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diff --git a/old/52345-8.txt b/old/52345-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index c838590..0000000 --- a/old/52345-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1989 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Scott Country, by John Geddie - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Scott Country - Beautiful Scotland - -Author: John Geddie - -Illustrator: Ernest William Haslehust - -Release Date: June 15, 2016 [EBook #52345] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SCOTT COUNTRY *** - - - - -Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Dave Morgan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - [Illustration: NEWARK TOWER] - - - - - THE - SCOTT COUNTRY - - - Described by John Geddie - Painted by E. W. Haslehust, R.B.A. - - [Illustration: (uncaptioned)] - - BLACKIE & SON LIMITED - LONDON AND GLASGOW - - Blackie & Son Limited - _50 Old Bailey, London_ - _17 Stanhope Street, Glasgow_ - - Blackie & Son (India) Limited - _Warwick House, Fort Street, Bombay_ - - Blackie & Son (Canada) Limited - _Toronto_ - - - - - BEAUTIFUL ENGLAND - - - The Heart of London. - Dartmoor. - Canterbury. - Oxford. - Bath and Wells. - In London's By-ways. - The Peak District. - Winchester. - The Thames. - The Cornish Riviera. - Shakespeare-land. - Cambridge. - York. - The English Lakes. - - BEAUTIFUL SCOTLAND - - - Loch Lomond and the Trossachs. - Edinburgh. - The Scott Country. - The Shores of Fife. - - - _Printed in Great Britain by Blackie & Son, Ltd., Glasgow_ - - - - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - Facing Page - Newark Tower _Frontispiece_ - Kelso Bridge 5 - Smailholm Tower 12 - Roxburgh Castle 16 - Branxholm Tower 21 - Dryburgh Abbey 28 - Bemersyde House 33 - Melrose Abbey 37 - Abbotsford 44 - Traquair House 48 - Ashestiel House 55 - Neidpath Castle 62 - - [Illustration: KELSO: THE RIVER TWEED AND ABBEY RUINS] - - - - - THE SCOTT COUNTRY - - - [Illustration: THE SCOTT COUNTRY] - -Where--and what--is the "Scott Country"? Edinburgh--his birthplace, the -centre of his literary and legal activities, the scene of _The Heart of -Midlothian_ and of the _Chronicles of the Canongate_, his "own romantic -town"--might surely claim to enclose, if not the kernel, an essential -part of the interest that surrounds the fame and the name of Sir Walter. -Around it, between the Pentlands and Lammermoors and the sea, is -territory immortally associated with the life and the works of the -"Master of Romance"--Lasswade and Roslin, Borthwick and Crichton, -"Goblin Ha'" and Prestonpans, - - "Auchendinny's hazel glade - And haunted Woodhouselee", - -Linlithgow Palace on the western and "Wolfs Crag" on the eastern -boundary of Lothian. Fife, on the strength of its possessions of -Dunfermline, Falkland, St. Andrews, and other storied sites, might put -forward a title to be ranked as a province of the Scott Country. So -might Perthshire, by virtue of the "Fair City" and its "Fair Maid", and -joint ownership, with Stirling and Dumbarton, of entrancing scenes on -Loch Katrine, Loch Ard, and Loch Lomond. Forfarshire also, wherein is -placed the best remembered of the passages in _The Antiquary_, and even -the distant Orkneys and Shetlands, have felt the touch of the Wizard's -wand. - -Nor, in the briefest survey of the lands of Scott Romance, can one -overlook the crumbling castles and the rugged shores once ruled by the -"Lord of the Isles"; or the banks of the Clyde and Douglas Water; or the -opposing shores of the Solway; or Redesdale and Teesdale, Gilsland and -Triermain. The Peak District, Sherwood Forest, and the Marches of Wales; -Kenilworth, and Woodstock, and even London streets themselves might -tender a case for inclusion; while, looking farther afield, one is -reminded that the genius of Walter Scott has cast its spell over the -Ardennes and Touraine, Switzerland, Constantinople, and the Palestine of -the Crusades. - -These are, for the most part, merely excursions of a spirit whose -abiding home or favourite haunt was the Valley of the Tweed and its -encircling hills. Edinburgh itself, where there are so many rival -memories, does not recall the author of _Waverley_ so instantly and -intimately to our thoughts and affections as Abbotsford; and the triple -Eildon, rather than Arthur's Seat, is the "high place" of the Scott -cult. If he brought a new glory to the Border Country, it was the Border -Country that "made him", as a man still more than as a writer; and he is -the most typical, as he is the most honoured, of its many famous sons. - -The greatest as well as - - "The last of all the Bards was he - Who sung of Border chivalry". - -The pull of the blood has in this instance proved more potent than that -of birth and early environment; although Walter Scott was from his -childhood, at Sandyknowe and Kelso, familiar with Border scenes, as well -as steeped in Border lore. At a later stage in his growth, lame as he -was, with Shortreed and other congenial companions he tramped the glens -and climbed the hills and hill-passes of Tweedside, gathering and -storing as he went its history and romance for the delight of future -generations, - - "Giving each rock its storied tale, - Pouring a lay for every dale, - Knitting, as with a moral band, - His native legends with his land, - To lend each scene the interest high - Which Genius beams from Beauty's eye." - -But while he knew by heart the whole Borderland, and had explored its -chief river from where - - "Tweed, Annan, and Clyde - A' rise in ae hill-side", - -to where it enters the sea, under the time- and war-battered walls of -the ancient town of Berwick, there were parts of the Tweed and its -tributaries that he knew better than others. There is, in the eyes of -Scott devotees, an Inner Circle, a "Holy of Holies", of the Scott -Country, and, fortunately for the pilgrim to these shrines, its centre -lies where the main lines of road and rail, like those of -river-drainage, converge around the meeting-place of Ettrick, Gala, and -Leader with Tweed--under the shadow of the Eildon Hills and beside those -two "miraculous" products of the hand and brain of man--Melrose Abbey -and Abbotsford House. The creative art, in prose and verse, of the Great -Magician was not often exercised on the chief stream higher up than -Neidpath and Manor, or, at farthest, "Merlin's Grave", beside -Drummelzier and under Tinnis. Nor did his genius much frequent the lower -courses of Tweed, below Kelso Bridge and Wark Castle, and the inflow of -the "sullen Till", although here also are many scenes of beauty and -pages of story that might well have set his imagination afire. It seems -more at home, also, in the valleys of the Teviot, the Ettrick, and the -Yarrow than on the Leader, the Gala, and other northern affluents of the -Tweed. Accident and propinquity may have helped to determine his choice -of scene and theme; but old associations and affinities may have done -still more. The nearer the Border line of the Cheviots, the thicker are -footprints of the clan and national frays of old--of battles and -skirmishes in which Scott's own ancestry took more than their share; and -the deeper and richer the soil of tradition in which he delighted to -delve. To the Teviot, the Borthwick, and the Ettrick--to Branxholm and -Harden, Rankleburn and Newark--he was drawn by the call of the blood of -his father's race; an equal tie bound him to the Jed, the old home of -his mother's kin, the "hot and hardy Rutherfords"; while Yarrow, the -heart of his Forest Sheriffdom, is also the core of its ballad poetry. -It has to be remembered, also, that the period of Scott's greatest -literary output was also the period of failing physical powers, and that -journeys through his beloved Borderland had to be more and more -circumscribed to beaten paths of easy access. - -It was by Kelso Bridge, beside where the wand of the Wizard Michael -Scott "bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone", that, in the fresh -morning of youth, the spell of the great Border river first fell on -Walter Scott. His kinsfolk lived in the neighbourhood; and several of -them are buried in the Abbey Aisle. His great-grandfather and namesake, -the Jacobite "Beardie" who had fought at Killiecrankie, had occupied a -house in the Coalmarket; his kindly Aunt Janet resided in what is now -called Waverley Lodge; his uncle, Captain Robert Scott, a lover and -collecter of books, had his home at Rosebank, which he bequeathed to Sir -Walter, who--"his poverty not his will consenting"--sold this house of -many memories, along with "thirty acres of the most fertile land in -Scotland". - -Only a few miles away, beside the stark and far-seen old keep of -Smailholm, was the farm of Sandyknowe, leased from Scott of Harden by -his grandfather Robert Scott, to which, between the ages of three and -eleven, the little boy from Edinburgh came annually for holidays. -Everyone remembers the lines that record the impression made on his -youthful mind by his "barren scene and wild"--by the tall, grey, -weather-beaten tower looking down from its rock upon the lone lochan, -and out and away over many scenes of Border romance to "the distant -Cheviots blue"; and of the legends of foray and strife that were told in -the boy's wondering ears by the "aged hind", and that took shape -afterwards in "The Eve of St. John" and other tales of the Master. - -What more natural than that young Walter, "become rather delicate from -overgrowth" and threatened with permanent lameness, should be sent, -while twelve or thirteen years of age, to his Kelso relatives for -change, outdoor freedom, and recruitment? He went to the Grammar School -as pupil, and even for a time as usher, under the Rector, Lancelot -Whale, from whom are drawn some of the traits of "Dominie Sampson". He -delighted his master by his recitation of the "Speech of Galgacus", and -beguiled his school companions from their lessons by his tales of old -romance. He read, in the arbour of his aunt's old-fashioned garden, or -under the ancient elm that still survives, Bishop Percy's _Reliques_, -the identical copy of which is in Kelso Library. Among his fellow-pupils -were the Ballantynes, James and John, a fateful conjunction, for out of -a hint dropped in a talk with the elder of these old schoolmates grew -the _Scottish Border Minstrelsy_--the first two volumes of which were -the earliest issued from the Kelso "Ballantyne Press", in 1802--and much -else of note in Scott's career and fortunes. A biographer may well say -that it was "here he began to gather up his intellectual gains and make -his friendly conquests". Kelso gave bent and direction to his genius. - -Like Smailholm, Kelso was "meet nurse for a poetic child", for here join -two "superb rivers"--Tweed and Teviot--each bringing down, from a -hundred sources, its treasure of ancient story. As we have said, the -beauty and romance of Tweedside do not begin in this neighbourhood. They -are the endowment of the main stream from its tap-root to the sea. -Berwick-upon-Tweed, for centuries a cause of contention between the -Kingdoms, was at one time regarded as separate and apart from -each--"England, Scotland, and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed". Since the -fifteenth century, however, it has territorially belonged to England, -although situated on the north bank of the river. Its Edwardian and -Elizabethan walls--the former recently placed, along with the venerable -Bell Tower, the symbol of Berwick Liberties, under the protection of the -Board of Works as a national relic and for preservation against the -attacks of vandalism--enfold a sheaf of history. Few places have been -the scenes of more furious sieges and merciless captures. Its bridge of -fifteen arches, built before the Civil Wars and upheld for centuries -from State funds, connects the town with Tweedmouth and Spittal to the -south, although it is of small account, as a bond of union and means of -traffic, compared with its upstream neighbour, the Royal Border Bridge, -which carries the railway lines between England and Scotland. - - [Illustration: SMAILHOLM TOWER] - -A mile or two higher up, but still into tide-water, flows in the -Whitadder, which with its tributary, the Blackadder, comes out of the -recesses of the Lammermoors to drain the fertile Merse, passing on its -way many scenes that must have tempted Sir Walter to make its valley the -stage of one of his romances. His fancy may have played with the idea. -But beyond an occasional allusion, or the dispatch of one or two of his -characters through it, in hot haste for some other arena of action, he -never specifically annexed this heritage of the Humes and earlier Lords -of Dunbar and Merse to the "Scott Country", though some have attempted -to identify Cranshaws Castle or Wedderlie with Ravenswood. Wedderburn -recalls the "Seven Spears". Polwarth and Marchmont, Ninewells and -Nisbet, Kimmerghame and Langton, Edrington and Hutton, Chirnside and -Bunkle, Duns and Greenlaw, are names steeped in the spirit of Border -poetry as well as noted in local and national annals. The valleys in -which lie Abbey St. Bathans, on the Whitadder, Priestlaw, on the Faseny, -and Longformacus, on the Dye, seem to beckon for an interpreter of their -almost forgotten stories; while that of the mysterious "Edinhall", on -Cockburn Law, the largest and most southerly of Scottish "brochs", is -wholly lost. At Ellemford, James IV was brought to a halt, in the futile -"Raid of Ellem"; and his descendant Charles I came to a turning-point in -his fortunes when he was faced by the Covenanting Host, encamped on Duns -Law. From Haliburton, hard by the "Blackadder Rings", Scott derived one -line of his descent. Yet this region of the Merse serves at most only as -a background in his Border Romance. - -Higher up the main stream, beyond Paxton, and Horncliffe, and Horndean, -one comes to Ladykirk, whose fine old sixteenth-century church is said -to have been founded and dedicated to the Virgin in gratitude for an -escape from drowning in the Tweed. Behind it is Swinton, the home of an -ancient and knightly family from which Sir Walter was descended, on his -mother's side. Over against it are the "castled steep" and "flanking -walls" of Norham, the guardian of England and of the heritage of the -Prince-Bishops of Durham, to the siege of which "Mons Meg" has travelled -in her day--the scene, too, of quarrels and of conferences, at one of -which Edward I decided between the rival claims of the "Competitors" for -the Crown of Scotland. - -At Tillmouth and Twizell Castle, where the Till brings down waters--Glen -and Bowmount, Breamish and College--drawn from both skirts of Cheviot, -one is close to ground yet more closely bound to the tragedy of the -Kingdoms and to the genius of Scott, for near here is Ford Castle, where -the Scottish King is supposed to have dallied too long with Lady Heron; -the bridge across which he allowed the English van to cross and attack -him on flank; and the hill-slope of Flodden, down which, in 1513, - - "From his mountain home - King James did rushing come"-- - -to meet disaster half-way, and to fall in the midst of the flower of his -nobles and of his kingdom. - -At Coldstream, Longshanks crossed the Tweed on the fatal enterprise of -invading and subduing Scotland; Leslie, on his way to join Cromwell at -Marston Moor, and Monk on the march to proclaim Charles II in London. -Wark Castle, in which, according to tradition, the Order of the Garter -was instituted--with Carham beside it, where, at a much more distant -date, a generation before Macbeth, Malcolm II, King of Scots, won a -victory that brought the boundary of his realm in permanence to the -Tweed--stands within easy reach of Kelso. So also, on the opposite or -Scottish bank, does Birgham, the soil on which William the Lion and the -Scots prelates disowned the supremacy of the English Church, and where -was signed the Treaty for that projected marriage of the heirs of the -two Kingdoms--Prince Edward and the Maid of Norway--which, but for evil -chance, might have united them without the intervention of three -centuries of desolating war. - -But it is at Kelso Bridge, below the meeting of Tweed and Teviot, that -we come fully within the circle of the Magician's charm--where every -stream and wood and glen seems to take light and colour from the -imagination of Walter Scott. The scene has been admired and praised by a -host of poets and travellers before and since his time. Burns looked -down upon it from different points of view and owned himself -"enchanted". It has been extolled by, among others, James Thomson, of -the _Seasons_, who was born at Ednam Manse on the Eden Water, only two -or three miles away, and by Thomas Pringle, Scott's fellow-pupil at -Kelso and the first editor of _Blackwood_, who sang, from the South -African veld, of "Bonnie Teviotdale and Teviot's mountains blue". The -parent river makes a wide sweep, and, with its bold wooded banks, seems -to embrace and protect the houses of the little market town, in the -midst of which rise the ruined western towers and a fragment of the nave -of the renowned Tyronesian Abbey. The place, standing so perilously near -the English border, was guarded on the south and on the north by two -great strongholds. Of Roxburgh or Marchmont Castle, on the narrow ridge -between Tweed and Teviot, only a few walls, rising a few yards above the -sod, remain. Its history would fill a volume. But one remembers chiefly -that James II of Scots--he of the "Fiery Face"--was killed by the -explosion of a cannon, while directing attack upon it from the farther -bank of the Tweed, leaving the country, as was so often its fortune -under the Stewart Dynasty, to the hazards of a long minority. On the -town of Roxburgh--which once, as one of the "Four Burghs", was a leader -in the path of municipal and commercial progress--a more sweeping fate -has descended; not a stone has been left above another on a site upon -which for long was held "St. James's Lammas Fair". - - [Illustration: ROXBURGH CASTLE] - -Hume Castle, Kelso's other bulwark--or, if it happened to be in the -hands of an enemy, its thorn in the flesh--stands on high ground to the -north, where its square-set form, now reduced to a shell, can be seen -from all parts of the ground that lies between the Lammermoor and -Cheviot. But the town had strength within itself in its great Norman -Abbey Church, built for purposes of war as well as of prayer. It was -founded by that zealous abbey- and cathedral-rearer, David I, the son of -Canmore and of Saint Margaret; and its head, as a mitred abbot who -acknowledged only the jurisdiction of the Holy See, held a position that -gave him a precedence, much envied and much resented, over the superiors -of the neighbouring religious houses of Jedburgh, Dryburgh, and Melrose. -It was endowed with rich benefices and wide territories, but its wealth -and glory all vanished in the storms of the Reformation, or, more -ruthless still, of the English invasions and the Civil Wars. - -A large part of the Abbey heritage has passed to the Kers, of the ducal -house of Roxburghe, whose stately seat, Floors Castle, planned by -Vanbrugh and completed by Playfair, commands from its terraces one of -the widest and loveliest views upon Tweed. Of the Kers of Cessford, who -had feuds with the rival branch of the Kerrs of Ferniehirst, as well as -with the Scotts and other neighbours, it has been said that they had a -genius for fighting on the winning side: "When the power of the -Douglases on the Border began to crumble, they became Crown vassals, and -their fortunes mounted rapidly. They won new lands, and held, and still -hold, the old. They kept a hawk's eye on the wild tracts of moor and -pasture and peat bog, where even in the old days of foray there was, as -Dandie Dinmont said, 'mair stabling for horses than change-houses for -men', and where now all is utterly abandoned to the curlew and the -sheep. But they moved their household gods, and extended their bounds, -from the Bowmont to the Kale, from the Kale to the Teviot, and finally -from the Teviot to the Tweed." Their ruined castle of Cessford stands in -a lonely place, on a slope overhanging a little side-glen of the Kale -Water, some eight miles from Floors. The roof is gone, and all about is -bare and deserted. A few sapling ashes grow in the crannies of the -stone, but time has riven the thick walls which Surrey, in 1523, found -so hard to breach, and has thrown down the grand old Crow Tree that -stood so long beside Habbie Ker's stronghold. Long before this the -family had flitted to a warmer nest, and had feathered it with the -spoils of Old Roxburgh Castle and of Kelso Abbey. - -Scarcely less than Melrose and Abbotsford are Kelso and Floors the -centre of a sanctuary of Border romance; and over the scene the forms of -Hume Castle and Smailholm Tower seem to keep sentry-watch and to "shift -places mysteriously, like the triple heads of the weird Eildons, as if -they were pacing guard upon the hilltops". In the setting of the picture -revealed from these vantage-grounds are--along with places already -noted--the hanging woods of Stichell and Newtondon; Nenthorn, -Hendersyde, Mellerstain, Makerstoun; beyond Teviot, the rich woodlands -of Springwood, Woodendean, and Sunlaws; the darker pine trees around the -hunting seat of Bowmont Forest; the folds in which lie the "Gypsy -capital" of Kirk Yetholm, the ancient Kirk of Linton, Eckford of the -Douglases and Crailing of the Cranstons; the hills of Hounam and -Morebattle; and, behind all, the soft blue line, rising high in Great -Cheviot and sinking away towards the west, of the chain that divides the -kingdoms, with peeps here and there of Haddon Rig, and Ruberslaw, and -Dunion, and Minto Crags, and Penielheugh, crowned by its Waterloo -monument, with other scarce less famous Border heights. - -While, above the junction, the ascending valley of the Tweed holds its -way westwards, so that the water-sheds of its northern tributaries are -in common with those of streams flowing to the Forth and the Clyde, -Teviotdale keeps throughout a line that is parallel with the Marches of -the Kingdoms, from which its main channel is nowhere more than a dozen -miles away as the crow flies. It follows that there is more of hazard, -and with this more of romance, crowded into its annals than perhaps into -those of any other area of like extent. It is sprinkled over with -battlefields and with peel towers, most of them now in ruin; every dale -has been the scene of a fray, and every burn has a song or ballad tacked -to its name. These Middle and West Marches were a centre of power and -action, first of the House of Douglas, and then of the "Bauld -Buccleuch". The "Good Sir James of Douglas" kept the peace of this -troubled frontier for the Bruce; his son, the "Knight of Liddesdale", -expelled the English from Teviotdale, and was killed while hunting in -Ettrick Forest; his grandson, the first of the Douglas Earls, also -chased out the invaders and brought back spoils from the English side; -his great-grandson, the second Earl, captured Percy's pennon at -Newcastle, and was slain at Otterburn, while riding home by the road of -Redesdale and the Carter Bar with his prey; while it is of a later -descendant, "Earl Tineman", captured at Shrewsbury by a later Hotspur, -that the canny saying is quoted in _The Fortunes of Nigel_: "Poortith -(poverty) takes away pith, and the man sits full still who has a rent in -his breeks". - - [Illustration: BRANXHOLM TOWER] - -A Scott of Buccleuch accompanied James V when he hanged Johnnie -Armstrong of Gilnockie and all his company at Carlenrig near Teviothead; -and the "rank reiver's" reproach, given in one version of the ballad, -was not without edge: - - "Now haud your tongue, Sir Walter Scott, - Nor speak o' reif and felonie; - If ilka man had his ain coo, - A richt poor clan your name would be." - -It was from Branxholm, on the Teviot above Hawick, that another Scott of -the name--generation after generation were Walters--rode forth to rescue -"Kinmont Willie" from prison in Carlisle. The Minstrel's tale, in the -_Lay_, opens at and returns again and again to Branxholm Ha'; it was at -the Tower Inn, at Hawick, where the Duchess Anne of Buccleuch and -Monmouth held her receptions, and that the greatest of all the Sir -Walters parted from his guests the Wordsworths. - -It is a land dedicated to the achievements of Douglases and Scotts, but -that resounds also with the deeds of Elliots and Armstrongs, and of -minor and broken clans, Turnbulls and Rutherfords, Cranstouns and -Olivers. It has its rich endowment of beauty as well as of history. -Around the keep of Branxholm, which from the deep bank overhanging the -stream has often defied its enemies, have gathered buildings of more -recent date and a screen of ancient trees. Below it is the Tower of -Goldilands, where a marauding Scott was hanged at his own gate, and here -comes in from the left the Borthwick Water. As Leyden has it: - - "Where Bortha hoarse, that loads the meads with sand, - Rolls her red tide to Teviot's western strand, - Through slaty hills, whose sides are shagged with thorn, - And springs in scattered tufts the dark-green corn, - Towers wood-girt Harden, far above the vale"-- - -Harden, the cradle of the branch of the Scotts from which the author of -the _Lay_ was descended; the "mountain home", hidden in its narrow glen, -to which the "Flower of Yarrow" was brought by "Auld Wat"--"a wide -domain, and rich, had purple heath been grain". - -At the town of Hawick, Teviot meets Slitrig, coming from the wild bounds -of Liddisdale. All roads in Teviotdale seem to lead to Hawick, the -capital of its trade as well as a centre of its history. Proud as its -citizens are of the leading position of the burgh in the tweed and -hosiery manufacture of the South of Scotland, and of the undiminished -importance of its great lamb and sheep fairs, they are prouder still of -the prowess of its sons in the dark days that followed Flodden, and in -other scenes of Border strife. Scott was familiar with its story, as -with the streets and with the steep hills that surround this stirring -little metropolis of industrial and pastoral life; and allusion has -already been made to the literary and legendary memories attached to the -site of the Tower in which the Douglases of Drumlanrig entertained their -guests and protected their rights. From the parish church of St. Mary, -since often rebuilt, the heroic Ramsay of Dalhousie was carried away by -the Knight of Liddisdale, to be immured and to suffer a lingering death -in the Douglas hold of Hermitage-- - - "Did ever knight so foul a deed?" - -An older memorial of the past of Hawick is the Motehill, on which -justice was dispensed, and an outlook kept for enemies, in times beyond -the range even of tradition. The great "Hawick Tradition" of the capture -of the standard of the English marauders at Hornshole is kept green by -the annual ceremony of the "Common Riding", when Hawick is to be seen in -its gayest and most jubilant mood. The words and tune of its slogan of -"Teribus ye Teriodin" are supposed to have descended to it from heathen -times, and to have originally been an invocation to the gods of the -early Saxons and Norsemen--Thor and Odin. The defiant spirit of these -warriors of old seems still to ring in the chaunt sung by the Cornet and -his men as they ride round the marches in the beginning of June: - - "Teribus ye Teriodin, - Sons of heroes slain at Flodden, - Imitating Border Bowmen, - Aye defend your rights and Common." - -A few miles up the Slitrig is Stobs Castle, an ancient seat of the -Elliots, which became a military centre during the Great European War; -and there are many other places of note and fame on the once hazardous -way, now followed by the railway, that leads across the hills to the -head-streams of the Liddel and thence to those of the North Tyne, or to -the "Debatable Land", the Solway, and Carlisle. Another crowd of warlike -memories and of pastoral and woodland charms awaits those who, from -Hawick, or from the old Douglas seat of Cavers, lower down Teviotdale, -explore the Hobkirk valley, or pass over the skirts of Ruberslaw into -Rule Water--to Bonchester and to Hobkirk, where Thomson planned his -_Seasons_, and to Southdean, where the poet spent his early years, and -to the Carter Bar and the Border. - -A few miles below Hawick, past Hornshole and past Denholm, the -birthplace of John Leyden--the poet, the Oriental scholar, the friend of -Scott, whose "brief and bright career" closed too soon in the Malay -East--below "dark Ruberslaw" and the Dunion, which interposes its -round-backed form between the "mining Rule" and the "crystal Jed", and -more directly under the Minto Crags and the Chesters moors, lies one of -the loveliest bits on Teviot. Haughs and dells, green hills and wide -sweeps of river spread around the fragments of Fatlips Castle, whose -owner, a Turnbull, dwelt - - "Mid cliffs from whence his eagle eye - Full many a league his prey could spy"; - -and around Minto House, the home, since the Union, of the Elliots, a -race great in law and in war, in song and in statecraft, with whom, -through their descent from "Gibbie with the Gowden Garters", a daughter -of Harden, Sir Walter could "count kin". Jed Water and Ale Water come in -from south and north, farther down, and here, too, every foot is famous. -The "Minstrel" sings of scenes, on the track of William of Deloraine, -"good at need", among them - - "Ancient Riddel's fair domain, - Where Aill, from mountains freed, - Down from the lakes did raving come; - Each wave was crested with tawny foam, - Like the mane of a chestnut steed". - -The inflow of this turbulent stream is below the fine old -tree-surrounded Ancrum House. It is overshadowed by Penielheugh and by -the ridge of Lilliard's Edge, across which the main road from Carlisle, -that has followed the course of the Teviot almost from its source, toils -painfully over to the valley of the Tweed. On a day in 1545, Ancrum Moor - - "Ran red with English blood, - Where the Douglas true and the bold Buccleuch - 'Gainst keen Lord Evers stood"-- - -a victory to which, according to traditions, "fair Maid Lilliard" -contributed manfully, until, like a hero of "Chevy Chase", she "fought -upon her stumps". - -Jed Water is still more charged with the history and legends of the -past. Much of it, including Jedburgh Abbey, is the patrimony of the -branch of the Kerrs represented by the Marquis of Lothian, whose modern -seat, Mount Teviot, lies opposite Jedfoot, while the ancient home of the -family, Ferniehirst, begins to run to decay. It would take many pages to -do justice--even "Jeddart justice"--to Jedburgh, whose townsfolk, armed -with their "Jeddart staves" and to their slogan of "Jeddart's Here!" -were in the front of the Border Wars. Its Abbey, founded by David the -Saint, who placed here Augustinian canons from Beauvais early in the -twelfth century, is still, in spite of having been seven times burned, -the stateliest and the best preserved of the mediæval religious houses -of the Scott Country. The site of the Royal Castle, where in the "Golden -Age" of the Borders Alexander III held court after his second marriage, -has disappeared under public buildings; but the house in the Backgate is -pointed out where Mary Queen of Scots lay sick to death after her -perilous ride to Hermitage, as well as the lodging in the Castlegate -occupied by Prince Charlie on his march into England. - -His road lay over a shoulder of Carter Fell into Redesdale, where runs -what is still the only way across the hills for wheeled traffic in the -sixty miles between Wooler, on the Till, and Riccarton, on the Liddel, -although the Romans built over the Cheviots paved roads, one of which -descended into the head of Kale Water, and, from the site of the old -Border Trysts at Pennymuir, ran straight as a ruled line to the camp of -Newstead, under Eildon. From end to end these hills are deserted, except -by the shepherd and the sportsman. Along the "wild and willowed shore" -of Teviot and of Jed, the "glaring balefires blaze no more". The race of -the mosstroopers--of "John o' the Side" and "Christie's Will", the -"Laird's Jock" and "Hobbie Noble"--is long extinct. But there are still -to be found fine products of the soil, of the type of the stalwart -tenant of Charlieshope. The Border spirit may have run into -manufactures, and pastoral and arable farming, and Kirk and State -contentions, but anyone who fancies it is dead should attend a "Common -Riding", or an otter or fox-hunt, or a game of curling or of hand- or -foot-ball in these parts; or a meeting or parting of Hawick "Teeries" or -of "Jedburgh callants". He will doubt no more. - -Dryburgh Abbey is less than ten miles distant from Jedburgh, in a -straight line. But there are marked features distinguishing it from its -Teviotdale neighbour as well as from the Abbeys standing below and above -it on Tweedside--Kelso and Melrose. It was planted in its corner of -Berwickshire by baronial and not by kingly beneficence, its founder -being the great Hugh de Morville, in David's time Constable of Scotland -and Lord of Lauderdale, whose tomb is near the site of the high altar. -It was smaller in size and less richly endowed than the other three, but -is not less generously invested with historic and legendary interest. -Its fate and condition are not dissimilar, for like the others it was -many times burned and ravaged in the Border wars, and was afterwards -abandoned for centuries to neglect and decay. These Tweedside monastic -houses have now fallen upon happier times; for, apart from the reverence -they have gathered from the past, and not least from their association -with Sir Walter Scott, they have lately become national possessions, -through the generosity of the Duke of Roxburghe at Kelso, of the Duke of -Buccleuch at Melrose, and of Lord Glenconner at Dryburgh. The -Præmonstratensian Abbey on the bend of the Tweed under Bemerside Hill -differs from its rivals in respect that it has preserved more of the -monastic buildings and less of the church. Of Dryburgh Abbey -Church--apart from the north transept, of which more has to be -said--little is left beyond the gables of the south transept and of the -west front, the latter pierced by a five-light window, surmounting some -ruined walls, and the foundations of piers. But the chapter house--St. -Modan's chapel--is extant, and its vaulted roof covers interesting -architectural and archæological details, while of the cloisters, -sacristy, fratery, and other domestic buildings of the "White Friars" of -Dryburgh there are considerable remains, clad in ivy and overhung by -immemorial yews and other trees. Enough survives to indicate a structure -of much grace and beauty, showing a great range of styles from -Romanesque to Later Pointed, and built of a local reddish sandstone -which, as at Melrose, has weathered into a rich and harmonious variety -of colour. - - [Illustration: DRYBURGH ABBEY: THE TOMB OF SIR WALTER SCOTT] - -It is, however, in its situation and in its happy blending with its -immediate surroundings that Dryburgh is chiefly distinguished from its -compeers. It is secluded from the world, on the margin of the wide -stream; hidden among woods and overlooked by hills. To reach it you have -to circumvent rivers and climb up and down steep braes. The easiest way -of approach is by crossing Lessudden Bridge, from the south bank of the -Tweed above the tower of Littledean. This was the road followed by the -"bold Baron" of Smailholm, whose tower and Beacon Hill, and the standing -stones on the moor of Brotherstone, look down from the eastern and -northern skyline on the scene - - "Over Tweed's fair flood, and Mertoun's wood, - And all down Teviotdale". - -By Mertoun's wood, the screen of Dryburgh from gales blowing from the -sea, and now the property of Lord Polwarth, a Scott of the Harden blood, -the way winds to the Abbey precincts, overshadowed by the great trees -that surround Dryburgh House. Naturally the feet first seek the tomb of -Sir Walter in St. Mary's Aisle. The story of how the best beloved of the -sons of the Border came to be laid under this fragment of the north -transept and choir--a well-preserved piece of elegant First Pointed -work--is itself a romance. His grandmother on the father's side, Barbara -Haliburton, was the daughter of a Merse laird, who was owner of part of -the lands of Dryburgh, including the Abbey ruins. She became his -inheritor; but before then Robert Haliburton had lost his lands through -unwise speculation. David Erskine, eleventh Earl of Buchan--brother of -Lord Chancellor Erskine and of Harry Erskine, the brilliant wit and -pleader--who has left the impress of his eccentric mind on the colossal -statue of Wallace which stands, "frowning towards England", above his -suspension bridge for foot passengers crossing the Tweed from St. -Boswells, became possessor of the ground; and, through Lady Scott, -obtained a promise from the author of _Waverley_ that he should be -buried in this kindred earth. Lady Scott died in 1826, and Buchan in -1829, while Sir Walter himself was not laid here until 26th September, -1832. In his fragment of "Autobiography", Scott records how he had come -to his own again in this twice-hallowed spot; and, with a touch of -prophecy as well as pathos, he wrote: "And thus we have nothing left of -Dryburgh, although my father's maternal inheritance, but the right of -stretching our bones where mine may perhaps be laid ere any eye but my -own glances over these pages." Nowhere--not even in Melrose--could the -Wizard rest more tranquilly than in this scene where nature and art, the -present and the past, and life and death seem to be brought into perfect -accord. - -The funeral cortège, coming from Abbotsford, crossed the Tweed and -Leader at Leaderfoot, and climbing, past Gladswood, by a road with which -Scott was familiar, halted where he had often halted, and where -multitudes have halted since, at a bold and sharp elbow of the path, -raised three hundred feet above the river, whence an unrivalled view can -be had into the heart of the Scott Country. Immediately below, across -the stream, on a peninsula of land washed on three sides by the Tweed, -is Old Melrose, a spot which had gathered sanctity many centuries before -the mediæval abbeys rose in the valley. Here a mission station of the -Christian faith was planted from distant Iona; and hence, probably, -travelled Aidan to convert heathen Northumbria and to found Lindisfarne -and Hexham; here dwelt, as first abbot, his companion Eata, and also -Boisel, who gave his name to St. Boswell's opposite, and to whom came -for instruction Cuthbert, a shepherd lad who had been reared at -Wrangham, near Brotherstone, and had tended his flock and seen visions -in the Lammermoors. From "Mailros", the bald promontory--its very name -attests the tongue in which the Celtic founders spoke--St. Cuthbert's -body in its stone coffin floated downstream on its many wanderings by -water and land; and, as related by Bede, the hermit Drithelm was wont in -winter to break the ice on the river, and, standing up to the neck in -the water, recite his prayers. Although it was abandoned before the -"Sair Saint" brought to the neighbourhood and to Scotland the first -monks of the Cistercian Order, some of the prestige of Old Melrose must -have clung to the name and been transferred to the Religious House on -the new site, the ruddy walls of which can be descried, sheltering at -the foot of the Eildons, across the fields on which, long before the -coming of the Columban missionaries, the Romans planted the -expeditionary camp and permanent station of Trimontium, that have only -lately yielded their secrets to the spade. - -This Bemerside Hill is a "Mount of Vision" from which all the chief -shrines and high places of the Scott Country can be surveyed, at least -with the mind's eye. Abbotsford itself, if not in actual view, can be -mapped into the scene by direction and position. Out of sight, directly -under the brow of the hill, is the ancient square fortalice, with later -buildings attached, and grounds stretching down towards the Tweed, where -Haigs have been resident for seven centuries. They were benefactors of -Melrose when Alexander III was king, and when Thomas the Rhymer was -their neighbour and wellwisher, and uttered the prophecy that has so -mightily helped its own fulfilment: - - [Illustration: BEMERSYDE HOUSE] - - "Betyde, betyde, whate'er betyde, - Haig shall be Haig of Bemersyde." - -Sir Walter Scott was a later friend of the family, and was often a guest -in the beautiful rose-garden below the mansion. A grateful nation -bestowed the house and manor on the late Field-Marshal Earl Haig, who -now lies at rest close by Sir Walter at Dryburgh. The whole scene and -surroundings seem to be touched by the spirit of prophecy and of poetry. -On the hills opposite stood the "Eildon Tree" and the "Eildon Stone"; -and beyond these, on Abbotsford property, the reputed "Rhymer's Glen", -where "True Thomas" encountered the Queen of Faëry, although the tryst -may well have been at Huntlywood, behind Brotherstone, on the Eden -Water, and near Corsbie Tower, the ruined "Castle of Avenel". As has -been said, Drithelm and Cuthbert were visionaries, so were Boisel, the -second Abbot of the old, and Waldave, the first Abbot of the new -foundation; and centuries before the time of the Seer of Ercildoune they -dreamed dreams and saw things not of this world and far into the future. -According to popular belief, of like gifts was "Auld Michael", whose -words "cleft Eildon Hills in three". The last and the greatest of these -"Wizard Scotts" is he who sleeps with his fathers in St. Mary's Aisle. - -When descent is made into the valley of the Leader, one is still in the -land of enchantment. The ivy-covered "Rhymer's Tower" is a few miles up -the glen, and on the way, under the Black Hill of Earlston, are -Drygrange and the "Broom o' the Cowdenknowes". Near by, at Mellerstain, -lived and sang Grizel Baillie, who was Grizel Hume; and in the Kirk of -Legerwood is the monument of that other Grizel, who, in the dress of a -highwayman, saved her father's life by holding up the King's officer -carrying the writ for his execution. Higher up Leader are Carolside, -and, in a side glen, Auld Thirlstane, the seat of "Auld Maitland", and -Spottiswoode, the home of Alicia Spottiswoode--Lady John Scott--writer -and composer of "Bonnie Annie Laurie" and other thrilling Scots lyrics. -The new Thirlstane--it is hundreds of years old--is in the centre of -Lauderdale, beside the venerable Royal Burgh of Lauder, the last of the -municipalities in the land to retain its old burghal rights and customs. -Many are the hill-forts and camps that look down on the now peaceful -scenes through which the road--a favourite tourist coach route--passes -on its way from the crossing of the Lammermoors to the Tweed; and among -them are Channelkirk where Cuthbert heard the summons of the Heavenly -Host, and Edgarshope, by which the message of fire that told of the -crossing of the border by the English bands, was wont to be passed on to -Soutra Edge, near by the Hospice of the Red Friars, to which, and not to -Faeryland, Thomas retired from the world, when he followed the -mysterious Hart and Hind up Leaderside. - -Not less richly furnished with the relics of eld and with the charms of -modern cultivation is the parallel vale of the Gala, the nursery of the -"Braw Lads". The "Shirra" often traversed it on his way by Midleton Moor -to his home and sphere of jurisdiction on Ettrick and Tweed, upon which -the stream, road, and railway debouch a little below the mill lades and -chimney stalks of the town of Galashiels, and almost opposite to -Abbotsford. On the links and bends of the Gala, and its side glens of -the Heriot, the Armit, and the Luggate, are many places of historic -note--Crookston, of the Borthwicks, for example; Stow--the "Stowe of -Wedale", of Arthurian and mediæval fame; Bowland, like Eildon Hall, on -the farther side of the Eildons, a possession of the House of Buccleuch; -the ruined "broch" on the Bow Hill, facing, across the valley, a similar -structure which, with the termination of that ancient and mysterious -line of earthworks, the "Catrail", occupies the crown of Torwoodlee, of -the Pringles; finally, Buckholm Hill and Tower, looking over the roofs -of the busy seat of tweed manufactures to Gala Hill and Gala House of -the Scotts. "Gala Water, Buckholm, Torwoodlee", were among the last -audible words murmured by the dying "Border Minstrel". - -Between "Leader howms" and Gala Water runs the little stream of the -Allan or Alwyne through the "Fairy Dean". Lovers of Scott will not pass -it by, because, apart from the loveliness of its succession of -wood-embowered haughs, it leads to a spot where three ruined peel -towers--Hillslap, Colmslie, and Langshaw--stand not many bowshots apart, -memorials of the time when the smaller lairds had to bind themselves -together by a "bond of manrent", for protection against their more -powerful neighbours; and the first of these has been identified, with -some sanction from Scott himself, as the "Glendearg" of the Glendinnings -in _The Monastery_ and _The Abbot_. Near the bridge which crosses the -Tweed at the "Pavilion of Alwyn", and the "groves of noble Somerville", -was the scene of the misadventure of Philip, the Sacristan, at the hands -of the spirits, and of Mysie Happer, the daughter of the miller of the -Halidome. The dairy farm of the "monks of St. Mary's" was on Allan -Water; up it led the "girth-gait" which they often followed on the way -to Soutra Hospice. True Thomas's rhymed sayings cling to this -countryside like--in Father Philip's phrase--"burrs to a beggar's rags". -The region between Leaderfoot and Galashiels was part of the original -patrimony of the Cistercian Abbey; all the way, but especially where -Gattonside, set on its hillside and surrounded by its famous orchards, -"beiks in the sun", one sees, in glimpses or in full view, - - [Illustration: MELROSE ABBEY: CHOIR AND NORTH TRANSEPT] - - "Where fair Tweed flows round holy Melrose - And Eildon slopes to the plain". - -In drawing near to Melrose, especially if one crosses at Leaderfoot, and -approaches by the village of Newstead and over the site of the Roman -camp, one feels there is something to be said for Dorothy Wordsworth's -disappointment on coming first into near view of the Abbey. It stands -back from the river--perhaps because the river has left it--and apart -from the hills. It is in the fields outside of the village, the streets -of which come to its gate and stop there; and it is surrounded by walls, -which interrupt and deform proportions seriously injured by the loss of -its central tower. Melrose--"the light of the land, the abode of saints, -the grave of monarchs"--is a glorious fragment, more beautiful, perhaps, -in detail than in general effect, in ornament than in design; and -memorable even more for its legendary and literary associations than for -its actual history. The monastery dates from the same abbey-building -reign as its rivals on Tweedside; but architecturally the church belongs -to another horizon. Of the original Norman fabric that stood on the site -scarcely a trace remains. It was swept away during the descent upon it -of Edward II in 1322, and what remained must have perished under the -equally destructive assault of Richard II in 1385. Between these two -dates, a building arose, represented by the eastern end of the nave with -its flying buttresses and by adjoining parts of the choir and transepts, -that may be regarded as a monument of the piety and the gratitude of -Robert the Bruce, whose heart, brought back from the Paynim lands to -which the "good Sir James" of Douglas had carried it, is buried in the -Abbey. The work of rebuilding was continued for nearly a couple of -centuries longer; and it is evident that the highest art and -craftsmanship the age could produce were employed in construction and in -ornament, which, owing to the fineness of grain of the red sandstone -employed, remains in wonderful preservation. It is doubtful whether it -was completed before the tempests of the Tudor invasions and of the -Reformation fell upon it, and the monks were put to flight. It has not -been definitely ascertained how far the long nave extended to the -westward, or what was the plan of the monastic buildings, of which and -of the cloister only a few fragments are left on the northern side of -the church. The presbytery, with its much extolled "east oriel" window, -was probably among the later additions, and is one of the finest -examples of Perpendicular Gothic extant. Scott would have us view it -when the moon is shining "through slender shafts of shapely stone, by -foliaged tracery combined", and to imagine that - - "Some fairy's hand - 'Twixt poplars straight the ozier wand, - In many a freakish knot, had twined". - -But even more wonderful and beautiful to many eyes is the great -Decorated window of the south transept that lightens the aisle in which, -as is fabled, the Wizard Michael sleeps with his magic books beside him. -Familiar are the lines in which Sir Walter, a constant pilgrim to this -shrine, chants its praises--of its cloister garth: - - "Nor herb, nor floweret, glistened there, - But was carved in the cloister-arches fair"; - -of the vaulted roof, where - - "The key-stone that locked each ribbéd aisle - Was a fleur-de-lys or a quatrefeuille"; - -and of the pillars, with their clustered shafts, that - - "With base and with capital flourished around - Seem'd bundles of lances which garlands had bound". - -It must have been a labour of love to frame this marvellously carved -casket, in which are laid the ashes of kings and prelates. Here rest the -chiefs of the once mighty House of Douglas, and, not far away, of the -English Warden who desecrated their tombs and was overtaken and slain at -Ancrum Moor; among minor clans "Ye race of ye House of Zair"--Kerrs and -Pringles; and, later in date but of the same stubborn and trusty Border -stuff, Tom Purdie, the reclaimed poacher and faithful watchdog and -factotum of the Laird of Abbotsford. The prayer of John Morvo, inscribed -on the wall of the south transept, - - "I pray to God and Marie baith - And sweet St. John keep this haly Kirk frae skaith", - -has not been fulfilled. To other bludgeonings of fate was added its -conversion into the parish church in the seventeenth century. Walter -Scott helped to rescue it from vandalism and neglect; and he continues -to be the guardian spirit of the "dark Abbaye". - -Not less than in the days of the monks is the adjacent town of -Melrose--"Kennaquair" the residence of the antiquarian Captain Cuthbert -Clutterbuck--an appanage of the Abbey, out of which indeed it has partly -been built. One looks in vain for the "Druid Oak", which existed only in -Scott's fancy. But Melrose has its market cross and market place, and -does a modest business with the country round. Its chief source of -prosperity, however, is in its situation and its associations; it may be -called the capital of the "Scott Country". Abbotsford is little more -than a couple of miles away. The road to it passes Darnick Tower, a red -keep festooned with greenery, the stronghold of one of the lay vassals -of the Abbey; and skirts, in the grounds of the Hydropathic -Establishment, the "skirmish field" on which was fought in 1526 the fray -between the Scotts and the Kerrs of the Douglas faction that gave rise -to a long feud between the clans. Scott, it may be noted, speaks of the -scene, when - - "Cessford's heart-blood dear - Reeked on dark Elliot's Border spear", - -as if it had taken place beside the ruined Kerr stronghold of Holydean, -on the southern side of the hills beyond Huntly-burn and the "Rhymer's -Glen", and thus near to the pretty village of Bowden, which sits under -the lowest of the three Eildons, and looks down into the valley of the -Ale and towards Cavers Carre and Lilliesleaf. - -The fields and woods sloping down from Bowden Moor and Cauldshields -Loch, on the left of the way from Melrose to Abbotsford, are part of the -possessions which Sir Walter gathered together between 1811, when he had -to give up Ashestiel, and 1824; and they still belong to his -descendants. The nucleus of the property was the little farm of Cartley, -or Clarty, Hole, on the Tweed a little above the inflow of the Gala. It -lay almost opposite to the site of the plum trees that, according to a -story of Border foray much cherished in Galashiels, gave to that town -the burghal arms and the slogan tune of "Soor Plooms", the favourite -bagpipe air of Scott's Kelso uncle. On the strength of a tradition that -there was here a crossing-place of the monks, Abbotsford got its new and -ever memorable name. A modest cottage, which forms part of the west -wing, gradually grew with the growth of the owner's fame and fortunes, -until, at the end of fourteen years, by addition and reconstruction, -mainly all of Sir Walter's own devising, it had become the stately -baronial mansion, adorned with turrets, corbels, and crowsteps, that -challenges the eye by its form and size as well as by its history. Into -it the author of the _Waverley Novels_ may be said to have built his -fancies, his aspirations, and his ambitions; and here he counted on -spending the evening of his days in well-earned rest, surrounded by his -children and his friends, and by the love and admiration of his fellow -countrymen. Hardly had this "poem in stone and lime" been brought to -completion when an untimely frost blasted his hopes, and with unimpaired -courage, but with gradually failing strength, he turned to a task, -greater than any that ever fell to his namesake the "michty Michael", -and worked unremittingly, with hand and brain, for another seven years' -term until he came back for the last time to Abbotsford, a spent and -broken man, to die. Sadder far his return than his departure a year -before in quest of health, when - - "A trouble, not of clouds or weeping rain, - Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light - Engendered, hung o'er Eildon's triple height". - -It brought the last touch of tragedy and of heroism to the closing scene -of that noble life--to the passing of the marvellous power, the warm and -generous heart, the gallant spirit that was Walter Scott. He enjoyed, -however, many happy days in Abbotsford; it is associated more with his -triumphs than with his misfortunes. Here he trod his fields, delighted -"to call this wooded patch of earth his own", entertained literary -celebrities like Washington Irving, Maria Edgeworth, and the -Wordsworths, held almost feudal receptions of his retainers and -neighbours, talked and walked with his familiars--Lockhart, Skene, -Cranstoun, the "beloved Erskine"--and with his "ain folk", and planned -and wrote his novels. Tweed sings a blither as well as a fuller strain -since he dwelt by it. - -Into the house, he built material more substantial than his hopes. Scott -had the antiquarian temper and taste; and like Burns's Grose, and his -own Oldbuck, he gathered about him "a routh o' auld nicknackets", many -of them the free-will offering of admirers. In this way the door of the -old Edinburgh Tolbooth--the "Heart of Midlothian"--came into his -possession, along with the ponderous lock and key over which "Daddie -Ratton" had held charge. Sculptured and inscribed stones from the High -Street and Canongate houses have also found their way here; while within -the house has been collected a museum of Border antiquities, along with -portraits, and personal souvenirs and relics, gathered from all corners -of the land. The house has been left "very much as in Sir Walter's -time"; and a constant stream of pilgrims visits it. In the library are -relics of Napoleon, of Prince Charlie and Flora Macdonald, of Nelson and -Wellington; in the drawing-room, among other famous pictures, is -Raeburn's portrait of Scott; in the armoury, memorials of Rob Roy, -Montrose, Claverhouse, and Archbishop Sharpe, and the keys of Loch Leven -Castle, while on the walls are blazoned the escutcheons of "ye Clannis -and men of name quha keepit ye Scottish Marches in the days of auld". -But more impressive than any of these things are the chair in which -Scott sat to write or dictate and the pen that in his hand was as a -magician's rod. - -The way from Abbotsford to Selkirk, by the valleys of the Tweed and -Ettrick, past Fawdonside and Lindean, was a familiar one to the -"Shirra". He had legal and other county business that carried him often -during a third of a century to the head town of his Forest Sheriffdom; -and inclination went hand in hand with duty, for the road led to Ettrick -and Yarrow, to "Sweet Bowhill" and to - - "The shattered front of Newark's towers - Renowned in Border story". - - [Illustration: ABBOTSFORD] - -Selkirk--the old "church of the shielings", which, in the days when -David I and his successors hunted in the forest of Ettrick, served the -royal sportsmen for their orisons--narrowly missed being the seat of an -Abbey. A colony of Tyronesian monks were settled in it more than eight -centuries ago, but were removed, "for convenience", to Kelso. The -"Souters of Selkirk" have since given themselves to war, to shoemaking, -and latterly to tweed manufacture. But the town has not neglected -poetry, and bards of later date have been born and have sung in it, -since Burns and Scott drew the "birse" across their lips. It is set well -above the vale of the Ettrick, at the gate of the Haining policies; and -its public buildings are gathered around the triangular market-place, in -which stands a statue of Sir Walter in his sheriff's robes. In the Free -Library is hung the Flodden Standard brought home by the survivors of -that day of disaster, when "the Flowers o' the Forest were a' wede -awa'". - -In 1645 Montrose was resting, with his cavalry, in Selkirk, his infantry -encamped at Philiphaugh, on the other side of Ettrick, when David Lesley -crept up on him from Melrose, in the mist of a September morning. In two -or three hours the fruits of nine brilliant victories were lost, and the -great captain was a fugitive speeding across Minchmoor to Traquair, -where, the door being shut on him, he passed on to Clydesdale and the -Highlands. There have been many romantic crossings of Minchmoor, and -meetings and partings at "Wallace's Trench"--part of the old Catrail or -Picts' Dyke--and at the Cheese Well. Walter Scott accompanied his friend -Mungo Park--whose statue stands near his own in the streets of -Selkirk--when Park was starting on his African journey. They separated -on the ridge above Williamhope, where, as has already been told, Sir -William Douglas, the "Flower of Chivalry", was slain by his cousin the -Earl of Douglas, in revenge, it is said, for the most unchivalrous deed -of the starving to death, in Hermitage Castle, of Sir Alexander de -Ramsay. Across this high moor between Yarrow and Tweed came James V, -with five belted earls, to the meeting with the "Outlaw Murray", lord of -Hangingshaws, and Newark, and Philiphaugh and other lands on Yarrow. The -king's message ran-- - - "Bid him meet me at Permanscore,[1] - And bring four in his companie; - Five earls sall come wi' mysel, - Good reason I suld honoured be". - -Permanscore is a hollow of the hill, "where wind and water shears", and -here, three hundred years after the "Outlaw's" time, the "Shirra" -assembled and conducted "a perambulation of the marches" in a case of -disputed boundaries. - -Carterhaugh--the meadow on which faithful Janet met "Young Tamlane", -and, by holding him through all his grisly transformations, rescued him -from Fairy-land--lies in the fork between Ettrick and Yarrow. Behind it -is Bowhill, at the time when the _Lay_ was written the favourite seat of -the Buccleuch family; and the "Duchess's Walk", along the right bank of -the Yarrow, is named from the lady who suggested to Scott the "Goblin -Page" as an episode of the _Lay_. It leads to where - - "Newark's stately tower - Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower", - -and to the "embattled portal arch" - - "Whose ponderous grate and massy bar - Had oft rolled back the tide of war". - -Within the deserted walls, the widowed Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth -is pictured as listening to the tale of the Last Minstrel. Local -tradition has it that in the courtyard the Irish prisoners who -surrendered at Philiphaugh were massacred; another story asserts that -they were slaughtered on "Slainmenslee". Newark was a royal hunting-seat -in the fifteenth century; and its possession carried with it the -Hereditary Sheriffdom of the Forest, which with many things else in this -country came to the House of Buccleuch. - -Over against Newark is Foulshiels, the birthplace of Mungo Park. -Broadmeadows and Lewinhope and Tinnis are higher up the stream, which -here runs between steep wooded hills, cloven by narrow side glens and -with spaces of rich haughland on its margin. Yarrow burrows under banks -of birch and hazel, or overshadowed by fine forest trees. The vale is -"strewn with the sites of the tragedies of far-off years, forgotten by -history, but remembered in song and tradition"; it is "the very -sanctuary of romantic ballad-love. Its clear current sings a mournful -song of the 'good heart's bluid' that once stained its wave; of the -drowned youth caught in the 'cleaving o' the craig'. The winds that -sweep the hillsides and bend 'the birks a' bowing' whisper still of the -wail of the 'winsome marrow', and have an undernote of sadness on the -brightest day of summer; while with the fall of the red and yellow leaf -the very spirit of 'pastoral melancholy' broods and sleeps in the -enchanted valley. Always, by Yarrow, the comely youth goes forth only to -fall by the sword, fighting against odds in the Dowie Dens, or to be -caught and drowned in the treacherous pools of this fateful river; -always the woman is left to weep over her lost and lealful lord." No -strict identification of ballad sites and origins is possible; but the -story of the "Dowie Dens" has become associated with Tinnis bank and -with Deucharswire, beside Yarrow Kirk; and is said to be founded on the -slaughter in 1616 of Walter Scott of Oakwood by the kin of John Scott of -Tushielaw, with whose daughter, Grizel, Oakwood had contracted an -irregular marriage. - - [Illustration: TRAQUAIR] - -A group of authentic memories gather around Yarrow Kirk and Manse, and -the bridge which carries a crossroad over the hills to Ettrick. A -succession of cultured pastors have dwelt here, including Dr. Rutherford -the grandfather of Scott, two generations of Russells, and the late Dr. -Borland. By an unfortunate fire, in the spring of 1922, the restored -church was destroyed, together with the memorials placed in it of Sir -Walter, of Willie Laidlaw, his friend and amanuensis, of Wordsworth, and -of the Ettrick Shepherd, all of them residents or visitors on Yarrow and -worshippers in this secluded fane. In a field close by is a stone carved -in rude Latin minuscules to the "Sons of Liberalis, of the Dumnogeni", a -relic of post-Roman times. Above Yarrow Kirk, the valley widens until it -becomes spacious enough to hold the clear mirror of St. Mary's Loch; the -hills become bare and green and smooth, and over the ridge on the right -comes the road from the Tweed by Paddyslack and Mountbenger to the -Gordon Arms. It was from this road that Wordsworth, in good company, -caught his first, and his last, glimpse of Yarrow-- - - "When first descending from the moorlands - I saw the stream of Yarrow glide - Along a bare and open valley, - The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide. - When last along its banks I wandered, - Through groves that had begun to shed - Their golden leaves upon the pathway, - My steps the Border Minstrel led." - -Hogg farmed, unsuccessfully, Mountbenger, before he removed across -Yarrow to Altrieve, where he spent the last year of his life and where -he died. In his youth he had herded sheep on Blackhouse heights, where -looking down on the ruined peel on the Douglas burn are the stones that -mark the place where the "seven bauld brethren" fell, in their pursuit -of "Lord William and Lady Margaret". The escaping lovers lighted down at -this "wan water". - - "'Hold up, hold up, Lord William,' she said, - 'For I fear that ye are slain.' - ''Tis naething but the shadow of my scarlet cloak - That shines in the water so plain.'" - -But it was his "heart's bluid", and the pair were buried together in St. -Mary's Church, whose deserted graveyard is set on a shelf of Hendersyde -Hill, overlooking the loch, and fronting the dome of Bowerhope Hill. - -On the banks of a burn which flows into Yarrow a little below where it -issues from the loch is Dryhope Tower. "Auld Watt" of Harden came to it -to bear away Mary Scott, the "Flower of Yarrow", and part of the -provision for their housekeeping was the spoils of the "first -harvest-moon". Half-way along the shore of St. Mary's, at Cappercleuch, -pours in the Meggat Water, a stream that drains some of the highest -ground in the Southern Uplands. It was a favourite royal hunting-forest -in 1529, when James V came this way intent on the extirpation of the -Border thieves; and fate threw in his path Cockburn of Henderland, whose -tower was near Meggatfoot. The hollow and waterfall of the "Dowglen" are -shown where his lady sought shelter, while "they broke her bower and -slew her knight"; the spot, with names inscribed, can be seen in a -little clump of wood beside the ruined peel to which she bore him on her -back and dug his grave:-- - - "And thinkna ye my heart was sair - When I laid the mools on his yellow hair; - And thinkna ye my heart was wae - When I turned aside awa to gae". - -Unfortunately for tradition, the fact is on record that Cockburn of -Henderland, like his neighbour Scott of Tushielaw, was tried and -executed at Edinburgh. James Hogg would have made small ado about -brushing such obstructions out of the way of romance. His statue stands -at the head of St. Mary's Loch--the presiding genius of the scene. The -road up Yarrow, passing through the woods of Rodono, holds out beyond -it, by the Loch of the Lowes and Chapelhope to Birkhill, and then, under -the "Grey Mare's Tail" and White Coombe, down Moffatdale. But the seated -figure of the burly Shepherd, wrapped in his plaid, faces "Tibbie -Shiels", the rendezvous of generations of thirsty fishers and poets, on -the narrow space between the lochs, and looks towards the hills up which -the crossroad climbs steeply, making for Ettrick. It was at this famous -hostelry that Hogg gave his classical order, after a hard night's -drinking with Christopher North and other congenial company, "Tibbie, -bring in the Loch!" "He taught the wandering winds to sing", reads the -inscription on his monument; and the strong song of the winds that blow -down Ettrick accompanies the traveller as he climbs over by the -Packman's Grave, descends to Tushielaw and, turning upstream at -Crosslee, follows the valley to the Shepherd's birthplace and grave, -beside Ettrick Kirk. This out-of-the-world nook in the hills--for the -road up Ettrickdale comes to an end a few miles higher, under Ettrick -Pen--may be reckoned the heart of pastoral Scotland. The thoughts and -the talk of the inhabitants are absorbed in sheep--except what may be -reserved for sport, and "auld farrant tales", and church affairs. Around -the Shepherd rest many of his own kin and kind: farmers and herds, -lairds and tenants, reivers, smugglers, and gypsies--and in this strange -mixed company, "Boston of Ettrick", of the "Fourfold State", the great -preacher and Covenanting divine. - -The Castle of Thirlstane, on Ettrick, stands a little below the kirk, -with a fragment of Gamescleuch Tower facing it on the opposite bank. -Thirlstane belonged to the "Ready, aye Ready" Scotts, until it went by -marriage to its present possessors the Napiers. Tushielaw was another -hold of the clan, and here dwelt Adam Scott--"King of the Thieves", and -"King of the Borders"--the father of Mary, the "Forest Flower" of the -"Queen's Wake"--until his rival from Holyrood came and "justified" him, -says legend, on the Doom Tree at his own door. - -Across the water from Tushielaw "Rankleburn's lonely side" leads far -into the hills. Rankleburn is the traditional first home of the Scotts -in the basin of the Tweed, although Kirkurd in the Lyne valley might put -in an earlier claim. They are even said to have drawn their name and -their chief title from this deserted glen, high up which lies Buccleuch, -now marked only by the foundations of a chapel wall. Scott of Satchells, -who wrote the family story in halting rhyme, in 1686, tells how a -wandering Scott from Galloway, in the remote days of Kenneth II, seized -a hunted buck by the horns, swung it on his shoulders and brought it to -the king:-- - - "And for the buck thou stoutly brought - To us up that steep heugh, - Thy designation ever shall - Be John Scott of Buck's cleuch". - -Neither at Gilmanscleuch, nor on the Deloraine burn, nor at the Dodhead -have the men of the type of Jamie Telfer, who, "steady of heart and -stout of hand, once drove their prey from Cumberland", left any trace of -themselves in standing walls. A reminiscence of old forest times -survives in such names as Hindhope and Hartwoodmyres; the shell of an -ancient peel guards, at Kirkhope, the "Swire Road" across the "Witchie -Knowe" from Yarrow to Ettrick Bridgend; and Oakwood has something more -substantial to show in the shape of the red keep which local legend -insists was built by the redoubtable Sir Michael Scott himself, although -its foundations must have been laid centuries after his date. Enough for -us that it was in the keeping of "Auld Watt" of Harden. - - "Wide lay his lands round Oakwood Tower - And wide round haunted Castle Ower." - -At Oakwood we are back again beside Selkirk, and at Selkirk we are near -where, each skirting the grounds of Sunderland Hall, Tweed and Ettrick -meet, and where we can resume our course up the larger stream. With the -delightful section of the Tweed between The Rink and Elibank, Walter -Scott had many close ties. The right bank, and part of the left, were -within his jurisdiction as Sheriff, in which office he succeeded his -friend, Andrew Plummer of Sunderland Hall, in 1799. But even earlier he -made familiar acquaintance with the district, on angling and walking -excursions, and had visited the Russells and "Laird Nippy", at -Ashestiel. The Rutherfords of Fairnilee--the old house in which was born -Alison Rutherford, the author of the popular version of "The Flowers of -the Forest", stands roofless and deserted, but a new mansion has risen -in its neighbourhood--were of his kin. He was a welcome guest also with -the Pringles of Yair, whose home, bound about by the woods and hills, is -across the river, with the "sister heights of Yair", otherwise known as -the "Three Brethren", as background. It may be remembered that it was -with a son of "the long-descended lord of Yair", Alexander Pringle of -Clovenfords, that in later days he went over the field of Waterloo. -Clovenfords was the nearest point of his Sheriffdom to town, and it was -convenient for him to take up occasional residence there. Leyden had -been schoolmaster in the village, which stands high above the rocky den -of the Caddon, on the Peebles and Galashiels road, a mile from the -"bonny bit" of Caddonfoot. While raising grapes and other fruit it -piously preserves the memory of the author of _Marmion_ in the form of -an effigy set up before the door of the inn, where, besides Scott, -William and Dorothy Wordsworth and other famous travellers have -sojourned. - - [Illustration: ASHESTIEL: SCOTT'S FIRST HOUSE IN THE BORDER COUNTRY] - -In 1804, Scott found it convenient to take a lease of Ashestiel; and -that leafy cover became his home for the next seven years. It is within -a couple of miles of Clovenfords and Caddonfoot. Under Caddonlee, where -William the Lion waited with his bands from the Highlands and the -Lothians, until he was joined by the Forest men on his ill-fated -invasion of England, Tweed is crossed by a single wide arch to where -"Glenkinnen's rill" and glen open a short cut, oft traversed with the -"Yair boys", to Yarrow. Near the Peel burn is a knoll shaded by oak and -birch--the "Shirra's Knowe"--where part of _Marmion_ is said to have -been written. The house, much changed since Scott's day, turns its front -and two extended wings away from the Tweed; but its most attractive -aspect is perhaps that towards the river. The little stream, that with -its hoarse roaring in spate used to keep the great author, then just -blossoming into fame, from his sleep, still tumbles through the garden. -His armchair, which came back from Abbotsford after his death, and the -window through which his favourite dogs sprang in or out at his call, -are still shown. In these Ashestiel years he saw the last volume of the -_Minstrelsy_ through the press, published the _Lay_, completed _Marmion_ -and _The Lady of the Lake_, edited Dryden, and began but laid aside -_Waverley_. His legal work was not absorbing, and he had time, aside -from literature, for following the hounds, "burning the water", making -raids into the Forest, and holding convivial meetings with his friends. -They were perhaps the happiest, if not the most brilliant, years of his -life. - -At Elibank, a couple of miles above Ashestiel, we leave Selkirkshire and -enter Peeblesshire. The bare grey walls of the old castle of Gideon -Murray, of the Black Barony branch of the name, a lord of Session and -trusted Councillor of James VI, stands well above the tree-line, against -the background of the hills, and commands a wide view of Upper and Lower -Tweeddale. History, in this region, arranges itself in strata, with the -oldest at the top--by the river margin are road and rail, farms with -their fertile haughs, and the houses and tweed-mills of Walkerburn and -Innerleithen; fragments of peels and bastiles of the fighting times when -Thornielee and Holylee were onsteads of the monks or of the king's -forest vassals, are perched on the ridges, or hide in the folds or -"hopes" of the hills, on whose summits are found the forts and cairns of -a still earlier day. The outposts of the Moorfoots come to the left bank -of the river, and behind them are the broad shoulders of Windlestraelaw; -while over against them are steep outliers of Minchmoor--Elibank, Bold -and Plora Laws. "Juden" Murray's tower is of feudal date and aspect. -Scott tells the story of how Young Harden, son of Auld Watt and the -"Flower of Yarrow", and presumably a personable young man, was captured -by the owner of the tower and was about to be hanged, when the more -politic lady pointed out that she had three ill-favoured daughters to -dispose of, and the prisoner was happily married to the youngest and -plainest, "Mucklemou'd Meg". An injudicial proceeding; but not more so -than the transaction by which Murray's neighbour, Lord Traquair, had the -President of the Court of Session carried off from Leith Links, by a -Border freebooter, Christie's Will, and kept in a dungeon of Hermitage -Castle, until a case was decided in Traquair's favour. Doubt has been -thrown on both stories, and in particular it has been objected that -Gideon Murray, whose descendants, the Lords Elibank of to-day, are -established at Darn Hall on Eddleston Water, had only one daughter, that -her name was Agnes, and that, although she married Young Harden, the -alliance was with full consent of all parties concerned. - -Lee Pen and Kirnie Law stand sentinels at the entrance of Leithen Water, -up which the houses of Innerleithen straggle for a mile or more, along a -road which runs across into Lothian, by the Piper's Grave, the Heriot -Water, and Carcant. It is a way by which Walter Scott, walking or -driving, has often reached Tweedside, and he would note in passing -Leithen Hopes, where his friend Hogg was once a herd laddie, and on the -lower slope of the Pen, south of Lee Tower and above the village, the -beginnings of the new "Spa". The topographical resemblances of "St. -Ronan's" to Innerleithen are not very close; and Sir Bingo Binks, Lady -Penelope Penfeather, Dr. Quackleben, and other types in Scott's solitary -attempt at a satiric portrayal of the social manners and humours of his -own day, are not of local growth. One looks in vain, also, for a -"Cleikum Inn" nearer than Peebles. Yet the spirit of Meg Dods pervades -the place, the inhabitants of which eagerly accepted the identification -and "recognized some of the characters as genuine portraits". They have -even adopted the device, on the inn-sign, of "St. Ronan and the Devil" -as the burgh arms. - -Geologists--who, "knappin the chucky stanes to pieces wi' hammers", -reminded Meg of "sae many stane masons run daft"--still frequent the -locality, along with anglers and tourists; for at Thornilee, as well as -across Tweed at Grieston and the Glen, are celebrated beds of -fossiliferous rocks. The bridge is not far above the pool--the -"Droon-pouch"--from which the body of the young son of King Malcolm the -Maiden was drawn by the Innerleithen people, in gratitude for which its -church was made a "Sanctuary" with privileges equal to those of Stow and -of Tyninghame. On the farther side is the entrance to the valley of the -Quair, and the woods surrounding the venerable form of Traquair House. -Its claim to be "the oldest inhabited house in Scotland" applies -specifically to its western wing, which is said to date back fully nine -centuries. However this may be, the antique character of Traquair is -written on its outward features as well as inscribed in its record. It -passed through the hands of a succession of royal favourites, of whom -the last was James III's musician and "familiar shield-bearer", Rogers, -who was among those hung over Lauder Bridge by the jealous nobles, -before it came into the possession of a branch of the Stewart Earls of -Buchan. The Traquair Stewarts have been of mixed reputation; but the -tradition of loyalty to the cause of their Royal kin now clings to the -house and is symbolized in the great Bear Gateway--the prototype of that -of the "Barons of Bradwardine" in _Waverley_--which is not to be opened -until a Stewart King comes again this way. - -Like the house itself, all its surroundings breathe of the poetry and -romance of the past. For was it not behind Plora Craig that "Bonnie -Kilmeny gaed up the glen"? Are there not some scrogs of birch left by -the waterside of the much besung "Bush aboon Traquair"? Were not the -dwelling of Willie Laidlaw, and the scene of "Lucy's Flitting" in the -upper valley, in which stands the lordly mansion of Lord -Glenconner--"The Glen" _par excellence_? And above all, is it not by the -road along the Quair that one "turns aside to Yarrow"? - -In the nine miles between Innerleithen and Peebles the full current of -Tweed winds through a country brimfull of beauty and story. Whether the -road followed upstream be that on the right or that on the left bank, -one passes the ruins of ancient strongholds and modern country-seats, -set among trees and lawns--on the south side, after Traquair, Cardrona, -Kailzie, Haystoun, and Kingsmeadows, and on the north Glenormiston, the -two Horsburghs, and Kerfield--and, behind these, high hills of grass and -heather, Lee Pen, Dunslair and the Makeness Kips, over against the -Glenrath Heights and the Dun Rig, from which on a clear day can be seen, -it is said, the Calton Hill in Edinburgh and the Isle of May. The little -country-town of Peebles is in a level space where Eddleston Water, side -by side with rail and highway, meets Tweed; and from time immemorial it -has been a resort of royalty, a place for pastime and -relaxation--"Peebles for pleesure!"--and, in a modest way, for trade. It -had a reputation for sanctity, also, in witness whereof there are the -remains of the two mediæval churches--those of St. Andrew and of the -Haly Rude. The house of the Archdean of Glasgow is represented by the -Lodging, in the High Street, of the Dukes of Queensberry, now become a -public library, whose name, the Chambers Institute, recalls the fact -that the founders of the publishing house of Chambers were born in a -humble cottage in one of the cross streets. Peebles has outgrown the -limits marked by the fragment of the town wall, and has spread -northwards to the foot of the hills, where on Venlaw--part of its lost -patrimony--it has public walks and a "Hydro"; while it has crossed, by -the handsome stone bridge, to the southern bank of Tweed; whence a -branch railway follows the course of the river to Broughton, on the way -to Clydesdale. - -A mile out of the town, to the west, is Neidpath Castle, the most -commandingly and romantically situated, and, in spite of the yawning -gaps made in its walls by Cromwell's cannon, the -best-preserved--Traquair excepted--of the strongholds of the olden time -on Tweed. The river is here constricted by the bare cairn-strewn ridge -of Caidmuir--once Peebles Common--on the south, and by the Edston -heights on the Neidpath side, and has cut a deep ravine through which -has drained the great lake that once filled upper Tweeddale. The water -swirls around rock and boulder below the castle base; and the screen of -trees, whose destruction by that "degenerate Douglas", Old Q., provoked -Wordsworth's indignant sonnet, has been partially restored. Access to -the lofty thick walled double tower, still partly occupied, is by a -gateway and courtyard; and over this outer portal are the arms of the -early owners--the strawberries of the Frasers of Oliver Castle, from -whom are descended the Frasers of the North; and the goat's head of the -Hays of Yester, who here entertained James VI, defied the Commonwealth, -and were created Lords of Tweeddale. Afterwards the castle and lands -came into the possession of the Douglases of Queensberry, and they now -belong to the Earl of Wemyss and March. From the window, now built up, -over the arch, as has been sung by Scott and by Campbell, the dying -"Maid of Neidpath" looked forth to watch the return of her undiscerning -lover. Still discoverable is the casement in the Justice Room of the -tower, out of which wrong-doers were hung after summary trial. - - [Illustration: NEIDPATH CASTLE] - -As Pennecuik sang two centuries ago: - - "The noble Neidpath Peebles overlooks - With its fair bridge and Tweed's meandering crooks". - -But it overlooks much else; and a short distance above it there open up, -to right and left, the subsidiary vales of the Lyne and the Manor. The -former comes from the "Cauldstaneslap", in the heart of the Pentlands, -and passing on its way, at the meeting with the Tarth, Drochil -Castle--built as a retreat by the Regent Morton, who was shortened by a -head with a guillotine of his own contriving before he had time to -complete his work--enters Tweed below the remains of the great Roman -Camp of Lyne. The Manor Water draws its springs from the neighbourhood -of Yarrow. Once it was defended by eight strong peels, only one of -which, Barns--where Mr. John Buchan has laid the scene of his "John -Burnet of Barns"--stands erect. Posso Craigs, where the Stewart Kings -bred their falcons, and the sites of St. Gordian's Kirk and Cross and of -"Macbeth's Castle" can be pointed out. But Manor's chief memorials are -the grave and the cottage of David Ritchie, the prototype of the "Black -Dwarf", the "recluse of Meiklestane Moor". Scott, as a young visitor to -Manor with Adam Ferguson, received an impression which never left him -when the deformed and eccentric being, who built his own hut with its -doorway three feet high, took him into its arcana, and locking the door -and seizing his hand, asked him earnestly: "Hae ye the pooer?"--the -power of divination! - -The "Thieves' Road", by which the Border reivers made their way into -Lothian, strikes athwart the hills enclosing the valleys of Manor and -Lyne, descending to the Tweed from the slopes of the Scrape to the woods -of Dawick. Veitches were succeeded in this sheltered place by Naesmiths, -whose fortunes were built up by an indefatigable seventeenth century -lawyer known as "the Deil o' Dawick". It boasts possession of the oldest -larches in Scotland, brought hither on the suggestion of Linnæus, though -the honour is disputed by Kailzie lower down Tweed. Across the river is -another fine wooded domain--Stobo--whose ancient church preserves a -Norman doorway, a saddle-back tower, and a "jougs"; while, from the -hills behind, this level strath seems to be menaced by the fragments of -Tinnis Castle, set, like a robber tower on the Rhine, on the summit of -an almost inaccessible rocky spur. It is believed to have been the -original hold of the Tweedies of Drummelzier, a race whose fabled -descent was from a Tweed water-nymph, and whose conduct towards their -neighbours, the Veitches of Dawick and the Geddeses of Rachan, sadly -belied the motto on their tomb at Drummelzier Church--"Thole and Think". -Hard by that edifice at the meeting of the Powsail and the Tweed, and -not far from the ruined castle of the Hays of Drummelzier, is another -grave of which tradition has much to say--that of "Merlin the Wild", who -prophesied on the spot the Union of the Kingdoms. - -Beyond Drummelzier and Broughton, an estate and parish which in the -eighteenth century belonged to two historical personages of dubious -repute--"Secretary Murray" of the '45 and M'Queen of Braxfield, -Stevenson's "Lord Justice Clerk"--the Tweed is found to have dwindled -almost to the dimensions of a moorland burn, enclosed among smooth brown -"hills of sheep". Smaller streams pour down in headlong course on either -hand; and there are not wanting places of historic and literary note by -the river banks and in the tributary valleys. Every burn and haugh has -its story of old feuds, in which Frasers and Tweedies, Hunters and -Murrays, Scotts and Hays, and other clans of Upper Clydesdale have had a -part; and "forts" and "rings" and "chesters" are plentifully sprinkled -on the hill-tops. They are especially rife on the heights looking down -on the Holms water, which comes from the grassy and heathery folds of -Culter Fell and Cardon, and, after joining the Broughton burn, falls -into the Tweed below Rachan. For in this neighbourhood, by the "Pass of -Corscrine", ran for a time the frontiers of the Kingdom, as fixed -between Edward I and Edward Baliol. Like many other old families of the -district, the Geddeses of Rachan, "chiefs of the name", passed out of -the Upper Tweed in poverty and litigation. The like fate, or worse, -befell the Murrays of Stanhope, whose representative, after the laird -who lost his head in the '45, was the "Judas" of the Rebellion, for whom -Scott's father showed his contempt, by flinging out of the window the -cup from which his caller had partaken of tea in George Square. The fact -that they claimed to have received their lands, "for a Bow and a Broad -Arrow, when the King comes to hunt in Yarrow", from Malcolm Canmore did -not prevent the Hunters from parting with the estate of Polmood, after -one of the longest lawsuits in the annals of even the Scots law. - -Stanhope and Polmood have streams tumbling down to Tweed from the -heights of Dollar Law and Broad Law, 2800 feet above sea-level; and on -the opposite, or right bank, above the fragment of Wrae Castle, which -once belonged to the Tweedies, is the site of "Lincumdoddie", where -dwelt "Willie Wastle's wife", whose face, according to Burns's song, -"wad fyle the Logan Water", which runs by it. Beyond the Kinkledoors -burn is the "Crook Inn", beloved by the many anglers who have sought -sport and recreation in this solitude among the hills, where, besides -Tweed itself, there are many wild side streams--Hearthstane, Menzion, -Fruid, and Fingland; Glencraigie, Glenbreck, and Glencor--frequented by -brown and yellow trout. But, chief of all, there is the Talla, which, -from its springs in lonely Gameshope, rushes down the rocks at Talla -Linnfoot, and rests in the two-mile-long reservoir of the Edinburgh -Water Company, before joining the Tweed at Tweedsmuir Church, nearly -opposite the scant remains of Oliver Castle, where the Frasers first -planted themselves on Tweedside. - -The Frasers had fled the scene long before the Hunters and the Hays, the -Geddeses and the Tweedies, and other families have succeeded and -followed them in their flight. Few, and set far apart, are houses and -"bields" of any kind, on the lonely road that keeps high up the hillside -above the valley floor, until, at "Tweed's Well", passing over into -Annandale, it parts company with the "Scott Country". - - - - - Footnotes - - -[1]"Penmanscore" is the correct reading, though "Permanscore" is given - in the _Minstrelsy_. - - - - - BEAUTIFUL ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND - -This series of beautifully illustrated volumes has been re-issued in -handy size. It is an admirable record of what is most worthy of -attention in some of our fairest places. Each book contains 12 -reproductions of original water-colour paintings by E. W. Haslehust, -R.B.A., in addition to descriptive text. - - _Attractively Produced_ _Coloured Jacket_ - - _Descriptive Text by_ - The Thames. G. E. Mitton. - Bath and Wells. Arthur L. Salmon. - The Peak District. R. Murray Gilchrist. - In London's By-Ways. Walter Jerrold. - Winchester. Sidney Heath. - The Shores of Fife. John Geddie. - Heart of London. Walter Jerrold. - Cornish Riviera. Sidney Heath. - Loch Lomond. George Eyre-Todd. - Dartmoor. Arthur L. Salmon. - Edinburgh. John Geddie. - Canterbury. Canon Danks. - Shakespeare-Land. Walter Jerrold. - The Scott Country. John Geddie. - Oxford. F. D. How. - Cambridge. Noel Barwell. - York. George Benson. - English Lakes. A. G. Bradley. - - - - - Transcriber's Notes - - ---Research into publication date and location determined that this book - is in the public domain. - ---Corrected a few palpable typographical errors. - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Scott Country, by John Geddie - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SCOTT COUNTRY *** - -***** This file should be named 52345-8.txt or 52345-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/3/4/52345/ - -Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Dave Morgan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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