day of might. Of their ghostly origin, the Introduction to the
"Betrothed" supplies the key. They were constantly at feud with their
neighbours, specially the Veitches, and were in the Rizzio murder. See
their history (a work of genuine local interest) written quite recently
by Michael Forbes Tweedie, a London scion of the clan. In the same
neighbourhood, the fragment of Tinnis Castle (there is a Tinnis on
Yarrow, too,) juts out from its bold bluff, not unlike a robber's eyrie
on the Rhine. Curiously, this is a reputed Ossian scene (see the poem,
"Calthon and Colmal.") The "blue Teutha," is the Tweed--"Dunthalmo's
town," Drumelzier. Merlin's Grave, near Drumelzier Kirk, should not be
forgotten. Bower's "Scotichronicon" narrates the circumstances of his
death: "On the same day which he foretold he met his death; for certain
shepherds of a chief of a country called Meldred set upon him with
stones and staves, and, stumbling in his agony, he fell from a high bank
of the Tweed, near the town of Drumelzier (the ridge of Meldred), upon a
sharp stake that the fishers had placed in the waters, and which pierced
his body through. He was buried near the spot where he expired."
"Ah! well he loved the Powsail Burn (_i.e._, the burn of the willows)
Ah! well he loved the Powsail glen;
And there, beside his fountain clear,
He soothed the frenzy of his brain.
Ah! Merlin, restless was thy life,
As the bold stream whose circles sweep
Mid rocky boulders to its close
By thy lone grave, in calm so deep.
For no one ever loved the Tweed
Who was not loved by it in turn;
It smiled in gentle Merlin's face,
It soughs in sorrow round his bourn."
A prophecy of Thomas the Rhymer--
"When Tweed and Powsail meet at Merlin's Grave,
England and Scotland shall one monarch have,"
is affirmed to have been literally fulfilled on the coronation day of
James VI. and I. Passing on, we reach the resplendent Dawyck Woods. Here
are some of the finest larches in the kingdom, the first to be planted
in Britain, having that honour done them by the great Linnaeus himself,
it is said. Stobo--semi-Norman and Saxon--was the _plebania_ or
mother-kirk of half the county. Here lies all that is mortal of Robert
Hogg, a talented nephew of James Hogg. He was the friend and amanuensis
of both Scott and Lockhart, whom he assisted in the _Quarterly_.
Possessed of a keen literary sense, he would almost certainly have taken
a high place in literature but for the consumption which cut short his
promising career. (See "Life of Scott," vol. ix). At Happrew, in Stobo
parish, Wallace is said to have suffered defeat from the English in
1304. One of the most perfect specimens (recently explored) of a
Roman Camp is in the Lyne Valley, to the left, a little above the
Kirk of Lyne. On a height overlooking the Tarth and Lyne frowns the
massive pile of Drochil, planned by the Red Earl of Morton, who never
lived to occupy it, or to finish it, indeed, the "Maiden," in 1581,
cutting short his pleasures, his treacheries and hypocrisies. Now we
touch the Black Dwarf's Country--in the Manor Valley, to the right.
Barns Tower, a very complete peel specimen, stands sentinel at the
entrance to this "sweetest glen of all the South." It is around Barns
that John Buchan's "John Burnet of Barns" centres. The Black Dwarf's
grave is at Manor Kirk, and the cottage associated with his misanthropic
career is also pointed out. Scott, in 1797, visited Manor (Hallyards) at
his friend Ferguson's, and foregathered with David Ritchie, the
prototype of one of the least successful and most tedious of his
characters. (See William Chambers's account of the visit). St. Gordian's
Cross, mentioned in a previous chapter, is further up the valley, where
also are the ruins of Posso, a place-name in the "Bride of Lammermoor."
Presently we come to Neidpath Castle, dominating Peebles, the key to the
Upper Tweed fastnesses. When or by whom it was built is unknown. In
1795, it was held by "Old Q," fourth Duke of Queensberry. Wordsworth's
sonnet on the spoliation of its magnificent woods (an act done to spite
the heir of entail) stigmatises for all time the memory of one of the
worst reprobates in history.
PLATE 16
MELROSE AND THE
EILDONS FROM BEMERSYDE
HILL: SCOTT'S
FAVOURITE VIEW
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_See pp. 89 and 123_)
[Illustration]
Both Scott and Campbell have sung of the unhappy Maid of Neidpath spent
with grief and disease, waiting her lover on the Castle walls, and
beholding him ride past all unconscious of her identity.
"He came--he passed--a heedless gaze,
As o'er some stranger glancing;
Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase,
Lost in his courser's prancing--
The Castle arch whose hollow tone
Returns each whisper spoken,
Could scarcely catch the feeble moan
Which told her heart was broken."
The literary associations of Peebles--a charming township--are
outstanding. William and Robert Chambers (founders of _Chambers's
Journal_) were natives. So were Thomas Smibert and John Veitch, poets
and essayists both. Mungo Park (a Gideon Gray prototype) was the town's
surgeon for a time--an eternal longing for Africa in his soul. "Meg
Dods," the best landlady in fiction, was one of its heroines. And
"Peblis to the Play," probably by James I., is a Scots classic. Traquair
is poetic ground every foot of it. At its "bonnie bush" how many singers
have caught inspiration from Crawford of Drumsoy in 1725, to Principal
Shairp in our own day! Shairp's lyric may well be quoted in full. It is
by far the finest contribution to modern Border minstrelsy. "Thank ye
again for this exquisite song; I would rather have been the man to write
it than Gladstone in all his greatness and goodness," was the exuberant
"Rab" Brown's compliment to the author:
"Will ye gang wi' me and fare
To the bush aboon Traquair?
Owre the high Minchmuir we'll up and awa',
This bonny simmer noon,
While the sun shines fair aboon,
And the licht sklents saftly doun on holm and ha'.
"And what would you do there,
At the bush aboon Traquair?
A lang dreich road, ye had better let it be;
Save some auld skrunts o' birk
I' the hillside lirk,
There's nocht i' the warld for man to see.
"But the blithe lilt o' that air,
'The Bush aboon Traquair,'
I need nae mair, it's eneuch for me;
Owre my cradle its sweet chime,
Cam' soughin' frae auld time,
Sae tide what may, I'll awa' and see.
"And what saw ye there
At the bush aboon Traquair?
Or what did ye hear that was worth your heed?
I heard the cushies croon
Thro' the gowden afternoon
And the Quair burn singing doun to the Vale o' Tweed.
"And birks saw I three or four,
Wi' grey moss bearded owre,--
The last that are left o' the birken shaw,
Whar mony a simmer e'en
Fond lovers did convene,
Thae bonny, bonny gloamins that are lang awa'.
"Frae mony a but and ben,
By muirland, holm, and glen,
They cam' ane hour to spen' on the greenwood swaird;
But lang hae lad an' lass I
Been lying 'neth the grass,
The green, green grass o' Traquair kirkyard.
"They were blest beyond compare,
When they held their trysting there,
Among thae greenest hills shone on by the sun;
And then they wan a rest,
The lownest and the best,
I' Traquair kirkyard when a' was dune.
"Now the birks to dust may rot,
Names o' lovers be forgot,
Nae lads and lasses there ony mair convene;
But the blithe lilt o' yon air
Keeps the bush aboon Traquair,
And the love that ance was there, aye fresh and green."
PLATE 17
DRYBURGH ABBEY AND
SCOTT'S TOMB
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_See pp. 35, 39, 91, 92, 103_)
[Illustration]
Traquair House--possibly Scott's Tully-Veolan, "pallid, forlorn,
stricken all o'er with eld," claims to be the oldest inhabited house in
Scotland. It certainly looks it. The great gate, flanked with the huge
Bradwardine Bears, has not been opened since the '45. There seems no
reason to question the legend. It is not so "foolish" as Mr. Lang
supposes. Innerleithen, Scott's "St. Ronan's," is near at hand, and the
peel of Elibank--a mere shell. Harden's marriage to Muckle-mou'ed Meg
Murray was not quite accounted for in the traditional way, however,--a
choice between the laird's dule-tree and the laird's unlovely daughter.
The legend is not uncommon to German folk-lore. At Ashestiel, thrice
renowned, Scott spent the happiest years of his life (1804-1812),
writing "Marmion," the "Lady of the Lake," and the first draft of
"Waverley." In many respects the place is more important to students of
Scott than Abbotsford itself. Yet for a thousand who rush to Abbotsford
only a very few find their way up here. Yair, a Pringle house, and
Fairnalee, comfortable little demesnes, lie further down the Tweed. At
the latter, Alison Rutherford wrote her version of the "Flowers of the
Forest"--"I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling." Abbotsford was
Cartley Hole first--not Clarty--which is a mere vulgar play on the
original. From a small villa about 1811 it has grown to the present
noble pile. After Scott's day, Mr. Hope Scott did much for the place.
But it is of Sir Walter that one thinks. What a strenuous life was his
here! What love he lavished on the very ground that was dear to him--in
a double sense! And what longing for home during that vain sojourn
under Italian skies! "To Abbotsford; let us to Abbotsford!"--a desire
now echoed on ten thousand tongues year by year from all ends of the
earth. Behind Abbotsford are the Eildons, the "Delectable Mountains" of
Washington Irving's visit, "three crests against a saffron sky" always
in vision the wide Border over. Scott said he could stand on the Eildons
and point out forty-three places famous in war and verse. "Yonder," he
said, "is Lammermoor and Smailholm; and there you have Galashiels, and
Torwoodlee, and Gala Water; and in that direction you see Teviotdale and
the Braes of Yarrow, and Ettrick stream winding along like a silver
thread to throw itself into the Tweed. It may be pertinacity, but to my
eye these grey hills, and all this wild Border Country have beauties
peculiar to themselves. When I have been for some time in the rich
scenery about Edinburgh which is like ornamented garden land, I begin to
wish myself back again among my own honest grey hills; and if I did not
see the heather at least once a year, I think I should die." Melrose is
the "Kennaquhair" of the "Monastery" and the "Abbot." Its glory, of
course, is its Abbey, unsurpassed in the beauty of death, but all grace
fled from its environment. Were it possible to transplant the Abbey
together with its rich associations to the site of the original
foundation by the beautiful bend at Bemersyde, Melrose would sit
enthroned peerless among the shrines of our northern land. Within
Melrose Abbey, near to the High Altar, the Bruce's heart rests well--its
fitful flutterings o'er. Here, too, lie the brave Earl Douglas, hero of
Chevy Chase; Liddesdale's dark Knight--another Douglas; Evers and
Latoun, the English commanders at Ancrum Moor, that ran so deadly red
with the blood of their countrymen; and, according to Sir Walter,
Michael Scot--
"Buried on St. Michael's night,
When the bell toll'd one, and the moon shone bright,
Whose chamber was dug among the dead,
When the floor of the chancel was stained red."
One is not surprised at Scott's love for Melrose. As the grandest
ecclesiastical ruin in the country, it must be seen to be understood.
Mere description counts for little in dealing with such a subject. Every
window, arch, cloister, corbel, keystone, door-head and buttress of this
excellent example of mediaeval Gothic is a study in itself--all
elaborately carved, yet no two alike. The sculpture is unequalled both
in symmetry and in variety, embracing some of the loveliest specimens of
floral tracery and the most quaint and grotesque representations
imaginable. The great east oriel is its most imposing feature. But the
south doorway and the chaste wheeled window above it are equally superb.
For what is regarded as the finest view of the building, let us stand
for a little at the north-east corner, not far from the grave of Scott's
faithful factotum, Tom Purdie. Here the _coup d'oeil_ is very
striking; and the contour of the ruins is realised to its full. Or if it
be preferred, let us look at the pile beneath the lee light o' the
moon--the conditions recommended in the "Lay."
"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!"
Three inscriptions--one inside, two in the churchyard, are worth halting
by. "HEIR LYIS THE RACE OF YE HOVS OF ZAIR," touches many hearts with
its simple pathos. "The Lord is my Light," is the expressive text
(self-chosen) on Sir David Brewster's tomb--the greatest master of
optics in his day; and the third, covering the remains of a former
Melrose schoolmaster was frequently on the lips of Scott:
"The earth goeth on the earth,
Glist'ring like gold,
The earth goes to the earth
Sooner than it wold.
The earth builds on the earth
Castles and towers,
The earth says to the earth
All shall be ours."
If half the grace of Melrose is lost by reason of its environment, the
situation of Dryburgh is queenly enough. It is assuredly the most
picturesque monastic ruin in Great Britain. Scott's is the all-absorbing
name, and as a matter of fact he would himself have become by
inheritance the laird of Dryburgh, but for the financial folly of a
spendthrift grand-uncle. "The ancient patrimony," he tells us, "was sold
for a trifle, and my father, who might have purchased it with ease, was
dissuaded by my grandfather from doing so, and thus we have nothing left
of Dryburgh but the right of stretching our bones there." So here, the
two Sir Walters, the two Lady Scotts, and Lockhart, await the breaking
light of morn. Dryburgh, be it noted, is in Berwickshire--in Mertoun
parish, where (at Mertoun House) Scott wrote the "Eve of St. John." Not
far off is Sandyknowe (not Smailholm, as it is generally designated)
Tower, the scene of the ballad, and the cradle of Scott's childhood,
where there awoke within him the first real consciousness of life, and
where he had his first impressions of the wondrously enchanted land that
lay within the comparatively small circle of the Border Country. Ruined
Roxburgh, between Tweed's and Teviot's flow, and the palatial Floors
Castle represent the best of epochs old and new, and even more than in
Scott's halcyon school days is Kelso the "Queen of the South Countrie."
Coldstream, lying in sylvan loveliness on the left bank of the Tweed--a
noble river here--has been the scene of many a memorable crossing from
both countries from the time of Edward I. to the Covenanting struggle.
So near the Border, Coldstream had at one time a considerable notoriety
for its runaway marriages, the most notable of which was Lord Brougham's
in 1819. Within an easy radius of Coldstream are Wark Castle, the mere
site of it rather--where in 1344 Edward III. instituted the Order of the
Garter; Twizel Bridge, with its single Gothic arch, cleverly crossed
by Surrey and his men (it is the identical arch) at Flodden, that
darkest of all dark fields for Scotland,
"Where shivered was fair Scotland's spear,
And broken was her shield."
Of Norham Castle, frowning like Carlisle, to the North, and set down as
it were to over-awe a kingdom, Scott's description is always the best.
Ladykirk Church was built by James IV. in gratitude for his escape from
drowning while fording the Tweed. Last of all, we reach Berwick, at one
period the chief seaport in Scotland--a "second Alexandria," as was
said, now the veriest shadow of its former self. Christianized towards
the close of the fourth century, according to Bede, as a place rich in
churches, monasteries and hospitals, Berwick held high rank in the
ecclesiastical world. Its geographical position, too, as a frontier town
made it the Strasburg for which contending armies were continually in
conflict. Century after century its history was one red record of strife
and bloodshed. Its walls, like its old Bridge spanning the Tweed, were
built in Elizabeth's reign, and its Royal Border Bridge, opened to
traffic in 1850, was happily characterised by Robert Stephenson, its
builder, as the "last act of the Union."
PLATE 18
THE REMNANT OF
WARK CASTLE
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_See pp. 39 and 92_)
[Illustration]
IV. "PLEASANT TEVIOTDALE"
Ettrick and Yarrow between them comprise most of Selkirkshire. The
Teviot and Jed are the main arteries running through Roxburghshire, or
Teviotdale, as was the ancient designation, colloquially Tividale and
Tibbiedale. On the source-to-mouth principle--the most natural and the
most instructive--the best approach into Teviotdale is by way of
Langholm, locally _the_ Langholm, pleasantly situated on the
Dumfriesshire Esk, at the junction of the Ewes and Wauchope Waters. In
the fine pastoral valley of the Ewes--the Yarrow of Dumfriesshire--we
pass several places of note before striking Teviothead and the main
course of the Teviot. At Wrae, William Knox, author of "The Lonely
Hearth," and writer of the stanzas on "Mortality," so constantly quoted
by Abraham Lincoln, had his home for a time. George Gilfillan, no mean
judge, characterises him as the best sacred poet in Scotland. Further on
is the birth-spot of another well-known singer, Henry Scott Riddell,
whose patriotic "Scotland Yet" has won its way to the ends of the earth,
wherever Scotsmen gather. At Unthank Kirkyard--none more lonely save St.
Mary's on Yarrow, perhaps--we examine the graves of the hospitable and
kindly Elliots of "Dandie Dinmont" immortality. Mosspaul Inn, lately
restored, is close to the boundary between the two counties. From the
Wisp Hill (1950 feet) the view on a clear day from Carlisle in the south
to the distant north, is one to be remembered. The Wordsworths were at
Mosspaul in 1803, and Dorothy's description is still fairly correct:
"The scene with its single dwelling, was melancholy and wild, but not
dreary, though there was no tree nor shrub; the small streamlet
glittered, the hills were populous with sheep; but the gentle bending of
the valley and the correspondent softness in the forms of the hills were
of themselves enough to delight the eye. The whole of the Teviot and the
pastoral steeps about Mosspaul pleased us exceedingly."
PLATE 19
BERWICK-ON-TWEED
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_See pp. 43, 49, 63, 93_)
[Illustration]
At Teviothead we touch the Teviot proper. The upper basin of the Teviot
is mainly a barren vale, flanked by lofty rounded hills. For a greater
distance it is a strip of alluvial plain, screened by terraced banks
clad with the rankest vegetation, and with long stretches of undulating
dale-land, and overhung at from three to eight miles by terminating
heights, and in its lower reaches it is a richly variegated champaign
country, possessing all the luxuriance without any of the tameness of a
fertile plain, and stretching away in resulting loveliness to the
picturesque Eildons on the one hand and the dome-like Cheviots on the
other. Teviothead, formerly Carlanrigg, is full of traditionary lore.
Teviot Stone, extinct now, a landmark for centuries--its position being
marked on some of our earliest maps--recalls Scott's favourite lines
from the "Lay," imprinted on the Selkirk monument:
"By Yarrow's streams, still let me stray,
Though none should guide my feeble way;
Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break,
Although it chill my withered cheek;
Still lay my head by Teviot Stone,
Though there, forgotten and alone,
The Bard may draw his parting groan."
Teviothead Churchyard contains the graves of Johnie Armstrong of
Gilnockie, and his gallants. James V. (a mere boy-king at the time)
never planned a more despicable or more atrocious deed than the betrayal
and summary execution of this most picturesque of the freebooters. And
posterity has never forgiven him. Nor can it. Scott's "Minstrelsy"
ballad commemorating the incident is far and away the most dramatic of
its kind, Johnie's scathing answer to the King being specially
characteristic:
"To seik het water beneith cauld ice,
Surely it is a greit follie;
I have asked grace at a graceless face,
But there is nane for my men and me!"
There is a tradition that the trees on which they were hanged became
immediately blasted; and Scott, in parting with the Wordsworths directed
them to look about for "some old stumps of trees," but "we could not
find them," adds Miss Wordsworth. Hard by are the graves of Scott
Riddell and his third son, William, a youth of remarkable promise.
Teviothead Cottage, where Riddell resided till his death in 1870, is
passed on the left. The church in which he preached (he was in charge of
the then preaching station here) is now the parish school, and his
monument, like a huge candle extinguisher, crowns the neighbouring
Dryden Knowes. Still keeping to the Teviot, now a fair-sized stream,
rich in the variety and beauty of its scenery--
"Pleasant Teviotdale, a land
Made blithe by plough and harrow"--
we pass Gledsnest and Colterscleuch, figuring in the well-known "Jamie
Telfer" ballad; Commonside, mentioned in "Kinmont Willie";
Northhouse, Teindside, Harwood, and Broadhaugh, snug farms all, till the
hamlet of Newmill is reached, the quarrel scene between the "jovial
harper" of the "Lay" and "Sweet Milk," "Bard of Reull," in which the
latter was slain:
"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."
Allan Cunningham's version of "Rattlin', Roarin' Willie" should be read
in this connection. Branxholme (poetically Branksome) is a particularly
interesting portion of the Teviot valley. Its Braes recall the old
ditty:
"As I came in by Teviot side
And by the Braes of Branksome,
There first I saw my bonnie bride,
Young, smiling, sweet, and handsome."
And looming up before us is the massive white pile of Branxholme itself,
the master-fort of the Teviot, and the key of the pass between the Tweed
basin and Merrie Carlisle. The Castle occupies a strong position, has
been much modernised, and is now a residence for Buccleuch's
Chamberlain. Up to 1756, it was the chief seat of the Buccleuch family.
Branxholme's main glory, however, is not its past history, or the pomp
and circumstance surrounding it in the hey-day of its power. If there
was "another Yarrow" to Wordsworth, there is "another Branxholme" to us.
It is not the memory of the fighting barons of Buccleuch, with their
tumultuous raids and unending quarrels, which draws the pilgrim's feet
to Branxholme's Tower, but the memory of events which the imagination
of the Minstrel has conjured up, and which have made for themselves a
local habitation and a name. For here Scott placed the leading incidents
of the "Lay,"--the first and finest of his Border efforts:
"Nine-and-twenty knights of fame
Hung their shields in Branksome Hall,
Nine-and-twenty squires of name
Brought them their steeds to bower from stall."
From Branxholme to the russet-grey Peel of Goldielands is scarcely two
miles. Minus gables or parapet now, and standing among the haystacks and
buildings of a farm, it is still in tolerable preservation. Here dwelt
amongst others of its old heroes, "the Laird's Wat, that worthie man,"
who led the Scots at the Reidswire in 1575. Not improbably is
Goldielands the peel associated with Willie of Westburnflat's operations
in the "Black Dwarf." At Goldielands Gate one gets a fine view to the
right of the Borthwick valley,
"Where Bortha hoarse that loads the meads with sand,
Rolls her red tide to Teviot's western stand."