RAMBLES ALONG THE BORDER
Where does the Scot’s Land begin and where end? To the latter half of
the question, the answer is apparently easy, for the sea encloses the
peninsula. Thus, on three sides, salt water forms the boundary, though
many are the islands beyond. On the southern or land side, the region
was for ages debatable and only in recent times fixed. Scotland’s
scientific frontier is young.
Sixteen times did we cross this border-line, to see homes and native
people as well as places. In some years we went swiftly over the steel
rails by steam, in others tarried in town and country, and rambled over
heath, hill, and moor, to see the face of the land. We lived again, in
our saunterings, by the magic of imagination, in the past of history.
Affluent is the lore to be enjoyed in exploring what was once the
Debatable or No Man’s Land.
What area is richer in ruins than that of the shire counties bordering
the two countries? Yet there is a difference, both in nature and art.
On the English side, not a few relics in stone remain of the old days,
both in picturesque ruins and in inhabited and modernized castles. On
the other or Scotch side, few are the towers yet visible, while over
the sites of what were once thick-walled places of defence and often
the scene of blows and strife, the cattle now roam, the plough cuts
its furrows, or only grassy mounds mark the spot where passions raged.
Let us glance at this border region, its features, its names, and its
chronology. How did “Scotland” “get on the map”?
This familiar name is comparatively modern, but Caledonia is ancient
and poetical. The Roman poet Lucan, in A.D. 64, makes use of the term,
and in Roman writers we find that there existed a district, a forest,
and a tribe, each bearing the name “Caledonia,” and spoken of by
Ptolemy. The first Latin invasion was under Agricola, about A.D. 83,
and a decisive battle was fought, according to his son-in-law, Tacitus,
on the slopes of Mons Graupius, a range of hills which in modern days
is known as the “Grampian Hills.” To our childish imagination, “Norval”
whose father fed his flock on these heathery heights, was more of a
living hero than was the mighty Roman. Of Agricola’s wall, strengthened
with a line of forts, there are remains still standing, and two of
these strongholds, at Camelon and Barhill, have been identified and
excavated.
Perhaps the most northerly of the ascertained Roman encampments in
Scotland is at Inchtuthill. Where the Tay and Isla Rivers join their
waters--
“Rome the Empress of the world,
Of yore her eagle wings unfurled.”
The Romans left the country and did not enter it again until A.D.
140, when the wall of Antoninus Pius was built, from sea to sea, and
other forts erected. It was on pillared crags and prow-like headlands,
between the North and South Tynes, along the verge of which the Romans
carried their boundary of stone.
The Caledonians remained unconquered and regained full possession of
their soil, about A.D. 180. Then the Emperor Septimus Severus invaded
the land, but after his death the Roman writ never ran again north of
the Cheviot Hills. Summing up the whole matter, the Latin occupation
was military, without effect on Caledonian civilization, so that
the people of this Celtic northland were left to work out their own
evolution without Roman influence and under the ægis of Christianity.
If we may trust our old friend Lemprière (1765–1824), of Classical
Dictionary fame,--the second edition of whose useful manual furnished,
to a clerk in Albany, the Greek and Latin names which he shot, like
grape and canister, over the “Military Tract,” in New York State,
surveyed by Simeon DeWitt,--we may get light on the meaning of
“Caledonia” and “Scot.” The former comes from “Kaled,” meaning “rough”;
hence the “Caledonii,” “the rude nation,”--doubtless an opinion held
mutually of one another by the Romans and their opponents. The term
survives in the second syllable of Dunkeld. “Pict,” or “pecht,” is
stated to mean “freebooters.” “Scot” means “allied,” or in “union,”
and the Scots formed a united nation. Another author traces Caledonia
to the term “Gael-doch,” meaning “the country of the Gael,” or the
Highlander.
After the invasions of the Romans, there followed the Teutonic
incursions and settlements, which were by the mediæval kingdoms,
and the struggles between the Northerners and Southrons, but no
regular boundary was recognized until 1532. For a millennium and a
half, or from Roman times, this border land was a region given up to
lawlessness, nor did anything approaching order seem possible until
Christianity had been generally accepted. Faith transformed both
society and the face of nature. By the twelfth century, churches,
abbeys, and monasteries had made the rugged landscape smile in beauty,
while softening somewhat the manners of the rude inhabitants. Yet even
within times of written history, nine great battles and innumerable
raids, of which several are notable in record, song, or ballad, took
place in this region. These, for the most part, were either race
struggles or contests for the supremacy of kings.
In modern days, when “the border,” though no longer a legal term, holds
its place in history and literature, it has been common to speak of
the country “north of the Tweed” as meaning Scotland. Yet this river
forms fewer than twenty miles of the recognized boundary, which in a
straight line would be but seventy miles, but which, following natural
features of river, hill burn, moor, arm of the sea, and imaginary
lines, measures one hundred and eight miles. The ridge of the Cheviot
Hills is the main feature of demarcation for about twenty-five miles.
A tributary of the Esk prolongs the line, and the Sark and the Solway
Firth complete the frontier which divides the two lands. The English
counties of Northumberland and Cumberland are thus separated from
the Scottish shires of Berwick, Roxburghe, and Dumfries. In former
times, “the frontier shifted according to the surging tides of war and
diplomacy.”
Even to the eleventh century, the old Kingdom of Northumbria included
part of what is now Scotland, up to the Firth of Forth and as far west
as Stirling. In 1081, however, the Earl of Northumberland ceded the
district which made the Tweed the southern boundary of the Kingdom
of the Scots. Hence the honor of antiquity belonging to the Tweed as
the eastern border-line! On the west, however, William the Conqueror
wrenched Cumberland from the Scottish sceptre, and ever since it has
remained in England.
For six hundred years, from the eleventh to near the end of the
seventeenth century, war was the normal condition. Peace was only
occasional. In this era were built hundreds of those three-storied
square towers with turrets at the corners, of which so many ruins or
overgrown sites remain. On each floor was one room, the lower one for
cattle, the upper for the laird and his family, and a few ready-armed
retainers. Around this bastel-house, or fortified dwelling, were ranged
the thatched huts of the followers of the chief. These, on the signal
of approaching enemies, or armed force, crowded into the stronghold.
In feudal days, when these strong towers were like links in a chain,
prompt and effective notice of approaching marauders could be sent many
leagues by means of beacon fires kindled in the tower-tops and on the
walls. Human existence in these abodes, during a prolonged siege, may
be imagined.
Perhaps the best picture of castle and tower life in this era, though
somewhat glorified, is that of Branksome Hall, in “The Lay of the Last
Minstrel.” The nine and twenty knights, in full armor night and day,
“drank the red wine through their helmets barred.” The glamour of
Scott, the literary wizard, makes castle life seem almost enviable--but
oh, the reality! Happily to-day lovely homes have taken the place of
these ancient strongholds.
On the Scottish side, besides numerous small streams, are many
stretches of fertile land with rich valleys and intervales, while much
of the scenery is romantic and beautiful. In the southwestern corner,
one does not forget that from the eighth to the twelfth century
flourished the Kingdom of Strathclyde, which bordered on the Clyde
River. In the Rhins of Galloway is the parish of Kirkmaiden, which is
Scotland’s most southern point. The common, local expression, “from
Maidenkirk to John o’ Groat’s House,” is like that of “from Dan to
Beersheba.” Now, however, not a few sites famous in song and story and
once part of the Scots’ land are in England, notably, Flodden Field,
and in the sea, Lindisfarne, or Holy Isle, so famous in “Marmion.”
To-day, on Holy Isle, the summer tourists make merry and few perhaps
think of the story of Constance the nun, betrayed by Marmion the
knight, condemned by her superior, incarcerated in the dungeons, and
sent to her death.
Probably the ages to come will show us that the most enduring monuments
of centuries of strife, in this borderland, must not be looked for in
its memorials of stone, but in language. The “winged words” may outlast
what, because of material solidity, was meant for permanence and
strength. Minstrelsy and ballad, poem and song, keep alive the acts of
courage and the gallantry of the men and the sacrifice and devotion of
the women which light up these dark centuries. To Scott, Billings, and
Percy we owe a debt of gratitude, for rescuing from oblivion the gems
of poet and harpist.
When feudalism gave way to industry, the business of the moss trooper,
the swashbuckler, and the cattle-thief ceased to be either romantic or
useful. The same fate which, in the Japan of my experience, met the
ruffians and professional gentlemen-assassins, was visited upon the
Scottish borderers. These fellows could not understand just how and why
they were now deemed common ruffians and vile murderers, who had before
been powerful chiefs or loyal retainers. Instead of minstrels singing
in praise of their exploits, the gallows, planted on a hundred hills,
awaited them. The Japanese handled their problem by ordering to the
common public execution grounds the cowardly assassins of foreigners,
instead of allowing them, as gentlemen, to commit the ceremony of
hara-kiri, within decorated areas curtained with white silk, to be
followed by posthumous floral offerings laid on their tombs by admiring
friends.
In both Scotland and Japan, the effectual method, in the new climate
of public opinion, was to deprive the thief and murderer of all glory
and honor. In both lands, the police took the place of the military.
The club of justice fell unerringly on the right noddle, instead of
having innocent bystanders killed by the bullets of soldiers. In place
of harmless peasants suffering the loss of their houses, crops, and
cattle, the border malefactors, who later furnished themes for the
cheap stage and the dime novel, paid in person the penalty of their
misdeeds.
Yet until a Scottish king sat on an English throne, the attempts to
create a peaceful border region were more or less fitful and but
partially successful. It is true that the area had long before been
marked off into three districts, or marches,--east, middle, and
west,--with officers called “wardens.” These, aided by commissioners,
put down petty insurrections and punished cattle-thieves. Occasionally
a warden would be slain at a border meeting, as was Sir Robert Kerr,
whose murder was avenged by one of his loyal followers, who pursued the
assassin as far as York, dragged him out of concealment, and brought
his head to their new master. This exploit almost duplicated the
approved episode of the Japanese Forty-seven Ronins in Yedo, though on
a smaller scale. Further to carry out the fashion, which I used to see
often illustrated in Japan, the head was exposed in Edinburgh, on the
king’s cross.
One of the favorite games of the Scottish borderers was to meet,
ostensibly to play football, but in reality to plan and execute a raid
southward, with a view to incendiarism and the theft of butcher’s meat
on the hoof. Was it from this Scotch precedent that in the sport of
American college football--the first game being that between Rutgers
and Princeton in 1870, for which we subscribed in student days--was
borrowed the violence which makes the rough-and-tumble scuffle so
fascinating to the “fans” of to-day? Be this as it may, the earlier
Scottish football games, which made bullhide rather than pigskin their
chief goal, were broken up in Queen Elizabeth’s time.
After a Scottish king had mounted the English throne, border
lawlessness became henceforth intolerable. It had lasted long enough,
and after 1605 was put down with ruthless energy. Those shires in both
England and Scotland, which had formerly been the border counties and
so often given up to the ravages of the moss troopers, were named by
King James, in 1603, “the Middle Shires of Great Britain.” By means of
a band of mounted police, twenty-five in number, led by Sir William
Cranstoun, murderers and robbers were speedily brought to justice. In
one year thirty-two persons were hanged, fifteen banished, and over one
hundred and forty named as fugitive outlaws. This list was next year
increased and their names were hung up at the market crosses and on the
doors of parish churches. Over two hundred and sixty were nominated
as persons to be pursued with hue and cry, wherever they were found.
The nests of outlawry were thus broken up and the houses of thieving
families were searched for stolen goods. Cranstoun, the Samson of the
new age, carried off the gates of the Philistines from the Gaza of
moss and heatherland. Their iron portals, which had so long barred the
entrance of civilization, were removed and dragged away to be turned
into plough irons. Thus the work went on.
Is it any wonder that, of all the States of the American Union,
Pennsylvania, so largely settled by the Scots, has handled most wisely,
efficiently, and with least loss of property, life, or limb, the
turbulent foreign elements within her gates? Her superb body of mounted
police, the envy of other States, is but a modern quotation from this
page of Scottish history. The system is the creation of descendants of
Scotsmen who settled the western third of the Keystone State. Set one
expert to foil another!
It is inspiring to note what names of ancestors, of those who are
to-day most godly and respected people, having brave sons and lovely
daughters, are found in these courts of justice in the time of King
James, of Bible translation time. So far is this true that one calls to
mind the rhyme of our own poet, John G. Saxe, concerning those who are
warned not to study genealogy too eagerly, lest
“your boasted line
May end in a loop of stronger twine,
That plagued some worthy relation.”
Yet, let us not be afraid of being descended from the Maxwells,
Johnstons, Jardines, Elliots, Armstrongs, Scotts, Kerrs, Buccleughs,
Nevilles, or whom not or what not of these days, now so transfigured in
romance. History and science both agree that if we go back far enough,
no race was once lower than that to which each of us belongs, whether
Celtic, Teutonic, Slavic, or Aryan of any sort.
It was and is necessary, for poet, novelist, dramatist, and maker of
moving-picture films, to show that these illustrious persons, who
were villains in the eye of the law in one age and heroes of romance
in another, should be like those in the condition that our Prescott
the historian desired his heroes to be--under the ground at least two
hundred years. By that time they are cooled off and their passions
reduced to the ordinary temperature of graveyard dust. Their faults
have been left in the haze of oblivion, while their merits take on a
glamour that comes only from the past. In the “distance that robes the
mountain in its azure hue” both persons and events can be transfigured
in poem, song, and story.
Think of the last of the desert chivalries and enthusiasms--our
cowboys--a century or two hence! Behold how, even in the Hub of the
Universe, the street rioters active in the Boston “Massacre” have their
artistic monument! What is a crime in one generation becomes something
to be gloried in, when success is won! With the multitude, the end
ever justifies the means. The accepted history of almost all wars is
that written by the victors. The beaten foe is always in the wrong.
“Whatever is, is right.” All, save the few starry spirits of mankind,
say this.
Sir Walter evidently appreciated these phenomena. Knowing human nature
well, he did not hesitate to be frank about his own forebears. He made
of the old scenes of slaughter a new enchanted land, into which one
can now travel unarmed and without guards. As Roderick Dhu justified
to Fitz James the profession of cattle-lifting, which he, like his
ancestors, followed, so Lockhart tells that when the last bullock,
which Auld Watts had provided from the English pastures, was consumed,
Mary Scott, the flower of Yarrow, placed on her table a dish containing
a pair of clean spurs. This was a hint to the company that they must
bestir themselves for their next dinner. In those days when the rule
was to “love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy” (is it yet repealed?)
cattle-stealing was a virtuous occupation just as war is, and will be,
unless the United States of the World _is_ formed.
[Illustration: ABBOTSFORD]
By 1610 the mounted police had done their work so well that the borders
were reported, by King James’s commissioners, to be as peaceable and
quiet as any part of any civil kingdom in Christendom. In a word, the
pioneers of civilization, on either side of the frontier, were like men
who blast the rocks, fill up the swamps, and grade the prairies and
canyons, so that we can sleep in the berths and eat in the dining-cars
of the “Flying Scotchman” or the “Overland Limited.” Much of the
waste land, long ago reclaimed, is now covered with the gardens,
fertile fields, and fair homes of ladies, gentlemen, and Christians.
After the enormous mineral wealth of this region had been exploited,
moss troopers and cattle-thieves were as much out of place as are the
cowboys--except on the stage, which is an indestructible museum of
antiquities.
Certainly, for the literary enjoyment of succeeding centuries, it
was a good thing that the memorials of this period of turbulence
were ultimately transformed, by the relieved people, into material
for legend and song; yes, even so that Scott could build Abbotsford
without moat or drawbridge. The poetry of the situation is vastly
more enjoyable to-day than was the prose of reality during several
centuries. In like manner, we, who, in our upholstered chairs, with our
feet against the fender of the winter fire-grate, delight in and admire
the red Iroquois in Cooper’s novels, necessarily take a different view
of the whole Indian “problem” than could our ancestors, so many of
whose scalps adorned the walls of the Long House of the Forest Republic.
In our annals the name of General John Sullivan as one who avenged the
destruction of the Scotch settlements on the Susquehanna, and opened
for our fathers the westward paths of civilization, must go down to
history with the same halo of fame as that which surrounds Sir William
Cranstoun and his little company of moss troopers of the new sort.
Moreover, when the white man is no longer busy in depositing lead
inside the redskin’s cuticle, while the copper-colored savage ceases
to raise the hair of his affectionate white brother, there is a better
common understanding of one another’s psychology, besides more room for
mutual appreciation. Verily, history fills with its oil the fragrant
lamp of literature that illuminates while it charms.