another fire occurred, which destroyed the north transept. A lack of
funds was again felt, and it was not till the lapse of nine or ten years
that the restoration was completed. Only about a century later, however,
Carlisle shared the fate of the monastic institutions, and was
suppressed, and the church shorn of many of its enrichments. The Civil
Wars witnessed the worst acts of spoliation, when nearly the whole of
the nave, the chapter-house and cloisters were destroyed, the materials
being used for guard-house purposes in the city. The reign of the
"Puritan patchwork" may then be said to have begun, with plaster
partitions here and there in horrifying evidence, the niches emptied of
their treasures, and the fine old stained glass removed from the
windows--and all, as was declared, in the spirit of "repairing and
beautifying." "A great, wild country church," is its description about
this time, "and as it appeared outwardly, so it was inwardly, ne'er
beautify'd, nor adorn'd one whit." Not till 1853-57 was a general
restoration, costing L15,000, inaugurated. Both internally and
externally the edifice underwent a total renovation. Old and crumbled
portions were pulled down and rebuilt; other parts were fronted anew;
missing ornaments were supplied; ugly doorways were blocked up, and
one grand entrance made befitting the church. The renaissance was
complete as it was judicious. There was just sufficient of the old left
to show the original structure, and sufficient of the new imparted to
save the venerable fane from crumbling to pieces. Externally, the east
is certainly the finest part of the building, with its unrivalled
window--58 feet high and 32-1/2 feet wide, of nine lights, gracefully
proportioned, the head filled with the most exquisite tracery-work,
comprising no fewer than 263 circles. A uniquely ornamented gable, with
a row of crosses on either shoulder, and a large cross at the apex,
completes a highly finished centre. On either side stands out, in
massive relief, a majestic buttress, containing full length statues of
St. Peter, St. Paul, St James, and St. John, above which are light and
elegant pinnacles. These great buttresses are flanked by the lesser ones
of the aisles, tapering upwards with chastely carved spires--the whole
forming an eastern front of great beauty and richness. The main entrance
by a new doorway in the south transept is a triumph of the sculptor's
skill. The great tower, 112 feet high, has been thoroughly renovated,
and much of its former ornamentation restored. Of the interior, the nave
is in length 39 feet, and in width about 60 feet. The Scots are said to
have destroyed 100 feet of it in 1645, but that is quite uncertain. It
has never been rebuilt, and has a serious effect on the general
proportions, inducing a feeling of want of balance. Up to 1870 the nave
was used as the parish church of St. Mary, and it was here--close by the
great Norman columns--that Sir Walter Scott was married to Charlotte
Carpenter, on December 24th, 1797. The spot might well be indicated by a
small memorial brass. The richly-decorated choir, in no respect inferior
to that of any other English cathedral, is 134 feet long, 71 feet broad,
and 75 feet high. The warm red of the sandstone, the blue roof powdered
with golden stars, the great east window filled with stained glass, and
the dark oak of the stalls, make up a picture that enforces attention
before the architectural details can receive their due admiration.
The Cathedral contains several interesting monuments. Here is the tomb
of Archdeacon Paley (1805), author of the "Evidences of Christianity"
and "Horae Paulinae," both written at Carlisle, and the richly-carved
pulpit inscribed to his memory. There are tablets to Robert Anderson
(1833), the "Cumberland Bard;" to John Heysham, M.D. (1834), the
statistician, and compiler of the "Carlisle Tables of Mortality;" George
Moore (1876), the philanthropist; M. L. Watson (1847), the sculptor;
Dean Cranmer (1848), Canon Harcourt (1870), and Dean Close (1882).
Several military monuments are in evidence. One of the windows
commemorates the five children of Archbishop Tait (then Dean), who died
between March 6th and April 9th, 1856. Recumbent figures of Bishop
Waldegrave (1869), Bishop Harvey Goodwin (1891) and Dean Close are by
Acton Adams, Hamo Thorneycroft, R.A., and H. H. Armistead, R.A.,
respectively. The older altar-tombs and brasses to Bishop Bell, Bishop
Everdon, and Prior Stenhouse, should not be overlooked, and attention
may be drawn also to the quaint series of fifth-century paintings from
the monkish legends of St. Augustine, St. Anthony, and St. Cuthbert, and
to the misereres of the stalls.
Scarcely less interesting than Carlisle itself is the immediate
neighbourhood of the Border city. And with what sterling picturesqueness
does it appeal to us! One does not wonder that Turner and others found
some of their masterpieces here. A wondrously historic countryside, too,
is all this pleasantly-rolling tableland, mile upon mile to the
Liddesdale and Eskdale heights with the Langholm Monument fairly visible
as a rule, and sometimes even the famous Repentance Tower opposite
Hoddom Kirk. Within twenty miles or so of Carlisle, up through the old
Waste and Debateable Lands, or over into the romantic Vale of the
Irthing, the dividing-point betwixt Cumberland and Northumberland, the
district is full of the most fascinating material for the geographer and
the historian. It is impossible to do more than mention a few of its
memory-moving names. At Burghby-Sands, Edward I., "the Hammer of the
Scots," having offered up his litter before the high altar at Carlisle,
vowing to reduce Scotland to the condition of a mere English province,
was forced to succumb to a grimmer adversary than lay anywhere beyond
the Solway. Bowness-by-the-Sea was the western terminus of the Roman
Wall. Arthuret has its name from the "Flower of Kings," one of whose
twelve battles is said to have been fought there. Archie Armstrong,
jester to King James VI., lies buried in its churchyard. At Longtown, on
the Esk, the Jacobite troops forded the river "shouther to shouther," as
Lady Nairne's lyric has it, dancing reels on the bank till they had
dried themselves. Netherby, the _locale_ of "Young Lochinvar," Lady
Heron's song in "Marmion," is in the near neighbourhood. So are
Gilnockie or the Hollows, Johnie Armstrong's home, and Gretna Green,
that once so popular but now defunct shrine of Venus. All this once
bleak and barren bog-land is under generous cultivation now to a large
extent, stretching from the Sark to the Esk, and eastward to Canonbie
Lea; it was the treacherously Debateable, or No Man's Land of
moss-trooping times, the most troubled and unsafe period of Border
history. Solway Moss, some seven miles in circumference, is not likely
to be forgotten--by Scotsmen, at any rate. It was the disastrous Rout of
the Solway which hastened James V.'s death from a broken heart.
PLATE 13
VIEW OF LANERCOST
PRIORY
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_See pp. 36 and 74_)
[Illustration]
The Irthing valley is replete with historical remains and literary
associations. Over there, to the north of Bewcastle (Beuth's Castle),
there is a celebrated Runic Cross nearly fifteen feet high, of the
Caedmon order, similar to that at Ruthwell. The Irthing flows through
the wide moorish wilderness known as Spade-Adam, or the Waste, crosses
the Roman Wall at Gilsland, thence courses amongst some of the richest
scenery in Cumberland until it meets the Eden. Gilsland Spa has long
been noted for the excellence of its waters and the remarkable salubrity
of the district. Scott stayed at the old Shaw's Hotel in July, 1797, not
the present palatial Convalescent Home (as it now is) which was rebuilt
after a fire about fifty years since. Charlotte Carpenter was a guest at
Wardrew House, directly opposite. They met often, and the result was
love and marriage. On a huge boulder by the banks of the Irthing, where
the glen comes to its steepest and wears its most enchanting aspect,
Scott is said to have "popped the question," and the "Kissing Bush"
where the compact was sealed is also pointed out close by. At Gilsland
it is interesting to recall that one is to some extent in "Guy Mannering
Land." A small private dwelling adjoining the Methodist Chapel claims to
stand on the site of the notorious Mumps Ha', "a hedge ale-house, where
the Border farmers of either country often stopped to refresh themselves
and their nags on their way to and from the fairs and trysts in
Cumberland." It was there that young Harry Bertram first met Dandie
Dinmont and the weird figure of Meg Merrilies, who, by the way, was not
buried at Upper Denton, as the guide-books say. It was the treacherous
landlady, Meg Mumps or Margaret Carrick, who is there interred. The more
important Meg--the real heroine of the story--was drowned in the Eden at
Carlisle. Gilsland is a centre for some delightful excursions. Much of
the Roman Wall may be visited from this centre, its two chief stations
Borcovicus (Housesteads) and Burdoswald being within easy distances. The
little Northumberland lakes, and the prettiest of them all, Crag Loch,
the Nine Nicks of Thirlwall, seen from the Shaws with fine effect,
Thirlwall and Blenkinsop Castles, Haltwhistle Church, all to the east,
are objects of deep and abiding interest. Westward are Burdoswald--the
Roman Amboglanna--covering an area of 5-1/2 acres, and overlooking a
singularly graceful bend of the Irthing (not unlike that on the Tweed at
Bemersyde); Lanercost Priory[A], founded by Robert de Vaux about 1166,
frequently plundered by the Scots, and used now partly as the parish
church and burial-place of the Carlisle family; Naworth,[B] the historic
seat of the Earl of Carlisle, whose ancestor, Lord William Howard, was
the famous "Belted Will" of Border story, who died in 1640:--
"His Bilboa blade, by marchmen felt,
Hung in a broad and studded belt;
Hence, in rude phrase, the Borderers still
Call noble Howard, 'Belted Will,'"--
and Triermain Castle, all but vanished, whence Scott's "Bridal of
Triermain"--
"Where is the Maiden of mortal strain,
That may match with the Baron of Triermain?
She must be lovely, and constant and kind,
Holy and pure, and humble of mind,
Blithe of cheer, and gentle of mood,
Courteous, and generous, and noble of blood--
Lovely as the sun's first ray,
When it breaks the clouds of an April day,
Constant and true as the widow'd dove,
Kind as a minstrel that sings of love."
[A] Lanercost is a fine example of Early English. The church consists of
a nave with north aisle, a transept with aisles on the east side used as
monumental chapels and choir, a chancel, and a low square tower. The
nave is used as the Parish Church. The crypt contains several Roman
altars from Burdoswald, etc. Some of the inscriptions are of great
interest.
[B] Naworth is said to be one of the oldest and best specimens existing
of a baronial residence. It is associated largely with the turbulent
times of Border warfare. "Belted Will," a terror to all marauders, is
its best-known name, "a singular lover of venerable antiquities, and
learned withal," as Camden describes him. The British Museum contains
some of his letters, and his library is still preserved at Naworth.
"Belted Will's" Tower, to the north-east of the Castle, is the most
notable feature at Naworth.
III. THE TWEED AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS.
"Both are good, the streams of north and south, but he who has given his
heart to the Tweed as did Tyro in Homer to the Enipeus, will never
change his love." So does Mr. Andrew Lang remind us of his affection for
Tweedside and the Border. Elsewhere he speaks of Tweed shrining the
music of his cradle song, and the requiem he would most prefer--may that
day be long in coming!
"No other hymn
I'd choose, nor gentler requiem dear
Than Tweed's, that through death's twilight dim,
Mourned in the latest Minstrel's ear."
Lockhart's description of Sir Walter's death-scene, so touching in its
very simplicity, has never been matched in literary biography. From the
first years of his life, Scott was wedded to the Tweed. It was his
ancestral stream. And it stood for all that was best and fairest in
Border story. It was by the Tweed that he won his greatest triumphs, and
faced his greatest defeats, where he spent the happiest as well as the
most strenuous period of his career. So that, to breathe his last breath
by its pleasant banks--a desire oft repeated--was as natural as it was
keen and eager. We know how at length he was borne back to Abbotsford,
the house of his dreams, and how on one of those ideal days during the
early autumn that crowning wish was realised; "It was a beautiful day,
so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly still that the
sound of all others most delicious to his ear--the gentle ripple of the
Tweed over its pebbles--was distinctly audible as we knelt around the
bed and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes."
Of course, it is owing, in great measure, to Scott that the Tweed has so
exalted a place in literature. To speak of the Tweed at once recalls
Scott and all that the Tweed meant to him. Both in a sense are names
inseparable and synonymous. It is almost entirely for Scott's sake that
Tweedside has become one of the world-Meccas. What Scott did for the
Tweed--the Border--renders it (to speak reverently) holy ground for
ever. Hence the affection with which the world looks on Scott--as a
patriot,--as one who has helped to create his country, and as a great
literary magnet attracting thousands to it, and as the medium of some of
the most pleasurable of mental experiences. Of the great names on
Scotland's roll of honour, Scott, even more than all of them (even more
than Burns), has wedded his country to the very best of humankind
everywhere. But do not let us forget that Tweed had its lovers many
before Scott's day. Burns's pilgrimage to the Border was a picturesque
episode in his poetic history. "Yarrow and Tweed to monie a tune owre
Scotland rings," he wrote, and other lines represent a warm admiration
for the district. Tweed was a "wimpling stately" stream, and there were
"Eden scenes on crystal Jed" scarcely less fascinating. James Thomson,
the poet of the "Seasons," a Tweedsider, though the fact is often
forgotten, pays grateful homage to the Tweed as the "pure parent-stream,
whose pastoral banks first heard my Doric reed." Allan Ramsay and Robert
Crawford, West-country men both, came early under the spell of the
fair river. Crawford's lines are painted with the usual exaggeration of
the period:
"What beauties does Flora disclose!
How sweet are her smiles upon Tweed!
Yet Mary's, still sweeter than those,
Both nature and fancy exceed.
No daisy, nor sweet blushing rose,
Not all the gay flowers of the field,
Not Tweed, gliding gently through those,
Such beauty and pleasure does yield."
Hamilton of Bangour, best known for his "Braes of Yarrow," has an autumn
and winter description of Tweedside which naturally suggests the like
picture by Scott in the Introduction to Canto I. of "Marmion," and it is
more than probable that Sir Walter had this in his mind when penning his
own more perfect lines.
PLATE 14
VIEW OF BEWCASTLE
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_See pp. 44, 67, 72_)
[Illustration]
Robert Fergusson--Burns's "elder brother in the Muses," had his
imagination fired by the memories of the Border, and was one of the
first to celebrate that land over which lies the light of so much poetic
fancy:
"The Arno and the Tiber lang
Hae run full clear in Roman sang;
But, save the reverence o' schools!
They're baith but lifeless dowy pools,
Dought they compare wi' bonny Tweed,
As clear as ony lammer-bead?"
Wordsworth, too, sang of the "gentle Tweed, and the green silent
pastures," though his winsome Three Yarrows is the tie that most endears
him to the Lowland hearts. Since Scott's day the voices in praise of
Tweed have been legion. "Who, with a heart and a soul tolerably at ease
within him, could fail to be happy, hearing as we do now the voice of
the Tweed, singing his pensive twilight song to the few faint stars that
have become visible in heaven?" says John Wilson in his rollicking
"Streams" essay (no "crusty Christopher" there, at any rate). Thomas Tod
Stoddart, king of angling rhymers,
"Angled far and angled wide,
On Fannich drear, by Luichart's side;
Across dark Conan's current,"
and all over Scotland, but found not another stream to match with the
Tweed:
"Dearer than all these to me
Is sylvan Tweed; each tower and tree
That in its vale rejoices;
Dearer the streamlets one and all
That blend with its Eolian brawl
Their own enamouring voices!"
Remember, too, Dr. John Brown's exquisite Tweed's Well meditation, a
prose sermon to ponder over any Sabbath, and Ruskin's homely reverie--"I
can never hear the whispering and sighing of the Tweed among his
pebbles, but it brings back to me the song of my nurse as we used to
cross by Coldstream Bridge, from the south, in our happy days--
"For Scotland, my darling, lies full in my view,
With her barefooted lasses, and mountains so blue."
One thinks also of George Borrow's fascination for the Scottish Border,
when he asks ("Lavengro") "Which of the world's streams can Tweed envy,
with its beauty and renown?" and of Thomas Aird's pathetic
retrospect--"the ever-dear Tweed, whose waters flow continually through
my heart, and make me often greet in my lonely evenings." Nor do we
forget John Veitch, that truest Tweedsman of his time, always musing on
the Tweed, never at home but beside it, and of whose Romance and History
there has been no abler exponent.
Of the name Tweed itself, the meaning and origin are uncertain, and it
is hopeless to dogmatize on the subject except to say that there is an
apparent connection with the Cymric Tay, Taff, Teith, and Teviot--more
properly "Teiott," the common pronunciation above Hawick. Mr. Johnston
("Place-Names of Scotland") traces it to the Celtic _twyad_--"a hemming
in"--from "_twy_ to check or bind," which is a not unlikely derivation.
As to the source of the Tweed there is the curious paradox that what
passes for its source is not the real _fons et origo_ of the stream.
Poetically, the Tweed is said to take its rise in the tiny Tweed's Well
among the Southern Highlands, 1250 feet above sea level, and close to
where the marches of Peeblesshire, Lanarkshire, and Dumfriesshire meet.
But strictly speaking, the correct source is the Cor or Corse Burn, a
little higher up, which, dancing its way to the glen beneath, receives
the outflow of the Well as a sort of first tributary. For purposes of
romance, however, Tweed's Well will always be reckoned as the source, as
indeed it must have been so regarded ages ago. The likelihood is that
Tweed's Well was one of the ancient holy wells common to many parts of
Scotland. And since tradition speaks of a Mungo's Well somewhere in
these solitudes, the probability is that we have it here in the heart of
these silent lonely hills. There is the tradition of a cross, too, at or
near Tweed's Well, borne out in the place-name Corse, which, we know,
is good Scots for Cross. That such a symbol of the ancient faith stood
here long since "to remind travellers of their Redeemer and to guide
them withal across these desolate moors," is more than a mere
picturesque legend. It is a prolific watershed this from which Tweed
starts its seaward race. South and west, Annan and Clyde bend their way
to the Solway and the Atlantic, as the quaint quatrain has it:
"Annan, Tweed, and Clyde
Rise a' oot o' ae hillside,
Tweed ran, Annan wan,
Clyde brak his neck owre Corra Linn."
Tweed turns its face to the north, and running for the most part, as old
Pennecuik puts it, "with a soft yet trotting stream," it pursues a
course of slightly over a hundred miles, and drains a basin of no less
than 1870 square miles, a larger area than any other Scottish river
except the Tay.
PLATE 15
VIEW OF MELROSE
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_See pp. 23, 35, 39, 60, 61, 89, 90, 91, 123_)
[Illustration]
Tweed's Well lies in the bosom of solemn, bare hills. There is nothing
attractive about the spot. Grey moorlands, riddled with innumerable inky
peat-bogs, the whaups crying as Stevenson heard them in his dreams, and
the bleat of an occasional sheep are the chief characteristics. There is
little heather, and the hills are hardly so shapely as their neighbours
further down the valley. A first glance is disappointing, but the
memories of the place are compensation enough. For what a stirring place
it must have been in the early centuries! Here, as tradition asserts,
the pagan bard Merlin was converted to Christianity through the
preaching of the Glasgow Saint Mungo. Here Michael Scot, the "wondrous
wizard," pursued his mysteries. And even the Flower of Kings himself
wandered amongst those wilds, "of fresh aventours dreaming." One of his
twelve battles is claimed for the locality. More historic, perhaps, is
the picture of the good Sir James of Douglas (red-handed from dirking
the Comyn) plighting his troth to the Bruce at Ericstane Brae, close to
Tweed's Well, which latter spot, by the way, Dr. John Brown
characteristically describes in one of his shorter "Horae" papers.
Readers of the "Enterkin" also will remember his reference to the
mail-coach tragedy of 1831, when MacGeorge and his companion,
Goodfellow, perished in the snow in a heroic attempt to get the bags
through to Tweedshaws. At Tweedsmuir, (the name of the parish--disjoined
from Drumelzier in 1643)--eight miles down, the valley opens somewhat,
and vegetation properly begins. Of Tweedsmuir Kirk--on the peninsula
between Tweed and Talla--Lord Cockburn said that it had the prettiest
situation in Scotland. John Hunter, a Covenant martyr, sleeps in its
bonnie green kirk-knowe--the only Covenant grave in the Border Counties
outside Dumfries and Galloway. Talla Linns recalls the conventicle
mentioned in the "Heart of Midlothian," at which Scott makes Davie Deans
a silent but much-impressed spectator. In the wild Gameshope Glen, close
by, Donald Cargill and James Renwick, and others lay oft in hiding. "It
will be a bloody night this in Gemsop," are the opening words of Hogg's
fine Covenant tale, the "Brownie of Bodsbeck." The Talla Valley contains
the picturesque new lake whence Edinburgh draws its augmented water
supply. Young Hay of Talla was one of Bothwell's "Lambs," and suffered
death for the Darnley murder. At the Beild--regaining the Tweed--Dr.
John Ker, one of the foremost pulpiteers of his generation, was born in
1819. Oliver Castle was the home of the Frasers, Lords of Tweeddale
before they were Lords of Lovat. The Crook Inn was a noted "howff" in
the angling excursions of Christopher North and the Ettrick Shepherd.
Mr. Lang thinks that possibly the name suggested the "Cleikum Inn" of
"St. Ronan's Well." At the Crook, William Black ends his "Adventures of
a Phaeton" with the climax of all good novels, an avowal of love and a
happy engagement. Polmood, near by, was the scene of Hogg's lugubrious
"Bridal of Polmood," seldom read now, one imagines. Kingledoors in two
of its place-names preserves the memory of Cuthbert and Cristin, the
Saint and his hermit-disciple. Stanhope was a staunch Jacobite holding,
one of its lairds being the infamous Murray of Broughton, Prince
Charlie's secretary, the Judas of the cause. Murray, by the way, was
discovered in hiding after Culloden at Polmood, the abode of his
brother-in-law, Michael Hunter. Linkumdoddie has been immortalized in
Burns's versicles beginning, "Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed"--a study in
idiomatic untranslateable Scots. Here is the picture of Willie's wife--a
philological puzzle.
"She's bow-hough'd, she's hein-shinn'd,
Ae limpin leg a hand-breed shorter;
She's twisted right, she's twisted left,
To balance fair in ilka quarter;
She has a hump upon her breast,
The twin o' that upon her shouther;
Sic a wife as Willie had,
I wadna gie a button for her.
"Auld bandrons by the ingle sits,
An' wi' her loof her face a-washin';
But Willie's wife is nae sae trig
She dights her grunzie wi' a hushion;
Her walie nieves like midden-creels,
Her face wad 'fyle the Logan Water;
Sic a wife as Willie had,
I wadna gie a button for her."