Part 6 (1/2)

”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 a.s.suredly 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 Berwicks.h.i.+re--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 n.o.ble 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. inst.i.tuted 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 s.h.i.+vered was fair Scotland's spear, And broken was her s.h.i.+eld.”

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 grat.i.tude 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_)

[Ill.u.s.tration]

IV. ”PLEASANT TEVIOTDALE”

Ettrick and Yarrow between them comprise most of Selkirks.h.i.+re. The Teviot and Jed are the main arteries running through Roxburghs.h.i.+re, 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 Dumfriess.h.i.+re Esk, at the junction of the Ewes and Wauchope Waters. In the fine pastoral valley of the Ewes--the Yarrow of Dumfriess.h.i.+re--we pa.s.s 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_)

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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.”