, +stricken all o'er with eld," claims to be the oldest inhabited house in +Scotland. It certainly looks it. The great gate, flanked with the huge +Bradwardine Bears, has not been opened since the '45. There seems no +reason to question the legend. It is not so "foolish" as Mr. Lang +supposes. Innerleithen, Scott's "St. Ronan's," is near at hand, and the +peel of Elibank--a mere shell. Harden's marriage to Muckle-mou'ed Meg +Murray was not quite accounted for in the traditional way, however,--a +choice between the laird's dule-tree and the laird's unlovely daughter. +The legend is not uncommon to German folk-lore. At Ashestiel, thrice +renowned, Scott spent the happiest years of his life (1804-1812), +writing "Marmion," the "Lady of the Lake," and the first draft of +"Waverley." In many respects the place is more important to students of +Scott than Abbotsford itself. Yet for a thousand who rush to Abbotsford +only a very few find their way up here. Yair, a Pringle house, and +Fairnalee, comfortable little demesnes, lie further down the Tweed. At +the latter, Alison Rutherford wrote her version of the "Flowers of the +Forest"--"I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling." Abbotsford was +Cartley Hole first--not Clarty--which is a mere vulgar play on the +original. From a small villa about 1811 it has grown to the present +noble pile. After Scott's day, Mr. Hope Scott did much for the place. +But it is of Sir Walter that one thinks. What a strenuous life was his +here! What love he lavished on the very ground that was dear to him--in +a double sense! And what longing for home during that vain sojourn +under Italian skies! "To Abbotsford; let us to Abbotsford!"--a desire +now echoed on ten thousand tongues year by year from all ends of the +earth. Behind Abbotsford are the Eildons, the "Delectable Mountains" of +Washington Irving's visit, "three crests against a saffron sky" always +in vision the wide Border over. Scott said he could stand on the Eildons +and point out forty-three places famous in war and verse. "Yonder," he +said, "is Lammermoor and Smailholm; and there you have Galashiels, and +Torwoodlee, and Gala Water; and in that direction you see Teviotdale and +the Braes of Yarrow, and Ettrick stream winding along like a silver +thread to throw itself into the Tweed. It may be pertinacity, but to my +eye these grey hills, and all this wild Border Country have beauties +peculiar to themselves. When I have been for some time in the rich +scenery about Edinburgh which is like ornamented garden land, I begin to +wish myself back again among my own honest grey hills; and if I did not +see the heather at least once a year, I think I should die." Melrose is +the "Kennaquhair" of the "Monastery" and the "Abbot." Its glory, of +course, is its Abbey, unsurpassed in the beauty of death, but all grace +fled from its environment. Were it possible to transplant the Abbey +together with its rich associations to the site of the original +foundation by the beautiful bend at Bemersyde, Melrose would sit +enthroned peerless among the shrines of our northern land. Within +Melrose Abbey, near to the High Altar, the Bruce's heart rests well--its +fitful flutterings o'er. Here, too, lie the brave Earl Douglas, hero of +Chevy Chase; Liddesdale's dark Knight--another Douglas; Evers and +Latoun, the English commanders at Ancrum Moor, that ran so deadly red +with the blood of their countrymen; and, according to Sir Walter, +Michael Scot-- + + "Buried on St. Michael's night, + When the bell toll'd one, and the moon shone bright, + Whose chamber was dug among the dead, + When the floor of the chancel was stained red." + +One is not surprised at Scott's love for Melrose. As the grandest +ecclesiastical ruin in the country, it must be seen to be understood. +Mere description counts for little in dealing with such a subject. Every +window, arch, cloister, corbel, keystone, door-head and buttress of this +excellent example of mediaeval Gothic is a study in itself--all +elaborately carved, yet no two alike. The sculpture is unequalled both +in symmetry and in variety, embracing some of the loveliest specimens of +floral tracery and the most quaint and grotesque representations +imaginable. The great east oriel is its most imposing feature. But the +south doorway and the chaste wheeled window above it are equally superb. +For what is regarded as the finest view of the building, let us stand +for a little at the north-east corner, not far from the grave of Scott's +faithful factotum, Tom Purdie. Here the _coup d'oeil_ is very +striking; and the contour of the ruins is realised to its full. Or if it +be preferred, let us look at the pile beneath the lee light o' the +moon--the conditions recommended in the "Lay." + + "If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright, + Go visit it by the pale moonlight; + For the gay beams of lightsome day + Gild, but to flout, the ruins grey. + When the broken arches are black in night, + And each shafted oriel glimmers white, + When the cold light's uncertain shower + Streams on the ruined central tower; + When buttress and buttress, alternately, + Seem framed of ebon and ivory; + When silver edges the imagery, + And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die; + When distant Tweed is heard to rave, + And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave, + Then go--but go alone the while-- + Then view St. David's ruined pile; + And, home returning, soothly swear + Was never scene so sad and fair!" + +Three inscriptions--one inside, two in the churchyard, are worth halting +by. "HEIR LYIS THE RACE OF YE HOVS OF ZAIR," touches many hearts with +its simple pathos. "The Lord is my Light," is the expressive text +(self-chosen) on Sir David Brewster's tomb--the greatest master of +optics in his day; and the third, covering the remains of a former +Melrose schoolmaster was frequently on the lips of Scott: + + "The earth goeth on the earth, + Glist'ring like gold, + The earth goes to the earth + Sooner than it wold. + The earth builds on the earth + Castles and towers, + The earth says to the earth + All shall be ours." + +If half the grace of Melrose is lost by reason of its environment, the +situation of Dryburgh is queenly enough. It is assuredly the most +picturesque monastic ruin in Great Britain. Scott's is the all-absorbing +name, and as a matter of fact he would himself have become by +inheritance the laird of Dryburgh, but for the financial folly of a +spendthrift grand-uncle. "The ancient patrimony," he tells us, "was sold +for a trifle, and my father, who might have purchased it with ease, was +dissuaded by my grandfather from doing so, and thus we have nothing left +of Dryburgh but the right of stretching our bones there." So here, the +two Sir Walters, the two Lady Scotts, and Lockhart, await the breaking +light of morn. Dryburgh, be it noted, is in Berwickshire--in Mertoun +parish, where (at Mertoun House) Scott wrote the "Eve of St. John." Not +far off is Sandyknowe (not Smailholm, as it is generally designated) +Tower, the scene of the ballad, and the cradle of Scott's childhood, +where there awoke within him the first real consciousness of life, and +where he had his first impressions of the wondrously enchanted land that +lay within the comparatively small circle of the Border Country. Ruined +Roxburgh, between Tweed's and Teviot's flow, and the palatial Floors +Castle represent the best of epochs old and new, and even more than in +Scott's halcyon school days is Kelso the "Queen of the South Countrie." +Coldstream, lying in sylvan loveliness on the left bank of the Tweed--a +noble river here--has been the scene of many a memorable crossing from +both countries from the time of Edward I. to the Covenanting struggle. +So near the Border, Coldstream had at one time a considerable notoriety +for its runaway marriages, the most notable of which was Lord Brougham's +in 1819. Within an easy radius of Coldstream are Wark Castle, the mere +site of it rather--where in 1344 Edward III. instituted the Order of the +Garter; Twizel Bridge, with its single Gothic arch, cleverly crossed +by Surrey and his men (it is the identical arch) at Flodden, that +darkest of all dark fields for Scotland, + + "Where shivered was fair Scotland's spear, + And broken was her shield." + +Of Norham Castle, frowning like Carlisle, to the North, and set down as +it were to over-awe a kingdom, Scott's description is always the best. +Ladykirk Church was built by James IV. in gratitude for his escape from +drowning while fording the Tweed. Last of all, we reach Berwick, at one +period the chief seaport in Scotland--a "second Alexandria," as was +said, now the veriest shadow of its former self. Christianized towards +the close of the fourth century, according to Bede, as a place rich in +churches, monasteries and hospitals, Berwick held high rank in the +ecclesiastical world. Its geographical position, too, as a frontier town +made it the Strasburg for which contending armies were continually in +conflict. Century after century its history was one red record of strife +and bloodshed. Its walls, like its old Bridge spanning the Tweed, were +built in Elizabeth's reign, and its Royal Border Bridge, opened to +traffic in 1850, was happily characterised by Robert Stephenson, its +builder, as the "last act of the Union." + + PLATE 18 + + THE REMNANT OF + WARK CASTLE + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 39 and 92_) + +[Illustration] + + + + +IV. "PLEASANT TEVIOTDALE" + + +Ettrick and Yarrow between them comprise most of Selkirkshire. The +Teviot and Jed are the main arteries running through Roxburghshire, or +Teviotdale, as was the ancient designation, colloquially Tividale and +Tibbiedale. On the source-to-mouth principle--the most natural and the +most instructive--the best approach into Teviotdale is by way of +Langholm, locally _the_ Langholm, pleasantly situated on the +Dumfriesshire Esk, at the junction of the Ewes and Wauchope Waters. In +the fine pastoral valley of the Ewes--the Yarrow of Dumfriesshire--we +pass several places of note before striking Teviothead and the main +course of the Teviot. At Wrae, William Knox, author of "The Lonely +Hearth," and writer of the stanzas on "Mortality," so constantly quoted +by Abraham Lincoln, had his home for a time. George Gilfillan, no mean +judge, characterises him as the best sacred poet in Scotland. Further on +is the birth-spot of another well-known singer, Henry Scott Riddell, +whose patriotic "Scotland Yet" has won its way to the ends of the earth, +wherever Scotsmen gather. At Unthank Kirkyard--none more lonely save St. +Mary's on Yarrow, perhaps--we examine the graves of the hospitable and +kindly Elliots of "Dandie Dinmont" immortality. Mosspaul Inn, lately +restored, is close to the boundary between the two counties. From the +Wisp Hill (1950 feet) the view on a clear day from Carlisle in the south +to the distant north, is one to be remembered. The Wordsworths were at +Mosspaul in 1803, and Dorothy's description is still fairly correct: +"The scene with its single dwelling, was melancholy and wild, but not +dreary, though there was no tree nor shrub; the small streamlet +glittered, the hills were populous with sheep; but the gentle bending of +the valley and the correspondent softness in the forms of the hills were +of themselves enough to delight the eye. The whole of the Teviot and the +pastoral steeps about Mosspaul pleased us exceedingly." + + PLATE 19 + + BERWICK-ON-TWEED + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 43, 49, 63, 93_) + +[Illustration] + +At Teviothead we touch the Teviot proper. The upper basin of the Teviot +is mainly a barren vale, flanked by lofty rounded hills. For a greater +distance it is a strip of alluvial plain, screened by terraced banks +clad with the rankest vegetation, and with long stretches of undulating +dale-land, and overhung at from three to eight miles by terminating +heights, and in its lower reaches it is a richly variegated champaign +country, possessing all the luxuriance without any of the tameness of a +fertile plain, and stretching away in resulting loveliness to the +picturesque Eildons on the one hand and the dome-like Cheviots on the +other. Teviothead, formerly Carlanrigg, is full of traditionary lore. +Teviot Stone, extinct now, a landmark for centuries--its position being +marked on some of our earliest maps--recalls Scott's favourite lines +from the "Lay," imprinted on the Selkirk monument: + + "By Yarrow's streams, still let me stray, + Though none should guide my feeble way; + Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break, + Although it chill my withered cheek; + Still lay my head by Teviot Stone, + Though there, forgotten and alone, + The Bard may draw his parting groan." + +Teviothead Churchyard contains the graves of Johnie Armstrong of +Gilnockie, and his gallants. James V. (a mere boy-king at the time) +never planned a more despicable or more atrocious deed than the betrayal +and summary execution of this most picturesque of the freebooters. And +posterity has never forgiven him. Nor can it. Scott's "Minstrelsy" +ballad commemorating the incident is far and away the most dramatic of +its kind, Johnie's scathing answer to the King being specially +characteristic: + + "To seik het water beneith cauld ice, + Surely it is a greit follie; + I have asked grace at a graceless face, + But there is nane for my men and me!" + +There is a tradition that the trees on which they were hanged became +immediately blasted; and Scott, in parting with the Wordsworths directed +them to look about for "some old stumps of trees," but "we could not +find them," adds Miss Wordsworth. Hard by are the graves of Scott +Riddell and his third son, William, a youth of remarkable promise. +Teviothead Cottage, where Riddell resided till his death in 1870, is +passed on the left. The church in which he preached (he was in charge of +the then preaching station here) is now the parish school, and his +monument, like a huge candle extinguisher, crowns the neighbouring +Dryden Knowes. Still keeping to the Teviot, now a fair-sized stream, +rich in the variety and beauty of its scenery-- + + "Pleasant Teviotdale, a land + Made blithe by plough and harrow"-- + +we pass Gledsnest and Colterscleuch, figuring in the well-known "Jamie +Telfer" ballad; Commonside, mentioned in "Kinmont Willie"; +Northhouse, Teindside, Harwood, and Broadhaugh, snug farms all, till the +hamlet of Newmill is reached, the quarrel scene between the "jovial +harper" of the "Lay" and "Sweet Milk," "Bard of Reull," in which the +latter was slain: + + "On Teviot's side, in fight they stood, + And tuneful hands were stained with blood, + Where still the thorn's white branches wave + Memorial o'er his rival's grave." + +Allan Cunningham's version of "Rattlin', Roarin' Willie" should be read +in this connection. Branxholme (poetically Branksome) is a particularly +interesting portion of the Teviot valley. Its Braes recall the old +ditty: + + "As I came in by Teviot side + And by the Braes of Branksome, + There first I saw my bonnie bride, + Young, smiling, sweet, and handsome." + +And looming up before us is the massive white pile of Branxholme itself, +the master-fort of the Teviot, and the key of the pass between the Tweed +basin and Merrie Carlisle. The Castle occupies a strong position, has +been much modernised, and is now a residence for Buccleuch's +Chamberlain. Up to 1756, it was the chief seat of the Buccleuch family. +Branxholme's main glory, however, is not its past history, or the pomp +and circumstance surrounding it in the hey-day of its power. If there +was "another Yarrow" to Wordsworth, there is "another Branxholme" to us. +It is not the memory of the fighting barons of Buccleuch, with their +tumultuous raids and unending quarrels, which draws the pilgrim's feet +to Branxholme's Tower, but the memory of events which the imagination +of the Minstrel has conjured up, and which have made for themselves a +local habitation and a name. For here Scott placed the leading incidents +of the "Lay,"--the first and finest of his Border efforts: + + "Nine-and-twenty knights of fame + Hung their shields in Branksome Hall, + Nine-and-twenty squires of name + Brought them their steeds to bower from stall." + +From Branxholme to the russet-grey Peel of Goldielands is scarcely two +miles. Minus gables or parapet now, and standing among the haystacks and +buildings of a farm, it is still in tolerable preservation. Here dwelt +amongst others of its old heroes, "the Laird's Wat, that worthie man," +who led the Scots at the Reidswire in 1575. Not improbably is +Goldielands the peel associated with Willie of Westburnflat's operations +in the "Black Dwarf." At Goldielands Gate one gets a fine view to the +right of the Borthwick valley, + + "Where Bortha hoarse that loads the meads with sand, + Rolls her red tide to Teviot's western stand." + +And up the Borthwick, a mile or two, on its steep bank sits Harden, a +place of more than ordinary note to the Scott student. Here Auld Wat, +Sir Walter's grandsire seven times removed, reigned a king among Border +reivers, whose deeds of derring-do have been long shrined by the +balladists, and graven deep on the tablets of memory. Hawick, the +Glasgow of the Borders, comes next in sight,--where Slitrig and Teviot +meet. An ancient town, but possessing few relics of antiquity, except +St. Mary's Church, and the Tower Inn, a dwelling of the Drumlanrig +Douglases, with the mysterious Moat "where Druid shades still flitted +round." The modernity of the place is, however, lost sight of annually +in the "riding of the marches," a custom which prevails also in Selkirk +and Langholm. It is the great public festival of the year, and dates +from time immemorial. Its memories are mostly of Flodden, and the brave +stand at Hornshole in the neighbourhood, the year after. The Flodden +flag, splendidly "bussed," is carried in civic and cornetal procession +with crowds continually singing--as only Teridom can--the rousing +martial air of "Teribus," the Hawick slogan, which expresses more than +any other the wild and defiant strain of the war-trump and the +battle-shout. Hawick, including Wilton, has several elegantly +architectured buildings, over a score of Tweed mills and factories, +seventeen churches, and boasts a population of nearly twenty thousand. + +From Hawick to Kelso the distance is 21 miles, with a finely undulating +road all through. The railway journey _via_ St. Boswells is about double +the distance. Our way lies through some of the most storied scenery in +the Lowlands. The names on the map will give us an idea of the +exceedingly romantic character of this second half of the Teviot. Here +we come into touch with such song-haunted tributaries as the Jed and +Oxnam, the Rule and Kale, and Ale, and with many of the great houses +whose history has contributed more than any other to the making of the +Border Country. The names of Scott and Ker, Elliot and Douglas, Turnbull +and Riddell are patent to every parish through which we pass. At Minto, +the home of the Elliots and seat of the present Indian Viceroy, one is +reminded of the distinguished place which that family has held both in +the stormy and in the more peaceful times of Border story. Here Jean +Elliot wrote the "Flowers of the Forest," and Thomas Campbell his +"Lochiel's Warning." From Minto Crags, crowned with Fatlips Castle and +Barnhill's Bed, (729 feet) there is no more pleasing prospect in the +Borderland. The windings of the Teviot are traceable for miles, the +Liddesdale and Dumfriesshire heights hemming in the view on one side, +and the blue Cheviots on the other. Ruberslaw rises immediately in +front, with Denholm Dene on the right, and the narrow bed of the "mining +Rule" on the left, while behind to the north are distinctly seen the +three-coned Eildons, Earlston Black Hill, Scott's Sandyknowe, Hume +Castle, and the wavy line of the Lammermoors. Hassendean (suggesting +"Jock o' Hazeldean") Cavers, a Douglas house, where the pennon of the +great Earl, and the Percy gauntlets are still shown; Denholm, Leyden's +birthplace, Henlawshiel and Kirkton, scenes in his boyhood, lie all in +the neighbourhood. Dr. Chalmers was for a time assistant in Cavers Kirk, +and in later life delighted to recall his connection with the Border +district. Adjoining Minto, Ancrum stands bonnie on Ale Water--a village +of considerable antiquity. Its Cross, dating from David I.'s time, is +one of the best-preserved of the market-crosses of the Border. Ancrum +was the birthplace of Dr. William Buchan of "Domestic Medicine" +celebrity, and John Livingston, its minister during the Covenant, was a +man of mark and piety in his day. The place naturally suggests Ancrum +Moor, a mile or two to the north-west, one of the last great +battlefields of the international struggle. In February, 1544, an +English army under Sir Ralph Evers and Sir Brian Latoun desolated the +Scottish frontier as far north as Melrose, defacing the Douglas tombs in +the abbey. On returning with their booty towards Jedburgh, they were +overtaken at Ancrum Moor, and severely beaten by a Scottish force led by +the Earl of Angus and Scott of Buccleuch. In this battle, according to +tradition, fought Maiden Lilliard, a brave Scotswoman from Maxton, who +fell beneath many wounds and was buried on the spot. Her grave, in the +midst of a thick fir-wood, carries the somewhat doggerel epitaph: + + "Fair Maiden Lilliard + Lies under this stane; + Little was her stature, + But muckle was her fame + Upon the English loons + She laid monie thumps, + An' when her legs were cuttit off, + She fought upon her stumps."[C] + +[C] An attempt has been made to discredit this story by an appeal to the +antiquity of the place-name, which is admittedly much earlier than +Lilliard's day. This, however, does not dispose of the tradition. The +likelihood is that originally the first line was really "the Fair Maid +_of_ Lilliard." + +The monument has been frequently restored. Lady John Scott made the last +repairing touches, adding the words: + + "To A' TRUE SCOTSMEN. + By me it's been mendit, + To your care I commend it." + + PLATE 20 + + HOLLOWS TOWER + (SOMETIMES CALLED + GILNOCKIE TOWER) + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 72 and 96_) + +[Illustration] + +The Jed, joining the Teviot close to Jedfoot Station, reminds us that +the county town of Roxburgh--Jedburgh--is within easy access, and the +fascinating valley of the Jed which Burns so vigorously extolled. The +Jed takes its rise between Needslaw and Carlintooth on the Liddesdale +Border. Its general course is east and north, and its length about +seventeen miles. The places of chief interest on its banks are +Southdean, where the Scottish chiefs assembled previous to Otterburn, +and where the poet Thomson spent his boyhood; Old Jedworth, the original +township, a few grassy mounds marking the spot; Ferniherst Castle, a Ker +stronghold; Lintalee, the site of a Douglas camp described in Barbour's +"Bruce;" the Capon Tree, a thousand years old, one of the last survivors +of "Jedworth's forest wild and free;" and the Hundalee hiding caves. The +charm of Jedburgh consists in its old-world character and its +semi-Continental touches. Its fine situation early attracted the notice +of the Scottish Kings, though Bishop Ecfred of Lindisfarne is believed +to have been its true founder. He could not have chosen a more sweet or +appropriate nook for his little settlement. Nestling in the quiet +valley, and creeping up the ridge of the Dunion, the song of the river +ever in its ears, freshened by the scent of garden and orchard, and +surrounded by finely-wooded heights, Nature has been lavish in filling +with new adornments, as years sped by, a spot always bright and fair. + + "O softly Jed! thy sylvan current lead + Round every hazel copse and smiling mead, + Where lines of firs the glowing landscape screen, + And crown the heights with tufts of deeper green." + +The modern beauty of the place notwithstanding, Jedburgh's history has +been a singularly troubled one. As a frontier town and the first place +of importance north of the Cheviots, it was naturally a scene of strife +and bloodshed. Around it lay the famous Jed Forest, rivalling that of +Ettrick. The inhabitants were brave warriors, and noted for the skill +with which they wielded the Jeddart staff or Jedwood axe. Their presence +at the Reidswire decided that skirmish in favour of the Scottish +Borderers: + + "Then rose the slogan wi' ane shout, + Fye, Tynedale, to it! Jeddart's here." + +And at Flodden the men from the glens of the Jed were conspicuous for +their heroism. Jedburgh Abbey is the chief "lion" of the locality. +Completer than Kelso and Dryburgh, and simpler and more harmonious than +Melrose, it stands in the most delightful of situations, girt about with +well-kept gardens, overlooking the bosky banks of the Jed--a veritable +poem in Nature and Art. Queen Mary's House (restored) the scene of her +all but mortal illness in 1566 is still existing, and well worth a +visit. The literary associations of the burgh are more than local. James +Thomson was a pupil at its Grammar School. Burns was made a burgess +during his Border tour in 1787. Scott made his first appearance as a +criminal counsel at Jedburgh, pleading successfully for his poacher +client. The Wordsworths visited Jedburgh in 1803. Sir David Brewster and +Mary Somerville were natives, and here the "Scottish Probationer" lived +and died. Samuel Rutherford was born at Crailing, the next parish, where +also David Calderwood, the Kirk historian, was minister. Cessford +Castle, in Eckford parish, was the residence of the redoubtable "Habbie +Ker," ancestor of the Dukes of Roxburghe. Marlefield, "where Kale +wimples clear 'neath the white-blossomed slaes," is a supposed scene +(erroneous) of the "Gentle Shepherd." Yetholm, on the Bowmont, near the +Great Cheviot, has been the headquarters of Scottish gypsydom since the +17th century. Opposite Floors Castle, at the confluence of the Tweed and +Teviot is the green tree-clad mound with a few crumbling walls, all that +remains of the illustrious Castle of Roxburgh, one of the strongest on +the Borders, the birthplace and abode of kings, and parliaments, and +mints, and so often a bone of bitter contention between Scots and +English. The town itself, the most important on the Middle Marches, has +entirely disappeared, its site and environs forming now some of the most +fertile fields in the county: + + "Roxburgh! how fallen, since first, in Gothic pride, + Thy frowning battlements the war defied, + Called the bold chief to grace thy blazoned halls, + And bade the rivers gird thy solid walls! + Fallen are thy towers; and where the palace stood, + In gloomy grandeur waves yon hanging wood. + Crushed are thy halls, save where the peasant sees + One moss-clad ruin rise between the trees; + The still green trees, whose mournful branches wave + In solemn cadence o'er the hapless grave. + Proud castle! fancy still beholds thee stand, + The curb, the guardian, of this Border land; + As when the signal flame that blazed afar, + And bloody flag, proclaimed impending war, + While in the lion's place the leopard frowned, + And marshalled armies hemmed thy bulwarks round." + + PLATE 21 + + GOLDILANDS NEAR + HAWICK + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 98, 99_) + +[Illustration] + + + + +V. IN THE BALLAD COUNTRY + + +To a shepherd in Canada Dr. Norman Macleod is said to have remarked, +"What a glorious country this is!" "Ay," said the man, "it is a very +good country." "And such majestic rivers!" "Oh, ay," was all the reply. +"And such good forests!" "Ay, but there are nae linties in the woods, +and nae braes like Yarrow!" Of course, the answer was from a purely +exile point of view, but even to those of the Old Country the name of +Yarrow wields the most wondrous fascination. Like Tweed, Yarrow is known +everywhere, for who has not heard of its "Dowie Dens," or of its lovers' +tragedies? Certainly no stream has been more besung. The name is +redolent of all that is most pathetic in Border poetry. This is the +centre of the Border ballad country--the birthplace, or, at all events, +the nursing-ground of a romance than which there is none richer or more +extensive on either side of the Border. The Yarrow is the Scottish +Rhine-land on a small scale, even more so than the Tweed. Tweedside, +indeed, has not a tithe of Yarrow's ballad wealth, and the Tweed ballads +and folk-lore are absolutely different in respect both of subject-matter +and of manner. The curious feature about Yarrow is the wonderful +sameness which characterises the whole of its minstrelsy. For hundreds +of years that has been so. Sadness is the uppermost note that is +sounded. All through we are face to face with a feeling of dejection as +remarkable as it is common. One could have understood a stray effusion +or so couched in this strain, but for an entire minstrelsy to breathe +such a spirit is extraordinary. Why should Yarrow be the +personification, as it were, of a grief and a melancholy that nothing +seems able to assuage? Is there anything in the scenery to account for +it--anything in the physical conditions of the glen itself that solves +the secret? There is, and there isn't. To a mere outsider--a mere summer +tripper hurrying through--Yarrow is little different from others of the +southland valleys. Its main features are identical with those of the +Ettrick, and the Tweed uplands, or with the Ewes and the Teviot. All of +them exhibit the same pastoral stillness. The same play of light and +shade are on their hills. The same soothing spirit broods over them. But +of Yarrow alone it is the element of sadness that prevails. To +understand this, one has to _live_ in Yarrow--to come under the +influence of its environment. And whether it be fancy or not, whether it +be the result of one's reading, and of one's pre-conceived notions of +the place, the Yarrow landscape does lend itself to the realisation of +that feeling which the ballads so well portray. The configuration of the +glen as seen especially from a little above Yarrow Manse--the "Dowie +Dens" of popular tradition--together with its climatic conditions, may +very easily interpret for us the spirit of those old singers. Here, if +anywhere in the valley, the answer to the Yarrow enigma will be found. +Professor Veitch thinks that the whole district affords such an answer: +"Nor will anyone," he says, "who is familiar with the Vale of Yarrow +have had much difficulty in understanding how it is suited to pathetic +verse. The rough and broken, yet clear, beautiful, and wide-spreading +stream has no grand cliffs to show; and it is not surrounded by high and +overshadowing hills. Here and there it flows placidly, reflectively, in +large liquid lapses, through an open valley of the deepest summer green; +still, let us be thankful, in its upper reaches at least, mantled by +nature and untouched by plough and harrow. There is a placid monotone +about its bare treeless scenery--an unbroken pastoral stillness on the +sloping braes and hillsides, as they rise, fall, and bend in a uniformly +deep colouring. The silence of the place is forced upon the attention, +deepened even by the occasional break in the flow of the stream, or by +the bleating of the sheep that, white and motionless amid the pasture, +dot the knowes. We are attracted by the silence, and we are also +depressed. There is the pleasure of hushed enjoyment. The spirit of the +scene is in those immortal lines:-- + + "Meek loveliness is round thee spread + A softness still and holy; + The grace of Forest charms decayed + And pastoral melancholy." + +Those deep green grassy knowes of the valley are peculiarly susceptible +of change. In the morning with a blue sky, or with breaks of sunlight +through the fleeting clouds, the green hillsides and the stream smile +and gleam in sympathy with the cheerfulness of heaven. But under a grey +sky, or at the gloaming, the Yarrow wears a peculiarly wan aspect--a +look of sadness. And no valley I know is more susceptible of sudden +change. The spirit of the air can speedily weave out of the mists that +gather upon the massive hills at the heads of the Megget and the Talla, +a wide-spreading web of greyish cloud--the 'skaum' of the sky--that +casts a gloom over the under green of the hills; and dims the face of +loch and stream in a pensive shadow. The saddened heart would readily +find there fit analogue and nourishment for its sorrow. Which is all +very true. But, as has been said, Tweed and Teviot show exactly these +conditions, and what of their minstrelsy remains is not touched with +this strangely morose sense. May not the solution lie in the very legend +of the "Dowie Dens" itself, and in the remarkable cup-like configuration +of the valley as seen from the point already indicated and under the wan +aspects which are admittedly a distinctive feature of the Yarrow at all +seasons of the year? Out of this have emerged very probably the spirit +of the balladists and their ballads. One after another have simply +followed suit, and the likelihood is that had gladness and not gloom +been the burden of some far back strain, we should not have had the +Yarrow we possess to-day. Men of the most diverse temperaments have come +under the sad spell of the Yarrow. The most lighthearted sons of song +have succumbed to the general feeling. Wordsworth himself would have +preferred to strike another note, but the enchantment of the spot held +him fast: + + "O that some Minstrel's harp were near + To utter notes of gladness, + And chase this silence from the air, + That fills my heart with sadness!" + +All the verse writers of the last century were mere continuators of +their fellow-bards centuries before. There are, to be sure, some +flippant spirits who would dare to alter the very atmosphere of Yarrow, +but what a poor attempt at the impossible! Yarrow must ever abide the +embodiment of the most heart-piercing, and at the same time, the most +winsome melody the world has listened to. + +Popularly speaking, the best of the Yarrow ballads concerns itself with +the famous "Dowie Dens" tragedy, of which there seems to be some +authentic reference in the Selkirk Presbytery Record for 1616. It is +there narrated how Walter Scott of Tushielaw made "an informal and +inordinate marriage with Grizell Scott of Thirlestane without consent of +her father." Just three months later, the same Record contains entry of +a summons to Simeon Scott, of Bonytoun, an adherent of Thirlestane, and +three other Scotts "to compear at Melrose to hear themselves +excommunicated for the horrible slaughter of Walter Scott." We have here +probably the precise incident on which the unknown "makar" founded his +crude but intensely picturesque and dramatic lay. How much of womanly +winsomeness and heroism, of knightly dignity and daring, and the +unconquerable strength of love are portrayed in the following stanzas! +There are, indeed, few ballads in any language that match its strains: + + "She kiss'd his cheek, she kaim'd his hair, + As oft she had done before, O; + She belted him with his noble brand, + And he's away to Yarrow. + + * * * * * + + "'If I see all, ye're nine to ane; + And that's an unequal marrow; + Yet will I fight, while lasts my brand, + On the bonnie banks of Yarrow.' + + * * * * * + + "Four has he hurt, and five has slain; + On the bloody braes of Yarrow, + Till that stubborn knight came him behind, + And ran his body thorough. + + * * * * * + + "Yestreen I dream'd a dolefu' dream; + I fear there will be sorrow! + I dream'd I pu'd the heather green + Wi' my true love on Yarrow. + + * * * * * + + "She kiss'd his cheek, she kaimed his hair; + She search'd his wounds all thorough; + She kiss'd them till her lips grew red, + On the dowie houms of Yarrow." + +A fragment of rare beauty, believed to be based on the same incident +(unlikely however) was one of Scott's special favourites. Rather does it +shrine a similar tragedy, one of many such which must have been common +enough in those troubled and lawless times. How melting is the pathos of +the following verses, for instance! + + "Willie's rare and Willie's fair, + And Willie's wondrous bonny, + And Willie's hecht to marry me, + Gin e'er he married ony. + + "Yestreen I made my bed fu' braid, + This night I'll make it narrow, + For a' the livelong winter night, + I'll lie twin'd of my marrow. + + She sought him east, she sought him west, + She sought him braid and narrow; + Syne, in the cleaving of a craig + She found him drown'd in Yarrow. + +Somewhat akin is the "Lament of the Border Widow," located at +Henderland, in Meggetdale, not far from St. Mary's Loch. In the preface +to this ballad in the "Minstrelsy," Scott states that it was "obtained +from recitation in the Forest of Ettrick, and is said to relate to the +execution of Cockburn of Henderland, a Border freebooter, hanged over +the gate of his own tower by James V. in the course of that memorable +expedition in 1529 which was fatal to Johnie Armstrong, Adam Scott of +Tushielaw, and many other marauders." The grave of "Perys of Cockburne +and hys wyfe Marjory" on a wooded knoll at Henderland, is still pointed +out. But the historicity of the ballad has been questioned from the +statement (which seems to be correct) that Cockburn was actually +executed at Edinburgh, instead of at his own home. There is no evidence, +however, to assume that the ballad commemorates this particular +occurrence or that it has any connection with the grave referred to. For +genuine balladic merit it will be difficult to match: + + My love he built me a bonny bower, + And clad it a' wi' lilye flower, + A brawer bower ye ne'er did see + Than my true love he built for me. + + There came a man, by middle day + He spied his sport, and went away, + And brought the King that very night, + Who brake my bower and slew my knight. + + He slew my knight, to me sae dear; + He slew my knight, and poin'd his gear; + My servants all for life did flee, + And left me in extremitie. + + I sewed his sheet, making my mane; + I watched the corpse myself alane; + I watch'd his body night and day; + No living creature came that way. + + I took his body on my back, + And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sat; + I digg'd a grave, and laid him in, + And happ'd him with the sod sae green. + But think na ye my heart was sair, + When I laid the moul' on his yellow hair; + O think na ye my heart was wae, + When I turned about away to gae? + + Nae living man I'll love again, + Since that my lovely knight is slain, + Wi ae lock of his yellow hair, + I'll chain my heart for evermair. + + PLATE 22 + + "HE PASS'D WHERE + NEWARK'S STATELY + TOWER LOOKS OUT + FROM YARROW'S + BIRCHEN BOWER" + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + + (_See pp. 116_) + +[Illustration] + +One might speak, too, of the "Douglas Tragedy," the scene of which is +laid in the Douglas Glen, in the heart of the quiet hills forming the +watershed betwixt Tweed and Yarrow. Here lived the "Good Sir +James"--Bruce's right-hand man, who strove to carry his heart to the +Holy Land. It was from this Tower at Blackhouse that Margaret the Fair +was carried off by her lover, and about a mile further up on the +hillside the seven stones marking the spot where Lord William alighted +and slew the Lady's seven brothers in full pursuit of the pair, are +objects of curious interest. This ballad, it is interesting to note, is +one widely diffused throughout Europe, being specially rich in Danish, +Icelandic, Norse, and Swedish collections. Indeed, almost all the Yarrow +ballads--and many others--are common to Continental _volks-lieder_, and +are found in extraordinary profusion from Iceland to the Peloponesus. +Here is evidence, by no means slight, of the theory that ballads +originate from a common stock, and that in the course of ages they have +simply become transplanted and localized. Then the Yarrow valley +contains the scene of the "Song of the Outlaw Murray"--a distinctively +Border production (74 verses in all) composed during the reign of James +V. Murray divides with Johnie Armstrong the honour of being the Border +Robin Hood, but to Murray a very different treatment was meted out. +The Outlaw's lands at Hangingshaw and elsewhere were his own, though he +held them minus a title. James fumed at this, and determined to bring +the Forest chief to submission: + + "The King of Scotland sent me here, + And, gude Outlaw, I am sent to thee; + I wad wot of how ye hald your lands, + O man, wha may thy master be?" + + "Thir lands are MINE! the Outlaw said: + I ken nae King in Christendie; + Frae England I this Forest won + When the King and his knights were not to see." + +Upon which the King's Commissioner assures the Outlaw that it will be +worse for him if he fails to give heed to the royal desire: + + "Gif ye refuse to do this + He'll compass baith thy lands and thee; + He hath vow'd to cast thy castle down + And mak a widow of thy gay lady." + +But Murray is defiant, and James is equally resolved to crush him. +Friends are pressed into the Outlaw's service, and very soon he has a +goodly number of troopers all ready to render service in the hour of +their kinsman's need, well knowing that in aiding him they would be +doing the best thing for themselves, as "landless men they a' wad be" if +the King got his own way in Ettrick Forest. But, like all good ballads, +this, too, ends happily. A compromise is effected, by which the Outlaw +obtains the post he had long coveted--Sheriff of the Forest: + + "He was made Sheriff of Ettrick Forest, + Surely while upward grows the tree; + And if he was na traitour to the King, + Forfaulted he should never be. + + "Wha ever heard, in ony times, + Siccan an Outlaw in his degree + Sic favour get before a King + As the Outlaw Murray of the Forest free?" + +Of right "Tamlany"--by far the finest of the Border fairy +ballads--belongs more to Ettrick than to Yarrow. The scene is laid in +Carterhaugh, at the confluence of the two streams, two miles above +Selkirk. The ballad (24 stanzas) is too long to quote, but may be read +in all good collections. For the same reason also we must pass over the +"Battle of Philiphaugh," commemorating Leslie's victory over Montrose in +1645; and the "Gay Goss-Hawk," the dramatic ending of which is laid at +St. Mary's Kirk, high upon the hillside overlooking the waters of the +Loch. Nothing is left now save the site, and a half-deserted +burying-ground where "Covenanter and Catholic, Scotts, and Kers and +Pringles--all sorts and conditions of men--sleep their long sleep at +peace together." Among the shrines of Yarrowdale, this is not the least +notable. Like the grave of Keats outside the walls of Rome, as some one +has said, "it would almost make one in love with death to be buried in +so sweet a spot among the heather and brackens, and the sighing of the +solitary mountain ash." St. Mary's Loch lies shimmering at our feet. +Scott's "Marmion" picture is still wonderfully correct: + + "Oft in my mind such thoughts awake, + By lone Saint Mary's silent lake; + Thou know'st it well--nor fen, nor sedge + Pollute the pure lake's crystal edge; + Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink + At once upon the level brink; + And just a trace of silver sand + Marks where the water meets the land. + + Far in the mirror, bright and blue, + Each hill's huge outline you may view; + Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare, + Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake is there, + Save where, of land, yon slender line + Bears thwart the lake the scatter'd pine, + Yet even this nakedness has power, + And aids the feeling of the hour." + +All this delightsome countryside is Hogg-land too, let us remember, as +well as Scott-land. For here, in ballad-haunted Yarrow, the immortal +James spent the best years of his life, failing so tantalizingly as +farmer, but as poet, "King of the Mountain and Fairy school," dreaming +so well of that most bewitching of all his conceptions--"Bonnie +Kilmeny." Yonder, overlooking Tibbie Shiel's "cosy beild"--a howff of +the Noctes coterie--stands the solitary white figure of the beloved +Shepherd as Christopher North's prophetic soul felt that it must be some +day. Hogg was born in the neighbouring Ettrick valley--in 1770 +presumably. His birth-cottage is extinct now, but a handsome memorial +marks the spot. Most of his life, as has been said, was passed in the +sister vale, first at Blackhouse, then at Mount Benger, and at Altrive +(now Eldinhope), where he died three years after his truest of +friends--Sir Walter. The Ettrick homeland guards his dust. Close by is +the resting-place of Thomas Boston, that earlier "Ettrick Shepherd" +whose "Fourfold State" and "Crook in the Lot" are not yet forgotten. In +the sequestered Yarrow churchyard sleeps Scott's maternal +great-grandfather, John Rutherford, who was minister of the parish from +1691 to 1710. Scott spoke of Yarrow as the "shrine of his ancestors," +and himself, like Hogg, and Willie Laidlaw, frequently worshipped within +its old grey walls. Further down the stream, the "shattered front of +Newark's towers" reminds us that here Scott placed the recital of the +"Lay." He would fain have fitted up the ancient fabric as a residence, +had it been possible. Almost opposite, the birthplace of Mungo Park, the +first of the knight-errantry of Africa, attracts attention, and a mile +or two nearer Selkirk, are Philiphaugh, and "sweet Bowhill," the two +finest domains in the Forest. The Covenanters' Monument within +Philiphaugh grounds is worthy of notice, and on the Ettrick side, +Kirkhope and Oakwood, both in fairly good repair, are excellent +specimens of the peel period. At Selkirk, the capital of Ettrickdale, +Scott's statue as "the Shirra"--a most admirable representation--looks +out at scenes upon which his eyes in life must often have feasted. Here +we read the lines that express his heart's deep love for a district +interwoven so closely with all the years of his working life: + + "By Yarrow's streams still let me stray, + Though none should guide my feeble way; + Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break, + Although it chill my wither'd cheek." + + PLATE 23 + + VIEW OF NEW ABBEY + AND CRIFFEL + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + +[Illustration] + + + + +VI. THE LEADER VALLEY. + + +To the present writer, the valley of the Leader, or Lauderdale, has +attractions and memories that are second to none in the Border. "Here, +first,"--to use Hogg's lines-- + + "He saw the rising morn, + Here, first, his infant mind unfurled + To ween the spot where he was born + The very centre of the world." + +Lauderdale constitutes one of the "three parts" into which Berwickshire, +like Ancient Gaul, is divided. The others are the Merse, (_i.e._, +March-Land)--often a distinctive designation for the entire county, but +applicable especially to the low-lying lands beside the Tweed; +Lammermoor, so named from the Lammermoor Hills ranging across the county +from Soutra Edge and Lammer Law in the extreme north-west, to the +coastline at Fast Castle and St. Abbs. Lauderdale, the westernmost +division, running due north and south, embraces simply the basin of the +Leader and its tributaries so far as the basin is in Berwickshire. Its +total length is not more than twenty-one miles, from Kelphope Burn, the +real origin of the Leader, to Leaderfoot, about two miles below Melrose, +where it meets the waters of the Tweed. Leaderdale and Lauderdale are +but varieties of the name. A little off the beaten track, perhaps, it +can be easily reached by rail to St. Boswells and Earlston, or to Lauder +itself, from Fountainhall, on the Waverley Route, by the light railway +recently opened. Its upper course among the Lammermoors is through +bleak, monotonous hill scenery; but the middle and lower reaches pass +into a fine series of landscapes--the "Leader Haughs" of many an olden +strain--- flanked by graceful green hills and swells, and plains, that +are hardly surpassed in Scotland for agricultural wealth and beauty. Of +Berwickshire generally, it may be said that it has few industries and no +mineral wealth to speak of. Its business is chiefly in one +department--agriculture. For that the soil is particularly well adapted. +Especially is this true of the Merse and Lauderdale districts, where the +farmers take a high place in agricultural affairs, many of them being +recognised experts and authorities on the subject. Thousands of acres on +the once bald and featureless hill-lands of Lauderdale have been brought +within the benign influence of plough and harrow, and are choice +ornaments in a county famous for its agricultural triumphs all the world +over. But Romance, rather than agriculture, is the true glory of the +Leader Valley. It will be difficult to find a locality--Yarrow +excepted--which is more under the spell of the past. May not Lauderdale, +indeed, be claimed as the very birthplace of Scottish melody itself? +Robert Chambers styled it "the Arcadia of Scotland," and was not Thomas +of Ercildoune the "day-starre of Scottish poetry?" + +This, too, is the country of St. Cuthbert. At Channelkirk, he was +probably born. At all events the first light of history falls upon him +here, as a shepherd lad, watching his flocks by the Leader, and striving +to think out the deep things of the divine life, with the most ardent +longings in his soul after it. The traditional meadow, whence he beheld +the vision which changed his career, is still pointed out, and his +reputed birthplace at Cuddy Ha' keeps his memory green amongst those +sweet refreshing solitudes. It is interesting to note Berwickshire's +connection with the three most famous Borderers of history--St. +Cuthbert, Thomas the Rhymer, and Walter Scott, of Merse extraction, +whose dust Berwickshire holds as its most sacred trust. + +Lauder and Earlston are the only places of importance in the valley. The +former--it is, by the way, the only royal burgh in the shire--boasts a +considerable antiquity. It is still a quaint-looking but clean town, +with long straggling street, and one or two buildings--the parish kirk +and Tolbooth--offering decidedly Continental suggestions. Lauder's +old-worldness and isolation are at an end, however. After much +agitation, a railway-line now connects it with the rest of the world, +and already the signs of a new life are apparent. Within a very few +years the inevitable changes will be sure to have passed over this once +quiet and exclusive little town. It is the "Maitland blude," which +dominates Lauder, and Thirlestane Castle, built, or renovated rather, in +the time of Charles II., is still a place to see. Amongst Scottish +families, the Maitlands were first in place and power. Not a few of them +were greatly distinguished as statesmen and men of letters--the blind +poet and ballad-collector, Sir Richard; William Maitland, the celebrated +Secretary Lethington; Chancellor Maitland, author of the satirical +ballad, "Against Sklanderous Tongues;" Thomas, and Mary, Latin +versifiers both; and the infamous "Cabal" Duke, the only bearer of the +title. Within the well-kept policies of Thirlestane, tradition has +located the site of the historic Lauder Bridge, so fatal to James III.'s +favourites in 1482. Dr. John Wilson, of Bombay, Orientalist and scholar, +was born at Lauder in 1804, and James Guthrie, the first Scottish martyr +after the Reformation, was its minister for a short period. + +Earlston is seven miles down stream from Lauder. Before reaching the +town of the Rhymer some spots of interest call for notice. At St. +Leonard's--a little way out--a hospital off-shoot of Dryburgh, lived +Burne the Violer, the last of the minstrel fraternity, a supposed +prototype of the Minstrel of the "Lay," and author of the fine pastoral +poem, "Leader Haughs and Yarrow," the verse-model for Wordsworth's +"Three Yarrows." One verse was a great favourite with Scott and Carlyle, +both of whom were known to repeat it frequently:-- + + "But Minstrel Burne can not assuage + His grief, while life endureth, + To see the changes of this age, + Which fleeting time procureth; + For mony a place stands in hard case, + Where blythe folk ken'd nae sorrow, + With Humes that dwelt on Leader-side, + And Scotts that dwelt on Yarrow." + +Blainslie, famous for its oats ("There's corn enough in the +Blainslies"), and Whitslaid Tower, a long ago holding of the Lauder +family, are passed a mile or two on. At Birkhill and Birkenside the road +forks leftwards to Legerwood, where Grizel Cochrane of Ochiltree +(afterwards Mrs. Ker of Morriston), heroine of the stirring mail-bag +adventure narrated in the "Border Tales," sleeps in its lately +restored kirk chancel. Chapel, and Carolside with a fine deer park, +and most charming of country residences--at the latter of which Kinglake +wrote part of his "Crimean War"--sit snugly to the right, in the bosky +glen below. + + PLATE 24 + + CRIFFEL AND LOCH + KINDAR + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + +[Illustration] + +Earlston, the Ercildoune of olden time--name much better suited to the +quiet beauty of its charming situation--has no unimportant place both in +Scottish history and romance. It has been honoured by many royal visits. +Here David the Sair Sanct subscribed the Foundation Charter of Melrose +Abbey in 1136, and his son the Confirmatory Charter in 1143. Other royal +visitors followed; there James IV. encamped for a night on his way from +Edinburgh to Flodden; Queen Mary made a brief stay at Cowdenknowes as +she passed from Craigmillar to Jedburgh; and lastly came Prince Charlie +(unwelcome) on his march to Berwick-on-Tweed. But above all it is +renowned as having been the residence (and birthplace probably) of +Thomas the Rhymer, or True Thomas, or simply, as literary history +prefers to call him, Thomas of Ercildoune. The Rhymer's Tower, +associated with this remarkable personage, stands close to the Leader. +Only a mere ivy-clad fragment remains (some 30 feet in height), but the +memories of the place stretch back to more than six centuries, when +Thomas was at the height of his fame as his country's great soothsayer +and bard--the _vates sacer_ of the people. His rhymes are still quoted, +and many of them have been realised in a manner which Thomas himself +could scarcely have anticipated. Scott makes him the author of the +metrical romance "Sir Tristrem," published from the Auchinleck _MS._ in +1804, but the Rhymer is unlikely to have been the original compiler. +With his Fairyland adventures and return to that mysterious region, +everybody is familiar. A quaint stone in the church wall carries the +inscription: + + Auld Rymr's Race + Lyes in this place, + +and the probability is that Thomas sleeps somewhere amidst its dark +dust, unless, indeed, he be still spell-bound in some as yet +undiscovered cavern underneath the Eildons, waiting with Arthur, and +Merlin, the blast of that irresistible horn which is to "peal their +proud march from Fairyland." + +Mellerstain in Earlston Parish, is the burial-place of Grisell Baillie, +the Polwarth heroine and songstress, and author of the plaintive "Werena +My Heart Licht I wad Dee." Cowdenknowes, "where Homes had ance +commanding," one of the really classical names in Border minstrelsy is +the scene of that sweetest of love lyrics, the "Broom o' the +Cowdenknowes":-- + + "How blithe, ilk morn, was I to see + My swain come o'er the hill! + He skipt the burn and flew to me: + I met him with good-will." + +Sandyknowe, Scott's cradling-ground in romance, and Bemersyde, one of +the oldest inhabited houses in the Tweed Valley (partly peel), still +evidencing the Rhymer's couplet:-- + + "Tyde what may betyde, + Haig shall be Haig of Bemersyde,--" + +are both in the near neighbourhood. + +A charming bit of country road lies between Earlston and Dryburgh, +passing Redpath, the Park, Gladswood, and round by Bemersyde Hill, from +which Scott had his favourite view of the Tweed--the "beautiful bend" +shrining the site of the original Melrose, and the graceful Eildons--and +by which his funeral procession wended its mournful way just +seventy-four years ago. Half-way between Earlston and Melrose (by road +4-1/2 miles), and close to + + "Drygrange with the milk-white yowes, + Twixt Tweed and Leader standing," + +the latter stream blends its waters with those of the Tweed, where the +foliage is ever at its thickest and greenest; and looking up the glen +towards Newstead and Melrose, another vision of rare beauty meets the +eye. Framed in the tall piers of the railway viaduct (150 feet +high)--not at all a disfigurement--the gracefully-bending Tweed, no more +fair than here, with the smoke rising above the Abbeyed town, Eildon in +the foreground, and the blue barrier of the hills beyond, make up a +picture such as may come to us in dreams. + + + + +VII. LIDDESDALE + +_From the Author's chapter in Cassell's "British Isles."_ (_By +permission._) + + +The Liddel rises in the Cheviot range, close to Jedhead, at an altitude +of six hundred and fifty feet above sea level, and after a course of +seven-and-twenty miles, with a fall of five hundred and forty-five feet, +it joins the Esk at the Moat of Liddel, below Canonbie, near the famous +Netherby Hall, twelve miles north of Carlisle and about eight from +Langholm. It is fed by a score of affluents, of which the chief are the +Hermitage and Kershope Waters, the latter constituting for nine miles or +so the immediate boundary between the two countries. From its +geographical position as cut off from the main division of the county, +Liddesdale has little in common with the valleys of the Tweed and +Teviot. A Liddesdaler, for instance, seldom crosses over to Tweedside, +nor can a Tweedsider be said to have other than a comparatively slight +acquaintanceship with his southern neighbour of the shire. Indeed, +Liddesdale has been described as belonging in some respects more to +England than to Scotland, and in a sense, it may be said to be the very +centre of the Border Country itself. + + PLATE 25 + + CAERLAVEROCK CASTLE + + FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH + + PAINTED BY + + JAMES ORROCK, R.I. + +[Illustration] + +If now-a-days one may roam through Liddesdale with some degree of +comfort, it was a very different matter for Scott and Shortreed little +more than a hundred years since. They knew scarcely anything of the +district, which lay to them, as was said, "like some unkenned-of isle +ayont New Holland." But Scott was bent on his Minstrelsy +ballad-huntings. And it was the very inaccessibility of the Liddel glens +which inspired him with the hope of treasure. For seven autumns in +succession they "raided" Liddesdale, as Scott phrased it, and, as he +anticipated, some of the finest specimens in the Minstrelsy were the +outcome of these excursions. Evidence of the utter solitariness and +roadlessness of the region is found in the fact that no wheeled vehicle +had been seen in Liddesdale till the advent of Scott's gig about 1798. +Nor was there a single inn or public-house to be met with in the whole +valley. Lockhart describes how the travellers passed "from the +shepherd's hut to the minister's manse, and again from the cheerful +hospitality of the manse to the rough and jolly welcome of the +homestead, gathering wherever they went songs and tunes and occasionally +more tangible relics of antiquity." But a hundred years have wrought +wondrous transformation on the wild wastes of the Liddel. The +"impenetrable savage land" of Scott's day, trackless and bridgeless, is +now singularly well opened up to civilisation and the modern tripper. +The Waverley Route of the North British Railway passes down the valley +within a few miles of its best-known landmarks. The Road Committees are +careful as to their duty, and a well-developed series of coaching tours +has proved exceedingly popular. From a miserable expanse of bleak moors +and quaking moss-hags, the greater portion of lower Liddesdale, at +least, has passed into a picturesque combination of moor and woodland +with rich pastoral holms and fields in the highest state of cultivation. + +But the main glory of Liddesdale is the romance that hangs over it. +There is probably no parish in Scotland--for be it remembered that +Liddesdale is virtually one parish--which could show such an +extraordinary number of peel-houses to its credit. Their ruins, or where +these have disappeared, the sites are pointed out with surprising +frequency. A distinctively Border district, this was to be expected, and +the like is true of the English side also. A Liddesdale Keep, still in +excellent preservation--"four-square to all the winds that blow"--and +far and away the strongest and the most massive pile on the Border +frontier is Hermitage, in the pretty vale of that name, within easy +reach from Steele Road or Riccarton stations, three and four miles +respectively. Built by the Comyns in the thirteenth century, it passed +to the Soulises, the Angus Douglases, to "Bell-the-Cat" himself, the +Hepburn Bothwells, and the "bold Buccleuch," whose successor still holds +it. Legend may almost be said to be indigenous to the soil of Hermitage, +and one wonders not that Scott found his happy hunting-ground here. The +youngest child will tell us about that "Ogre" Soulis, who was so hated +by his vassals for his awful oppression of them, that at last they +boiled him alive--horrible vengeance--on the Nine-Stane Rig, a Druidic +circle near by. In part confirmation of the tragedy it is asserted that +the actual cauldron may still be seen at Dalkeith Palace. Scott was +constantly quoting the verses from Leyden's ballad: + + "On a circle of stones they placed the pot, + On a circle of stones but barely nine; + They heated it red and fiery hot + Till the burnish'd brass did glimmer and shine + + They rolled him up in a sheet of lead, + A sheet of lead for a funeral pall; + They plunged him in the cauldron red, + And melted him, lead, and bones, and all." + +The Nine-Stane Rig is the scene also of the fragmentary "Barthram's +Dirge"--a clever Surtees forgery undetected by Scott. Leyden's second +Hermitage ballad--two of the best in the "Minstrelsy"--deals with the +Cout or Chief of Keeldar, in Northumberland, done to death by the "Ogre" +in the Cout's Pool close to the Castle. In the little God's-acre at +Hermitage the Cout's grave is pointed out (Keeldar also shows what +purports to be the Cout's resting-place). Memories of Mary and Bothwell +come to us, too, at Hermitage. Here the wounded Warden of the Marches +was visited by the infatuated Queen, who rode over from Jedburgh to see +him, returning the same day--a rough roundabout of fifty miles--which +all but cost her life. Dalhousie's Dungeon, in the north-east tower, +recalls the tragic end of one of the bravest and best men of his +time--Sir Alexander Ramsay, of Dalhousie, who was starved to death at +the instance of Liddesdale's Black Knight, here anything but the "Flower +of Chivalry." One may wander all over the Hermitage and Liddel valleys +without ever being free from the romance-feeling which haunts them. +Relics of the Roman occupation are in abundance on every hillside-- + + "Many a cairn's grey pyramid, + Where urns of mighty chiefs lie hid." + +This was the homeland of the Elliots, "lions of Liddesdale," and the +sturdy Armstrongs, of the crafty Nixons and Croziers--"thieves all": + + "Fierce as the wolf they rushed to seize their prey: + The day was all their night, the night their day." + +It is to be regretted that so few of the dozens of clan-strengths which +at one time studded the district are any longer in evidence. Hartsgarth, +Roan, (so named from the French Rouen), Redheugh, Mangerton--"Kinmont +Willie's" Keep--Syde--"He is weel kenned Jock o' the Syde," Copshaw +Park--the abode of "little Jock Elliot"--Westburnflat--an "Old +Mortality" name--Whithaugh, Clintwood, Hillhouse, Peel, and +Thorlieshope, have mostly all disappeared since Scott's day. A +generation more utilitarian in its tastes has arisen, and the stones +taken to set up dykes and fill drains. Near the junction of the Liddel +and Hermitage stood the strongly posted Castle of the "Lords of Lydal," +and the important township of Castleton--not unlike the Roxburghs +between Tweed and Teviot; and, like them also, both have long since +passed from the things that are. Only the worn pedestal of its +"mercat-cross" and a lone kirkyard have been left to tell the tale. Two +miles farther down is the village of Newcastleton, formerly Copshawholm, +planned by the "good Duke Henry" in 1793, a rising summer resort with a +population of about a thousand. + +We cannot quit Liddesdale without recalling that this is "Dandie +Dinmont's" Country. In writing "Guy Mannering" Scott drew largely from +his earlier experiences amongst the honest-souled store-farmers and +poetry-loving peasants of Liddelside. At Millburn, on the Hermitage, he +enjoyed the hospitality of kindly Willie Elliot, who stood for the +"great original" of "Dandie Dinmont." + + + + +THE END. + + +PRINTED AND BOUND BY PERCY LUND, HUMPHRIES AND CO., LTD., THE COUNTRY +PRESS, BRADFORD; AND 3, AMEN CORNER, LONDON, E.C. + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without +note. 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