{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_31678/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_31678","id":"gutenberg_31678","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31678","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - British","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Travel Writing","Great Britain -- Description and travel"],"text":"E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Peter Vickers, and the Project\nGutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)\n\n\n\nNote: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file\n      which includes the original illustrations in color.\n      See 31678-h.htm or 31678-h.zip:\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/31678/pg31678-images.html)\n      or\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31678/31678-h.zip)\n\n\n\n\n\nIN THE BORDER COUNTRY\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\nPOPULAR BOOKS ON ART.\n\nEdited by W. Shaw Sparrow\n\nTHE ART AND LIFE LIBRARY. 1. \"THE BRITISH HOME OF TO-DAY\" (_out of\nprint_). 2. \"THE GOSPELS IN ART.\" 3. \"WOMEN PAINTERS OF THE WORLD.\" 4.\n\"THE OLD TESTAMENT IN ART,\" Vol. I. 5. \"THE MODERN HOME\" (_out of\nprint_). 6. \"THE OLD TESTAMENT IN ART,\" Vol. II. 7. \"THE APOSTLES IN\nART.\"\n\nHISTORY, TRAVEL, RUSTIC LIFE. 1. \"MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS,\" with 26 Pictures\nin Colour by Sir James Linton, R.I., and James Orrock, R.I.; the text by\nWalter Wood. 2. \"IN THE BORDER COUNTRY,\" with 25 Pictures in Colour by\nJames Orrock, R.I., and Historical Notes by W. S. Crockett. 3. \"IN\nRUSTIC ENGLAND,\" with 25 Pictures in Colour by Birket Foster; the text\nby A. B. Daryll.\n\nTHE ART AND LIFE MONOGRAPHS. 1. \"ETCHINGS BY VAN DYCK,\" in Rembrandt\nPhotogravure the full size of the Original Proofs. Also an Edition de\nLuxe with Carbon Print Photographs of all the Etchings; the text by\nProf. Dr. H. W. Singer. 2. \"INGRES--MASTER OF PURE DRAUGHTSMANSHIP.\"\nTwenty-four Rembrandt Photogravures of important Drawings and Pictures;\nthe introductions by Arsene Alexandre and W. Shaw Sparrow.\n\nARTISTS OF THE PRESENT DAY. I. \"FRANK BRANGWYN, A.R.A.\" the\nintroductions by Leonce Benedite and W. Shaw Sparrow. 2. \"LUCY E.\nKEMP-WELCH,\" the introductions by Professor Hubert von Herkomer and\nEdward F. Strange.\n\nSERIES OF BIBLE PICTURES. \"THE SAVIOUR IN MODERN ART.\"\n\nLondon: Hodder & Stoughton\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Illustration]\n\n  FRONTISPIECE\n\n  VIEW OF DUNSTANBOROUGH\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n\n\n\nIN THE BORDER COUNTRY\n\nWith Pictures in Colour by\n\nJAMES ORROCK R I\n\nAnd Historical Notes by\n\nW. S. CROCKETT\n\nEdited by W. Shaw Sparrow\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHodder & Stoughton\nLondon 1906\n\n\n\n\n  DEDICATED\n  TO THE MEMORY\n  OF\n  SIR WALTER SCOTT\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nMost of us prefer to spend our holiday tours\naway from our own country. There is a\nfeeling of mild adventure when the land\nwe behold is unknown to us, and when the\nlanguage we hear filters into our questioning minds\nthrough an interpreter's suavity and chatter. And\nif we go to Switzerland we may earn even a\nreputation for intrepid pluck among the friends\nwho listen to us on our return home, while the\nunlucky guides, who found for our trembling feet\na pathway around each danger, will amuse their\nfamilies during the winter with little tales at our\nexpense, told with rough satire and with short,\ngruff peals of laughter resembling the noise of a\ncrackling ice-sheet when it begins to slip downhill.\n\nNo doubt, heroism on the hillside has a vast\nattraction to brave, fearless hearts like our own;\nbut we should find, here in our own country, quite\nas much adventure as is good for us, and quite as\nmuch novelty also, if only we could bring ourselves\nto believe that knowledge of native scenes and\ntraditions does not come to us in baptism or by\nvirtue of our birth as British folk. If you ask a\nfriend whether he knows the Border Country, he\nwill probably answer yes, and then go on to say\nthat he when a lad at school was a great reader\nof Scott, and thank heaven! his memory is a good\none. Push the matter further, ask whether he has\nverified the truth of Scott's descriptions by a visit\nto the places described, and you will probably\nhear that your friend would rather dream of the\nNorth Pole or be bitten fiercely by the swarms of\nlively insects treasured throughout Brittany in\nevery cottage and hotel.\n\nAll this being somewhat commonplace, you may\nwish to get closer to this subject, and your friend\nat last, driven to bay, comes to the real point that\npricks and distresses him. \"You see,\" he will\nsay, \"a holiday tour at home is such a dickens of a\ngamble. You can't say how much it will cost.\nThe only thing at all certain about it is that the\ncost will be more than you can afford. Wherever\nyou go you become a goose to be plucked.\"\n\nLet us rebel against this iniquity! It is not\na question of cheating, it is a trait of the national\ncharacter. In Great Britain, as among the Americans,\nthe gift of long sight in business has become\nvery common, and few persons think it worth their\nwhile to see the practical good things within easy\nreach of the blessed short sight of common sense.\nOur chief aim is not to keep a market open and\nsteady, but to glut it with over-production or\nto block it with excessive prices. \"Here is a\nholiday-tripper, so let us make him pay!\" That seems\nto be the unconquerable maxim at all seaside resorts\nand in every place where tired workers seek rest\nand health. I have known a week's holiday in\nthe New Forest to cost as much as a tour of three\nweeks in the beautiful and bracing Ardennes.\nThe Belgian is content to draw his customers back\nto him, while the Englishman grasps all he can get\nand sends us away discontented.\n\nIt is true that the railway companies are doing\nall in their power to make holidays at home welcome\nand inexpensive. Their enterprise in this respect\nhas no limits. But we cannot live on cheap railway\ntickets alone, whether single or return. Something\nshould be done--and the newspapers could help--to\nestablish in all attractive districts a reasonable\ntariff for board and lodging. It is only thus that\nGreat Britain will be made popular during the\nholiday season, and that the great stream of gold--the\nholiday-making Pactolus--will be drawn\nfrom the Continent to nourish our own country\nsides and rural folk.\n\nIt seems to be certain that, during the reign\nof the old stage coach, life in rustic England was\ncheaper than it is to-day. At any rate we must\naccount in some way or other for the immense\nnumber of county histories and illustrated\ntopographical books which teemed from the press from\nthe middle of the eighteenth century to the time\nof J. M. W. Turner. To study these works is to\nbe sure that our forefathers took the greatest\ndelight in their own country, and that huge sums\nof money were spent in procuring fine sketches and\nadequate engravings. Side by side with these\nbooks on British topography were volumes on\nforeign travel, like those by William Alexander,\nwho in 1792 accompanied Lord Macartney's\nembassy to China, where he made many exquisite\nsketches, brimful of humour and playful observation.\nJohn Webber, R.A., in 1776, accompanied\nCaptain Cook on his third and last voyage, and\nmade a drawing of Cook's death, which Byrne and\nBartolozzi engraved. Two other Royal Academicians,\nThomas and William Daniell, made India\ntheir sketching-ground, and in their great work on\n\"Oriental Scenery,\" published in 1808, they devoted\nsix volumes to a subject as fascinating as it was\nunhackneyed. Many other artists, too, travelled\nand made sketches for books, ranging from Girtin's\nParis Views to Turner's \"Rivers of France,\" and\nfrom Sir David Wilkie's Eastern sketches, reproduced\nin lithography by Nash, to the familiar work of\nProut, Harding, J. F. Lewis, R.A., and Louis Haghe.\n\nBut these books on foreign travel, admirable\nas they were, did not eclipse the many volumes on\nBritish scenery and landscape antiquities. All\nthe ablest men among the earlier water-colour\npainters--Hearne, Malton, Dayes, Girtin, Turner,\nFrancia, Havell, De Wint, David Cox, Cotman--made\ntopographical sketches for illustrations, and\nlucky is he who \"finds\" their earliest efforts.\nTo-day, happily, there are signs of renewed life in\nthe old taste for picture books on the beauty and\nromance of our own country. It is a taste that\ninvigorates, storing the mind with tonic memories\nand filling the eyes with beautiful scenes and\ncolours; and we may be sure that it needs for its\ngratification books which are easy to carry and to\nread. The great folio of other days, as heavy\nalmost as a country squire, is rightly treasured in\nthe British Museum, like the remains of the Neolithic\nMan discovered in Egypt.\n\nThe subject of the present book--the Border\nCountry--should set us thinking, not of one holiday,\nbut of many; and he who has once tasted the\nBorder's keen rich air will long to return both to\nit and to the traditions that dwell among the vast\nlandscapes and in the ruined castles. The distinguished\nconnoisseur and painter whose sketches are here\nreproduced, has gone back to the Border Country a\ndozen times and more, always to find there a renewal\nof his first pleasure and a host of fresh subjects,\nthat form a delightful connecting-link between each\nto-day and the armoured epochs of the long ago.\n\nAnd if the Border Country, with its enchanted\nplaces and memories, delights a landscape-painter,\nit is equally attractive to students of architecture,\nto lovers of folk-lore and literary history, to writers\nof romance in search of traditions and local colour,\nand to those of us also who indulge a passion for\ncollecting either as botanists or as geologists.\nThe rivers and streams have a rare fascination,\nand anglers, having made their choice, can come\nby all the sport which they desire. As to the hills,\nthey have a certain modesty of height deceptive\nto the unwary, for although they have not won for\nthemselves a reputation for fatalities to be described\nas Alpine, they are yet so dangerous when a mist\ngathers about them and thickens, that a climber\nmay lose his life there quite comfortably, and\nwithout enjoying more than the customary amount\nof rashness or inexperience. Briefly, men may\nfind in the Border Country nearly all their hobbies,\nand nearly all their professional studies.\n\nIn this book the historical notes are written\nby one who lives by the Tweed, and whose name\nis associated with Border subjects. Mr. Crockett's\nwork is filled with the Past, while the outdoor\nsketches by Mr. Orrock are at once so faithful\ntopographically, and so much in sympathy with the\nclassic traditions of English Water-Colour, that\nthey show us what the Border Country is to-day,\nwhen seen through the medium of a painter's\nobservation and knowledge.\n\nW. SHAW SPARROW.\n\n\n\n\n   CONTENTS\n\n                                              Page\n\n   Title Page. By David Veazey                   3\n\n   Dedication Page                               5\n\n   Preface. By Walter Shaw Sparrow               7\n\n   Contents                                     12\n\n\n        IN THE BORDER COUNTRY\n        BY W. S. CROCKETT\n\n                                              Page\n\n   I.   Introduction                            17\n\n        The Making of the Border                23\n\n        The Christianizing of the Border        26\n\n        Border Warfare                          36\n\n   II.  The English Border: Northumberland      44\n\n        \"Merrie Carlisle\"                       60\n\n   III. The Tweed and Its Associations          75\n\n   IV.  \"Pleasant Teviotdale\"                   94\n\n   V.   In the Ballad Country                  105\n\n   VI.  The Leader Valley                      117\n\n   VII. Liddesdale                             124\n\n\n\n\n   PLATES IN COLOUR BY JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n   FRONTISPIECE.\n                                           To face\n\n   View of Dunstanborough               Title page\n\n   PLATE 2\n\n   Crag Loch and the Roman Wall                 24\n\n   PLATE 3\n\n   Bamborough from Stag Rock                    32\n\n   PLATE 4\n\n   Holy Island Castle: Harvest Time             36\n\n   PLATE 5\n\n   View of Norham Castle                        40\n\n   PLATE 6\n\n   Twizel Bridge of the XIV. Century            44\n\n   PLATE 7\n\n   Flodden Field and the Cheviot Hills          48\n\n   PLATE 8\n\n   View of Warkworth                            52\n\n   PLATE 9\n\n   View of Alnwick Castle                       56\n\n   PLATE 10\n\n   View of Prudhoe-on-Tyne                      60\n\n   PLATE 11\n\n   View of Carlisle                             64\n\n   PLATE 12\n\n   View of Naworth Castle                       68\n\n   PLATE 13\n\n   View of Lanercost Priory                     72\n\n   PLATE 14\n\n   View of Bewcastle                            76\n\n   PLATE 15\n\n   View of Melrose                              80\n\n   PLATE 16\n\n   Melrose and the Eildons from Bemersyde Hill:\n   Scott's favourite View                       84\n\n   PLATE 17\n\n   Dryburgh Abbey and Scott's Tomb              88\n\n   PLATE 18\n\n   The Remnant of Wark Castle                   92\n\n   PLATE 19\n\n   Berwick-on-Tweed                             96\n\n   PLATE 20\n\n   Hollows Tower (sometimes called Gilnockie\n   Tower)                                      100\n\n   PLATE 21\n\n   Goldilands, near Hawick                     104\n\n   PLATE 22\n\n   \"He passed where Newark's stately tower\n   Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower\"      112\n\n   PLATE 23\n\n   View of New Abbey and Criffel               116\n\n   PLATE 24\n\n   Criffel and Loch Kindar                     120\n\n   PLATE 25\n\n   Caerlaverock Castle                         124\n\n\n\n\nI. INTRODUCTION\n\n\nFrom Berwick to the Solway as the crow flies is little more than seventy\nmiles. Between these two points lies the line that divides England from\nScotland. But to follow this line literally along its every little in\nand out means a distance of no fewer than forty good miles more.\nStretching diagonally across the country--north-east or south-west--we\nhave the river Tweed as eastmost boundary for a considerable\nspace--close on twenty miles; then comes the lofty barrier of the\nCheviots extending to thirty odd miles, constituting the middle portion\nof the Border line; and finally, the Kershope Burn, with the Liddel and\nEsk Waters, and the small stream of the Sark, make up the westmost\ndivision, another twenty miles, at least. But to follow the Border on\nfoot, by every bend of Tweedside, and over every nick and nook of the\nCheviots, and the remaining water-marches, means, as has been indicated,\na walk of not less than one hundred and ten miles. Almost everywhere in\nthe land portion of the Border line--the Cheviots generally--the\nboundary is such that one may stand with one foot in England and the\nother in Scotland, and the rather curious fact will be noted, says one\nwho has made this Border pilgrimage _par excellence_, that Scotland\nnowhere receives a single rivulet from England, whilst she sends to\nEngland tiny head-streams of the Coquet and Tyne only. The delimitation\nis thus a quite natural and scientific one, coinciding pretty closely to\nthe water-parting of the two countries. Upon either side of this line of\ndemarcation stretches the Border Country, famous in war and verse the\nwhole world over--Northumberland and Cumberland to the south-east on\nEnglish soil, and to the north-west, Berwickshire, Roxburghshire, with\npart of Dumfriesshire, the distinctively Border counties on the Scottish\nside. A wider radius, however, has been given to the Scottish Border\nfrom a very early period. Old Scots Acts of Parliament, applying to the\nBorder district, embrace the counties of Peebles and Selkirk within the\nterm, though these nowhere touch the frontier line, and portions of\nLanarkshire and the Lothians have been also included. But on the face of\nit, these latter lie entirely outside the true Border limit. A line\ndrawn on the map from Coquetmouth to \"Merrie Carlisle,\" thence to the\ntown of Dumfries, and again, almost due north, to Tweedsmuir (the source\nof the Tweed) in Peeblesshire, and to Peebles itself, and from Peebles\neastward by the Moorfoots and Lammermoors to the German Ocean at St.\nAbbs, will give us for all practical purposes what may be regarded as\nthe Border Country in its widest signification, geographical and\nhistorical.\n\nThere is, of course, a narrower sense in which the phrase, the Border\nCountry, is used--the literary. That, however, applies almost entirely\nto the Scottish side, for neither of the English Border counties owns a\ntithe of the associations in literature and romance that belong to those\nbeyond the Tweed. The extraordinary glamour which has been cast over the\nTweed and its tributaries by the writings of Sir Walter Scott, the\nEttrick Shepherd, John Leyden, and others, has given a prominence to the\nScottish side which is nowhere shared by its southern neighbour. But to\nsay so is no disparagement to the English side. For what it lacks in\nliterature it makes up in other admirable characteristics. Both Borders\nare rich in historical memories. Their natural features are not\ndissimilar, and in commercial prosperity they are much akin. In union\nthey have long been happily wedded.\n\nThe Border Country is a region of streams and hills which hardly rise to\nthe dignity of rivers and mountains. Unlike the Clyde, the Tweed has no\nbroad estuary laden with the commerce of the world. And the highest\nsummits, Broad Law (2754 feet) in Scotland, and the great Cheviot (2676\nfeet) in England, have nothing in common with the rugged Highland peaks\nexcept their height. Both, it has been said, are monuments of denudation\nonly, \"lofty because they have suffered less wear than their\nneighbours.\"\n\nIt is difficult to imagine all this attractive Border Country as at one\nperiod a vast ocean-bed, over which waves lashed in furious foam, and\nsea-birds shrieked and flew amid the war of waters. Yet geology assures\nus such was its condition ages ago. By-and-by, it became a great rolling\nplain or table-land, and in age after age--how many and how long it were\nvain to speculate--there was carried on that stupendous process by which\nthose fair green hills and glens have been so marvellously scooped out,\nand moulded and rounded into the objects of beauty that we see about us\nnow. In the great glacier movements, in the working of the ice-sheets,\nand under the influences of frost, beating rain, and a constant\nwater-flow operating through a countless series of years, we have the\nscientific explanation of their present benign and comfortable-looking\nappearance. The Border hills are of a purely pastoral type, grass-grown\nfrom base to summit, and usually easy of ascent. Here and there one\nmeets with a distinctly Highland picture--in the deep dark glens down\nMoffatdale, for instance, but in the main they exhibit \"the sonsie,\ngood-humoured, buirdly look,\" for which Dr. \"Rab\" Brown expressed the\nliveliest predilection. Once at the curiously plateau-like summit of\nBroadlaw (out-topped in Southern Scotland by the Galloway Merrick only)\nor Hart Fell (2651 feet), or the Cheviot, the feeling amounts to a kind\nof awe even. Scott speaks of the silence of noonday on the top of\nMinchmoor, and the acute sense of human littleness one always feels\namidst the \"mountain infinities.\" \"I assure you,\" he says, \"I have felt\nreally oppressed with a sort of fearful loneliness when looking around\nthese naked towering ridges of desolate barrenness.\" The picture seen\nfrom such a height is both an inspiring and a humbling one. Beneath, it\nis a veritable earth-ocean that we are gazing upon. On all sides an\ninnumerable series of what look like huge elephant-backed ranges are\nseen to be chasing each other like waves of the sea, as it were, ridge\nafter ridge, rising, flowing, falling, and passing into the one beyond\nit, as far as the eye can reach. Enclosed between each we know are the\nrushing hill-burns and broader streams by which the Border country is\neverywhere so much blessed and beautified. At such a height we are\nentirely outside the human touches--altogether alone with Nature at her\nsimplest and solemnest. The cry of a startled sheep and the summer hum\nof insects on the hill-top--\n\n    \"That undefined and mingled hum,\n    Voice of the desert, never dumb\"--\n\nare the only indications of life where all trace and feeling of man and\nhis work have disappeared. Occasionally we shall meet by chance with the\nshepherd, maybe, who has his dwelling far down among the \"hopes\"--the\ncul-de-sacs of the uplands. Amongst those hills he lives and moves and\nhas his being. All sorts of weather-conditions find him at his work. He\nnever thinks of the loneliness, and the winter storms have not the\nterrors for him as for his predecessors. In some respects his life is an\nideal one, and his class has a goodly record for intelligence and fine\nphysique. The best specimens, indeed, of the country's manhood are drawn\nfrom the agricultural labouring classes--the \"herds\" and \"hinds\" who\nmake up the bulk of the population in the purely rural districts. For\nagriculture, it need scarcely be said, is the staple business of both\nBorders. The Tweed industry, to be sure, affords employment to\nthousands, but on the Borders, as elsewhere, the land is the crucial\nproblem. Within recent years many of the rural parishes have been\nwoefully depleted, and until the land question is fairly tackled there\nseems small hope for a fresh and brighter chapter in the domestic\nhistory of the Border Country.\n\nA hundred years have transformed the face of the Border Country in a\nmarked manner. The development of agriculture, and the growth of the\ntree-planting spirit, which began to bestir itself about the beginning\nof last century, have given to the Border its modern picturesqueness and\nits look of prosperity. Sir Walter Scott himself may be said to be the\nfather of arboriculture in the South of Scotland. In the creation of\nAbbotsford, forestry was his main out-of-doors hobby, and the example\nset by one who had studied the subject thoroughly, and who discoursed\npleasantly upon it, was quickly followed by all the neighbouring lairds\nand many others besides. Not that the country was altogether treeless\nbefore Scott's day. Here and there \"ancestral oaks\" clumped themselves\nabout the great castles and mansions, with perhaps some further attempt\nat embellishment. But that was rare enough. It needed a man like Scott\nto popularize the notion, and to take the lead in an undertaking\nfraught, as this age well sees, with results so beneficent. We do not\nforget, of course, that in earlier historic times practically the whole\nof the Border Country was covered with wood. Its inhabitants, whose very\nnames--Gadeni and Ottadini--signified \"dwellers in the wood,\" were found\nby the Romans in their dense forests, and the first settlements were\nonly possible through clearances of growing timber. Across the country,\nfrom Cadzow, in Renfrewshire, to the Ettrick, there stretched the vast\nWood of Caledon (whence Caledonia), known at a later period as the\nForest of Ettrick, or simply as the Forest (_e.g._, the \"Flowers of the\nForest\"). There is no doubt that it was largely a forest in the ordinary\nacceptation, and not a mere deer-forest use of the term. Over and over\nagain we have the various charters, as to the Abbeys, for instance,\nauthorising the monks to cut down for building purposes and fuel oaks\n\"from the forest,\" both in Selkirk and in Melrose, in Kelso and the\nEttrick. The original religious house of Melrose was entirely of oak. So\nwere the first churches founded by Kentigern and Cuthbert, and those\neven of a later date. The Forest of Ettrick survived to the time of the\nStuarts, who had here their favourite hunting expeditions, James V. and\nQueen Mary especially being frequent visitors to the Borderland. The\nForest of Megget, or Rodono (a sub-division of that of Ettrick), yielded\non one occasion no fewer than five hundred head of game, bird and beast\nof the chase, and at another time eighteen score of red deer. In the\nreign of Mary there was issued a proclamation limiting and prohibiting\nthe slaughter of deer in the Forest on account of their growing\nscarcity. And by the time of James VI. the hunting possibilities of the\nBorder were at an end.\n\nMore than anything else, the laying down of the great railway lines and\nthe immense road improvements of last century have opened up practically\nevery corner of the Border Country. There are now no places so utterly\ninaccessible as Liddesdale was during Scott's visits. It is possible to\nreach the most out-of-the-way parts with comparative comfort. And with\nthe dawn of the motor age, still greater hopes and possibilities appear\nin store.\n\n  PLATE 2\n\n  CRAG LOCH AND THE\n  ROMAN WALL\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 24, 44, 45, 71, 73_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nTHE MAKING OF THE BORDER\n\nIt is from the Roman historian Tacitus that the light of history falls\nfor the first time on the Border Country. It is a mere glimpse, however.\nBut it is enough to show us the calibre of the men who held its forests\nand fastnesses at that remote period. They were the Brigantes, a branch\nprobably of the Celts, who were the first to reach Britain, coming from\nthe common home-land of the Ayrian race somewhere in Central Asia. Their\nkingdom, Brigantia, embraced all the country between the Mersey and\nHumber and the Links of Forth. They are spoken of as a strong,\ncourageous and warlike people, able for many years to keep the Roman\ncohorts at bay and to check the northward progress of the invaders. The\nRoman Conquest of Britain, as is well known, was begun by Julius Caesar\nas far back as B.C. 55. It was not, however, till the time of Julius\nAgricola (A.D. 78-84) that the Romans obtained a firm footing on the\nisland. Agricola's generalship was more than a match for the sturdy\nBrigantes. He carried the Roman eagles to the Forth and Clyde, fixing\nhis main line of defence and his northmost frontier on the isthmus\nbetween these two firths. But about A.D. 120, when the Emperor Hadrian\nvisited Britain, his chief work was the delimitation of the Roman\nterritory by the great stone wall still bearing his name, stretching\nfrom the Tyne to the Solway, a distance of 73-1/2 miles. Twenty years\nlater, however, Lollius Urbicus, the Emperor's lieutenant in Britain,\nappears to have revived and restored Agricola's boundary, so that what\nwe now know as the Border Country, for more than three hundred years\n(A.D. 78-410), formed a part of the mightiest empire of the ancient\nworld. Hadrian's rampart, the great camps at Cappuck, near Jedburgh, at\nLyne in Peeblesshire, and Newstead at the base of the Eildons--the\nundoubted Roman Trimontium--with the roads known as Watling Street\nand the Wheel Causeway are the chief memorials of a singularly historic\nOccupation. Following the withdrawal of the Roman legions the district\nbecame the arena of constant warfare between Picts and Scots and\nBritons, until the sixth century, when it appears again in history as a\nkingdom of the Saxon Heptarchy under the name of Bernicia, and occupied\nby a colony of Angles and Saxons from the Low Countries of the\nContinent, the progenitors of the English-speaking race. Ida the Good\ngoverned Bernicia, having for his capital the proud rock-fortress of\nBibbanburgh (so named from his queen Bibba), the modern Bamborough. In\nthe following century Bernicia was combined with Deira, its southern\nneighbour (corresponding to Yorkshire) to form the powerful kingdom of\nNorthumbria, extending, as Brigantia had done, from the Humber to the\nForth. For the next three or four hundred years the story of the Border\nwas little more than a wild record of lawlessness and bloodshed. It had\ngrown to be a kind of happy hunting-ground for every hostile tribe\nwithin fighting distance, and for some even who were drawn from long\ndistances, like the Danes, the latest of the invading hordes. But there\nis nothing of importance to narrate at this period. From a monarchy,\nNorthumbria fell to the level of an Earldom in 954, and in 1018, the\nScots, consolidated to some extent under Malcolm II., crushed the Angles\nof Northumbria in a great victory at Carham-on-Tweed (near Coldstream),\nof which the result was the cession to Scotland of the district known as\nLothian--the land lying between the Tweed and Forth. Thus at the dawn\nof the 11th century we have the Tweed constituting the virtual boundary\nbetween the two countries. Cumberland, to be sure, was for a time Scots\nterritory, but this the intrepid Rufus wrested back in 1092. So that by\nthe close of that century the Border line appears to have taken the\nquite natural course of delimitation--the Tweed, the Cheviots, and the\nSolway, though it was not till as late as 1222 that a commission of both\ncountries was appointed to adjust the final demarcation.\n\n\nTHE CHRISTIANIZING OF THE BORDER\n\nIt would be interesting to know precisely when and how the light of the\nChristian faith first penetrated the Border Country, but neither the\ntime nor the manner can be ascertained with certainty. Indeed, it is\nimpossible to say who were the real pioneers of the Gospel within the\nrealm itself. The probability is that in the first instance it was the\nbeneficent work of the Romans in whose legions were to be found many\nsincere Christians, many faithful soldiers of the Cross. From the\n\"saints of Caesar's household\"--not a mere picturesque dream--mayhap the\nGospel found its way to the coasts of Britain, the greatest boon that\ncould be conferred on a nation. An unvarying Peeblesshire tradition, for\nexample, avers that among the first to witness for Christ and His truth\nby the banks of the Tweed and its tributaries were Roman soldiers from\nthe great military station at Hall Lyne, and out of whose quiet\nfellowship-meetings in the recesses of the Manor, sprang the church of\nthat valley, one of the oldest in the county, and dedicated to Saint\nGordian, either the Emperor of that name, or what is more likely,\n\"Gordian the well-beloved,\" Deputy of Gaul, who suffered martyrdom about\nthe year 362. Be that as it may, it is at any rate certain that long\nbefore the departure of the Romans from Britain, Christianity had made\nconsiderable headway in the island. St. Ninian's is the earliest\ndefinite name which has come down to us, about the end of the 4th and\nbeginning of the 5th century. His labours were confined chiefly to the\nGalloway side of the Border, where the remains of his Candida Casa, or\nWhite House, may still be seen at Whithorn on the shores of Wigtown Bay.\nIt is more than possible that some of Ninian's missionaries, or a rumour\nof his work and teaching at all events, had passed beyond the Solway to\nthe Clyde and Tweed watersheds. But, on the other hand, the difficulties\nfollowing the departure of the Romans in the constant incursions from\nthe Continent and the terrible internecine struggles of the time, would\nbe sufficient to extinguish whatever light had faintly begun to shine.\nAnd it is not until well on in the 6th century that the darkness begins\nto grow less dense. Such names as Augustine, Paulinus, Columba,\nKentigern or Mungo, Aidan and Cuthbert, come upon the scene, with each\nof whom seems to rest, as it were, the hope of the Church of Christ in\nBritain. In the year 597 Augustine arrived in Kent with forty monks in\nhis train. The incident, apocryphal perhaps, which led to his mission,\nis at least interesting. The story has been told again and again, but it\nwill bear repeating. Aella, King of Deira, had defeated his northern\nneighbour, and with a portion of the spoil hastened to fill the Roman\nslave-market. Gregory the Great, in the days that preceded his\npontificate, passed one day through the market-place when it was crowded\nwith people, all attracted by the arrival of fresh cargoes of\nmerchandise; and he saw three boys set for sale. They were\nwhite-complexioned, fair and light, and with noble heads of hair. Filled\nwith compassion, he enquired of the dealer from what part of the world\nthey had come, and was told \"from Britain, where all the inhabitants\nhave the same fair complexion.\" He next asked whether the people of this\nstrange land were Christians or pagans, and hearing that they were\npagans he heaved a deep sigh, and remarked it was sad to think that\nbeings so bright and fair should be in the power of the Prince of\nDarkness. He next enquired the name of their nation. \"Angles,\" was the\nreply. \"'Tis well,\" he answered, playing on the word, \"rightly are they\ncalled _Angles_, for their faces are the faces of angels, and they ought\nto be fellow-heirs with the angels of heaven.\" \"And what is the name,\"\nhe proceeded, \"of the province from which they have been brought?\" \"From\nDeira,\" was the answer. Catching its name, he rejoined, \"Rightly are\nthey named _Deirans_. Plucked from _ire_, and called to the mercy of\nChrist.\" \"And who,\" he asked once more, \"is the King of this province?\"\n\"Aella,\" was the reply. The word recalled the Hebrew expression of\npraise, and he answered, \"Allelujah! the praise of God shall be chanted\nin that clime!\" And as Green so beautifully puts it in his \"Making of\nEngland,\" \"he passed on, musing how the angel faces should be brought to\nsing it.\" And brought to sing it they were when the evangelist Paulinus\nfound his way in the best sense, to the heart of heathen Northumbria.\nPaulinus, whom men long remembered,\n\n    \"Of shoulders curved, and stature tall,\n    Black hair, and vivid eye, and meagre cheek.\"\n\nhad come from Rome with Bishop Justus in 601, and laboured with\nAugustine in the evangelization of Kent. When Ethelburga, daughter of\nEthelbert of Kent, Augustine's convert, became wedded to Edwin, the\nstill idolatrous King of Northumbria, Paulinus accompanied her as\nchaplain, and at the same time as missionary among the rude\nNorthumbrians. The field of his labours was a wide one. For a long time\nhe made no progress until Edwin himself, moved by his escape from\nassassination at the hands of the King of Wessex, and by his victory\nover Wessex, and under the gentle constraint of Paulinus, resolved that\nboth he and his nobles should be baptized, and this resolution was\ncarried into effect at York, in a hastily-built chapel (the precursor of\nthe Minster), on Easter Eve, 627.\n\nThe conversion of Edwin was followed by a great social revolution.\nHaving convoked the National Assembly, he unfolded the reasons for his\nchange of faith. Everywhere he was applauded. Crowds of the nobility,\nchiefs of petty states, and the great mass of the people followed the\nexample of their King. The worship of the ancient gods was solemnly\nrenounced, and even Coifi, the high priest, was the first to give the\nsignal for destruction by hurling his lance at an idol in the pagan\ntemple. Paulinus was now one of the most popular figures in Northumbria.\nWherever he preached, crowds gathered to hear him and to be received,\nlike their Overlord, into the Christian communion. Many spots in\nNorthumberland are identified with the name of this early and ardent\nApostle of the North. Pallinsburn, overlooking Flodden Field, is, of\ncourse, Paulinus's Burn, where large numbers were baptized. In one of\nhis missionary journeys we are told (Bede) how he was occupied for six\nand thirty consecutive days from early morn until nightfall, in teaching\nthe people and in \"washing them with the water of absolution\" in the\nriver Glen, which flowed by the royal \"vill\" of Yeavering (anciently\nAd-gebrin) in Glendale. At the Lady's Well near Holystone, in the vale\nof the Coquet, about three thousand converts were welcomed into the\nChurch of Christ. A graceful Runic cross erected on the spot bears the\nfollowing inscription:--\n\n  +IN THIS PLACE\n  PAVLINVS THE BISHOP\n  BAPTIZED\n  THREE THOUSAND NORTHVMBRIANS.\n  EASTER, DCXXVII.+\n\nBut after six years of incessant labours, the death of Edwin in battle\nwith Penda, King of the Mercians, and Cadwallon of North Wales, put a\nsudden stop to his work. He did not wait for the honour of martyrdom,\nbut went back with the widowed queen to Kent, where he became Bishop of\nRochester, and she the Abbess of Lyminge. Paulinus died in 644, and was\nburied in the chapter-house at Rochester.\n\n  PLATE 3\n\n  BAMBOROUGH FROM\n\n  STAG ROCK\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 25, 58, 59_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\nBut it is ever the darkest hour that precedes the dawn. It was\nimpossible that England should lose her faith and fall back under the\nrule of a mere heathen conqueror. After the \"thoughtful Edwin,\nmightiest of all the kings of the isle of Britain,\" as he has been\ncalled (he was, by the way, the founder of Edinburgh), there arose\nanother champion of the new light in the person of Oswald, Edwin's\nnephew. Oswald's history connects him with Columba the Irishman, and\n\"Apostle of Scotland,\" to whose splendid work the nation owed its first\nreal religious advance. About 563, when in his forty-second year, and\naccompanied by twelve companions, Columba found a resting-place on the\nlittle island of Hy or Iona, off the west coast of Scotland, whence he\nset himself to the great work of his life--the conversion of the Pictish\ntribes beyond the Grampians. At Iona Oswald had sheltered during the\nhome troubles, and many valuable lessons he must have learned for the\nstrenuous life that lay in front of him. Called to lead his countrymen\nagainst their oppressors, Oswald literally fought his way to the throne.\nOn a rising ground, a few miles from Hexham, near the Roman Wall, he\ngathered in 634 a small force, which pledged itself to become Christian\nif it conquered in the engagement. Causing a cross of wood to be hastily\nmade, and digging a hole for it in the earth, he supported it with his\nown hands while his men hedged up the soil around it. Then, like Bruce\nat Bannockburn years afterwards, he bade his soldiers kneel with him and\nentreat the true and living God to defend their cause, which he knew to\nbe just, from the fierce and boastful foe. This done they joined battle,\nand attacked Cadwallon's far superior forces. The charge was\nirresistible. The Welsh army fled down the slope towards the\nDeniseburn,--a brook near Dilston which has been identified with the\nRowley Burn,--and Cadwallon himself, the hero of fourteen battles and\nsixty skirmishes, was caught and slain. This was the battle of\nHefenfelt, or Heaven's Field, as after-times called it. Not only was the\nlast hero of the old British races utterly routed, but Oswald, King of\nonce more reunited Bernicia and Deira, proved himself to the Christian\ncause all that Edwin had been, and more, a prince in the prime of life,\nand fitted by his many good qualities to attract a general enthusiasm of\nadmiration, reverence, and love. Resolved to restore the national\nChristianity, and to realize the ambitions of his exile life, he turned\nnaturally to Iona and to the teachers of his youth for missionaries who\nwould accomplish the holy task. At his request, Aidan, one of the\nfittest of the Columban band, was sent to carry on the work of\nevangelization in Northumbria, which happy event may be reckoned as the\nfirst permanent planting of the Gospel in the Eastern Border. The light\nwhich he kindled was never afterwards quenched. And as Columba had\nchosen Iona, so for Aidan there was one spot to which his heart went out\nabove all others. This was the island-peninsula of Lindisfarne, off the\nNorthumbrian coast, so called from the little river Lindis, which here\nenters the sea, and the Celtic _fahren_, \"a recess.\" Bede has a fine\npassage which is worth quoting:--\"On the arrival of the Bishop (Aidan)\nKing Oswald appointed him his episcopal see in the isle of Lindisfarne,\nas he desired. Which place as the tide flows and ebbs twice a day, is\nenclosed by the waves of the sea like an island; and again, twice in the\nday, when the shore is left dry, becomes contiguous to the land. The\nKing also humbly and willingly in all cases giving ear to his\nadmonitions, industriously applied himself to build and extend the\nchurch of Christ in his kingdom; wherein, when the Bishop, who was not\nskilful in the English tongue, preached the gospel, it was most\ndelightful to see the King himself interpreting the Word of God to his\ncommanders and ministers, for he had perfectly learned the language of\nthe Scots during his long banishment. From that time many of the Scots\ncame daily into Britain, and with great devotion preached the word to\nthose provinces of the English over which King Oswald reigned, and those\namong them that had received priest's orders, administered to them the\ngrace of baptism. Churches were built in several places; the people\njoyfully flocked together to hear the Word; money and lands were given\nof the King's bounty to build monasteries; the English, great and small,\nwere, by their Scottish masters, instructed in the rules and observance\nof regular discipline; for most of them that came to preach were monks.\"\n(Eccl. Hist. Bk. iii., c. 2). Than Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, as it\ncame to be called, there is no more sacred spot in Northumbria--in\nEngland even. Its history is coeval with that of the nation, and it was\nfrom that hallowed centre of Christian activity that the gospelizing of\nboth sides of the Border was planned and prayed over many an anxious\nhour and day. Aidan's missionaries went forth planting churches in\nvarious places. One of the best known of these settlements was Old\nMelrose, the original shrine by the beautiful bend of the Tweed, a mile\nor two down the river from the second and more celebrated Melrose. Here\nEata, \"a man much revered and meek;\" and Boisil, who gave his name to\nthe neighbouring St. Boswells; and Cuthbert, the most illustrious of\nthem all, served God with gladness. Of the latter, certainly the most\nconspicuous Borderer of his day, something more must be said. Three\nkingdoms claim his birthplace. The Irish Life of the Saint alleges him\nto be sprung of her own blood royal; he is affirmed also to have come of\nnoble Northumbrian descent; whilst the Scottish tradition makes him the\nchild of humble parents, born and reared in Lauderdale, one of the\nsweetest valleys of the Border. It is a fact, at any rate, that when the\nlight of record first falls upon him the youthful Cuthbert is seen as a\nshepherd lad by the Leader; he is religiously inclined, and whilst his\ncomrades sleep, he spends whole nights in prayer and meditation. One day\nhe hears voices from out the unseen calling to him. Another night it is\na vision of angels that he fancies he beholds bearing the soul of the\nsainted Aidan to the skies. Such was Cuthbert, a kind of mystic, a\ndreamer of strange dreams, destined apostle and Bishop, and next to\nAugustine himself the most illustrious figure in the annals of English\nmonasticism. The church of Channelkirk (anciently Childeschirche)\ndedicated to the Saint, probably indicates his birth-spot. The Leader\nvalley is full of legends of his boyhood, the whole west of\nBerwickshire, indeed, being haunted ground for Cuthbert's sake. Other\ngreat names in the history of early Border Christianity are those of\nBenedict Biscop, the founder of the monasteries of Jarrow and Monk\nWearmouth; Wilfrid, the founder of Hexham; and the Venerable Bede--the\n\"father of English learning\"--whose \"Church History of the English\nPeople\" is the greatest of the forty-five works that bear his name.\n\nBy far the most flourishing epoch in the religious development of the\nBorder was the founding of the great Abbeys under David I.--\"St.\nDavid\"--as he is often called, though he was never canonized. Whilst\nstill a Prince, he founded a monastery at Selkirk, and after his\naccession to the throne, there arose the four stately fanes of Kelso\n(1128), Melrose (1146), Jedburgh (1147), and Dryburgh (1150)--those rich\nand peaceful homes of art and intellectual culture whose ruins now\nstrike us with marvel and regret. There is probably no other country\ndistrict equally small in area that can boast a group of ruins at once\nso grand and interesting as those that lie within a few miles of each\nother along the banks of the Tweed and Jed. Founded almost\ncontemporaneously, they were destroyed about the same time, by the same\nruthless hands. The story of each is the story of all--burned and\nrebuilt, then spoiled and restored again, time after time, until finally\nat the dismal Hertford Invasion, in 1545, they all received their\ndeath-stroke. Other religious centres on the Scottish side were\nColdingham in Berwickshire, founded in 1098 by King Edgar, son of\nCanmore and St. Margaret; Dundrennan, in Kirkcudbrightshire, founded in\n1142 by Fergus, Lord of Galloway; and Sweetheart or New Abbey, founded\nin 1275 by Devorgoil, great-great-granddaughter of David the First. On\nthe English side, the Church had a less vigorous growth, having no such\nmunificent patron as King David, but there, too, it could boast of\nCarlisle Cathedral, the Abbey of Alnwick, the Priories of Lanercost, and\nHexham, and the still more renowned and classic Lindisfarne. The history\nof the latter began, as we saw, with the year 635, when Saint Aidan\naccepted the invitation of King Oswald to teach the new faith to the\nNorthumbrians. Aidan's church, built of wood, and thatched with the\ncoarse bents of the links, could not long withstand the storms or the\nbrands of the wild sea-rovers. And of the stone sanctuary reared under\nthe rule of succeeding bishops no portion of the present ruin can be\nconsidered as forming a part. Sir Walter Scott has thrown the spell of\nhis genius around the picturesque ruins, but the tragical story of\nConstance of Beverley has no foundation in fact.\n\n  PLATE 4\n\n  HOLY ISLAND CASTLE:\n\n  HARVEST-TIME\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 32, 33, 36_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nBORDER WARFARE\n\nOf Border warfare it were impossible to treat within the limits of a\nlibrary. In no part of the kingdom was the fighting and raiding spirit\nmore rampant. The Border clans were constantly at war with one another,\nthe slightest excuse provoking an attack, and not unfrequently was there\nno _raison d'etre_ whatever for the accompanying ruin and desolation. It\nran apparently in the blood of those old Borderers to live on unfriendly\nterms with their neighbours, and to seize every possible opportunity\nagainst them. The record of the raids does not lean more to one side\nthan another for aggressiveness, though generally the Scot has been\ncredited for this quality. But as a matter of fact both sides were\nequally at fault and equally determined. And the onslaughts were\noften of the most savage and persistent kind, and were almost entirely\nunchecked by the legal restraints which were set in force. The division\nof the district into East, West and Middle Marches, with a sort of\nvice-regal Warden appointed over each, was not always conducive to peace\nand good feeling. At certain times, a day of truce was held when the\nWardens of both sides met and settled any questions that might be in\ndispute between their followers, but occasionally the decision was\nanything but harmonious--as in the case of the Reidswire, for instance.\nIn the \"Debateable or Threep Lands,\" which lay partly in England and\npartly in Scotland, between the Esk and the Sark, no end of worry and\ndifficulty was experienced. \"Its chief families were the Armstrongs and\nGrahams, both clans being noted as desperate thieves and freebooters.\nThey had frequently to be dealt with by force of arms till in the 17th\ncentury, the Grahams were transported to Ireland, and forbidden to\nreturn upon pain of death. Other districts of the Borders from time to\ntime called forth hostile visitations from the Scottish kings or their\ncommissioners, when great numbers of the robbers were frequently seized\nand hanged. So late as 1606, the Earl of Dunbar executed as many as 140\nof them. The Union of the Crowns removed some obvious grounds of\ncontention between the English and Scottish people, and after the middle\nof the 17th century the Borders gradually subsided into a more peaceful\ncondition.\"\n\nIt was doubtless due to the exigencies occasioned by those frequently\nrecurring wars and raids from the 13th to the 16th century that the\nwhole country on both sides of the frontier became so thickly studded\nwith castles and peel-towers, the numerous ruins of which still form a\ndistinctive feature in Border scenery, although from times much earlier\nthe castles and strongholds were characteristic elements in the old\nScottish landscape. Alexander Hume, of Polwarth, the poet-preacher of\nLogie, near Stirling, in his fine description of a \"Summer's Day,\" thus\nrefers to them:--\n\n    \"The rayons of the sunne we see\n      Diminish in their strength;\n    The shade of everie tower and tree,\n      Extended is in length.\n    Great is the calm for everie quhair\n      The wind is settlin' downe;\n    The reik thrawes right up in the air,\n      From everie tower and towne.\"\n\nGenerally these towers were planted on heights overlooking the\nriver-valleys, and, as a rule, within sight of one another, in order\nthat the signals of invasion or alarm--flashed by means of the bale\nfire--might be the more rapidly spread from point to point. Very few of\nthem are now entire--the best-preserved on the Scottish side being,\nperhaps, Barns, at the entrance to the Manor valley; Bemersyde, still\ninhabited; and Oakwood on the Ettrick, incorporated in the present farm\nbuildings; and on the English side, Corbridge and Doddington and\nWhittingham. From a return made in 1460 we find that Northumberland\nalone possessed 37 castles and 78 towers, and the Scottish side was\nequally well strengthened and defended. Amongst the larger and more\nimportant fortresses on the English side were the Castles of Alnwick,\nBothal, Carlisle, Cockermouth, Coupland, Dilston, Elsdon, Etal, Ford,\nNaworth, Norham, Prudhoe, Wark, Warkworth; and on the Scottish side,\nBerwick, Branxholme, Caerlaverock (the true Ellangowan of \"Guy\nMannering\"), Cessford, Ferniherst, Hermitage, Hume, Jedburgh, Neidpath,\nPeebles, Roxburgh, Threave, Traquair, besides, as has been said,\nhundreds of peel and bastle-houses scattered all over the country.\n\nIt would be a quite impossible task to chronicle the incessant\nclan-raids of the Border, and to narrate all the invasions that took\nplace on either side would be to repeat in great measure the general\nhistory of England and Scotland. But at least two authentic reports,\ncovering little more than a year, may be quoted as showing the\nextraordinary havoc and destruction caused by the latter. \"In 1544 Sir\nRalph Evers and Sir Brian Latoun, with an English army, invaded the\nScottish Border, and between July and November they destroyed 192 towns,\ntowers, barmkyns, parish churches, etc.; slew 403 Scots and took 816\nprisoners; carried off 10,386 head of cattle, 12,492 sheep, 1296 horses,\n200 goats, and 850 bolls of corn, besides an untold quantity of inside\ngear and plenishing. In one village alone--that of Lessudden (now St.\nBoswells)--Sir Ralph Evers writes that he burned 16 strong\nbastle-houses. Again in September of the following year, the Earl of\nHertford a second time invaded the country, and between the 8th and the\n23rd of that month, he razed and cast down the abbeys of Jedburgh,\nKelso, Dryburgh, and Melrose, and burned the town of Kelso. At the same\ntime he destroyed about 30 towns, towers and villages on the Tweed, 36\non the Teviot, 12 on Rulewater, 13 on the Jed, 45 on the Kale, 19 on the\nBowmont, 109 in the parishes of Eccles and Duns in Berwickshire, with 20\nother towns and villages in the same county. The places destroyed are\nall named in the report to the English king, along with a classified\nlist of that terrible sixteen days' destruction, embracing 7 monasteries\nand friars' houses, 16 castles, towers and peels, 5 market-towns, the\nimmense number of 243 villages, with 13 mills, and 3 hospitals.\"\n\nIt cannot be forgotten that upon Border soil were fought at least six of\nthe great historical battles of the nation, _viz._, Halidon Hill (1333);\nOtterburn (1388); Homildon Hill (1402); Flodden (1513); Solway Moss\n(1542); and Ancrum Moor (1544). Of mere internal contests there are the\nfight at Arkinholm (Langholm, 1455), between Scotsmen, where James II.\nbroke the power of the Douglases; the battle of Hedgeley Moor (1464),\nand of Hexham (1464) between the English adherents of Lancaster and\nYork, when the Lancastrians were defeated; the affair of Melrose\n(Skirmish Hill, 1526) between Borderers under the Earl of Angus and\nBuccleuch; and Philiphaugh (1645) when Leslie drove Montrose from the\nfield. Of what were purely faction fights and deeds of daring such as\nthe Raid of the Reidswire (1575), and the rescue of Kinmont Willie\n(1596), the ancient ballads will keep their memory green for many a year\nto come.\n\n  PLATE 5\n\n  VIEW OF NORHAM\n\n  CASTLE\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 39, 60, 93_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\nTwo great incidents of Border warfare stand out before all\nothers--Otterburn and Flodden. Old Froissart has told the story of\nOtterburn. The Scottish barons, tired of the fickleness and\ninactivity of their king, determined to invade England, met at Aberdeen,\nand arranged the preliminaries for a great gathering at Southdean,\nbeyond Jedburgh. On the day appointed the best blood in Scotland was\nassembled. \"There had not been for sixty years so numerous an\nassembly--they amounted to twelve hundred spears and forty thousand\nother men and archers.\" The Earl of Douglas, the Earl of March and\nDunbar, and the Earl of Moray, with three hundred picked lancers and two\nthousand infantry, burst into Northumberland, rode south as far as\nDurham, and laid waste the country. In one of their encounters before\nNewcastle-on-Tyne the Earl of Douglas had a hand-to-hand combat with Sir\nHenry Percy--- Hotspur,--who was overthrown, Douglas seizing his\npennon--the silken streamer bearing his insignia, which was fastened\nnear the head of his lance. In triumph he exclaimed: \"I will carry this\ntoken of your prowess with me into Scotland, and place it on the tower\nof my castle at Dalkeith, that it may be seen from afar.\" \"By God, Earl\nof Douglas,\" replied Hotspur, \"you shall not even bear it out of\nNorthumberland; be assured you shall never have this pennon to boast\nof.\" \"You must come then,\" answered Douglas, \"this night and seek for\nit. I will fix your pennon before my tent, and shall see if you will\nventure to take it away.\" On the following evening the Scottish army\n\"lighted high on Otterburn,\" in Redesdale, and there Sir Henry and Ralph\nPercy, with six hundred spears of knights and squires and upwards of\neight thousand infantry, fell upon the Scots, who were but three hundred\nlances, and two thousand others. The fight that followed was one of the\nmost spirited in history, and ended in the death of Douglas, the capture\nof Hotspur, the serious wounding of his brother, and the killing or\ncapture of one thousand and forty Englishmen on the field, the capture\nof eight hundred and forty others in the pursuit, and the wounding of a\nthousand more. The Scots lost only one hundred slain and two hundred\ncaptured. \"It was,\" says Froissart, \"the hardest and most obstinate\nbattle ever fought.\" The tragic incidents of this encounter have been\nkept alive not historically but poetically. It is the immortality of\nsong which preserves the memory of Otterburn. No contest was more\nemphatically the \"ballad-singer's joy.\" Two ballads, the one Scots, the\nother English, give their respective versions of the event with those\nnatural discrepancies between the two, which may easily be accounted for\non patriotic grounds. That given in Scott's \"Minstrelsy\" is\nunquestionably the finer, and contains the lines so often quoted by\nScott himself, and at no occasion more pathetically than during his\nvisit--pretty near the end--to the old Douglas shrines in Lanarkshire,\nthe locality of \"Castle Dangerous\":\n\n    \"My wound is deep. I fain would sleep;\n      Take thou the vanguard of the three,\n    And hide me by the braken bush\n      That grows on yonder lilye lea.\n\n    \"O bury me by the braken bush,\n      Beneath the blooming brier;\n    Let never living mortal ken\n      That ere a kindly Scot lies here.\"\n\nThe story of Flodden is the darkest, perhaps, on the page of Scottish\nhistory, and like Otterburn, has been written in strains grand and\nmajestic, and certainly the most heart-moving in the whole realm of\nnorthern minstrelsy. There Scotland lost her King, the Archbishop of St.\nAndrew's, James's natural son, two abbots, twelve earls, seventeen\nlords, four hundred knights, and fifteen thousand others, all sacrificed\nto the fighting pride of James IV. of Scotland. Pierced by several\nstrong arrows, the left hand hacked clean from the arm, the neck laid\nopen in the middle, James's body was carried mournfully to Berwick. He\nhad died a hero's death, albeit a foolish one. His last words have lived\nin the lines of the rhymer:\n\n    \"Fight on, my men,\n      Yet Fortune she may turn the scale;\n    And for my wounds be not dismayed,\n      Nor ever let your courage fail.\n\n    Thus dying did he brave appear\n      Till shades of death did close his eyes;\n    Till then he did his soldiers cheer,\n      And raise their courage to the skies.\"\n\nThe era of Blood and Iron on the Borders has passed long since. Peace\nand prosperity prevail on both sides of the Tweed. Old animosities are\nseldom spoken of, and hardly ever remembered. A cordial amity and\ngood-will and co-operation evidence the strength of the cementing\nelement which no loyal heart, either north or south, can ever desire to\nsee broken.\n\n\n  PLATE 6\n\n  TWIZEL BRIDGE OF THE\n\n  XIV. CENTURY\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_Famous in connection with Flodden Field_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nII. THE ENGLISH BORDER\n\nNORTHUMBERLAND\n\n\nA line drawn from Berwick to Carlisle, and across England to the Coquet,\nthence north again, coast-wise, to the old Tweedside borough will give\nus, for all practical purposes, the English Border Country. Only a part\nof the Roman Wall, as far as Crag Loch and Borcovicus (Housesteads),\nwill come within the present purview, which excludes Newcastle itself\nand the \"coaly Tyne.\" We are to deal with rural Northumberland rather,\nand with a little corner of Cumberland, the immediate and true Border.\nEven at this time of day much of the English Border is still a kind of\n_terra incognita_ to the tourist and holiday-maker. For travelling\nfacilities have not been of the best hitherto. But it is a new order of\nthings now, and even the most outlying spots can be reached with a\nwonderful degree of comfort impossible not so very long ago. Bewcastle,\nfor instance, and the once wild and trackless \"Debateable Land\" between\nCanonbie and the Solway, have come within comparatively easy distance of\nrailroad and coaching centres. The crossing of the Solway Moss by the\nCaledonian Route, and the opening out of the line from Alnwick to Wooler\nand Cornhill, together with the numerous driving tours that are in daily\noperation during the summer at least, have become the _open sesame_ to a\ndistrict practically shut up even less than a half century since. It is\nnow possible to breakfast in Carlisle, or Newcastle, or much further\nsouth for that matter (or north), and within an hour or two to be\nrevelling in the most delightful rusticities at the foot of the\nCheviots, or in the very heart of them. The remotest localities are\nrendered accessible even for a single day's outing, and a holiday on the\nEnglish Border is not likely to be a disappointing one. There is\nsomething to suit every taste. If one is archaeologically inclined, for\ninstance, Northumberland has one of the finest collections of military\nantiquities in the kingdom, from the rude circular camps and\nentrenchments of the primitive inhabitants to the great castles and\npeel-towers of mediaeval times. The Romans have left a mighty monument of\ntheir power--none more significant--in the huge barrier thrown across\nthe lower half of the county, and in the stations and roads connected\nwith it. In some respects the Roman Wall may be accounted\nNorthumberland's principal attraction, and a pilgrimage between Tyne and\nSolway must always repay itself. If one is artistically inclined, there\nare beauty-spots for all canvases--as befits the birthplace of such\nmasters as Bewick and Foster. And as an angler's paradise the Cheviot\nuplands have long been popular. The historical memories of the English\nBorder are outstanding. For centuries this little fringe of country was\na continuous warring-ground for the two nations that are now happily\none. Upon its soil were fought some of the bloodiest, and it must be\nadded, some of the most fool-hardy and unjustifiable fights on record.\nIn its religious story it has much to boast of. By its missionaries and\nby its sword it won England from heathendom to the Christian Church. The\ndevelopment of the monastic system in Northumbria did more than\nanything else to civilise and colonise the entire realm, Scotland\nincluded. \"Its monasteries,\" as Green says, \"were the seat of whatever\nintellectual life the country possessed, and above all, it had been the\nfirst to gather together into a loose political unity the various tribes\nof the English people, and by standing at their head for nearly a\ncentury to accustom them to a national life out of which England as we\nhave it now was to spring.\"\n\nThe physical conditions, generally speaking, are similar on both sides\nof the Border. Wide arable expanses, well-wooded and fertile, cover the\nchief valleys and much of the Northumbrian coast-line. But in the main,\nthe landscape is purely pastoral for miles, showing few signs of human\nlife, and the nearest habitation often at a considerable distance. The\nNorthumbrian uplands are confined chiefly to the Cheviots, the Pyrenees\non a small scale; two-thirds of their whole three hundred square miles\nare in the county, constituting perhaps the loveliest cluster of\npastoral hills in the island. Of this group, Cheviot--to be more\ndistinctive, _the_ Cheviot--(2676 feet) sits in the centre almost,\ndignified and massive, the \"recumbent guardian of the great lone\nmoorland.\" Others, taking them according to height, are Cairn Hill\n(2545), Hedgehope (2348), Comb Fell (2132), Cushat Law (2020), Bloody\nBush Edge (2001), Windy Gyle (1963), Dunmore (1860), Carter Fell (1600),\nand Yeavering Bell (1182)--a graceful cone overlooking the pretty hamlet\nof Kirknewton. A climb to the broad back of the Cheviot, or the rounded\ntop of Yeavering, should be made by every tourist who rambles along the\nBorder. Both are reachable from the Scottish and English sides, as by\nBowmont and Colledge Waters, or by that loveliest of all the upland\ndales, Langleeford. Despite the somewhat quagmire character of its flat\nsummit, the view from the Cheviot, as one might expect, is a truly\ninspiring one, comprising the whole coast-line between Berwick and\nTynemouth, and the vast inland expanse from Midlothian to the\nSolway--the Scottish Border _in toto_. The Cheviots are hills rather\nthan the \"mountains blue\" of poetic licence. Yet all are imposing to a\ndegree, and exhibit an excellent contour against the sky-line. They have\nnone of the wildness and savagery of the Highland ranges, and even the\nsteepest are grass-grown from skirt to summit, being easy of ascent, and\ncommanding the most varied and brilliant prospects.\n\nRobert Crawford sings of them as \"Cheviot braes so soft and gay,\" and\nGilpin likens the hirsels browsing on the most acclivitous to pictures\nhung on immense green walls. From time immemorial those charming uplands\nhave been grazed by the quiet, hardy, fine-wooled, white-faced breed of\nsheep which bear their name; and in the days of the raids (for this is\nthe true \"raider-land\" of history) they were resonant, more than any\nother part of Scotland, with the clang of freebootery and the yell of\nstrife. Mrs. Sigourney's apostrophe to the present day flocks may be\nquoted:\n\n    Graze on, graze on, there comes no sound\n      Of Border warfare here,\n    No slogan cry of gathering clan,\n      No battle-axe, or spear.\n    No belted knight in armour bright,\n      With glance of kindled ire,\n    Doth change the sports of Chevy-Chase\n      To conflict stern and dire.\n\n    Ye wist not that ye press the spot,\n      Where Percy held his way\n    Across the marches, in his pride,\n      The \"chiefest harts to slay;\"\n    And where the stout Earl Douglas rode\n      Upon his milk-white steed,\n    With \"fifteen hundred Scottish spears,\"\n      To stay the invaders' deed.\n\n    Ye wist not, that ye press the spot\n      Where, with his eagle eye,\n    King James, and all his gallant train,\n      To Flodden-Field swept by.\n    The Queen was weeping in her bower,\n      Amid her maids that day,\n    And on her cradled nursling's face\n      Those tears like pearl-drops lay:\n\n    Graze on, graze on, there's many a rill\n      Bright sparkling through the glade,\n    Where you may freely slake your thirst,\n      With none to make afraid.\n    There's many a wandering stream that flows\n      From Cheviot's terraced side,\n    Yet not one drop of warrior's gore\n      Distains its crystal tide.\n\n  PLATE 7\n\n  FLODDEN FIELD AND\n  THE CHEVIOT HILLS\n\n  FROM A WATER COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 40, 48, 99, 103, 121_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\nOf the river valleys running south of the Border line, the chief are the\nBreamish, or the Till, as it is termed from Bewick Brig--the \"sullen\nTill\" of \"Marmion\"; the Aln, from Alnham Kirk to the sand-banks of\nAlnmouth, a glen emphatically rich in legendary lore; the Coquet, the\nmost picturesque and most popular trouting-stream in the North of\nEngland; and Redesdale, redolent of \"Chevy Chase,\" rising out of Carter\nFell, and joining the North Tyne at Redesmouth, a little below the\npleasant market-town of Bellingham. The chief towns are Berwick and\nAlnwick, Hexham being outside our present delimitation. Many of the\nsmaller places, and the villages, are models of their kind. Wooler, at\nthe base of the Cheviots, is a choice mountaineering and angling centre,\nfrom which, by way of Langleeford, is the favourite route to Cheviot\ntop. It was at the Whitsun Tryst or Wooler sheep fair, that Scott's\ngrandfather spent his old shepherd's thirty pounds in buying a horse\ninstead of sheep, but with such happy results in the sequel. And hither\ncame Scott himself in August, 1791, to imbue his mind with the legends,\nthe history, and scenery of the neighbourhood. \"Behold a letter from the\nmountains,\" he writes to his friend William Clerk, \"for I am very snugly\nsettled here, in a farmer's house (at Langleeford), about six miles from\nWooler, in the very centre of the Cheviot hills, in one of the wildest\nand most romantic situations, which your imagination, fertile upon the\nsubject of cottages, ever suggested. 'And what the deuce are you about\nthere?' methinks I hear you say. Why, sir, of all things in the world,\ndrinking goat's whey; not that I stand in the least need of it, but my\nuncle having a slight cold, and being a little tired of home, asked me\nlast Sunday evening if I would like to go with him to Wooler; and I,\nanswering in the affirmative, next morning's sun beheld us on our\njourney through a pass in the Cheviots, upon the backs of two special\nnags, and man Thomas behind with a portmanteau, and two fishing-rods\nfastened across his back, much in the style of St. Andrew's cross. Upon\nreaching Wooler we found the accommodation so bad that we were forced to\nuse some interest to get lodgings here, where we are most delightfully\nappointed, indeed. To add to my satisfaction we are amidst places\nrenowned by feats of former days; each hill is crowned with a tower, or\ncamp, or cairn; and in no situation can you be near more fields of\nbattle--Flodden, Otterburn, and Chevy Chase. Ford Castle, Chillingham\nCastle, Coupland Castle and many another scene of blood are within the\ncompass of a forenoon's ride. Out of the brooks with which the hills are\nintersected, we pull trouts of half a yard in length, as fast as we did\nthe perches from the pond at Pennicuik, and we are in the very country\nof muirfowl.... My uncle drinks the whey here, as I do ever since I\nunderstood it was brought to his bedside every morning at six, by a very\npretty dairymaid. So much for my residence. All the day we shoot, fish,\nwalk, and ride; dine and sup on fish struggling from the stream, and the\nmost delicious heath-fed mutton, barn-door fowls, pies, milk cheese,\netc, all in perfection; and so much simplicity resides amongst those\nhills that a pen, which could write at least, was not to be found about\nthe house, though belonging to a considerable farmer, till I shot the\ncrow with whose quill I write this epistle.\" (See Lockhart, chapter\nvi.). In this passage we have an interesting glimpse of what\nNorthumberland was a hundred years ago, and of the great author enjoying\na holiday while yet reading for the law, and before fame began to blow\nher trumpet in his praise.\n\nSweeter villages than Etal and Ford could scarcely be imagined out of\nArcadia. Etal Castle was destroyed by James IV. previous to Flodden,\nand has never been restored. Ford Castle, built originally in 1287, has\nbeen frequently renovated and enlarged, and is now a most excellent\nexample of the military style of architecture plus the modern mansion\nhouse. Formerly held by the Herons, its chatelaine figures in \"Marmion\"\nas the syren who detained the King when he ought to have been in the\nfield. The frescoes in Ford schoolroom, painted by the late Lady\nWaterford, are objects not only of good art but of a well-conceived\nphilanthropy. Ancroft and Lowick, Chatton and Chillingham are delightful\nsummer resorts. Chillingham is famous for its Elizabethan Castle, but\nstill more so, perhaps, for its herds of wild cattle, the survivors of\nthe wild ox of Europe, and the supposed progenitors of our domestic\ncattle. Other summer resorts are Belford and Doddington, but the whole\ncoast-line, indeed, is dotted with the most desirable holiday-nooks in\nthe county.\n\n  PLATE 8\n\n  VIEW OF WARKWORTH\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 39, 51, 52, 56_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThe Coquet bears the palm for picturesqueness amongst Northumbrian\nvalleys, and is about forty miles in length. From Alwinton, the first\nvillage after crossing the Cheviots, where the Alwine joins the\nCoquet--\"a place of slumber and of dreams remote among the hills\"--to\nWarkworth Castle, the stream carries history and romance in every league\nof its course. Here are such names as Biddlestone, the \"Osbaldistone,\"\nof \"Rob Roy\" (there are other claimants such as Chillingham and\nNaworth); Harbottle, a hamlet of venerable antiquity; Holystone,\nmentioned already in connection with Paulinus; Hepple, with the remnant\nof a strong peel tower of the Ogles; and Rothbury, the capital of Upper\nCoquetdale, a snug township in the midst of an amphitheatre of the\nwild, stony Simonside hills. In the old days it was a reiving centre of\nnotoriety. All this part of Northumberland, indeed, was a constant\nfreebooting arena, neither Scots nor English being content without some\nfray on hand. There is not a village, or a town, or farmhouse even, but\nhas some tale to tell of that uncanny period. Cragside, Lord Armstrong's\npalatial seat, reclaimed, like Abbotsford, from the barren mountain\nside, is within a mile of Rothbury. Then come Brinkburn Priory, \"an\nancient fabric awful in repose,\" founded by William de Bertram, lord of\nMitford, in the reign of Henry I.; Felton, a neat little village, where\nAlexander of Scotland received the homage of the Northumbrian barons;\nand Warkworth, \"proud of the Percy name,\" one of the quaintest and\noldest towns in Northumberland, and teeming with historical and romantic\nassociations. So near the sea, and with some of the rarest river scenery\nin the county close at hand, the place is in high favour as a holiday\nresort. A Saxon settlement, all interest centres around its dismantled\nCastle, believed to have been built by Roger Fitz-Richard, to whom Henry\nII. granted in 1158 the manor of Warkworth. Strengthened from time to\ntime, it became a Percy possession, and was the chief residence of the\nfamily to the middle of the 15th century. At the height of its power it\nmust have been well-nigh impregnable, encircled on three sides by the\nwinding banks and overhanging woods of the Coquet, and on a commanding\neminence above it; and though time and many devastating hands have long\nsince riven its ancient walls, the pile still presents a splendid\nexample of a baronial stronghold, second to few on the Borders.\n\nAmong Northumbrian towns, Alnwick (the county town) ranks next to\nNewcastle. But whilst the rise of the latter and its prosperity and\ncolour have been each affected by the great industrial changes of the\ncentury, Alnwick's development has been very different. Lying peacefully\namidst pastoral hills, by the side of a river unpolluted by modern\ncommerce, this ancient Border town still presents the plain and austere\naspect which it wore when the great stage-coaches passed through on\ntheir way from London to Edinburgh. In Newcastle, despite its numerous\nrelics of antiquity, one's mind is ever dominated by the potent Present,\nwhereas in Alnwick, it is ever under the spell of the dreamy Past. The\nquaint, irregular stone-built houses are touched with the sober hues of\nantiquity, and seem to take their character from the great baronial\nrelic of feudal times. The history of the town is chiefly a record of\n\n    \"Old unhappy far-off things,\n    And battles long ago.\"\n\nIt was founded by the Saxons, who styled it Alainwick, \"the town on the\nclear water.\" Like Carlisle, its history is largely one of attack and\nretaliation. The Scottish Sovereigns were peculiarly unfortunate at\nAlnwick. For here Malcolm Canmore was speared to death in 1093, and\nWilliam the Lion made prisoner in 1174, and inside the castle of to-day\nwith its gilded ceilings, luxurious upholstery, and majestic mantels of\nItalian workmanship and marbles, are still to be seen the dour dungeons\nin which many a Scot died miserably while the Percy and his retainers\nfeasted above. King John burned Alnwick to the ground in 1216, David I.\nbesieged and captured it. Each of the Edwards visited the place. It was\nagain devastated by the Scots in 1427. In 1463, it was held for Edward\nIV., and in 1464 it fell into the hands of Queen Margaret. Royalists and\nRoundheads occupied Alnwick during the wars between Charles and his\nParliament, but after 1700 it settled down to comparative quiet. The\nCastle, of course, dominates the place. There is what William Howitt\ncalls \"an air of solemn feudality\" overhanging the whole town. Streets\nand buildings, and the general tone harmonize well with the prevailing\nconditions. Only one of its four gates survives--the gloomy, old,\nweather-beaten Bondgate, built by the haughty Hotspur about the year\n1450. The Cross dates from the same period. The most interesting and\nvenerable structure is the Church of St. Mary and St. Michael, founded\nabout the beginning of the 14th century, Perpendicular in style, and\nabundant in Percy memorials. But the chief object of interest is the\nCastle with the Castle enclosure (some five acres in extent). The Castle\nitself is the most magnificent specimen of a feudal fortress in England,\na verdict in which all who see it will agree. What an extraordinarily\nfascinating and profoundly impressive place, from the very stones of the\ncourtyard to the defiant-looking warrior figures on the battlements of\nthe barbican, and elsewhere. What an endless succession of towers and\nturrets (some of them with distinctive names, Hotspur and Bloody Gap)\narchways and corridors, walls and embrasures, and all the grim massive\nparaphernalia of the past, apparently as doggedly determined as ever.\nPerhaps, as one writer puts it, only a Percy could live quite at his\nease as master of Alnwick Castle. One cannot imagine the average man\nmaking himself congenially at home here. But the inside comforts are an\noverflowing compensation for a somewhat forbidding exterior. We are told\nthat even the towers at the angles of the encircling walls are museums\nof British and Egyptian antiquities, and game trophies, collected by\nmembers of the family. The fourth Duke has left much to show for the\nquarter of a million he lavished upon the building--exquisite wood\ncarving, frescoes, marbles, and canvases. Mantovani, who restored the\nRaphael frescoes in the Vatican, was not too great a man to be hired by\na Percy to adorn his Border castle. The walls of the grand staircase are\npanelled with beautiful marbles. There are unique paintings: the\ndining-room, a noble apartment, is pompous with Percys in fine frames,\nbewigged, robed and plain; the first Duke and his wife, who helped him\nto a dignity neither his money nor his courtly manners could have won\nfor him, hang suitably in the place of honour above the hearth. Vandyck,\nMoroni, and Andrea del Sarto are worthily represented in the castle.\nGiorgione, who did so well the comparatively little he had time for, is\nhere in his \"Lady with the Lute.\" Raphael, Guido, and Titian are also\nwithin these swarthy outer walls, Titian's landscape contribution being\nspecially notable, like Giovanni Bellini's \"The Gods enjoying the Fruits\nof the Earth.\" One looks from it to the fair Northumberland country\nbeyond the windows and then at the splendour and taste of the castle,\nand fancies, inevitably, that the Percys themselves have in these later\ndays obtained quite their share of the privileges of Bellini's gods.\nNothing that makes for domestic pleasure is lacking at Alnwick Castle.\nThere is a stately library of some 15,000 books, with chairs for\ndreaming and chairs for study; and, not to slight meaner comforts, there\nis a kitchen that is a model of its baronial kind, about fifty yards\ndistant from the dining-hall, with which it communicates by an\nunderground passage. The first English possession acquired by the house\nof Percy north of the Tees was Dalton, afterwards called Dalton-Percy.\nThen came Alnwick, originally owned by the De Vescis, and purchased from\nthem about 1309; Warkworth; Prudhoe-on-Tyne, one of the most picturesque\nof Northumbrian fortresses; Cockermouth; and Keeldar, in the Cheviots.\nAnd what of the Percys who ruled, and still rule, at Alnwick in their\nday of might? Very ancient is the name, numbering among its early\npatriarchs such grand old heroes as Manfred the Dane, and\n\n    \"Brave Galfred, who to Normandy\n      With vent'rous Rollo came;\n    And from his Norman Castles won,\n      Assumed the Percy name.\"\n\nThe pedigree traces the descent of Angus de Perci up to Manfred, and\nthat of Josceline de Louvain up from Gerberga, daughter and heiress of\nCharles, Duke of Lorraine, to Charlemagne, and in the male line to the\nancient Dukes of Hainault. This same Josceline, who was brother-in-law\nto King Henry I., married in 1168, Agnes, the great Percy heiress, and\nassumed the name of his wife:\n\n    \"Lord Percy's heir I was, whose noble name\n    By me survives unto his lasting fame;\n    Brabant's Duke's son I wed, who, for my sake,\n    Retained his arms, and Percy's name did take.\"\n\nTheir youngest son, Richard de Percy, then head of the family, was one\nof the chief barons who extorted Magna Charta from King John, and the\nninth Lord, Henry, gave much aid to Edward I. in the subjugation of\nScotland. It was he who purchased Alnwick. His son--another\nHenry--defeated David II. at Neville's Cross (1346); his grandson fought\nat Crecy; his great-grandson, the fourth Lord Percy of Alnwick, was\nmarshal of England at the coronation of Richard II., and was created the\nsame day Earl of Northumberland. By far the greater part of the romance\nof the Percys has centred round Harry Hotspur (eldest son of the\npreceding), whom the dead Douglas defeated at Otterburn, and who fell\nhimself at Shrewsbury (1403) fighting against Henry IV. The soubriquet\nof Hotspur was given him because \"in the silence of the night, when\nothers were quietly sleeping, he laboured unwearied, as though his spur\nwere hot.\"\n\n  PLATE 9\n\n  VIEW OF ALNWICK\n  CASTLE\n\n  FROM A WATER COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 38, 49, and 53 to 58_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThe first Earl was slain at Bramham Moor (1408). The second Earl fell\nfighting for Henry VI. at St. Albans in 1455. The third at Towton\n(1461), and it was his brother the fourth Earl who comforted himself as\nhe lay bleeding to death on Hedgley Moor (1464) that he had \"saved the\nbird in his bosom.\" The fifth Earl was murdered in 1489. The sixth Earl\nwas the lover of Anne Boleyn, maid of honour to Queen Catherine, and had\nKing Henry VIII. for his rival, who in great wrath commanded Cardinal\nWolsey to break off the engagement between them. The seventh Earl for\nespousing the cause of Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded in 1572. The\neighth Earl in 1585 was found dead in bed with three pistol shots\nthrough his breast, whether by suicide or murder. The ninth Earl was\nimprisoned for fifteen years in the Tower on a baseless suspicion of\nbeing privy to the Gunpowder Plot. The tenth Earl fought on the\nParliamentary side in the Civil War, and with the death of Josceline,\nthe eleventh Earl, in 1670, the male line of the family came to an end.\nThe eleventh Earl's only child--an heiress--married the Duke of\nSomerset, who was created in 1749 Baron Warkworth, and Earl of\nNorthumberland, with remainder (having no male issue) to his son-in-law\nSir Hugh Smithson, of Stanwick, a Yorkshire knight who in his youth had\nbeen an apothecary in Hatton Gardens. Sir Hugh succeeded to the Earldom\nin 1750, and was created in 1766 Earl Percy and Duke of Northumberland.\nThe seventh Duke succeeded in 1899.\n\nFrom Alnwick it is fourteen miles to Bamborough, \"King Ida's castle,\nhuge and square.\" No traveller along the great north road between\nAlnwick and Berwick can fail to be struck with an object so boldly\nprominent as Bamborough. Far and wide it meets the vision, and is the\nmore conspicuous from the flat character of its surroundings and the\nvery open coast. Its base is an almost perpendicular mass of basaltic\nrock overlooking the sea, at a height of 150 feet. Founded in 547, it\nsuffered many a siege, most of all at the hands of the Danes in 933. In\nthe years that followed it was being constantly rebuilt, and as\nconstantly stormed and broken again. As the great bombards left it in\nthe fourth Edward's reign, so it lay dismantled for centuries. In 1720,\nLord Crewe, the philanthropic Bishop of Durham, purchased the Castle and\nbequeathed it for charitable purposes--the reception and care of the\npoor, etc. In 1894 it was acquired by the late Lord Armstrong, at a cost\nof a quarter of a million, and fitted up as a convalescent home. The\ncharming village of Bamborough, nestling within easy distance, has some\ncelebrity as a health resort. The church in which St. Aidan died is one\nof the oldest in the country, and the churchyard contains Grace\nDarling's tomb. The Farne Islands, the scene of her brave exploit, are\neasily visible from the shore. There are seventeen in all, forming three\ndistinct groups, Longstone, the heroine's home, lying farthest out. It\nwas from the lighthouse on this latter island that the noble maiden of\nbarely twenty-two descried the wreck of the _Forfarshire_, the 7th\nSeptember, 1838, and formed her resolve at rescue. \"He that goes out and\nsees the savage and iron nature of the rocks will not avoid wondering at\nthe desperate nature of the attempt,\" crowned by an almost superhuman\ntriumph. On the great Farne, or House Island, his favourite place of\nretirement, St. Cuthbert died in 687. How his followers bore, from\nshrine to shrine, the uncorrupted body of their Bishop is a tradition\nwell-known. \"For the space of seven years,\" says Reginald of Durham,\n\"Saint Cuthbert was carried to and fro on the shoulders of pious men\nthrough trackless and waterless places; when no house afforded him a\nhospitable roof, he remained under covering of tents.\" Further, we are\ntold how the monks first carried their precious burden to the stone\nchurch at Norham; thence towed it up the river to Tillmouth; on to\nMelrose, the Saint's home-sanctuary by the Tweed; thence through the\nLowland glens towards the English Border where, descending the\nhead-waters of the Tyne, they came to Hexham; passing westward to\nCarlisle in Cumberland, and Dufton Fells in Westmoreland, and over into\nLancashire; then once more eastward to the monastery at York; and\nfinally northward again to a last resting place in Durham, when\n\n            \"After many wanderings past,\n    He chose his lordly seat at last\n    Where his Cathedral, huge and vast,\n    Looks down upon the Wear.\"\n\n\n\"MERRIE CARLISLE\"\n\nA glance at the outskirts of Carlisle suggests at once the fact that its\nfounders had considered the strategic value of the site. The old\nBrigantes never planted their towns without due examination of the whole\nlie of the land, and especially with a view to its defencibleness. The\nriver-junctions were often their favourite settling places. Hence the\norigin of Carlisle, and many others of the Border towns--Hawick,\nSelkirk, Kelso, etc. With its three encompassing streams--the Eden, the\nCaldew, and the Petteril, which still enclose the Castle and Cathedral\nhills in a sort of quasi-island, Carlisle has been aptly called \"the\ncity of the waters.\" Its situation certainly is all but perfect, whilst\nthe picturesqueness and the extensiveness of its surrounding scenery are\nthe admiration of all who see it. Built upon a hill which its walls\nonce enclosed but which would now shut out its most populous suburbs,\nCarlisle commands a prospect only limited by the lofty mountain chain\nthat encircles the great basin in which Cumberland lies. From the summit\nof the Cathedral or from the Keep of the Castle, the eye sweeps without\ninterruption a vast prepossessing landscape, rich in wood and water and\nfertile valleys, over which the light and shade are ever gambolling, and\nthe seasons spreading their variegated hues. Southward, across this fair\nexpanse, the majestic Skiddaw rears his noble crest, and Helvellyn his\nwedge-like peak, radiant with the first and last rays of the sun.\nSaddleback, and the lesser hills, link the apparently unbroken chain\nwith Crossfell and the eastern range; while further to the left the\nNorthumberland fells bound the horizon. Then come the uplands by\nBewcastle and the Border and the pastoral Cheviots. Away round to the\nwest, the magnificent belt is terminated by \"huge Criffel's hoary top\"\nstanding in solemn grandeur above the Solway.\n\n  PLATE 10\n\n  VIEW OF PRUDHOE-ON-TYNE\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 39 and 56_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThere are few fairer or wider panoramas in Britain, and none more\npermeated with the very spirit of romance. What Lockhart said of\nSandyknowe is equally true of this singularly fascinating view-point. To\nwhichever hand we turn we may be sure there is \"not a field but has its\nbattle, and not a rivulet without its song.\"\n\nUnlike Melrose, which may claim to be the literary capital of the Border\nCountry, Carlisle is the fighting capital. Its most stirring memories\nare of raiders and rescues, and its very air is\n\n            \"full of ballad notes\n    Borne out of long ago.\"\n\nDespite its Cathedral, Carlisle is really more Scottish than English. A\ntown which proclaimed the Pretender must be Scottish enough. No other\nEnglish town fills so large a place in Scottish history. And even its\npresent manners and customs, and no little part of its dialect, are\ncoloured with Scottish sentiment and tradition. For which it cannot be a\nwhit the worse! Walk about Carlisle, and one is charmed with the\nexquisite pleasantness of the place, the sense of comfort and prosperity\nthat reigns in its streets and suburbs, the steady flow of traffic\nrunning through it, and the welcome geniality of its inhabitants. What a\ndelightful spot is Stanwix yonder, for instance! And the banks of the\nEden have something of those \"Eden scenes\" about them which Burns\nclaimed for the Jed. That Bridge is not unlike Rennie's at Kelso. The\npublic buildings are worth a more minute examination than the passing\nstranger usually gives. An atmosphere of delicious semi-antiquity is the\ncrowning feature of \"Merrie Carlisle,\" and one feels instinctively that\nunder the inevitable modernity of the place there is an older story\nwritten on its stones--\n\n    \"Old legends, of the monkish page,\n    Traditions of the saint and sage,\n    Tales that have the rime of age,\n    And chronicles of eld.\"\n\nIt is so old a town that one cannot be certain of its origin. The name\nis apparently British, derived probably from _Caer Lywelydd_, or simply\nCaer Lywel, \"the town or fort of Lywel,\" but whether this was a tribal,\nor local, or personal name it would be hazardous to say. By the Romans\nit was known as _Luguvallium_ or _Luguballia_, possibly \"the town or\nfort by the Wall.\" This the Saxons abbreviated and altered to _Luel_,\nthe original name, with the prefix _Caer_, hence Caer-Luel, Caerleil,\nCarleol, Karluil, Karliol, Carliol, Carlile, and Carlisle.\n\n\"No English city,\" says Bishop Creighton, \"has a more distinctive\ncharacter than Carlisle, and none can claim to have borne its character\nso continuously through the course of English history. Carlisle is still\nknown as 'the Border city,' and though the term 'the Border' has no\nlonger any historical significance, it still denotes a district which\nhas strongly marked peculiarities and retains a vigorous provincial\nlife. There was a time when the western Border was equally important\nwith the Border on the north, when the fortress on the Dee had to be\nstoutly held against the foe, and when the town which rose among the\nscrub by the upper Severn was a place of conflict between contending\nraces. But this struggle was not of long duration, and Chester and\nShrewsbury ceased to be distinctly Border towns. On the north, however,\nthe contest continued to be stubbornly waged, till it raised up a\npopulation inured to warfare, who carried the habits of a predatory life\ninto a time when they were mere survivals of a well-nigh forgotten past.\nOf this period of conflict Carlisle is the monument, and of this lawless\nlife it was long the capital. Berwick-upon-Tweed alone could venture to\nshare its glory or dispute its supremacy; but Berwick was scarcely a\ntown; it was rather a military outpost, changing hands from time to time\nbetween the combatants; it was neither Scottish nor English, more than a\ncastle, but less than a town, an accidental growth of circumstances,\nscarcely to be classed as an element of popular life. Carlisle, on the\nother hand, traces its origin to times of venerable antiquity, and can\nclaim through all its changes to have carried on in unbroken succession\nthe traditions of an historic life. It was the necessary centre of a\nlarge tract of country, and whether its inhabitants were British or\nEnglish its importance remained the same. It was not merely a military\nposition, but a place of habitation, the habitation of a people who had\nto trust much to themselves, and who amidst all vicissitudes retained a\nsturdy spirit of independence. This is the distinguishing feature of\nCarlisle; it is 'the Border city.' But though this is its leading\ncharacteristic which runs through all its history, it has two other\nmarks of distinction, when compared with other English towns. It is the\nonly town on British soil which bears a purely British name; and it is\nthe only town which has been added to England since the Norman\nConquest.\"\n\n  PLATE 11\n\n  VIEW OF CARLISLE\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 44, and 60 to 70_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\nBriefly, the headlines of Carlisle's history are these. Founded\noriginally by the Britons, it was held by the Romans for close on four\ncenturies. Many Roman remains (coins, medals, altars, etc.) have been\nunearthed, and Hadrian's big Wall (murus and vallum) is still traceable\nin several quarters. A sad spoliation by Pict and Scot followed the\nRoman withdrawal. They scarcely left one stone on another. Then came the\nSaxon supremacy under the good King Egfrith, with the spiritual\noversight under Saint Cuthbert, to whom and his successors at\nLindisfarne were bestowed in perpetuity the city with fifteen miles\naround it. But for Egfrith's death fighting the Picts on the far-off\nmoorland of Nechtansmere (Dunnichen in Forfarshire) Carlisle might have\nrisen early and rapidly to a sure place as one of the leading cities in\nthe land. From 685, however, to the Conquest (1066) the place was\nvirtually extinct. It was only then that a new epoch arose for the\nbroken city as for the whole of England. The Conqueror himself is said\nto have commenced the rebuilding of Carlisle, but the town owes its\nrestoration rather to his son William the Red, who, on his return from\nAlnwick, after concluding a peace treaty with the King of Scotland in\n1092, \"observed the pleasantness of its situation, and resolved to raise\nit from its ruins.\" The Castle, the Priory, the once massive city walls,\nwere all the work of the Rufus regime, completed by Henry I., who gave\ncathedral dignity to the church at Carlisle. David I., the \"Sair Sanct,\"\nraided Carlisle in 1136, and kept court for a time within its walls,\nwhich he heightened. It was at Carlisle that his death took place in\n1153. From that date to the 'Forty-five, Carlisle's history is mainly\nthat of a kind of \"buffer-state\" between the two kingdoms. Few cities\nrecall so many martial memories. It was Edward's base of operations in\nhis Scottish wars. It was besieged by Wallace in 1298, by Bruce in\n1315--the year after Bannockburn, and again in 1322. Queen Mary's\ncaptivity at Carlisle in 1568; Buccleuch's daring and gallant rescue of\nKinmont Willie in 1596, immortalised in the best of the Border ballads;\nthe protracted siege by General Leslie in 1644 during the Parliamentary\nWar; and the Pretender's short-lived triumph--these are the rest of its\nleading events.\n\nOf the historic Carlisle little is left, the Castle, the Cathedral, and\nthe Guildhall being almost the sole relics of a long and notable past.\nYet how vastly changed the place is from the quiet little Border town of\na century ago even! Then it had barely ten thousand inhabitants, now\nthere are over forty thousand. As the county town of Cumberland, and\nnext to Newcastle the greatest railway centre in the north of England,\nits prosperity has grown by leaps and bounds. It is the terminus of no\nfewer than eight different lines, and its busy, never-at-rest Citadel\nStation is known all the world over. Gates and walls have long since\nvanished from \"Merrie Carlisle.\" The streets are wide and airy, and\naltogether it presents a most comfortable and thriving appearance. At\n40, English Street, the chief thoroughfare, Prince Charlie slept for\nfour nights during the '45. And from 79 to 83, Castle Street, the corner\nbuilding (now a solicitor's office), between Castle Street and the\nGreen-market, Scott led Miss Carpenter to the altar. Carlisle Castle, a\nhuge, irregular reddish-brown stone structure, grim and defiant, with\nits almost perfect specimen of a Norman Keep, and battlements frowning\ntowards the north, is still a place to see.\n\nBut it is the Cathedral which is Carlisle's chief glory. Rising in the\ncentre of the city, high above all other buildings except the factory\nchimneys, there is an air of importance about it not altogether\njustifiable. The building is small and not of very great account, the\nreason being that Carlisle was only erected into a See in 1133, and then\nout of Durham. The result was that the parish church was promoted to the\ndignity of a cathedral. Nevertheless, it has several striking\nfeatures--a delightful Early English choir and magnificent east window,\nreputed to be unsurpassed by any other in the kingdom, if indeed in the\nworld. From 1092, the date of the original building, to 1400-19, in\nBishop Strickland's time, when the north transept was restored and the\ncentral tower rebuilt, and down to the present day, the edifice contains\nevery variety of style, from Norman to Perpendicular, with admirable\nspecimens of nineteenth century work. Of the original Norman minster the\nonly parts remaining are two bays of the nave, the south transept, and\nthe piers of the tower. How long the church remained in its pristine\nstate it is impossible to say. The first alteration was probably the\nenlargement of the choir, towards the middle and close of the thirteenth\ncentury, immediately before the great fire of 1292, the worst the\ncathedral has experienced in its four burnings. The work of\nreconstruction after 1292 appears to have been somewhat slow, so slow\nthat little was done till the year 1352, when Bishop Welton and his\nsuccessor set themselves in earnest to the task. \"The king, the city\ntreasury, and the leading families of the neighbourhood contributed\ntowards the restoration, in response to the urgent appeals of the\nbishops and to the indulgences issued for the remission of forty days'\npenance to such laity as should by money, materials, or labour,\ncontribute to the pious work.\" Towards the close of the reign of Edward\nIII. the renovated pile rose from it ruins. To this period belongs the\nentire east end, with its grand window, the triforium, the carved\ncapitals of the arches, and the Decorated windows of the clerestory.\nThe ceiling was painted and gilded and panelled, the intersections\nglowing with the armorial bearings of the rich donors by whose\nliberality the work had been carried to completion. The windows were\nfilled with stained glass, and the nine lights of the east window with\nfigures.\n\n  PLATE 12\n\n  VIEW OF NAWORTH\n\n  CASTLE\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 39 and 74_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\nIn this state the cathedral appears to have remained till 1392, when\nanother fire occurred, which destroyed the north transept. A lack of\nfunds was again felt, and it was not till the lapse of nine or ten years\nthat the restoration was completed. Only about a century later, however,\nCarlisle shared the fate of the monastic institutions, and was\nsuppressed, and the church shorn of many of its enrichments. The Civil\nWars witnessed the worst acts of spoliation, when nearly the whole of\nthe nave, the chapter-house and cloisters were destroyed, the materials\nbeing used for guard-house purposes in the city. The reign of the\n\"Puritan patchwork\" may then be said to have begun, with plaster\npartitions here and there in horrifying evidence, the niches emptied of\ntheir treasures, and the fine old stained glass removed from the\nwindows--and all, as was declared, in the spirit of \"repairing and\nbeautifying.\" \"A great, wild country church,\" is its description about\nthis time, \"and as it appeared outwardly, so it was inwardly, ne'er\nbeautify'd, nor adorn'd one whit.\" Not till 1853-57 was a general\nrestoration, costing L15,000, inaugurated. Both internally and\nexternally the edifice underwent a total renovation. Old and crumbled\nportions were pulled down and rebuilt; other parts were fronted anew;\nmissing ornaments were supplied; ugly doorways were blocked up, and\none grand entrance made befitting the church. The renaissance was\ncomplete as it was judicious. There was just sufficient of the old left\nto show the original structure, and sufficient of the new imparted to\nsave the venerable fane from crumbling to pieces. Externally, the east\nis certainly the finest part of the building, with its unrivalled\nwindow--58 feet high and 32-1/2 feet wide, of nine lights, gracefully\nproportioned, the head filled with the most exquisite tracery-work,\ncomprising no fewer than 263 circles. A uniquely ornamented gable, with\na row of crosses on either shoulder, and a large cross at the apex,\ncompletes a highly finished centre. On either side stands out, in\nmassive relief, a majestic buttress, containing full length statues of\nSt. Peter, St. Paul, St James, and St. John, above which are light and\nelegant pinnacles. These great buttresses are flanked by the lesser ones\nof the aisles, tapering upwards with chastely carved spires--the whole\nforming an eastern front of great beauty and richness. The main entrance\nby a new doorway in the south transept is a triumph of the sculptor's\nskill. The great tower, 112 feet high, has been thoroughly renovated,\nand much of its former ornamentation restored. Of the interior, the nave\nis in length 39 feet, and in width about 60 feet. The Scots are said to\nhave destroyed 100 feet of it in 1645, but that is quite uncertain. It\nhas never been rebuilt, and has a serious effect on the general\nproportions, inducing a feeling of want of balance. Up to 1870 the nave\nwas used as the parish church of St. Mary, and it was here--close by the\ngreat Norman columns--that Sir Walter Scott was married to Charlotte\nCarpenter, on December 24th, 1797. The spot might well be indicated by a\nsmall memorial brass. The richly-decorated choir, in no respect inferior\nto that of any other English cathedral, is 134 feet long, 71 feet broad,\nand 75 feet high. The warm red of the sandstone, the blue roof powdered\nwith golden stars, the great east window filled with stained glass, and\nthe dark oak of the stalls, make up a picture that enforces attention\nbefore the architectural details can receive their due admiration.\n\nThe Cathedral contains several interesting monuments. Here is the tomb\nof Archdeacon Paley (1805), author of the \"Evidences of Christianity\"\nand \"Horae Paulinae,\" both written at Carlisle, and the richly-carved\npulpit inscribed to his memory. There are tablets to Robert Anderson\n(1833), the \"Cumberland Bard;\" to John Heysham, M.D. (1834), the\nstatistician, and compiler of the \"Carlisle Tables of Mortality;\" George\nMoore (1876), the philanthropist; M. L. Watson (1847), the sculptor;\nDean Cranmer (1848), Canon Harcourt (1870), and Dean Close (1882).\nSeveral military monuments are in evidence. One of the windows\ncommemorates the five children of Archbishop Tait (then Dean), who died\nbetween March 6th and April 9th, 1856. Recumbent figures of Bishop\nWaldegrave (1869), Bishop Harvey Goodwin (1891) and Dean Close are by\nActon Adams, Hamo Thorneycroft, R.A., and H. H. Armistead, R.A.,\nrespectively. The older altar-tombs and brasses to Bishop Bell, Bishop\nEverdon, and Prior Stenhouse, should not be overlooked, and attention\nmay be drawn also to the quaint series of fifth-century paintings from\nthe monkish legends of St. Augustine, St. Anthony, and St. Cuthbert, and\nto the misereres of the stalls.\n\nScarcely less interesting than Carlisle itself is the immediate\nneighbourhood of the Border city. And with what sterling picturesqueness\ndoes it appeal to us! One does not wonder that Turner and others found\nsome of their masterpieces here. A wondrously historic countryside, too,\nis all this pleasantly-rolling tableland, mile upon mile to the\nLiddesdale and Eskdale heights with the Langholm Monument fairly visible\nas a rule, and sometimes even the famous Repentance Tower opposite\nHoddom Kirk. Within twenty miles or so of Carlisle, up through the old\nWaste and Debateable Lands, or over into the romantic Vale of the\nIrthing, the dividing-point betwixt Cumberland and Northumberland, the\ndistrict is full of the most fascinating material for the geographer and\nthe historian. It is impossible to do more than mention a few of its\nmemory-moving names. At Burghby-Sands, Edward I., \"the Hammer of the\nScots,\" having offered up his litter before the high altar at Carlisle,\nvowing to reduce Scotland to the condition of a mere English province,\nwas forced to succumb to a grimmer adversary than lay anywhere beyond\nthe Solway. Bowness-by-the-Sea was the western terminus of the Roman\nWall. Arthuret has its name from the \"Flower of Kings,\" one of whose\ntwelve battles is said to have been fought there. Archie Armstrong,\njester to King James VI., lies buried in its churchyard. At Longtown, on\nthe Esk, the Jacobite troops forded the river \"shouther to shouther,\" as\nLady Nairne's lyric has it, dancing reels on the bank till they had\ndried themselves. Netherby, the _locale_ of \"Young Lochinvar,\" Lady\nHeron's song in \"Marmion,\" is in the near neighbourhood. So are\nGilnockie or the Hollows, Johnie Armstrong's home, and Gretna Green,\nthat once so popular but now defunct shrine of Venus. All this once\nbleak and barren bog-land is under generous cultivation now to a large\nextent, stretching from the Sark to the Esk, and eastward to Canonbie\nLea; it was the treacherously Debateable, or No Man's Land of\nmoss-trooping times, the most troubled and unsafe period of Border\nhistory. Solway Moss, some seven miles in circumference, is not likely\nto be forgotten--by Scotsmen, at any rate. It was the disastrous Rout of\nthe Solway which hastened James V.'s death from a broken heart.\n\n  PLATE 13\n\n  VIEW OF LANERCOST\n  PRIORY\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 36 and 74_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThe Irthing valley is replete with historical remains and literary\nassociations. Over there, to the north of Bewcastle (Beuth's Castle),\nthere is a celebrated Runic Cross nearly fifteen feet high, of the\nCaedmon order, similar to that at Ruthwell. The Irthing flows through\nthe wide moorish wilderness known as Spade-Adam, or the Waste, crosses\nthe Roman Wall at Gilsland, thence courses amongst some of the richest\nscenery in Cumberland until it meets the Eden. Gilsland Spa has long\nbeen noted for the excellence of its waters and the remarkable salubrity\nof the district. Scott stayed at the old Shaw's Hotel in July, 1797, not\nthe present palatial Convalescent Home (as it now is) which was rebuilt\nafter a fire about fifty years since. Charlotte Carpenter was a guest at\nWardrew House, directly opposite. They met often, and the result was\nlove and marriage. On a huge boulder by the banks of the Irthing, where\nthe glen comes to its steepest and wears its most enchanting aspect,\nScott is said to have \"popped the question,\" and the \"Kissing Bush\"\nwhere the compact was sealed is also pointed out close by. At Gilsland\nit is interesting to recall that one is to some extent in \"Guy Mannering\nLand.\" A small private dwelling adjoining the Methodist Chapel claims to\nstand on the site of the notorious Mumps Ha', \"a hedge ale-house, where\nthe Border farmers of either country often stopped to refresh themselves\nand their nags on their way to and from the fairs and trysts in\nCumberland.\" It was there that young Harry Bertram first met Dandie\nDinmont and the weird figure of Meg Merrilies, who, by the way, was not\nburied at Upper Denton, as the guide-books say. It was the treacherous\nlandlady, Meg Mumps or Margaret Carrick, who is there interred. The more\nimportant Meg--the real heroine of the story--was drowned in the Eden at\nCarlisle. Gilsland is a centre for some delightful excursions. Much of\nthe Roman Wall may be visited from this centre, its two chief stations\nBorcovicus (Housesteads) and Burdoswald being within easy distances. The\nlittle Northumberland lakes, and the prettiest of them all, Crag Loch,\nthe Nine Nicks of Thirlwall, seen from the Shaws with fine effect,\nThirlwall and Blenkinsop Castles, Haltwhistle Church, all to the east,\nare objects of deep and abiding interest. Westward are Burdoswald--the\nRoman Amboglanna--covering an area of 5-1/2 acres, and overlooking a\nsingularly graceful bend of the Irthing (not unlike that on the Tweed at\nBemersyde); Lanercost Priory[A], founded by Robert de Vaux about 1166,\nfrequently plundered by the Scots, and used now partly as the parish\nchurch and burial-place of the Carlisle family; Naworth,[B] the historic\nseat of the Earl of Carlisle, whose ancestor, Lord William Howard, was\nthe famous \"Belted Will\" of Border story, who died in 1640:--\n\n    \"His Bilboa blade, by marchmen felt,\n    Hung in a broad and studded belt;\n    Hence, in rude phrase, the Borderers still\n    Call noble Howard, 'Belted Will,'\"--\n\nand Triermain Castle, all but vanished, whence Scott's \"Bridal of\nTriermain\"--\n\n    \"Where is the Maiden of mortal strain,\n    That may match with the Baron of Triermain?\n    She must be lovely, and constant and kind,\n    Holy and pure, and humble of mind,\n    Blithe of cheer, and gentle of mood,\n    Courteous, and generous, and noble of blood--\n    Lovely as the sun's first ray,\n    When it breaks the clouds of an April day,\n    Constant and true as the widow'd dove,\n    Kind as a minstrel that sings of love.\"\n\n[A] Lanercost is a fine example of Early English. The church consists of\na nave with north aisle, a transept with aisles on the east side used as\nmonumental chapels and choir, a chancel, and a low square tower. The\nnave is used as the Parish Church. The crypt contains several Roman\naltars from Burdoswald, etc. Some of the inscriptions are of great\ninterest.\n\n[B] Naworth is said to be one of the oldest and best specimens existing\nof a baronial residence. It is associated largely with the turbulent\ntimes of Border warfare. \"Belted Will,\" a terror to all marauders, is\nits best-known name, \"a singular lover of venerable antiquities, and\nlearned withal,\" as Camden describes him. The British Museum contains\nsome of his letters, and his library is still preserved at Naworth.\n\"Belted Will's\" Tower, to the north-east of the Castle, is the most\nnotable feature at Naworth.\n\n\n\n\nIII. THE TWEED AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS.\n\n\n\"Both are good, the streams of north and south, but he who has given his\nheart to the Tweed as did Tyro in Homer to the Enipeus, will never\nchange his love.\" So does Mr. Andrew Lang remind us of his affection for\nTweedside and the Border. Elsewhere he speaks of Tweed shrining the\nmusic of his cradle song, and the requiem he would most prefer--may that\nday be long in coming!\n\n            \"No other hymn\n    I'd choose, nor gentler requiem dear\n    Than Tweed's, that through death's twilight dim,\n    Mourned in the latest Minstrel's ear.\"\n\nLockhart's description of Sir Walter's death-scene, so touching in its\nvery simplicity, has never been matched in literary biography. From the\nfirst years of his life, Scott was wedded to the Tweed. It was his\nancestral stream. And it stood for all that was best and fairest in\nBorder story. It was by the Tweed that he won his greatest triumphs, and\nfaced his greatest defeats, where he spent the happiest as well as the\nmost strenuous period of his career. So that, to breathe his last breath\nby its pleasant banks--a desire oft repeated--was as natural as it was\nkeen and eager. We know how at length he was borne back to Abbotsford,\nthe house of his dreams, and how on one of those ideal days during the\nearly autumn that crowning wish was realised; \"It was a beautiful day,\nso warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly still that the\nsound of all others most delicious to his ear--the gentle ripple of the\nTweed over its pebbles--was distinctly audible as we knelt around the\nbed and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes.\"\n\nOf course, it is owing, in great measure, to Scott that the Tweed has so\nexalted a place in literature. To speak of the Tweed at once recalls\nScott and all that the Tweed meant to him. Both in a sense are names\ninseparable and synonymous. It is almost entirely for Scott's sake that\nTweedside has become one of the world-Meccas. What Scott did for the\nTweed--the Border--renders it (to speak reverently) holy ground for\never. Hence the affection with which the world looks on Scott--as a\npatriot,--as one who has helped to create his country, and as a great\nliterary magnet attracting thousands to it, and as the medium of some of\nthe most pleasurable of mental experiences. Of the great names on\nScotland's roll of honour, Scott, even more than all of them (even more\nthan Burns), has wedded his country to the very best of humankind\neverywhere. But do not let us forget that Tweed had its lovers many\nbefore Scott's day. Burns's pilgrimage to the Border was a picturesque\nepisode in his poetic history. \"Yarrow and Tweed to monie a tune owre\nScotland rings,\" he wrote, and other lines represent a warm admiration\nfor the district. Tweed was a \"wimpling stately\" stream, and there were\n\"Eden scenes on crystal Jed\" scarcely less fascinating. James Thomson,\nthe poet of the \"Seasons,\" a Tweedsider, though the fact is often\nforgotten, pays grateful homage to the Tweed as the \"pure parent-stream,\nwhose pastoral banks first heard my Doric reed.\" Allan Ramsay and Robert\nCrawford, West-country men both, came early under the spell of the\nfair river. Crawford's lines are painted with the usual exaggeration of\nthe period:\n\n    \"What beauties does Flora disclose!\n      How sweet are her smiles upon Tweed!\n    Yet Mary's, still sweeter than those,\n      Both nature and fancy exceed.\n    No daisy, nor sweet blushing rose,\n      Not all the gay flowers of the field,\n    Not Tweed, gliding gently through those,\n      Such beauty and pleasure does yield.\"\n\nHamilton of Bangour, best known for his \"Braes of Yarrow,\" has an autumn\nand winter description of Tweedside which naturally suggests the like\npicture by Scott in the Introduction to Canto I. of \"Marmion,\" and it is\nmore than probable that Sir Walter had this in his mind when penning his\nown more perfect lines.\n\n  PLATE 14\n\n  VIEW OF BEWCASTLE\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 44, 67, 72_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\nRobert Fergusson--Burns's \"elder brother in the Muses,\" had his\nimagination fired by the memories of the Border, and was one of the\nfirst to celebrate that land over which lies the light of so much poetic\nfancy:\n\n    \"The Arno and the Tiber lang\n    Hae run full clear in Roman sang;\n    But, save the reverence o' schools!\n    They're baith but lifeless dowy pools,\n    Dought they compare wi' bonny Tweed,\n    As clear as ony lammer-bead?\"\n\nWordsworth, too, sang of the \"gentle Tweed, and the green silent\npastures,\" though his winsome Three Yarrows is the tie that most endears\nhim to the Lowland hearts. Since Scott's day the voices in praise of\nTweed have been legion. \"Who, with a heart and a soul tolerably at ease\nwithin him, could fail to be happy, hearing as we do now the voice of\nthe Tweed, singing his pensive twilight song to the few faint stars that\nhave become visible in heaven?\" says John Wilson in his rollicking\n\"Streams\" essay (no \"crusty Christopher\" there, at any rate). Thomas Tod\nStoddart, king of angling rhymers,\n\n            \"Angled far and angled wide,\n    On Fannich drear, by Luichart's side;\n    Across dark Conan's current,\"\n\nand all over Scotland, but found not another stream to match with the\nTweed:\n\n            \"Dearer than all these to me\n    Is sylvan Tweed; each tower and tree\n      That in its vale rejoices;\n    Dearer the streamlets one and all\n    That blend with its Eolian brawl\n      Their own enamouring voices!\"\n\nRemember, too, Dr. John Brown's exquisite Tweed's Well meditation, a\nprose sermon to ponder over any Sabbath, and Ruskin's homely reverie--\"I\ncan never hear the whispering and sighing of the Tweed among his\npebbles, but it brings back to me the song of my nurse as we used to\ncross by Coldstream Bridge, from the south, in our happy days--\n\n    \"For Scotland, my darling, lies full in my view,\n    With her barefooted lasses, and mountains so blue.\"\n\nOne thinks also of George Borrow's fascination for the Scottish Border,\nwhen he asks (\"Lavengro\") \"Which of the world's streams can Tweed envy,\nwith its beauty and renown?\" and of Thomas Aird's pathetic\nretrospect--\"the ever-dear Tweed, whose waters flow continually through\nmy heart, and make me often greet in my lonely evenings.\" Nor do we\nforget John Veitch, that truest Tweedsman of his time, always musing on\nthe Tweed, never at home but beside it, and of whose Romance and History\nthere has been no abler exponent.\n\nOf the name Tweed itself, the meaning and origin are uncertain, and it\nis hopeless to dogmatize on the subject except to say that there is an\napparent connection with the Cymric Tay, Taff, Teith, and Teviot--more\nproperly \"Teiott,\" the common pronunciation above Hawick. Mr. Johnston\n(\"Place-Names of Scotland\") traces it to the Celtic _twyad_--\"a hemming\nin\"--from \"_twy_ to check or bind,\" which is a not unlikely derivation.\nAs to the source of the Tweed there is the curious paradox that what\npasses for its source is not the real _fons et origo_ of the stream.\nPoetically, the Tweed is said to take its rise in the tiny Tweed's Well\namong the Southern Highlands, 1250 feet above sea level, and close to\nwhere the marches of Peeblesshire, Lanarkshire, and Dumfriesshire meet.\nBut strictly speaking, the correct source is the Cor or Corse Burn, a\nlittle higher up, which, dancing its way to the glen beneath, receives\nthe outflow of the Well as a sort of first tributary. For purposes of\nromance, however, Tweed's Well will always be reckoned as the source, as\nindeed it must have been so regarded ages ago. The likelihood is that\nTweed's Well was one of the ancient holy wells common to many parts of\nScotland. And since tradition speaks of a Mungo's Well somewhere in\nthese solitudes, the probability is that we have it here in the heart of\nthese silent lonely hills. There is the tradition of a cross, too, at or\nnear Tweed's Well, borne out in the place-name Corse, which, we know,\nis good Scots for Cross. That such a symbol of the ancient faith stood\nhere long since \"to remind travellers of their Redeemer and to guide\nthem withal across these desolate moors,\" is more than a mere\npicturesque legend. It is a prolific watershed this from which Tweed\nstarts its seaward race. South and west, Annan and Clyde bend their way\nto the Solway and the Atlantic, as the quaint quatrain has it:\n\n    \"Annan, Tweed, and Clyde\n    Rise a' oot o' ae hillside,\n    Tweed ran, Annan wan,\n    Clyde brak his neck owre Corra Linn.\"\n\nTweed turns its face to the north, and running for the most part, as old\nPennecuik puts it, \"with a soft yet trotting stream,\" it pursues a\ncourse of slightly over a hundred miles, and drains a basin of no less\nthan 1870 square miles, a larger area than any other Scottish river\nexcept the Tay.\n\n  PLATE 15\n\n  VIEW OF MELROSE\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 23, 35, 39, 60, 61, 89, 90, 91, 123_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\nTweed's Well lies in the bosom of solemn, bare hills. There is nothing\nattractive about the spot. Grey moorlands, riddled with innumerable inky\npeat-bogs, the whaups crying as Stevenson heard them in his dreams, and\nthe bleat of an occasional sheep are the chief characteristics. There is\nlittle heather, and the hills are hardly so shapely as their neighbours\nfurther down the valley. A first glance is disappointing, but the\nmemories of the place are compensation enough. For what a stirring place\nit must have been in the early centuries! Here, as tradition asserts,\nthe pagan bard Merlin was converted to Christianity through the\npreaching of the Glasgow Saint Mungo. Here Michael Scot, the \"wondrous\nwizard,\" pursued his mysteries. And even the Flower of Kings himself\nwandered amongst those wilds, \"of fresh aventours dreaming.\" One of his\ntwelve battles is claimed for the locality. More historic, perhaps, is\nthe picture of the good Sir James of Douglas (red-handed from dirking\nthe Comyn) plighting his troth to the Bruce at Ericstane Brae, close to\nTweed's Well, which latter spot, by the way, Dr. John Brown\ncharacteristically describes in one of his shorter \"Horae\" papers.\nReaders of the \"Enterkin\" also will remember his reference to the\nmail-coach tragedy of 1831, when MacGeorge and his companion,\nGoodfellow, perished in the snow in a heroic attempt to get the bags\nthrough to Tweedshaws. At Tweedsmuir, (the name of the parish--disjoined\nfrom Drumelzier in 1643)--eight miles down, the valley opens somewhat,\nand vegetation properly begins. Of Tweedsmuir Kirk--on the peninsula\nbetween Tweed and Talla--Lord Cockburn said that it had the prettiest\nsituation in Scotland. John Hunter, a Covenant martyr, sleeps in its\nbonnie green kirk-knowe--the only Covenant grave in the Border Counties\noutside Dumfries and Galloway. Talla Linns recalls the conventicle\nmentioned in the \"Heart of Midlothian,\" at which Scott makes Davie Deans\na silent but much-impressed spectator. In the wild Gameshope Glen, close\nby, Donald Cargill and James Renwick, and others lay oft in hiding. \"It\nwill be a bloody night this in Gemsop,\" are the opening words of Hogg's\nfine Covenant tale, the \"Brownie of Bodsbeck.\" The Talla Valley contains\nthe picturesque new lake whence Edinburgh draws its augmented water\nsupply. Young Hay of Talla was one of Bothwell's \"Lambs,\" and suffered\ndeath for the Darnley murder. At the Beild--regaining the Tweed--Dr.\nJohn Ker, one of the foremost pulpiteers of his generation, was born in\n1819. Oliver Castle was the home of the Frasers, Lords of Tweeddale\nbefore they were Lords of Lovat. The Crook Inn was a noted \"howff\" in\nthe angling excursions of Christopher North and the Ettrick Shepherd.\nMr. Lang thinks that possibly the name suggested the \"Cleikum Inn\" of\n\"St. Ronan's Well.\" At the Crook, William Black ends his \"Adventures of\na Phaeton\" with the climax of all good novels, an avowal of love and a\nhappy engagement. Polmood, near by, was the scene of Hogg's lugubrious\n\"Bridal of Polmood,\" seldom read now, one imagines. Kingledoors in two\nof its place-names preserves the memory of Cuthbert and Cristin, the\nSaint and his hermit-disciple. Stanhope was a staunch Jacobite holding,\none of its lairds being the infamous Murray of Broughton, Prince\nCharlie's secretary, the Judas of the cause. Murray, by the way, was\ndiscovered in hiding after Culloden at Polmood, the abode of his\nbrother-in-law, Michael Hunter. Linkumdoddie has been immortalized in\nBurns's versicles beginning, \"Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed\"--a study in\nidiomatic untranslateable Scots. Here is the picture of Willie's wife--a\nphilological puzzle.\n\n    \"She's bow-hough'd, she's hein-shinn'd,\n    Ae limpin leg a hand-breed shorter;\n    She's twisted right, she's twisted left,\n    To balance fair in ilka quarter;\n    She has a hump upon her breast,\n    The twin o' that upon her shouther;\n    Sic a wife as Willie had,\n    I wadna gie a button for her.\n\n    \"Auld bandrons by the ingle sits,\n    An' wi' her loof her face a-washin';\n    But Willie's wife is nae sae trig\n    She dights her grunzie wi' a hushion;\n    Her walie nieves like midden-creels,\n    Her face wad 'fyle the Logan Water;\n    Sic a wife as Willie had,\n    I wadna gie a button for her.\"\n\nAt Drumelzier Castle the turbulent, tyrannical Tweedies reigned in their\nday of might. Of their ghostly origin, the Introduction to the\n\"Betrothed\" supplies the key. They were constantly at feud with their\nneighbours, specially the Veitches, and were in the Rizzio murder. See\ntheir history (a work of genuine local interest) written quite recently\nby Michael Forbes Tweedie, a London scion of the clan. In the same\nneighbourhood, the fragment of Tinnis Castle (there is a Tinnis on\nYarrow, too,) juts out from its bold bluff, not unlike a robber's eyrie\non the Rhine. Curiously, this is a reputed Ossian scene (see the poem,\n\"Calthon and Colmal.\") The \"blue Teutha,\" is the Tweed--\"Dunthalmo's\ntown,\" Drumelzier. Merlin's Grave, near Drumelzier Kirk, should not be\nforgotten. Bower's \"Scotichronicon\" narrates the circumstances of his\ndeath: \"On the same day which he foretold he met his death; for certain\nshepherds of a chief of a country called Meldred set upon him with\nstones and staves, and, stumbling in his agony, he fell from a high bank\nof the Tweed, near the town of Drumelzier (the ridge of Meldred), upon a\nsharp stake that the fishers had placed in the waters, and which pierced\nhis body through. He was buried near the spot where he expired.\"\n\n    \"Ah! well he loved the Powsail Burn (_i.e._, the burn of the willows)\n    Ah! well he loved the Powsail glen;\n    And there, beside his fountain clear,\n    He soothed the frenzy of his brain.\n\n    Ah! Merlin, restless was thy life,\n    As the bold stream whose circles sweep\n    Mid rocky boulders to its close\n    By thy lone grave, in calm so deep.\n\n    For no one ever loved the Tweed\n    Who was not loved by it in turn;\n    It smiled in gentle Merlin's face,\n    It soughs in sorrow round his bourn.\"\n\nA prophecy of Thomas the Rhymer--\n\n    \"When Tweed and Powsail meet at Merlin's Grave,\n    England and Scotland shall one monarch have,\"\n\nis affirmed to have been literally fulfilled on the coronation day of\nJames VI. and I. Passing on, we reach the resplendent Dawyck Woods. Here\nare some of the finest larches in the kingdom, the first to be planted\nin Britain, having that honour done them by the great Linnaeus himself,\nit is said. Stobo--semi-Norman and Saxon--was the _plebania_ or\nmother-kirk of half the county. Here lies all that is mortal of Robert\nHogg, a talented nephew of James Hogg. He was the friend and amanuensis\nof both Scott and Lockhart, whom he assisted in the _Quarterly_.\nPossessed of a keen literary sense, he would almost certainly have taken\na high place in literature but for the consumption which cut short his\npromising career. (See \"Life of Scott,\" vol. ix). At Happrew, in Stobo\nparish, Wallace is said to have suffered defeat from the English in\n1304. One of the most perfect specimens (recently explored) of a\nRoman Camp is in the Lyne Valley, to the left, a little above the\nKirk of Lyne. On a height overlooking the Tarth and Lyne frowns the\nmassive pile of Drochil, planned by the Red Earl of Morton, who never\nlived to occupy it, or to finish it, indeed, the \"Maiden,\" in 1581,\ncutting short his pleasures, his treacheries and hypocrisies. Now we\ntouch the Black Dwarf's Country--in the Manor Valley, to the right.\nBarns Tower, a very complete peel specimen, stands sentinel at the\nentrance to this \"sweetest glen of all the South.\" It is around Barns\nthat John Buchan's \"John Burnet of Barns\" centres. The Black Dwarf's\ngrave is at Manor Kirk, and the cottage associated with his misanthropic\ncareer is also pointed out. Scott, in 1797, visited Manor (Hallyards) at\nhis friend Ferguson's, and foregathered with David Ritchie, the\nprototype of one of the least successful and most tedious of his\ncharacters. (See William Chambers's account of the visit). St. Gordian's\nCross, mentioned in a previous chapter, is further up the valley, where\nalso are the ruins of Posso, a place-name in the \"Bride of Lammermoor.\"\nPresently we come to Neidpath Castle, dominating Peebles, the key to the\nUpper Tweed fastnesses. When or by whom it was built is unknown. In\n1795, it was held by \"Old Q,\" fourth Duke of Queensberry. Wordsworth's\nsonnet on the spoliation of its magnificent woods (an act done to spite\nthe heir of entail) stigmatises for all time the memory of one of the\nworst reprobates in history.\n\n  PLATE 16\n\n  MELROSE AND THE\n  EILDONS FROM BEMERSYDE\n  HILL: SCOTT'S\n  FAVOURITE VIEW\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 89 and 123_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\nBoth Scott and Campbell have sung of the unhappy Maid of Neidpath spent\nwith grief and disease, waiting her lover on the Castle walls, and\nbeholding him ride past all unconscious of her identity.\n\n    \"He came--he passed--a heedless gaze,\n      As o'er some stranger glancing;\n    Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase,\n      Lost in his courser's prancing--\n    The Castle arch whose hollow tone\n      Returns each whisper spoken,\n    Could scarcely catch the feeble moan\n      Which told her heart was broken.\"\n\nThe literary associations of Peebles--a charming township--are\noutstanding. William and Robert Chambers (founders of _Chambers's\nJournal_) were natives. So were Thomas Smibert and John Veitch, poets\nand essayists both. Mungo Park (a Gideon Gray prototype) was the town's\nsurgeon for a time--an eternal longing for Africa in his soul. \"Meg\nDods,\" the best landlady in fiction, was one of its heroines. And\n\"Peblis to the Play,\" probably by James I., is a Scots classic. Traquair\nis poetic ground every foot of it. At its \"bonnie bush\" how many singers\nhave caught inspiration from Crawford of Drumsoy in 1725, to Principal\nShairp in our own day! Shairp's lyric may well be quoted in full. It is\nby far the finest contribution to modern Border minstrelsy. \"Thank ye\nagain for this exquisite song; I would rather have been the man to write\nit than Gladstone in all his greatness and goodness,\" was the exuberant\n\"Rab\" Brown's compliment to the author:\n\n      \"Will ye gang wi' me and fare\n      To the bush aboon Traquair?\n    Owre the high Minchmuir we'll up and awa',\n      This bonny simmer noon,\n      While the sun shines fair aboon,\n    And the licht sklents saftly doun on holm and ha'.\n\n      \"And what would you do there,\n      At the bush aboon Traquair?\n    A lang dreich road, ye had better let it be;\n      Save some auld skrunts o' birk\n      I' the hillside lirk,\n    There's nocht i' the warld for man to see.\n\n      \"But the blithe lilt o' that air,\n      'The Bush aboon Traquair,'\n    I need nae mair, it's eneuch for me;\n      Owre my cradle its sweet chime,\n      Cam' soughin' frae auld time,\n    Sae tide what may, I'll awa' and see.\n\n      \"And what saw ye there\n      At the bush aboon Traquair?\n    Or what did ye hear that was worth your heed?\n      I heard the cushies croon\n      Thro' the gowden afternoon\n    And the Quair burn singing doun to the Vale o' Tweed.\n\n      \"And birks saw I three or four,\n      Wi' grey moss bearded owre,--\n    The last that are left o' the birken shaw,\n      Whar mony a simmer e'en\n      Fond lovers did convene,\n    Thae bonny, bonny gloamins that are lang awa'.\n\n      \"Frae mony a but and ben,\n      By muirland, holm, and glen,\n    They cam' ane hour to spen' on the greenwood swaird;\n      But lang hae lad an' lass I\n      Been lying 'neth the grass,\n    The green, green grass o' Traquair kirkyard.\n\n      \"They were blest beyond compare,\n      When they held their trysting there,\n    Among thae greenest hills shone on by the sun;\n      And then they wan a rest,\n      The lownest and the best,\n    I' Traquair kirkyard when a' was dune.\n\n      \"Now the birks to dust may rot,\n      Names o' lovers be forgot,\n    Nae lads and lasses there ony mair convene;\n      But the blithe lilt o' yon air\n      Keeps the bush aboon Traquair,\n    And the love that ance was there, aye fresh and green.\"\n\n  PLATE 17\n\n  DRYBURGH ABBEY AND\n  SCOTT'S TOMB\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 35, 39, 91, 92, 103_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\nTraquair House--possibly Scott's Tully-Veolan, \"pallid, forlorn,\nstricken all o'er with eld,\" claims to be the oldest inhabited house in\nScotland. It certainly looks it. The great gate, flanked with the huge\nBradwardine Bears, has not been opened since the '45. There seems no\nreason to question the legend. It is not so \"foolish\" as Mr. Lang\nsupposes. Innerleithen, Scott's \"St. Ronan's,\" is near at hand, and the\npeel of Elibank--a mere shell. Harden's marriage to Muckle-mou'ed Meg\nMurray was not quite accounted for in the traditional way, however,--a\nchoice between the laird's dule-tree and the laird's unlovely daughter.\nThe legend is not uncommon to German folk-lore. At Ashestiel, thrice\nrenowned, Scott spent the happiest years of his life (1804-1812),\nwriting \"Marmion,\" the \"Lady of the Lake,\" and the first draft of\n\"Waverley.\" In many respects the place is more important to students of\nScott than Abbotsford itself. Yet for a thousand who rush to Abbotsford\nonly a very few find their way up here. Yair, a Pringle house, and\nFairnalee, comfortable little demesnes, lie further down the Tweed. At\nthe latter, Alison Rutherford wrote her version of the \"Flowers of the\nForest\"--\"I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling.\" Abbotsford was\nCartley Hole first--not Clarty--which is a mere vulgar play on the\noriginal. From a small villa about 1811 it has grown to the present\nnoble pile. After Scott's day, Mr. Hope Scott did much for the place.\nBut it is of Sir Walter that one thinks. What a strenuous life was his\nhere! What love he lavished on the very ground that was dear to him--in\na double sense! And what longing for home during that vain sojourn\nunder Italian skies! \"To Abbotsford; let us to Abbotsford!\"--a desire\nnow echoed on ten thousand tongues year by year from all ends of the\nearth. Behind Abbotsford are the Eildons, the \"Delectable Mountains\" of\nWashington Irving's visit, \"three crests against a saffron sky\" always\nin vision the wide Border over. Scott said he could stand on the Eildons\nand point out forty-three places famous in war and verse. \"Yonder,\" he\nsaid, \"is Lammermoor and Smailholm; and there you have Galashiels, and\nTorwoodlee, and Gala Water; and in that direction you see Teviotdale and\nthe Braes of Yarrow, and Ettrick stream winding along like a silver\nthread to throw itself into the Tweed. It may be pertinacity, but to my\neye these grey hills, and all this wild Border Country have beauties\npeculiar to themselves. When I have been for some time in the rich\nscenery about Edinburgh which is like ornamented garden land, I begin to\nwish myself back again among my own honest grey hills; and if I did not\nsee the heather at least once a year, I think I should die.\" Melrose is\nthe \"Kennaquhair\" of the \"Monastery\" and the \"Abbot.\" Its glory, of\ncourse, is its Abbey, unsurpassed in the beauty of death, but all grace\nfled from its environment. Were it possible to transplant the Abbey\ntogether with its rich associations to the site of the original\nfoundation by the beautiful bend at Bemersyde, Melrose would sit\nenthroned peerless among the shrines of our northern land. Within\nMelrose Abbey, near to the High Altar, the Bruce's heart rests well--its\nfitful flutterings o'er. Here, too, lie the brave Earl Douglas, hero of\nChevy Chase; Liddesdale's dark Knight--another Douglas; Evers and\nLatoun, the English commanders at Ancrum Moor, that ran so deadly red\nwith the blood of their countrymen; and, according to Sir Walter,\nMichael Scot--\n\n    \"Buried on St. Michael's night,\n    When the bell toll'd one, and the moon shone bright,\n    Whose chamber was dug among the dead,\n    When the floor of the chancel was stained red.\"\n\nOne is not surprised at Scott's love for Melrose. As the grandest\necclesiastical ruin in the country, it must be seen to be understood.\nMere description counts for little in dealing with such a subject. Every\nwindow, arch, cloister, corbel, keystone, door-head and buttress of this\nexcellent example of mediaeval Gothic is a study in itself--all\nelaborately carved, yet no two alike. The sculpture is unequalled both\nin symmetry and in variety, embracing some of the loveliest specimens of\nfloral tracery and the most quaint and grotesque representations\nimaginable. The great east oriel is its most imposing feature. But the\nsouth doorway and the chaste wheeled window above it are equally superb.\nFor what is regarded as the finest view of the building, let us stand\nfor a little at the north-east corner, not far from the grave of Scott's\nfaithful factotum, Tom Purdie. Here the _coup d'oeil_ is very\nstriking; and the contour of the ruins is realised to its full. Or if it\nbe preferred, let us look at the pile beneath the lee light o' the\nmoon--the conditions recommended in the \"Lay.\"\n\n    \"If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,\n    Go visit it by the pale moonlight;\n    For the gay beams of lightsome day\n    Gild, but to flout, the ruins grey.\n    When the broken arches are black in night,\n    And each shafted oriel glimmers white,\n    When the cold light's uncertain shower\n    Streams on the ruined central tower;\n    When buttress and buttress, alternately,\n    Seem framed of ebon and ivory;\n    When silver edges the imagery,\n    And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die;\n    When distant Tweed is heard to rave,\n    And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave,\n    Then go--but go alone the while--\n    Then view St. David's ruined pile;\n    And, home returning, soothly swear\n    Was never scene so sad and fair!\"\n\nThree inscriptions--one inside, two in the churchyard, are worth halting\nby. \"HEIR LYIS THE RACE OF YE HOVS OF ZAIR,\" touches many hearts with\nits simple pathos. \"The Lord is my Light,\" is the expressive text\n(self-chosen) on Sir David Brewster's tomb--the greatest master of\noptics in his day; and the third, covering the remains of a former\nMelrose schoolmaster was frequently on the lips of Scott:\n\n    \"The earth goeth on the earth,\n      Glist'ring like gold,\n    The earth goes to the earth\n      Sooner than it wold.\n    The earth builds on the earth\n      Castles and towers,\n    The earth says to the earth\n      All shall be ours.\"\n\nIf half the grace of Melrose is lost by reason of its environment, the\nsituation of Dryburgh is queenly enough. It is assuredly the most\npicturesque monastic ruin in Great Britain. Scott's is the all-absorbing\nname, and as a matter of fact he would himself have become by\ninheritance the laird of Dryburgh, but for the financial folly of a\nspendthrift grand-uncle. \"The ancient patrimony,\" he tells us, \"was sold\nfor a trifle, and my father, who might have purchased it with ease, was\ndissuaded by my grandfather from doing so, and thus we have nothing left\nof Dryburgh but the right of stretching our bones there.\" So here, the\ntwo Sir Walters, the two Lady Scotts, and Lockhart, await the breaking\nlight of morn. Dryburgh, be it noted, is in Berwickshire--in Mertoun\nparish, where (at Mertoun House) Scott wrote the \"Eve of St. John.\" Not\nfar off is Sandyknowe (not Smailholm, as it is generally designated)\nTower, the scene of the ballad, and the cradle of Scott's childhood,\nwhere there awoke within him the first real consciousness of life, and\nwhere he had his first impressions of the wondrously enchanted land that\nlay within the comparatively small circle of the Border Country. Ruined\nRoxburgh, between Tweed's and Teviot's flow, and the palatial Floors\nCastle represent the best of epochs old and new, and even more than in\nScott's halcyon school days is Kelso the \"Queen of the South Countrie.\"\nColdstream, lying in sylvan loveliness on the left bank of the Tweed--a\nnoble river here--has been the scene of many a memorable crossing from\nboth countries from the time of Edward I. to the Covenanting struggle.\nSo near the Border, Coldstream had at one time a considerable notoriety\nfor its runaway marriages, the most notable of which was Lord Brougham's\nin 1819. Within an easy radius of Coldstream are Wark Castle, the mere\nsite of it rather--where in 1344 Edward III. instituted the Order of the\nGarter; Twizel Bridge, with its single Gothic arch, cleverly crossed\nby Surrey and his men (it is the identical arch) at Flodden, that\ndarkest of all dark fields for Scotland,\n\n    \"Where shivered was fair Scotland's spear,\n    And broken was her shield.\"\n\nOf Norham Castle, frowning like Carlisle, to the North, and set down as\nit were to over-awe a kingdom, Scott's description is always the best.\nLadykirk Church was built by James IV. in gratitude for his escape from\ndrowning while fording the Tweed. Last of all, we reach Berwick, at one\nperiod the chief seaport in Scotland--a \"second Alexandria,\" as was\nsaid, now the veriest shadow of its former self. Christianized towards\nthe close of the fourth century, according to Bede, as a place rich in\nchurches, monasteries and hospitals, Berwick held high rank in the\necclesiastical world. Its geographical position, too, as a frontier town\nmade it the Strasburg for which contending armies were continually in\nconflict. Century after century its history was one red record of strife\nand bloodshed. Its walls, like its old Bridge spanning the Tweed, were\nbuilt in Elizabeth's reign, and its Royal Border Bridge, opened to\ntraffic in 1850, was happily characterised by Robert Stephenson, its\nbuilder, as the \"last act of the Union.\"\n\n  PLATE 18\n\n  THE REMNANT OF\n  WARK CASTLE\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 39 and 92_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nIV. \"PLEASANT TEVIOTDALE\"\n\n\nEttrick and Yarrow between them comprise most of Selkirkshire. The\nTeviot and Jed are the main arteries running through Roxburghshire, or\nTeviotdale, as was the ancient designation, colloquially Tividale and\nTibbiedale. On the source-to-mouth principle--the most natural and the\nmost instructive--the best approach into Teviotdale is by way of\nLangholm, locally _the_ Langholm, pleasantly situated on the\nDumfriesshire Esk, at the junction of the Ewes and Wauchope Waters. In\nthe fine pastoral valley of the Ewes--the Yarrow of Dumfriesshire--we\npass several places of note before striking Teviothead and the main\ncourse of the Teviot. At Wrae, William Knox, author of \"The Lonely\nHearth,\" and writer of the stanzas on \"Mortality,\" so constantly quoted\nby Abraham Lincoln, had his home for a time. George Gilfillan, no mean\njudge, characterises him as the best sacred poet in Scotland. Further on\nis the birth-spot of another well-known singer, Henry Scott Riddell,\nwhose patriotic \"Scotland Yet\" has won its way to the ends of the earth,\nwherever Scotsmen gather. At Unthank Kirkyard--none more lonely save St.\nMary's on Yarrow, perhaps--we examine the graves of the hospitable and\nkindly Elliots of \"Dandie Dinmont\" immortality. Mosspaul Inn, lately\nrestored, is close to the boundary between the two counties. From the\nWisp Hill (1950 feet) the view on a clear day from Carlisle in the south\nto the distant north, is one to be remembered. The Wordsworths were at\nMosspaul in 1803, and Dorothy's description is still fairly correct:\n\"The scene with its single dwelling, was melancholy and wild, but not\ndreary, though there was no tree nor shrub; the small streamlet\nglittered, the hills were populous with sheep; but the gentle bending of\nthe valley and the correspondent softness in the forms of the hills were\nof themselves enough to delight the eye. The whole of the Teviot and the\npastoral steeps about Mosspaul pleased us exceedingly.\"\n\n  PLATE 19\n\n  BERWICK-ON-TWEED\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 43, 49, 63, 93_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\nAt Teviothead we touch the Teviot proper. The upper basin of the Teviot\nis mainly a barren vale, flanked by lofty rounded hills. For a greater\ndistance it is a strip of alluvial plain, screened by terraced banks\nclad with the rankest vegetation, and with long stretches of undulating\ndale-land, and overhung at from three to eight miles by terminating\nheights, and in its lower reaches it is a richly variegated champaign\ncountry, possessing all the luxuriance without any of the tameness of a\nfertile plain, and stretching away in resulting loveliness to the\npicturesque Eildons on the one hand and the dome-like Cheviots on the\nother. Teviothead, formerly Carlanrigg, is full of traditionary lore.\nTeviot Stone, extinct now, a landmark for centuries--its position being\nmarked on some of our earliest maps--recalls Scott's favourite lines\nfrom the \"Lay,\" imprinted on the Selkirk monument:\n\n    \"By Yarrow's streams, still let me stray,\n    Though none should guide my feeble way;\n    Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break,\n    Although it chill my withered cheek;\n    Still lay my head by Teviot Stone,\n    Though there, forgotten and alone,\n    The Bard may draw his parting groan.\"\n\nTeviothead Churchyard contains the graves of Johnie Armstrong of\nGilnockie, and his gallants. James V. (a mere boy-king at the time)\nnever planned a more despicable or more atrocious deed than the betrayal\nand summary execution of this most picturesque of the freebooters. And\nposterity has never forgiven him. Nor can it. Scott's \"Minstrelsy\"\nballad commemorating the incident is far and away the most dramatic of\nits kind, Johnie's scathing answer to the King being specially\ncharacteristic:\n\n    \"To seik het water beneith cauld ice,\n    Surely it is a greit follie;\n    I have asked grace at a graceless face,\n    But there is nane for my men and me!\"\n\nThere is a tradition that the trees on which they were hanged became\nimmediately blasted; and Scott, in parting with the Wordsworths directed\nthem to look about for \"some old stumps of trees,\" but \"we could not\nfind them,\" adds Miss Wordsworth. Hard by are the graves of Scott\nRiddell and his third son, William, a youth of remarkable promise.\nTeviothead Cottage, where Riddell resided till his death in 1870, is\npassed on the left. The church in which he preached (he was in charge of\nthe then preaching station here) is now the parish school, and his\nmonument, like a huge candle extinguisher, crowns the neighbouring\nDryden Knowes. Still keeping to the Teviot, now a fair-sized stream,\nrich in the variety and beauty of its scenery--\n\n    \"Pleasant Teviotdale, a land\n    Made blithe by plough and harrow\"--\n\nwe pass Gledsnest and Colterscleuch, figuring in the well-known \"Jamie\nTelfer\" ballad; Commonside, mentioned in \"Kinmont Willie\";\nNorthhouse, Teindside, Harwood, and Broadhaugh, snug farms all, till the\nhamlet of Newmill is reached, the quarrel scene between the \"jovial\nharper\" of the \"Lay\" and \"Sweet Milk,\" \"Bard of Reull,\" in which the\nlatter was slain:\n\n    \"On Teviot's side, in fight they stood,\n    And tuneful hands were stained with blood,\n    Where still the thorn's white branches wave\n    Memorial o'er his rival's grave.\"\n\nAllan Cunningham's version of \"Rattlin', Roarin' Willie\" should be read\nin this connection. Branxholme (poetically Branksome) is a particularly\ninteresting portion of the Teviot valley. Its Braes recall the old\nditty:\n\n    \"As I came in by Teviot side\n    And by the Braes of Branksome,\n    There first I saw my bonnie bride,\n    Young, smiling, sweet, and handsome.\"\n\nAnd looming up before us is the massive white pile of Branxholme itself,\nthe master-fort of the Teviot, and the key of the pass between the Tweed\nbasin and Merrie Carlisle. The Castle occupies a strong position, has\nbeen much modernised, and is now a residence for Buccleuch's\nChamberlain. Up to 1756, it was the chief seat of the Buccleuch family.\nBranxholme's main glory, however, is not its past history, or the pomp\nand circumstance surrounding it in the hey-day of its power. If there\nwas \"another Yarrow\" to Wordsworth, there is \"another Branxholme\" to us.\nIt is not the memory of the fighting barons of Buccleuch, with their\ntumultuous raids and unending quarrels, which draws the pilgrim's feet\nto Branxholme's Tower, but the memory of events which the imagination\nof the Minstrel has conjured up, and which have made for themselves a\nlocal habitation and a name. For here Scott placed the leading incidents\nof the \"Lay,\"--the first and finest of his Border efforts:\n\n    \"Nine-and-twenty knights of fame\n    Hung their shields in Branksome Hall,\n    Nine-and-twenty squires of name\n    Brought them their steeds to bower from stall.\"\n\nFrom Branxholme to the russet-grey Peel of Goldielands is scarcely two\nmiles. Minus gables or parapet now, and standing among the haystacks and\nbuildings of a farm, it is still in tolerable preservation. Here dwelt\namongst others of its old heroes, \"the Laird's Wat, that worthie man,\"\nwho led the Scots at the Reidswire in 1575. Not improbably is\nGoldielands the peel associated with Willie of Westburnflat's operations\nin the \"Black Dwarf.\" At Goldielands Gate one gets a fine view to the\nright of the Borthwick valley,\n\n    \"Where Bortha hoarse that loads the meads with sand,\n    Rolls her red tide to Teviot's western stand.\"\n\nAnd up the Borthwick, a mile or two, on its steep bank sits Harden, a\nplace of more than ordinary note to the Scott student. Here Auld Wat,\nSir Walter's grandsire seven times removed, reigned a king among Border\nreivers, whose deeds of derring-do have been long shrined by the\nballadists, and graven deep on the tablets of memory. Hawick, the\nGlasgow of the Borders, comes next in sight,--where Slitrig and Teviot\nmeet. An ancient town, but possessing few relics of antiquity, except\nSt. Mary's Church, and the Tower Inn, a dwelling of the Drumlanrig\nDouglases, with the mysterious Moat \"where Druid shades still flitted\nround.\" The modernity of the place is, however, lost sight of annually\nin the \"riding of the marches,\" a custom which prevails also in Selkirk\nand Langholm. It is the great public festival of the year, and dates\nfrom time immemorial. Its memories are mostly of Flodden, and the brave\nstand at Hornshole in the neighbourhood, the year after. The Flodden\nflag, splendidly \"bussed,\" is carried in civic and cornetal procession\nwith crowds continually singing--as only Teridom can--the rousing\nmartial air of \"Teribus,\" the Hawick slogan, which expresses more than\nany other the wild and defiant strain of the war-trump and the\nbattle-shout. Hawick, including Wilton, has several elegantly\narchitectured buildings, over a score of Tweed mills and factories,\nseventeen churches, and boasts a population of nearly twenty thousand.\n\nFrom Hawick to Kelso the distance is 21 miles, with a finely undulating\nroad all through. The railway journey _via_ St. Boswells is about double\nthe distance. Our way lies through some of the most storied scenery in\nthe Lowlands. The names on the map will give us an idea of the\nexceedingly romantic character of this second half of the Teviot. Here\nwe come into touch with such song-haunted tributaries as the Jed and\nOxnam, the Rule and Kale, and Ale, and with many of the great houses\nwhose history has contributed more than any other to the making of the\nBorder Country. The names of Scott and Ker, Elliot and Douglas, Turnbull\nand Riddell are patent to every parish through which we pass. At Minto,\nthe home of the Elliots and seat of the present Indian Viceroy, one is\nreminded of the distinguished place which that family has held both in\nthe stormy and in the more peaceful times of Border story. Here Jean\nElliot wrote the \"Flowers of the Forest,\" and Thomas Campbell his\n\"Lochiel's Warning.\" From Minto Crags, crowned with Fatlips Castle and\nBarnhill's Bed, (729 feet) there is no more pleasing prospect in the\nBorderland. The windings of the Teviot are traceable for miles, the\nLiddesdale and Dumfriesshire heights hemming in the view on one side,\nand the blue Cheviots on the other. Ruberslaw rises immediately in\nfront, with Denholm Dene on the right, and the narrow bed of the \"mining\nRule\" on the left, while behind to the north are distinctly seen the\nthree-coned Eildons, Earlston Black Hill, Scott's Sandyknowe, Hume\nCastle, and the wavy line of the Lammermoors. Hassendean (suggesting\n\"Jock o' Hazeldean\") Cavers, a Douglas house, where the pennon of the\ngreat Earl, and the Percy gauntlets are still shown; Denholm, Leyden's\nbirthplace, Henlawshiel and Kirkton, scenes in his boyhood, lie all in\nthe neighbourhood. Dr. Chalmers was for a time assistant in Cavers Kirk,\nand in later life delighted to recall his connection with the Border\ndistrict. Adjoining Minto, Ancrum stands bonnie on Ale Water--a village\nof considerable antiquity. Its Cross, dating from David I.'s time, is\none of the best-preserved of the market-crosses of the Border. Ancrum\nwas the birthplace of Dr. William Buchan of \"Domestic Medicine\"\ncelebrity, and John Livingston, its minister during the Covenant, was a\nman of mark and piety in his day. The place naturally suggests Ancrum\nMoor, a mile or two to the north-west, one of the last great\nbattlefields of the international struggle. In February, 1544, an\nEnglish army under Sir Ralph Evers and Sir Brian Latoun desolated the\nScottish frontier as far north as Melrose, defacing the Douglas tombs in\nthe abbey. On returning with their booty towards Jedburgh, they were\novertaken at Ancrum Moor, and severely beaten by a Scottish force led by\nthe Earl of Angus and Scott of Buccleuch. In this battle, according to\ntradition, fought Maiden Lilliard, a brave Scotswoman from Maxton, who\nfell beneath many wounds and was buried on the spot. Her grave, in the\nmidst of a thick fir-wood, carries the somewhat doggerel epitaph:\n\n    \"Fair Maiden Lilliard\n    Lies under this stane;\n    Little was her stature,\n    But muckle was her fame\n    Upon the English loons\n    She laid monie thumps,\n    An' when her legs were cuttit off,\n    She fought upon her stumps.\"[C]\n\n[C] An attempt has been made to discredit this story by an appeal to the\nantiquity of the place-name, which is admittedly much earlier than\nLilliard's day. This, however, does not dispose of the tradition. The\nlikelihood is that originally the first line was really \"the Fair Maid\n_of_ Lilliard.\"\n\nThe monument has been frequently restored. Lady John Scott made the last\nrepairing touches, adding the words:\n\n    \"To A' TRUE SCOTSMEN.\n    By me it's been mendit,\n    To your care I commend it.\"\n\n  PLATE 20\n\n  HOLLOWS TOWER\n  (SOMETIMES CALLED\n  GILNOCKIE TOWER)\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 72 and 96_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThe Jed, joining the Teviot close to Jedfoot Station, reminds us that\nthe county town of Roxburgh--Jedburgh--is within easy access, and the\nfascinating valley of the Jed which Burns so vigorously extolled. The\nJed takes its rise between Needslaw and Carlintooth on the Liddesdale\nBorder. Its general course is east and north, and its length about\nseventeen miles. The places of chief interest on its banks are\nSouthdean, where the Scottish chiefs assembled previous to Otterburn,\nand where the poet Thomson spent his boyhood; Old Jedworth, the original\ntownship, a few grassy mounds marking the spot; Ferniherst Castle, a Ker\nstronghold; Lintalee, the site of a Douglas camp described in Barbour's\n\"Bruce;\" the Capon Tree, a thousand years old, one of the last survivors\nof \"Jedworth's forest wild and free;\" and the Hundalee hiding caves. The\ncharm of Jedburgh consists in its old-world character and its\nsemi-Continental touches. Its fine situation early attracted the notice\nof the Scottish Kings, though Bishop Ecfred of Lindisfarne is believed\nto have been its true founder. He could not have chosen a more sweet or\nappropriate nook for his little settlement. Nestling in the quiet\nvalley, and creeping up the ridge of the Dunion, the song of the river\never in its ears, freshened by the scent of garden and orchard, and\nsurrounded by finely-wooded heights, Nature has been lavish in filling\nwith new adornments, as years sped by, a spot always bright and fair.\n\n    \"O softly Jed! thy sylvan current lead\n    Round every hazel copse and smiling mead,\n    Where lines of firs the glowing landscape screen,\n    And crown the heights with tufts of deeper green.\"\n\nThe modern beauty of the place notwithstanding, Jedburgh's history has\nbeen a singularly troubled one. As a frontier town and the first place\nof importance north of the Cheviots, it was naturally a scene of strife\nand bloodshed. Around it lay the famous Jed Forest, rivalling that of\nEttrick. The inhabitants were brave warriors, and noted for the skill\nwith which they wielded the Jeddart staff or Jedwood axe. Their presence\nat the Reidswire decided that skirmish in favour of the Scottish\nBorderers:\n\n    \"Then rose the slogan wi' ane shout,\n    Fye, Tynedale, to it! Jeddart's here.\"\n\nAnd at Flodden the men from the glens of the Jed were conspicuous for\ntheir heroism. Jedburgh Abbey is the chief \"lion\" of the locality.\nCompleter than Kelso and Dryburgh, and simpler and more harmonious than\nMelrose, it stands in the most delightful of situations, girt about with\nwell-kept gardens, overlooking the bosky banks of the Jed--a veritable\npoem in Nature and Art. Queen Mary's House (restored) the scene of her\nall but mortal illness in 1566 is still existing, and well worth a\nvisit. The literary associations of the burgh are more than local. James\nThomson was a pupil at its Grammar School. Burns was made a burgess\nduring his Border tour in 1787. Scott made his first appearance as a\ncriminal counsel at Jedburgh, pleading successfully for his poacher\nclient. The Wordsworths visited Jedburgh in 1803. Sir David Brewster and\nMary Somerville were natives, and here the \"Scottish Probationer\" lived\nand died. Samuel Rutherford was born at Crailing, the next parish, where\nalso David Calderwood, the Kirk historian, was minister. Cessford\nCastle, in Eckford parish, was the residence of the redoubtable \"Habbie\nKer,\" ancestor of the Dukes of Roxburghe. Marlefield, \"where Kale\nwimples clear 'neath the white-blossomed slaes,\" is a supposed scene\n(erroneous) of the \"Gentle Shepherd.\" Yetholm, on the Bowmont, near the\nGreat Cheviot, has been the headquarters of Scottish gypsydom since the\n17th century. Opposite Floors Castle, at the confluence of the Tweed and\nTeviot is the green tree-clad mound with a few crumbling walls, all that\nremains of the illustrious Castle of Roxburgh, one of the strongest on\nthe Borders, the birthplace and abode of kings, and parliaments, and\nmints, and so often a bone of bitter contention between Scots and\nEnglish. The town itself, the most important on the Middle Marches, has\nentirely disappeared, its site and environs forming now some of the most\nfertile fields in the county:\n\n    \"Roxburgh! how fallen, since first, in Gothic pride,\n    Thy frowning battlements the war defied,\n    Called the bold chief to grace thy blazoned halls,\n    And bade the rivers gird thy solid walls!\n    Fallen are thy towers; and where the palace stood,\n    In gloomy grandeur waves yon hanging wood.\n    Crushed are thy halls, save where the peasant sees\n    One moss-clad ruin rise between the trees;\n    The still green trees, whose mournful branches wave\n    In solemn cadence o'er the hapless grave.\n    Proud castle! fancy still beholds thee stand,\n    The curb, the guardian, of this Border land;\n    As when the signal flame that blazed afar,\n    And bloody flag, proclaimed impending war,\n    While in the lion's place the leopard frowned,\n    And marshalled armies hemmed thy bulwarks round.\"\n\n  PLATE 21\n\n  GOLDILANDS NEAR\n  HAWICK\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 98, 99_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nV. IN THE BALLAD COUNTRY\n\n\nTo a shepherd in Canada Dr. Norman Macleod is said to have remarked,\n\"What a glorious country this is!\" \"Ay,\" said the man, \"it is a very\ngood country.\" \"And such majestic rivers!\" \"Oh, ay,\" was all the reply.\n\"And such good forests!\" \"Ay, but there are nae linties in the woods,\nand nae braes like Yarrow!\" Of course, the answer was from a purely\nexile point of view, but even to those of the Old Country the name of\nYarrow wields the most wondrous fascination. Like Tweed, Yarrow is known\neverywhere, for who has not heard of its \"Dowie Dens,\" or of its lovers'\ntragedies? Certainly no stream has been more besung. The name is\nredolent of all that is most pathetic in Border poetry. This is the\ncentre of the Border ballad country--the birthplace, or, at all events,\nthe nursing-ground of a romance than which there is none richer or more\nextensive on either side of the Border. The Yarrow is the Scottish\nRhine-land on a small scale, even more so than the Tweed. Tweedside,\nindeed, has not a tithe of Yarrow's ballad wealth, and the Tweed ballads\nand folk-lore are absolutely different in respect both of subject-matter\nand of manner. The curious feature about Yarrow is the wonderful\nsameness which characterises the whole of its minstrelsy. For hundreds\nof years that has been so. Sadness is the uppermost note that is\nsounded. All through we are face to face with a feeling of dejection as\nremarkable as it is common. One could have understood a stray effusion\nor so couched in this strain, but for an entire minstrelsy to breathe\nsuch a spirit is extraordinary. Why should Yarrow be the\npersonification, as it were, of a grief and a melancholy that nothing\nseems able to assuage? Is there anything in the scenery to account for\nit--anything in the physical conditions of the glen itself that solves\nthe secret? There is, and there isn't. To a mere outsider--a mere summer\ntripper hurrying through--Yarrow is little different from others of the\nsouthland valleys. Its main features are identical with those of the\nEttrick, and the Tweed uplands, or with the Ewes and the Teviot. All of\nthem exhibit the same pastoral stillness. The same play of light and\nshade are on their hills. The same soothing spirit broods over them. But\nof Yarrow alone it is the element of sadness that prevails. To\nunderstand this, one has to _live_ in Yarrow--to come under the\ninfluence of its environment. And whether it be fancy or not, whether it\nbe the result of one's reading, and of one's pre-conceived notions of\nthe place, the Yarrow landscape does lend itself to the realisation of\nthat feeling which the ballads so well portray. The configuration of the\nglen as seen especially from a little above Yarrow Manse--the \"Dowie\nDens\" of popular tradition--together with its climatic conditions, may\nvery easily interpret for us the spirit of those old singers. Here, if\nanywhere in the valley, the answer to the Yarrow enigma will be found.\nProfessor Veitch thinks that the whole district affords such an answer:\n\"Nor will anyone,\" he says, \"who is familiar with the Vale of Yarrow\nhave had much difficulty in understanding how it is suited to pathetic\nverse. The rough and broken, yet clear, beautiful, and wide-spreading\nstream has no grand cliffs to show; and it is not surrounded by high and\novershadowing hills. Here and there it flows placidly, reflectively, in\nlarge liquid lapses, through an open valley of the deepest summer green;\nstill, let us be thankful, in its upper reaches at least, mantled by\nnature and untouched by plough and harrow. There is a placid monotone\nabout its bare treeless scenery--an unbroken pastoral stillness on the\nsloping braes and hillsides, as they rise, fall, and bend in a uniformly\ndeep colouring. The silence of the place is forced upon the attention,\ndeepened even by the occasional break in the flow of the stream, or by\nthe bleating of the sheep that, white and motionless amid the pasture,\ndot the knowes. We are attracted by the silence, and we are also\ndepressed. There is the pleasure of hushed enjoyment. The spirit of the\nscene is in those immortal lines:--\n\n    \"Meek loveliness is round thee spread\n      A softness still and holy;\n    The grace of Forest charms decayed\n      And pastoral melancholy.\"\n\nThose deep green grassy knowes of the valley are peculiarly susceptible\nof change. In the morning with a blue sky, or with breaks of sunlight\nthrough the fleeting clouds, the green hillsides and the stream smile\nand gleam in sympathy with the cheerfulness of heaven. But under a grey\nsky, or at the gloaming, the Yarrow wears a peculiarly wan aspect--a\nlook of sadness. And no valley I know is more susceptible of sudden\nchange. The spirit of the air can speedily weave out of the mists that\ngather upon the massive hills at the heads of the Megget and the Talla,\na wide-spreading web of greyish cloud--the 'skaum' of the sky--that\ncasts a gloom over the under green of the hills; and dims the face of\nloch and stream in a pensive shadow. The saddened heart would readily\nfind there fit analogue and nourishment for its sorrow. Which is all\nvery true. But, as has been said, Tweed and Teviot show exactly these\nconditions, and what of their minstrelsy remains is not touched with\nthis strangely morose sense. May not the solution lie in the very legend\nof the \"Dowie Dens\" itself, and in the remarkable cup-like configuration\nof the valley as seen from the point already indicated and under the wan\naspects which are admittedly a distinctive feature of the Yarrow at all\nseasons of the year? Out of this have emerged very probably the spirit\nof the balladists and their ballads. One after another have simply\nfollowed suit, and the likelihood is that had gladness and not gloom\nbeen the burden of some far back strain, we should not have had the\nYarrow we possess to-day. Men of the most diverse temperaments have come\nunder the sad spell of the Yarrow. The most lighthearted sons of song\nhave succumbed to the general feeling. Wordsworth himself would have\npreferred to strike another note, but the enchantment of the spot held\nhim fast:\n\n    \"O that some Minstrel's harp were near\n      To utter notes of gladness,\n    And chase this silence from the air,\n      That fills my heart with sadness!\"\n\nAll the verse writers of the last century were mere continuators of\ntheir fellow-bards centuries before. There are, to be sure, some\nflippant spirits who would dare to alter the very atmosphere of Yarrow,\nbut what a poor attempt at the impossible! Yarrow must ever abide the\nembodiment of the most heart-piercing, and at the same time, the most\nwinsome melody the world has listened to.\n\nPopularly speaking, the best of the Yarrow ballads concerns itself with\nthe famous \"Dowie Dens\" tragedy, of which there seems to be some\nauthentic reference in the Selkirk Presbytery Record for 1616. It is\nthere narrated how Walter Scott of Tushielaw made \"an informal and\ninordinate marriage with Grizell Scott of Thirlestane without consent of\nher father.\" Just three months later, the same Record contains entry of\na summons to Simeon Scott, of Bonytoun, an adherent of Thirlestane, and\nthree other Scotts \"to compear at Melrose to hear themselves\nexcommunicated for the horrible slaughter of Walter Scott.\" We have here\nprobably the precise incident on which the unknown \"makar\" founded his\ncrude but intensely picturesque and dramatic lay. How much of womanly\nwinsomeness and heroism, of knightly dignity and daring, and the\nunconquerable strength of love are portrayed in the following stanzas!\nThere are, indeed, few ballads in any language that match its strains:\n\n    \"She kiss'd his cheek, she kaim'd his hair,\n      As oft she had done before, O;\n    She belted him with his noble brand,\n      And he's away to Yarrow.\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"'If I see all, ye're nine to ane;\n      And that's an unequal marrow;\n    Yet will I fight, while lasts my brand,\n      On the bonnie banks of Yarrow.'\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"Four has he hurt, and five has slain;\n      On the bloody braes of Yarrow,\n    Till that stubborn knight came him behind,\n      And ran his body thorough.\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"Yestreen I dream'd a dolefu' dream;\n      I fear there will be sorrow!\n    I dream'd I pu'd the heather green\n      Wi' my true love on Yarrow.\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\n    \"She kiss'd his cheek, she kaimed his hair;\n      She search'd his wounds all thorough;\n    She kiss'd them till her lips grew red,\n      On the dowie houms of Yarrow.\"\n\nA fragment of rare beauty, believed to be based on the same incident\n(unlikely however) was one of Scott's special favourites. Rather does it\nshrine a similar tragedy, one of many such which must have been common\nenough in those troubled and lawless times. How melting is the pathos of\nthe following verses, for instance!\n\n    \"Willie's rare and Willie's fair,\n      And Willie's wondrous bonny,\n    And Willie's hecht to marry me,\n      Gin e'er he married ony.\n\n    \"Yestreen I made my bed fu' braid,\n      This night I'll make it narrow,\n    For a' the livelong winter night,\n      I'll lie twin'd of my marrow.\n\n    She sought him east, she sought him west,\n      She sought him braid and narrow;\n    Syne, in the cleaving of a craig\n      She found him drown'd in Yarrow.\n\nSomewhat akin is the \"Lament of the Border Widow,\" located at\nHenderland, in Meggetdale, not far from St. Mary's Loch. In the preface\nto this ballad in the \"Minstrelsy,\" Scott states that it was \"obtained\nfrom recitation in the Forest of Ettrick, and is said to relate to the\nexecution of Cockburn of Henderland, a Border freebooter, hanged over\nthe gate of his own tower by James V. in the course of that memorable\nexpedition in 1529 which was fatal to Johnie Armstrong, Adam Scott of\nTushielaw, and many other marauders.\" The grave of \"Perys of Cockburne\nand hys wyfe Marjory\" on a wooded knoll at Henderland, is still pointed\nout. But the historicity of the ballad has been questioned from the\nstatement (which seems to be correct) that Cockburn was actually\nexecuted at Edinburgh, instead of at his own home. There is no evidence,\nhowever, to assume that the ballad commemorates this particular\noccurrence or that it has any connection with the grave referred to. For\ngenuine balladic merit it will be difficult to match:\n\n    My love he built me a bonny bower,\n    And clad it a' wi' lilye flower,\n    A brawer bower ye ne'er did see\n    Than my true love he built for me.\n\n    There came a man, by middle day\n    He spied his sport, and went away,\n    And brought the King that very night,\n    Who brake my bower and slew my knight.\n\n    He slew my knight, to me sae dear;\n    He slew my knight, and poin'd his gear;\n    My servants all for life did flee,\n    And left me in extremitie.\n\n    I sewed his sheet, making my mane;\n    I watched the corpse myself alane;\n    I watch'd his body night and day;\n    No living creature came that way.\n\n    I took his body on my back,\n    And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sat;\n    I digg'd a grave, and laid him in,\n    And happ'd him with the sod sae green.\n    But think na ye my heart was sair,\n    When I laid the moul' on his yellow hair;\n    O think na ye my heart was wae,\n    When I turned about away to gae?\n\n    Nae living man I'll love again,\n    Since that my lovely knight is slain,\n    Wi ae lock of his yellow hair,\n    I'll chain my heart for evermair.\n\n  PLATE 22\n\n  \"HE PASS'D WHERE\n  NEWARK'S STATELY\n  TOWER LOOKS OUT\n  FROM YARROW'S\n  BIRCHEN BOWER\"\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n  (_See pp. 116_)\n\n[Illustration]\n\nOne might speak, too, of the \"Douglas Tragedy,\" the scene of which is\nlaid in the Douglas Glen, in the heart of the quiet hills forming the\nwatershed betwixt Tweed and Yarrow. Here lived the \"Good Sir\nJames\"--Bruce's right-hand man, who strove to carry his heart to the\nHoly Land. It was from this Tower at Blackhouse that Margaret the Fair\nwas carried off by her lover, and about a mile further up on the\nhillside the seven stones marking the spot where Lord William alighted\nand slew the Lady's seven brothers in full pursuit of the pair, are\nobjects of curious interest. This ballad, it is interesting to note, is\none widely diffused throughout Europe, being specially rich in Danish,\nIcelandic, Norse, and Swedish collections. Indeed, almost all the Yarrow\nballads--and many others--are common to Continental _volks-lieder_, and\nare found in extraordinary profusion from Iceland to the Peloponesus.\nHere is evidence, by no means slight, of the theory that ballads\noriginate from a common stock, and that in the course of ages they have\nsimply become transplanted and localized. Then the Yarrow valley\ncontains the scene of the \"Song of the Outlaw Murray\"--a distinctively\nBorder production (74 verses in all) composed during the reign of James\nV. Murray divides with Johnie Armstrong the honour of being the Border\nRobin Hood, but to Murray a very different treatment was meted out.\nThe Outlaw's lands at Hangingshaw and elsewhere were his own, though he\nheld them minus a title. James fumed at this, and determined to bring\nthe Forest chief to submission:\n\n    \"The King of Scotland sent me here,\n      And, gude Outlaw, I am sent to thee;\n    I wad wot of how ye hald your lands,\n      O man, wha may thy master be?\"\n\n    \"Thir lands are MINE! the Outlaw said:\n      I ken nae King in Christendie;\n    Frae England I this Forest won\n      When the King and his knights were not to see.\"\n\nUpon which the King's Commissioner assures the Outlaw that it will be\nworse for him if he fails to give heed to the royal desire:\n\n    \"Gif ye refuse to do this\n      He'll compass baith thy lands and thee;\n    He hath vow'd to cast thy castle down\n      And mak a widow of thy gay lady.\"\n\nBut Murray is defiant, and James is equally resolved to crush him.\nFriends are pressed into the Outlaw's service, and very soon he has a\ngoodly number of troopers all ready to render service in the hour of\ntheir kinsman's need, well knowing that in aiding him they would be\ndoing the best thing for themselves, as \"landless men they a' wad be\" if\nthe King got his own way in Ettrick Forest. But, like all good ballads,\nthis, too, ends happily. A compromise is effected, by which the Outlaw\nobtains the post he had long coveted--Sheriff of the Forest:\n\n    \"He was made Sheriff of Ettrick Forest,\n      Surely while upward grows the tree;\n    And if he was na traitour to the King,\n      Forfaulted he should never be.\n\n    \"Wha ever heard, in ony times,\n      Siccan an Outlaw in his degree\n    Sic favour get before a King\n      As the Outlaw Murray of the Forest free?\"\n\nOf right \"Tamlany\"--by far the finest of the Border fairy\nballads--belongs more to Ettrick than to Yarrow. The scene is laid in\nCarterhaugh, at the confluence of the two streams, two miles above\nSelkirk. The ballad (24 stanzas) is too long to quote, but may be read\nin all good collections. For the same reason also we must pass over the\n\"Battle of Philiphaugh,\" commemorating Leslie's victory over Montrose in\n1645; and the \"Gay Goss-Hawk,\" the dramatic ending of which is laid at\nSt. Mary's Kirk, high upon the hillside overlooking the waters of the\nLoch. Nothing is left now save the site, and a half-deserted\nburying-ground where \"Covenanter and Catholic, Scotts, and Kers and\nPringles--all sorts and conditions of men--sleep their long sleep at\npeace together.\" Among the shrines of Yarrowdale, this is not the least\nnotable. Like the grave of Keats outside the walls of Rome, as some one\nhas said, \"it would almost make one in love with death to be buried in\nso sweet a spot among the heather and brackens, and the sighing of the\nsolitary mountain ash.\" St. Mary's Loch lies shimmering at our feet.\nScott's \"Marmion\" picture is still wonderfully correct:\n\n    \"Oft in my mind such thoughts awake,\n    By lone Saint Mary's silent lake;\n    Thou know'st it well--nor fen, nor sedge\n    Pollute the pure lake's crystal edge;\n    Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink\n    At once upon the level brink;\n    And just a trace of silver sand\n    Marks where the water meets the land.\n\n    Far in the mirror, bright and blue,\n    Each hill's huge outline you may view;\n    Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare,\n    Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake is there,\n    Save where, of land, yon slender line\n    Bears thwart the lake the scatter'd pine,\n    Yet even this nakedness has power,\n    And aids the feeling of the hour.\"\n\nAll this delightsome countryside is Hogg-land too, let us remember, as\nwell as Scott-land. For here, in ballad-haunted Yarrow, the immortal\nJames spent the best years of his life, failing so tantalizingly as\nfarmer, but as poet, \"King of the Mountain and Fairy school,\" dreaming\nso well of that most bewitching of all his conceptions--\"Bonnie\nKilmeny.\" Yonder, overlooking Tibbie Shiel's \"cosy beild\"--a howff of\nthe Noctes coterie--stands the solitary white figure of the beloved\nShepherd as Christopher North's prophetic soul felt that it must be some\nday. Hogg was born in the neighbouring Ettrick valley--in 1770\npresumably. His birth-cottage is extinct now, but a handsome memorial\nmarks the spot. Most of his life, as has been said, was passed in the\nsister vale, first at Blackhouse, then at Mount Benger, and at Altrive\n(now Eldinhope), where he died three years after his truest of\nfriends--Sir Walter. The Ettrick homeland guards his dust. Close by is\nthe resting-place of Thomas Boston, that earlier \"Ettrick Shepherd\"\nwhose \"Fourfold State\" and \"Crook in the Lot\" are not yet forgotten. In\nthe sequestered Yarrow churchyard sleeps Scott's maternal\ngreat-grandfather, John Rutherford, who was minister of the parish from\n1691 to 1710. Scott spoke of Yarrow as the \"shrine of his ancestors,\"\nand himself, like Hogg, and Willie Laidlaw, frequently worshipped within\nits old grey walls. Further down the stream, the \"shattered front of\nNewark's towers\" reminds us that here Scott placed the recital of the\n\"Lay.\" He would fain have fitted up the ancient fabric as a residence,\nhad it been possible. Almost opposite, the birthplace of Mungo Park, the\nfirst of the knight-errantry of Africa, attracts attention, and a mile\nor two nearer Selkirk, are Philiphaugh, and \"sweet Bowhill,\" the two\nfinest domains in the Forest. The Covenanters' Monument within\nPhiliphaugh grounds is worthy of notice, and on the Ettrick side,\nKirkhope and Oakwood, both in fairly good repair, are excellent\nspecimens of the peel period. At Selkirk, the capital of Ettrickdale,\nScott's statue as \"the Shirra\"--a most admirable representation--looks\nout at scenes upon which his eyes in life must often have feasted. Here\nwe read the lines that express his heart's deep love for a district\ninterwoven so closely with all the years of his working life:\n\n    \"By Yarrow's streams still let me stray,\n    Though none should guide my feeble way;\n    Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break,\n    Although it chill my wither'd cheek.\"\n\n  PLATE 23\n\n  VIEW OF NEW ABBEY\n  AND CRIFFEL\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nVI. THE LEADER VALLEY.\n\n\nTo the present writer, the valley of the Leader, or Lauderdale, has\nattractions and memories that are second to none in the Border. \"Here,\nfirst,\"--to use Hogg's lines--\n\n    \"He saw the rising morn,\n      Here, first, his infant mind unfurled\n    To ween the spot where he was born\n      The very centre of the world.\"\n\nLauderdale constitutes one of the \"three parts\" into which Berwickshire,\nlike Ancient Gaul, is divided. The others are the Merse, (_i.e._,\nMarch-Land)--often a distinctive designation for the entire county, but\napplicable especially to the low-lying lands beside the Tweed;\nLammermoor, so named from the Lammermoor Hills ranging across the county\nfrom Soutra Edge and Lammer Law in the extreme north-west, to the\ncoastline at Fast Castle and St. Abbs. Lauderdale, the westernmost\ndivision, running due north and south, embraces simply the basin of the\nLeader and its tributaries so far as the basin is in Berwickshire. Its\ntotal length is not more than twenty-one miles, from Kelphope Burn, the\nreal origin of the Leader, to Leaderfoot, about two miles below Melrose,\nwhere it meets the waters of the Tweed. Leaderdale and Lauderdale are\nbut varieties of the name. A little off the beaten track, perhaps, it\ncan be easily reached by rail to St. Boswells and Earlston, or to Lauder\nitself, from Fountainhall, on the Waverley Route, by the light railway\nrecently opened. Its upper course among the Lammermoors is through\nbleak, monotonous hill scenery; but the middle and lower reaches pass\ninto a fine series of landscapes--the \"Leader Haughs\" of many an olden\nstrain--- flanked by graceful green hills and swells, and plains, that\nare hardly surpassed in Scotland for agricultural wealth and beauty. Of\nBerwickshire generally, it may be said that it has few industries and no\nmineral wealth to speak of. Its business is chiefly in one\ndepartment--agriculture. For that the soil is particularly well adapted.\nEspecially is this true of the Merse and Lauderdale districts, where the\nfarmers take a high place in agricultural affairs, many of them being\nrecognised experts and authorities on the subject. Thousands of acres on\nthe once bald and featureless hill-lands of Lauderdale have been brought\nwithin the benign influence of plough and harrow, and are choice\nornaments in a county famous for its agricultural triumphs all the world\nover. But Romance, rather than agriculture, is the true glory of the\nLeader Valley. It will be difficult to find a locality--Yarrow\nexcepted--which is more under the spell of the past. May not Lauderdale,\nindeed, be claimed as the very birthplace of Scottish melody itself?\nRobert Chambers styled it \"the Arcadia of Scotland,\" and was not Thomas\nof Ercildoune the \"day-starre of Scottish poetry?\"\n\nThis, too, is the country of St. Cuthbert. At Channelkirk, he was\nprobably born. At all events the first light of history falls upon him\nhere, as a shepherd lad, watching his flocks by the Leader, and striving\nto think out the deep things of the divine life, with the most ardent\nlongings in his soul after it. The traditional meadow, whence he beheld\nthe vision which changed his career, is still pointed out, and his\nreputed birthplace at Cuddy Ha' keeps his memory green amongst those\nsweet refreshing solitudes. It is interesting to note Berwickshire's\nconnection with the three most famous Borderers of history--St.\nCuthbert, Thomas the Rhymer, and Walter Scott, of Merse extraction,\nwhose dust Berwickshire holds as its most sacred trust.\n\nLauder and Earlston are the only places of importance in the valley. The\nformer--it is, by the way, the only royal burgh in the shire--boasts a\nconsiderable antiquity. It is still a quaint-looking but clean town,\nwith long straggling street, and one or two buildings--the parish kirk\nand Tolbooth--offering decidedly Continental suggestions. Lauder's\nold-worldness and isolation are at an end, however. After much\nagitation, a railway-line now connects it with the rest of the world,\nand already the signs of a new life are apparent. Within a very few\nyears the inevitable changes will be sure to have passed over this once\nquiet and exclusive little town. It is the \"Maitland blude,\" which\ndominates Lauder, and Thirlestane Castle, built, or renovated rather, in\nthe time of Charles II., is still a place to see. Amongst Scottish\nfamilies, the Maitlands were first in place and power. Not a few of them\nwere greatly distinguished as statesmen and men of letters--the blind\npoet and ballad-collector, Sir Richard; William Maitland, the celebrated\nSecretary Lethington; Chancellor Maitland, author of the satirical\nballad, \"Against Sklanderous Tongues;\" Thomas, and Mary, Latin\nversifiers both; and the infamous \"Cabal\" Duke, the only bearer of the\ntitle. Within the well-kept policies of Thirlestane, tradition has\nlocated the site of the historic Lauder Bridge, so fatal to James III.'s\nfavourites in 1482. Dr. John Wilson, of Bombay, Orientalist and scholar,\nwas born at Lauder in 1804, and James Guthrie, the first Scottish martyr\nafter the Reformation, was its minister for a short period.\n\nEarlston is seven miles down stream from Lauder. Before reaching the\ntown of the Rhymer some spots of interest call for notice. At St.\nLeonard's--a little way out--a hospital off-shoot of Dryburgh, lived\nBurne the Violer, the last of the minstrel fraternity, a supposed\nprototype of the Minstrel of the \"Lay,\" and author of the fine pastoral\npoem, \"Leader Haughs and Yarrow,\" the verse-model for Wordsworth's\n\"Three Yarrows.\" One verse was a great favourite with Scott and Carlyle,\nboth of whom were known to repeat it frequently:--\n\n    \"But Minstrel Burne can not assuage\n    His grief, while life endureth,\n    To see the changes of this age,\n    Which fleeting time procureth;\n    For mony a place stands in hard case,\n    Where blythe folk ken'd nae sorrow,\n    With Humes that dwelt on Leader-side,\n    And Scotts that dwelt on Yarrow.\"\n\nBlainslie, famous for its oats (\"There's corn enough in the\nBlainslies\"), and Whitslaid Tower, a long ago holding of the Lauder\nfamily, are passed a mile or two on. At Birkhill and Birkenside the road\nforks leftwards to Legerwood, where Grizel Cochrane of Ochiltree\n(afterwards Mrs. Ker of Morriston), heroine of the stirring mail-bag\nadventure narrated in the \"Border Tales,\" sleeps in its lately\nrestored kirk chancel. Chapel, and Carolside with a fine deer park,\nand most charming of country residences--at the latter of which Kinglake\nwrote part of his \"Crimean War\"--sit snugly to the right, in the bosky\nglen below.\n\n  PLATE 24\n\n  CRIFFEL AND LOCH\n  KINDAR\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nEarlston, the Ercildoune of olden time--name much better suited to the\nquiet beauty of its charming situation--has no unimportant place both in\nScottish history and romance. It has been honoured by many royal visits.\nHere David the Sair Sanct subscribed the Foundation Charter of Melrose\nAbbey in 1136, and his son the Confirmatory Charter in 1143. Other royal\nvisitors followed; there James IV. encamped for a night on his way from\nEdinburgh to Flodden; Queen Mary made a brief stay at Cowdenknowes as\nshe passed from Craigmillar to Jedburgh; and lastly came Prince Charlie\n(unwelcome) on his march to Berwick-on-Tweed. But above all it is\nrenowned as having been the residence (and birthplace probably) of\nThomas the Rhymer, or True Thomas, or simply, as literary history\nprefers to call him, Thomas of Ercildoune. The Rhymer's Tower,\nassociated with this remarkable personage, stands close to the Leader.\nOnly a mere ivy-clad fragment remains (some 30 feet in height), but the\nmemories of the place stretch back to more than six centuries, when\nThomas was at the height of his fame as his country's great soothsayer\nand bard--the _vates sacer_ of the people. His rhymes are still quoted,\nand many of them have been realised in a manner which Thomas himself\ncould scarcely have anticipated. Scott makes him the author of the\nmetrical romance \"Sir Tristrem,\" published from the Auchinleck _MS._ in\n1804, but the Rhymer is unlikely to have been the original compiler.\nWith his Fairyland adventures and return to that mysterious region,\neverybody is familiar. A quaint stone in the church wall carries the\ninscription:\n\n  Auld Rymr's Race\n  Lyes in this place,\n\nand the probability is that Thomas sleeps somewhere amidst its dark\ndust, unless, indeed, he be still spell-bound in some as yet\nundiscovered cavern underneath the Eildons, waiting with Arthur, and\nMerlin, the blast of that irresistible horn which is to \"peal their\nproud march from Fairyland.\"\n\nMellerstain in Earlston Parish, is the burial-place of Grisell Baillie,\nthe Polwarth heroine and songstress, and author of the plaintive \"Werena\nMy Heart Licht I wad Dee.\" Cowdenknowes, \"where Homes had ance\ncommanding,\" one of the really classical names in Border minstrelsy is\nthe scene of that sweetest of love lyrics, the \"Broom o' the\nCowdenknowes\":--\n\n    \"How blithe, ilk morn, was I to see\n    My swain come o'er the hill!\n    He skipt the burn and flew to me:\n    I met him with good-will.\"\n\nSandyknowe, Scott's cradling-ground in romance, and Bemersyde, one of\nthe oldest inhabited houses in the Tweed Valley (partly peel), still\nevidencing the Rhymer's couplet:--\n\n    \"Tyde what may betyde,\n    Haig shall be Haig of Bemersyde,--\"\n\nare both in the near neighbourhood.\n\nA charming bit of country road lies between Earlston and Dryburgh,\npassing Redpath, the Park, Gladswood, and round by Bemersyde Hill, from\nwhich Scott had his favourite view of the Tweed--the \"beautiful bend\"\nshrining the site of the original Melrose, and the graceful Eildons--and\nby which his funeral procession wended its mournful way just\nseventy-four years ago. Half-way between Earlston and Melrose (by road\n4-1/2 miles), and close to\n\n    \"Drygrange with the milk-white yowes,\n    Twixt Tweed and Leader standing,\"\n\nthe latter stream blends its waters with those of the Tweed, where the\nfoliage is ever at its thickest and greenest; and looking up the glen\ntowards Newstead and Melrose, another vision of rare beauty meets the\neye. Framed in the tall piers of the railway viaduct (150 feet\nhigh)--not at all a disfigurement--the gracefully-bending Tweed, no more\nfair than here, with the smoke rising above the Abbeyed town, Eildon in\nthe foreground, and the blue barrier of the hills beyond, make up a\npicture such as may come to us in dreams.\n\n\n\n\nVII. LIDDESDALE\n\n_From the Author's chapter in Cassell's \"British Isles.\"_ (_By\npermission._)\n\n\nThe Liddel rises in the Cheviot range, close to Jedhead, at an altitude\nof six hundred and fifty feet above sea level, and after a course of\nseven-and-twenty miles, with a fall of five hundred and forty-five feet,\nit joins the Esk at the Moat of Liddel, below Canonbie, near the famous\nNetherby Hall, twelve miles north of Carlisle and about eight from\nLangholm. It is fed by a score of affluents, of which the chief are the\nHermitage and Kershope Waters, the latter constituting for nine miles or\nso the immediate boundary between the two countries. From its\ngeographical position as cut off from the main division of the county,\nLiddesdale has little in common with the valleys of the Tweed and\nTeviot. A Liddesdaler, for instance, seldom crosses over to Tweedside,\nnor can a Tweedsider be said to have other than a comparatively slight\nacquaintanceship with his southern neighbour of the shire. Indeed,\nLiddesdale has been described as belonging in some respects more to\nEngland than to Scotland, and in a sense, it may be said to be the very\ncentre of the Border Country itself.\n\n  PLATE 25\n\n  CAERLAVEROCK CASTLE\n\n  FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH\n\n  PAINTED BY\n\n  JAMES ORROCK, R.I.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nIf now-a-days one may roam through Liddesdale with some degree of\ncomfort, it was a very different matter for Scott and Shortreed little\nmore than a hundred years since. They knew scarcely anything of the\ndistrict, which lay to them, as was said, \"like some unkenned-of isle\nayont New Holland.\" But Scott was bent on his Minstrelsy\nballad-huntings. And it was the very inaccessibility of the Liddel glens\nwhich inspired him with the hope of treasure. For seven autumns in\nsuccession they \"raided\" Liddesdale, as Scott phrased it, and, as he\nanticipated, some of the finest specimens in the Minstrelsy were the\noutcome of these excursions. Evidence of the utter solitariness and\nroadlessness of the region is found in the fact that no wheeled vehicle\nhad been seen in Liddesdale till the advent of Scott's gig about 1798.\nNor was there a single inn or public-house to be met with in the whole\nvalley. Lockhart describes how the travellers passed \"from the\nshepherd's hut to the minister's manse, and again from the cheerful\nhospitality of the manse to the rough and jolly welcome of the\nhomestead, gathering wherever they went songs and tunes and occasionally\nmore tangible relics of antiquity.\" But a hundred years have wrought\nwondrous transformation on the wild wastes of the Liddel. The\n\"impenetrable savage land\" of Scott's day, trackless and bridgeless, is\nnow singularly well opened up to civilisation and the modern tripper.\nThe Waverley Route of the North British Railway passes down the valley\nwithin a few miles of its best-known landmarks. The Road Committees are\ncareful as to their duty, and a well-developed series of coaching tours\nhas proved exceedingly popular. From a miserable expanse of bleak moors\nand quaking moss-hags, the greater portion of lower Liddesdale, at\nleast, has passed into a picturesque combination of moor and woodland\nwith rich pastoral holms and fields in the highest state of cultivation.\n\nBut the main glory of Liddesdale is the romance that hangs over it.\nThere is probably no parish in Scotland--for be it remembered that\nLiddesdale is virtually one parish--which could show such an\nextraordinary number of peel-houses to its credit. Their ruins, or where\nthese have disappeared, the sites are pointed out with surprising\nfrequency. A distinctively Border district, this was to be expected, and\nthe like is true of the English side also. A Liddesdale Keep, still in\nexcellent preservation--\"four-square to all the winds that blow\"--and\nfar and away the strongest and the most massive pile on the Border\nfrontier is Hermitage, in the pretty vale of that name, within easy\nreach from Steele Road or Riccarton stations, three and four miles\nrespectively. Built by the Comyns in the thirteenth century, it passed\nto the Soulises, the Angus Douglases, to \"Bell-the-Cat\" himself, the\nHepburn Bothwells, and the \"bold Buccleuch,\" whose successor still holds\nit. Legend may almost be said to be indigenous to the soil of Hermitage,\nand one wonders not that Scott found his happy hunting-ground here. The\nyoungest child will tell us about that \"Ogre\" Soulis, who was so hated\nby his vassals for his awful oppression of them, that at last they\nboiled him alive--horrible vengeance--on the Nine-Stane Rig, a Druidic\ncircle near by. In part confirmation of the tragedy it is asserted that\nthe actual cauldron may still be seen at Dalkeith Palace. Scott was\nconstantly quoting the verses from Leyden's ballad:\n\n    \"On a circle of stones they placed the pot,\n    On a circle of stones but barely nine;\n    They heated it red and fiery hot\n    Till the burnish'd brass did glimmer and shine\n\n    They rolled him up in a sheet of lead,\n    A sheet of lead for a funeral pall;\n    They plunged him in the cauldron red,\n    And melted him, lead, and bones, and all.\"\n\nThe Nine-Stane Rig is the scene also of the fragmentary \"Barthram's\nDirge\"--a clever Surtees forgery undetected by Scott. Leyden's second\nHermitage ballad--two of the best in the \"Minstrelsy\"--deals with the\nCout or Chief of Keeldar, in Northumberland, done to death by the \"Ogre\"\nin the Cout's Pool close to the Castle. In the little God's-acre at\nHermitage the Cout's grave is pointed out (Keeldar also shows what\npurports to be the Cout's resting-place). Memories of Mary and Bothwell\ncome to us, too, at Hermitage. Here the wounded Warden of the Marches\nwas visited by the infatuated Queen, who rode over from Jedburgh to see\nhim, returning the same day--a rough roundabout of fifty miles--which\nall but cost her life. Dalhousie's Dungeon, in the north-east tower,\nrecalls the tragic end of one of the bravest and best men of his\ntime--Sir Alexander Ramsay, of Dalhousie, who was starved to death at\nthe instance of Liddesdale's Black Knight, here anything but the \"Flower\nof Chivalry.\" One may wander all over the Hermitage and Liddel valleys\nwithout ever being free from the romance-feeling which haunts them.\nRelics of the Roman occupation are in abundance on every hillside--\n\n    \"Many a cairn's grey pyramid,\n    Where urns of mighty chiefs lie hid.\"\n\nThis was the homeland of the Elliots, \"lions of Liddesdale,\" and the\nsturdy Armstrongs, of the crafty Nixons and Croziers--\"thieves all\":\n\n    \"Fierce as the wolf they rushed to seize their prey:\n    The day was all their night, the night their day.\"\n\nIt is to be regretted that so few of the dozens of clan-strengths which\nat one time studded the district are any longer in evidence. Hartsgarth,\nRoan, (so named from the French Rouen), Redheugh, Mangerton--\"Kinmont\nWillie's\" Keep--Syde--\"He is weel kenned Jock o' the Syde,\" Copshaw\nPark--the abode of \"little Jock Elliot\"--Westburnflat--an \"Old\nMortality\" name--Whithaugh, Clintwood, Hillhouse, Peel, and\nThorlieshope, have mostly all disappeared since Scott's day. A\ngeneration more utilitarian in its tastes has arisen, and the stones\ntaken to set up dykes and fill drains. Near the junction of the Liddel\nand Hermitage stood the strongly posted Castle of the \"Lords of Lydal,\"\nand the important township of Castleton--not unlike the Roxburghs\nbetween Tweed and Teviot; and, like them also, both have long since\npassed from the things that are. Only the worn pedestal of its\n\"mercat-cross\" and a lone kirkyard have been left to tell the tale. Two\nmiles farther down is the village of Newcastleton, formerly Copshawholm,\nplanned by the \"good Duke Henry\" in 1793, a rising summer resort with a\npopulation of about a thousand.\n\nWe cannot quit Liddesdale without recalling that this is \"Dandie\nDinmont's\" Country. In writing \"Guy Mannering\" Scott drew largely from\nhis earlier experiences amongst the honest-souled store-farmers and\npoetry-loving peasants of Liddelside. At Millburn, on the Hermitage, he\nenjoyed the hospitality of kindly Willie Elliot, who stood for the\n\"great original\" of \"Dandie Dinmont.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\nPRINTED AND BOUND BY PERCY LUND, HUMPHRIES AND CO., LTD., THE COUNTRY\nPRESS, BRADFORD; AND 3, AMEN CORNER, LONDON, E.C.\n\n\n\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\nMinor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without\nnote. The missing Plate number for Plate 11 has been re-instated.","title":"In the Border Country","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":32443}