There is no native of Scotland who does not wax poetical when St.
Mary's Loch is named. Round it and the district of which it is the
crown and glory there centres more of legend, ballad, poem and
sentiment than is to be found anywhere else, and in good sooth it is
only necessary to visit the place to realize the halo of love and
admiration which has been thrown around it. Then it is also the centre
of a famous angling district, and in 'Tibbie Shiel's' the
'contemplative man,' when his day of enjoyment is done, will find a
tidy bed, and eke some jovial companion, who will make the evening
hilarious as the day has been exhilarating. If the tourist has visited
the _Grey Mare's Tail_, described in the preceding chapter, the same
coach that has brought him from Moffat will bring him on to this scene
of singular pastoral beauty.
St. Mary's Loch presents sufficient space to make up a fine landscape,
and is not too large to be taken in at one glance. In its still beauty
it has its chief charm:--
'You see that all is loneliness,
And silence aids--though the steep hills
Send to the lake a thousand rills,
In summer tide, so soft they weep,
The sound but lulls the ear to sleep.
Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude,
So stilly is the solitude.'
The square keep seen in the foreground is Dryhope Tower, the home of
'Mary Scott, the Flower of Yarrow.' Here we at once plunge into the
old ballad and foray, for she married Wat of Harden, a famed Border
freebooter, and to name him is to let loose a flood of reminiscences,
legends, and family histories, on which the space at command here will
not permit us to enter.
The old kirk and kirkyard of St. Mary's were not less remarkable than
the loch:--
'Lord William was buried in St. Marie's Kirk,
Lady Margaret in Marie's Quire,
Out o' the lady's grave there grew a red rose
And out o' the knight's a brier.'
Thus ends the tale of the _Douglas Tragedy_. Less famous people are
buried there, as another voice tells us,
'For though, in feudal strife a foe
Hath laid our lady's chapel low,
Yet still beneath the hallowed soil
The peasant rests him from his toil,
And, dying, bids his bones be laid
Where erst his simple fathers prayed.'
The river Yarrow flows through St. Mary's Loch, having passed through
the small Loch o' the Lowes before reaching the larger water, 'Tibbie
Shiel's' lying between the two lochs. Yarrow is well known to every
reader of Wordsworth, and we must pass rapidly over what might be
suggested by that single word, so soft in sound, so suggestive of the
old-world lore of this magical district. Of every nook and dell, hill
and valley, stream and loch, there are stories and songs without end,
everywhere
'You hear sweet melodies
Attuned to some traditionary tale.'
Heroes and bold outlaws, fair women and sorrowing widows, strifes and
plunderings, genealogies and traditions--the Vale of Yarrow and its
surrounding hills and streams abound in these. All hushed are they
now, and the once warlike burgh of Selkirk is a thriving manufacturing
town, but while the 'Flowers o' the Forest' are, in one sense 'a' wede
away,' the natural attractiveness of the district remains, with all
the stories of byegone times to add to its interest for romantic or
poetic minds.