place of more than ordinary note to the Scott student. Here Auld Wat,
Sir Walter's grandsire seven times removed, reigned a king among Border
reivers, whose deeds of derring-do have been long shrined by the
balladists, and graven deep on the tablets of memory. Hawick, the
Glasgow of the Borders, comes next in sight,--where Slitrig and Teviot
meet. An ancient town, but possessing few relics of antiquity, except
St. Mary's Church, and the Tower Inn, a dwelling of the Drumlanrig
Douglases, with the mysterious Moat "where Druid shades still flitted
round." The modernity of the place is, however, lost sight of annually
in the "riding of the marches," a custom which prevails also in Selkirk
and Langholm. It is the great public festival of the year, and dates
from time immemorial. Its memories are mostly of Flodden, and the brave
stand at Hornshole in the neighbourhood, the year after. The Flodden
flag, splendidly "bussed," is carried in civic and cornetal procession
with crowds continually singing--as only Teridom can--the rousing
martial air of "Teribus," the Hawick slogan, which expresses more than
any other the wild and defiant strain of the war-trump and the
battle-shout. Hawick, including Wilton, has several elegantly
architectured buildings, over a score of Tweed mills and factories,
seventeen churches, and boasts a population of nearly twenty thousand.
From Hawick to Kelso the distance is 21 miles, with a finely undulating
road all through. The railway journey _via_ St. Boswells is about double
the distance. Our way lies through some of the most storied scenery in
the Lowlands. The names on the map will give us an idea of the
exceedingly romantic character of this second half of the Teviot. Here
we come into touch with such song-haunted tributaries as the Jed and
Oxnam, the Rule and Kale, and Ale, and with many of the great houses
whose history has contributed more than any other to the making of the
Border Country. The names of Scott and Ker, Elliot and Douglas, Turnbull
and Riddell are patent to every parish through which we pass. At Minto,
the home of the Elliots and seat of the present Indian Viceroy, one is
reminded of the distinguished place which that family has held both in
the stormy and in the more peaceful times of Border story. Here Jean
Elliot wrote the "Flowers of the Forest," and Thomas Campbell his
"Lochiel's Warning." From Minto Crags, crowned with Fatlips Castle and
Barnhill's Bed, (729 feet) there is no more pleasing prospect in the
Borderland. The windings of the Teviot are traceable for miles, the
Liddesdale and Dumfriesshire heights hemming in the view on one side,
and the blue Cheviots on the other. Ruberslaw rises immediately in
front, with Denholm Dene on the right, and the narrow bed of the "mining
Rule" on the left, while behind to the north are distinctly seen the
three-coned Eildons, Earlston Black Hill, Scott's Sandyknowe, Hume
Castle, and the wavy line of the Lammermoors. Hassendean (suggesting
"Jock o' Hazeldean") Cavers, a Douglas house, where the pennon of the
great Earl, and the Percy gauntlets are still shown; Denholm, Leyden's
birthplace, Henlawshiel and Kirkton, scenes in his boyhood, lie all in
the neighbourhood. Dr. Chalmers was for a time assistant in Cavers Kirk,
and in later life delighted to recall his connection with the Border
district. Adjoining Minto, Ancrum stands bonnie on Ale Water--a village
of considerable antiquity. Its Cross, dating from David I.'s time, is
one of the best-preserved of the market-crosses of the Border. Ancrum
was the birthplace of Dr. William Buchan of "Domestic Medicine"
celebrity, and John Livingston, its minister during the Covenant, was a
man of mark and piety in his day. The place naturally suggests Ancrum
Moor, a mile or two to the north-west, one of the last great
battlefields of the international struggle. In February, 1544, an
English army under Sir Ralph Evers and Sir Brian Latoun desolated the
Scottish frontier as far north as Melrose, defacing the Douglas tombs in
the abbey. On returning with their booty towards Jedburgh, they were
overtaken at Ancrum Moor, and severely beaten by a Scottish force led by
the Earl of Angus and Scott of Buccleuch. In this battle, according to
tradition, fought Maiden Lilliard, a brave Scotswoman from Maxton, who
fell beneath many wounds and was buried on the spot. Her grave, in the
midst of a thick fir-wood, carries the somewhat doggerel epitaph:
"Fair Maiden Lilliard
Lies under this stane;
Little was her stature,
But muckle was her fame
Upon the English loons
She laid monie thumps,
An' when her legs were cuttit off,
She fought upon her stumps."[C]
[C] An attempt has been made to discredit this story by an appeal to the
antiquity of the place-name, which is admittedly much earlier than
Lilliard's day. This, however, does not dispose of the tradition. The
likelihood is that originally the first line was really "the Fair Maid
_of_ Lilliard."
The monument has been frequently restored. Lady John Scott made the last
repairing touches, adding the words:
"To A' TRUE SCOTSMEN.
By me it's been mendit,
To your care I commend it."
PLATE 20
HOLLOWS TOWER
(SOMETIMES CALLED
GILNOCKIE TOWER)
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_See pp. 72 and 96_)
[Illustration]
The Jed, joining the Teviot close to Jedfoot Station, reminds us that
the county town of Roxburgh--Jedburgh--is within easy access, and the
fascinating valley of the Jed which Burns so vigorously extolled. The
Jed takes its rise between Needslaw and Carlintooth on the Liddesdale
Border. Its general course is east and north, and its length about
seventeen miles. The places of chief interest on its banks are
Southdean, where the Scottish chiefs assembled previous to Otterburn,
and where the poet Thomson spent his boyhood; Old Jedworth, the original
township, a few grassy mounds marking the spot; Ferniherst Castle, a Ker
stronghold; Lintalee, the site of a Douglas camp described in Barbour's
"Bruce;" the Capon Tree, a thousand years old, one of the last survivors
of "Jedworth's forest wild and free;" and the Hundalee hiding caves. The
charm of Jedburgh consists in its old-world character and its
semi-Continental touches. Its fine situation early attracted the notice
of the Scottish Kings, though Bishop Ecfred of Lindisfarne is believed
to have been its true founder. He could not have chosen a more sweet or
appropriate nook for his little settlement. Nestling in the quiet
valley, and creeping up the ridge of the Dunion, the song of the river
ever in its ears, freshened by the scent of garden and orchard, and
surrounded by finely-wooded heights, Nature has been lavish in filling
with new adornments, as years sped by, a spot always bright and fair.
"O softly Jed! thy sylvan current lead
Round every hazel copse and smiling mead,
Where lines of firs the glowing landscape screen,
And crown the heights with tufts of deeper green."
The modern beauty of the place notwithstanding, Jedburgh's history has
been a singularly troubled one. As a frontier town and the first place
of importance north of the Cheviots, it was naturally a scene of strife
and bloodshed. Around it lay the famous Jed Forest, rivalling that of
Ettrick. The inhabitants were brave warriors, and noted for the skill
with which they wielded the Jeddart staff or Jedwood axe. Their presence
at the Reidswire decided that skirmish in favour of the Scottish
Borderers:
"Then rose the slogan wi' ane shout,
Fye, Tynedale, to it! Jeddart's here."
And at Flodden the men from the glens of the Jed were conspicuous for
their heroism. Jedburgh Abbey is the chief "lion" of the locality.
Completer than Kelso and Dryburgh, and simpler and more harmonious than
Melrose, it stands in the most delightful of situations, girt about with
well-kept gardens, overlooking the bosky banks of the Jed--a veritable
poem in Nature and Art. Queen Mary's House (restored) the scene of her
all but mortal illness in 1566 is still existing, and well worth a
visit. The literary associations of the burgh are more than local. James
Thomson was a pupil at its Grammar School. Burns was made a burgess
during his Border tour in 1787. Scott made his first appearance as a
criminal counsel at Jedburgh, pleading successfully for his poacher
client. The Wordsworths visited Jedburgh in 1803. Sir David Brewster and
Mary Somerville were natives, and here the "Scottish Probationer" lived
and died. Samuel Rutherford was born at Crailing, the next parish, where
also David Calderwood, the Kirk historian, was minister. Cessford
Castle, in Eckford parish, was the residence of the redoubtable "Habbie
Ker," ancestor of the Dukes of Roxburghe. Marlefield, "where Kale
wimples clear 'neath the white-blossomed slaes," is a supposed scene
(erroneous) of the "Gentle Shepherd." Yetholm, on the Bowmont, near the
Great Cheviot, has been the headquarters of Scottish gypsydom since the
17th century. Opposite Floors Castle, at the confluence of the Tweed and
Teviot is the green tree-clad mound with a few crumbling walls, all that
remains of the illustrious Castle of Roxburgh, one of the strongest on
the Borders, the birthplace and abode of kings, and parliaments, and
mints, and so often a bone of bitter contention between Scots and
English. The town itself, the most important on the Middle Marches, has
entirely disappeared, its site and environs forming now some of the most
fertile fields in the county:
"Roxburgh! how fallen, since first, in Gothic pride,
Thy frowning battlements the war defied,
Called the bold chief to grace thy blazoned halls,
And bade the rivers gird thy solid walls!
Fallen are thy towers; and where the palace stood,
In gloomy grandeur waves yon hanging wood.
Crushed are thy halls, save where the peasant sees
One moss-clad ruin rise between the trees;
The still green trees, whose mournful branches wave
In solemn cadence o'er the hapless grave.
Proud castle! fancy still beholds thee stand,
The curb, the guardian, of this Border land;
As when the signal flame that blazed afar,
And bloody flag, proclaimed impending war,
While in the lion's place the leopard frowned,
And marshalled armies hemmed thy bulwarks round."
PLATE 21
GOLDILANDS NEAR
HAWICK
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_See pp. 98, 99_)
[Illustration]
V. IN THE BALLAD COUNTRY
To a shepherd in Canada Dr. Norman Macleod is said to have remarked,
"What a glorious country this is!" "Ay," said the man, "it is a very
good country." "And such majestic rivers!" "Oh, ay," was all the reply.
"And such good forests!" "Ay, but there are nae linties in the woods,
and nae braes like Yarrow!" Of course, the answer was from a purely
exile point of view, but even to those of the Old Country the name of
Yarrow wields the most wondrous fascination. Like Tweed, Yarrow is known
everywhere, for who has not heard of its "Dowie Dens," or of its lovers'
tragedies? Certainly no stream has been more besung. The name is
redolent of all that is most pathetic in Border poetry. This is the
centre of the Border ballad country--the birthplace, or, at all events,
the nursing-ground of a romance than which there is none richer or more
extensive on either side of the Border. The Yarrow is the Scottish
Rhine-land on a small scale, even more so than the Tweed. Tweedside,
indeed, has not a tithe of Yarrow's ballad wealth, and the Tweed ballads
and folk-lore are absolutely different in respect both of subject-matter
and of manner. The curious feature about Yarrow is the wonderful
sameness which characterises the whole of its minstrelsy. For hundreds
of years that has been so. Sadness is the uppermost note that is
sounded. All through we are face to face with a feeling of dejection as
remarkable as it is common. One could have understood a stray effusion
or so couched in this strain, but for an entire minstrelsy to breathe
such a spirit is extraordinary. Why should Yarrow be the
personification, as it were, of a grief and a melancholy that nothing
seems able to assuage? Is there anything in the scenery to account for
it--anything in the physical conditions of the glen itself that solves
the secret? There is, and there isn't. To a mere outsider--a mere summer
tripper hurrying through--Yarrow is little different from others of the
southland valleys. Its main features are identical with those of the
Ettrick, and the Tweed uplands, or with the Ewes and the Teviot. All of
them exhibit the same pastoral stillness. The same play of light and
shade are on their hills. The same soothing spirit broods over them. But
of Yarrow alone it is the element of sadness that prevails. To
understand this, one has to _live_ in Yarrow--to come under the
influence of its environment. And whether it be fancy or not, whether it
be the result of one's reading, and of one's pre-conceived notions of
the place, the Yarrow landscape does lend itself to the realisation of
that feeling which the ballads so well portray. The configuration of the
glen as seen especially from a little above Yarrow Manse--the "Dowie
Dens" of popular tradition--together with its climatic conditions, may
very easily interpret for us the spirit of those old singers. Here, if
anywhere in the valley, the answer to the Yarrow enigma will be found.
Professor Veitch thinks that the whole district affords such an answer:
"Nor will anyone," he says, "who is familiar with the Vale of Yarrow
have had much difficulty in understanding how it is suited to pathetic
verse. The rough and broken, yet clear, beautiful, and wide-spreading
stream has no grand cliffs to show; and it is not surrounded by high and
overshadowing hills. Here and there it flows placidly, reflectively, in
large liquid lapses, through an open valley of the deepest summer green;
still, let us be thankful, in its upper reaches at least, mantled by
nature and untouched by plough and harrow. There is a placid monotone
about its bare treeless scenery--an unbroken pastoral stillness on the
sloping braes and hillsides, as they rise, fall, and bend in a uniformly
deep colouring. The silence of the place is forced upon the attention,
deepened even by the occasional break in the flow of the stream, or by
the bleating of the sheep that, white and motionless amid the pasture,
dot the knowes. We are attracted by the silence, and we are also
depressed. There is the pleasure of hushed enjoyment. The spirit of the
scene is in those immortal lines:--
"Meek loveliness is round thee spread
A softness still and holy;
The grace of Forest charms decayed
And pastoral melancholy."
Those deep green grassy knowes of the valley are peculiarly susceptible
of change. In the morning with a blue sky, or with breaks of sunlight
through the fleeting clouds, the green hillsides and the stream smile
and gleam in sympathy with the cheerfulness of heaven. But under a grey
sky, or at the gloaming, the Yarrow wears a peculiarly wan aspect--a
look of sadness. And no valley I know is more susceptible of sudden
change. The spirit of the air can speedily weave out of the mists that
gather upon the massive hills at the heads of the Megget and the Talla,
a wide-spreading web of greyish cloud--the 'skaum' of the sky--that
casts a gloom over the under green of the hills; and dims the face of
loch and stream in a pensive shadow. The saddened heart would readily
find there fit analogue and nourishment for its sorrow. Which is all
very true. But, as has been said, Tweed and Teviot show exactly these
conditions, and what of their minstrelsy remains is not touched with
this strangely morose sense. May not the solution lie in the very legend
of the "Dowie Dens" itself, and in the remarkable cup-like configuration
of the valley as seen from the point already indicated and under the wan
aspects which are admittedly a distinctive feature of the Yarrow at all
seasons of the year? Out of this have emerged very probably the spirit
of the balladists and their ballads. One after another have simply
followed suit, and the likelihood is that had gladness and not gloom
been the burden of some far back strain, we should not have had the
Yarrow we possess to-day. Men of the most diverse temperaments have come
under the sad spell of the Yarrow. The most lighthearted sons of song
have succumbed to the general feeling. Wordsworth himself would have
preferred to strike another note, but the enchantment of the spot held
him fast:
"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!"
All the verse writers of the last century were mere continuators of
their fellow-bards centuries before. There are, to be sure, some
flippant spirits who would dare to alter the very atmosphere of Yarrow,
but what a poor attempt at the impossible! Yarrow must ever abide the
embodiment of the most heart-piercing, and at the same time, the most
winsome melody the world has listened to.
Popularly speaking, the best of the Yarrow ballads concerns itself with
the famous "Dowie Dens" tragedy, of which there seems to be some
authentic reference in the Selkirk Presbytery Record for 1616. It is
there narrated how Walter Scott of Tushielaw made "an informal and
inordinate marriage with Grizell Scott of Thirlestane without consent of
her father." Just three months later, the same Record contains entry of
a summons to Simeon Scott, of Bonytoun, an adherent of Thirlestane, and
three other Scotts "to compear at Melrose to hear themselves
excommunicated for the horrible slaughter of Walter Scott." We have here
probably the precise incident on which the unknown "makar" founded his
crude but intensely picturesque and dramatic lay. How much of womanly
winsomeness and heroism, of knightly dignity and daring, and the
unconquerable strength of love are portrayed in the following stanzas!
There are, indeed, few ballads in any language that match its strains:
"She kiss'd his cheek, she kaim'd his hair,
As oft she had done before, O;
She belted him with his noble brand,
And he's away to 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 of Yarrow.'
* * * * *
"Four has he hurt, and five has slain;
On the bloody braes of Yarrow,
Till that stubborn knight came him behind,
And ran his body thorough.
* * * * *
"Yestreen I dream'd a dolefu' dream;
I fear there will be sorrow!
I dream'd I pu'd the heather green
Wi' my true love on Yarrow.
* * * * *
"She kiss'd his cheek, she kaimed his hair;
She search'd his wounds all thorough;
She kiss'd them till her lips grew red,
On the dowie houms of Yarrow."
A fragment of rare beauty, believed to be based on the same incident
(unlikely however) was one of Scott's special favourites. Rather does it
shrine a similar tragedy, one of many such which must have been common
enough in those troubled and lawless times. How melting is the pathos of
the following verses, for instance!
"Willie's rare and Willie's fair,
And Willie's wondrous bonny,
And Willie's hecht to marry me,
Gin e'er he married ony.
"Yestreen I made my bed fu' braid,
This night I'll make it narrow,
For a' the livelong winter night,
I'll lie twin'd of my marrow.
She sought him east, she sought him west,
She sought him braid and narrow;
Syne, in the cleaving of a craig
She found him drown'd in Yarrow.
Somewhat akin is the "Lament of the Border Widow," located at
Henderland, in Meggetdale, not far from St. Mary's Loch. In the preface
to this ballad in the "Minstrelsy," Scott states that it was "obtained
from recitation in the Forest of Ettrick, and is said to relate to the
execution of Cockburn of Henderland, a Border freebooter, hanged over
the gate of his own tower by James V. in the course of that memorable
expedition in 1529 which was fatal to Johnie Armstrong, Adam Scott of
Tushielaw, and many other marauders." The grave of "Perys of Cockburne
and hys wyfe Marjory" on a wooded knoll at Henderland, is still pointed
out. But the historicity of the ballad has been questioned from the
statement (which seems to be correct) that Cockburn was actually
executed at Edinburgh, instead of at his own home. There is no evidence,
however, to assume that the ballad commemorates this particular
occurrence or that it has any connection with the grave referred to. For
genuine balladic merit it will be difficult to match:
My love he built me a bonny bower,
And clad it a' wi' lilye 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.
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 watch'd his 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 digg'd a grave, and laid him in,
And happ'd him with 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.
PLATE 22
"HE PASS'D WHERE
NEWARK'S STATELY
TOWER LOOKS OUT
FROM YARROW'S
BIRCHEN BOWER"
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_See pp. 116_)
[Illustration]
One might speak, too, of the "Douglas Tragedy," the scene of which is
laid in the Douglas Glen, in the heart of the quiet hills forming the
watershed betwixt Tweed and Yarrow. Here lived the "Good Sir
James"--Bruce's right-hand man, who strove to carry his heart to the
Holy Land. It was from this Tower at Blackhouse that Margaret the Fair
was carried off by her lover, and about a mile further up on the
hillside the seven stones marking the spot where Lord William alighted
and slew the Lady's seven brothers in full pursuit of the pair, are
objects of curious interest. This ballad, it is interesting to note, is
one widely diffused throughout Europe, being specially rich in Danish,
Icelandic, Norse, and Swedish collections. Indeed, almost all the Yarrow
ballads--and many others--are common to Continental _volks-lieder_, and
are found in extraordinary profusion from Iceland to the Peloponesus.
Here is evidence, by no means slight, of the theory that ballads
originate from a common stock, and that in the course of ages they have
simply become transplanted and localized. Then the Yarrow valley
contains the scene of the "Song of the Outlaw Murray"--a distinctively
Border production (74 verses in all) composed during the reign of James
V. Murray divides with Johnie Armstrong the honour of being the Border
Robin Hood, but to Murray a very different treatment was meted out.
The Outlaw's lands at Hangingshaw and elsewhere were his own, though he
held them minus a title. James fumed at this, and determined to bring
the Forest chief to submission:
"The King of Scotland sent me here,
And, gude Outlaw, I am sent to thee;
I wad wot of how ye hald your lands,
O man, wha may thy master be?"
"Thir lands are MINE! the Outlaw said:
I ken nae King in Christendie;
Frae England I this Forest won
When the King and his knights were not to see."
Upon which the King's Commissioner assures the Outlaw that it will be
worse for him if he fails to give heed to the royal desire:
"Gif ye refuse to do this
He'll compass baith thy lands and thee;
He hath vow'd to cast thy castle down
And mak a widow of thy gay lady."
But Murray is defiant, and James is equally resolved to crush him.
Friends are pressed into the Outlaw's service, and very soon he has a
goodly number of troopers all ready to render service in the hour of
their kinsman's need, well knowing that in aiding him they would be
doing the best thing for themselves, as "landless men they a' wad be" if
the King got his own way in Ettrick Forest. But, like all good ballads,
this, too, ends happily. A compromise is effected, by which the Outlaw
obtains the post he had long coveted--Sheriff of the Forest:
"He was made Sheriff of Ettrick Forest,
Surely while upward grows the tree;
And if he was na traitour to the King,
Forfaulted he should never be.