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BYWAYS 
 OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
PuBlisked by 
 
 JAMES LEWIS, SELKIRK. 
 
Cornell University Library 
 DA 8B0.B95E98 1890 
 
 Byways of the Scottish border : 
 
 3 1924 028 083 115 
 
Byways 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Scottish Border 
 
 A PEDESTRIAN PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 GEORGE EYRE-TODD, 
 
 Author of ' The Sketch-Bopk of the North,' ' Four 
 Months of Bohemia,', &c. 
 
 f*'«/A Illuslraiians by 
 TOM SCOTT, A.R.S.A. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 Selkirk : 
 JAMES LEWIS, 13 HIGH STREET. 
 
SECOND EDITION. 
 
 The first edition of this work consisted of nine 
 hilndred and twenty-five copies, quarto; one hundred 
 and seventy-five copies being printed on Van Gelder's 
 Dutch hand-made paper, separately numbered and 
 specially bound; and seven hundred and fifty copies 
 on antique paper, 
 
 The present edition consists of fifteen hundred copies. 
 
 The illustrations for both editions have been repro- 
 duced from Mr Scott's water-colour drawings by 
 Messrs Angerer & Goschl, Vienna. 
 
 PRINTED BY GEORGE I,EWIS AND SON, SELKIRK, 
 
NOTE. 
 
 IN the autumn of 1886 I walked with an artist 
 friend through some of the most famous of the 
 Border country, from Moffat eastwards. Upon our 
 return I put together this record of our ten days 
 wanderings. Since then the separate articles have 
 appeared in the pages of various magazines and 
 periodicals. They are now printed under one cover, 
 in the hope that the glimpse which they seek to 
 afford of that romance-haunted region may not be 
 without some general interest, and that the informa- 
 tion which they contain, got together from many 
 miscellaneous sources, may prove of use to others 
 who, like the pilgrims of 1886, go Borderwards 
 upon the tramp. 
 
 G. E.-T. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Through the Mountain Gate i 
 
 "By Lone St Mary's" ^ 17 
 
 The Dowie Dens o' Yarrow 48 
 
 In the Wizard's Country 100 
 
 Down Watling Street 134 
 
 " Jethart's Here ! " . . 159 
 
 The Gypsy Capital ... 181 
 
 Flodden's Fatal Field ... , 205 
 
 East of the Ballad Country 219 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Melrose Abbey . 
 
 Frontispiece. 
 
 St Mary's Loch 
 
 . Facing page i6 
 
 Dryhope Tower 
 
 
 32 
 
 The Dowie Dens o' Yarrow 
 
 
 65 
 
 Newark Castle . 
 
 
 88 
 
 Selkirk 
 
 
 100 
 
 Abbotsford . 
 
 
 112 
 
 Kelso Abbey 
 
 
 , 135 
 
 Rhymer's Tower 
 
 
 144 
 
 QnEEN Mary's House 
 
 
 168 
 
 Jedburgh Abbey 
 
 
 176 
 
 Kirk-Yetholm 
 
 
 192 
 
THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN 
 GATE. 
 
 WHEN the glare of summer sunshine and the 
 rush of summer tourists is over, when the 
 autumn winds are sighing through the woods, and 
 the heavens and the hills are soft and grey, then is 
 the time to see the " Dowie dens o' Yarrow." In 
 the end of October the coaches have ceased running, 
 the tide of sightseers has ebbed, and nature is left, 
 lonely, to her own still spirit of reflection. Then 
 best can be summoned back in thought the scenes 
 of bygone days — the deeds of dule and sorrow 
 whose story seems so native to these grey and 
 rounded hills, and to the loneUness of their wan 
 waters. Then, too, the great cloud - shadows that 
 slowly move along the mountain-sides complete the 
 harmony of thought and scene. 
 
2 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 The hills of Yarrow are peculiarly reminiscent 
 of the past ; and the memories that haunt their 
 aspect, like thoughts in the sweet, sad face of his 
 mistress, can only be read by the lover of them 
 who wanders there in quiet. Here, each in his own 
 time, have come the poets, to catch with their deli- 
 cate instinct the subtle, sweet melancholy that 
 lingers, like an old and nameless fragrance, amid 
 these solitudes — the memory 
 
 Of old, unhappy, far-off things. 
 And battles long ago. 
 
 Here every summer, year after year, comes the 
 quiet angler, most reflectivive of men, whose pleasure 
 is not more in the lapse of the brook or the leap 
 of the occasional trout, than in the old-world 
 thoughts that rise to people his reverie at every 
 turn of the stream. And here sometimes by the 
 fire in one of the little inns, when the autumn dusk 
 has fallen, the belated tourist, fingering through, 
 some old book of Border story, suddenly has the 
 veil lifted, and catches a transient, far-off glimpse 
 of the inner beauty of mediaeval life, woven of love 
 and sorrow. 
 
 On foot and alone, or with a single congenial 
 friend, is this storied and solitary valley-land best 
 
THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN GATE. 3 
 
 to be visited; for the spots are many where it is 
 pleasant to linger and to leave the beaten track ; 
 and the pages of Hogg and Scott and Leyden, 
 the ballads of more ancient bards, the lines of 
 Wordsworth, and the diary of Burns, with the 
 fitful narrative of history, and the unchronicled 
 local legends, form company enough. Nowhere, 
 perhaps, is the wanderer better pleased to be 
 left to his own reflections than among these 
 lakes and glens and streams. They are the 
 Provence of Scotland, and about them remain, 
 still undisturbed, mellowed only by the lapse of 
 time, rich memories of ancient Border chivalry. 
 
 When the traveller, brought by rail to the 
 upland strath at the foot of the mountains, grasps 
 his staff of stout hazel; and sets out from the 
 steep street of Moffat town, he seems to be 
 setting foot into the Past itself. On Moffat 
 -bowling-green it was, he remembers, that the 
 meeting occurred between the Rev. John Home 
 and James Macpherson, the Highland tutor, which 
 led to the discovery and preservation of the 
 works of Ossian, the Celtic Homer — a circum- 
 stance by itself suggestive of the pregnance of 
 forgotten haps, for Ossian, as a distinguished 
 
4 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 writer has recently remarked, was the first voice 
 in modern romance. Before the traveller, wrapt 
 in mystery and sadness, lie the defiles among the 
 hills, with the lonely road winding upward, to be 
 lost in their recesses. And everywhere around, 
 from the upland solitudes that climb into the blue, 
 to the yellow vistas of late-shorn strath, the land- 
 scape is eloquent of a past that has filled many 
 pages of history and poetry with a strange glamour 
 of romance. Few trees are to be seen, and the 
 only evidences of human presence are the humble 
 shielings lodged at far intervals under the mountain- 
 side. The foam-flecked Moffat Water, as it comes 
 down beside the road, seems telling its own tale of 
 silent tarns far up among the hills, and of glens 
 known long ago in story. Its first feeding torrent 
 on the right, indeed — the Craigieburn — opens at 
 once into the remotest past an avenue of memories. 
 
 Craigieburn wood is believed to be a surviving 
 portion of the ancient Ettrick Forest, itself part of 
 the primeval Caledonian Forest. It was to this part 
 of the Wood of Celyddon, or Caledon, that, in the 
 sixth century, after the great tribal battle at Ardderyd, 
 now Arthuret, near Carlisle, in which the Christian 
 faction under Rydderch Hael and Kentigern was 
 
THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN GATE. 3 
 
 victorious, the actual Merlin, bard of the pagan 
 British tribes, retired to mourn the fall of Gwend- 
 dolew, his chief. Here, the last of the northern 
 Druids, he sang his song 'Avallenau,' or 'The 
 Apple Tree ' ; he sang of himself, once a princely- 
 entertainer, now sleeping alone with shield on 
 shoulder and sword on thigh in the forest ; he 
 sang of his sister Gwenddid, the delicately fair; 
 and he sang of that other, Hwimleian — the "lovely 
 nymph with pearly teeth, fair, sportive maid," 
 who was to become the Vivien of our modern 
 Arthurian romance. And over the hills, not many 
 miles away, at Drummelzier, by the Tweed, he 
 was finally stoned to death as a wizard, by the 
 shepherds of Meldred, and his body thrown upon 
 a sharp stake in the stream.^ At a later day 
 "Black Douglas of the Craigieburn" was a name 
 of terror and power on the Borders. And in the 
 latter part of last century, in the old house whose 
 walls in time of flood are washed by the stream 
 as it leaps down the mountain chasm, was born 
 the fair, unfortunate Jean Lorimer, the "Chloris" 
 
 1 The songs of Merlin may .be found translated in Skene's 
 'Four Ancient Books of Wales.' See an interesting article 
 on Merlin in the ' Scottish Review ' for October, 1892. 
 
6 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 to whom Burns wrote his "Lassie wi' the lint- 
 white locks," and eight other lyrics. Dr Currie 
 states that Burns met her in these glades, which 
 were a favourite haunt of his, and that a cottage 
 in the wood was pointed out as the place where 
 he visited her. But his first verses to her were 
 written to express, not his own feelings, but the 
 passion of a friend : 
 
 Sweet closes the evening on Craigieburn wood, 
 
 And blithely awaukens the morrow ; 
 But the pride of the spring in the Craigieburn wood 
 
 Can yield to me nothing but sorrow. 
 
 Laggan, the nearer of the two little cottages 
 farther on, was the scene of one of those lurid 
 flashes of mirth that ever and anon flared across 
 the hfe of the sad-fated peasant-bard, when, with 
 " honest Allan Masterton," he strolled up from 
 Dalwhinnie, and induced William Nicol, the Edin- 
 burgh schoolmaster, who was rusticating here, 
 to " brew a peck o' maut ! " The scene, destined 
 to be made immortal, can be imagined, when the 
 poet, glancing up during a pause in the mirth, 
 beheld through the small knotted glass panes of 
 the cottage window the silvery shape of the new 
 moon drifting across the clear sky — 
 
THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN GATE. ^ 
 
 It is the moon — I ken her horn, 
 That 's Winking in the lift sae hie ; 
 
 She shines sae bright to wile us hame, 
 But, by my sooth, she'll wait a wee ! 
 
 And, Still further on, the farm-house of Bodsbeck, 
 where the road to the sources of Ettrick branches 
 to the right, was the haunt of the Brownie 
 chronicled by Hogg. 
 
 Within the pass a more absolute loneliness reigns. 
 On each hand rise the mountains, huge and dark 
 against the sky, while the stillness is only broken 
 by the distant rushing of the waters in their rocky 
 bed below. High on the hillsides, like silver threads, 
 after the heavy rain, appear the slender torrents, 
 each singing to itself, doubtless, its own quiet tune. 
 And once and again sweep, wide and clear across 
 the road, the waters of some swollen streamlet. 
 
 Details like these, as the shadows of the night 
 begin to fall, become more and more expressive of 
 the awe that dwells in the solitude of the hills ; and 
 amid such surroundings one ceases to marvel that 
 the poetry of mountain lands is so generally cast 
 in a plaintive key, for sombre and remote from 
 boisterous mirth are the emotions that they stir 
 within the heart. 
 
8 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Presently, as the road ascends among the hills, 
 mists begin to drift together, grey and silent like 
 ghosts, in the glens ; the air grows colder, and the 
 solitude more desolate. The outer world is shut 
 off behind, while in front the mountains, dark and 
 threatening, guard the narrowing pass. The latter 
 might almost serve for that passage to Elfland 
 long ago followed by Thomas of Ercildoune with 
 the Queen of Faerie, when, as the ballad tells, — 
 
 They rade on, and further on, 
 
 And they waded through rivers abune the knee, 
 And they saw neither sun nor moon. 
 
 But they heard the roaring of the sea. 
 
 Even the last detail is all but fulfilled here, for from 
 the recesses of a rugged ravine on the far left there 
 comes through the gathering darkness the sullen 
 roar of a waterfall. It is the famous " Grey Mare's 
 Tail," the highest waterfall in Scotland, pouring 
 its torrent in an immemorial dirge beside the 
 " Giant's Grave." The cataract descends from the 
 dark Loch Skene, on whose lonely islet the ern 
 still builds her nest. Cataract and lake together 
 are picturesquely described by Scott in his prelude 
 to the second canto of * Marmion ' : — 
 
THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN GATE. g 
 
 Yet him whose heart is ill at ease 
 Such peaceful solitudes displease. 
 He loves to drown his bosom's jar 
 Amid the elemental war : 
 And my black Palmer's choice had been 
 Some ruder and more savage scene 
 Like that which frowns round dark Loch Skene. 
 There eagles scream from isle to shore ; 
 Down all the rocks the torrents roar ; 
 O'er the black waves incessant driven, 
 Dark mists infect the summer heaven ; 
 Through the rude barriers of the lake 
 Away its hurrying waters break, 
 Faster and whiter dash and curl. 
 Till down yon dark abyss they hurl. 
 Rises the fog-smoke white as snow. 
 Thunders the viewless stream below, 
 Diving as if condemned to lave 
 Some demon's subterranean cave, 
 Who, prisoned by enchanter's spell, 
 Shakes the dark rock with groan and yell. 
 And well that Palmer's form and mien 
 Had suited with the stormy scene. 
 Just on the edge, straining his ken 
 To view the bottom of the den, 
 Where, deep deep down and far within, 
 Toils with the rocks the roaring linn ; 
 Then, issuing forth one foamy wave. 
 And wheeling round the Giant's Grave, 
 White as the snowy charger's tail, 
 Drives down the pass of Moffatdale. 
 
 Notwithstanding its remote desolation, however, 
 this region is by no means lacking in human 
 
10 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 memories which are stirring enough. Many a 
 fugitive Covenanter has sought refuge amid its wild 
 glens. Amid such gloomy surroundings superstition 
 has added its own tinge to some of the legends. One 
 story tells us how two of the " wanderers," in hiding 
 in a cavern at the head of a gully here known as 
 Dob's Linn, were beset, like Luther, by the devil, 
 when the sharp altercation and vigorous encounter 
 ended in the fiend being hurled over the fall. More 
 authentic memories, at the same time, are extant. 
 In the sombre recesses of these hills, during the 
 latter years of the doomed House of Stuart, the 
 persecuted people, like hunted deer, held their 
 conventicles ; and at the door of the little Birk- 
 hill Inn, then merely a shepherd's shieling by 
 the road, tradition runs that four of them were 
 shot by Claverhouse. 
 
 A solitary spot is that little dwelling of Birkhill, 
 and the shepherd's wife there has been sorely put 
 to it more than once by later marauders than 
 Dundee's dragoons. They tell how a rough-handed 
 tramp entered the humble doorway one summer 
 afternoon, and, seeing only a single woman in 
 possession, threatened to make free with the 
 movable property. He was about to lay hands 
 
THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN GATE. ii 
 
 on one of the hanks of yarn that were hanging 
 from the kitchen rafters, when Janet, the shep- 
 herd's wife, stopped him with the sudden question, 
 " My man, did onybody see ye come in here ? " 
 The fellow gruffly answered " No ! " " Then," said 
 the good woman, with ill-boding energy, " deevil 
 a ane'll see ye gang oot. Lassie, bring me the 
 axe ! " The tramp at this intimation, they say, 
 displayed an unusual amount of activity in dis- 
 appearing down the road, and the worthy Janet 
 made no endeavour to call him back. 
 
 Less and less grows the light as the road ascends, 
 for the night falls fast among the mountains ; and 
 more and more impressive becomes the silence, as 
 the rushing of the stream in the channel below 
 diminishes towards its source. At last there is 
 no sound but the gentle sigh once and again of 
 the wind rising out of Yarrow — the sumrnit of the 
 pass has been reached. Presently the streams 
 begin to run eastward with the road, and that 
 sign declares that the first steps have been taken 
 in the cradle-land of the Douglas. 
 
 Mournful memories of bygone glory linger here 
 about the springs of Yarrow. The air itself seems 
 sighing for the memory of " Douglas ! Douglas ! 
 
12 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 tender and true."' Yet long it is since the valley 
 used to rise and follow that chivalrous race of 
 king-makers, long since the hoofs of the Douglas 
 steeds rang here in haugh and dene, and the 
 vespers floated up the dale from the bells of St 
 Mary's Kirk. Close by these springs of Yarrow 
 the monks of Melrose in ancient times had a 
 chapel, and at Chapelhope farm near, silent now 
 in the darkness, the ring of carbines once, and the 
 shriek of a woman, proclaimed a terrible deed, 
 when the Flower of Yarrow of her day, who had 
 waited ten years for her lover, saw him torn from 
 her side at the bridal moment, and shot for his 
 adherence to the Covenant. The pitiful story has 
 been woven by Hogg into his ' Brownie of 
 Bodsbeck.' 
 
 Still another Covenanting reminiscence remains 
 near the spot. On the hillside at Riskenhope the 
 youthful Renwick, last of those to suffer death 
 for the cause of the Covenant in Scotland, preached 
 one of his last sermons in 1688. The spot and its 
 
 1 These words, familiar to most readers as the retrain of a 
 modern song, occur in the famous old Scottish poem, ' The 
 Houlate,' believed to be written by Sir Richard Holland, a 
 partisan of the Douglases, during the reign of James II. 
 
THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN GATE. 13 
 
 memory have been described in vigorous verse by 
 Professor Blackie: — 
 
 Mark well yon white house 'mid the trees ; 
 
 There, chased from glen to glen 
 By bloodhounds of a despot race, 
 Young Renwick found a sheltering place. 
 With looks of love and deeds of grace, 
 
 From simple, plaided men. 
 
 Up we clomb, and down we slid. 
 
 Sheer to a mountain brook ; 
 Where on a sloping grassy mound 
 The people sate in circle round. 
 And pulpit free the brave youth found. 
 
 To preach from holy book. 
 
 Mark well that stump, where once there grew 
 
 A thorn, a goodly tree ; 
 Even there he stood, and 'gan to sing 
 A powerful psalm, on faithful wing. 
 Most like to David, shepherd-king, 
 
 Ruddy and fair to see. 
 
 So preached the fair-faced boy, and knew 
 
 His preaching meant a deed ; 
 When in bis ear the fierce halloo 
 Sounded of Clavers and his crew. 
 Who all God's people did pursue 
 
 To death with murtherous speed. 
 
 These are some of the tragic episodes which, 
 accumulated during the centuries, enrich with 
 
14 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 their sorrowful memory every mile of Scottish 
 soil. 
 
 The mountains on each hand have become only 
 great black shadows in the darkness ; but when 
 the mists lift, and the wind, blowing soft and 
 heavy out of the east, drives back the curtain of 
 rain, a steady light, the promise of all comfort, 
 appears shining among trees far in front. Mean- 
 while, low on the right, rushing dim and sullen in 
 the darkness, lies the " wan water " of which the 
 ballads speak. It is the Loch o' the Lowes — an 
 eerie sight enough, with its bodeful lapping and 
 its drifting streaks of foam. The rush of a des- 
 cending stream makes itself heard under the road 
 among the shadows, and once or twice a few drops 
 of rain are scattered from the edge of some trailing 
 cloud ; then a path turns off to the right, and there, 
 on the narrow neck of land between this upper 
 sheet of water and St Mary's Loch, glows the 
 welcome light of Tibbie Shiel's Inn. 
 
 And bright, after the outside darkness, seems the 
 pleasant fire and lamplight in the little low-roofed 
 room to which the guest is ushered ; and hospitable 
 sound the voices that come along the clean stone 
 passage from the kitchen. Many a famous angler 
 
THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN GATE. ■ 15 
 
 has been housed under this humble roof; for the 
 loch and its streams are historic fishing - ground. 
 Here, many a time, has come the great Christopher 
 North — not the " musty, fusty Christopher " Tenny- 
 son has called him, but the large-souled poet, who 
 could land a salmon or a sea trout as well as he 
 could draw tears and laughter with a Border tale. 
 Here " the Shepherd " and he have foregathered for 
 many a hearty supper after long, quiet days by the 
 loch side ; and the cosy parlour was the scene of at 
 least one of the famous * Noctes.' And here it was, on 
 the morning after one of these great carousals, that 
 Tibbie was startled by the Professor shouting to her 
 to " bring in the loch," as he was " here at the back 
 o' Jeems, and unco dry." The ancient hostess, a 
 celebrity in her time, is now no more (many a bit of 
 sententious wisdom she would impart as she sat in 
 her latter days by the ingle neuk) ; ' but a comely 
 lass, fresh-coloured and kindly-voiced, does for the 
 stranger the iirst hospitalities of Yarrowdale. 
 
 In the inn at this time of year the visitor may find 
 
 ^ Tibbie, whose married name was Richardson, had been in 
 her youth in the household of the Ettrick Shepherd's mother 
 She knew the poet well, and was wont to say of him that he 
 " was a gey sensible man, for a' the nonsense he wrat." 
 
i6 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 perhaps a single guest or so besides himself — some 
 solitary angler who, wandering the countryside, rod 
 in hand, for a week, has exhausted his stock of news 
 and literature, and who, over the pipe of peace by 
 the evening fire, is glad to fraternise with new- 
 comers from the outer world. And for the viands — 
 never, surely, was a meal so welcome as supper here 
 after the " caller " air of the hills ; and the steaming 
 tea and smoking ham and eggs, with the thick white 
 scones and fragrant butter, disappear with startling 
 rapidity. Afterwards, when the house has gone to 
 rest, it is pleasant to lie in the little recessed bed (for 
 parlour and bedroom are the same thing), and watch, 
 before falling asleep, the red fire sink on the hearth, 
 hearing nothing but the gentle pressure of the wind 
 sometimes against the deep-set casement, and 
 conscious that the first steps have been taken in the 
 land of Border Story. 
 
"BY LONE ST MARY'S." 
 
 FULL and dear out of the east comes the morn- 
 ing wind up the loch, ruffling the water freshly 
 and rustling the few remaining leaves of the trees 
 about the inn. Not too cold is it, considering the 
 time of the year ; and with such bracing air to 
 quicken the pulse and make exercise enjoyable, a 
 better day could scarcely have been chosen for 
 exploring on foot the historic scenes of this most 
 famous angling region. 
 
 Here, more than anywhere else in Scotland, 
 perhaps, meet memories of the congenial arts of 
 the pen and the angle ; for here, as has been said, 
 Christopher North caroused and fished, and found 
 the materials for some of his 'Noctes'; here Hogg 
 wandered, rod in hand, while he dreamed his dream 
 of Kilmeny ; here, in more recent years, have 
 happened many meetings of doctors and brothers 
 of learning, as when, in 1856, Professor Veitch, after 
 tramping up from Moffat, on coming through the 
 
i8 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 garden gate, heard the whisper of his friend, 
 " There is Shairp ! " and saw before the door, 
 plashed to the waist with a long day's fishing 
 among the hills, the "fair-haired, ruddy -faced, 
 manly man," then a master of Rugby, who was 
 to become, later, Principal of St Andrews ; and 
 here, in every nook of the quiet shore, the 
 follower of the gentle craft, in the intervals of 
 casting his line, can recall some deed of ancient 
 days chronicled of the spot in Border song. If he 
 have in his pocket the second canto of 'Marmion,' so 
 much the better. Most of the region's memories are 
 storied there in stirring lines, and reading these amid 
 their native scenes, the rambler will find endless 
 interests to repay his reverie. 
 
 In the early light the mountains behind, through 
 which the road descends from the outer world, 
 appear dark and gloomy, with rain-mists hanging 
 low yet among them. In front, however, though the 
 clouds are still heavy and grey, a gleam of bright 
 sunshine chases the shadows upon the mountain side, 
 and sweeps the blue surface of the lake. Revealed 
 by it, far along the water's margin, their white wings 
 gleaming against the dark background of trees, sail 
 the wild swans of St Mary's, famous long ago in 
 
-BY LONE ST MARY'S." 19 
 
 Border lays. The hills at this time of year are 
 
 brown with withered windlestrae, varied by the 
 
 richer patches of russet bracken, while not much 
 
 heather is to be seen. Here, though trees are 
 
 scattered but thinly now along the lake's edge and 
 
 by the mouths of streams, roamed in bygone times 
 
 the largest stags in Scotland, with wild boars in 
 
 plenty, and even wolves.^ The huntsmen of the 
 
 district were for long the most famous of the 
 
 Scottish archers, and the ancient character of the 
 
 countryside survives in its name of Ettrick Forest. 
 
 It is the spirit rather than the detail of this scene 
 
 which has been rendered in the famous lines of 
 
 Scott. 
 
 When, musing on companions gone, 
 We doubly feel ourselves alone. 
 Something, my friend, we yet may gain, 
 There is a pleasure in this pain : 
 It soothes the love of lonely rest 
 Deep in each gentler heart impressed. 
 
 Oft in my mind such thoughts awake 
 By lone St Mary's silent lake. 
 
 I Upon James the Fifth's famous raid here in July, 1530, 
 eighteen score of deer were killed, and the great size of the 
 animals may be gathered from the fact that among remains 
 discovered in process of draining the country, some of which are 
 preserved at Haining, are antlers of 15 and 16 points. 
 
20 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Thou know'st it well,— nor fen nor sedge 
 
 Pollute the pure lake's crystal edge. 
 
 Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink 
 
 At once upon the level brink, 
 
 And just a trace of silver sand 
 
 Marks where the water meets the land. 
 
 Far in the mirror, bright and blue. 
 
 Each hill's huge outline you may view. 
 
 Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare, 
 
 Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake is there. 
 
 Save where, of land, yon slender line 
 
 Bears thwart the lake the scattered pine. 
 
 Yet even this nakedness has power. 
 
 And aids the feeling of the hour : 
 
 Nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy 
 
 Where living thing concealed might lie ; 
 
 Nor point, retiring, hides a dell 
 
 Where swain, or woodman lone, might dwell. 
 
 There's nothing left to fancy's guess. 
 
 You see that all is loneliness. 
 
 And silence aids— though the steep hills 
 
 Send to the lake a thousand rills ; 
 
 In summer tide so soft they weep, 
 
 The sound but lulls the ear asleep ; 
 
 Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude. 
 
 So stilly is the solitude. 
 
 On closer approach the few remaining trees by 
 the lochside — hoary silver birches, many -gnarled 
 and knotted — show themselves old enough to have 
 shaded the ambuscade of the Scottish lover, when, 
 according to the ancient ballad, he came to St 
 Mary's Kirk to carry oiF his English bride from 
 
■'BY LONE ST MARY'S." 21 
 
 the funeral bier. Among them, high perched on 
 the hillside above the road, nestles the comfortable 
 hostelry of Rodono — a lonely spot, after the poet 
 and sportsman's own heart, and a modern rival to 
 the more famous inn of Tibbie Shiel. 
 
 A story which throws a lurid light upon the 
 possibilities of life among these hills during the 
 feudal centuries, belongs to a spot at hand. The 
 Meggat Water, haunt of historic anglers, comes 
 down here between the hills. By the side of this 
 stream, about a castle whose vestiges may still 
 be traced, hangs the tragic if somewhat uncertain 
 legend. The place was the stronghold of Pierce 
 Cockburne, one of those freebooters whose lawless 
 deeds were, during the regime of the early Stuarts, 
 the terror of the Borders. As a matter of history, 
 in the reign of James V. the ravages of these self- 
 made barons became so notorious that the king 
 determined to vindicate the law upon them. Ac- 
 cordingly, on a summer day in 1530, having first 
 taken the precaution of shutting up the greater 
 Border lords in Edinburgh, he made a sudden and 
 unexpected descent upon the neighbourhood. Here 
 tradition takes up the tale, and relates how James, 
 appearing before Henderland Tower, surprised 
 
22 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Cockburne at dinner, with short shrift hanged the 
 reiver and his men over their own gate, and forth- 
 with marched, by the path still known as the King's 
 Road, between St Mary's Loch and the Loch o' 
 the Lowes, and through the mountains beyond, to 
 surprise in similar fashion for his misdeeds Adam 
 Scott, in his tower of Tushielaw, and to visit after- 
 wards with a like fate at Caerlanrig the famous 
 Border bandit Johnnie Armstrong. By the same 
 tradition it is recorded that the wife of Cockburne 
 fled to the recesses of the Dow-glen, near the castle, 
 and at a place still called the "Lady's Seat" strove 
 to drown in the roar of the cataract the shouts 
 which greeted the accomplishment of her husband's 
 doom. An ancient ballad, long known in the district, 
 is said to refer to this circumstance. The pathos 
 of its lines suits well with the popular tradition : — 
 
 THE LAMENT OF THE BORDER WIDOW. 
 
 My love he built me a bonnie bower, 
 And clad it a' wi' lily flower ; 
 A brawer bower ye ne'er did see 
 Than my true love he built for me. 
 
 There came a man by middle day, 
 He spied his sport and went away ; 
 And brought the king that very night. 
 Who brake my bower and slew my knight. 
 
■•BY LONE ST MARTS." 23 
 
 He slew my knight, to me sae dear ; 
 He slew my knight and poin'd his gear. 
 My servants all for life did flee, 
 And left me in extremitie. 
 
 I sewed his sheet, making my mane ; 
 I watched the corpse myself alane ; 
 I watched the body night and day — 
 No living creature came that way. 
 
 I took his body on my back, 
 And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sat. 
 I digged a grave and laid him in. 
 And happed him wi' the sod sae green. 
 
 But think na ye my heart was sair 
 When I laid the moul on his yellow hair ? 
 O think na ye my heart was wae 
 When I turned about away to gae ? 
 
 Nae living man I'll love again. 
 Since that my lovely knight is slain; 
 Wi' ae lock of his yellow hair 
 I'll chain my heart for evermair.^ 
 
 1 William Motherwell, in his ' Minstrelsy, Ancient and 
 Modern,' ventured the hypothesis, which receives the support 
 of Professor Child in ' English and Scottish Ballads,' that 
 this lament is merely a fragment of the English ballad, 'The 
 Famous Flower of Servingmen.' The only ground for this 
 supposition appears to be that some nine lines of the lament 
 have been included in the English ballad, where they have 
 been awkwardly tacked on to form a quite redundant preface. 
 The lines appropriated are entirely at variance with the actual 
 pleasant denouement of the English story, which has nothing 
 
24 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott chose to follow this popular 
 tradition, both in his 'Border Minstrelsy' and in 
 his ' Tales of a Grandfather ; ' and in a note to 
 the ballad he endeavours to furnish another link 
 to the story. On a broken tombstone, still lying 
 in the deserted burial-place which once surrounded 
 the chapel of the castle, he deciphered, with 
 armorial bearings, the inscription "Here lyes Perys 
 of Cockburne and his wyfe Marjory." As a matter 
 of fact, however, the Cockburne of James V.'s 
 time, though surprised and seized upon the occasion 
 of the King's raid, was not executed here. It is 
 clearly set forth in Pitcairn's ' Criminal Trials of 
 Scotland' that he, along with Scott of Tushielaw, 
 was duly tried, condemned, and executed at 
 Edinburgh. Further, the tombstone deciphered 
 by Scott cannot cover the famous freebooter, 
 since the name of the latter was not Pierce, 
 but William, Cockburne. Taken altogether, the 
 probability is that tradition here has mixed up the 
 circumstances of more than one event. At any 
 rate, while the ballad may reasonably relate to 
 the historic occurrence, the story of the summary 
 
 whatever, in common with the passionate and utter grief that 
 breathes in the Scottjsh ballad. 
 
•■BY LONE ST MARY'S." 25 
 
 execution is altogether apocryphal, and the tomb- 
 stone certainly belongs to another man, and to 
 a date in an earlier century, before the Norman 
 prefix of "de" died out.^ 
 
 Professor Veitch has a fine poem on the subject 
 of the tragedy, entitled 'The Dow Glen,' in 
 which, after describing the rocky recess, with the 
 burn, and its deep, dark pool, rowan-hung, he 
 recalls the place's memory of " passion thrown to 
 heaven." 
 
 As from the wife heart-broken 
 
 The waters bore the cry, 
 And the forest hills in echo 
 
 Woke the world's sympathy. 
 
 Ah, me ! she hears the shouting 
 Where she cowers beside the linn ; 
 
 Around her lord men crowding. 
 And all the dying din. 
 
 And now none knows her story, 
 Where human heart doth dwell, 
 
 iCockburn was convicted of high treason. May 16, 1530. 
 Possibly his widow begged his body and took it home for lonely 
 burial, as described in the ballad. Scott, for theftuous black- 
 mailing, was convicted and beheaded. May 18. (See Pitcairn, 
 of these dates.) Johnnie Armstrong's apprehension occurred 
 somewhat later, in July, and there is no doubt that he was 
 betrayed and was hanged on the spot at Caerlanrig. The fullest 
 account of the transaction is given by Lindsay of Pitscottie. 
 
26 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 But weeps the woman watching 
 The dead she loved so well. 
 
 Linn ! in mine ear thy cadence 
 
 Hath its own peculiar fall, 
 As echo of a sorrow 
 
 Through time which softens all. 
 
 Clings to thy rock thy ivy 
 
 To keep faith's memory green ; 
 And the red rose of the briar 
 
 Glows where her love hath been. 
 
 High on the lonely hillside further on, where a 
 few bushes wave out of sight of the road, rises 
 a green mound — all that is left of the chapel of St 
 Mary, Lonely as the spot is now, it is renowned 
 in Border legend, has constant mention in the 
 ancient ballads, and has been the scene of more 
 than one historic incident. More tradition and 
 poetry, indeed, probably gathers about this ancient 
 dependency of Melrose Abbey than about any 
 other kirk of its size in Scotland. It has been 
 said that St Mary's at Carluke, and not the 
 ruined fane here, was the "Forest Kirk" in which 
 Wallace was chosen Warden of Scotland; but 
 the point has by no means been finally settled. 
 The precincts here remain, according to tradition, 
 the burial-place of the lovers whose heroic story 
 
-BY LONE ST MARY'S." 27 
 
 is told in the ballad of 'The Douglas Tragedy,' 
 to be referred to presently. Here also, according 
 to some versions, is set the dramatic ending of the 
 ballad 'The Gay Goshawk,' a composition which 
 seems to have furnished Hogg with part of the 
 idea for his poem of ' Mary Scott,' and the 
 machinery of which presents so curious a resem- 
 blance to that of ' Romeo and Juliet,' that it 
 would almost appear as if some Scottish minstrel 
 had turned Shakespeare's play into a ballad, but 
 with a happier ending, A Scottish lover, debarred 
 by the parents of his English mistress from pressing 
 his suit in person, sends her a letter by means of 
 his goshawk, demanding when he can see her, as 
 otherwise "he cannot live ava." The lady returns 
 the reply : — 
 
 I send him the rings from my white fingers, 
 
 The garlands off my hair ; 
 I send him the heart that's in my breast ; 
 
 What would my love have mair ? 
 And at the fourth kirk in fair Scotland, 
 
 Ye'U bid him meet me there. 
 
 She then exacts a promise from father, mother, 
 sister, and brothers respectively, that if she dies in 
 fair England they will bury her in Scotland, 
 performing certain memorials at three kirks there 
 
28 BYWAYS Of the SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 before entombing her at the fourth. The promise 
 exacted, she forthwith drops down apparently dead 
 at her mother's knee. An old witch-wife, however, 
 who sits by the fire, suspects illusion : — 
 
 Says, " Drap the het lead on her cheek, 
 
 And drap it on her chin, 
 And drap it on her rose-red lips, 
 
 And she will speak again : 
 For much a lady young will do 
 
 To her true love to win." 
 
 This cruel test is applied without effect, and pre- 
 parations are therefore made for the maiden's 
 funeral as had been promised. Her brothers make 
 her a bier of cedar-wood, while her sisters sew 
 her a shroud of satin and silken work. The cortege 
 then sets out. 
 
 At the first kirk of fair Scotland, 
 
 They gar'd the bells be rung ; 
 At the second kirk of fair Scotland, 
 
 They gar'd the mass be sung. 
 
 At the third kirk of fair Scotland, 
 
 They dealt gold for her sake. 
 The fourth kirk of fair Scotland 
 
 Her true love met them at. 
 
 " Set down, set down the corpse," he said, 
 "Till I look on the dead, 
 
"BY LONE ST MARYS." 29 
 
 The last time that I saw her face 
 
 She ruddy was and red ; 
 But now, alas, and woe is me ! 
 
 She's wallowit like a weed." 
 
 He rent the sheet upon her face, 
 
 A little above her chin : 
 With lily-white cheeks and leamin' een 
 
 She looked and laughed to him. 
 
 " Give me a chive of your bread, my love, 
 
 A bottle of your wine, 
 For I have fasted for your love 
 
 These weary lang days nine. 
 There's not a steed in your stable 
 
 But would have been dead ere syne. 
 
 " Gae hame, gae hame, my seven brothers, 
 
 Gae hame and blaw the horn ; 
 For you can say in the south of England 
 
 Your sister gave you a scorn. 
 
 " I came not here to fair Scotland 
 
 To lie amang the meal ; 
 But I came here to fair Scotland 
 
 To wear the silks so weel. 
 
 " I came not here to fair Scotland 
 
 To lie amang the dead ; 
 But I came here to fair Scotland 
 
 To wear the gold so red." 
 
 Covenanter and Catholic, Scotts and Kerrs and 
 Pringles, all sorts and conditions of men, sleep 
 their long sleep here at peace together. Even that 
 
30 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 "wizard priest," once tenant of the chaplainry, 
 whose sinful story is sung in Hogg's ' Mess John,' 
 and whose bones, according to Scott, were " thrust 
 from company of sacred dust," lies under the little 
 stone-capped mount at hand, locally known as 
 Binram's Corse. Scott informs us that the kirk 
 was wrecked by the clan of Buccleuch in the 
 course of a feud with the Cranstouns in 1557. The 
 historic circumstance is introduced as an episode 
 in ' The Lay of the Last Ministrel,' Canto IL 
 
 For the Baron went on pilgrimage. 
 And took with him this elvish Page, 
 
 To Mary's chapel of the Lowes : 
 For there, beside our Ladye's lake. 
 An offering he had sworn to make. 
 
 And he would pay his vows. 
 But the Ladye of Branksome gathered a band 
 Of the best that would ride at her command ; 
 
 The trysting place was Newark Lea. 
 Wat of Harden came thither amain. 
 And thither came John of Thirlestane, 
 And thither came William of Deloraine ; 
 
 They were three hundred spears and three. 
 Through Douglas burn, up Yarrow stream. 
 Their horses prance, their lances gleam. 
 
 They came to St Mary's lake ere day ; 
 
 But the chapel was void, and the Baron away. 
 They burned the chapel for very rage. 
 And cursed Lord Cranstoun's Goblin-Page. 
 
'•BY LONE ST MARTS.'' 31 
 
 Long, at any rate, it is since the last mass was 
 sung here, and the light went out above the altar. 
 Knight and monk and friar rode from the place 
 for the last time into the darkness of oblivion 
 three hundred years ago. Its latest tenants, the 
 upholders of the Covenant, themselves have passed 
 away, and, as the somewhat sarcastic folk-rhyme 
 has it, 
 
 St Mary's I^ch lies shimmering still. 
 But St Mary's Kirk bell's lang dune ringing ; 
 
 There's naething now but the gravestane hill 
 To tell o' a' their loud psalm-singing. 
 
 The pageantry of arms, too, has bidden the spot a 
 long farewell. From the green ruin-mound, towards 
 the close of that fateful year in Scotland, the '45, 
 might have been seen one of the divisions of 
 Prince Charles Edward's Highland army making 
 its way southward towards Carlisle along the old 
 road on the further side of the loch — the last sign 
 of war among these hills.^ 
 
 A pleasant place it is for the storied old-time 
 lovers of the Douglas ballad to rest in, visited 
 only by sun and rain and mist, with the silent 
 
 iThis tradition is recorded, from information furnished by 
 Lord Napier and Ettrick, in the preface by Professor Campbell 
 Fraser to Dr Russell's • Remiscences of Yarrow.' 
 
32 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 hills watching above, and, far below, the lake 
 murmuring in the sunshine as it is driven into 
 flakes of silver by the wind. Like the grave 
 of Keats outside the walls of Rome, "it would 
 almost make one in love with death to be buried 
 in so sweet a spot." 
 
 An old grassy road slopes down the hillside east- 
 ward from St Mary's Kirk — doubtless the path 
 trodden long since by priest and penitent. Half 
 way down its length, on the heath above the track, 
 lie unnoticed the remains of a still older place of 
 burial. The existence of these remains appears 
 to be unrecorded ; but a careful observer can 
 still make out among the heather several pre- 
 historic cairns, most of them overgrown with the 
 peat deposit of centuries ; and examination puts 
 it beyond doubt that these represent the resting- 
 spot of some forgotten race. 
 
 Most appropriate here seems the loneliness which 
 is characteristic of all the pensive Borderside. 
 From it one derives an impression as if the hills 
 and dales themselves were thinking of the days 
 and the scenes that have been. Amid the silence 
 only the chip of a solitary stonebreaker's hammer 
 is to be heard, as, far off upon the road, he splits 
 
"BY LONE ST MARY'S." 33 
 
 for rustic feet "fragments of some old continent." 
 An isolated existence the stonebreaker must lead 
 amid this solitude ; but his life among these 
 hills, as the reflective angler knows, will have 
 its own pleasures. His cares will be as few as his 
 possessions; he will enjoy his simple fare with 
 an appetite a duke might envy; and his sleep will 
 be sound of nights after his work is done. The 
 man, however, is compelled to own that he knows 
 but little of the famous places in "the Forest." 
 He is only aware that some interest is attached 
 to Dryhope Tower, by the Dryhope burn, a Uttle 
 further on. 
 
 Dryhope Tower ! The name summons to mind 
 a vista of Border memories. The place was the 
 home of Mary Scott, that " Flower of Yarrow " 
 of whom long since sung Allan Ramsay and minor 
 bards unnumbered. Through its low doorway 
 and up its broken stair her light step has trod ; 
 and her presence amid the rude surroundings of 
 a Border chieftain's stronghold casts about the 
 spot to the present hour something of "the tender 
 grace of a day that is dead." Fierce and fast 
 must have been the maiden's wooing by that 
 fiery young Borderer, Walter Scott of Harden ; 
 
 c 
 
34 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 for the legend runs that he paid her father the 
 significant price of "a moon in Northumberland" 
 to support his bride at Dryhope for a time after 
 her marriage. One almost wonders if she felt no 
 fear when, in 1567, her strong-handed lover carried 
 her home to the tower which hangs yet, though 
 in ruins, on the edge of its own dark glen near 
 Hawick. Certain it is, however, that she knew 
 how to manage that impetuous heart, for she was 
 first sung as the Flower of Yarrow, they say, by 
 an English youth whom she had saved from her 
 husband's doom-tree. She it was, too, who, when 
 provisions ran short in the larder, uncovered on 
 the table, in place of the smoking haunch, a pair 
 of clean spurs — a strong hint that cattle were to 
 be found south of the Border.^ The traditions 
 extant about that life at Harden afford indeed a 
 graphic glimpse of the boisterous Border life of 
 the time. Perhaps the most characteristic of 
 these traditions is recorded by Scott in a note to 
 his ' Minstrelsy.' " Upon one occasion," he tells, 
 " when the village herd was driving out the cattle 
 to pasture, the old laird heard him call loudly to 
 
 ' See Lockhart's ' Life of Scott," chap. ii. 
 
■•BY LONE ST MARY'S." 35 
 
 drive out Harden's cow. ' Harden's cow ! ' echoed 
 the affronted chief; 'is it come to that pass? By 
 my faith, they shall soon say Harden's kye ' (cows). 
 Accordingly, he sounded his bugle, set out with 
 his followers, and next day returned with a bow 
 of kye and a bassen'd (brindled) bull. On his return 
 with this gallant prey he passed a very large 
 haystack. It occurred to the provident laird that 
 this would be extremely convenient to fodder his 
 new stock of cattle ; but as no means of transporting 
 it were obvious, he was fain to take leave of it 
 with the apostrophe, now become proverbial — 'By 
 my saul, had ye but four feet ye should not stand long there.'" 
 
 There was a fire in that gentle blood of Dryhope 
 and Harden which time had no power to cool ; for 
 sixth in descent from this union sprang, as he himself 
 proudly records in his all too short autobiography, 
 the Minstrel of Abbotsford, who was to throw its 
 most lasting glory round the name of Scott. 
 
 Further up "the Hope," the "Auld Wa's " 
 represent the keep of that daring Dick of Dry- 
 hope, who in 1596 helped Buccleuch to rescue 
 Kinmont Willie from CarHsle Tower, sadly, it is 
 said, to Queen Elizabeth's annoyance. The story, 
 which forms the subject of one of the best-known 
 
36 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 historical ballads,' affords a good illustration of the 
 manners of the Borders in the sixteenth century. 
 On the day of a Warden meeting, and in violation 
 of safe-conduct, William Armstrong of Kinninmonth 
 had been seized and thrown into the keep of 
 Carlisle by Salkeld, deputy of Lord Scroope, the 
 English Warden. Upon hearing of the transaction, 
 Buccleuch first tried remonstrance with Lord 
 Scroope and the English ambassador, and this 
 proving futile, determined upon the bold expedient 
 of effecting Armstrong's release by a midnight 
 raid. Mustering some two hundred horse at 
 Morton Tower, in the Debateable Land, an hour 
 before sunset, he set out with scaling-ladders and 
 prison-breaking instruments, and reached Carlisle 
 before daybreak. There, his enterprise being con- 
 cealed from the sentinels by a night of pitchy 
 darkness and a tempest of wind and rain, he forced 
 his way in at a postern, and found and carried off 
 the prisoner before the garrison could muster 
 strength to resist. The ballad writer, in the 
 dramatic fashion peculiar to this class of composi- 
 tion, pictures Salkeld meeting the expedition on its 
 
 iThe ballad of "Kinmont Willie," in Scott's 'Minstrelsy 
 of the Scottish Border.' 
 
•'BY LONE ST MARY'S:' 37 
 
 way, and accosting one company after another. At 
 last he reaches and accosts the band commanded 
 by the doughty Dick of Dry hope. 
 
 " Where be ye gaun, ye broken men? " 
 Quo' fause Sakeld ; " come tell to me ! " 
 Now Dickie of Dryhope led that band, 
 And the never a word of lear* had he. 
 
 " Why trespass ye on the English side ? 
 Row-footed 2 outlaws, stand ! " quo' he. 
 The never a word had Dickie to say. 
 So he thrust the lance through his fause bodie. 
 
 The natural beauty of the surroundings them- 
 selves tempts the wanderer to linger in this hollow 
 among the low green hills. But there remains 
 another and subtler spell about the spot. 
 
 Of old the grey heron fed below in these narrow 
 meadows through which the Yarrow, freshly 
 poured from the lake, runs, gently murmuring. 
 Ever and anon in ancient times the hill-foot 
 has seen portly abbot and stalwart earl go by ; 
 and across its " holm so green, " her funeral 
 train " stemming the Yarrow's silver wave," that 
 other and scarcely less real Mary Scott, the 
 creation of the Ettrick Shepherd, can be pictured, 
 
 1 learuing. 
 
 a " Wheel-footed," equivalent to "gallows-necked." 
 
38 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 as, clad in " golden gear and cramasye," she 
 was borne on her bier to her unhoped-for 
 bridal at St Mary's Kirk with Lord Pringle 
 of Torwoodlee. The place is silent now. Only 
 the kins come lowing under the grey walls in the 
 gloaming, and for a pennon the long grass waves 
 from the ruin top. Yet the beating here once 
 of happy hearts, the love, the laughter, and the 
 sorrow that have passed away, make the sunny 
 knoll a haunt of pensive musings, and endue the 
 worn stones with eloquent regrets. 
 
 It was the spell of these things which was felt 
 by Wordsworth, and of which his lines remain the 
 finest expression. 
 
 YARROW VISITED. 
 
 And is this— Yarrow ? — This the stream 
 
 Of which my fancy cherished, 
 So faithfully, a waking dream ? 
 
 An image that hath perished ! 
 O that some minstrel's harp were near, 
 
 To utter notes of gladness, 
 And chase this silence from the air. 
 
 That fills my heart with sadness ! 
 
 Yet why ?— a silvery current flows 
 
 With uncontrolled meanderings ; 
 Nor have these eyes by greener hills 
 
 Been soothed, in all my wanderings. 
 
"BY LONE ST MARY'S.- 
 
 And, through her depths, Saint Mary's Lake 
 
 Is visibly delighted ; 
 For not a feature of those hills 
 
 Is in the mirror slighted. 
 
 A blue sky bends o'er Yarrow vale, 
 
 Save where that pearly whiteness 
 Is round the rising sun diffused, 
 
 A tender hazy brightness ; 
 Mild dawn of promise ! that excludes 
 
 All profitless dejection ; 
 Though not unwilling here to admit 
 
 A pensive recollection. 
 
 Where was it that the famous Flower 
 
 Of Yarrow Vale lay bleeding ? 
 His bed perchance was yon smooth mound 
 
 On which the herd is feeding ; 
 And haply from this crystal pool. 
 
 Now peaceful as the morning. 
 The water-wraith ascended thrice — 
 
 And gave his doleful warning. 
 
 Delicious is the lay that sings 
 
 The haunts of happy lovers. 
 The path that leads them to the grove. 
 
 The leafy grove that covers : 
 And pity sanctifies the verse 
 
 That paints, by strength of sorrow, 
 The unconquerable strength of love ; 
 
 Bear witness, rueful Yarrow ! 
 
 But thou, that didst appear so fair 
 
 To fond imagination, 
 Dost rival in the light of day 
 
 Her delicate creation. 
 
 39 
 
40 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Meek loveliness is round thee spread, 
 
 A softness still and holy ; 
 The grace of forest charms decayed, 
 
 And pastoral melancholy. 
 
 That region left, the vale unfolds 
 
 Rich groves of lofty stature, 
 With Yarrow winding through the pomp 
 
 Of cultivated nature ; 
 And, rising from those lofty groves, 
 
 Behold a ruin hoary ! 
 The shattered front of Newark's towers. 
 
 Renowned in Border story. 
 
 Fair scenes for childhood's opening bloom. 
 
 For sportive youth to stray in ; 
 For manhood to enjoy his strength ; 
 
 And age to wear away in ! 
 Yon cottage seems a bower of bliss, 
 
 A covert for protection 
 Of tender thoughts, that nestle there — 
 
 The brood of chaste affection. 
 
 How sweet, on this autumnal day, 
 
 The wildwood fruits to gather. 
 And on my true love's forehead plant 
 
 A crest of blooming heather ! 
 And what if I enwreathed my own ! 
 
 'T were no offence to reason ; 
 The sober hills thus deck their brows 
 
 To meet the wintry season. 
 
 I see — but not by sight alone. 
 Loved Yarrow, have I won thee ; 
 
 A ray of fancy still survives — 
 Her sunshine plays upon thee ! 
 
'•BY LONE ST BIARY'S." ^t 
 
 Thy ever youthful waters keep 
 
 A course of hvely pleasure ; 
 And gladsome notes my lips can breathe, 
 
 Accordant to the measure. 
 
 The vapours linger round the heights. 
 
 They melt, and soon must vanish ; 
 One hour is theirs, nor more is mine — 
 
 Sad thought, which I would banish. 
 But that I know, where'er I go. 
 
 Thy genuine image, Yarrow I 
 Will dwell with me — to heighten joy. 
 
 And cheer my mind in sorrow. 
 
 From the home of Mary Scott, a mile to the 
 east, by the side of Blackhouse Farm, the Douglas 
 Burn comes down to join the Yarrow, and the 
 murmur of its waters is the " Open, Sesame " to 
 another cluster of old-world associations. The quiet 
 farm-house itself, at the glen mouth, was the home of 
 William Laidlaw, the amanuensis and friend of Sir 
 Walter Scott, and author of the simple and beauti- 
 ful verses, 'Lucy's Flittin';' and on the Blackhouse 
 heights above, it was that for ten years the Ettrick 
 Shepherd tended his flocks. It was on one of 
 these heights, the Hawkshaw Rig, past which the 
 Blackhope burn comes down to join the Douglas, 
 that upon a summer day in 1796 an interesting 
 thing happened. As the young herdsman was 
 
42 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 watching his sheep, a half-daft wanderer of the 
 countryside, named Jock Scott, lying near him 
 on the heather, recited a marvellous poem called 
 ' Tam o' Shanter,' made, said the reciter, by an 
 Ayrshire peasant, lately dead, of the name of 
 Robert Burns. As he listened, it is said, big tears 
 of joy and surprise rolled down Hogg's quivering 
 cheek. Again and again he had the poem repeated 
 till he knew by heart every word of it ; and 
 forthwith he resolved to serve himself the successor 
 of the ploughman poet. Thanks to the old songs 
 and ballads crooned to his childish ears by his 
 mother at Ettrick Hall, " he could tell more stories 
 and sing more songs," he felt sure, " than ever 
 ploughman could in the world." Thus casually 
 fell the spark which set the lonely herdsman's 
 heart on fire. Well, however, might that herds- 
 man sing, spending the long days, as he did, 
 alone amid such scenes and memories, and within 
 the hearing of so many traditions. It would be 
 difficult in all broad Scotland to find a spot more 
 fit for the dreaming of a poet. 
 
 Two miles up the Douglas water, in the very 
 heart of the quiet hills, lies the tower of the Good 
 Lord James, who strove to carry the heart of 
 
'•BY LONE ST MARY'S." 43 
 
 the Bruce to the Holy Land. The Douglases 
 were early settled here. Sir John, eldest son of 
 William, first Lord Douglas, is recorded by Hume 
 of Godscroft, the family historian, to have sat 
 as baronial lord of Douglas Burn, in a parlia- 
 ment of Malcolm Canmore, held at Forfar ; and 
 here the companion of Bruce was wont sometimes 
 to retire to gather fresh forces for the cause of 
 the king. A crumbling ruin now, the home of 
 the Border lord is abandoned to the last neglect. 
 Within the walls which cradled that haughty race 
 are kennelled shepherds' dogs, and rubbish and 
 filth cover the hearth and threshold of the Black 
 Douglas. A silent reproach exists in the aspect 
 of the broken ruin, desecrated by mean uses, un- 
 visited and uncared-for in its decay. 
 
 From this tower it was, as the ballad of ' The 
 Douglas Tragedy' tells, that Fair Margaret was 
 carried off by her lover. A mile further up the 
 solitary glen stand seven great stones, marking, 
 it is said, the spot where Lord WilHam alighted 
 and slew the lady's seven pursuing brothers ; and 
 the bridle road, one of the disused mediaeval 
 paths from tower to tower, which the fleeing 
 lovers are said to have followed, can still easily 
 
44 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 be traced across the hills. The words of the 
 ancient composition possess a strange vividness 
 when read with a knowledge of the locality, and 
 at the foot of these grey walls. 
 
 THE DOUGLAS TRAGEDY. 
 
 " Rise up, rise up, now. Lord Douglas," she says, 
 
 " And put on your armour so bright ; 
 I*t it never be said that a daughter of thine 
 
 Was married to a lord under night ! 
 
 " Rise up, rise up, my seven bold sons, 
 
 And put on your armour so bright, 
 And take better care of your youngest sister, 
 
 For your eldest's away the last night ! " 
 
 He 's mounted her on a milk-white steed. 
 
 And himself on a dapple gray. 
 With a bugelet horn hung down by his side, 
 
 And lightly they rode away. 
 
 Lord William lookit o'er his left shoulder 
 
 To see what he could see. 
 And there he spied her seven brethren bold 
 
 Come riding o'er the lea. 
 
 " Light down, light down. Lady Marg'ret," he said, 
 
 " And hold my steed in your hand. 
 Until that against your seven brethren bold, 
 
 And your father, I make a stand." 
 
■•BY LONE ST MARVS." 45 
 
 She held his steed in her milk-white hand, 
 
 And never shed one tear, 
 Until that she saw her seven brethren fa', 
 
 And her father hard-fighting, who loved her so dear. 
 
 " O, hold your hand. Lord William ! " she said, 
 " For your strokes they are wondrous sair ; 
 
 True lovers I can get mony a ane. 
 But a father I can never get mair." 
 
 O, she's ta'en out her handkerchief. 
 
 It was o' the hoUand sae fine ; 
 And aye she dighted her father's bloody wounds 
 
 That were redder than the wine. 
 
 " O choose, O choose, Lady Marg'ret," he said ; 
 
 " O whether will ye gang or bide ? " 
 " I'll gang, I'll gang, Lord William," she said ; 
 
 " For you have left me nae other guide." 
 
 He's lifted her on a milk-white steed, 
 
 And himsel' on a dapple gray. 
 With a bugelet horn hung down by his side, 
 
 And slowly they baith rade away. 
 
 O they rade on, and on they rade, 
 
 And a' by the light o' the moon. 
 Until they came to yon wan water. 
 
 And then they lighted down. 
 
 They lighted down to tak' a drink 
 
 O' the spring that ran sae clear ; 
 And down the stream ran his gude heart's blood, 
 
 And sair she began to fear. 
 
46 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 " Hold up, hold up, Lord William," she said, 
 
 " For I fear that you are slain ! " 
 " 'Tis naething but the shadow o' my scarlet cloak 
 
 That shines in the water sae plain." 
 
 O they rade on, and on they rade, 
 
 And a' by the light o' the moon. 
 Until they cam' to his mother's ha' door, 
 
 And there they lighted doun. 
 
 " Get up, get up, lady mother," he says, 
 
 " Get up and let me in ! 
 Get up, get up, lady mother," he says, 
 
 " For this night my fair lady I've win. 
 
 " O, mak' my bed, lady mother," he says, 
 
 " O, mak' it braid and deep. 
 And lay Lady Marg'ret close at my back, 
 
 And the sounder I will sleep." 
 
 Lord William was dead lang ere midnight, 
 
 Lady Marg'ret lang ere day ; 
 And all true lovers that go thegither, 
 
 May they have mair luck than they ! 
 
 Lord William was buried in St Mary's Kirk, 
 
 Lady Marg'ret in Mary's quire : 
 Out o' the lady's grave grew a bonnie red rose. 
 
 And out o' the knight's a brier. 
 
 And they twa met, and they twa plat. 
 
 And fain they wad be near ; 
 And a' the world might ken right weel 
 
 They were twa lovers dear. 
 
•'BY LONE ST MARY'S.- 47 
 
 But bye and rade the Black Douglas, 
 
 And wow but he was rough ! 
 For he pulled up the bonnie brier, 
 
 And flang it in St Mary's Loch. 
 
 As one lingers in the silent glen, the scene of 
 this strange romance and of its tragic outcome, 
 a " breath of the time that has been " seems to 
 hover about it, with the sadness of these old for- 
 gotten days. 
 
THE DOWIE DENS O' YARROW. 
 
 THE sunshine falls warmly in the inn doorway 
 and on the road in front ; and the sky, 
 despite the ominous darkness of last night, is all 
 but clear of cloud. No sound of rude traffic breaks 
 upon the pastoral stillness of the spot. Only the 
 river below, murmuring over its pebbles, seems 
 recounting to itself the old-world memories of the 
 banks between which it runs. Though it is not 
 yet nine o'clock, yonder blithe lass in shepherd- 
 tartan plaid, and with a basket on her arm, singing 
 to herself as she comes up the road, has been 
 down to Yarrow Feus already. She turns across the 
 bridge a hundred yards off, on her way, says the 
 landlady, to Hogg's farm of Altrive Lake. The 
 place lies less than a mile away, and the road thither 
 leads on through the hills to the ruined keep of 
 Tushielaw, on the Ettrick — a pleasant forenoon's 
 ramble. It would surely be a mistake to pass 
 through the most storied yalley of the Border 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 49 
 
 without making a pilgrimage to the home of its 
 sweet singer. A word, then, to "mine hostess," 
 as to fare later on, a moment to pocket some 
 temporary provender, and then away after yonder 
 gentle pioneer. 
 
 Hogg had dedicated his ' Queen's Wake ' to 
 the Duchess of Buccleuch, and she on her death- 
 bed besought her husband to "remember her poor 
 poet." The Duke accordingly bestowed the little 
 farm of Altrive Lake upon Hogg for life, without 
 rent or fee ; and, grateful to his patron, the Ettrick 
 Shepherd came to live on the spot in 1815. Here 
 in 1819, he brought his lady wife, to make it "the 
 dearest spot on earth to him;" here he reared 
 the " flowers of the forest," as he called his 
 children ; and here, in 1835, he died, three years 
 after Sir Walter Scott. A thousand times, one 
 cannot help remembering, must the bright-eyed 
 poet have strolled down this road, carrying in his 
 heart, as Christopher North averred, the dream of 
 Kilmeny, or, as is perhaps more likely, with the 
 smile wreathing his lip at some remembered word of 
 wife or child. In one of the 'Noctes Ambrosianse,' 
 he is himself made to describe his winter life here : 
 " Mony and mony a day o' drivin' rain and blastin' 
 
 D 
 
50 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 sleet and driftin' snaw hae I been out frae morn 
 till nicht amang the hills — ay, sir, frae nicht till 
 morn — a' through the wild sughing hours o' the mirk 
 nichts o' winter." Certain it is that upon many a 
 summer morning he gathered inspiration from these 
 quiet hills. Carlyle has left a vivid, if somewhat 
 depreciating sketch of the Shepherd. " Hogg," he 
 says, " is a little, red-skinned, stiff rack of a body, 
 with quite the common air of an Ettrick shepherd, 
 except that he has a highish, though sloping brow, 
 among his yellow grizzled hair, and two clear 
 little beads of blue or grey eyes that sparkle, if not 
 with thought, yet with animation." The sage of 
 Craigenputtock proceeds further to condescend 
 upon the social qualities of "this poor man," 
 remarking especially that along with his boundless 
 good nature, his vanity seemed to be immense. 
 
 This charge of vanity has been made the occa- 
 sion for much indulgent patronizing of the poet, 
 but it has been well answered by Mr Borland in 
 ' Yarrow, its Poets and Poetry.' " Even in this 
 respect," he says, " Hogg compares not unfavour- 
 ably with his contemporaries. He was certainly 
 less self-conscious than either Byron or Keats, or 
 for that matter, Wordsworth — humble as he was 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 51 
 
 to all outward seeming; and in Hogg's case there 
 was more excuse for such a failing. He was all 
 but uneducated, and consequently the distinction 
 he attained as a man of letters was due to his 
 genius and indomitable perseverance. From the 
 obscurity of his shepherd life he suddenly burst 
 upon the world as a great poet. He could number 
 among his friends many of the foremost men of 
 his age in learning, intellect, and social position. 
 In these circumstances, his vanity, such as it was, 
 need surprise no one. The wonder really is, all 
 things considered, that he was so well able to keep 
 his feet on the ground." Of the Shepherd's further 
 qualities, on the other hand, perhaps Carlyle was 
 not in all respects the best judge. During his 
 twenty years' residence at Altrive Lake, Hogg 
 probably entertained, freely and heartily, more 
 visitors to the neighbourhood than, to judge from 
 authentic accounts, the friends who were received 
 critically, and afterwards cynically pulled to pieces, 
 by Carlyle during all his long life. A thousand 
 times the Shepherd has betaken himself, rod in hand, 
 and in the company of some chosen guest, to angle 
 in the rushing Yarrow; and as often has he re- 
 turned at night with heavy basket, to install his 
 
52 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 tired friend by the genial hearth at Altrive. For 
 Hogg, with the narrow estate of a yeoman, had the 
 hospitable heart of a prince.^ The Shepherd was, 
 in fact, in his time, the indispensable cicerone to 
 Yarrow and St Mary's Loch, and of the throngs of 
 guests who were entertained with such boundless 
 hospitality at Abbotsford by Scott, no small pro- 
 portion sooner or later found themselves visiting 
 the classic springs of Yarrow under the guidance 
 of Hogg. Wordsworth, in the opening stanzas of 
 his poem on Hogg's death, gives an indication of 
 what was almost a custom. 
 
 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 pathways, 
 My steps the Border Minstrel led. 
 
 Wordsworth's first visit to Yarrow was in 1814. 
 In the note to his poem of the occasion, which has 
 been already quoted on a former page, he says: 
 
 1 Lockhart, in his 'Life of Scott,' chap, xvii., makes allusion 
 to the entertainment of visitors at Altrive Lake as on a scale 
 which stretched the Shepherd's resources to their utmost limit. 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 33 
 
 "We had lodged the night before at Traquair, 
 where Hogg had joined us, and also Dr Anderson, 
 the editor of the ' British Poets,' who was on a 
 visit at the Manse. Dr A. walked with us till 
 we came in view of the Vale of Yarrow, and being 
 advanced in life he then turned back." Upon the 
 Lake Poet's last visit to the neighbourhood, of 
 which his 'Yarrow Revisited' was a memorial, he 
 stayed at Abbotsford, and visited the scenes of 
 interest on the lower reaches of the stream in the 
 company of his host. 
 
 Throughout the many years of their acquaintance, 
 Hogg held a warm place in the regard of Scott him- 
 self. While by no means blind to the Shepherd's 
 fa,ilings, the great novelist had an eye to perceive 
 the true genius and heart of his humbler friend. 
 
 Sir Walter's last meeting with Hogg may be 
 given as narrated by Professor Veitch. " Scott 
 had sent him word that he was to pass down the 
 Yarrow from Drumlanrig, on his way to Abbots- 
 ford. The carriage stopped at the small inn, the 
 Gordon Arms, and here the Shepherd met Sir 
 Walter. They walked down the road past Mount 
 Benger, Sir Walter leaning heavily on Hogg's 
 arm, and walking very feebly. The Shepherd 
 
54 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 noticed the change, bodily and mental, in the great 
 man whom he honoured — almost worshipped. 
 There was some talk, not of a very clear kind, but 
 kindly and affectionate. It was exactly twenty- 
 nine years before that Hogg, a young man, had 
 met Scott in his mother's cottage at Ettrick Hall, 
 when the editor of the 'Minstrelsy' was sowing the 
 seed that had ripened during those intervening 
 years into that glorious golden harvest of poem and 
 romance — as rich an outcome of one man's life as 
 the world had ever seen. Here, appropriately 
 enough, in beloved Yarrow — dear to Hogg, and 
 dearest vale on earth to Scott — the two poets whom 
 Yarrow herself had quickened and nourished, 
 parted for the last time on earth." 
 
 All day might be spent lingering here amid the 
 scenes of old Border memories — the Hart's Leap, 
 marked by two stones at the roadside, where the 
 last hart in Ettrick, shot by Andrew Telfer, James 
 VI.'s huntsman, made a dying spring of 27 feet ; 
 the ruined keep of Tushielaw on Ettrick bank, 
 where, if tradition were to be believed, James V., 
 ii^ 1530, executed swift, sharp justice by hanging the 
 reiver Adam Scott over his own gate; the ballad- 
 sung tower of Dodhead, near Singlee ; Ettrick 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 55 
 
 Kirk, where Thomas Boston spent the years of his 
 ministry, writing the once famous 'Fourfold State,' 
 ' The Crook in the Lot,' and other books ; and 
 where, far from the haunts of busy men, he raised 
 himself to be one of the greatest scholars and theo- 
 logians of his day ; and Ettrick Kirkyard, where, 
 close by the vault of the Scotts of Thirlstane, lie the 
 remains of James Hogg and of his quondam hostess, 
 Tibbie Shiel.' But the countryside by Yarrow 
 Water remains to be traversed yet, and the hours 
 wear all too quickly on. 
 
 Below the Gordon Arms Inn on Yarrow side 
 stands the monument of one of the Ettrick Shep- 
 herd's many misfortunes — Mount Benger farm. In 
 the famous ' Noctes ' he is made to speak with high 
 hope of his new adventure here ; but the ambitious 
 leasing of the place tied a millstone round his neck 
 which dragged upon him till his last day. Hogg, 
 
 I When Hogg was buried here in 1835 his genial carica- 
 turist and comrade of other times, the author of the ' Noctes 
 Ambrosianse ' was not absent from the funeral. " Who that 
 was present," says Dr Russell when describing the scene in 
 his 'Reminiscences,' "could forget the noble form of John 
 Wilson — a model for a sculptor — as he stood at the top of 
 the grave, his cloak wrapped round him, his head uncovered, 
 his long auburn hair streaming in the wind, while tears 
 flowed down his manly countenance." 
 
56 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 it is to be feared, was, like his master Burns, no 
 great farmer. His ear had caught the music of 
 the horns of elfland, and his heart thenceforth was 
 in that enchanted world. 
 
 Below the windows of the house the river runs, 
 growing in volume, to the village of Yarrow Feus ; 
 and here, in the heart of Border song -land, lies 
 the scene of the fatal combat so greatly renowned 
 in minstrelsy. 
 
 " Annan - street," to the west of Yarrow Kirk, 
 is the spot pointed out by tradition as the scene 
 of the fight. The legend of the locality simply 
 runs that here a deadly feud was settled by 
 force of arms. The two lords, or leaders, it is 
 said, fell at the upright stones, and the bodies of 
 the other slain were thrown into " The Dead 
 Lake," a marshy pool in the haugh close by. Scott 
 conjectured, from this tradition and a passage in 
 Nisbet's ' Heraldry ' that this was the Deuchar- 
 swyre, where Walter, third son of Robert Scott 
 of Thirlstane, was waylaid and slain by his brother- 
 in-law, John Scott of Tushielaw, the feud having 
 been caused by the lady's father allotting her a 
 dowry larger than her grasping brother could 
 approve. By Mr T. Craig-Brown's ' History of 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 57 
 
 Selkirkshire,' however, a new light has been shed 
 on the subject. The slain Walter Scott of the 
 duel at Deucharswyre, it appears, was not a 
 brother-in-law of Scott of Tushielaw, his opponent, 
 his wife being a daughter of Sir Patrick Porteous. 
 Deuchar, moreover, lies somewhat further down 
 the Yarrow — a peel called Deuchar Tower having 
 stood at the north-west end of the old bridge 
 over the river below Yarrow Kirk. The ballad 
 must therefore be taken to refer to another inci- 
 dent. The clue to this seems to be furnished by 
 the minutes of the Presbytery of Selkirk. In 
 these it is recorded that in 1616 Walter Scott 
 of Tushielaw made " an informal and inordinat 
 marriage with Grizell Scott of Thirlstane, without 
 consent of her father." Three months after the 
 elopement, the same records contain entry of a 
 summons to Simeon Scott of Bonytoun, an 
 adherent of Thirlstane, and three other Scotts, 
 " to compear in Melrose to hear themselves 
 excommunicat for the horrible slaughter of Walter 
 Scott." Here then, it would appear, is the most 
 probable subject of the ballad, agreeing both 
 with tradition and with the narrative of the 
 unknown poet. 
 
58 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 THE DOWIE DENS O' YARROW. 
 
 Late at e'en, drinking the wine, 
 And ere they paid the lawing,i 
 
 They set a combat them between, 
 To fight it in the dawing. 
 
 " O, stay at hame, my noble lord, 
 O, stay at hame, my marrow ! ^ 
 
 My cruel brother will you betray 
 On the dowie houms o' Yarrow." 
 
 " O, fare ye weel, my lady gay ! 
 
 Fareweel, my winsome marrow ! 
 For I maun gae, though I ne'er return 
 
 Frae the dowie houms o' Yarrow." 
 
 She kissed his cheek, she kaimed his hair. 
 As oft she had done before, O ; 
 
 She belted him with his noble brand. 
 And he's away to Yarrow. 
 
 As he gaed up the Tennies bank 
 
 I wot he gaed with sorrow, 
 Till he espied nine armed men 
 
 On the dowie houms o' Yarrow. 
 
 " O, come ye here to part your land. 
 The bonnie Forest thorough ? 
 
 Or come ye here to wield your brand, 
 On the dowie houms o' Yarrow ? " 
 
 1 reckoning. ^ matcb, mate. 
 
THE DOW IE DENS 0' YARROW. 
 
 " I come not here to part my land, 
 And neither to beg nor borrow ; 
 
 I come to wield my noble brand, 
 On the bonnie banks o' Yarrow. 
 
 " If I see all, ye're nine to ane, 
 And that's an unequal marrow ; 
 
 Yet will I fight, while lasts my brand. 
 On the bonnie banks o' Yarrow." 
 
 Four has he hurt, and five has slain, 
 On the bloody braes o' Yarrow ; 
 
 Till a coward knight came him behind, 
 And ran his body thorough. 
 
 " Gae hame, gae hame, good-brother John, 
 And tell my winsome marrow 
 
 To come and lift her leafu' lord. 
 He's sleeping sound on Yarrow." 
 
 As he gaed o'er yon high, high hill. 
 
 As he had done before, O, 
 It's there he met his sister dear. 
 
 Fast running on to Yarrow. 
 
 " Yestreen I dreamed a dolefu' dream, 
 
 I fear there will be sorrow ! 
 I dreamed I pu'd the birk sae green 
 
 Wi' my true love on Yarrow. 
 
 " O, gentle wind, that bloweth south 
 From where my love repaireth. 
 
 Convey a kiss from his dear mouth. 
 And tell me how he fareth ! 
 
 59 
 
6o: BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 " For in the glen strive armed men ; 
 
 They've wrought me dule and sorrow ; 
 They've slain — the comeliest knight they've slain — 
 
 He bleeding lies on Yarrow." 
 
 As she sped down yon high, high hill, 
 
 She gaed wi' dule and sorrow. 
 And in the den spied ten slain men. 
 
 On the dowie banks o' Yarrow. 
 
 She kissed his cheek, she kaimed his hair. 
 She searched his wounds all thorough ; 
 
 She kissed him till her lips grew red, 
 On the dovne houms o' Yarrow. 
 
 " Now hand your tongue, my daughter dear ! 
 
 For a' this breeds but sorrow ; 
 I'll wed you to a better lord 
 
 Than him ye lost on Yarrow." 
 
 " O, haud your tongue, my father dear ! 
 
 Ye mind me but of sorrow ; 
 A fairer rose did never bloom 
 
 Than now lies cropped on Yarrow." 
 
 Such is the pitiful story of the place as told by 
 tradition and song — the story to which, most of 
 all, perhaps, the quiet little valley owes its fame. 
 Another ballad exists in fragmentary form, which 
 is supposed by some to refer to the same incident 
 as the ballad just quoted. It refers, at any rate, 
 to a similar tragedy — one which must have been 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 6i 
 
 frequent enough in the days when might was 
 
 right — of a lady losing her lover by violence or 
 
 accident ; but the finding of the slain man occurs 
 in a diiferent way. 
 
 WILLIE DROWNED IN YARROW. 
 
 " Willie's rare and Willie's fair, 
 And Willie's wondrous bonnie, 
 And Willie hecht i to marry me 
 Gin e'er he ftiarried ony. 
 
 " Yestreen I made my bed fu' braid, 
 The nicht I'll make it narrow ; 
 For a' the live-lang winter nicht, 
 I'll lie twined 2 o' my marrow. 
 
 " O cam' ye by yon water side ? 
 Pu'd you the rose or lily ? 
 Or cam' ye by yon meadow green ? 
 Or saw you my sweet Willie ? 
 
 " She sought him east, she sought him west. 
 She sought him braid and narrow ; 
 Syne, in the cleavin' o' a craig. 
 
 She found him drowned in Yarrow. 
 
 " She's ta'en three links o' her yellow hair. 
 That hung down lang and yellow, 
 And she's tied it about sweet Willie's waist. 
 And drawn him out o' Yarrow. 
 
 1 promised, ^ twaiued, deprived. 
 
62 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 In the early part of last century a sequel to 
 the ancient ballad of ' The Dowie Dens ' was 
 written by Hamilton of Bangour. This for its 
 beauty and pathos merits a place in the poetry of 
 the spot only second to the traditional song.' 
 
 THE BRAES OF YARROW. 
 
 " Busk ye, busk ye, my bonnie, bonnie bride ! 
 Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome marrow ! 
 Busk ye, busk ye, my bonnie, bonnie bride ! 
 And think nae mair on the Braes of Yarrow ! " 
 
 ' ' Where got ye that bonnie, bonnie bride ? 
 
 Where got ye that winsome marrow ! " 
 " I got her where I durst not weel be seen — 
 
 Pu'ing the birks on the braes of Yarrow. 
 
 " Weep not, weep not, my bonnie, bonnie bride ! 
 Weep not, weep not, my winsome marrow ! 
 Nor let thy heart lament to leave 
 Pu'ing the birks on the braes of Yarrow." 
 
 1 Sir George Douglas, Bart., in whose very interesting 
 collection of ' Scottish Minor Poets ' this poem has been 
 most recently printed, after a brief outline of its author's 
 romantic career, remarks : — " It is probably unnecessary to 
 remind the reader that ' The Braes of Yarrow,' with its 
 yearning pathos, its fresh touches of nature, its tragic passion, 
 and its haunting tune, has the distinction of having served 
 as a source of inspiration to Wordsworth." 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 63 
 
 ' Why does she weep, thy bonnie, bonnie bride ? 
 
 Why does she weep, thy winsome marrow ? 
 And why dare ye nae mair weel be seen 
 Pu'ing the birks on the braes of Yarrow ? " 
 
 ' Lang maun she weep, lang maun she, maun she weep, 
 
 Lang maun she weep with dule and sorrow ; 
 And lang maun I nae mair weel be seen 
 Pu'ing the birks on the braes of Yarrow. 
 
 ' For she has tint 1 her lover, lover dear — 
 
 Her lover dear, the cause of sorrow ; 
 And I have slain the comeliest swain 
 That e'er pu'd birks on the braes of Yarrow ! 
 
 " Why runs thy stream, O Yarrow, Yarrow, reid ? 
 Why on thy braes is heard the voice of sorrow ? 
 And why yon melancholious weeds 
 Hung on the bonnie birks of Yarrow ? 
 
 " What's yonder floats on the rueful, rueful flood ? 
 What's yonder floats ? O dule and sorrow ! 
 'T is he, the comely swain I slew 
 Upon the duleful braes of Yarrow. 
 
 " Wash, O wash his wounds, his wounds in tears — 
 His wounds in tears of dule and sorrow ; 
 And wrap his limbs in mourning weeds. 
 And lay him on the braes of Yarrow. 
 
 " Then build, then build, ye sisters, sisters sad, 
 Ye sisters sad, his tomb with sorrow ; 
 And weep around, in woeful wise, 
 
 His hapless fate on the braes of Yarrow. 
 
 I lost. 
 
64 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 " Curse ye, curse ye, his useless, useless shield, 
 My arm that wrought the deed of sorrow. 
 The fatal spear that pierced his breast — 
 His coniely breast on the braes of Yarrow ! 
 
 ' ' Did I not warn thee not to, not to love. 
 And warn from fight ? but, to my sorrow. 
 Too rashly bold ! a stronger arm 
 Thou met'st — and fell on the braes of Yarrow ! " 
 
 " Sweet smells the birk, green grows, green grows the grass, 
 Yellow on Yarrow's braes the gowan ; 
 Fair hangs the apple frae the rock. 
 Sweet the wave of Yarrow flowing ! " 
 
 " Flows Yarrow sweet ? As sweet, as sweet flows Tweed, 
 As green its grass, its gowan as yellow ; 
 As sweet smells on its braes the birk. 
 The apple from its rocks as mellow. 
 
 " Fair was thy love, fair, fair indeed thy love ; 
 In flowery bands thou did'st him fetter ; 
 Though he was fair, and well beloved again, 
 Than me he never loved thee better. 
 
 " Busk ye then, busk, my bonnie, bonnie bride ! 
 Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome marrow ! 
 Busk ye, and lo'e me on the banks of Tweed, 
 And think nae mair on the braes of Yarrow." 
 
 ' ' How can I busk, a bonnie, bonnie bride ? 
 How can I busk, a winsome marrow ? 
 How lo'e him on the banks of Tweed 
 That slew my love on the braes of Yarrow ? 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 63 
 
 ' O Yarrow fields, may never, never rain, 
 Nor dew, thy tender blossoms cover ! 
 For there was basely slain my love — 
 My love, as he had not been a lover ! 
 
 ' The boy put on his robes, his robes of green. 
 
 His purple vest — 'twas my ain sewin' ! 
 Ah, wretched me 1 I little, little knew 
 He was in these to meet his ruin ! 
 
 ' The boy took out his milk-white, milk-white steed, 
 
 Unheedful of my dule and sorrow ; 
 But ere the to-fall of the night 
 He lay a corpse on the braes of Yarrow. 
 
 ' Much I rejoiced that woeful, woeful day ; 
 I sang — my voice the woods returning ; 
 But long ere night the spear was flown 
 That slew my love and left me mourning. 
 
 ' What can my barbarous, barbarous father do, 
 
 But vrith his cruel rage pursue me ? 
 My lover's blood is on thy spear ; 
 How canst thou, barbarous man, then, woo me ? 
 
 ' My happy sisters may be, may be proud ; 
 
 With cruel and ungentle scoffin' 
 May bid me seek on Yarrow's braes 
 My lover nailed in his coffin. 
 
 ' My brother Douglas may upbraid, 
 
 And strive with threatening words to move me : — 
 My lover's blood is on thy spear. 
 How canst thou ever bid me love thee ? 
 
66 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 " Yes, yes, prepare the bed, the bed of love — 
 With bridal sheets my body cover ; 
 Unbar, ye bridal maids, the door, 
 Let in the expected husband lover. 
 
 " But who the expected husband, husband is ? 
 His hands, methinks, are bathed in slaughter : 
 Ah me ! what ghastly spectre's yon 
 Comes in his pale shroud bleeding after ? 
 
 " Pale as he is, here lay him, lay him down ; 
 O lay his cold head on my pillow ; 
 Take off, take off these bridal weeds. 
 And crown my careful head with willow. 
 
 " Pale though thou art, yet best, yet best beloved, 
 O, could my warmth to life restore thee ! 
 Ye'd lie all night between my breasts — 
 No youth lay ever there before thee ! 
 
 " Pale, pale indeed ! O lovely, lovely youth, 
 ■ Forgive, forgive so foul a slaughter, 
 And lie all night between my breasts — 
 No youth shall ever lie there after ! " 
 
 " Return, return, O mournful, mournful bride ! 
 Return, and dry thy useless sorrow ! 
 Thy lover heeds not of thy siglls — 
 
 He lies a corpse on the braes of Yarrow." 
 
 Yarrow, however, it would appear, has reason 
 much greater than has hitherto been generally 
 supposed, to be looked on as a place of tragic 
 grief. An interest still more ancient, if less known, 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 67 
 
 exists about this spot ; for the great stones standing 
 here are not, as locally supposed, memorials of 
 the conflict celebrated in the ballad of ' The 
 Dowie Dens.' There are, in all, four stones stand- 
 ing — one close by the entrance to Yarrow Kirk ; 
 another, " The Warrior's Rest," at the shepherd's 
 house ; a third, said by tradition to be the scene 
 of the tragedy, in the manse glebe ; and the fourth, 
 the stone containing the inscription, on the farm 
 of Whitehope. Previous to 1808 the neighbour- 
 hood of the glebe was a low waste moor, with some 
 twenty large cairns upon it, in which, when opened, 
 were found some heaps of fine yellow dust and the 
 head of an antique spear. About three hundred 
 yards further to the west, when the strath was 
 being broken in by the plough, a large flat stone was 
 laid bare. It contained a Latin inscription, rudely 
 engraved, and under it were discovered human 
 bones and ashes. This block of greywacke is the 
 famous Yarrow Stone, and the lettering upon it 
 is said to be the only known inscription of the 
 British Cymry, who, after the legions left, held 
 the country between the Roman Walls — the race 
 of whom Arthur was king. The first part of the 
 lettering has been made out as " Hie memoria 
 
68 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Cetiloi ; " and an ingenious archaeologist in the 
 'Glasgow Herald,' a few years ago, by comparing 
 the chronicles of Bede and Tighernse, identified 
 in the spot the Denisesburn, and, according to 
 Nennius, the Catscaul (the latter name remains 
 transposed in Catslack Burn close by), where 
 in 632 A.D., in a great battle of rival races, 
 Cation, King of the Britons, was defeated and 
 slain by Oswald, King of the Angles of North- 
 imibria. Following this clue the same writer 
 suggested, as the complete rendering of the in- 
 scription : " This stone is in memory of Cetilon 
 and his son, Princes and Imperators of Dumno- 
 genium." By this rendering, he concludes, " the 
 Cetilon of the Yarrow Stone would be proved to 
 be the Cadwalla of Bede and of the Saxon 
 Chronicle, who was a more cruel and bitter enemy 
 to the Angles than Arthur."^ A strange and 
 terrible chapter of history to be turned up by 
 the share of a peaceful plough ! 
 
 But memories of many centuries gather thickly 
 in the little valley. At all times the Border- 
 land has felt the stirring of the nation's tides, 
 
 I For another of the many renderings of this inscription see 
 Mr Craig-Brown's ' History of Selkirkshire, ' I. 48. 
 
THE DOW IE DENS 0' YARROW. 6g 
 
 and the legends of Yarrow form a fair index 
 to the history of the country at large. During 
 one of the Border feuds an ancestress of the 
 Buccleuch family was burned to death in Catslack 
 Tower, now demolished. To the same tower, as 
 a well - known ballad relates, came Jamie Telfer 
 in distress, on his way to Branksome Ha' to claim 
 the help of Buccleuch, on a night of 1582 — 
 
 And when he cam' to the Catslack hill 
 
 He shouted loud, and cried weel hie, 
 Till out and spak' him William's Wat, 
 
 " O, wha's this brings the fray to me ? " 
 
 " It's I, Jamie Telfer o' the fair Dodhead, 
 
 A harried man I think I be ! 
 The Captain of Bewcastle has driven my gear ; 
 
 For God's sake rise and succour me ! ' ' 
 
 The mighty " Beetle of Yarrow " lies buried in 
 Yarrow Kirkyard, where also lies the great- 
 grandfather of Sir Walter Scott. Further, beside 
 the relics of mediaeval and prehistoric times, the 
 history of the Covenanting struggle might be read 
 by the light of its associations here. Yarrow 
 Manse was the dwelling of John Brenner, of 
 evil memory. One of the curates thrust upon 
 the people by the prelatic acts of Charles II., 
 
70 BYWAYS OP THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 he is notorious for having played the unworthy 
 part of spy upon his flock. By means of a 
 certain " strange gaunt woman," he was wont 
 to furnish the Government with tidings of con- 
 venticles about to be held among the hills, and 
 in this way betrayed the lives of many of the 
 people among whom he was placed, until at last 
 they shot him through his own parlour window. 
 
 Within the last hundred years Yarrow Manse 
 has become famous in a gentler way, and has 
 furnished more than one contribution to the litera- 
 ture of the countryside. It was in succession the 
 abode of the Russells, father and son, to whose joint 
 memories and knowledge of the district, its legends, 
 history, and antiquities, are owed the delightful 
 ' Reminiscences of Yarrow ' ; while its present 
 occupant, the Rev. R. Borland, has but recently 
 brought together most of the verse, ancient and 
 modern, of the storied valley, in his book of 
 ' Yarrow, its Poets and Poetry.' ^ 
 
 Point after point, as the valley descends, strikes 
 a chord of old-world interest. Presently the road 
 plunges into the darkness under the heavy woods 
 
 1 To both of these books the present writer has to acknowledge 
 much indebtedness for memories and details of the district. 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 71 
 
 of Hangingshaw. Here, where the air is rich 
 with wandering forest-scents, stood the stronghold 
 of the Outlaw Murray, prince of the Ishmael- 
 ites of the Border, whose famous " Sang,'' or 
 ballad, Scott says, was popular for ages in 
 Selkirkshire. Not one stone now remains upon 
 another of a stronghold which was once alike the 
 pride and menace of all Ettrick Forest. For 
 centuries it was the seat of the family of Murray, 
 afterwards of Philiphaugh, of which the famous 
 Outlaw was, in the time of James IV., the head. 
 According to tradition, he was a man of immense 
 strength, who, with a huge beetle or club, laid waste 
 the country for miles around. Whether or not 
 the " Sang " relates an actual incident in the 
 life of this warrior remains uncertain. So early 
 as the time of Bruce and Baliol the Philip- 
 haugh family were settled in the district, and it 
 seems more likely that the ballad refers to some 
 incident during the feeble reigns of David II., 
 Robert II., or Robert III. By a charter of James 
 IV., dated November 30, 1509, the hereditary 
 sheriffship of Ettrick Forest was vested in John 
 Murray of Philiphaugh; and it seems probable, as 
 Scott suggests, that the bard, willing to pay his 
 
72 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 court to the family, has connected the grant of the 
 sheriffship by James IV. with some earlier dispute 
 occurring between the Murrays and their sovereign. 
 In any case, the ballad affords one of the best 
 pictures extant of a mediaeval Border episode. 
 The scene of the incidents which it describes was 
 probably the neighbourhood of Hangingshaw itself. 
 Mr Plummer, sheriff- depute of Selkirk, indeed, 
 informed Scott that he remembered over the castle 
 doorway the insignia of the unicorns, &c., so often 
 mentioned in the ballad. 
 
 THE SANG OF THE OUTLAW MURRAY. 
 
 Etfrick Forest is a fair forest, 
 
 In it grows mony a seemly tree ; 
 There's hart and hind, and dae and rae, 
 
 And of a' wild beasts great plentie. 
 
 There's a fair castle, bigg'd i wi' lime and stane ; 
 
 O ! gin it stands not pleasantly ! 
 In the forefront o' that castle fair 
 
 Twa unicorns are braw to see ; 
 There's the picture of a knight, and a lady bright. 
 
 And the green hoUin abune their brie. 
 
 There an Outlaw keeps five hundred men ; 
 He keeps a royal company ; 
 
 1 built. 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 73 
 
 His merrymen are a' in ae livery clad, 
 
 O' the Lincoln green so gay to see ; 
 He and his lady in purple clad, 
 
 O ! gin they lived not royally ! 
 
 Word is gane to our noble king 
 
 In Edinburgh where that he lay. 
 That there was an outlaw in Ettrick Forest, 
 
 Counted him nought, nor a' his courtrie gay.i 
 
 " I make a vow," then the gude king said, 
 " Unto the Man that dear bought me, 
 I'll either be king of Ettrick Forest, 
 Or king of Scotland that Outlaw shall be I " 
 
 Then spak' the lord hight 2 Hamilton, 
 And to the noble king said he, 
 " My sovereign prince, some counsel take, 
 First at your nobles, syne at me. 
 
 " I rede" ye, send yon braw Outlaw till. 
 And see if your man come will he ; 
 Desire him come and be your man. 
 And hold of you yon Forest free. 
 
 " If he refuses to do that, 
 
 We'll conquess baith his lands and he. 
 Or else we'll throw his castle down. 
 And make a widow of his gay ladye." 
 
 The king then called a gentleman, 
 
 James Boyd (the Earl of Arran his brother was he). 
 When James he cam' before the king, 
 
 He knelt before him on his knee. 
 
 '■ his gay court following. 2 named. 8 counsel. 
 
74 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 " Welcome, James Boyd ! " said our noble king ; 
 " A message ye maun gang for me ; 
 Ye maun hie to Ettrick Forest, 
 To yon Outlaw, where bideth he : 
 
 " Ask liim of whom he halds his lands. 
 Or man, wha may his master be ; 
 And desire him come and be my man. 
 And hald of me yon Forest free. 
 
 " To Edinburgh to come and gang. 
 His safe warrant I shall gi'e ; 
 And gif he refuses to do that, 
 We'll conquess baith his lands and he. 
 
 " Thou may' St vow I'll cast his castle down. 
 And mak' a widow of his gay ladye ; 
 I'll hang his merrymen pair by pair. 
 In ony frith ^ where I may them see." 
 
 James Boyd took his leave o' the noble king. 
 To Ettrick Forest fair cam' he ; 
 
 Down Birkendale Brae when that he cam'. 
 He saw the fair Forest with his e'e. 
 
 Baith dae and rae, and hart and hind, 
 And of all wild beasts great plentie ; 
 
 He heard the bows that bauldly ring. 
 And arrows whidderan' him near by. 
 
 Of that fair castle he got a sight ; 
 
 The like he ne'er saw with his e'e ! 
 On the forefront o' that castle fair 
 
 Twa unicorns were gay to see, 
 
 1 field. 2 whirring. 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 75 
 
 The picture of a knight, and a lady bright, 
 And the green hoUin abune their brie. 
 
 Thereat he spied five hundred men, 
 
 Shooting with bows on Newark Lea ; 
 They were a' in ae livery clad, 
 
 O' the Lincoln green so gay to see. 
 
 His men were a' clad in the green. 
 
 The knight was armed cap A pie. 
 With a bended bow, on a milk-white steed. 
 
 And I wot they ranked right bonnily. 
 
 Thereby Boyd kenn'd he was master man. 
 
 And served him in his ain degree. 
 " God mot thee save, brave Outlaw Murray ! 
 
 Thy lady, and all thy chivalry ! " 
 " Marry, thou's welcome, gentleman. 
 
 Some king's messenger thou seems to be." 
 
 " The king of Scotland sent me here, 
 
 And, gude Outlaw, I am sent to thee. 
 
 I would wot of whom ye hold your lands. 
 
 Or man, wha may thy master be ? " 
 
 " These lands are MINE," the Outlaw said ; 
 " I ken nae king in Christentie ; 
 Frae Southron I this Forest wan. 
 When the king nor his knights were not to see.' 
 
 " He desires you'll come to Edinburgh, 
 And hold of him this Forest free ; 
 And, gif ye refuse to do this. 
 
 He'll conquess baith thy lands and thee — 
 He hath vowed to cast thy castle down. 
 And make a widow of thy gay ladye ; 
 
76 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 " He'll hang thy merrymen pair by pair, 
 
 In ony frith where he may them find." 
 " Aye, by my troth ! " the Outlaw said, 
 " Then would I think me far behind. 
 
 " Ere the king my fair country get — 
 This land that's nativest to me— 
 Mony o' his nobles shall be cauld. 
 Their ladies shall be right wearie." 
 
 Then spake his lady, fair of face ; 
 
 She said, " Without consent of me, 
 That an outlaw should come before a king — 
 
 I am right rad i of treasonrie. 
 Bid liim be gude to his lords at hame. 
 
 For Edinburgh my lord shall never see." 
 
 James Boyd took his leave o' the Outlaw keen, 
 
 To Edinburgh boun is he ; 
 When James he cam' before the king 
 
 He knelit lowly on his knee. 
 
 " Welcome, James Boyd ! " said our noble king ; 
 
 " What forest is Ettrick Forest free ? " 
 " Ettrick Forest is the fairest forest 
 That ever man saw wi' his e'e. 
 
 " There's the dae, the rae, the hart, the hind. 
 And of a' wild beasts great plentie ; 
 There's a pretty castle o' lime and stane ; 
 O, gif it stands not pleasantly ! 
 
 "There's in the forefront o' that castle 
 Twa unicorns sae braw to see ; 
 
 1 afraid. 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 77 
 
 There's the picture of a knight, and a lady bright, 
 Wi' the green hollin abune their brie. 
 
 ' There the Outlaw keeps five hundred men ; 
 
 He keeps a royal company ; 
 His merrymen in ae livery clad, 
 
 O' the Lincoln green sae gay to see ; 
 He and his lady in purple clad ; 
 
 O ! gin they live not royally ! 
 
 " He says yon Forest is his ain ; 
 He wan it frae the Southronie ; 
 Sae as he wan it, sae will he keep it, 
 Contrair all kings in Christentie." 
 
 "Gar warn me Perthshire and Angus baith ; 
 Fife up and down, and the Lothians three, 
 And graith my horse ! " said our noble king, 
 " For to Ettrick Forest hie will I me." 
 
 Then word is gane the Outlaw till, 
 
 In Ettrick Forest, where dwelleth he. 
 That the king was coming to his country, 
 
 To conquess baith his lands and he. 
 
 " I mak' a vow," the Outlaw said, 
 " I mak' a vow, and that truly. 
 Were there but three men to take my part. 
 Yon king's coming full dear should be ! " 
 
 Then messengers he called forth. 
 And bade them hie them speedily : — 
 " Ane of ye gae to Halliday, 
 
 The laird of the Corehead is he. 
 
78 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 " He certain is my sister's son ; 
 
 Bid him come quick and succour me ; 
 The king comes on for Ettrick Forest, 
 And landless men we a' will be." 
 
 " What news ? What news ? " said Halliday, 
 
 " Man, frae thy master unto me ? " 
 
 " Not as we would ; seeking your aid ; 
 
 The king's his mortal enemy." 
 
 " Aye, by my troth ! " said Halliday, 
 " Even for that it repenteth me ; 
 For gif ye lose fair Ettrick Forest, 
 He'll tak' fair Moflfatdale frae me. 
 
 "I'll meet him wi' five hundred men, 
 And surely mair, if mae ' may be ; 
 And before he gets the Forest fair. 
 We a' will die on Newark Lea ! " 
 
 The Outlaw called a messenger, 
 And bade him hie him speedily 
 
 To Andrew Murray of Cockpool : — 
 
 " That man 's a dear cousin to me ; 
 
 Desire him come, and make me aid, 
 With a' the power that he may be." 
 
 " It stands me hard," Andrew Murray said, 
 " Judge gif it stands na hard with me ; 
 To enter against a king wi' crown. 
 
 And set my lands in jeopardy ! 
 Yet, if I come not on the day. 
 
 Surely at night he shall me see." 
 
 1 more. 
 
THE DOW IE DENS 0' YARROW. 79 
 
 To Sir James Murray of Traquair, 
 A messenger came right speedily. 
 ' What news ? What news ? " James Murray said, 
 " Man, frae thy master unto me ? " 
 
 ' What needs I tell ? for weel ye ken. 
 
 The king 's his mortal enemy ; 
 And now he is coming to Ettrick Forest, 
 And landless men ye a' will be." 
 
 ' And, by my troth," James Murray said, 
 " Wi' that Outlaw will I live and dee ; 
 The king has gifted my lands lang syne— 
 It cannot be nae worse wi' me." 
 
 The king was coming through Caddon Ford, 
 
 And full five thousand men was he ; 
 They saw the dark Forest them before, 
 
 They thought it awesome for to see. 
 
 Then spak' the lord, hight Hamilton, 
 
 And to the noble king said he — 
 
 ' My sovereign liege, some counsel tak'. 
 
 First at your nobles, syne at me. 
 
 ' Desire him meet thee at Penmanscore, 
 And bring four in his company ; 
 Five earls shall gang yourself before, 
 Gude cause that you should honoured be. 
 
 ' And gif he refuses to do that, 
 
 We'll conquess baith his lands and he ; 
 There shall never a Murray, after him, 
 Hold land in Ettrick Forest free." 
 
8o BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Then spak' the keen laird of Buccleuch, 
 A stalwart man and stern was he : — 
 " For a king to gang an Outlaw till, 
 Is beneath his state and dignity. 
 
 "The man that wons^ yon forest intil, 
 
 He lives by reif ^ and felony ! 
 Wherefore, braid* on, my sovereign liege ! 
 
 Wi' fire and sword we'll follow ye ; 
 Or, gif your courtrie lords fa' back. 
 
 Our Borderers shall the onset gi'e." 
 
 Then out and spake the noble king, 
 And round him cast a wily e'e : — 
 " Now hand thy tongue. Sir Walter Scott, 
 Nor speak of reif nor felony ; 
 
 For had every honest man his ain kye, 
 A right puir clan thy name would be ! " 
 
 The king then called a gentleman, 
 Royal banner-bearer there was he ; 
 
 James Hope Pringle of Torsonse, by name ; 
 He cam' and knelt upon his knee. 
 
 "Welcome, James Pringle of Torsonse I 
 
 A message ye maun gang for me ; 
 
 Ye maun gae to yon Outlaw Murray, 
 
 Surely where bauldly bideth he. 
 
 " Bid him meet me at Penmanscore, 
 And bring four in his company ; 
 Five earls shall come wi' mysel', 
 Gude reason I should honoured be. 
 
 1 dwells. 2 robbery. 8 haste. 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 8i 
 
 " And, gif he refuses to do that, 
 
 Bid him look for nae good o' me ! 
 
 There shall never a Murray, after him. 
 
 Have land in Ettrick Forest free." 
 
 James cam' before the Outlaw keen, 
 And served him in his ain degree : — 
 " Welcome, James Pringle of Torsonse ! 
 What message frae the king to me ? " 
 
 " He bids ye meet him at Penmansoore, 
 And bring four in your company ; 
 Five earls shall gang himself before, 
 Nae mair in number will he be. 
 
 " And gif you refuse to do that, 
 (I freely here upgive' wi' ye), 
 He'll cast yon bonnie castle down. 
 And make a widow o' that gay ladye. 
 
 " He'll loose yon bluidhound Borderers, 
 Wi' fire and sword to follow thee ; 
 There will never a Murray, after thysel', 
 Have land in Ettrick Forest free." 
 
 " It stands me hard," the Outlaw said ; 
 "Judge gif it stands na hard wi' me ! 
 Wha reck not losing of mysel', 
 But a' my offspring after me. 
 
 "My merrymen's lives, my widow's tears- 
 There lies the pang that pinches me I 
 When I am straught in bluidy eard,^ 
 Yon castle will be right dreary. 
 
 1 deal, lit. deliver up. 2 straight in bloody earth. 
 
82 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 " Auld Halliday, young Halliday, 
 Ye shall be twa to gang wi' me ; 
 Andrew Murray and Sir James Murray, 
 We'll be nae mae in company." 
 
 When that they cam' before the king 
 They fell before him on their knee : — 
 " Grant mercy, mercy, noble king ! 
 
 E'en for His sake that died on tree." 
 
 " Siccan like mercy shall ye have : 
 
 On gallows ye shall hangit be ! " 
 " Over God's forbode," quoth the Outlaw then, 
 " I hope your grace will better be ! 
 Else ere you come to Edinburgh port, 
 I trow thin guarded shall ye be. 
 
 " These lands of Ettrick Forest fair, 
 I wan them from the enemy : 
 Like as I wan them, sae will I keep them, 
 Contrair a' kings in Christentie." 
 
 All the nobles the king about 
 Said, " Pity it were to see him dee ! " 
 " Yet grant me mercy, sovereign prince — 
 Extend your favour unto me ! 
 
 " I'll give thee the keys of my castle, 
 Wi' the blessing o' my gay ladye. 
 Gin thou'lt make me Sheriff of this Forest, 
 And a' my offspring after me." 
 
 " Wilt thou give me the keys of thy castle, 
 Wi' the blessing o' thy gay ladye ? 
 I'll make thee Sheriff of Ettrick Forest, 
 Surely while upward grows the tree : 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 83 
 
 If you be not traitor to the king, 
 Forfaultedi shalt thou never be." 
 
 ' But, Prince, what shall come o' my men ? 
 When I go back, traitor they '11 ca' me. 
 I had rather lose my life and land. 
 Ere my merry men rebuked me." 
 
 ' Will your merrymen amend their lives ? 
 
 And a' their pardons I grant thee. 
 
 Now, name thy lands where'er they lie. 
 
 And here I render them to thee." 
 
 ' Fair Philiphaugh is mine by right. 
 
 And Lewinshope still mine shall be ; 
 Newark, Foulshiels, and Tinnies baith. 
 My bow and arrow purchased me. 
 
 ' And I have native steads to me. 
 
 The Newark Lea and Hanging Shaw ; 
 I have mony steads in the Forest shaw. 
 But them by name I dinna knaw." 
 
 The keys of the castle he gave the king, 
 
 Wi' the blessing o' his fair ladye ; 
 He was made Sheriff of Ettrick Forest, 
 
 Surely while upward grows the tree ; 
 And if he was na traitor to the king, 
 
 Forfaulted he should never be. 
 
 Wha ever heard, in ony times, 
 
 Sicoan an Outlaw in his degree 
 Sic favour get before a king 
 
 As did the Outlaw Murray of the Forest free ? 
 
 1 forfeited. 
 
84 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 After passing, close to the stream, under the shade 
 of the wooded heights on the opposite bank, the 
 village of Yarrowford, with its lights twinkling 
 through the dusk, its pleasant sound of voices, 
 and the tinkle of the village smithy, the road 
 crosses the Yarrow. Swift and dark, and with deep, 
 cool gurgle, the river runs here below its bridge. 
 A lonely and eerie spot it is at such an hour, in 
 the heart of the dark, still woods — the haunt, it 
 well might be, of the ghosts of old marauders, 
 booted and spurred. 
 
 At William's Cross, close by here, in " the heich of 
 an edge beside Braidmeadows," Sir William Douglas, 
 the Knight of Liddesdale, called in his time the 
 Flower of Chivalry, was slain by his kinsman and 
 godson, the Earl of Douglas. The story of the 
 tragedy is quaintly told by Hume of Godscroft, the 
 historian of the houses of Douglas and Angus. 
 "The Lord of Liddesdale," he says, "being at his 
 pastime, hunting in Ettrick Forest, is beset by 
 WilUam, Earl of Douglas, and such as he had 
 ordained for that purpose, and there assailed, 
 wounded, and slain, beside Galsewood, in the year 
 i353> upon a jealousy that the Earl had conceived 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 85 
 
 of him with his lady, as the report goeth, for so 
 says the old song : 
 
 The Countess of Douglas out of her bower she came, 
 And loudly there that she did call ; 
 " It is for the Lord of Liddesdale 
 
 That I let all these tears down fall." 
 
 The song also declareth how she did write her 
 love-letters to Liddesdale, to dissuade him from 
 that hunting. It tells likewise the manner of the 
 taking of his men, and his own killing at Galse- 
 wood, and how he was carried the first night to 
 Linden Kirk, a mile from Selkirk, and was buried 
 within the abbacy of Melrose." It is to be re- 
 gretted that the ancient ballad of the tragedy no 
 longer exists. 
 
 The road at this point runs through a sharp 
 angle of the lands of " Sweet Bowhill," a favourite 
 Scottish seat of the Duke of Buccleuch ; then the 
 river, murmuring underneath, is crossed again, and 
 the path makes downwards for Foulshiels. 
 
 Roofless and tenantless now, the roadside cottage, 
 though humble enough, was a comfortable farm- 
 house when Mimgo Park was born there on 
 loth September, 1771. The holding was tenanted 
 by his family; hither, after his first adventurous 
 
86 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 journey into the interior of Africa, he returned to 
 rest, and to taste the early sweets of married life; 
 and from this home he finally started on the 
 Niger journey from which he was never to return. 
 It was just before leaving on that final expedi- 
 tion that the explorer paid a visit to Scott at 
 Ashiestiel which, ending as it did, has become 
 historic. According to Lockhart, it was towards 
 the end of autumn when Park made his farewell 
 visit. After sleeping at Ashiestiel, he set off to ride 
 home across the hills, his host accompanying him. 
 The departing guest, who was full of the project 
 of his new journey, talked of little else. He had 
 but lately married an amiable and beautiful wife, 
 and, among other matters, he mentioned that to 
 save the pain of parting he had determined to say 
 that he had business for a day or two in Edinburgh, 
 and to send his farewells from there. As the riders 
 reached Williamhope ridge, and looked down on 
 Yarrow, the mists floating in the valley below 
 struck Scott's mind as an emblem of the uncertain 
 prospect lying, before his friend. He hinted his 
 thought, but his companion, whose mind was made 
 up, was not to be moved. At last they reached the 
 spot where they had agreed to separate. Here, in 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 87 
 
 crossing the small ditch which divided the road from 
 the moor, Park's horse stumbled and nearly fell. 
 "I am afraid, Mungo," said Scott, "that is a bad 
 omen." Park, however, answered with an old 
 adage, " Freits follow them that look to them ; " 
 and in a few moments the friends had parted for 
 the last time. 
 
 Opposite, crowning the south bank of the Yarrow, 
 rises " the shattered front of Newark's towers." 
 Once a hunting-seat of James II., the stronghold 
 became, later, the castle of "the bold Buccleuch," 
 and chivalry and tragedy in turn found their home 
 within its walls. In its courtyard the Covenanters 
 massacred a hundred of their royalist prisoners in 
 cold blood after Philiphaugh ; ^ burying them in 
 the field to the south still known as " The Slain 
 Men's Lea." And in Newark, Scott pitched the 
 scene of his first great poem, ' The Lay of the 
 
 1 Wishart's ' Memoirs of Montrose.' — A Covenanted minister 
 present at the execution of these prisoners, observed, " This 
 wark gangs bonnilie on ! " an amiable exclamation equivalent 
 to the modern Ca ira, so often used on similar occasions. 
 Scott, in his ' Tales of a Grandfather,' says that when a part 
 of Slain Men's Lea was being opened about the beginning of 
 this century for the foundations of a schoolhouse, bones and 
 skulls were dug up in great quantities, proving the truth of the 
 country tradition as to the place of burial of the murdered men. 
 
88 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Last Minstrel,' reviving the old tower's memories 
 of the past to such effect that to the fancy the 
 place is peopled for all time, by his wizard touch, 
 with dame, and squire, and knight, maiden and 
 minstrel, of a vanished age. 
 
 The WE^nderer to-day about the spot may come 
 upon a little mount, fir -clad, that seems waiting 
 for its story. It is said to have been part of the 
 ancient garden of the castle, and tradition runs that 
 there the Outlaw Murray was at last slain by one 
 of the Scotts. 
 
 Carterhaugh, the woody tongue of land below 
 Bowbill, where Yarrow and Ettrick " rush into 
 each other's arms," is the scene of one of the 
 most famous and most ancient, as it is certainly 
 one of the finest, of the Scottish fairy ballads. This 
 may be left to tell its own tale. 
 
 TAMLANE. 
 
 " O I forbid ye, maidens a'. 
 
 That wear gowd on your hair. 
 To come or gae by Carterhaugh, 
 For young Tamlane is there. 
 
 " There's uane that gaes by Carterhaugh, 
 But they leave him a wad, ^ 
 
 1 pledge. 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 89 
 
 Either their rings or green mantles, 
 Or else their maidenhead." 
 
 Janet has kilted her green kirtle 
 
 A little abune her knee ; 
 And she has braided her yellow hair 
 
 A little abune her bree ; 
 And she's awa' to Carterhaugh 
 
 As fast as she can hie. 
 
 When she came to Carterhaugh, 
 
 Tamlane was at the well ; 
 And there she fand his steed standing. 
 
 But away was himsel' . 
 
 She hadna pu'd a double rose, 
 
 A rose but only twa, 
 Till up there started young Tamlane, 
 
 Says, " Lady, thou's pu' nae mae. 
 
 " Why pu's thou the rose, Janet ? 
 And why breaks thou the wand ? 
 Or why comes thou to Carterhaugh 
 Withouten my command ? " 
 
 " Carterhaugh it is my ain, 
 My daddie gave it me ; 
 I'll come and gang by Carterhaugh 
 And ask nae leave at thee." 
 
 Janet has kilted her green kirtle 
 
 A little abune her knee, 
 And she has snooded her yellow hair 
 
 A little abune her bree, 
 And she is to her father's ha' 
 
 As fast as she can hie. 
 
go BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Four and twenty ladies fair 
 
 Were playing at the ba' ; 
 And out then cam' the fair Janet, 
 
 Ance the flower among them a'. 
 
 Four and twenty ladies fair 
 
 Were playing at the chess, 
 And out then cam' the fair Janet, 
 
 As green as ony glass. 
 
 Out then spak' an old grey knight. 
 
 Lay o'er the castle wa', 
 And says, " Alas ! fair Janet, for thee. 
 
 But we'll be blamed a' ! " 
 
 " Hand your tongue, ye auld-faced knight ; 
 Some ill death may ye dee ! 
 Father my bairn on whom I will, 
 I'll father nane on thee." 
 
 Out then spak' her father dear. 
 And he spak' meek and mild ; 
 And ever, " Alas ! sweet Janet," he says, 
 " I fear thou gaes wi' child." 
 
 " If that I gae wi' child, father, 
 Mysel' maun bear the blame ; 
 There 's ne'er a laird about your ha' 
 Shall get the bairn's name. 
 
 " If my love were an earthly knight. 
 As he 's an elfin grey, 
 I wadna gi'e my ain true love. 
 For nae lord that ye ha'e. 
 
THE DOW IE DENS 0' YARROW. 91 
 
 " The steed that my true love rides on 
 Is Ughter than the wind ; 
 Wi' siller he is shod before, 
 Wi' burning gowd behind." 
 
 Janet has kilted her green kirtle 
 
 A little abune her knee, 
 And she has snooded her yellow hair 
 
 A little abune her bree. 
 And she's awa' to Carterhaugh 
 
 As fast as she can hie. 
 
 When she cam' to Carterhaugh, 
 
 Tamlane was at the well, 
 And there she fand his steed standing. 
 
 But away was himsel'. 
 
 She hadna pu'd a double rose, 
 
 A rose but only twa. 
 When up there started young Tamlane, 
 
 Says, " Lady, thou pu's nae mae. 
 
 " Why pu's thou the rose, Janet, 
 Amang the groves sae green. 
 And a' to kill the bonnie babe. 
 That we gat us between ? " 
 
 " O tell me, tell me, Tamlane," she says, 
 " For 's sake that died on tree. 
 If e'er ye was in holy chapel. 
 Or Christendom did see ? " 
 
 " Roxburgh he was my grandfather. 
 Took me with him to bide. 
 And ance it fell upon a day 
 That wae did me betide. 
 
92 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 " And ance it fell upon a day, 
 
 A cauld day and a snell ; i 
 When we were frae the hunting come, 
 
 That frae my horse I fell. 
 The Queen o' Fairies she caught me. 
 
 In yon green hill to dwell. 
 
 " And pleasant is the fairy land. 
 
 But, an eerie tale to tell ; 
 Aye, at the end of seven years, 
 
 We pay a teind to hell ; 
 I am sae fair and fu' o' flesh, 
 
 I 'm feared it be mysel'. 
 
 " But the night is Hallowe'en, lady. 
 The morn is Hallowday ; 
 Then win me, win me, an you will. 
 For weel I wat ye may. 
 
 " Just at the mirk and midnight hour. 
 The fairy folk will ride ; 
 And they that wad their true love win 
 At Miles Cross they maun bide." 
 
 " But how shall I thee ken, Tamlane, 
 Or how my true love know. 
 Among sae mony unco ^ knights, 
 The like I never saw ? " 
 
 " O first let pass the black, lady. 
 And syne let pass the brown ; 
 But quickly run to the milk-white steed, 
 Pu' ye his rider down. 
 
 1 keen, piercing. ^ unknown. 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 93 
 
 " For I'll ride on the milk-white steed, 
 And aye nearest the town ; 
 Because I was an earthly knight, 
 They gi'e me that renown. 
 
 " My right hand will be gloved, lady. 
 
 My left hand will be bare ; 
 Cocked up shall my bonnet be. 
 
 And kaimed down shall my hair ; 
 And thae's the tokens I gi'e thee : — 
 
 Nae doubt I will be there. 
 
 " They'll turn me in your arms, lady. 
 Into an esk and adder ; 
 But hold me fast, and fear me not, 
 I am your bairn's father. 
 
 " They '11 turn me to a bear sae grim. 
 And then a lion bold ; 
 But hold me fast, and fear me not, 
 As ye shall love your child. 
 
 " Again they '11 turn me in your arms, 
 To a red-het gaud of aim ; 1 
 But hold me fast, and fear me not, 
 I '11 do to you nae harm. 
 
 " And last they '11 turn me in your arms 
 Into the burning lead. 
 Then throw me into well water ; 
 O, throw me in wi' speed ! 
 
 " And then I'll be your ain true love— 
 I '11 turn a naked knight 
 
 1 goad of iron. 
 
94 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Then cover me wi' your green mantle. 
 And cover me out o' sight" 
 
 Gloomy, gloomy was the night, 
 
 And eerie was the way, 
 As fair Janet in her green mantle. 
 
 To Miles Cross she did gae. 
 
 About the middle o' the night 
 
 She heard the bridles ring ; 
 The lady was as glad at that 
 
 As ony earthly thing. 
 
 First she let the black pass by, 
 
 And syne she let the brown ; 
 But quickly she ran to the milk-white steed. 
 
 And pu'd the rider down. 
 
 Sae weel she minded what he did say, 
 And young Tamlane did win ; 
 
 Syne covered him wi' her green mantle. 
 As blythe 's a bird in spring. 
 
 Then out spak' the Queen o' Fairies, 
 Out of a bush o' broom : 
 " Them that has gotten young Tamlane, 
 Has gotten a stately groom." 
 
 Out then spak' the Queen o' Fairies, 
 And an angry quean was she : 
 " Shame betide her ill-faured face, 
 And an ill death may she dee ! 
 
 For she's ta'en awa' the bonniest knight 
 In a' my company. 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. 95 
 
 " But had I kenned, Tamlane," she says, 
 " What now this nicht I see, 
 I wad ha'e ta'en out thy twa grey een, 
 And put in twa een o' tree." 
 
 The ballad records, it is said, the last appearance 
 of the fairy-folk to mortal eyes in Scotland, though 
 on the grass are still pointed out the rings traced 
 by their starlight revels, and by the side of the road 
 from Yarrow a picturesque moss-grown fount and 
 trough are still known as Tamlane's Well. If a 
 further touch were needed to add to the uncanny 
 fascination of the region it might be found in the 
 fact that the tower of Oakwood, close by the haugh, 
 on the further side of Ettrick, was, according to 
 tradition, the residence of the arch-wizard Michael 
 Scot, 
 
 Carterhaugh for many a day was the scene of 
 the local rustic sports, and one game at "the ba'" 
 there, is especially on record, at which the Duke of 
 Buccleuch led out the lads of one half of the shire, 
 to contest the day with the lads of the other half, 
 backed by the Laird of Abbotsford.^ Upon that 
 occasion, as Scott himself described it in the 
 account furnished to Ballantyne's newspaper, "both 
 
 1 See Lockhart's ■ Life of Scott,' chap, xxxvi. 
 
96 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 sides were joined by many volunteers from other 
 parishes ; and the appearance of the various parties 
 marching from their different glens to the place of 
 rendezvous, with pipes playing and loud acclama- 
 tions, carried back the coldest imagination to the 
 old times when the Foresters assembled with the 
 less peaceable purpose of invading the English 
 territory or defending their own. The romantic 
 character of the scenery aided the illusion, as well 
 as the performance of a feudal ceremony previous 
 to commencing the games. The ancient banner 
 of the Buccleuch family, a curious and venerable 
 relic, emblazoned with armorial bearings, and with 
 the word ' Bellendaine,' the ancient war-cry of the 
 clan of Scott, was displayed as on former occasions 
 when the Chief took the field in person, whether 
 for the purpose of war or sport. The banner was 
 delivered by Lady Ann Scott to Master Walter 
 Scott, younger of Abbotsford, who attended suitably 
 mounted and armed, and riding over the field, 
 displayed it to the sound of the war-pipes, and 
 amid the acclamations of the assembled spectators, 
 who could not be fewer than two thousand in 
 number." After mentioning this event, and quot- 
 ing Scott's description of it, Lockhart adds, "I 
 
THE DOWIE DENS 0' YARROW. gy 
 
 have no doubt the Sheriff of the Forest was a 
 prouder man, when he saw his boy ride about 
 Carterhaugh with the pennon of Bellenden, than 
 when PlatofF mounted himself for the imperial 
 review of the Champ de Mars" 
 
 One more point of interest remains — the wood- 
 hung battlefield, now the park about the mansion- 
 house of Philiphaugh, the seat, till 1890, of the 
 descendants of the Outlaw Murray.' Here, by 
 Leslie's surprise and defeat of Montrose, in Sept- 
 ember, 1645, the cause of the First Charles was 
 finally lost in Scotland. By some strange oversight 
 Montrose had left his infantry encamped on the field, 
 while he himself, with the cavalry, quartered in 
 Selkirk, a mile away. Leslie, coming up in the 
 misty dawn from Melrose, seized the opportunity, 
 and cut the Royalist infantry to pieces before the 
 cavalry could come to their assistance ; and dire 
 and effectual was the work done here by the 
 Covenanting broadswords." This fray — in which 
 the Great Montrose, the noble " who, with resources 
 
 'In 1890 Philiphaugh passed into the hands of Mr Strang 
 Steel, its present owner. 
 
 " A very full account of the battle and of the atrocities which 
 followed is furnished in 'The History of Selkirkshire,' vol. i. 
 p. 184. 
 
 G 
 
98 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 which seemed as none, gained six victories and 
 reconquered a kingdom ; who, a poet, a scholar, 
 a cavalier, and a general, could alike grace a 
 court and govern a camp," was finally overthrown 
 — is celebrated in a bald Covenanting ballad 
 preserved in Scott's ' Minstrelsy of the Border.' 
 The first three verses afford some light on the 
 encounter — 
 
 On Philiphangh the fray began, 
 
 At Harehead wood it ended ; 
 The Scots out o'er the Graemes they ran ; 
 
 Sae merrily they bended. 
 
 Sir David frae the Border came, 
 
 Wi' heart and hand came he ; 
 Wi' him three thousand bonnie Scots 
 
 To bear him company. 
 
 Wi' him three thousand valiant men, 
 
 A noble sight to see ! 
 A cloud o' mist them weel concealed. 
 
 As close as e'er might be. 
 
 Montrose, it is said, when he saw that the day 
 was lost, cut his way through his enemies and fled 
 up the Yarrow and over Minchmoor to Traquair 
 House. Before doing so, according to one tradition, 
 he threw his military chest into the stream at a 
 deep spot afterwards known as the Meyster or 
 
THE DOW IE DENS 0' YARROW. 99 
 
 Treasure Pool, "telling the devil to keep it till he 
 came back to seek it." When, however, the pool 
 was drained in the beginning of this century 
 nothing was found but a Lochaber axe. Another 
 tradition runs that the Royalist paymaster, being 
 closely pressed, thrust the treasure into a cottage 
 at Foulshiels, when the inmates, an old man and 
 his wife, at once fell into dispute as to what they 
 should buy with it, a difficulty from which they 
 were presently extricated by the appearance of 
 some of Leslie's men, who appropriated the treasure 
 themselves. These, and other legends of the battle, 
 are still the common property of the neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
 But presently, to the belated wanderer, the lights 
 of Selkirk appear, begemming like fireflies the dark- 
 ness of the opposite hillside. There the touch of 
 the busy world — newspapers and letters — will be 
 felt again ; and there,'^after the long day's ramble 
 among the storied scenes of this quiet Border 
 valley, will be" found rest and refreshment amid 
 the comforts of "mine inn." 
 
IN THE WIZARD'S COUNTRY. 
 
 A PLACE with memories enough and an atmos- 
 phere all its own, is the pleasant Border town 
 of Selkirk. Here of a sunny morning, it seems 
 strange to realise that one is in the capital of 
 Ettrick Forest, the ancient home of romance and 
 outlawry, of eager valour and of storied sorrow. 
 
 A thriving little Border town it is, with its 
 tweed mills down by the river. Nor is it unmindful 
 of its past, or of those who spread its fame. Does 
 not the statue of Sir Walter Scott, who was at 
 one time its SheriflF, stand there in the Market 
 Place ? And has it not set up a monument to 
 Mungo Park, the explorer of Africa, with the scroll 
 in his hand bearing his last bodeful words, " Die 
 on the Niger?" "Up wi' the Souters o' Selkirk" 
 was a well-known gathering cry long ago in many 
 a Border fight, and something of the stirring spirit 
 of the townsfolk is to be read in their ancient local 
 rhyme — 
 
IN THE WIZARD'S COUNTRY. loi 
 
 Up wi' the souters o' Selkirk, 
 And doun wi' the Earl o' Home ! 
 
 And up wi' a' the braw lads 
 That sew the single-soled shoon. 
 
 Fye upon yellow and yellow, 
 
 And fye upon yellow and green ! 
 But up wi' the true blue and scarlet. 
 
 And up wi' the single-soled shoon. 
 
 Up wi' the souters o' Selkirk, 
 For they are baith trusty and leal ! 
 
 And up wi' the men o' the Forest, 
 And doun wi' the Merse to the deil ! ' 
 
 Gallantly, if in vain, was the blood of the town 
 spilt for the heroic Wallace on the fatal day at 
 Falkirk in 1298, when the champion of freedom 
 was finally defeated. Upon that occasion, it is 
 said, the men of the district who were found 
 among the slain were recognised by their stal- 
 
 1 These rude but vigorous lines, there is every reason to 
 believe, refer to the supposed conduct of the Earl of Home, 
 who, with the Earl of Huntly, commanded the Scottish left 
 wing at Flodden. The charge of treachery on that nobleman's 
 part, however, a charge natural to the defeated side, has long 
 since been proved groundless by historians. 
 
 The ancient occupation of the townsmen is still commemo- 
 rated in the ceremony of conferring the freedom of the burgh. 
 A few hog's bristles, such as are used by souters, or shoemakers, 
 are fastened to the seal of the burgess ticket. It is necessary 
 for the new burgess to dip these in his wine and pass them 
 through his mouth in token of his respect for the guild. 
 
102 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 wart forms. Some eighty of Selkirk's best, too, 
 the far-famed " Flowers of the Forest, " fell on 
 Flodden Field. For the valour of these last a 
 fearful vengeance was wreaked upon the town by 
 the victors ; fire, sword, and rapine making the 
 place a desert. That valour, however, as well as 
 its terrible penalty, was warmly recognised by 
 James V. in new charter rights and princely 
 grants of land. An English standard captured at 
 Flodden and brought home by the survivors was 
 long the property of the Weavers' Corporation of 
 the burgh, and is still proudly exhibited ; * and a 
 townsman still keeps the sword of his ancestor, 
 William Brydone, the gallant town-clerk, who, on 
 that dire field, as leader of the little band, received 
 the honour of knighthood from James IV. Selkirk, 
 indeed, has a tender place in the hearts of all 
 Scotsmen, for there is none but has felt the sweet 
 
 1 The pennon is about four feet long, of green silk, fringed 
 with silk of paler hue, but its armorial bearings, said to have 
 been an eagle and a serpent, are hardly now decipherable. 
 Fletcher, the man who brought home the English flag, is 
 said to have left four brothers dead upon the field. The 
 only surviving member of the Weavers' Corporation is the 
 well-known writer whose contributions to literature appear 
 above the signature "J. B. Selkirk." A poem from his pen 
 appears on a subsequent page. 
 
IN THE WIZARD'S COUNTRY. 103 
 
 pity of forgotten sorrow stir within him at the 
 singing of its lament : — 
 
 THE FLOWERS O' THE FOREST. 
 
 I've heard them lilting at the ewe-milking, 
 
 Lasses a-lilting before the dawn of day ; 
 But now there is moaning in ilka green loaning ; 
 
 The flowers o' the forest are a' wede away. 
 
 At blights in the morning nae blythe lads are scorning ; 
 
 Lasses are lanely and dowie and wae ; 
 Nae daffin', nae gabbin', but sighing and sabbing ; 
 
 Ilk ane lifts her leglin and hies her away. 
 
 In hairst at the shearing nae youths now are jeering ; 
 
 Bandsters are runkled and lyart and grey ; 
 At fair or at preaching nae wooing, nae fleeching ; 
 
 The flowers o' the forest are a' wede away. 
 
 At e'en in the gloaming nae younkers are roaming 
 
 'Bout stacks wi' the lasses at bogle to play ; 
 But ilk maid sits dreary, lamenting her dearie — 
 
 The flowers o' the forest are a' wede away. 
 
 Dule and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border ; 
 
 The English for ance by guile wan the day ; 
 The flowers o' the forest, that fought aye the foremost, 
 
 The prime of our land, are cauld in the clay. 
 
 We'll hear nae mair lilting at the ewe-milking. 
 
 Women and bairns are heartless and wae ; 
 Sighing and moaning in ilka green loaning — 
 
 The flowers o' the forest are a' wede away.' 
 
 I The first and last lines of this lament, as well as the 
 tune to which it is sung, are ancient ; the remainder, which 
 
I04 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Perhaps the latest echo of the sorrow of that 
 woeful time is to be found in a fine poem con- 
 tributed to 'Blackwood's Magazine' in November, 
 1885, by "J. B. Selkirk," a writer in whose work 
 are represented with singular faithfulness alike 
 the spirit and the powers of the ancient Forest 
 
 singers. 
 
 SELKIRK AFTER FLODDEN. 
 
 It's but a month the morn, 
 
 Sin' a' was peace and plenty ; 
 Our hairst was halflins shorn, 
 
 Eident 1 men, and lasses denty ; 
 But noo it 's a' distress — 
 
 Never mair a merry meetin' ; 
 
 presents a series of pictures hardly equalled for simplicity 
 and pathos, was the composition, towards the close of last 
 century, of Miss Jean Elliot, of Minto. Some words of the 
 dialect may be translated : — Loaning, a lane ; wede away, weeded 
 away; bughts, sheepfolds; scorning, rallying; dowie, doleful; 
 daffin' and gabbin', joking and chatting ; leglin, milk-pail ; hairst, 
 harvest ; shearing, reaping ; bandsters, sheaf-binders ; runkkd and 
 lyart, wrinkled and turning grey ; /leeching, coaxing ; wae, woeful. 
 Another set of verses with the same title, but beginning 
 "I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling," by Miss Alison 
 Rutherford of Fairnalie, afterwards Mrs Cockburn, is probably 
 more frequently sung. This is accounted for by the fact that 
 its language is modern, and therefore more easily understood. 
 It cannot, however, be considered so fine as the lament above 
 printed, nor can it be taken to refer, except very distantly, to 
 the disaster of Flodden. 
 
 'diligent. 
 
IN THE WIZARD'S COUNTRY. 105 
 
 For half the bairns are faitherless, 
 And a' the women greetin'. 
 
 O Flodden Field ! 
 
 Miles and miles round Selkirk toun, 
 
 Where Forest flowers are fairest, 
 Ilka lassie's stricken doun, 
 
 Wi' the fate that fa's the sairest. 
 A' the lads they used to meet 
 
 By Ettrick braes or Yarrow, 
 Lyin' thrammelt ^ head and feet 
 
 In Brankstone's deadly barrow ! 
 O Flodden Field ! 
 
 Frae every cleuch ^ and clan. 
 
 The best o' the braid Border 
 Rose, like a single man, 
 
 To meet the royal order. 
 Our burgh toun itsel. 
 
 Sent its seventy doun the glen ; 
 Ask Fletcher how they fell, 
 
 Bravely fechtin', ane to ten ! 
 
 O Flodden Field ! 
 
 Round about their gallant king. 
 
 For country and for croun, 
 Stude the dauntless Border ring. 
 
 Till the last was hackit doun. 
 I blame na what has been — 
 
 They maun fa' that canna flee — 
 But oh, to see what I hae seen. 
 
 To see what now I see ! 
 
 O Flodden Field I 
 
 1 twiated together. 2 precipice, narrow glen. 
 
io6 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 There stands the gudeman's loom 
 
 That used to gang sae cheerie, 
 Untented noo, and toom, ' 
 
 Makin' a' the hoose sae eerie. 
 Till the sicht I canna dree ; ^ 
 
 For the shuttles lyin' dumb 
 Speak the loudlier to me 
 
 O him that winna come. 
 
 O Flodden Field ! 
 
 Sae at nicht I cover't o'er 
 
 Just to haud it frae my e'en. 
 But I haena yet the power 
 
 To forget what it has been ; 
 And I listen through the hoose 
 
 For the chappin' o' the lay, ^ 
 Till the scrapin' o' a moose 
 
 Taks my vera braith away. 
 
 O Flodden Field ! 
 
 Then I turn to sister Jean, 
 
 And my airms aboot her twine ; 
 And I kiss her sleepless e'en. 
 
 For her hairt's as sair as mine — 
 A hairt ance fu' o' fun. 
 
 And hands that ne'er were idle, 
 Wi' a' her cleedin' * spun 
 
 Against her Jamie's bridal. 
 
 O Flodden Field ! 
 
 Noo we've naither hands nor hairt — 
 In our grief the wark's forgotten. 
 
 Though it's wanted every airt, * 
 And the craps are lyin' rotten. 
 
 ^ unheeded, and empty. 2 endure. 
 
 8 knocking of the loom-frame. 4 clothing. s direction. 
 
IN THE WIZARD'S COUNTRY. 107 
 
 War's awesome blast's gane by 
 
 And left a land forlorn ; 
 In daith's dool hairst they lie, 
 
 The shearers and the shorn. 
 
 O Flodden Field ! 
 
 It would be difficult for the dwellers themselves in 
 such a town ever to become altogether sordid while a 
 scene of such natural loveliness and historic interest 
 lies spread under their eyes. One wonders what 
 objection to the spot the monks of old could cherish 
 when they petitioned and had their house removed 
 to Kelso. For the Abbey of Kelso was once the 
 Abbey of Selkirk. Even its commerce contributes 
 something of picturesqueness to the place, as, in 
 the clear morning light, the grey smoke, rising 
 from the mills below, floats softly down the valley. 
 
 Growing originally around a hunting-seat of the 
 early Scottish kings, " the Kirk of the Shielings," 
 or Schelechyrch, as it once was written (or, perhaps, 
 SeUchynh, "The Kirk of the Wood"), was for a 
 time two hamlets, Selkirk Regis and Selkirk 
 Abbatis. Upon the removal of the monastery 
 in 1 126, however, this distinction passed away. 
 Hardly to be surpassed, as it must always have 
 been, for situation, the town clings, like some 
 ancient Italian city, to its steep hillside, over- 
 
io8 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 hanging the river. Opposite, in a hollow of the 
 wooded hills, lies the scene of Leslie's victory over 
 the " Great Marquis ; " and the Ettrick between 
 flows away fair and broad to meet the Tweed 
 above Abbotsford. 
 
 Until some fifty years ago the house was still 
 standing in Selkirk where Montrose slept on the 
 night before that fatal 13th of September ; and it 
 is easy to imagine the scene in the little town 
 when, roused by the firing which told that the 
 camp of his infantry beyond the Ettrick had been 
 surprised, the Royalist general hastily gathered 
 his cavalry . together and galloped out of the place 
 in the vain hope of retrieving the day. Alas for 
 Marquis ! alas for King ! Here, as frequently 
 elsewhere in life, a single error of judgment undid 
 the brilliant work of years. 
 
 A memorial granite slab in the wall by the 
 road, marks the site of the old Forest Inn, where, 
 " after a miserable day's wet riding," Robert 
 Burns slept a night on his Border tour in 1787, 
 and where he wrote his humorous poem to William 
 Creech. So much interest is attached even to the 
 passing of one of the master-singers. The tablet 
 may serve to remind the wayfarer that the Ayr- 
 
IN THE WIZARD'S COUNTRY. log 
 
 shire bard was by no means the untravelled and 
 unlettered peasant he is too often supposed to have 
 been. The man who never went to the plough but 
 with a copy of one of the poets in his pocket was 
 also no inconsiderable traveller for that time, both 
 on the Scottish Border and in the Highlands. 
 
 It was upon another occasion in Selkirk that a 
 characteristic incident, which has been chronicled 
 by Dr Russell in his ' Reminiscences,' befell the poet. 
 Burns had walked over from Kelso with his friend 
 Ainslie, and, tired and hungry, they were taking 
 some refreshment here, when they heard sounds of 
 hilarious mirth from an apartment overhead. The 
 poet seldom neglected possibilities of good-fellow- 
 ship, and, with a view to discover what was 
 going on, he addressed the waiter. " My lad," he 
 said, " you seem to have a prayer-meeting upstairs." 
 " O na, sir," replied the youth ; " it's just a wheen 
 o' the fermers and their frien's met thegither and 
 enjoyin' themsel's at a kind o' club they have." 
 " Go up, then," said the poet, " present the com- 
 pliments of two visitors, strangers to the town, 
 who have just arrived, and say we would be glad 
 to join the company, if agreeable to them." 
 Upstairs, however, the message was received some- 
 
no BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 what coldly. Enquiries were made as to what the 
 strangers were like; and on the waiter describing 
 them as "very Hke country drovers," a reply was 
 sent back that it would not be convenient to 
 receive them. It was not till next day that the 
 members of the club discovered how, through their 
 own refusal, they had missed their first and probably 
 their last opportunity of "a nicht wi' Burns." 
 
 Flock after flock of sheep, on a market morning, 
 may be met on their way up into the town, each 
 attended by one of the shepherds of Yarrow and 
 his faithful collie. Tall men these shepherds are, 
 every one, spare in build, with kindly eyes and a 
 pleasant speech ; clad in rough, homely tweeds, 
 and with the native " shepherd tartan " plaid of 
 black and white thrown over the shoulder. Some 
 have come far, and are warm with the dust and 
 the sunshine. Noticing them as they come across 
 the bridge, together with the "eident" anglers 
 plying their craft in the deep pool below, one 
 perceives that the sons of the Forest are still a 
 stately race. 
 
 The road to Abbotsford keeps the south side of 
 the river, and, past the joining of Ettrick and 
 Tweed, leads through quiet woodland aisles, where 
 
IN THE WIZARD'S COUNTRY. in 
 
 the trees overhead are aflame with their autumn 
 glories. The sunshine, striking through the 
 branches, chequers the floor of these silent avenues 
 with gold. Here and there, through the foliage 
 on the left, a glimpse is caught of the river flowing 
 cool and clear below, while on the further sunny 
 hillside a pleasant modern mansion once and again 
 appears. On that hillside, silent and strange contrast 
 to the elegance of new-clipt hedge and shrubbery, 
 survives a remnant of an ancient national barrier, 
 the Catrail, the frontier defence of the northern 
 Picts against the Cymric kingdom of Strathclyde.* 
 But here at last, the Mecca of many a pilgrimage, 
 beautiful amid its quiet walled lawns and coloured 
 flowerbeds, in a hollow below the road, lies Abbots- 
 ford, a house of crowstepped gables, octagonal 
 
 1 This ancient ditch-and-rampart fortification has been care- 
 fully traced by Professor Veitch for a distance of about fifty 
 miles, from the side of Peel Fell, one of the Cheviots, near the 
 source of the Liddel, to Mossilee, near the junction of the Tweed 
 and the Gala. The Catrail probably dates from the 5th or 6th 
 century. In the 7th century the Cymry were themselves put 
 on their defence. The Angles of Northumbria, their kings being 
 then the greatest in Britain, sought to push their boundaries 
 westward. They were resisted by the British tribes, and it is to 
 an early period of this contest that the battles belong, which 
 have been magnified by successive poets round the name of 
 King Arthur.— See Skene's ' Four Ancient Books of Wales.' 
 
112 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 towers, and sunny doorways — the fair " romance in 
 stone and lime " conjured out of the river bank by 
 the great " Wizard." About it the trees planted by 
 himself still stand, withering into another autumn, 
 and motionless, as if they remembered. And below, 
 amid the stillness, may be heard the ripple of the 
 water which he loved to hear as he sat at work 
 by the open window of his study. 
 
 The story of Scott's first fancy for the place 
 possesses an interest of its own. " I have often 
 heard him tell," says Lockhart, " that when trav- 
 elling in his boyhood with his father from Selkirk 
 to Melrose, the old man suddenly desired the 
 carriage to halt at the foot of an eminence, and 
 said, ' We must get out here, Walter, and see a thing 
 quite in your line.' " Whereupon he led him to a 
 spot marked by a rude stone called Turn-again, where 
 the Battle of Melrose ended ; and they gazed down 
 towards the ancient Roman ford, whose name Scott 
 afterwards adopted as that of his estate. The place 
 was then half waste, and the wretched farmhouse on 
 the ground was known by the unsavoury designation 
 of Clarty Hole. The poet, however, saw possi- 
 bilities of beauty where duller eyes beheld only a 
 wilderness. 
 
IN THE WIZARD'S COUNTRY. 113 
 
 Amid all the sadness of the spot, the energising 
 influence of a wholesome genius breathes yet in 
 the air of Abbotsford. Here Scott realised his 
 ideals, as, it is well to remember, other men 
 may who, like him, cherish their' early en- 
 thusiasm and keep the iron out of their souls. 
 Here he won his baronetcy, acquired broad lands, 
 and founded a family. And here, at the acme 
 of his fame, and the summit of his ambition, fell 
 upon him the blow of undeserved disaster, A 
 mournful memory, withal, lingers about the silent 
 rooms, where they keep so many relics of the noble 
 dead. Was it not within them, and for the sake of 
 this, his home, that he fought his almost hopeless 
 battle against ruin, wearing out his generous heart 
 in the effort to retrieve what others had lost ? In a 
 little oratory they preserve a cast of his head taken 
 after death ; and it is past all pitying to see the 
 drawn look of the once genial face. Close by still 
 rests the desk on which he wrote his wondrous prose 
 — laughing, tender, terrible. On the wall at hand 
 hangs the portrait of his wife, the Charlotte Margaret 
 Charpentier who, for nearly thirty years, shared the 
 honours of him who could win and use honour so 
 chivalrously — a sweet face, with cherry lips, dark 
 
 H 
 
114 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 hair, and large eyes, looking out of the past. And 
 in the dining-room here, as his son-in-law. Lock- 
 hart, tells, on the 21st September, 1832, about half- 
 past one of the afternoon, while the warm autumn 
 air was coming in at the great window, and the 
 gentle murmur of the Tweed was heard on its 
 pebbles below — his tremendous task accomplished 
 and his honour saved — with all his family about 
 him. Sir Walter Scott died. Well may Scotsmen 
 bow their heads reverently in this chamber, for to 
 the soul which passed away within its walls Scot- 
 land owes more for the perpetuation of her glory 
 and of the high-hearted chivalry of her past than 
 she owes to any other man. 
 
 Something tragic belongs to the memory of the 
 boundless hospitality which was lavished here 
 upon visitors of all nations by the great Borderer. 
 Even to the end that hospitality was exercised, 
 and Wordsworth has left an account of his own 
 late visit to the house in the autumn of 1831, 
 from which may be formed some idea of the 
 life at Abbotsford; It was after Scott's great 
 misfortunes, and his heroic effort to overcome 
 them, had sorely broken the poet both in body 
 and mind, and on the eve of his departure for 
 
IN THE WIZARD'S COUNTRY. 115 
 
 Naples, in the vain hope of recovering health. 
 Wordsworth says, describing his own arrival at the 
 house, " The inmates and guests we found there 
 were Sir Walter, Major Scott, Anne Scott, and Mr 
 and Mrs Lockhart ; Mr Liddell, his lady and brother, 
 and Mr Allan the painter ; and Mr Laidlaw, a very 
 old friend of Sir Walter's, One of Burns's sons, 
 an officer in the Indian service, had left the house 
 a day or two before, and had kindly expressed his 
 regret that he could not await my arrival, a regret 
 that I may truly say was mutual. In the evening, 
 Mr and Mrs Liddell sang, and Mrs Lockhart 
 chanted old ballads to her harp ; and Mr Allan, 
 hanging over the back of a chair, told and acted 
 odd stories in a humorous way. With this 
 exhibition, and his daughter's singing. Sir Walter 
 was much amused, as indeed were we all as far as 
 circumstances would allow." Notwithstanding the 
 state of his health, Scott was still scrupulous in 
 attention to his guests. " On Tuesday morning," 
 continues Wordsworth, " Sir Walter Scott accom- 
 panied us and most of the party to Newark Castle, 
 on the Yarrow. When we alighted from the 
 carriages he walked pretty stoutly, and had great 
 pleasure in revisiting those, his favourite haunts. 
 
Ii6 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 On our return in the afternoon we had to cross 
 the Tweed directly opposite Abbotsford, The 
 wheels of our carriage grated upon the pebbles in 
 the bed of the stream, that there flows somewhat 
 rapidly ; a rich but sad light of rather a purple 
 than a golden hue was spread over the Eildon 
 Hills at that moment ; and thinking it probable 
 that it might be the last time Sir Walter would 
 cross the stream, I was not a little moved." 
 
 The Lake poet expressed his feelings of that 
 moment in one of his finest sonnets, which may 
 fitly be read on the spot where it was inspired. 
 
 ON THE DEPARTURE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 
 FROM ABBOTSFORD FOR NAPLES. 
 
 A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain, 
 
 Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light 
 
 Engendered, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height : 
 
 Spirits of power, assembled here, complain 
 
 For kindred power departing from their sight ; 
 
 While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain. 
 
 Saddens his voice again, and yet again. 
 
 Lift up your hearts, ye mourners ! for the might 
 
 Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes ; 
 
 Blessings and prayers, in nobler retinue 
 
 Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows. 
 
 Follow this wondrous potentate. Be true, 
 
 Ye winds of ocean, and the midland sea. 
 
 Wafting your charge to soft Parthenope I 
 
IN THE WIZARD'S COUNTRY. 117 
 
 All sorts of interesting relics, gathered by its 
 first owner, remain strewn throughout the house of 
 Abbotsford. Here are the portraits of Prince 
 Charles Edward, from which the descriptions of 
 the ChevaUer, in ' Waverley,' were evidently taken ; 
 with the immense antique war-horn from Hermitage, 
 and the keys of Loch Leven Castle, flung into the 
 water by Willie Douglas as he effected Queen 
 Mary's escape ; also, the sword of Montrose, the 
 gun of Rob Roy, the quaich of Burns,, and the 
 silver brooch of Flora Macdonald. Outside, too, 
 at the gate, hang the "jougs," emblem of baronial 
 power, from Thrieve Castle, in Galloway, one of 
 the ancient strongholds of the Douglas. 
 
 Relics of vivid interest, all these, to the modern 
 visitor ; yet it is instructive to think how much of 
 that interest is owing to the work of their collector 
 himself. Who would now remember the Highland 
 cateran but for the romance of ' Rob Roy ' ? and 
 even the glamour which hangs about the name of 
 Charles Stuart might have been half-forgotten but 
 for the pen of the master of Abbotsford. One real- 
 ises more fully at this consideration how royal was 
 the heritage of thought created and bequeathed to 
 the world by this last of the Border minstrels. 
 
ii8 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Many of the historic scenes in the neighbour- 
 hood owe their preservation entirely to Sir Walter. 
 He extended the grounds of Abbotsford to include 
 Huntly Burn and the Rhymer's Glen to the 
 eastward, where it is said that True Thomas 
 used to meet the Queen of Faerie ^ and he enclosed 
 the scene of the battle of Melrose, at Darnick 
 Bridge, where, in 1526, Scott of Buccleuch sought 
 to wrest the person of the youthful James V. from 
 the hands of the Earl of Angus— the last great 
 feudal battle of the Borders, and the fight in 
 which, almost by an accident, at the close of the 
 strife, occasion was given for one of the bitterest 
 of family enmities: — 
 
 The gallant Cessford's life-blood dear 
 Reeked on dark Elliot's Border spear. 
 
 His estate, too, came down to the little village 
 whose ruined peel- tower, now a museum, was 
 probably in feudal times the residence of some 
 church vassal, and from the name of which 
 
 1 At the foot of the Rhymer's Glen stands the somewhat 
 romantic Chiefswood, where Lockhart, Scott's son-in-law and 
 biographer, lived. In Chiefswood are preserved many pieces 
 of furniture interesting for their association with the great 
 novelist, among them being included the bureau on which 
 he wrote 'The Pirate.' 
 
IN THE WIZARD'S COUNTRY. 119 
 
 Scott's friends used in pleasantry to call him 
 Duke of Darnick.' 
 
 It is not diificult to imagine the Laird of 
 Abbotsford on a sunny afternoon, when his morn- 
 ing's work was over, strolling hither with some 
 guest, dilating as he went on the points of interest 
 in sight, and ending his walk in the abbey below. 
 The latter lies no great distance away, and within 
 the walls a fragment of stone is still pointed out 
 which was his frequent and favourite resting-place. 
 
 Cistercian Melrose, russet-grey, hemmed by river 
 and town ! For nigh three hundred and fifty years 
 the voice of the ancient faith has been silent amid 
 its ruins ; but sweet enough once was the sound 
 of its bells, as the angelus floated out over flood 
 and field, and the rude Borderer in the saddle 
 and the simple peasant on the lea stopped to listen 
 and cross themselves and murmur a prayer. 
 Here, and in convent and monastery elsewhere, 
 though the fact is too often forgotten, the flickering 
 light of civilisation was kept alive, sheltered within 
 the quiet cloisters, through a dark and stormy age. 
 
 1 Darnick anciently contained two towers, which belonged 
 respectively, it is said, to families of the names of Fisher 
 and Heiton. 
 
120 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Arts, letters, commerce, and agriculture, as well 
 as religion, alike owe their preservation to the men 
 who dwelt long ago in these religious houses. 
 In Melrose Abbey David I., it is said, gathered the 
 learned men from all parts of Europe who compiled 
 his famous code of laws ; and in Melrose was 
 written by successive monkish hands the account 
 of Scots affairs from 735 to 1270, known, as the 
 Chronica de Mailros, while numerous extant charters 
 show the monks to have been extensive foreign 
 traders and enlightened tillers of the soil. The still 
 monastic life of ancient times has passed from 
 these walls for ever ; but its effects, none the less 
 real, are to be counted with .to the present day. 
 
 Melrose Abbey was one of the numerous 
 religious houses founded in the twelfth century 
 by David I., and, owing largely to the example 
 set by the monarch's benefactions it became 
 presently perhaps the finest and richest monastery 
 in Scotland. Indeed, for his lavish endowment 
 of these houses in crown lands and . privileges, 
 David was said by one of his successors, James VI., 
 to have been " a sair sanct to the croun," and it 
 is only of recent years that the wisdom of his 
 action has been recognised. By placing so large a 
 
IN THE WIZARD'S COUNTRY. 121 
 
 proportion of the lands of the country under the 
 rule of the church he exempted them almost 
 entirely from the harassing burden of feudal service, 
 and afforded them for more than a century and 
 a half the immunity which religious property 
 enjoyed in time of war. His far-seeing polity in 
 this respect — a polity which directly benefitted his 
 country for four centuries, and by which its civili- 
 sation was preserved and permanently moulded in 
 many ways — David must be considered one of the 
 greatest statesmen who have ruled Scotland. 
 
 David's abbey stood till 1322. In thai year 
 Edward II., returning with his balked and starving 
 army from a futile expedition against Robert the 
 Bruce, first broke the tradition of the sacredness 
 of religious houses, and gratified his feelings of 
 revenge, by attacking and destroying the defence- 
 less monastery. Upon that occasion the prior and 
 many of the monks were slain by the rude 
 soldiery, the silver pix was carried off, and the 
 bell of the church was thrown into the Tweed at 
 Maxwheel, where it is said still to remain. 
 
 King Robert rebuilt and further endowed the 
 abbey on a scale of royal magnificence, and it is 
 practically his erection whose ruins remain at the 
 
122 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 present day. The architect was John Morvo or 
 Morow — possibly a member of the Scottish family 
 of Murray, notwithstanding the inscription on one 
 of the walls which states that he was born in 
 " Parysse." Regarding the execution of the beautiful 
 eastern window — perhaps the finest remaining part 
 of the ruins — a tradition exists which affords a very 
 fair example of the popular tendency to invest 
 fact with the glamour of the marvellous. The 
 legend is somewhat similar to that related of the 
 'Prentice Pillar at Roslyn Chapel. The window 
 is called the 'Prentice Window, and the tradition 
 runs that the master-builder of the abbey found 
 this part of the work beyond his powers. In order 
 to consult the brothers of his craft he proceeded 
 to Rome. During the master's absence, however, 
 his apprentice finished the window, and, with 
 natural pride, cut near it on the wall the lines, 
 
 The best mason of masonry, 
 Except the man that learned me. 
 
 Upon the master's return his astonishment at the 
 accomplishment of the task was only equalled by 
 chagrin that he should have been outdone in 
 skill by his subordinate. Catching sight at the 
 same moment of the inscription, and taking time 
 
IN THE WIZARD'S COUNTRY. 123 
 
 to read no more than the first line, he conceived 
 himself not only outdone but flouted to his face, 
 and forthwith he turned to the apprentice, who 
 was standing by, waiting eagerly for his approval, 
 and in a frenzy of wrath dashed out his brains. 
 It was only later that he read the second line of 
 the inscription, when his sorrow and remorse over 
 his act may be understood. 
 
 For sixty years the abbey remained as it was 
 left by Bruce, enjoying its stately rent-roll in 
 kind — its payments of corn and ale and wine, 
 its princely lordships, and its many rights of 
 toll and fisheries. But in 1384, when the English 
 forces under Richard II., once more starved and 
 balked by similar tactics to those of King Robert, 
 were in disastrous retreat, they took and burned 
 the place. It was rebuilt, however, and in good 
 repair in the time of James IV., when its inhabi- 
 tants numbered no fewer than one hundred monks, 
 besides lay brothers, and great dignitaries of the 
 church. It stood then till 1544. In 1543 the 
 proposals of Henry VIII. for the marriage of 
 Mary, the infant Queen of Scots, to his son, had 
 been rejected by the Regent and nobles of Scot- 
 land, and forthwith the English king proceeded 
 
124 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 to wreak a brutal revenge on the fairest provinces 
 of the north. Lord Hertford and an English 
 army swept the Merse and the Lothians with 
 sword and fire, leaving behind them nothing but 
 the desolation of a blackened waste, destroying 
 kirk and barn and tower, burning town and 
 abbey, and laying in ashes even Holyrood and 
 Edinburgh. The barbarity of Henry and his 
 agents in these proceedings has probably never 
 been matched by the deeds of any other power 
 calling itself civilized. Men, women, and children 
 were put to the sword, or, taken unawares, were 
 suffocated and burned in their beds; and some- 
 thing of the havoc done may be gathered from 
 the fact that one list submitted to the English 
 king mentions one hundred and ninety -two "towns, 
 towers, barnekynes, parysche churches, and bastill 
 houses, burned and destroyed," while from the 
 sack of Jedburgh the spoil carried away laded 
 five hundred horses.' These doings were the 
 subject of pious congratulations and thanks to 
 
 1 See • The Late Expedition in Scotland,' of 1544, with 
 • Other Newe Prosperouse Adventures of Late against the 
 Scottes,' printed in Dalzell's ' Fragments of Scottish History,' 
 Edinburgh, 1798. 
 
IN THE WIZARDS COUNTRY. 125 
 
 God on the part of the ravishers, while, owing to 
 the internal distractions of Scotland at the time, 
 the Border lords — Seton, Home, and Buccleuch — 
 could only look on, powerless, from their mountain 
 fastnesses. 
 
 By the ruthless proceedings of the invaders 
 then Melrose was left a roofless ruin, and from 
 that destruction it never recovered. Its last abbot 
 was the eldest son of James V. He died in 1559, 
 and in the ensuing scramble of the Reformation 
 the abbey lands and heritages were partitioned 
 among the temporal lordships of the Border. So 
 fell the greatest and most famous of the religious 
 houses of Scotland.^ 
 
 The ruins as they stand are pregnant with the 
 memories of the deeds and the names which 
 moulded nations. In the chapter - house of the 
 Abbey it was, that, in 1215, the barons of Yorkshire 
 swore fealty to Alexander II. Here, through the 
 great eastern window, sometimes, the moonlight 
 falls on the " Rest of the Heart of Robert the 
 Bruce." Close by sleep the great lords of Douglas, 
 
 iThe history of Melrose may be traced in detail from 
 documentary evidence in Skene's Origines Parochiales Scotia I., 
 279. 
 
126 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 one of them being the brave and chivalrous young 
 earl who fell at Otterbourne ; and among records 
 of other old names of the Border on these 
 walls, may be read the inscription, " Heir lyis 
 the Race of the Hous of Zair," a memorial 
 which struck Emerson profoundly with its 
 simple dignity. It is needless to recall all the 
 network of romance woven about these ruins by 
 the author of ' Waverley.' ' The Monastery ' and 
 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel' are in the hands 
 of all, and have peopled the fallen pile with 
 scenes and persons hardly less real than those of 
 actual history. Who does not remember how, in 
 the refectory here, the good Abbot Boniface 
 feasted and granted his too frequent benevolences ; 
 and how, through yonder iron - studded door from 
 the cloisters came William of Deloraine for the 
 book from the tomb of Michael Scot, when he 
 was startled to find the blood-red cross of the 
 window above cast full on the wizard's grave? 
 
 The moon on the east oriel shone 
 Through slender shafts of shapely stone, 
 
 By foliaged tracery combined. 
 Thou would'st have thought some fairy's hand 
 'Twixt poplars straight the ozier wand 
 
 In many a freakish knot had twined. 
 
IN THE WIZARD'S COUNTRY. 127 
 
 Then framed a spell, when the work was done, 
 And changed the willow wreaths to stone. 
 The silver light, so pale and faint, 
 Shewed many a prophet, and many a saint. 
 
 Whose image on the glass was dyed. 
 Full in the midst, his cross of red 
 Triumphant Michael brandished, 
 
 And trampled the Apostate's pride. 
 The moonbeam kissed the holy pane, 
 And threw on the pavement a bloody stain. 
 
 Among the other storied graves of this Valhalla, 
 this of Michael Scot possesses some of the most 
 suggestive associations. Beside the tombs of 
 military kings and of priestly bishops and abbots, 
 his grave appears, the representative of the 
 royalty of intellect, and a reminder of the homage 
 which, even amid the darkness of an early time, 
 popular intuition accorded to the master minds 
 of letters and of science. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott in a note to ' The Lay of the 
 Last Minstrel ' has recorded some of the legends 
 current regarding this forebearer of his name. 
 The wizard, it seems, was in the habit of display- 
 ing his powers, and at the same time feasting his 
 guests, by setting before them the choicest dishes 
 which they might fancy, transferred on the instant 
 by his magic arts from the kitchens of the King 
 
128 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 of France. Upon one occasion also, mounted on 
 
 a coal-black demon steed, he is said to have paid 
 
 a visit to the French court, where by the terrible 
 
 portents which followed each stamp of his horse's 
 
 hoof, he induced the French king to surrender at 
 
 discretion to his demands. Another tradition 
 
 accepted without question for centuries on the 
 
 Border told how, from an inhospitable farmer's 
 
 wife. 
 
 Master Michael Scot's man 
 Sought bread and gat nane ; 
 
 whereupon he hurled his bonnet upon the floor, 
 and forthwith the entire household, farmer, wife, 
 and servants, nolentes volentes, went dancing wildly 
 round it till it was his pleasure to release them, 
 exhausted, from the enchantment. Something of 
 the awe of the wizard's reputation even in the 
 time of the Stewarts may be gathered from the 
 verse of a ballad quoted by Professor Veitch. 
 The troops who have been quartered for a night 
 in the tower where Scot was born are asked. 
 
 What gars ye gaunt.^ my merrymen a' ? 
 
 What gars ye look sae eerie ? 
 What gars ye hing your heids sae sair 
 
 In the Castle o' Balwearie ? 
 
 l^makes you yawn. 
 
IN THE WIZARD'S COUNTRY. 129 
 
 His performances, it would appear, are almost as 
 well known in the traditions of Italy and Spain 
 as in those of Scotland. Some of his exploits are 
 recited in Folengo's macaronic poem ' Merlin 
 Coccaius.' Dante, in his 'Inferno' {cant, xx., 116), 
 places Scot among the magicians and soothsayers ; 
 Boccaccio mentions him in the same relationship ; 
 and an indictment against him for the practice of 
 unholy arts appears in the work on astrology by 
 John Pico de Mirandola. Scottish tradition identi- 
 fies him with Sir Michael Scot of Balwearie in 
 Fife, who, after the death of Alexander III., was 
 one of the ambassadors sent to bring home the 
 Maid of Norway. As, however, the wizard is said 
 to have been born in 1190, and as references by 
 Jourdain and Vincent de Beauvais corroborate 
 this date, the ambassador was probably his son. 
 Scot appears to have been a scholar of prodigious 
 attainments. He is said to have studied at Oxford 
 and Paris, he learned Arabic at Toledo, and he 
 was a past master in astrology, alchemy, and 
 medicine. Many of his works are still extant. 
 His chief original writings, undertaken, as they 
 expressly state, at the request of the emperor 
 Frederick II., are the treatise ' Super Auctorem 
 
 I 
 
130 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Spherse,' printed at Bologna in 1495, and that 'De 
 Physiognomia et de Hominis Procreatione,' which 
 ran through eighteen editions between 1477 and 
 1660. At the request of Frederick he also under- 
 took a new translation of Aristotle from the 
 Arabic, the tongue through which the philosopher 
 was then known, together with the commentaries of 
 Averroes. By these works Scot appears entitled 
 to be considered one of the earliest pioneers of 
 the great mediaeval awakening of intellect and 
 learning, and one of the conspicuous examples 
 of that Cymric power of initiative to which the 
 world has owed so much. Probably it was partly 
 owing to his connection with Frederick and 
 Averroes, both of uncanny repute in the Middle 
 Ages, as well as to his own alchemical attainments, 
 that Michael Scot owed his universal reputation 
 of wizard. He is said to have foretold the place 
 of Frederick's death in 1250, and Italian tradition 
 relates that he himself died in Sicily not long 
 afterwards. More general tradition, however, bears 
 that he returned home to Scotland in something 
 like a royal progress. In particular, it is said 
 that on his way to the north he was received with 
 great honour at the English Court by Edward I. 
 
IN THE WIZARD'S COUNTRY. 131 
 
 One legend states that he was buried at Holme 
 Cultram in Cumberland, but it is more generally 
 believed that he was finally laid to rest in Melrose 
 Abbey. 
 
 In 181 2, in a small aisle south of the chancel here 
 two stone coffins were found. One of them bore 
 the carving of a St John's cross, and inside was 
 discovered the skeleton of a tall man, six feet in 
 length. The bones thus laid bare after the lapse 
 of six centuries were identified by tradition as those 
 of Michael Scot.' The wizard's resting-place is 
 now pointed out under the lofty eastern window, 
 close to the high altar, and beside the tomb of 
 Alexander II. and the burial spot of the heart of 
 Bruce. 
 
 It was a beautiful idea of the monks of old, 
 to make the windows through which the light of 
 day fell into their churches emblems of the means 
 by which spiritual light had fallen upon the world. 
 Hardly could anything be poetically or archi- 
 tecturally finer than the crown-of-thorns window 
 in the north transept here, or the windows with 
 three curved muUions to represent the Trinity. 
 Scott's description of the beauty of these details 
 
 ' See Bower's ' Description of Melrose.' 
 
132 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 is much hackneyed, but remains unrivalled, and 
 cannot be passed over: — 
 
 If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright, 
 
 Go visit it by the pale moonlight ; 
 
 For the gay beams of lightsome day 
 
 Gild, but to flout, the ruins grey. 
 
 When the broken arches are black in night. 
 
 And each shafted oriel glimmers white ; 
 
 When the cold light's uncertain shower 
 
 Streams on the ruined central tower ; 
 
 When buttress and buttress, alternately, 
 
 Seem framed of ebon and ivory ; 
 
 When silver edges the imagery 
 
 And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die ; 
 
 When distant Tweed is heard to rave. 
 
 And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave. 
 
 Then go— but go alone the while — 
 
 Then view St David's ruined pile ; 
 
 And home returning, soothly swear 
 
 Was never scene so sad and fair ! ' 
 
 Sorrowful indeed is the ruin now, where profane 
 feet tread upon the tombs of kings, and the fair 
 and loving handiwork of many a gentle artist soul 
 is crumbling to decay. Well it is for king and 
 sculptor that their immortality rests not with 
 stone and lime and name. An English baron may 
 fire the abbey of David and Bruce, the roof may 
 fall and the walls moulder to dust ; but the spirit 
 
 1 ' The I,ay of the I<ast MinEtrel.' Cant. II. 
 
IN THE WIZARD'S COUNTRY. 133 
 
 of the dead kings lives for ever in the fresh- 
 springing seed of generous thought sown by their 
 deeds long ago in the hearts of men.^ 
 
 1 These remarks must in no way be taken as a reflection 
 upon the existing condition of the ruined abbey, as a ruin. 
 The lasting gratitude of the public, indeed, is due both to the 
 present Duke of Buccleuch and to his father for the great taste 
 and care which they have exercised, and the large expense 
 which they have been at, to secure the preservation of the 
 remains. 
 
DOWN WATLING STREET. 
 
 THROUGH the open casement, all night long, 
 drifted the river's murmur, like a lullaby. 
 No moon was there in the midnight sky where- 
 with to " view aright " the witchery of " fair 
 Melrose ; " but the gentle airs which came sighing, 
 ever and again, across the abbey close, brought 
 with them plaintive memories of the place. No 
 bell, it is true, tinkled its summons there at 
 vesper-time ; no glory of altar lights within flamed 
 through the mullioned oriels ; and on the listening 
 night arose no harmony of monkish voices chant- 
 ing their evensong. Only the faint whispering of 
 the abbey trees at times recalled the fact that, 
 close by, abbot and priest lay asleep under the 
 aisles which their sandalled feet once trod, filling 
 the heart with a strange awe and pity at the near- 
 ness and the oblivion now of that once warm- 
 breathing dust. Alas ! the murmur of river and 
 sigh of night-wind tells us nothing of the dreams 
 of those who sleep so soundly and so long. 
 
DOWN WATLING STREET. 135 
 
 But morning has come — morning, with the crow- 
 ing cock and the waking town — a sunny morning, 
 the inspiration of a pedestrian ; with the promise 
 of a glorious day, though the mist lies grey yet 
 in the meadows. 
 
 Two miles and a half to the east, towards 
 Dryburgh, on a little peninsula washed by the 
 Tweed, lies the site of Old Melrose, with, on the 
 way to it by the river, the quiet village of New- 
 stead, famous for its sundials. 
 
 It was at Old Melrose that the original monastery 
 stood, the home of St Cuthbert, and the contemporary 
 of lona and Lindisfarne. Founded by Aidan, the 
 British missionary saint, it is stated by Bede to 
 have become an establishment of great celebrity so 
 early as the year 664 ; and Nennius, who wrote in 
 858 A.D., mentions its destruction by Pagan Danes. 
 To this spot, from its situation, as will be seen, 
 more properly belongs the name, derived probably 
 from the Celtic mull ross, or "bare promontory," 
 transferred afterwards to the later settlement. For 
 the modern Melrose was anciently known as Little 
 Fordel.i 
 
 1 Popular tradition furnishes a more romantic, if apocryphal, 
 derivation for the name. Malerose, or "sullied rose," according 
 
136 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 But at Old Melrose little is left of the ancient 
 hamlet or of its Culdee monastery, which was 
 probably built only of wood/ and the spot, 
 with most of the countryside — river and tower and 
 town — will be very well seen from the top of 
 Eildon Hill. A last look, then, at the ruined pile 
 in the quiet abbey close, a drink from the famous 
 St Dunstan's Well, a glance at the quaint old 
 market-cross of the town, with its slender shaft 
 and curious crest, whose upkeep forms the quit- 
 rent of a ridge of land close by ; and then away 
 for the top of the three-peaked hill ! 
 
 The supernatural lore with which the whole 
 countryside is invested has a legend to account 
 for the strange shape of the mountain. It seems 
 that Michael Scot at one time found himself 
 compelled to provide occupation for a certain 
 troublesome fiend. First he set the latter to build 
 
 to the legend, took its name from the settlement on the spot 
 of a princess who by the loss of her virtue had incurred the 
 penalty of death in her own country, but who, escaping hither 
 with her confessor, founded the original monastery. 
 
 1 Bede, in his ' Ecclesiastical History," III., 4, referring to the 
 church of Ninian at Whithorn of the fourth century, says, " The 
 place is generally called the White House, because he there 
 built a church of stone, which is not usual among the Britons." 
 
JL 
 
 kd 
 
 - 
 
 |r^-*:'^p^-^'-.^^ 
 
 v.- 
 
 1 
 
 ^^^IH^^^Hl^^^R^ l>t* "^ '^w^ S^I^»^3B S^Kmw -y ft- ffyift^Bif^ 
 
 r 
 
 r 
 
DOWN WATLING STREET. 137 
 
 a dam across the Tweed. This behest, however, to 
 the wizard's surprise and dismay, was accomplished 
 by the fiend in a single night. The result is still 
 to be seen near Kelso. A more formidable com- 
 mand seemed to be to " cleave Eildon Hill in 
 three." But the too energetic familiar accomplished 
 this second herculean feat likewise in a night ; and 
 he was only found in constant employment finally 
 by being set the somewhat unsatisfactory task of 
 manufacturing ropes out of sea-sand. 
 
 In the same way, popular legend assigns Eildon 
 Tree on the hillside just above Newstead as the 
 spot at which Thomas of Ercildoune first met the 
 Queen of Faerie. Eildon Tree itself has now 
 disappeared, but the spot is marked by a large stone, 
 known as Eildon Tree Stone. Here True Thomas 
 is popularly believed to have had that encounter 
 with the elfin queen which resulted in his acquisition 
 of prophetic power. The account of his adventure 
 contains the boldest and most striking picture 
 extant of the enchanted middle world. 
 
 THOMAS THE RHYMER. 
 
 True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank ; 
 • A ferlie 1 he spied wi' his e'e ; 
 
 1 marvel. 
 
138 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 And there he saw a lady bright, 
 Come riding down by the Eildon tree. 
 
 Her shirt was o' the grass-green silk, 
 
 Her mantle o' the velvet fine ; 
 At ilka tett ^ of her horse's mane. 
 
 Hung fifty siller bells and nine. 
 
 True Thomas, he pulled a£f his cap. 
 And louted low down to his knee, 
 " All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven ! 
 For thy peer on earth I never did see." 
 
 " O no, O no, Thomas," she said, 
 " That name does not belang to me ; 
 I am but the queen of fair Elfland, 
 That am hither come to visit thee." 
 
 " Harp and carp,^ Thomas," she said, 
 " Harp and carp along wi' me ; 
 And if ye dare to kiss my lips. 
 Sure of your body I will be." 
 
 " Betide me weal, betide me woe. 
 
 That weird shall never daunton me." ' 
 Syne he has kissed her rosy lips. 
 All underneath the Eildon tree. 
 
 " Now, ye maun go wi' me," she said ; 
 " True Thomas, ye maun go wi' me ; 
 And ye maun serve me seven years. 
 Through weal or woe as may chance to be." 
 
 ituft. 2 speak, sing. 8 That fate shall never daunt me. 
 
DOWN WATLING STREET. 139 
 
 She mounted on her milk-white steed ; 
 
 She's ta'en true Thomas up behind ; 
 And aye, whene'er her bridle rung, 
 
 The steed flew swifter than the wind. 
 
 O they rade on, and farther on; 
 
 The steed gaed swifter than the wind; 
 Until they reached a desert wide, 
 
 And living land was left behind. 
 
 " Light down, light down now. True Thomas, 
 And lean your head upon my knee ; 
 Abide and rest a little space, 
 And I will shew you ferlies three. 
 
 " O see ye not yon narrow road. 
 
 So thick beset by thorns and briers ? 
 That is the path of righteousness. 
 Though after it but few enquires. 
 
 "And see ye not that braid braid road. 
 That lies across that lily leven ? 1 
 That is the path of wickedness. 
 Though some call it the road to heaven. 
 
 "And see not ye that bonnie road. 
 That vfinds about the ferny brae; 
 That is the road to fair Elfland, 
 Where thou and I this night maun gae. 
 
 "But, Thomas, ye maun hold your tongue. 
 Whatever ye may hear or see ; 
 For, if you speak a word in Elflyn land, 
 Ye'U ne'er get back to your ain countrie." 
 
 ^ lawn. 
 
140 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 they rade on, and farther on, 
 
 And they waded through rivers abune the knee. 
 And they saw neither sun nor moon. 
 But they heard the roaring of the sea. 
 
 It was mirk mirk night, there was nae stern light. 
 And they waded through red bluid to the knee ; 
 
 For a' the bluid that's shed on earth 
 Rins through the springs o' that countrie. 
 
 Syne they came to a garden green. 
 And she pu'd an apple frae a tree — 
 " Take this for thy wages. True Thomas; 
 
 It will give thee the tongue that can never lee." 
 
 " My tongue is mine ain," True Thomas said ; 
 "A gudely gift you would gi'e to me! 
 
 1 neither dought ^ to buy nor sell, 
 At fair or tryst where I may be. 
 
 "I dought neither speak to prince or peer. 
 
 Nor ask of grace from fair lady." 
 " Now hold thy peace! " the lady said, 
 " For as I say, so must it be." 
 
 He has gotten a coat of the even cloth, 
 
 And a pair of shoes of velvet green ; 
 And till seven years were gane and past. 
 
 True Thomas on earth was never seen. 
 
 The hero of this ballad is remembered through- 
 out the Border to the present day, both as a poet 
 and as a prophet. Again and again during 
 
 1 would be able. 
 
DOWN WATLING STREET. 141 
 
 the middle centuries, down indeed to the reign of 
 James VI., his supposed prophecies regarding pubhc 
 affairs were a force to be counted on in the politics 
 of the hour. If any one wishes to consult them at 
 the present day, a considerable number are to be 
 found in a small volume published at Edinburgh 
 by Andrew Hart in 161 5. Prophecies of more 
 local import are probably current yet on the 
 Border-side. 
 
 One of these local prophecies contains a some- 
 what pathetic reference to the fortunes of his own 
 house — 
 
 The hare sail kittle ' on my hearth stane, 
 
 And there will never be a laird Learmont again. 
 
 Regarding another, Scott, in his note to the ballad 
 in his • Minstrelsy,' tells a curious story. The 
 ownership of an estate in this neighbourhood was 
 the subject of one of the Rhymer's prophecies : — 
 
 Tide may tide whate'er betide, 
 Haig shall be Haig of Bemersyde. 
 
 This couplet had always been considered oracular, 
 but towards] the end of last century the line of 
 Haig seemed about to fail. The laird of Bemersyde 
 
 1 utter. 
 
142 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 had been wedded for some twelve years without 
 the appearance of a male heir, and the credit of 
 prophet and prophecy seemed about to suffer. At 
 last, however, past all expectation, the lady of 
 Bemersyde presented her husband with a son, and 
 the circumstance confirmed the popular confidence 
 in the Rhymer's prophetic power tenfold. 
 
 The prophecies of Thomas are mentioned with 
 all respect in Barbour's ' Bruce,' in Wyntoun's 
 ' Cronykil,' and in the ' Scala Chronicon ; ' and 
 Thomas himself is mentioned by Henry the Minstrel 
 as residing in a religious house, the Faile, near Ayr, 
 when the hero Wallace was cast for dead over the 
 wall of the prison in that town. He is pictured 
 upon that occasion by the Minstrel, as refusing 
 stoutly, out of his supernatural knowledge, to be- 
 lieve in the death of the future champion— a refusal 
 which was presently justified by Wallace's nurse 
 presenting the hero alive. But the most famous of 
 all the Rhymer's predictions was his foretelling of 
 the death of Alexander HI. The Earl of March, it 
 appears, one day found occasion to ask Thomas 
 his opinion as to the weather of the morrow. 
 " To-morrow," answered the seer, " before noon 
 shall blow the greatest tempest was ever felt in 
 
DOWN WATLING STREET. 143 
 
 Scotland." But on the day predicted, the weather 
 remaining calm, the Earl rallied the prophet on 
 his apparent blunder. " Wait," said Thomas, 
 " noon has not yet passed." And it fell out that 
 even as they spoke a messenger came galloping 
 with word that the king had fallen on horseback 
 over the cliffs at Kinghorn, and was dead. " Here," 
 said Ercildoune, " is the tempest of which I spoke ; " 
 and the sequel proved the shrewdness of his saying. 
 The reputation of Thomas as a prophet, however, 
 is rivalled by his fame as a poet, Ercildoune stood 
 upon the border of that ancient Cymric kingdom 
 between the Roman walls — the country of Arthur 
 and Gawain and Lancelot — to which reference has 
 already more than once been made. The traditions 
 of that kingdom were still, probably, in his day 
 the common property of the country-side, as they 
 already, in the mouths of minstrels, formed the 
 subjects of a whole cycle of courtly romance. 
 As a singer of these chivalric and romantic 
 traditions, as well as an interpreter of the spirit 
 of the ancient race, Thomas must be regarded as 
 the successor of the Cymric Merlin himself. 
 Partly, it appears probable, from earlier composi- 
 tions, and partly from local tradition, the Rhymer 
 
144 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 composed ' Sir Tristrem,' the finest of the extant 
 mediaeval romances regarding the Cymric heroes.^ 
 He is also believed to be the author of the first 
 part of a romantic poem in three fytts or cantos, 
 which contains a series of prophecies in chronologi- 
 cal order regarding the events of Scottish history 
 for several centuries.^ It is of the first fytt of 
 this poem that the ballad above printed is the 
 popular traditional version. 
 
 Jamieson, in his ' Popular Ballads of Scotland,' 
 suggested that in order to gain credence for his 
 predictions, which seem all to have been calculated 
 for the service of his country, Thomas pretended 
 to an intercourse with the elfin queen, as Numa 
 Pompilius did with the nymph Egeria, There is 
 reason, however, to suppose that the story of the 
 Rhymer's meeting with his fairy mistress may re- 
 present some strange legend of a still earlier 
 time. For the hillside here, facing the mystic 
 
 ' "Sir Tristrem' is preserved in the Auchinleck M.S. (circa 
 1350) in the Advocates' Library, and has been twice edited 
 — by Scott in 1804, and by M'Neil in 1886. Other Arthurian 
 romances of the district have been edited by Sir Fred. Madden 
 in a volume for the Bannatyue Club, 1839. 
 
 2 Five extant versions of this elfin and prophetic romance 
 have recently been edited together by Dr J. A. H. Murray 
 for the Early English Text Society. 
 
DOWN WATLING STREET. 145 
 
 east, was probably the scene of pagan rites as 
 early as the days when Saul had dealings with 
 the Witch of Endor. 
 
 Upon many a strange historic scene has the silent 
 mountain looked down, though the record has been 
 all but lost. Northward, wave after wave across 
 its foot, have come the tramplings of many nations. 
 A great Caledonian tumulus and the remains of 
 a Roman encampment rest on the mountain ; in the 
 Leader valley near, the British Arthur is said to 
 have fought his eighth great battle ; ^ and under 
 the shadow of the hill, in Dryburgh, the Druids 
 buried their dead. Like Ben Ledi, the " Hill of 
 God," in the north, Eildon would seem to have- 
 been consecrated by the ashes of primeval altars. 
 In a grove on the north side of the middle hill 
 the Druids, according to tradition, offered their 
 sacrifices. 
 
 Underground, too, in the hidden caverns of the 
 mountain, according to the mythic legends which 
 in course of time invested the fate of the hero. 
 King Arthur, and his knights, brought hither by 
 magic means after the last great battle at Camelon, 
 near Falkirk, in which they fell, lie in their armour, 
 
 1 Veitch's 'Border History and Poetry,' Chap. II. 
 
 K 
 
146 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 waiting for the bugle call that shall break their 
 enchanted sleep and restore them to earthly life 
 once more. 
 
 Beside each coal-black courser sleeps a knight, 
 A raven plume waves o'er each helmed crest, 
 And black the mail which binds each manly breast. 
 
 Say, who is he, with summons strong and high. 
 That bids the charmed sleep of ages fly. 
 Rolls the long sound through Eildon's caverns vast. 
 While each dark warrior rouses at the blast. 
 His horn, his falchion grasps with mighty hand. 
 And peals proud Arthur's march from Fairyland ? ' 
 
 1 I^eyden's ' Scenes of Infancy,' Part II, Several accounts of this tra- 
 dition are included by Scott in his ' Letters on Bemonology and Witch- 
 craft,' Letter IV. ; also in the appendix to ' Waverley.' A certain dealer, 
 the tale runs, was returning, one moonlight night, over Bowden 
 Moor, to the west of Eildon Hill, with a black horse which he had 
 failed to sell at the day's market, when he was accosted by a man of 
 venerable and antique aspect. The stranger invited him to the 
 l/ucken-hare, a hillock of uncanny reputation on Eildon side, 
 where he paid the price of the steed in gold unicorns, bonnet-pieces, 
 and other ancient coins, and, further, asked the dealer to view his 
 abode. Assenting, nothing loth, the latter, to his astonishment, was 
 conveyed along range after range of stalls, in each of which, motion- 
 less, stood « black horse with a mailed warrior asleep at its feet. 
 "All these men," whispered the wizard, " will awaken at the Battle of 
 Sheri£fmuir," and he pointed to a sword and horn on the wall as the 
 means of dissolving the spell. The dealer foolishly took the horn and 
 attempted to wind it, whereupon, Instantly, the horses stamped and 
 shook their bridles, the warriors sprang to their feet with clashing 
 mail, and, while a tremendous voice above the din and tumult pro- 
 nounced the words, 
 
 ' ' Woe to the coward, that ever he was born, 
 That did not draw the sword before he blew the horn ! " 
 a whirlwind hurled the horse-dealer from the cavern, whose entrance 
 could never afterwards be found. 
 
DOWN WATLING STREET. 147 
 
 No better view of the Borderland is to be had 
 than that from the top of the Eildons ; and it was 
 hither, as to the Delectable Mountains, that Scott 
 brought Washington Irving and many another 
 guest to look upon the scene of ancient firej and 
 foray. 
 
 Does not the storied vale of Tweed stretch away 
 to the eastward, by Kelso and Coldstream, to 
 Berwick on its purple verge, and dusky Flodden, 
 where so dark a harvest once was reaped ? South- 
 ward roll the Cheviots, mindful of Otterbourne 
 and Chevy Chase — those dire raids of the Black 
 Douglas and the Red — away to the hills of Liddes- 
 dale and Eskdale in the direction of Merrie Carlisle. 
 Due westward lies the pastoral vale of Yarrow, 
 home of so much romance. And to the north, 
 beyond the smoke of Galashiels, rise the Muirfoot 
 Hills and the lonely Lammermuirs. Almost at 
 the mountain foot, too, stand the abbey ruins of 
 Melrose, and of Dryburgh among its woods. And, 
 further off, Sir Walter could point out Smailholm 
 Tower, and tell how, in his grandfather's farm- 
 house of Sandyknowe at its foot, he, when a 
 lame child, had listened long nights by the ingle- 
 side to ballad and legend of his ancestors. He 
 
148 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 himself early invested that ancient tower with a 
 weird interest, by making it the scene of his tragic 
 ' Eve of St John.' 
 
 By Smailholm, too, at Earlston, stands the ruin 
 of the tower of True Thomas, disposed of, with 
 its lands, to the convent of Soltra by the Rhymer's 
 son in 1299. And nearer lies the scene of a well- 
 known ballad, as romantic as, it is to be feared, 
 it has been mischievous — ' The Broom o' the 
 Cowdenknowes . ' 
 
 Quiet and beautiful at this time of year lies the 
 road through the woods down to Dryburgh. Under 
 its swinging wire foot-bridge the river runs clear 
 and swift and broad ; and the red fallen beech- 
 leaves make the path in front appear as if stained 
 with blood — the blood, it might be, of monks slain 
 long ago in defence of their abbey. 
 
 The priests of all ages have chosen the sites of 
 their temples well. Here, in Dryburgh (perhaps 
 Dryad, perhaps Druid burgh), on the rich alluvial 
 level in the depths of the primeval forest, girdled 
 by the swift and silvery Tweed, and on the ruined 
 shrine, it may be, of some older worship, the Druids 
 reared an altar. No rude barbarians were these, 
 though they have left no books to tell us of their 
 
DOWN WATLING STREET. 149 
 
 faith. Rather, indeed, may they have been mis- 
 sionaries who brought to these islands the lore 
 of ancient Chaldea. The soul, we know from 
 Caesar, they deemed immortal, and Bel they 
 worshipped in the image of the sun. Their cup- 
 hollowed stones may have held water-mirrors for 
 the reading of the heavens ; and their circles of 
 monoliths, ranged suggestively in the distance-order 
 of the planets, formed dials of the time of year and 
 day. Here, then, if the urn-shaped stones which 
 have come again to light after buried centuries 
 could speak, might be told many a tale of mystic 
 rites performed to moon and sun two long millen- 
 niums ago, and commemorated now only by the 
 place's name.' Here, later, came the iron Roman, 
 
 iDue consideration has hardly yet been given to existing 
 evidences of Druid lore. The late researches of Rawlinson and 
 others in the east have brought to light the fact that the 
 menhirs and cromlechs and circles of Scotland have an exact 
 counterpart in the stone remains existing in what was once 
 Chaldea. It would appear, therefore, that in order to discover 
 something of the rites which took place in prehistoric times 
 beside these Scottish monuments, Ezekiel and other Bible 
 writers may be consulted, with their allusions to the rites 
 around the " fire-stones of Tyre." The late Dr Wylie, in 
 his 'History of Scotland' (vol. I., chap, xi.), described a 
 custom surviving, to his knowledge, among the boys of 
 Aberdeenshire. On Beltane day they kindle a fire and bake 
 
ISO BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 and left his ashes in coffin of stone, far from his 
 
 a cake ; then, breaking the cake into pieces, they blacken one 
 piece in the fire. All the pieces are then placed in a bonnet, 
 and the boy who draws the burnt piece from the bonnet is 
 called " devoted," and must leap three times through the 
 flames. Here would appear to exist a remnant of the custom 
 alluded to in Scripture, of passing children through the 
 fire to Moloch or Baal. We are also aware that in early 
 Scotland, upon Beltane eve, the first of May, the flame of every 
 hearth was extinguished, and the Druids, assembled on Ben 
 Ledi (the Hill of God, as the name signifies), waited for the 
 new fire to descend from heaven and rekindle their altar. A 
 trench still exists across the top of the mountain, which may 
 have borne some part in this ceremony. Again in the con- 
 struction of the cairns at Clava, near CuUoden, a peculiarity 
 has been pointed out to the present writer by an enthusiastic 
 antiquary, Mr George Bain, author of ' The History of Nairn- 
 shire,' which is certainly suggestive. Each cairn consists of 
 a chamber covered by a heap of stones and surrounded 
 by several concentric rings of monoliths. The peculiarity con- 
 sists in the fact that the distance from the centre of the chamber 
 to its walls, from the walls to the outer edge of the cairn, from 
 there to the first ring of stones, and so on, corresponds to our 
 modern knowledge of the distance-order of the various planets 
 from the sun. Further, by a nautical observation taken on the 
 spot, it was ascertained that two paved ways, observed within 
 several of the circles, marked the shadow of the southernmost 
 stone as cast by the sun at the spring and autumn equinox 
 respectively, denoting, perhaps, the seasons of seed-time and 
 harvest. Facts like these would seem to point to the existence 
 among the prehistoric priesthood of Scotland of an astronom- 
 ical knowledge of hitherto unsuspected extent, and they furnish 
 striking corroboration of the statement of Caesar (De. Bell. Gall., 
 vi. 14) : " Multa praeterea de sideribus, atque eorum motu, de 
 
DOWN WATLING STREET. 151 
 
 home by the yellow Tiber.^ Presently, in their 
 turn, the simple Culdees brought hither the 
 elements of Christian faith. And, last of all, the 
 lord of Lauderdale, Hugh De Moreville, in 1141 
 founded on the spot a house of the White Canons. 
 This same Moreville or his son, it may be remem- 
 bered, was one of those four avenging barons who 
 secretly left Henry H.'s court in Normandy, hurried 
 over to England, and, on Dec. 29, 1170, trans- 
 acted that dark scene in the cathedral at Canter- 
 bury, the assassination of Thomas a Becket.'' The 
 founder's grave is marked with a circle drawn on 
 the earthen floor of the Chapter House. 
 
 And here, among the ashes of his ancestors, rest 
 the remains of the author of ' Waverley.' For 
 Dryburgh, owned at Scott's death by the Earl of 
 Buchan, had belonged to the family of Scott's grand- 
 
 mundi ac terrarum magnitudine, de rerum natura, de deorum 
 immortalium vi ac potestate disputant, et juventuti tradunt.'' 
 
 1 Bower, in his ' Description of the Abbeys of Melrose and 
 Old Melrose,' of 1827, states that, among many Roman coins 
 found in this neighbourhood, he possessed one of gold, " with a 
 perfect head on one side, and on the other an inscription — 
 'Augustus Nero.' " 
 
 a See "The Life and Times of Thomas Becket,' by Mr 
 Froude in the ' Nineteenth Century ' for 1887, reprinted among 
 that writer's ' Short Studies.' 
 
152 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 mother, the Haliburtons of Newmains.* The poet 
 lies under the last fragment of the groined roof in 
 St Mary's aisle, his wife and his soldier son by his 
 side, and his son-in-law, Lockhart, at his feet — a 
 tranquil and appropriate rest for one who loved so 
 much to dwell amid the glories of bygone days. 
 
 Daws preen their wings in the ruins now, and 
 wild wood- doves rustle at home in the trees close 
 by; but the pilgrim comes hither still to worship 
 at the shrine of the past, and, under the ancestral 
 cedars and sycamores, feels something gather upon 
 him of the awe of lost religions. 
 
 Through a rich cultivated loneliness the road 
 winds back across the Tweed and down the 
 country southwards from St Boswells. Partly 
 following the line of the ancient Roman road, or 
 Watling Street, its character, on a still day of 
 late autumn, suits well with the mood of the 
 reminiscent pedestrian. From the quiet fields the 
 harvest has been gathered in; only sometimes 
 in the distance there is heard the creaking of a 
 loaded cart bearing the last sheaves home. Among 
 
 ' Sir Walter was served heir to these Haliburtons about 1820, 
 and inherited the right of burial in Dryburgh reserved when 
 the abbey was sold. See 'The Life of Scott,' by Lockhart, 
 Chaps. I. and II. 
 
DOWN WATLING STREET. 153 
 
 the woods, where the air is heavy with scents that 
 recall old garden memories, the brown road rises 
 between hedges of glowing russet red, deep yellow, 
 and fading green ; overhead in the avenues the 
 branches of the stirless trees are stained, like 
 cathedral clerestories at afternoon, with the rich 
 splendours of their autumn colour ; and from the 
 woodland depths on either hand only sometimes 
 is the stillness broken by the whistle of a bird. 
 
 Slowly the country ascends to Lilliard's Edge, 
 the watershed between Tweed and Teviot. Here, 
 just on the ridge, in the heart of the planta- 
 tion to the left of the road, lies a lonely walled 
 grave with a history. It is quaintly inscribed, 
 *' To a' true Scotsmen. I hae mendit it. To you 
 I commend it." In the hollow of Ancrum Moor 
 just beyond, it was, that, three hundred years 
 ago, was fought a great battle of the Borders. 
 Following the devastating raid of Lord Hertford, 
 already referred to in connection with the destruc- 
 tion of Melrose Abbey, Henry VIII. had assigned 
 to Sir Ralph Evers and Sir Brian Laitoun posses- 
 sion of whatever lands they might capture in Scot- 
 land ; and, in 1544, these filibustering barons had 
 laid waste with dreadful . havoc the valleys of 
 
154 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Merse and Teviotdale. In 1545 they came north 
 again with 5200 men, and, ravaging as they went, 
 had reached Mehose, where, the abbey itself being 
 already destroyed, they vented their spirit in 
 mutilating the memorials of the dead — among 
 others, the tombs of the Dark Knight of 
 Liddesdale and of the Douglas who fell at 
 Otterbourne. Presently, however, they heard that 
 the Earl of Angus, breathing vengeance for the 
 destruction of these tombs of his race, was, with 
 Albany, the Regent of Scotland, gathering a force 
 to oppose them. The earl, it is said, enraged at 
 their sacrilege, had vowed to write the invaders' deed 
 of investiture upon their own skins "with sharp 
 pens and in bloody ink." At these tidings they re- 
 tired towards Jedburgh ; and Angus, with but a 
 fifth of their force, was not able to do more than 
 hang upon their rear. On Ancrum Moor 
 close by here, however, the earl was reinforced 
 by Norman Leslie, Master of Rothes, with three 
 hundred spearmen from Fife;' and Scott of Buc- 
 
 1 It was this same Master of Rothes who, in the following 
 year, after the cruel burning of George Wishart at St Andrew's, 
 stormed the Archbishop's castle there, put Cardinal Beaton to 
 death, and held the fortress for nine months in the interest 
 of the Reforming party. 
 
DOWN WATLING STREET. 135 
 
 cleuch came galloping up to say that his Borderers 
 were rising. Angus then invented a strategy. 
 Dismounting his men, he made the camp-boys 
 ride back on the horses up the hillside here behiijd 
 him. Evers perceiving this, and believing the Scots 
 to be in retreat, made hasty pursuit ; and his troops, 
 coming precipitately over the brow of the next hill, 
 with the afternoon sun blazing full in their faces, 
 almost ran upon the spear-points of the compact 
 little company of the north. In the moment before 
 the armies closed, a heron, it is said, soared out of 
 the swamp between ; whereupon the Earl of Angus 
 cried out, " Oh, that my white hawk were here, that 
 we might all join battle together ! " A long account 
 was due for the ravages Evers had been making 
 in Scotland, and it was settled then. A thousand 
 of his men, with Laitoun and himself, were slain, 
 and almost as many were made prisoners ; small 
 mercy being granted to foes who, in their time of 
 power, had shown none. The carnage of the fight 
 has been depicted by Leyden in vigorous lines — 
 
 From Ala's banks to fair Melrose's fane 
 How bright the sabre flashed o'er hills of slain, 
 (I see the combat through the mist of years) 
 When Scott and Douglas led the Border spears ! 
 
156 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 The mountain streams were bridged with English dead ; 
 Dark Ancrum's heath was dyed with deeper red. 
 The ravaged abbey rung the funeral knell 
 When fierce Latoun and savage Evers fell. 
 
 Many gallant deeds were done on the field that 
 day, and many hard blows given and taken. But 
 the greatest credit of all in the fight was won by 
 a Scottish maid. This young woman, tradition 
 runs, had followed her lover from the village of 
 Maxton, close by, and seeing him fall, she rushed 
 with Amazonian courage to avenge him, dealing 
 her blows right and left to such good purpose 
 that she was largely the means of turning the 
 fight, and her name was given to the battle-field. 
 The ancient epitaph re-inscribed upon her tomb 
 reads : — 
 
 Fair maiden Lilliard lies under this stane ; 
 
 Little was her stature, but muckle was her fame. 
 
 Upon the English loons she laid mony thumps, 
 
 And when her legs were cuttit off she fought upon her stumps. 
 
 The conditions under which she continued the 
 struggle are somewhat similar, it will be noticed, 
 to those recorded of Squire Withington at the 
 battle of Chevy Chase. Poor lass ! if the story 
 be true, hers was a doughty way of expressing her 
 
DOWN WATLING STREET. 157 
 
 grief. At the same time there must be taken into 
 account the fact, pointed out by Skene, that the 
 name Lilliard's Edge may be no more than a 
 modification, of Lilis-yhates, the name of the spot 
 in the 12th century.^ 
 
 Downhill from Lilliard's Edge the road runs to 
 Teviotside through forests lone and fair, with hamlet 
 and cottage sometimes in leafy glade and on open 
 hillside. Yellow canariensis and purple clematis 
 flower late on the walls of these ; but the crim- 
 son tropeolum has seeded by October, and the blue 
 convolvulus is withered. 
 
 Historic associations are crusted thick upon the 
 landscape here. A little way down the road which 
 branches off to the right lies Ancrum village. An 
 ancient appanage of the bishopric of Glasgow, 
 it enjoyed the distinction of being burned by the 
 Earl of Rutland, when pursuing D'Esse, the French 
 ally of the Scots, in 1549.^ The place has a cross 
 of the date of Alexander III., and extensive 
 remains of a hospital of the Knights of St John." 
 There are the ruins near it, too, of a Pictish fort, 
 
 1 Skene, Origines Parochiales Scotia, I., 306. 
 
 2 Ridpath's ' Border History,' p. 568. 
 8 Origines Parochiales Scotia, I., 306. 
 
158 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 and one of the monasteries of David I., besides 
 fifteen caves of refuge in the rocky banks of the 
 Ale Water, similar retreats to the caves at Rosslyn 
 used by Ramsay of Dalhousie in the wars of David 
 Bruce. 
 
 But Jedburgh is still two miles away, and already 
 it is growing dusk. There is time only for a glance 
 at the deer in the forest-park about Ancrum House. 
 The place was the favourite residence of William De 
 Bondington, Bishop of Glasgow in the thirteenth 
 century; and he died here, after resigning his 
 bishopric, like Abbot Boniface, in 1258.^ About 
 the house, in the twiHght, a mighty cawing of 
 rooks fills the air, and the moss-grown gateway 
 looks ancient enough to have seen the entry of the 
 good prelate himself. On, however, across the 
 stone bridge of the Teviot, with its quaint pointed 
 pillars; and up the quiet little valley of the Jed. 
 And as the gloaming at last deepens into mirk, 
 it is pleasant to hear the bells of Jedburgh ringing 
 the quarter-chimes. 
 
 1 Cosmo Innes, ' Sketches of Early Scotch History,' p. 43. 
 
"JETHART'S HERE!" 
 
 ASLANT upon the side of its historic hill, the 
 Dunion, clings the steep street of this gallant 
 old Border town. Picturesque and irregular, with 
 the castle at its head and the river crossing its 
 foot, the place was a fit home for the sturdy 
 burghers whose stout hearts made it famous. A 
 dozen times, in days gone by, was the stronghold 
 harried with fire and sword. But when the harry- 
 ing was over, the inhabitants, undaunted, only 
 gathered back again like wasps to their byke ; 
 and in Border battles to the last the shout of 
 " Jethart's here ! " heralded dire havoc and 
 slaughter. For the race who dwelt in Jedburgh 
 knew well, father and son, how to swing their 
 home-wrought battle-axes. 
 
 A rough-and-ready race these burghers were, as 
 suited their day. Deeds, not words, made judgment 
 here ; while so prompt was its execution that 
 
i6o BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 "Jethart justice" rose to be proverbial, and the 
 popular epigram spoke of the burgh as the place — 
 
 Where in the morn men hang and draw, 
 And sit in judgment after. 
 
 Here, in feudal times, the Border Warden dealt 
 March law. Close by the town, in August 1388, 
 gathered the forces for that raid into Northumber- 
 land which culminated on the moonlit field of 
 Otterbourne; and ten miles out to the south, over 
 the Dunion, lies Carter Ridge, the scene of the 
 conflict between the opposing wardens in 1575, 
 known in history and celebrated in song as " The 
 Raid of the Reidswire," one of the many contests 
 decided by the timely arrival of the burghers of 
 the Jed. 
 
 Among old customs which give a glimpse of the 
 temper of the townsfolk as reflected in the sports 
 of their children, remains to the present day the 
 somewhat rough pastime of " the callants' " or 
 " Candlemas ba'," played once a year through 
 the streets by the " doonies " and the " uppies " 
 among the schoolboys. Formerly the privilege of 
 throwing off' the first ball was given to the boy 
 who brought the largest offering to the rector of 
 
"JETHARTS HERE!" i6i 
 
 the grammar school ; but some years ago the School 
 Board abolished the custom. The last " king '' 
 was Master Celledge Halliburton. 
 
 Even among the memorials of the dead are to be 
 found traces of the masterful spirit of the Jethart 
 burghers. Just outside the great door of the Abbey 
 church lies the tombstone of one Thomas Winter, 
 architect and bailie of Jedburgh, whose inscrip- 
 tion concludes with the pious wish — " Whosoever 
 removes this stone, or causes it to be removed, may 
 he die the last of all his friends." 
 
 Allan Cunningham has a ballad on the fate of 
 a wandering minstrel of earlier times, which 
 affords a picture alike of the laughing merriment 
 and the sharp justice which characterised the life 
 of Jedburgh in days gone by. 
 
 RATTLING WILLIE. 
 
 Our Willie's away to Jeddart, 
 
 To dance on the rood-day ; 
 A sharp sword by his side, 
 
 A fiddle to cheer the way. 
 The joyous tharms o' his fiddle 
 
 Rob Rool had handled rude, 
 And Willie left New Mill banks 
 
 Red-wat wi' Robin's blude. 
 
 Our Willie's away to Jeddart ; 
 May ne'er the saints forbode 
 
i62 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 That ever sae merry a fellow 
 
 Should gang sae black a road ! 
 For Stobs and young Falnash, 
 
 They followed him up and down — 
 In the links of Ousenam Water 
 
 They found him sleeping soun'. 
 
 Now may the name of Elliot 
 
 Be cursed frae firth to firth ! 
 He has fettered the gude right hand 
 
 That keepit the land in mirth ; 
 That keepit the land in mirth. 
 
 And charmed maids' hearts frae dool ; 
 And sair will they want him, Willie, 
 
 When birks are bare at Yule. 
 
 The lasses of Ousenam Water 
 
 Are rugging and riving their hair. 
 And a' for the sake o' Willie — 
 
 They'll hear his sangs nae mair. 
 Nae mair to his merry fiddle 
 
 Dance Teviot's maidens free ; 
 My curses on their cunning 
 
 Wha gar'd sweet Willie dee ! 
 
 The hero of this ballad, whom Professor Veitch 
 thinks the same personage as Burns's ' Rattlin' 
 Roarin' Willie,' and the subject of a love song in 
 Herd's ' Ancient Scottish Ballads,' was, according to 
 Cunningham, " a noted ballad-maker and brawler," 
 whose "sword-hand was dreaded as much as his 
 
"JETHARTS HERE I" 163 
 
 bow-hand was admired.'" His fate was the result 
 of a quarrel with another minstrel, Robin of Rule 
 Water, on the respective qualities of their playing, 
 in which Robin was slain. Scott, in 'The Lay of 
 the Last Minstrel,' makes the old harper refer to 
 Willie as his master. 
 
 He knew each ordinance and clause 
 Of Black Lord Archibald's battle laws. 
 
 In the old Douglas day. 
 He brooked not, he, that scoffing tongue 
 Should tax his minstrelsy with wrong. 
 
 Or call his song untrue. 
 For this, when they the goblet plied. 
 And such rude taunt had chafed his pride. 
 
 The bard of ReuU he slew. 
 On Teviot's side in fight they stood. 
 And tuneful hands were stained with blood ; 
 Where still the thorn's white branches wave 
 Memorial o'er his rival's grave. 
 
 Why should I tell the rigid doom 
 That dragged my master to his tomb ; 
 
 How Ousenam's maidens tore their hair. 
 Wept till their eyes were dead and dim, 
 And wrung their hands for love of him 
 
 Who died at Jedwood Air ? 2 
 
 Without number, however, are the traditions of 
 the "Jethart justice" of old days. One instance 
 
 ■ Songs of Scotland,' 11., 337, 2 Canto IV., 34. 
 
i64 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 only may be quoted. On November 8, 1510, it is on 
 record that James IV. rode from Edinburgh to Jed- 
 burgh, and thence to the Rule Water, where he 
 seized certain Borderers whose reivings had been 
 pushed beyond sufferance. The men were brought 
 back to Jedburgh, and there, says the chronicler, 
 a number of them were forthwith "justified," i.e. 
 hanged.^ 
 
 At no time has the town long been left without 
 a glint of the light of history, from the day when 
 the Scots King Donald defeated Osbert of North- 
 umbria and the refugee Picts close by on the banks 
 of the Jed. The castle was a favourite residence of 
 the Scottish kings in the prosperous period before 
 the Wars of Independence. Here Malcolm IV., 
 " the Maiden," as he was called, grandson and 
 successor of the wise David I., died in 1165. 
 And here occurred the second marriage of Alex- 
 ander III., the last of the Celtic royal line.^ 
 
 Regarding this marriage a strange legend has 
 been handed down, which exhibits in tangible 
 shape the national misgiving of that time, and 
 which, as an omen of disaster, forms a curious 
 
 1 See Bishop Lesley's ' History,' Bann. Club, p. 81. 
 
 2 Origines Parochiales Scotia, I., 377. 
 
••JETH ART'S HERE I" 165 
 
 parallel to the legend of the apparition which was 
 seen, in St Michael's Kirk at Linlithgow, by 
 James IV. and his court before the departure for 
 Flodden. 
 
 Alexander III., the last of his house, was 
 widowed and childless, and the succession to his 
 throne depended upon the fragile life of his grand- 
 daughter, the infant Princess of Norway. The 
 king, accordingly, was urged to marry again, and, 
 yielding to the solicitations of his nobles, he at last 
 espoused Joleta, daughter of the Count of Dreux. 
 The nuptials, as has been said, were celebrated at 
 Jedburgh, and on the evening of the marriage day, 
 the 14th of October, 1285, the rejoicings culminated 
 in a great masked ball in the Abbey. In honour of 
 the occasion the nobles and prelates of Scotland put 
 forth their best efforts. Celtic and Cymric, Saxon and 
 Norman chivalry — all the different elements of the 
 kingdom, as yet unfused into one nation by the Wars 
 of Independence — contributed to make up the mag- 
 nificent spectacle. And in the midst, with his bride, 
 appeared Alexander himself, the wise statesman 
 and warlike king, who, twenty years earlier, at 
 the great Battle of Largs, had freed Scotland for 
 ever from the encroachment of her ancient foes, the 
 
i66 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Norse. Never had so magnificent an assembly 
 been seen before in Scotland. The occasion was 
 auspicious, and, perceiving in the event of the day 
 fair promise that their fears for the consequences 
 of a disputed succession would presently be set at 
 rest, the Scottish lords, it may be imagined, unbent 
 to the gaiety of the hour ; and courtly smiles and 
 gallant speeches surrounded the fair young queen 
 from whom so much was expected. It was when 
 the stately revels were at their height, and the 
 pageant on the floor of the Abbey was at its 
 gayest, that suddenly, to the awe of the onlookers, 
 there became visible the apparition of a ghastly 
 figure. It glided silently amid the throng, seemed 
 to join for some moments in the dance, and then 
 vanished as silently and swiftly as it had appeared.^ 
 This omen, occurring when it did, was regarded as 
 a dark presage of troubles which were presently to 
 descend upon the kingdom — a foreboding which 
 was all too certainly fulfilled. In the following 
 year, by the fall of Alexander III. over the cliffs at 
 Kinghorn, Scotland was plunged into the longest 
 and most devastating of all its wars. 
 
 ' Fordun's 'Scotichronicon,' lib. x. ch. 40. The tradition is 
 recounted by Boece. 
 
•■JETHARTS HERE!" 167 
 
 High behind Jedburgh, over the Dunion, on 
 the cliff above the river at the farm of Lintalee, 
 lie the remains of the impregnable camp held in 
 Bruce's time by "the good Lord James" of 
 Douglas. Barbour describes it in his famous 
 historic poem. 
 
 Now spek we of the Lord of Douglas 
 That left to kep the marchis was. 
 He gert set wrychtls that war sleye' 
 And in the halche ^ of Lyntail^ 
 He gert thaim mak a fayr maner : 
 And quhen the howssis biggit wer ' 
 He gert purway him rycht weill thar ; 
 For he thowcht to mak ane infar * 
 And to mak gud cher till his men.* 
 
 From this eyrie again and again Douglas sallied, 
 at every sally dealing some deadly blow to the 
 enemies of his country, till he had not only 
 brought all the eastern Border to the king of 
 Scotland's peace, but till the mere mention of his 
 name had become a terror: 
 
 The drede of the Lord of Dowglas, 
 And his renoune, sa scalit ^ was 
 Throw-out the marchis of Ingland, 
 
 1 Wrights that were skilful. 2 haugh, meadow. 8 were built. 
 
 i house-warming. 6 The Bruce, xi. 333. 8 scattered, spread. 
 
168 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 That all that thar-in war wonnand^ 
 Dread him as the fell dewill of hell ; 
 And yeit haf Ik herd oft-syss ^ tell 
 That he sa gretly dred wes than 
 That quhen wiwys walde childre ban 
 Thai wald, rycht with an angry face, 
 Betech" thaim " to the Blak Douglas." 
 
 After an alien occupation of several years, the 
 burghers themselves, Spartan-like, stormed and 
 destroyed Jedburgh Castle in 1409, swearing that 
 their enemies, the English, should never keep a 
 garrison again in their town.* The six bastille 
 houses built then in the castle's stead have also 
 long ago disappeared, though in 1523 they, along 
 with the Abbey, still held out when Norfolk and 
 Dacre had stormed and burned the town. The 
 site of the castle is now marked by the dark walls 
 of the battlemented prison. 
 
 Like a gleam of sunshine through the driving 
 storm of Jedburgh story is the episode of Queen 
 Mary's visit here. Whether one read in it the 
 unreflecting chivalry of the generous Stuart blood, 
 or, as her detractors fain would do, the flame-gust 
 of a guilty passion, there remains about it that 
 
 1 dweUing. 2 oftimes. 8 commit. 
 
 i Fordun's ' Scotichronicon,' lib. xv. ch. 21. 
 
-JETHART'S HERE/" 169 
 
 charm of romance which ever followed the footsteps 
 of the fair, unfortunate queen. Mary, the story 
 runs, was holding a court of justice in Jedburgh, 
 when tidings arrived that her warden. Lord 
 Bothwell, had, in the execution of Border duty, 
 been wounded seriously in the hand. One can 
 imagine a hundred thoughts as the Queen's at 
 the news. The Royal authority itself had been 
 insulted in the person of its warden — it was the 
 Royal hand which should vindicate the outrage. 
 Perhaps, alas ! the more tender fear of a woman's 
 heart was there. The Stuart race, however, 
 were ever prompt in action, and, whatever may 
 have been her thoughts, she did exactly what 
 her father, the gallant Fifth James, would have 
 done — closed Court, took horse, and rode to the 
 scene of trouble. Hermitage, where Lord Bothwell 
 lay, was twenty miles distant, and she rode there 
 and back in the same afternoon. No wonder that 
 her strength was exhausted. In a thatched and 
 steep-roofed old house at the town foot, now being 
 fitted up as a storehouse of Border relics, is still 
 to be seen the room where she lay ill for some 
 weeks afterwards. They keep yet, in an attic 
 there, the tattered remains of her chamber arras. 
 
170 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 It is a quaint old house, with low stone passages 
 and small deep-set windows, an escutcheon being 
 still legible above the door ; and it is not difficult 
 to imagine the fair young queen — she was only 
 twenty-four — in the early days of her convalescence, 
 moving about that sunny riverside garden, with 
 the solicitous chivalry of all her little court about 
 her. Once, at least, amid her later troubles the 
 memory of that time came back, and in bitterness 
 of heart she is said to have exclaimed, " Would 
 that I had died at Jedburgh!" 
 
 There is another garden somewhere about Jed- 
 burgh — the garden of that " Esther, a very remark- 
 able woman," who could " recite Pope's ' Homer ' 
 from end to end," whom Burns, on his Border 
 tour, was taken to see. There, as he relates in his 
 diary, he walked apart with that " sweet Isabella 
 Lindsay," in the pleasure of whose conversation — 
 " chit-chat of the tender kind " — the poet discovered 
 that he was " still nearly as much tinder as ever." 
 There he gave her a proof print of his likeness, 
 and records that he was thanked with "something 
 more tender than gratitude." In fact, it was evi- 
 dently the scene of a very pretty little love-affair. 
 
 In Jedburgh to the present day the Queen's 
 
"JETHARTS HERE!" 171 
 
 judges hold assize ; and it was here that the 
 young advocate Walter Scott made his first 
 appearance as a pleader in a criminal court. It 
 is recorded that he got off his man, a veteran 
 poacher, and that when, on hearing the verdict, 
 he whispered to the fellow, " You're a lucky- 
 scoundrel ! " he was naively answered, " I'm just 
 o' your mind, and I'll send ye a maukin [hare] 
 the morn, man." 
 
 Wordsworth once lodged in Jedburgh — the house 
 is pointed out ; ' and on the eve of his raid into 
 England, in November, 1745, in the flush of his 
 hopes and on the curling foam -crest of his fortunes, 
 the last of the lineal Stuart race, Prince Charles 
 Edward, stayed a night or two in the town. The 
 place claims a line as well in the history of 
 science, for it was the birthplace of Sir David 
 Brewster. 
 
 Not the least touching, if perhaps the most 
 recent literary interest of Jedburgh is its connection 
 
 1 Upon that occasion, " in a fine, grey, breezy autumnal 
 afternoon," his law business in the circuit court being over, 
 Scott, who had just met the Lake poet for the first time, 
 escorted him and his sister Dorothy to explore the valley of 
 the Jed and the ruins of Fernihirst. — Lockhart's 'Life of 
 Scott.' 
 
172 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 with Thomas Davidson, who now, through his 
 'Life' by Dr James Brown, occupies a place as 
 the representative of a national type, the Scottish 
 Probationer, Davidson was born at Oxnam, a 
 few miles to the south of the town, and his family 
 lived for a time also at Ancrum, close by ; but 
 after his career of brilliant promise at college and 
 as a probationer, or licentiate of the church, it was 
 to his father's later cottage of Bankend, close to 
 Jedburgh that he came home to die. Most of his 
 letters — the letters which lend such distinctive charm 
 to his biography — were written from this cottage ; 
 and here at last occurred the final episode of his 
 life. Davidson's connection with Alison Dunlop 
 — the beautiful love-story which forms one of the 
 most touching features of the Probationer's career 
 — was altogether unknown to his nearest relatives 
 till he was on his death-bed. At last, however, 
 when it was too late, the secret was disclosed, 
 and she was sent for. She arrived from Edin- 
 burgh on the day after his death, when the 
 passionate up -breaking of her highly - wrought 
 nature was a revelation even to the sorrowing 
 parents. As the old father himself has since 
 described it, " Sic grief was never seen." 
 
••JETHARTS HERE!" 173 
 
 Davidson, with true poetic feeling, had sung the 
 charm, the spell of the Border hills, and in his 
 lines, ' And there will I be buried,' he put into 
 words the last instinct of the Borderer : — 
 
 Tell me not the good and wise 
 
 Care not where their dust reposes — 
 That to him in death who lies 
 
 Rocky beds are even as roses. 
 I've been happy above ground ; 
 
 I can never be happy under, 
 Out of gentle Teviot's sound ; 
 
 Part us not, then, far asunder. 
 Lay me here where I may see 
 
 Teviot round his meadows flowing, 
 And around and over me 
 
 Winds and clouds for ever going.' 
 
 Even down to recent times, Jedburgh has 
 ecclesiastical associations of no small importance. 
 It was in the Grammar School here that the 
 famous Samuel Rutherford learned his letters ; and 
 Jedburgh was the scene of the labours of the 
 younger Boston, one of the founders of the Relief 
 Kirk in 1757. 
 
 But towering grey and venerable above all the 
 roofs of the town, halfway up the steep main 
 
 1 ' The Life of a Scottish Probationer,' by Dr James Brown, 
 p. 264. 
 
174 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 street, rises the ruin of the ancient abbey. Sur- 
 rounded by pleasant, old-fashioned houses, with 
 quiet gardens, where yellow and pink roses are 
 ailower upon the walls, that great carved cross, 
 mute record of the aspirations of ages long for- 
 gotten, raises its sculptured sides in an inclosure 
 of ancient graves. For three hundred and fifty 
 years the rising sun has kissed these broken 
 cornices, and the rain and dew have wept upon 
 that desecrated altar, as if in pity for the glowing 
 souls whose dreams of sculptured beauty are, 
 with these crumbling walls, sinking to decay. 
 The vandal has been here, as at Melrose, and 
 has broken in pieces the beauty he was too rude 
 to understand. But time, with healing touch, 
 has wrought a fuller beauty and meaning than 
 before into the place. Of yore, no doubt, a 
 stillness strange and sweet must have fallen upon 
 the spirit of the warlike burgher of the town as 
 once in a while he knelt on the quiet pavement, 
 while, from afar within, rose, amid the shadows, 
 the chime of censers and the chant of priests. 
 But no less to-day, with its added memories of blood 
 and fire, and its silent lesson of the centuries, 
 does the abbey remain a place for reverent thought. 
 
"JETHARTS HERE!" 175 
 
 The white-stoled Premonstratensian monks of Jed- 
 burgh were men of war as well as of religion, and 
 more than once the great square tower of their 
 abbey played the part of a fortress. It was, how- 
 ever, finally stormed by Evers in 1544, and the 
 marks of its burning may yet be seen on the 
 blackened walls. 
 
 Below, in the transept of the abbey, lies the 
 sculptured tomb of the last Marquis of Lothian 
 — a bearded Apollo carved in stone ; and at its 
 foot stands a Runic slab which may have lain 
 upon the tomb of the Marquis's Druid forefathers. 
 For there is reason to believe that the Cars, or 
 Kers, though their name appears on the Norman 
 Roll of Battle Abbey, may count back beyond 
 Norman and Saxon invasions, to a Cymric an- 
 cestry.* From the tower top of the abbey can 
 be seen, two miles away, on the woody edge of 
 the Jed valley, the castle of Fernihirst, feudal 
 home of the family, who were staunch allies 
 long ago of the burghers of the town. Many 
 a signal passed in bygone days between the feudal 
 castle and the abbey tower, when the significant 
 
 1 See ' Border History and Poetry,' ist ed., p. 115. 
 
176 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 gleam of helm and spear was seen in the glades 
 of the forest around. 
 
 The high banks of the Jed on the way to 
 Fernihirst look their richest when tapestried 
 with the reds and browns and dark greens 
 of their autumn foliage. Doves, white and 
 grey, wheel about them ; and in the redstone cliffs 
 which here and there show themselves, are to be 
 seen several caves which were used, like those at 
 Ancrum and in Roslin glen, for refuge in Border 
 warfare. Here in the narrow green meadow be- 
 tween road and river, its huge branches propped 
 from the ground, stands the famous Capon oak, last 
 remnant of the ancient Jed forest. The American 
 visitor writes his name on its gnarled bark to-day ; 
 but Alexander III. may have winded his hunting- 
 horn here before America was dreamed of, as the 
 stag stood at bay below these branches; and it is 
 just possible that its seedling stem shot up green 
 leaves in the forest before Herod was Tetrarch of 
 Galilee. Above, against the sky, on the cliff edge, 
 hangs Lintalee with its memories ; and a second 
 glance is not needed to show how well-chosen the 
 spot was for the purpose of its occupant. Here, 
 under the open heaven, after burning his own castle 
 
••JETHART'S HERE!" 177 
 
 about English ears, the Good Lord James certainly 
 had his preference, rather " to hear the lark sing 
 than the mouse squeak." 
 
 Scenes and associations like these seem to 
 ask for, if they be not enough to make, a poet ; 
 and it is no marvel to know that down the road 
 here to school in Jedburgh from Southdean Manse, 
 six miles away, used to trudge, nigh two hundred 
 years ago, James Thomson, the boy who was 
 afterwards to immortalise the beauties of the 
 valley in his poem of 'Autumn.' The scenery of 
 the district, indeed, is to be traced constantly in 
 Thomson's poetry, and once at least he refers to 
 it directly. Describing Scotland, he mentions — 
 
 Her forests huge, 
 Incult, robust, and tall, by Nature's hand 
 Planted of old ; her azure lakes between, 
 Poured out extensive, and of watery wealth 
 Full ; winding deep and green, her fertile vales, 
 With many a cool, translucent, brimming flood 
 Washed lovely, from the Tweed, pure parent stream. 
 Whose pastoral banks first heard my Doric reed, 
 With sylvan Jed, thy tributary brook, 
 To where the north-inflated tempest foams. 
 
 No less did this sylvan valley inspire the strains of 
 the later Border poet Leyden, whose description of 
 
178 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 its winter aspect in his ' Scenes of Infancy,' might 
 take place alongside some of the finest passages of 
 the minstrel of the 'Seasons.' 
 
 Grey among the woods on the right bank towers 
 the donjon of Fernihirst, and probably it would 
 be impossible to find a more typical example of a 
 Borderer's stronghold and its history. Above the 
 iron-studded door in the deserted courtyard is still 
 to be traced in worn stone the escutcheon of the 
 place's masters. Often has that courtyard rung 
 with the hoofs of hostile steeds, and the stone door- 
 lintels echoed to the swinging battle-axe. For they 
 were a stormy race, these Kers, and the castle was 
 constantly the scene of attack and reprisal. Hither 
 came home the jolly baron, driving the beeves 
 from Northumberland to be roasted whole in his 
 huge fireplace, the width of the vaulted kitchen. 
 And hither, when the captives were groaning in 
 these grim dungeons, and while in the "halls of 
 grey renown" the revel and rude cheer were at 
 their height, came thundering at the gate the 
 furious owners of the beeves. Cracked crowns 
 unnumbered were got here, and the red blood 
 spirted joyously over many a shirt of mail. High 
 overhead, where the sun strikes the tower, the 
 
•■JETHARTS HERE!" 179 
 
 blood - red spray of Virginia creeper clinging 
 to the parapet might well be the stain of the 
 costly torrent which more than once poured 
 down these walls. Many a life it cost Lord 
 Dacre, when, from the burning of Jedburgh, 
 he rode out to take the place in September, 
 1523. On that occasion, even after the castle was 
 taken, the Borderers managed to cut loose every 
 horse the victors had, to the number of fifteen 
 hundred — women and men alike seizing them and 
 galloping off to the north. Six years later, the 
 Lord of Fernihirst was one of those imprisoned by 
 way of precaution when James V. rode out to 
 "lay" the Border. Here, in 1549, D'Ess6, 
 the French general, took dire vengeance on an 
 alien garrison for their dark deeds among the 
 defenceless women of the countryside.' And Ker 
 of Fernihirst appears a few years afterwards as 
 one of the most gallant defenders of Queen Mary. 
 Doubtless more than once was Mary herself enter- 
 tained within these walls. 
 
 Not only in feudal times, however, but in all ages 
 has this Borderland been deluged with blood. Only 
 a mile and a half to the east of Fernihirst, at 
 
 1 Ridpath's ' Border History,' p. 567. 
 
i8o BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Scraesburgh, lie the traces of a Saxon camp, 
 made, probably, when that nation came to fight the 
 British Arthur; while the remains of a Roman 
 encampment — another northward-looking eyrie of 
 these old-time eagles of the south — are to be seen 
 at Monklaw, the end of the hill-crest between 
 Teviot and Jed. Every foot of the ground, indeed, 
 recalls some memory of its own. Here the chant 
 of the Runic priests has been silenced by the 
 trampling of the Roman legions. Here, half- 
 mystical amid the dimness of the early centuries, 
 has ridden the glittering Arthurian chivalry, 
 retreating by degrees before the north - rolling 
 waves of Saxon and Viking arms. Here, 
 far - seen by night across the Border, have 
 blazed the lurid watch - fires of the Douglas 
 — warding for his master the gate of the 
 Scottish kingdom. And here, spurred south- 
 ward on romantic quest, has sped the fleet white 
 palfrey of a fair, fate-followed Queen. The wan- 
 derer to-day in the little valley of the Jed may 
 find, at any rate, suggestions enough of the storied 
 past to occupy his thoughts during the quiet hours 
 of a summer afternoon. 
 
THE GYPSY CAPITAL. 
 
 A QUAINT interest peculiar to itself hangs 
 about this old-world village on the northern 
 slope of the Cheviot Hills. The home of that 
 mysterious nomad race who came in the Middle 
 Ages no man knows whence, Yetholm possesses an 
 attraction of its own for the Bohemian instincts 
 of the wanderer. The road to it out of the west, 
 too, lies through a lovely country, whose every nook 
 and spot has some historic memory. From the 
 valley of the Jed, south-eastwards among quiet 
 pastoral hills, the wanderer may linger upcyi the 
 ancient Roman road, forsaken by its builders 
 fifteen centuries ago ; and, if his senses be keen 
 enough, he may hear there still, far off as an echo 
 through the ages, the tramp of the departing legions. 
 Weed and brier have made the " Watling Street" 
 a wilderness, and for miles at places it is trodden 
 now only by the straying feet of rustic lovers. 
 
i82 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Then there are paths to be followed down secluded 
 lanes, where yellow straw from passing harvest carts 
 has caught in the high hedges among the crimson 
 haws; and where wild raspberries grow thickly 
 under the woods amid dark -green broom and 
 tangles of the scarlet-hipped dog-rose. 
 
 In the little village of Crailing the pedestrian, 
 meeting cherry-cheeked children in pinafores and 
 satchels coming in twos and threes from school, 
 may recall, as a contrast to the place's present 
 state of peace, a dark day's work that happened 
 there in 1570. On the night of Regent Murray's 
 assassination, Ker of Fernihirst and Scott of 
 Buccleugh had made a raid into the Border 
 counties of England ; whereupon Lord Sussex, 
 with the troops of Elizabeth, marched, burning 
 and slaying, into the lands of these barons ; and, 
 coming upon the tower of Lord Ker's mother, 
 in the village there, committed it to the flames, 
 and its inhabitants to the last indignities at the 
 hands of the rude soldiery. The place was the 
 chief seat of the ancient Border family of Cranstoun. 
 
 Close by Crailing lies the little hamlet of Eckford. 
 It is musical now with village sounds — the tinkle 
 of the smithy, the hammering of the cartwright, 
 
THE cypSK CAPITAL. 183 
 
 and the low of kine ; but there, too, nevertheless, 
 in bygone days, has passed the trail of fire and 
 blood. It was one of the places burnt by Ralph 
 Evers under the filibustering commission of Henry 
 VIII. in 1544, when the English king was seeking 
 by such gentle means to induce the Scots lords 
 to wed their infant Queen Mary to his son. 
 
 Several legends of the village, of another but 
 not less typical character, are recounted by Sir 
 George Douglas in his ' New Border Tales.' One 
 of these, like so many village traditions in 
 Scotland, refers to Sabbath - breaking and the 
 fate of the Sabbath - breakers. Many years ago, 
 it appears, there dwelt at Eckford a certain 
 sceptical and independent blacksmith. In every 
 way but one he is said to have been an exemplary 
 workman. The single exception arose from his 
 conduct on the Sabbath. Sunday after Sunday, 
 as the country folk passed to church, they saw 
 the smith at work, his bellows blowing and his 
 hammer ringing on the anvil as on any other 
 day of the week. These proceedings were not 
 only shocking to his church -going neighbours, 
 and felt by his competitors in the countryside as 
 the taking of a mean advantage over them, but 
 
184 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 were looked upon as likely to draw upon the 
 perpetrator the actual wrath of Heaven. The 
 smith meanwhile paid as little attention to the 
 indignation of the passers-by as to the possibility 
 of supernatural interference. A day of reckoning, 
 however, came at last. One Sunday morning, as 
 the country-folk passed to church, they saw the 
 smith in his leathern apron, busy as usual over 
 the glowing metal ; the sparks, if anything, flying 
 faster from his stroke, and the anvil ringing 
 more defiantly than ever. But a few hours later, 
 when the sermon was over and the villagers 
 came out of kirk, neither smith nor smithy, nor 
 a vestige of their belongings, was anywhere to 
 be seen. The spot where the smithy had stood 
 — near the south-west corner of the field to the 
 west of the manse — had become a bog. Nothing 
 was ever again seen of the smith, his wife, and 
 family, who had all disappeared ; but many years 
 afterwards, when the bog was at last drained, 
 the fate of the sceptical and self-sufficient work- 
 man was put beyond all doubt by the discovery 
 of a smith's anvil.^ 
 
 'A version of this legend, Sir George Douglas informs the 
 present writer, was printed in one of the numbers of a short- 
 lived periodical called The Border Counties Magazine. 
 
THE GYPSY CAPITAL 185 
 
 Another incident, somewhat less mysterious, of 
 the punishment of sacrilegious transgression, is 
 chronicled of the same neighbourhood. It was in 
 the year 1829, when, after the revelation of the 
 Burke and Hare murders, whispers of the doings of 
 the "resurrectionists," or stealers of the dead, were 
 exciting horror and fear throughout the country. 
 On a night of late autumn a young packman, known, 
 on account of his smart and well-to-do personal 
 appearance, by the soubriquet of Dandy Jim, was 
 passing Eckford churchyard. He had been visit- 
 ing a sweetheart in the neighbourhood, and, as 
 frequently happens upon such tender occasions, 
 had been detained somewhat late. The moon, 
 however, had not yet risen, and the night was 
 dark. The packman was not much given to 
 superstitious fears, but as he passed the church- 
 yard his attention was arrested by a mysterious 
 light which appeared and disappeared among the 
 graves. He stood still to make out what the 
 appearance might mean ; and presently he saw 
 the light again, and heard a curse and certain 
 other sounds, which led him to believe that a 
 body which had been buried there on the day 
 before was in process of being exhumed. Stealing 
 
i86 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 along the churchyard wall, in order to arrive 
 nearer the scene of operations, he suddenly came 
 in contact with a horse and gig. Upon this 
 discovery a happy idea occurred to him. He 
 untied the horse from the fence, and with a kick 
 in the ribs sent it galloping off across country ; 
 then, while the terrified " resurrectionists " were 
 hastening to secure their steed again, he leapt the 
 wall, removed the corpse from the black wrapping 
 in which it had been rolled for removal, and 
 substituted himself in its place. His subsequent 
 adventure in the hands of the body - stealers 
 culminated at a lonely part of the road near the 
 village of Maxwellheugh. By the time they had 
 proceeded so far, the packman had discovered 
 his carriers to be a couple of dissolute tailors 
 from Greenlaw, nicknamed respectively " the 
 Rabbit " and " the Hare." Moreover, as they 
 proceeded with their burden between them in the 
 gig, he had become aware, from various symptoms, 
 that the courage of the two thieves was ebbing 
 rapidly. 
 
 " At last," says the recorder of the incident, " the 
 Rabbit, whose condition for some reason or other, 
 had for some time past been growing more and 
 
THE GYPSY CAPITAL. 187 
 
 more acutely distressing, could bear it in silence 
 no longer, but broke out wildly — 
 
 '"Hare! I'll take an oath before a Justice of 
 the Peace I felt the body stir ! ' 
 
 " But the Hare's distress was even more 
 extreme than that of his associate. 
 
 " ' Rabbit, man ! Rabbit, man ! ' murmured he, 
 in the hushed and solemn tones of dire mental 
 tribulation, ' my mind misgives me, my mind 
 misgives me, but we ha'e mista'en our man. 
 They must ha' buried this one alive, I'm thinking ; 
 for, as I'm a living sinner, the corp is warm!' 
 
 " This was the moment for which Jim had 
 patiently waited. He now slowly lifted the cloth 
 which was about his face, and spoke in such 
 sepulchral tones as he was able to command — 
 
 " ' Warm, do you say ? And pray, what would 
 you be if ye came frae where I ha'e been ? * 
 
 "The Hare saw the supposed dead body move. 
 To his heated imagination its action, as it uncovered 
 its face, bore a hideous resemblance to that of a 
 dead man rising from the grave at the last day. 
 He heard the sepulchral tones which addressed 
 to him by name a pertinent and suggestive query; 
 and he waited for no more. With, a bound, like 
 
i88 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 jack-in-the-box, he leapt from the gig, cleared the 
 fence which bounded the road upon his side, and 
 in a moment afterwards was racing for his life 
 across the open ground of Spylaw. At the same 
 instant ' the Rabbit ' on his side slid to the ground, 
 scrambled through the hedge, and made for the 
 covert of the High Wood of Springwood Park as 
 fast as his short legs would carry him." 
 
 Meanwhile the packman, after a hearty laugh, 
 put the horse's head about and drove merrily 
 home, having by his strategy become possessor 
 of the unclaimed horse and gig, and at the same 
 time discovered enough to frustrate a widely 
 organised conspiracy of body-snatching.' 
 
 Such is the story of the "resurrectionists" con- 
 nected with Eckford churchyard, and it is here 
 given at some length, as affording a typical 
 example of the kind of local tradition of more 
 modern times current in village and hamlet 
 everywhere throughout the country. 
 
 Hanging by the kirk door at Eckford, as by 
 the gate at Abbotsford, may still be seen the 
 "jougs," or iron collar, used here in former days 
 
 1 See 'The New Border Tales' by Sir George Douglas, Bart., 
 1892. 
 
THE GYPSY CAPITAL. 189 
 
 chiefly as a punishment for those who came 
 under church discipline. The last person upon 
 whom they were inflicted, being short of stature, it 
 appears, slipped from the stone upon which he 
 was mounted; and when, at the usual point of the 
 service, the beadle came to conduct him before 
 the congregation for ministerial admonition, was 
 found hanged. After that tragic occurrence the 
 punishment of the "jougs" was given up. 
 
 Beyond Eckford the road winds up by the Kale 
 Water, one of the districts laid waste by Ralph 
 Evers in 1544, and by Sussex in 1570, upon which 
 latter occasion it is recorded that thirty Scots 
 were slain, and the Moss Tower smoked very son} 
 The Water is famous at the present day among 
 anglers. 
 
 The valley of the stream further on, the Bow- 
 mont water, which comes down among the 
 hills to the right of the road, is the scene of 
 another characteristic tradition — one of those 
 strange Border legends which in other days 
 would have been woven by some wandering 
 minstrel into a ballad. It is the story of a 
 shepherd's daughter, the beauty of the district, 
 
 1 Dalzell's • Fragments.' Ridpath, p. 635. 
 
igo BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 who, after slighting the love of all the lads of the 
 neighbourhood, gave her heart to a somewhat 
 forbidding and mysterious stranger. The tradition 
 runs that on keeping tryst with this lover one 
 night in a lonely glen, she arrived before the 
 appointed hour ; and, having climbed for caprice 
 into a tree to see how he would bear her delay, 
 she beheld him deliberately dig her grave. The 
 wood — some say the actual tree — at which the 
 incident occurred is still pointed out ; and the 
 truth of the story is vouched for by the fact that 
 a lady, a member of one of the noble families 
 of the district, personally knew a daughter or 
 grand- daughter of the girl.^ 
 
 At this point last night, as the Cheviots rose in 
 front — grey, rounded hills and far-lying valleys — 
 the sun went down in the yellow autumn sky 
 behind ; and presently could be felt the cool air 
 of night, champagny and full of strong life, blowing 
 bold and free out of the mountains. -The keeps of 
 old Border barons were to be seen from the road — 
 Corbet Tower and the fortalice of the Kers of 
 Cessford — grim memorials of the feudal past, and 
 of the strong hands that were needed once to hold 
 
 1 See ' The Broken Tryst ' in ' The New Border Tales." 
 
THE GYPSY CAPITAL. igi 
 
 their own among these hills. After passing the 
 village of Morebattle — itself mentioned more than 
 once in the records of Border warfare — the way 
 ran under trees, and the road became higher 
 and more lonely in the darkness, under the dim 
 and distant sparkle of the stars. At last a light 
 here and there began to gleam in the valley to 
 the right, and presently, far in front, appeared 
 the shining inn lantern of the Gypsy village. 
 
 It was too dark and late then for seeing anything 
 of Yetholm, and, as the hamlet was approached, 
 under the shadows of night, there was room for 
 all sorts of imaginings as to the life that might 
 be found in so romantic a spot. Here, if any- 
 where on the Borders, something ought to remain 
 of the free, rough existence of long ago, with 
 perhaps a touch added of Eastern picturesque- 
 ness. Might there not be the ruddy gleam of 
 camp fires at the doors of turfy huts, the savoury 
 smell of unpaid-for supper in the air, and dusky- 
 featured men and women moving among the lights 
 and shadows? Might there not be laughter and 
 merriment, the accents of a strange tongue, the 
 glimpse of some Gypsy beauty? All these possi- 
 bilities were dispelled, however, when mine host 
 
192 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 of the Swan explained that, owing to the recent 
 laws against vagrancy, the Gypsies have all but 
 disappeared even from their own village of Kirk- 
 Yetholm ; while as for Town-Yetholm here, divided 
 from the other by the Bowmont Water, it never 
 was a Gypsy village at all. 
 
 And as the mountain mists begin to rise, and 
 the sun every moment shines more brightly in a 
 sky of deepening blue, the details of the spot can 
 be made out. A gunshot up the mountain side 
 opposite clusters the Gypsy "town," the more 
 ancient and interesting of the two villages. Its 
 low mossy -roofed "biggins'" are scattered pictur- 
 esquely about the irregular village green — the 
 thatched inn, with swinging sign, standing a 
 little out from the rest ; and altogether, with the 
 mountain ascending still dark and dewy above, it is 
 probably, as it stands at the present day, a fair 
 example of the ancient Border hamlet. 
 
 The nearness of the dividing line between 
 England and Scotland was doubtless in bygone 
 days deemed a great advantage by the dwellers 
 here. By the road up the hillside at hand, any 
 one who might be " wanted " could escape the 
 arm of Scots justice in less than half an hour; 
 
THE GYPSY CAPITAL. 193 
 
 and the spot would form a convenient retreat for 
 refugees from the English side. For here dwelt 
 Ishmael. 
 
 A nomad race like the Arabs, these wanderers 
 journeyed hither as to a Mecca. For at Yetholm 
 they had a sovereign — a potentate who ruled by the 
 divine right of the quick brain and the strong arm. 
 
 A race without a literature and almost without a 
 history, the Gypsies, notwithstanding the researches 
 of science, and the sympathetic study of men like 
 George Borrow, remain to the present hour something 
 of a mystery in Europe. One thing ascertained 
 about them is, that throughout the countries of 
 western civilisation their language, though divided 
 into various dialects, is substantially one tongue, 
 which has been proved to be a Hindoo dialect.' 
 When or firom what part of India they came, how- 
 ever, remains unknown. One thing certain about 
 them is, that they were not Egyptians, as they once 
 professed, and were wont to be believed. From 
 the words embodied in their speech it is gathered 
 that they made their way into Europe through 
 Persia, Armenia, and Greece. Probably it was they 
 who were known in Greece in the times of Homer 
 
 'See Article 'Gipsies,' in Encyclopcedia Briitanica. 
 
 N 
 
194 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 and Strabo as 2tvTi£s or Stvrioi avSpes, and it 
 was probably they, descendants of the race of 
 Simon Magus, who at Constantinople in the nth 
 century are reported to have slain wild beasts by 
 their magic arts in the presence of Bagrat IV. In 
 Austria in the i2th century they were recognised 
 as the actual descendants of Hagar and Abraham. 
 Professing to be pilgrims of the Christian faith 
 thrust out of Egypt by the Saracens, they appeared 
 during the 15th century in bands before the walls 
 of one capital of Europe after another, generally 
 headed by a chief, mounted and gorgeously dressed, 
 who gave himself out to be Count, Earl, or Duke of 
 Little Egypt. So high, indeed, was the estimation 
 in which they were sometimes held, that one of 
 their " kings " was intenred with regal honour by the 
 side of Athelstane, at Malmesbury Abbey, in 1657. 
 In no country, however, were they better received 
 than in Scotland. As early as the time of William 
 the Lion (1165-1214) a Scottish charter has been 
 found containing mention of Tinklers. In 1505 
 James IV. gave Antonius Gagino, Count of Little 
 Egypt, a letter of commendation to the King of 
 Denmark ; and in 1540 James V. subscribed a writ in 
 favour of "oure louit Johnne Faa, Lord and Earle 
 
THE GYPSY CAPITAL. 
 
 I9S 
 
 of Littill Egipt," giving him jurisdiction of life and 
 death over his own people. In the following year, 
 however, their pilfering and turbulent disposition 
 having become a trouble to the country, they were 
 banished from the realm on pain of death ; and 
 several cases are on record in which, for contravening 
 this law, members of the clan were sentenced, the 
 men to be hanged, the women drowned, and such 
 of the latter as had children to be scourged through 
 the streets and burned in the cheek. Readers 
 of 'Quentin Durward' will remember the similar 
 summary treatment of Gypsies in France in the 
 time of Louis XL Notwithstanding such fearful 
 punishments, however, they appear to have remained 
 in the country — a merry, careless, good-humoured, 
 but passionate people — practising their arts of work- 
 ing in metal and horn, busying themselves with 
 horse-dealing and horse-stealing, and equally famous 
 for their proficiency in music and their profession of 
 ability to read the past and future of men's lives. 
 In 1530 it is on record, among the court festivities 
 of James V., that certain Gypsies " dansit before 
 the King in Halyrudhous." The latter pursuits 
 in particular were everywhere the profession of 
 the women. 
 
196 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 Here in Kirk - Yetholm, sometime towards the 
 end of the 17th century, was born Jean Gordon, 
 wife of the Gipsy chief Patrick Faa, who survives 
 for the reading world in the person of Meg Merrilees 
 in ' Guy Mannering.' Her fate and the fate of her 
 family aiford an example of the treatment too often 
 suffered as well as deserved. For burning the house 
 of Greenhead, her husband, Patrick Faa, was 
 whipped through Jedburgh, stood for half-an-hour 
 at the cross with his ear nailed to a post, had both 
 ears cut off, and was finally transported to the 
 American plantations. In 1747 her son, Alexander 
 Faa, was murdered by another gipsy. The 
 murderer escaped from prison, but was dogged 
 from Scotland to Holland, and from Holland 
 to Ireland, by the murdered man's mother ; 
 and finally, at her instance, was brought to justice 
 on Jedburgh Gallowhill. Jean's other sons, after 
 many depredations, were hanged at Jedburgh 
 all on one day — their fate, it is said, being 
 decided by the casting vote of a juryman who had 
 slept throughout the discussion of the case, but who 
 suddenly waked up with the words, " Hang them 
 a' ! " Jean was present at the trial, and upon hearing 
 the verdict is said to have exclaimed " The Lord 
 
THE GYPSY CAPITAL. 
 
 197 
 
 help the innocent on a day like this ! " She herself 
 was finally ducked to death for her Jacobite leanings 
 by the cowardly rabble of Carlisle, continuing so 
 long as she could get her head above water to cry 
 out " Charlie yet ! Charlie yet." 
 
 Jean and her granddaughter, Madge Gordon, were 
 alike of imposing appearance, over six feet tall, 
 with bushy eyebrows, aquiline nose, and piercing 
 eyes, corresponding in all respects to what popular 
 imagination pictures as the proper bearing of a gypsy 
 queen. Scott in the preface to ' Guy Mannering ' 
 has put on record his own childish remembrance 
 of " a woman of more than female height, dressed 
 in a long red cloak, who once made her appearance 
 beneath the thatched roof of Sandy- Knowe, com- 
 menced acquaintance by giving him an apple," and 
 whom he looked on with unbounded awe. This 
 was Madge Gordon. 
 
 In the end of last century the chief of the Kirk- 
 Yetholm gypsies was a later descendant of Jean 
 Gordon, who rejoiced in the somewhat picturesque 
 title of Earl of Hell. It was he who once very 
 narrowly, by a mere lucky leniency of the jury, 
 was acquitted in the High Court of Justiciary, 
 and whom the judge in consequence informed 
 
igS BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 significantly that he had that day " rubbit 
 shouthers wi' the gallows," and warned not to 
 venture the experiment again. 
 
 The different tribes of gypsies, no less than the 
 different clans among whom they dwelt, had 
 feudal combats among themselves. One of these 
 battles occurred on ist October, 1677, near the 
 house of Romanno in Tweeddale. There the 
 Shaws and the Faas, on their way to fight the 
 rival Baillies and Browns, themselves fell out, 
 and fought to the death. Old Sandy Faa and 
 his wife, then about to give birth to a child, 
 were killed ; and another brother, George Faa, 
 desperately wounded ; for which transaction old 
 Robin Shaw and his three sons were hanged in 
 the Grassmarket at Edinburgh in the February 
 following. 
 
 Of Billy Marshall, afterwards the Gypsy king of 
 Galloway, a well-known story is told. He was serv- 
 ing in the ranks under Marlborough in Germany 
 in 1705, when one day he went to his commanding 
 officer, one of the M'GufFogs of Roscoe, an ancient 
 Galloway family, and asked if he had any message 
 for home. The officer inquired whether there was 
 any messenger going, whereupon Marshall answered 
 
THE GYPSY CAPITAL. igg 
 
 — Yes, he intended himself to be at Keltonhill Fair, 
 at which it had always been his rule to be present. 
 The officer, says Dr Chambers, who recounts the 
 story, knew his man, and Billy appeared at Kelton- 
 hill Fair as usual.^ 
 
 A gypsy enterprise of the romantic sort which 
 the popular mind attributes to that mysterious 
 people, furnishes the subject of one of the best 
 known ballads of Ayrshire, The scene of the ballad 
 was Cassillis House, on the banks of the Doon, 
 before whose door still stands the ancient Dule-Tree 
 or Tree of Sorrow. The heroine was some fair 
 and frail Countess of Cassillis, wife of a chief of 
 the Kennedys ; and tradition avers that "Johnnie 
 Faa," the leader of the gypsy band, was a young 
 knight. Sir John Fall, who had been her lover 
 before her marriage. 
 
 JOHNNIE FAA. 
 
 The gypsies cam' to our gude lord's yett, 
 
 And O but they sang sweetly ; 
 They sang sae sweet and sae very complete 
 
 That doun cam' our fair lady. 
 
 And she cam' tripping down the stair, 
 And all her maids before her ; 
 
 I Dr William Chambers' ' Exploits and Anecdotes of the 
 Scottish Gypsies,' Edinburgh, 1821. 
 
200 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 As soon as they saw her weel-faured face 
 They cuist the glamourye i o'er her. 
 
 " O come with me," says Johnnie Faa, 
 " O come with me, my dearie ; 
 For I vow and I swear, by the hilt of my sword. 
 That your lord shall nae mair come near ye." 
 
 Then she gi'ed them the red red wine, 
 
 And they gi'ed her the ginger ; 
 But she gi'ed them a far better thing, 
 
 The gowd ring aff her finger. 
 
 " Gae tak' frae me this gay mantle. 
 And bring to me a plaidie ; 
 For if kith and kin and a' had sworn, 
 I'll follow the gypsy laddie. 
 
 " Yestreen I lay in a weel-made bed, 
 Wi' my gude lord beside me ; 
 This night I'll lie in a tenant's barn. 
 Whatever shall betide me ! " 
 
 " O baud your tongue, my hinny and my heart ! 
 O haud your tongue, my dearie ! 
 For I vow and I swear by the moon and the stars. 
 That your lord shall nae mair come near ye." 
 
 But when our lord cam' hame at e'en, 
 
 And speired for his fair lady. 
 The ane she cried, and the other replied, 
 " She's awa' wi' the gypsy laddie ! " 
 
 ^ The gypsies have always been credited with the powers of 
 magical illusion, or hypnotism. 
 
THE GYPSY CAPITAL. 201 
 
 " Gae saddle to me the black black steed, 
 Gae saddle and mak' him ready ; 
 Before that I either eat or sleep 
 I'll gae seek my fair lady." 
 
 O we were fifteen weel-made men, 
 
 Although we werena bonnie ; 
 And we were a' put down for ane, 
 
 A fair young wanton lady. 
 
 According to tradition the lady when brought 
 back was first, by a refinement of cruelty, 
 compelled to witness from a window the dying 
 agonies of the gypsy party, including her 
 disguised lover, on the Dule-Tree ; she was then 
 divorced by her lord a mensa et thovo, and was 
 finally imprisoned for life in the castle of Maybole. 
 There to this day, far overhead above the street, 
 is pointed out the window of the room in which 
 she was confined, and in which she occupied her 
 leisure in working the story of her flight in 
 tapestry. The Earl in the meanwhile, it is said, 
 married another wife. 
 
 Of the wandering life of the race in more 
 recent times, a graphic picture is furnished by 
 Leyden in his ' Scenes of Infancy :' 
 
 On Yeta's banks the vagrant gypsies' place 
 Their turf-built cots ; a sun-burned, swarthy race ! 
 
202 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 From Nubian realms their tawny line they bring, 
 
 And their brown chieftain vaunts the name of king. 
 
 With loitering steps from town to town they pass, 
 
 Their lazy dames rocked on the paniered ass : 
 
 From pilfered roots, or nauseous carrion, fed. 
 
 By hedgerows green they strew the leafy bed. 
 
 While scarce the cloak of tawdry red conceals 
 
 The fine-turned limbs, which every breeze reveals. 
 
 Their bright black eyes through silken lashes shine ; 
 
 Around their necks their raven tresses twine ; 
 
 But chilling damps, and dews of night, impair 
 
 Its soft, sleek gloss, and tan the bosom bare. 
 
 Adroit the lines of palmistry to trace. 
 
 Or read the damsel's wishes in her face. 
 
 Her hoarded silver store they charm away, 
 
 A pleasing debt for promised wealth to pay. 
 
 But, in the lonely barn, from towns remote. 
 
 The pipe and bladder opes its screaking throat 
 
 To aid the revels of the noisy rout. 
 
 Who wanton dance, or push the cups about. 
 
 Then for their paramours the maddening brawl. 
 
 Shrill, fierce, and frantic, echoes through the hall. 
 
 No glimmering light to rage supplies a mark, 
 
 Save the red firebrand, hissing through the dark ; 
 
 And oft the beams of morn, the peasants say. 
 
 The blood-stained turf, and new-formed graves, display. 
 
 So late as the year 1878 Queen Victoria 
 was welcomed at Dunbar by a gypsy queen. 
 The latter is recorded to have been " dressed 
 in a black robe with white silk trimmings, and 
 over her shoulders a yellow handkerchief. Behind 
 her stood two other women, one of them notice- 
 
THE GYPSY CAPITAL. 203 
 
 able from her rich gown of purple velvet ; and 
 two stalwart men conspicuous by their scarlet 
 coats." 
 
 But now the last of the Romany queens 
 is dead — a woman who, says the swarthy inn- 
 keeper of Kirk-Yetholm, could read a man's 
 soul at a glance ; and there will probably never 
 be another.' The " deep " Romany blood is being 
 dulled by mixture with the Saxon strain, and 
 the old instincts are dying out. The little 
 slated cot of the queen, with its single window 
 and door, stands empty now and forsaken in its 
 own plot of ground at the head of the village — 
 a humble home, surely, for royalty. From its 
 door, nevertheless, as the morning mists slowly 
 melt and disappear under the spell of the sun, 
 there is a view discovered of rolling hill and 
 valley, of stream and farm, that fills the eye 
 with beauty and the heart with strong content. 
 With this before her, and, closer by, the dew of 
 the mountain glittering jewel-like on every grass 
 
 1 For an account of Queen Esther Faa-Blythe, her assump- 
 tion of the regal state, &c., as well as much else that is 
 interesting on the subject of the Gypsy race, see ' The Yetholm 
 History of the Gypsies,' by Joseph Lucas, Kelso, 1882. 
 
204 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 blade — amid the solemn stillness, the large hill 
 air, and the glad' sunshine, it may be surmised 
 that, perhaps, after all, the gypsy chose aright in 
 loving and preferring for her palace roof the arch 
 that had covered her race in all their wander- 
 ings — the blue dome of everlasting heaven. 
 
FLODDEN'S FATAL FIELD. 
 
 FEW even in summer-time are the pilgrims who 
 make their way to the scene of the over- 
 throw of James IV.; and as the days shorten 
 towards the end of autumn the paths to the spot 
 are trodden by fewer still. Yet here, next only 
 to Melrose itself, culminates the interest of the 
 storied and lonely Borderland, thick-strewn as the 
 region is with old-world memories. The disaster 
 of no other spot has made so deep a dint in the 
 shield of Scottish history; and the name of no 
 other field in Scotland, perhaps, has been so 
 often enshrined in sad and heroic song. Who is 
 there that has not been thrilled by the stirring 
 tale of Marmion, and who has not been touched 
 to something of the tenderness of long-past sorrow 
 by the lament for the Flowers of the Forest ? In 
 late autumn the foliage which clothes the fateful 
 hill assumes its richest glory of russet and red, 
 
2o6 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 and the air has an ambient clearness and pensive 
 softness unknown at other seasons of the year. 
 Nevertheless, the pedestrian travelling eastwards 
 towards Flodden in the latter end of October will 
 probably pass no other pilgrim on the road. 
 
 Fire and foray in ancient times have more than 
 once scorched most of the Borderside, and the 
 road descending from among the Cheviots along the 
 left bank of the Bowmont Water passes through 
 one of the districts laid waste in 1570 by Queen 
 Elizabeth's general, the Earl of Sussex, in the 
 campaign of retaliation already referred to. The 
 more peaceful it seems now by contrast — a finely 
 pastoral country, resonant only with the plaintive 
 bleating of sheep. Excepting this sound, indeed, 
 the region is strangely silent, impressing one with 
 its loneliness. Only at long intervals do farms 
 appear, nestling in the hollows, and hardly even a 
 solitary stone-breaker can be found by the way to 
 point out the spot where the road crosses the Border 
 into Northumberland. Far in front, untrodden by 
 any wayfarer, the highway is to be seen rising and 
 falling between crimson-hawed hedges, over hill and 
 dale. Even the ubiquitous tramp is to be met with 
 here but seldom. 
 
FLODDEN'S FATAL FIELD. 207 
 
 It. is shortly after passing a graveyard, tangle- 
 grown and man-forsaken, forgotten like the dead 
 who lie in it, that the road for Flodden turns off 
 up the sloping country to the right. Brankston is 
 the hamlet nearest to the battle-field, and the road 
 thither ascends for two miles through pleasant high- 
 hedged parish lanes. Here the English accent can 
 be distinctly recognised, and the place wears quite 
 an English aspect, though it is little more than 
 within the border of Northumberland. 
 
 The little English hamlet seems asleep to-day 
 among its autumn flowers — yellow roses and 
 yellower marigolds ; but rough and sudden was 
 the fray the spot once saw. For here, during the 
 boyhood of James V., in 1524, a body of five hun- 
 dred Scots, setting out on a private filibustering 
 raid across the Border, were met and driven back 
 by the English warden.' 
 
 At last, from a little cluster of labourers' cottages, 
 a path strikes to the right across a rushy meadow, 
 and beyond, above the scar of a red-stone quarry, 
 hang silent and motionless the woods of Flodden 
 hill. Somewhere to the right of the rushy meadow, 
 at the foot of the hill-slope, raged the fiercest of the 
 
 1 See Ridpath's ' Border History,' p. 520. 
 
2o8 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 battle on the dire and eventful day, and the tiny 
 streamlet meandering through the hollow ran pur- 
 ple then with the blood of fallen men. From this 
 streamlet it was that Lady Clare, in ' Marmion,' 
 shrank when she came to dip the helmet of the 
 dying lord. And just within the shady edge of the 
 wood above, dark and cool under the drooping 
 creepers of the overhanging bank, flows the limpid 
 well at which she is pictured as fulfilling her task. 
 The clear water drops musical there over the mossy 
 edge of its stone basin, into the pool below ; and 
 behind, carved in the wall of the well's recess, may 
 be read a garbled version of the lines quoted by 
 Scott : 
 
 Drink, weary pilgrim, drink and pray 
 For the kind soul of Sybil Grey, 
 
 Who built this cross and well ! i 
 
 The cross has disappeared, and the present in- 
 
 ' When Scott in the high tide of his fame visited Flodden, 
 a neighbouring innkeeper who had profited largely by increase 
 of custom since 'Marmion' appeared, pressed the poet to 
 allow him to set up a " Scott's Head " for his sign, and this 
 being refused, asked, no whit daunted, for a line of poetry by 
 way of motto. Scott took the book from the hand of Boniface, 
 and his eye lighting on these lines, said " There, my man, is the 
 very thing you want ; omit the ' r," and make it ' Drink, weary 
 pilgrim, drink and pay.' " 
 
FLODDEN'S FATAL FIELD. 209 
 
 scription has been traced by the chisel of one who 
 did not believe in praying for souls. An ancient 
 stone bench remains there, however, and the pilgrim 
 could hardly find a more suggestive resting-place. 
 
 An isolated headland pointing south, Flodden pro- 
 jects up the valley of the Till. Northern fir and 
 yew, mingled with the English oak, now cover the 
 hill ; but these are probably of modern growth, and 
 at the time of the battle it is most likely that the 
 summit of the spur was covered only with native 
 heath and fern. A matchless site the spot was for 
 a camp, and, commanding the valley as it did for 
 miles on every side, its choice bespoke the instinct 
 of military genius. Yet here, strange contradiction ! 
 during the three fateful days before the conflict in 
 1 51 3, the Scottish host was left to melt and dwindle, 
 while the King, like Israel's love-sick Samson of old, 
 remained dallying with the fair but artful lady of 
 Ford close by. 
 
 No suspicion of ulterior purpose on this lady's 
 part seems to have dawned upon the mind of 
 James, though he must have remembered that 
 William Heron, her husband, lay his prisoner at 
 Fast. There apparently happened at Flodden, 
 indeed, exactly that series of events which had 
 
 o 
 
2IO BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 been foreseen by some sagacious mind in Scotland 
 before James set forth on his ill-advised expedition. 
 Whoever was its author — Queen Margaret, Sir 
 David Ljmdsay, or some unknown person — the 
 mysterious attempt which had been made to dis- 
 suade the king from his enterprise was entirely justi- 
 fied by the sequel of events. Readers of Scott are 
 familiar with the episode as " Sir David L3mdsay's 
 Tale," in ' Marmion' (Canto IV.), but it appears in 
 even more picturesque fashion in the narratives of 
 Pitscottie and Buchanan. According to the con- 
 temporary Pitscottie, James, on the eve of setting 
 out for England, was attending prayers in St 
 Michael's Kirk at Linlithgow, when there came in 
 at the kirk door a tall man, bareheaded, roughly clad 
 in a blue gown, and belted about the middle with 
 a roll of linen cloth, with brotikins (half-boots) on 
 his feet, and a pike-staff in his hand, " cryand and 
 spearand for the king." Approaching James, he with 
 little reverence laid his arm on the royal praying- 
 desk. "Sir King," he said, "my mother hath sent 
 me to you, desiring you not to pass at this time where 
 thou art purposed; for if thou dost, thou wilt not 
 fare well in thy journey, nor none that passeth with 
 thee, Further, she bade ye melle with no woman 
 
FLODDEN'S FATAL FIELD. 211 
 
 nor use their counsell, nor let thenj touch thy 
 body, nor thou theirs ; for, and thou do it, thou wilt 
 be confounded and brought to shame." " Be this 
 man," the historian goes on, " had spoken thir words 
 unto the King's Grace, the Even-song was neere 
 doone, and the king paused on thir words, studying 
 to give him an answer ; but in the meantime, before 
 the King's eyes, and in the presence of all the lords 
 that were about him for the time, this man vanished 
 away, and could no wayes be seene nor compre- 
 hended, but vanished away as he had been ane 
 blink of the sunne, or ane whiss of the whirlwind, 
 and could no more be seene." 
 
 So James had been warned, but with the fate of 
 all who are " fey," the warning was useless to him. 
 It is said that the lovely young Queen of France, 
 calling herself his mistress and his love, had con- 
 jured him, in the fashion of knight - errantry, to 
 march for her sake three miles upon English 
 ground; and hardly had he set out upon his 
 campaign when, as already mentioned, he violated 
 prudence still further by stopping to prosecute an 
 intrigue of gallantry with the beautiful Lady Heron, 
 whose castle he had captured. And during those 
 three days of strange inaction the ominous thunder- 
 
212 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 cloud of disaster was gathering and darkening round 
 Flodden. 
 
 Centuries earlier, the blood of more than one great 
 battle had been received by that " deep and dark 
 and sullen river" below. Ten miles away to the 
 south, where the stream first takes the name of 
 Till, lies the spot thought to have been that Brunan- 
 burgh where in 925 the Saxon Athelstane defeated 
 the Danish King of Northumberland and his Cymric 
 allies — a pregnant fight, for it entailed the final 
 overthrow of the ancient Cymric kingdom of Strath- 
 clyde, the last remnant of the great upbuilding of 
 King Arthur.^ And a little nearer, to the north of 
 Wooler, where the Till receives the waters of the 
 Glen, rises Homildon, now Humbleheugh, the scene, 
 according to tradition, of King Arthur's first great 
 battle,^ and the spot where one of the Douglases 
 was defeated by the archers of Hotspur, in Parthian 
 fashion, never getting near enough to strike a blow. 
 
 1 See Skene's ' Celtic Scotland ' and ' Four Ancient Books of 
 Wales.' 
 
 2 The battle, which Nennius (Hisioria Bntonum) simply says 
 was fought "in ostium fluminis quod dicitur Glein," may have 
 taken place at the mouth of the Glen which flows into the 
 Irvine in Loudon parish in Ayrshire. This was the view of 
 Skene, the greatest authority on the subject. 
 
FLODDEN'S FATAL FIELD. 213 
 
 And on the hill's brow here, where the russet 
 bracken grows breast high now, and an absolute 
 silence reigns in the sunshine save when a grey 
 dove hurtles off among the trees, one can imagine 
 James IV. standing among his nobles on that far- 
 off September morning, watching Surrey's army on 
 the other side of the Till come glancing down the 
 valley from Barmore Wood. The King's position 
 was impregnable, with Scotland behind, and the 
 deep river on his left below ; but — whether owing to 
 recklessness, or Quixotic chivalry, or some knightly 
 vaunt to the witching lady of Ford, no one now can 
 tell — he, as every reader of history knows, allowed 
 Surrey to outflank him. 
 
 While executing this manoeuvre the English 
 general was fully exposed to the fire of the Scottish 
 artillery, had the King chosen to give the word ; 
 for the river runs close beneath Flodden side, and 
 the valley grows narrower at the spot. But the 
 word was not given, and the southern host marched 
 past, a gallant sight, with flashing mail and glitter- 
 ing lines of spears, squadron by squadron and 
 brigade after brigade, down the river bank. The 
 Till was too deep to ford, and the only passage 
 over it was by a narrow bridge at Twizel Castle 
 
214 BYIVAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 near the Tweed, six miles to the Scottish rear. 
 This bridge could have been destroyed in ten 
 minutes by the Scottish cannon, but the order 
 to do so was not sent. Slowly the English host 
 defiled across, company by company; and the 
 bridge is standing yet. Well might Marmion's 
 squire Fitz- Eustace, coming presently, as Scott pic- 
 tures him, upon the scene, exclaim in amazement : 
 
 My basnet to a prentice cap. 
 Lord Surrey's o'er the Till ! 
 
 Then at last, when all too late, James awoke, and 
 the Scottish host, setting fire to its tents, marched 
 back down the hill- slope northwards amid the rolling 
 smoke. 
 
 Surrey now, in battle array, was descending into 
 the same hollow from the opposite hillside; and 
 the two armies rapidly drew near each other. 
 
 For a little space, as the scene may be imagined, 
 there was silence ; only, amid the shadows could 
 be heard the tread of the approaching hosts. Here, 
 however, presently, a spear point glittered out into 
 the sunshine ; there loomed the dark mass of a 
 moving column. Then slowly the smoke drifted up, 
 and the armies saw each other. Broad lines and 
 
FLODDEN'S FATAL FIELD. 215 
 
 deep were there confronted. Many a famous pen- 
 non, the chivalry of the north, fluttered round the 
 ruddy Lion of the King ; while opposite heaved upon 
 the gentle wind the great banner of Henry the 
 Eighth. 
 
 There was a moment of pause as the smoke 
 lifted, but only a moment, and then with terrific 
 onset the clans were upon the English wing — the 
 clans of the Scottish left, under Huntley and Home 
 — cutting it to pieces. Furious work it was — a 
 minute's deafening crash of broadswords and battle- 
 axes ; and Sir Edmund Howard's division broke 
 before them and disappeared. Then ! then ! — had 
 the clansmen turned and renewed their rush against 
 the next brigade, the day had been over and the 
 issue different. For the High Admiral's flank lay 
 open beside them, and nothing could have with- 
 stood the onset of these claymores of the North. 
 But alas ! close by lay the baggage of the English 
 host, and the Highlanders were already deep among 
 gay doublets and silken hose. Then Lord Dacre's 
 horse rode up from the rear, and the opportunity 
 was past. 
 
 With Speed, to turn the fortune of the day Admiral 
 Howard had charged ; and the next Scottish division 
 
2i6 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 under Crawford and Montrose gave way before his 
 onset. At the same time, far along the sloping hill- 
 side, the half-armed Islemen on the Scottish right had 
 wildly rushed, like a billow of their own Atlantic, 
 had broken, and lost themselves upon the steady 
 billmen of Sir Edward Stanley, and under the deadly 
 arrowflights from the bows of Lancashire. 
 
 There remained then only the King's array in the 
 centre, containing the flower of the army and of 
 Scotland. Here James himself fought on foot under 
 the royal standard, while about him gathered the 
 'noblest and bravest of his realm. And now, exas- 
 perated by the ceaseless arrowflights of the English 
 bowmen, and burning to retrieve the honour of the 
 field, this compact body, levelling their spears, 
 rushed fiercely against the opposing division, where 
 Surrey himself commanded. 
 
 Wild and terrible in the setting sun must have 
 been that onslaught. Many a gallant crest went 
 down in Surrey's ranks, and for a time the English 
 standard was in danger ; for Bothwell had advanced 
 with his reserve, and the Scots nobles fought with all 
 the fire of their high blood. But the far-spreading 
 wings of the English host closed around them like 
 waves of the sea, and, attacked on every side, their 
 
FLODDEN'S FATAL FIELD. 217 
 
 utmost valour could but be in vain. Smaller and 
 smaller grew the circle of dauntless spears that rallied 
 round the King ; fewer and fewer the devoted hearts 
 that had sworn to stand by him to the last. And 
 when night fell, and Surrey, uncertain yet of the 
 event, withdrew his men, there were few of note left 
 to carry the dark tidings to Scotland. The King 
 himself had fallen, hewn down while fighting gal- 
 lantly in his place ; and around him lay no fewer 
 than twelve of his earls, with bishops and abbots in 
 their bloody armour, barons and knights and gentle- 
 men. Somewhere on the hillside here lay scattered 
 the Seventy of Selkirk — "the Flowers o' the 
 Forest ; " with ten thousand of the brave and gentle 
 of the North. And the shattered bands of wearied 
 and wounded men that, all through the darkness of 
 that awful night, went splashing northwards across 
 the Tweed, were bearing with them a message that 
 would wake the moan of anguish over the length 
 and breadth of Scotland. Not a house was there 
 of note, indeed, but had lost father or brother or son ; 
 and for more than a decade after the battle the 
 Scottish lands were tilled, and the castles of the 
 Scottish nobles held, by the feeble hands of women 
 and of boys. The sorrow of that time echoes 
 
2i8 SVWAltS OP THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 mournfully yet in song, and must ever touch a 
 tender place in thoughtful hearts. 
 
 A strange and terrible episode it seems, to have 
 taken place in so peaceful a spot. As one stands 
 to-day upon the fatal hill the far-off pageant passes 
 before the eye of imagination like the wild and tragic 
 magnificence of a dream. This, agaitil, passes away, 
 and nothing is left but the memory and pity of the 
 past. But as the sun sets over the Cheviots in the 
 west, through the golden haze that floods valley and 
 strath and hill, the foremost firs and larches standing 
 out upon Flodden's side might be taken for the men 
 and banners of some strange and silent host. 
 
EAST OF THE BALLAD COUNTRY. 
 
 THE country about the lower reaches of the 
 Tweed, though perhaps less illustrious with 
 song than the upland vale of Yarrow and St Mary's 
 Loch, is rich with vivid memories of historic events. 
 The difference appears to be that while the upland 
 sources of Ettrick, Yarrow, and Tweed seem haunted 
 by the spirit, mystic and poetic, chivalrous, and 
 withal sad, of the ancient Cymric race who had 
 their fastnesses there, this lower champagne coun- 
 try has associations rather of the iron deeds of later 
 history, the warlike aggressions, in turn, of Saxon 
 and Dane and Norman, and the more modern 
 struggles of the Scottish nation against the master- 
 ful attempts of Plantagenets and Tudors. Thriving 
 towns there are upon the river banks, trim, fresh, 
 and pleasant, where the agricultural and pastoral 
 products of the district find a market-place. But it 
 is not in the modern aspect of these towns that the 
 
220 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 interest centres. Curiously significant it seems that, 
 even in this age of wealth-worship, human nature 
 pays its instinctive homage, not to the places red- 
 olent of keen bargainings, but to the scenes of 
 ancient valour and chivalry and learning — not to 
 the exchange or the counting-house, as might be 
 expected, but to ruined castle or cloister, or the 
 scene of some old and mournful story. From which 
 it would appear that it may not be gold after all, nor 
 even cleverness in getting it, that makes life glorious 
 or worth remembering. 
 
 In this way Coldstream as a modern market-town 
 possesses little interest for the visitor. It is Cold- 
 stream as a place of suggestive memories that the 
 pilgrim pauses to see. 
 
 A famous ford in ancient times, it was here that 
 the hostile armies of England and Scotland perhaps 
 most frequently crossed the Tweed into each other's 
 territory. Here, about the year 1150, an abbey of 
 the white-robed Cistercian nuns was founded by 
 Cospatrick, fourth Earl of Dunbar, and his countess, 
 Derder. Here, in 1491, three years after the death 
 of James III, at Sauchieburn, the plots of Henry 
 VII. against the young King of Scots were stopped 
 for a time by the signing of a treaty between Scot- 
 
EAST OF THE BALLAD COUNTRY. 221 
 
 land and England. Here, in a strip of waste ground 
 between the nunnery garden and the river, where 
 many bones and a stone coffin were dug up in the 
 beginning of this century, the most illustrious of the 
 dead from Flodden, it is said, were buried. And 
 here, during Cromwell's wars, General Monk spent 
 a winter, and raised his famous regiment, the Cold- 
 stream Guards. One additional fact which is per- 
 haps not generally known regarding the bright little 
 place, may also be recorded. It was formerly, and 
 probably still is, on the east Border what Gretna 
 Green was on the west, a recognised resort for the 
 celebration of Scots marriages. 
 
 To the present day in any part of Scotland, a 
 simple declaration before witnesses constitutes a 
 legal marriage. The superior advantage of execut- 
 ing that declaration at Gretna, and perhaps also at 
 Coldstream, was that a record of the occurrence was 
 preserved. Accordingly, in the books at Gretna are 
 still to be seen the names of hundreds — peers, naval 
 and military officers, and all sorts and conditions of 
 men — who during the last century and a half have 
 come there to seal the fate of their lives with stolen 
 or romantic brides. Despatch and secrecy were the 
 chief advantages of these Border marriages, there 
 
222 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 being available at each of the well-known stations, 
 at any hour of the day or night, a " blacksmith," so 
 called from his readiness to strike while the iron 
 was hot. No fewer than three Lord Chancellors — 
 Erskine, Brougham, and Eldon — made runaway 
 Border marriages of thia sort, one at least of the 
 three, Lord Brougham, being married at Cold- 
 stream.* At the northern end of the bridge over 
 the Tweed at the latter place stands a little house 
 in which the run-away couples of Northumberland 
 and Yorkshire used to find an opportunity of declar- 
 ing themselves man and wife. Some thirty or forty 
 years ago the ancient facility was still made use of 
 by farm-servants and others of these neighbouring 
 counties, who, after enjoying the amenities of a 
 cheap wedding at the bridge, were wont to be 
 escorted in state through the town by a happy 
 procession of pipers, ragamuiRns, and children. 
 
 The most heroic memories of Coldstream, how- 
 ever, are probably those connected with the famous 
 castle of Wark. On the Tweed, a mile above Cold- 
 stream, stands the castle ; and though late evening 
 
 > See ' The Gretna Green Memoirs,' by Robert Elliot, the 
 Gretna Green "blacksmith" of his day; also Chambers' 
 'Picture of Scotland,' I., 27. 
 
EAST OF THE BALLAD COUNTRY. 223 
 
 is not the time usually chosen for sight-seeing, 
 there is a peculiar charm of solitude then in 
 the air, which suits at least this storied country 
 well. 
 
 The road from the town is dusk enough when the 
 moon is obscured, and from the river bank no more 
 than a ghostly gleam of light can be seen on the 
 dark water swirling below, sullen and deep, and 
 suggestive of tragedy. Then there is the ferry to 
 be hallooed for, in primitive fashion, till a light 
 appears high among the trees of the opposite bank, 
 and winds its flickering way down towards the 
 boat. Meanwhile there is time to reflect that on 
 the spot where one stands, during the last unsuc- 
 cessful campaign of the vacillating Regent Albany 
 in 1523, Ker of Fernihirst, with Buchanan the his- 
 torian and future reformer in his train, planted the 
 Scottish cannon against the castle,* A lonely enough 
 place it is now. Not a sound is to be heard in the 
 darkness but the creak of oars as the ferry-boat 
 makes its way across, and the waters of the river, 
 as they lap with a gentle murmur against the bows. 
 Strange, too, to step ashore, a single adventurer, 
 
 1 See the Life of George Buchanan prefixed to the translation 
 of his ' History of Scotland,' by James Aikman, Glasgow, 1827. 
 
224 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 under that frowning shadow. Might not the dead 
 sentinels wake ? 
 
 Wars ebbed and flowed continually of old round 
 the walls of this great fortress, and it played its 
 part more than once in the rise and fall of king- 
 doms. But its chief fame rests with the legend that 
 a lady dropped her garter here five hundred years 
 ago. Tradition relates how, in 1349, when Edward 
 III., on one of his warlike expeditions to Scotland, 
 was holding a court at Wark, the fair Countess of 
 Salisbury, wife of the castelan, let fall a garter in 
 the presence of the king. Not a courtier essayed to 
 restore it to its embarrassed owner, vmtil Edward 
 himself stooped gallantly and picked it up. At this 
 a titter ran round the brilliant ring ; whereupon, it 
 is said, the king, with the haughty words, "Honi 
 soit qui mal y pmse,'' fastened the ribbon round his 
 own royal knee, and thus instituted the Most Noble 
 Order of the Garter. Allan Ramsay, in his ' Morn- 
 ing Interview,' apostrophises the incident : 
 
 A lady's garters, earth! their very name, 
 Though yet unseen, sets all the soul on flame. 
 The royal Ned knew well their mighty charms. 
 Else he'd ne'er hooped one round the EngUsh arms. 
 Let barb'rous honours crowd the sword and lance, 
 Thou next their king does British knights advance, 
 O Garter ! Honi soit qui mal y pense. 
 
EAST OF THE BALLAD COUNTRY. 223 
 
 But of Wark Castle there remains only a great 
 mound, overgrown with foliage, and silent against 
 the sky — all that is left of the halls where chivalry 
 was wont to pace, where a light word once made 
 history, and the lovely Salisbury smiled on the 
 warrior king. 
 
 Nothing further is to be seen about the spot, and 
 the pilgrim, lingering a while, at last must take the 
 road over the hill to the wayside station. And away 
 presently through the cool night air and the dark- 
 ness, by the Tweedside, eastward, runs the journey 
 of the rumbling wheels. 
 
 Everywhere along the route the scents of the 
 fresh country come in at the open window — scents 
 reminiscent of the silent pastures and the storied 
 woodlands. Here may be felt most strongly the 
 mysterious charm of passing through a historic 
 country by night. The names of the places are 
 themselves every one full of suggestion, and im- 
 agination is free to form its own romance as to 
 the scenery amid which they are set. When rustic 
 labourers, earth-stained and smelling of the soil, 
 come in out of the darkness at Twizel station, it 
 is curious to discover that these men have plodded 
 every day of their lives over the bridge there without 
 
 p 
 
226 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 a thought that once upon its crossing hung the 
 destiny of Scotland. Not but that the darkness and 
 the mystery of the moonlight are tantalising enough 
 at times. Norham tower and town here, its church 
 and castle and market-cross, its quaint inns and 
 curious houses, pass like a dream in the night. 
 
 Day set long ago on the living glory of that 
 " castled steep," but the fame of the deeds done 
 there in ancient days is not likely soon to be for- 
 gotten. Of the feudal fortress itself by "Tweed's 
 fair river broad and deep," a massive ruin still 
 keeps ward upon the Border, and castle and 
 church and village alike are full of reminiscence of 
 history and romance. 
 
 David I., in 1138, when marching against the 
 usurper Stephen, to support the right of the Empress 
 Matilda to the English throne, took the castle from 
 Flambard, its Northumbrian bishop-lord ; and though 
 presently it returned to English hands, its keeping 
 proved no easy task. The holding of that great red- 
 stone keep of Norham, indeed, on its steep, tree- 
 grown bank, was for centuries afterwards a gage of 
 chivalry. Hither, in 13 18, there came from Lincoln 
 an actual Sir William Marmion, helmed with gold, it 
 is said, under pledge to win his lady-love by defend- 
 
EAST OF THE BALLAD COUNTRY. 227 
 
 ing Norham " for a year and a day." Alas for the 
 gallant ! however, the Scots Borderers proved too 
 warlike for him, and he lost his gage, his lady, 
 and his life, in a single ambuscade.^ Here, on loth 
 May, 1 29 1, Edward I. met the wardens of Scotland 
 to arrange the succession to the Scottish Crown — by 
 which " arrangement " the crafty English king sowed 
 the seeds of the dire Wars of Succession in the 
 northern kingdom. And it was in the green meadow 
 opposite the castle that on 13th June of the same 
 year most of the great nobles of Scotland took, upon 
 the Gospels, oath of allegiance to the English king," 
 
 1 The incident is narrated by Ridpatti, ' Border History,' 
 p. 259, note. Such gages of chivalry were frequent in the 
 Middle Ages. A similar one is recorded of the keeping of 
 Douglas Castle by an Englishman in Bruce's time. In this 
 case the engaging knight, Sir John Webetoun, was surprised 
 and slain by Douglas before he was long in residence— 
 
 And quhen he dede wes, as ye her, 
 
 Thai fand in-tlU his coffer 
 
 A lettyr that him send a lady, 
 
 That he luffyt per drouety. 
 
 That said, quhen he had yemyt a yer 
 
 In wer, as a gud bachlller 
 
 The awenturus castell of Douglas, 
 
 That to kepe sa peralus was. 
 
 Than might he wele ask a lady 
 
 Hyr amouris and hyr drouery. 
 
 —Barbour's Bruce, VI., 489. 
 
 2 Ragman Rolls, p. 6., Bannatyne Club, 1834. 
 
228 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 After many captnrings by Scots and English in 
 turn, the fortress was besieged by James IV. in 
 1497 ; and it was finally taken by the same king just 
 before the battle of Flodden. At one of these 
 sieges the famous cannon, Mons Meg, brought from 
 Edinburgh for the purpose, battered the walls with 
 her stone projectiles. In the village church, too — 
 the ancient place of worship, with its massive 
 Norman tower, in the quiet burial-gromid beside 
 the Tweed — the marriage treaty of 1551 was signed 
 between Edward VI. and the infant Scots queen, 
 Mary. The story of that treaty is well told by 
 Scott in his ' Tales of a Grandfather.' Mary was 
 but nine years old at the time, and the rapacity 
 of Henry VIII. in insisting upon the betrothal 
 was resented by the Scottish nobles. Henry, 
 however, threatened war, which in the distracted 
 state of Scotland just then would have proved 
 disastrous. Immediate trouble was finally avoided 
 upon the advice of a Scottish councillor who told 
 his fellow statesmen a story. It was the story of a 
 certain sultan who, upon pain of death for refusal, 
 commanded his court physician to teach a donkey to 
 speak. The physician undertook the task, but 
 stipulated for ten years in which to accomplish it. 
 
EAST OF THE BALLAD COUNTRY. 229 
 
 and when rallied by his fellow courtiers upon the 
 impossibility of his undertaking, proved his wisdom 
 by his answer — in ten years the ass might 
 die, the sultan might die, or he himself might die, 
 whereas, had he refused the command outright, his 
 immediate death would have been ensured. So 
 Henry VIII. was satisfied by the treaty of Norham, 
 which, as the wisdom of its Scots supporters fore- 
 saw, was nullified by the early death of Edward VI. 
 
 Events like these, though past, are not forgotten, 
 and by reason of them the single little street of 
 the village by the river, with the great Norman 
 donjon rising at its end, remains a place of national 
 interest. 
 
 Soon after passing Norham the cool wind is felt 
 coming from the sea, while the shining lights of 
 Tweedmouth and Berwick appear scattered along the 
 shores of the narrow firth. And presently, steaming 
 over the bridge on which the engineer Stephenson 
 wrote in letters of gold, "The last Act of the 
 Union," the train stands still in the ancient capital 
 of the Bernician kings. 
 
 From the remotest past Berwick has been a place 
 of name and story. The county formed part of 
 the Roman province of Valentia, and Bede has 
 
230 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 recorded* that it had been Christianized before the 
 middle of the sixth century by Ninias, "a most 
 reverend bishop and holy man of the British 
 nation." According to the mediaeval romance- 
 legends which echoed the history of early British 
 times, Berwick was presently the Joyeuse Garde, 
 the stronghold of the renowned Lancelot.^ Later, 
 when the Saxon Ida, landing on the coast and 
 driving back the British and Pictish inhabitants, 
 founded his kingdom of Northumbria in 547, Ber- 
 wick must have been one of his chief towns. 
 Upon his death-, at anyrate, at the hands of Owen, 
 a noble Briton, in 549, when his kingdom was 
 divided into two, Deira and Bernicia, Berwick 
 became the capital of the district between the 
 Tyne and the Forth. In turn the Saxons were 
 invaded by the sea-roving Danes, who, when they 
 burned Coldingham and Lindisfarne, doubtless found 
 Berwick one of their richest prizes. Torfaeus, as 
 an evidence of wealth, narrates how, when the wife 
 of Cnut the Opulent, one of the town's merchants, 
 returning from a pilgrimage, was taken by pirates, 
 that magnate was able to set off in pursuit with 
 
 Historia Ecchsiastica, Book III., Cap. iv. 
 
 See Sir Walter Scott's Introduction to ' Sir Tristrem," p. 39. 
 
EAST OP THE BALLAD COUMTttV. 231 
 
 a fleet of fourteen sail in full array of war. The 
 place's position at the deep river mouth must 
 always have made it a good harbour, the first 
 essential for maritime prosperity. 
 
 In 1020, reunited Northumbria having sunk to an 
 earldom, the district north of Tweed was ceded to 
 Malcolm II., King of Scots, and Berwick for the 
 first time became a Scottish town. Many, after that, 
 were its turns of fortune. Surrendered to England 
 by William the Lion in order to regain his liberty 
 after the battle of Alnwick in 1 174, it, with Roxburgh, 
 was restored to the Scottish king by Richard Coeur 
 de Lion in 1 189, for a payment of ten thousand merks, 
 when Richard was raising funds for his crusade. 
 Richard's successor, John, bore Berwick an especial 
 grudge, and, to overawe it, built at Tweedmouth 
 across the river a fortress, which William the Lion 
 promptly pulled down. After the death of the Scots 
 king, however, John took and burned the town, tor- 
 turing the inhabitants by way of reprisal, on his 
 raid into the north in 1215.' 
 
 Notwithstanding such sudden vicissitudes, Berwick 
 had become in the thirteenth century the principal 
 port in Scotland, and was described in the Chronicle 
 1 ' Chronicle of Melrose.' 
 
232 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 of Lanercost as a "city so populous and of such 
 trade that it might justly be called another Alex- 
 andria, whose riches were the sea and the waters 
 its walls." The wealth of the place, however, 
 probably as much as its strategic importance, 
 made it too great a prize, and its inhabitants 
 in consequence had to suffer some terrible ex- 
 periences. 
 
 Just before the fall of the first Baliol, when that 
 unhappy prince found his vassalage to Edward I. 
 becoming intolerable, the town was attacked and 
 carried at the point of the sword, in his interest, 
 by three hundred gentlemen from Fife. The conse- 
 quent fate of the place at the hands of the English 
 king — a f^te secured by a stratagem always con- 
 sidered dishonourable in war — is tersely described 
 in Wyntoun's ' Cronykil of Scotland.' Finding 
 open assault of no avail, Edward struck his tents 
 and marched away. Shortly afterwards, at sun- 
 rising, the besieged saw what they took to be their 
 expected succours of the north, an army with 
 Scottish banners, coming towards them. But upon 
 the gates being thrown open the disguised enemy 
 rushed in, and began an immediate and merciless 
 slaughter which lasted an entire day. 
 
EAST OF THE BALLAD COUNTRY. 233 
 
 The English men there slew down 
 All hale the Scottish nation 
 That within that town they fand, 
 Of all condition nane sparand ; 
 learned and lewd, nun and frere, 
 All was slain with that powere ; 
 Of allkyn state, of allkyn age. 
 They spared neither carl nor page ; 
 Baith auld and young, men and wives, 
 And sucking bairns there tint their lives. 
 Yeoman and gentlemen alsa, 
 The lives all they took them fra. 
 
 Thus they slaying were sa fast 
 
 All the day, till at the last 
 
 This King Edward saw in that tide 
 
 A woman slain, and of her side 
 
 A bairn he saw fall out, sprewland 
 
 Beside that woman slain lyand. 
 " Laissez, laissez ! " then cried he ; 
 " Leave off, leave off," that word should be. 
 
 Seven thousand and five hundred were 
 Bodies reckoned that slain were there. 
 Two days out, as a deep flood. 
 Through all the town there ran red blood.i 
 
 Berwick was presently retaken by Sir William 
 Wallace after his victory at Stirling Bridge. It 
 soon, however, fell again into the hands of the 
 English king, and it was in the castle there, a few 
 
 1 Wyntoun's ' Cronykil of Scotland,' Book VIII., chap. 2. 
 
234 BtWA^S OP THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 years later, that Edward did another altogether un- 
 pardonable thing. From time immemorial it had 
 been the hereditary duty of the earls of Fife to 
 crown the Scottish kings. Following this rule, 
 Isabella, Countess of Buchan, had, in default of her 
 brother, the Earl of Fife, who was then on the 
 English side, placed the golden circlet of royalty on 
 the head of Robert the Bruce ; and for her act of 
 romantic patriotism the English king caused her to 
 be shut up on the walls of Berwick in a wooden 
 cage, where, according to one account, she hung 
 exposed for seven years. 
 
 Berwick Castle was the last fortress held in Scot- 
 land by the English after Bannockburn. It was 
 captured in 13 18 by Douglas and the Earl of 
 Moray, and the story of its subsequent lengthy 
 defence by Walter Stewart against the attempt of 
 Edward II. forms, as related in Barbour's 'Bruce,' 
 one of the best extant pictures of a mediaeval 
 siege. Ten years later the great treaty of North- 
 ampton, which crowned the triumphs of Bruce 
 with an ample declaration of the independence of 
 Scotland, was sealed at Berwick by the marriage, 
 with great joy and magnificence, of Bruce's five- 
 year-old son, David, to the almost equally juvenile 
 
BAST OF THE BALLAD COUNTRY. 235 
 
 Johanna, sister of Edward III. Bruce himself, on 
 account of his increasing disease, we are informed 
 by the chroniclers, was unable to be present, but he 
 was represented by Randolph and Douglas, while on 
 the English side appeared the Queen Dowager, the 
 High Chancellor of England, the Bishop of Lincoln, 
 and a splendid retinue.* The promise of that day, 
 it may be supposed, was welcomed by the long- 
 harassed burghers of the town, but it was a 
 promise fated to have only scant fulfilment. 
 
 Still another episode belonging to the same period, 
 relating to the place, which illustrates vividly the 
 ruthless cruelty of the age, is narrated at length by 
 Wyntoun. In 1333, when Edward III. was besieging 
 Berwick, of which Sir Alexander Seton was governor, 
 the town, being hard pressed, made a covenant 
 with the besiegers that unless relieved within three 
 months it should be yielded up. In token of good 
 faith the governor handed over as a hostage to 
 the English king his son and heir Thomas Seton. 
 Upon tidings of the compact, the Warden of 
 Scotland, Lord Archibald of Douglas, gathered an 
 army and marched to raise the siege. Fearing 
 the success of that attack, the English, though 
 
 1 Fordun's Scotichronkon : Barbour's ' Bruce,' Book XIV. 
 
236 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 the three months had not expired, demanded 
 delivery of the town. This, as a breach of 
 contract, Seton indignantly refused, whereupon the 
 besiegers erected a tall gallows within sight of the 
 walls, and actually hanged young Seton upon it 
 before the eyes of his father and mother. It adds 
 to the tragedy of the episode that the sacrifice did 
 not save the town, for the Scots succours were 
 presently defeated at Halidon Hill, three miles to the 
 west, when all the prisoners, at Edward's command, 
 were put to death, and the whole country fell into 
 the English hands, excepting four castles and a peel 
 tower.* 
 
 By way of contrast to those barbarities, under 
 the walls of Berwick in 1338 was held a great and 
 famous jousting, in which the knights of both 
 sides, English and Scottish, commanded respectively 
 by Henry of Lancaster and Sir Alexander Ramsay, 
 displayed no less courage and address than noble 
 chivalry and high-hearted honour. The tourna- 
 ment, of which a very full description is given by 
 Wyntoun, is chiefly memorable for the redoubtable 
 jousting of Sir Patrick Graham. 
 
 A hundred and fifty years later, in 1482, Richard 
 iWintoun's 'Cronykil,' Book VIII., chap. 27. 
 
EAST OF THE BALLAD COUNTRY. 237 
 
 of Gloucester, with twenty-two thousand men, laid 
 siege to Berwick, and took the town, but found the 
 castle impregnable, under its governor, the stout 
 Lord Hales. Nevertheless, shortly afterwards castle 
 and town were ceded to England by the Scottish 
 king. By that final cession, Berwick obtained some 
 relief from harassment of war, and presently regained 
 its ancient prosperity. By statute of Edward IV. it 
 was made the channel of all merchandise passing 
 from Scotland to England. Bounties also were 
 granted to the monks of Melrose and others upon 
 the shipments of wool, &c., which they might make 
 from the port. 
 
 Finally, in 1551, Berwick, after many changes of 
 masters, was made a free town, part neither of 
 England nor of Scotland, and in Acts of Parliament 
 till recent years it bad special mention as " the good 
 town of Berwick." * 
 
 ' Green, in his ' History of the English People,' accounts for 
 this peculiarity in the position of Berwick. The town, he says, 
 " was, in fact, the one part of Edward's conquests which was 
 preserved in the end by the English crown. But, fragment as it 
 was, it was always viewed legally as representing the realm of 
 which it once formed a part. As Scotland it had its chancellor, 
 chamberlain, and other officers of State; and the peculiar 
 heading of Acts of Parliament enacted for England ' and the 
 town of Berwick upon Tweed ' still preserves the memory of its 
 peculiar position." 
 
238 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 The place was fortified and garrisoned for the 
 last time by Charles I., as a bulwark against the 
 Covenanters, and he himself resided in it for some 
 weeks in 1639. 
 
 Such were the vicissitudes of an old Border 
 fortress. At no time in its history was the gover- 
 nor's post here a sinecure. A striking picture the 
 place must often have made from the sea by night 
 in troublous times, when, as the alarm bells went 
 clashing in the town below, and the burghers were 
 hurrying along the narrow streets to their places 
 on the battlements, red fire began to pour from the 
 walls and the castle ramparts, and a tongue of flame 
 from the beacon turret above shot up its warning to 
 the Borders. Long ago, however, Berwick Castle, 
 notwithstanding its thrilling and war-like memories, 
 was dismantled and demolished, and in its place now 
 stands the railway station — fit type of the changes 
 which the years have brought. 
 
 It is difficult on a warm Sunday morning, when 
 the kirk bells are ringing and the quiet folk are 
 moving in little knots to service across the steep 
 clean streets, to realise that the place has so often 
 been drenched with blood, that furious men have 
 rushed through its narrow ways with torch and 
 
EAST OF THE BALLAD COUNTRY. 239 
 
 sword, while thatch and rafter flamed up to heaven, 
 and the air rang full of the shouts of the victors, the 
 hoarse oaths of the vanquished, and the shrieks of 
 women in peril. 
 
 The grey old walls of the town still stand, and 
 with the surrounding earthworks might yet, if forti- 
 fied, make Berwick formidable to an invader. It 
 was across Berwick bridge that, in 1603, James VI. 
 of Scotland passed to the kingdom and throne of 
 Elizabeth ; and, before be did so, it is recorded that 
 he inspected these walls and fortifications. One can 
 picture him easily, the timid king of Scott's ' For- 
 tunes of Nigel,' stepping quaintly round the ram- 
 parts, and giving a wide berth to the cannon fired 
 in his honour. On these walls, too, as he walked 
 round them one May morning in 1787, Robert 
 Burns records in the diary of his Border tour that 
 he met Lord Errol, and " was much flattered " by 
 his lordship's notice. 
 
 After kirk-time this, as well as the breakwater 
 running out to the lighthouse half a mile at sea, 
 continues a favourite strolling ground with the 
 townsfolk. These old ramparts form a choice 
 resort for the long quiet talks of friendship, and 
 this use of them appears to be by no means 
 
240 BYWAYS OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER. 
 
 neglected either by the grey seniors or by the 
 happy loiterers with whom it is still pairing-time. 
 Tempted by the dry path and the sunshine, many 
 an octogenarian may be seen taking the air along 
 these walls, and as one passes knot after knot and 
 couple after couple of interested younger folk, it 
 would be difficult to say whether the rosy blush 
 seen there upon a comely face were answer to the 
 warm word of a lover, or only to the cool strong 
 kiss of the sea. 
 
 PKINTBD BY OKOR6B LEWIS AND SON, SBLKIKK.