THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE STORY 
 OF THE TWEED
 
 THE STORY 
 OF THE TWEED 
 
 BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, BART. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JAMES NISBET AND COMPANY, LIMITED 
 
 22, BERNERS STREET, W. 
 
 1909
 
 THE STORY OF THE TWEED 
 IS DEDICATED TO 
 
 ANDREW LANG 
 
 THAN WHOM 
 
 NONE IS MORE ABLE TO DISCERN ITS FLAWS 
 
 NONE MORE CERTAIN TO JUDGE 
 
 THEM GENTLY 
 
 868667
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE aim of the following chapters is to 
 indicate some of the sources of interest 
 which enrich the valley of the Tweed. 
 In quoting from the ballads, in which this 
 valley is more prolific than any other in 
 the United Kingdom, the common and most 
 familiar versions have been taken. From the 
 year 1802, when Scott published the first 
 volume of his 'Border Minstrelsy^ down to the 
 close of last century, when Mr. F. J. Child 
 finished his monumental series upon English 
 and Scottish ballads, this literature has never 
 lacked diligent students and critics. Probably 
 all that can be written usefully on the subject 
 is within the reach of those who care to exa- 
 mine it critically. 
 
 As for history, the writer is human, and 
 even in the slight sketch here offered some 
 passages must be affected by his prepossession 
 and prejudice, while other passages reflect what 
 seemed to him the likeliest of two or more 
 conflicting versions. The intention of the
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 book is to provide what might be learned 
 from the conversation of an intelligent native 
 by one making a leisurely progress through the 
 scenes described. 
 
 I am informed that Queen Mary's House 
 in Jedburgh has lost the venerable appearance 
 it presented when last I saw it many years ago. 
 A slated roof has replaced the historic thatch, 
 to the distress of the antiquary, but, let us 
 hope, to the greater comfort of the inhabitants. 
 
 The quotations from Mr. James Brown's 
 poems in chapter iii. are made by kind permis- 
 sion of his son and of Messrs. William Black- 
 wood and Sons ; that from Mr. Lang's poem in 
 chapter ii. by leave of Messrs. Kegan Paul, 
 Trench, Triibner, and Co., and the verses by 
 the same author in chapter iv. by leave of 
 Messrs Longmans, Green, and Co. 
 
 HERBERT MAXWELL.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. From Tweed's well to Drummelzier ... i 
 
 II. From Biggarfoot to Ettrick Water. ... 24 
 
 III. Ettrick and Yarrow 44 
 
 IV. Abbotsford, Melrose, and Eildon .... 75 
 V. From Lauderdale to Dry burgh 104 
 
 VI. From Mertoun to Kelso 127 
 
 VII. Teviotdale and Borthwick Water .... 146 
 
 VIII. From Slitrig to Jed Water 171 
 
 IX. Jedburgh 211 
 
 X. From Kalemouth to Coldstream . . . . 241 
 
 XL Norham Castle and Whitadder 270 
 
 XII. Berwick-on-Tweed 294 
 
 XIII. Tweedside Angling 335 
 
 Envoi 360 
 
 Index 363
 
 LIST OF 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Abbotsford Frontispiece 
 
 St. Mary's Loch To face page 44 
 
 Newark Castle 74 
 
 Eildon Hills IO2 
 
 Kelso Abbey. 128 
 
 Branksome Tower 170 
 
 Jedburgh Abbey 240 
 
 Norham Castle 292
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FROM TWEED'S WELL TO DRUMMELZIER 
 
 THE greater part of the written history of every 
 country consists of a narrative of its wars, and 
 warfare most readily gravitates into the valleys 
 of those rivers which serve as frontiers between na- 
 tions. Hence rivalis, the dweller on a rivus or river- 
 bank, came to be synonymous with an enemy, and 
 has given us our word ' rival ' one who will not 
 yield to that fellow on the opposite bank. During 
 the long warfare between England and Scotland, 
 which endured for three centuries, broken only by 
 brief periods of precarious truce, the Tweed was 
 recognised as the main boundary between the two 
 realms ; the manhood and intellect of each nation 
 were strained alternately in attacking and defending 
 that line, and the valley of the Tweed became the 
 chosen ground for feats of arms, the natural arena 
 for chivalrous enterprise, the district above all others 
 where, if men would live, they must keep their wits 
 keen and their weapons handy. Practically during 
 three hundred years one generation followed another 
 on both sides of that river born, living, dying in 
 presence of an ever-watchful foe. Whence it has 
 come to pass that there have gathered over Tweed 
 and her tributaries such wealth of story, such mist 
 of tradition, such glamour of ballad and song, as
 
 2 THE STORY OF 
 
 invest no other river in Great Britain. Both nations 
 have contributed their share, so there need be no 
 jealousy between them in awarding the palm to that 
 fair stream which laves English soil on the right and 
 Scottish on the left. 
 
 So powerfully has the imagination been moved 
 so profoundly the interest stirred by the lore of 
 Tweedside, that some persons, visiting the valley for 
 the first time, find the reality fall far short of their 
 expectation. For the theatre of such intense and 
 varied human action and emotion they had conceived 
 a landscape of no ordinary kind. This is especially 
 the case in these days of barbed-wire fences, tele- 
 graph-poles, railway whistles, and motor-cars ; but 
 it was much the same before any of these unlovely 
 products of civilisation had been dreamt of. Eighty 
 years ago, when Washington Irving visited Walter 
 Scott at Abbotsford, and his host took him to the top 
 of the Delectable Mountains to feast his eyes upon 
 Lammermuir, Torwoodlee, Ettrick Forest, and Tev- 
 iotdale, the American man of letters, nursed among 
 the stupendous forests and broad-bosomed rivers of 
 the New World, received but a chill impression. 
 
 ' I gazed about me, ' he wrote, * for a time with mute 
 surprise, I may almost say with disappointment. I beheld 
 a mere succession of grey, waving hills, line beyond line, as 
 far as my eye could reach, monotonous in their aspect, and 
 so destitute of trees that one could almost see a stout fly 
 walking along their outline ; and the far-famed Tweed 
 appeared a naked stream, between bare hills, without a tree 
 or thicket on its banks. And yet such had been the magic 
 web of poetry and romance thrown over the whole, that it 
 had a greater charm for me than the richest scenery I had 
 ever beheld in England. *
 
 THE TWEED 3 
 
 At that time the land was bare enough. The days 
 had been when these uplands of Tweed and Yarrow 
 formed part of the great Caledonian Forest. The 
 old woodland had been swept away, and Scott himself 
 was one of the pioneers in replanting. At the present 
 time the lower valley of the Tweed is rich in fine 
 timber and broad woodlands. Much planting also 
 has been done in Tweeddale proper and Teviotdale, 
 although the effect of rectangular areas of immature 
 wood upon the hillsides led Professor Veitch to sigh 
 for the former bareness. 
 
 * The heights of the district did not then show as if they 
 had been curiously patched in needy places by bits of cloth 
 different from their original garment, and they were free 
 from shapes of wood that now look like arms minus bodies, 
 again like bodies minus arms, now like a tadpole, and then 
 like a soup-ladle. The people of last century were spared 
 appearances of this sort, and instead of these they had simply 
 hills, roads, and waters. ' ' 
 
 Washington Irving had the priceless privilege of 
 being presented to these scenes by one who has done 
 more than any other to interpret their history and to 
 codify (if such a harsh expression may be suffered) 
 their romance. Readers, less fortunate, but tolerant, 
 perhaps will suffer the leading of a humbler guide, 
 equal only in one respect to the Wizard of the North 
 his unalterable love for the land and its people. 
 
 Whether the Tweed be an English river or a 
 Scottish ' water, ' or whether each nation has an equal 
 claim to the glory of possessing it, must be decided 
 upon the following considerations. Taking the 
 whole course of the river along its windings from 
 
 1 History and Poetry of the Scottish Border, by Professor Veitch, i. 18.
 
 4 THE STORY OF 
 
 source to sea at about ninety-seven miles, both sides 
 of the channel are Scottish soil for eighty miles. 
 From near Birgham downwards for fifteen miles the 
 left bank is Scottish, the right bank English. For 
 the last two miles below Paxton in its course to the 
 sea the river is English on both banks, dividing 
 Berwick-on-Tweed from Northumberland. 
 
 Thus a Scot may surely insist that birthplace and 
 parentage are the true tests of nationality, and claim 
 inalienable inheritance of the Tweed in virtue of its 
 origin in the extreme south-west corner of Peebles- 
 shire or Tweeddale, which was the ancient and better 
 name for that country. And if a native of Peebles 
 be not good Scots, then must ethnology be deemed 
 but an idle fraud. To which the Englishman retorts 
 that if the Tweed is born Scots it dies English. As 
 Scotsmen from immemorial times have travelled 
 south and become naturalised Englishmen, so the 
 Tweed cannot live in its native land, and desert it for 
 good and all. 
 
 Let the verdict be Honours easy ! and let both 
 nations enjoy their share of glory in this fair stream. 
 It would be sheer waste of time to discuss the various 
 interpretations which have been given to the name 
 Tweed. Etymologists have become shy of assertion 
 in these latter days, and are agreed to write off a 
 large proportion of river names as of unknown 
 origin. All that can be said with safety is that 
 Tweed seems to be an abbreviated form of a name 
 bestowed upon many rivers by the Brythonic or 
 Cymric branch of the Celts, and may be compared 
 with Taff, Teifi, Towy, Tavy, and Dovey in Wales, 
 Tawe and Tavy in Devon, Tay and Teith in Scot- 
 land. This, too, may be added, that it is difficult to
 
 THE TWEED 5 
 
 believe that the Tweed and its principal tributary the 
 Teviot did not derive their respective names from a 
 common origin. Above Hawick the Teviot invari- 
 ably is called Water o' Teiott by the peasantry, who 
 are everywhere the only sure repository of the 
 pronunciation of place-names as they sounded before 
 they came to be written and printed. 
 
 So much for the speculative and elusive : now for 
 the tangible and demonstrable. 
 
 The accredited source of Tweed is a clear spring 
 known as Tweed's Well, rising in an upland meadow 
 some 1250 feet above the sea, near where the 
 marches of Peeblesshire, Dumfriesshire and Lanark- 
 shire meet. The accredited source, I say ; but 
 whereas the well lies between Corse Hill and Flecket 
 Hill, rising 450 and 400 feet respectively above the 
 level of the meadow, and sending down between 
 them the little Corse Burn which receives the outflow 
 of the well, it is in the said Corse Burn that the 
 Tweed first takes form and being. Corse Hill and 
 Burn derive their name from Tweed Cross, a monu- 
 ment erected by pious hands 1632 feet above the 
 sea, to remind travellers of their Redeemer, and to 
 guide them withal across these desolate moors. It 
 was destroyed, no doubt, by hands that one wishes 
 had not been so pious in that reforming zeal for the 
 obliteration of all tokens of Popery which has cost 
 Scotland so dear in the sacrifice of thousands of 
 works of art. 
 
 This upland is a prolific watershed, giving birth to 
 three chief rivers of the Scottish lowlands. 
 
 1 Annan, Tweed, and Clyde 
 Rise a' out o' ae hillside.
 
 6 THE STORY OF 
 
 Tweed ran, Annan wan, 
 
 Clyde brak its neck o'er Corra Linn. ' 
 
 Admitted that some liberties are taken with actual 
 topography in this rhyme ; for, although Clyde's 
 Burn draws its supply from a point not far distant 
 from Tweed's Well and is reputed the parent stream, 
 it is but a tributary of the Water of Daer, a much 
 larger brook rising on Queensberry (2285 feet), 
 which marks the watershed between Annandale and 
 Nithsdale. 
 
 From its modest source, * Tweed runneth for the 
 most part with a soft yet trotting stream, ' l to fulfil 
 its destiny in draining a basin of about 1870 square 
 miles, a larger area than any other Scottish river except 
 the Tay. 
 
 Watch the mood of this solitude before you 
 venture upon it, as narrowly as you would that of a 
 jealous mistress. It is not always kind to wanderers. 
 One summer day it may be all smiles, greeting you 
 with 
 
 * The floating voices of the hill 
 The hum of bees in heather bells, 
 And bleatings from the distant fells, 
 The curlew's whistle, far and shrill, 
 And babbling of the restless rill. ' 
 
 So that, as you lie in the heather musing upon the 
 countless associations of the scene the riding and 
 raiding, the driving and burning of the old Border 
 days you may get impatient with the languorous 
 beauty of earth and sky, and murmur with the c Scot- 
 tish Probationer ' 
 
 1 Dr. Pennecuik's Description of Tvoeeddalt. Edinburgh, 1715.
 
 THE TWEED 7 
 
 1 O western wind, so soft and low, 
 Long lingering by furze and fern, 
 
 Rise ! from thy wing the languor throw, 
 And by the marge of mountain tarn 
 By rushy brook and lonely cairn 
 
 Thy thousand bugles take, and blow 
 A wilder music up the fells. ' 
 
 Well for you if your summons meets with no res- 
 ponse if the raincloud,chill with the breath of Solway, 
 does not droop and wrap the landscape from your 
 sight. You are many miles from your supper, and, 
 though you like to think the path lies down hill, you 
 may learn, at the cost of aching shins, the difference 
 between wet heather and dry to travel over. 
 
 They carry their own peculiar charm, these bare 
 southern uplands ; yet few strangers would be at- 
 tracted to them, but for the human association which 
 has gathered in every hope and cleugh every heathy 
 moss and grassy hillside. But for that, the monotony 
 would be oppressive. On every hand stretch out 
 smooth hills with easy gradients, ridge beyond ridge, 
 unbroken by bush or tree, parallel in their uni- 
 form * strike ' from south-west to north-east, which 
 happens also to be the prevailing direction of the 
 never-tiring wind. The eye, without stimulus of 
 imagination and memory, would soon weary of such 
 sameness of outline and detail. The unread tourist 
 may grumble because the hills, rising to a height 
 which, in the Highlands, would ensure exciting 
 contours and varied scenery, here assume an aspect 
 as tame as if they had been artificially handled. 
 
 In truth they owe their appearance to a handling 
 more terrific than any human agency could apply. 
 The underlying rock is Lower Silurian, oldest of the
 
 8 THE STORY OF 
 
 sedimentary beds, and containing the earliest known 
 forms of life. Once these beds were subjected to 
 fierce crumpling and contortion, thrust up into soar- 
 ing crests, and cleft into darksome ravines, creating 
 scenery of a kind to satisfy the most exacting sight- 
 seer. Then came a climatic revolution. For thou- 
 sands of years not a drop of rain fell in Scotland : 
 nothing but snow, snow, snow, to the depth of many 
 hundreds of feet, solidified by its own pressure into 
 a vast ice-sheet from sea to sea. Ice, being plastic, 
 cannot remain stationary on a slope. Like water, 
 which it is, it must find its own level. So this mighty 
 field could not but move, as it is moving in Greenland 
 at this day, creeping slowly, irresistibly off the higher 
 ground to the sea-level. In its march it shore away 
 every obstacle, pared off the hill crests, grinding the 
 rocks of them into that boulder clay, which it piled 
 in those gentle slopes so characteristic of the hill 
 valleys in Upper Tweeddale. Much of this Silurian 
 area had been covered by younger deposits, especially 
 by coal-bearing strata; but these, with their contents 
 of incalculable commercial value, the ruthless ice 
 ploughed clean away, and we shall have to travel far 
 down the Tweed valley before encountering even 
 the Old Red Sandstone at Leader foot. For the 
 treelessness of the scenery man alone is responsible. 
 It is he who felled the oak forest of the valleys, the 
 pines and birches of the higher ground, without a 
 thought for the necessities of later generations. Local 
 names bear indelible testimony to the wastefulness 
 of our sires. Even the ground just below Tweed's 
 Well is still called Tweedshaws, which means the 
 wood of Tweed, though nothing could be less des- 
 criptive of its present appearance.
 
 THE TWEED 9 
 
 But we too, like the ice-field, must move forward, 
 for we have a long road before us. Above all, let 
 us forswear poetic quotation for the present, seeing 
 that we are entering a country where verse has sprung 
 up like wayside weeds, and every hanging shaw is as 
 full of ballad as of the sound of birds. However, 
 before leaving the site of Tweeds's Cross, mention 
 must be made of a notable meeting which it is said 
 took place at the summit of this pass of Erricstane 
 six hundred years ago. Edward I had dethroned his 
 puppet John Baliol, King of Scots, and had exacted 
 oaths of fealty and homage from every Scottish baron. 
 Among those whom he kept in prison was Sir William 
 Douglas * le Hardi, ' who had broken his allegiance, 
 and joined Wallace in the abortive rising which ended 
 in the capitulation of Irvine. Sir William died in 
 the Tower of London about 1298, his eldest son, 
 James, being an exile in Paris. James returned to 
 Scotland some time after his father's death, and, his 
 inheritance having been forfeited by King Edward, 
 he became a page to Lamberton, Bishop of St. And- 
 rews. In February 1306 took place the tragedy in 
 Greyfriars' Church, Dumfries, when Robert Bruce, 
 Earl of Carrick, slew his rival the Red Comyn ; and, 
 although nominally an official in King Edward's 
 government of Scotland, proclaimed his title to the 
 Scottish crown. Hearing of these events, young 
 James Douglas announced to the Bishop his intention 
 of joining him whom he believed to be rightful King 
 of Scots. The Bishop gave him absolution : he gave 
 him more : he gave him his own palfrey to ride forth 
 on an errand whereof he so highly approved ; and 
 James fell in with the new king at Erricstane, as he 
 was riding to Glasgow on his way to be crowned at
 
 io THE STORY OF 
 
 Scone. A memorable episode in Scottish history, 
 for this youth was soon to become known as * the 
 Good Sir James of Douglas' King Robert's right- 
 hand man. Douglas had never bowed the knee to 
 King Edward ; there is no stain of perjury on his 
 memory ; alone, among the leaders of that rising, he 
 never owned allegiance save to the King of Scots. 
 
 For fifteen miles young Tweed holds her way 
 through a pastoral land, gathering volume as she 
 flows. If the feminine pronoun strikes strangely 
 on English ears, let the reader note that in almost 
 every part of Scotland the river of the district is so 
 referred to, possibly because in Gaelic, once spoken 
 all over the realm, abhuinn or amhuinn (avon), the 
 generic term for rivers, is of the feminine gender. 
 From right and left numerous burns hurry up their 
 reinforcement to the suzerain stream. The Hawk- 
 shaw Burn flows from Falla Moss, of gruesome 
 memory, for here one of Cromwell's outposts, sixteen 
 horsemen, were surprised and taken by Porteous of 
 Hawkshaw and a party of moss-riders. The pris- 
 oners were killed one by one in cold blood, and 
 buried where they fell. 
 
 The next notable tributary is Talk Water, which 
 joins the Tweed at Tweedsmuir Kirk. High among 
 the hills, at the foot of Moll's Cleuch Dod (2571 feet), 
 the Talla encounters some rocky barriers, which 
 throw the stream into alternate cascade and deep pool. 
 The place is known as Talla Linns, and here in the 
 summer of 1682 was held an important gathering of 
 Covenanters. There was a special reason for the 
 choice of this place : it was just outside the juris- 
 diction of the dreaded John Graham of Claverhouse, 
 Viscount Dundee, who, having been stationed for
 
 THE TWEED n 
 
 some time at Dumfries in command of his troop of 
 dragoons, was appointed in January 1682 Sheriff of 
 Galloway, Dumfriesshire, and Annandale, and held, 
 besides, a commission of justiciary carrying powers of 
 life and death. Claverhouse was thus virtually both 
 judge and general, a most vicious and unconstitu- 
 tional combination, for which he cannot be held 
 responsible. A devoted royalist and an accomplished 
 soldier, he flinched not from carrying out the rigorous 
 measures of the Government against the disaffected. 
 * His not to reason why his not to make reply ' ; 
 yet his despatches contain frequent representations in 
 favour of making examples of lairds and leaders, and 
 dealing leniently with the peasantry. It was an 
 odious task upon which to employ the most capable 
 soldier of the time, and it will take centuries before 
 the horror of ' the killing time ' passes from those 
 lonely moors. The memory of Claverhouse, as the 
 most active official, is held in execration to this day 
 among the hill shepherds. Until lately, it was their 
 custom to destroy every nest of the pretty and 
 harmless peewit, whose shrill cries and aerial evolu- 
 tions betrayed the hiding-place of many a crouching 
 Covenanter to Claverhouse's dragoons. 1 
 
 1 An amusing story was told me among these hills in my youth. A 
 shepherd sat by the hearth, reading to his wife ' the chapter, ' according 
 to pious custom, before going to bed. He had chosen Revelation xii., 
 and began the third verse ' And there appeared another wonder in 
 heaven ; and behold a great reid dragoon ' ' Na, na, Tammas, ' inter- 
 rupted the wife, ' ye're wrang there. There never was a dragoon in 
 heaven yet. ' ' It maun be sae, wife, ' replied Tammas, ' for it's in the 
 written Word, ye ken. ' ' Atweel, ' was the resigned reply, ' if it's 
 there, it maun be sae ; but there's ae thing I ken, it couldna been ane 
 o' Clavers's dragoons. ' The reading proceeded, till Tammas came to 
 the ninth verse 'And the great dragoon was cast out, that old 
 serpent, ' etc. Whereat the good dame broke in again ' I tell't ye 
 that, lad, I tell't ye that ! I kent that nae dragoon wad bide lang in 
 heaven. It's nae place for the likes o' him ! '
 
 12 THE STORY OF 
 
 The Talk Linn convention, instead of taking 
 measures of offence and defence, fell to arguing hotly 
 upon points of doctrine, and separated without 
 effecting anything; which betrayed a sad lack of car- 
 nal common-sense, seeing that in the previous year the 
 Covenanters had declared war against Charles Stuart, 
 as having forfeited ' all right, title to, or interest in, 
 the Crown of Scotland. ' Luckily for my readers, 
 in following the course of Tweed we shall leave be- 
 hind us scenes darkened by the miseries of the West- 
 land Whigs, and enter upon others, often drenched, 
 indeed, with good blood, but mostly with blood shed 
 in open fray. 
 
 Forward, then, along the lonely road, not so lonely 
 as of yore, now that motors and bicycles have thrown 
 open tracks long deserted by travellers. Opposite 
 Tweedsmuir Kirk, to the left of road and river, re- 
 main the site and name, no more, of Oliver Castle, 
 once the stronghold of a powerful Border baron. At 
 the close of the thirteenth century Sir Simon Fraser, 
 ancestor of the present Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, 
 was keeper of Ettrick Forest for Edward I., and bore 
 arms under that monarch in the siege and capture of 
 Caerlaverock Castle in 1300; but in 1302 he sud- 
 denly changed sides, joining the nationalist movement 
 under Wallace, deserting from Edward's castle of 
 Wark, and carrying off the horses and armour of his 
 English comrade, Sir William de Dunolm [Durham]. 8 
 He joined John Comyn, one of the three Guardians 
 of Scotland, and with him inflicted a defeat on the 
 English, under Sir John de Segrave, at Roslyn on 
 
 1 Proclamation by Richard Cameron at the Cross of Sanquhar, 
 22nd June 1681. 
 * Bain's Documents relating to Scotland, ii. 334.
 
 THE TWEED 13 
 
 24th February 1 303. Robert Bruce, the future king, 
 was active in the English service at this time ; and on 
 9th February 1304 Comyn and his friends laid down 
 their arms at Strathord. Sir Simon Fraser was or- 
 dered into exile for four years ; l better for him had he 
 fulfilled the term. He was back in Scotland to join 
 Bruce's rising in 1306, was taken prisoner, and on 
 6th September of that year was executed in London 
 with all the rigour of Norman law against treason. 
 First he was hanged ; then he was taken down alive, 
 his entrails taken out and burnt before his eyes, and 
 finally he was beheaded. All this, as a contemporary 
 English chronicler complacently observes, ut majores 
 cruciatus sentiret that he might endure the greater 
 torment. 
 
 This Sir Simon seems to have been the last of his 
 line who owned land in Tweeddale, his lands ot 
 Oliver passing with his daughters to their husbands, 
 Fleming of Biggar and Hay of Tester. Young Hay 
 of Talk (part of Over Oliver barony) suffered death 
 for his share with Bothwell in the murder of Darnley 
 in 1567. 
 
 Passing the old wayside inn of Crook, a name de- 
 noting the former site of a cross, one perceives the 
 alder and birch timidly beginning to fringe the stream. 
 Polmood Burn comes in from the right here, flowing 
 from the ample breast of Broad Law (2725 feet), re- 
 minding one by its name of the ancient forest fauna 
 which has passed away. Polmood represents the 
 Gaelic pol madadh y the wolfs stream. 2 That wolves 
 survived the inroad of people of Saxon speech into 
 
 1 Bain's Documents relating to Scotland, ii. 457. 
 1 The name recurs in fuller form on the southern watershed of this 
 range, Polmoody, a tributary of Moffat Water.
 
 i 4 THE STORY OF 
 
 Tweeddale may be known by the occurence of such 
 names as Wolf-hope Law, Wolf-field Craigs, Wolf 
 Lee, etc. Before leaving the uplands for the low 
 ground, it is interesting to note the recurrence of 
 place-names derived from beast and bird. Hunt Law 
 (2086 feet) stands suggestively on the north side of 
 Polmood ; Glenmuck commemorates where the wild 
 sow used to farrow (Gaelic muc] ; it is many a year 
 since Hartfell (2651 feet) held either red stag or fallow 
 buck ; Raecleuch has now scarcely cover for a mouse, 
 let alone a roe-deer ; the erne or white-tailed eagle 
 has been driven from Yearngill Head (1804 feet), 
 but in 1845 shepherds were still complaining about 
 the mischief wrought by these birds among their 
 lambs. l Harecleuch, Hawkshaw, Tod's Knowe, and 
 Ravencraig speak to us of creatures still resident long 
 life to them ! 
 
 Polmood was the house of a family named Hunter 
 in early days. One may catch a glimpse of the chase 
 in a fragment of rhyme floating about the neigh- 
 bourhood 
 
 * The King rade round the Merecleuch Head, 
 
 Booted and spurred, as we a' did see, 
 And dined wi' a lass at Mosfennan Pett, 
 A little below the Logan Lee. ' 
 
 Mosfennan, a farm-toun on the left bank of Tweed 
 three miles below Polmood, between camp-crowned 
 Wormal (1776 feet) andGlenholm Kirk, is the scene 
 of another and later lyric, supplanting the old and 
 forgotten one, and rehearsed to Professor Veitch by 
 William Welsh, the Peeblesshire cottar-poet. From 
 internal evidence Veitch was able to fix its date as 
 
 1 New Statistical Account.
 
 THE TWEED 15 
 
 shortly after 1689, and as the ballad has never been 
 printed except in his Border History and Poetry^ space 
 may be found for it here. It shows, at least, that the 
 monotony of life was broken for dwellers in these 
 wastes, not only by fire and sword, but by the gentler 
 vicissitudes of courtship. The most notable thing 
 about this ballad is that it is said to have been com- 
 posed by the heroine herself, who was one of two 
 joint-heiresses Grizel and Janet Scott. Veitch, who 
 died in 1 894, had it from Welsh, who learned it from 
 Jeanie Moffat, who died in 1 874 at the age of ninety- 
 nine. Jeanie averred that she learned the verses from 
 a fellow-servant who had been serving-maid in the 
 house of Mosfennan when the courtship was in 
 progress, to whom her mistress, the Lady of Logan 
 Lee, used to repeat them. It is not often that one can 
 trace floating minstrelsy so directly to its source. 
 
 MOSFENNAN, OR THE LOGAN LEE 
 
 There cam three wooers out o' the west, 
 Booted and spurred, as ye weel micht see, 
 
 And they lichted a' at Mosfennan Yett, * 
 A little below the Logan Lee. 
 
 Three cam east, and three cam west, 
 And three cam frae the north countrie; 
 
 The rest cam a' frae Moffat side, 
 And lichted at the Logan Lee. 
 
 * Is the mistress o' this house within, 
 
 The bonny lass we've come to see ? ' 
 4 1 am the leddy o' this place, 
 
 And " madam " when ye speak to me. ' 
 
 ' Yett, gate.
 
 16 THE STORY OF 
 
 * If ye be the leddy o' this house, 
 
 That we hae come sae far to see, 
 There's mony a servant lass in our country-side 
 That far excels the Leddy o* the Logan Lee. ' 
 
 * Then it's no' to be my weel-faured face 
 
 That ye hae come sae far to see, 
 But it's a' for the bonny bob-tailed yowes ' 
 That trinle alang the Logan Lee. 
 
 * But be I black or be I fair, 
 
 Be I comely for to see, 
 It males nae matter what I be 
 
 While I've mony a yowe on the Logan Lee. 
 
 * I hae seven yowe-milkers in a bught, 
 
 Wi' their coaties kilted abune the knee ; 
 Ye may seek a wife among them a ', 
 
 But ye '11 ne'er get the Leddy o' the Logan Lee ! ' 
 
 * Be she black or be she fair, 
 
 I carena a boddle what she may be ; 
 I wad rather hae ane without a plack 
 
 Than wed the Leddy o' the Logan Lee ! ' 
 
 * Some says that I lo'e young Powmood, 
 
 Others some says he lo'es na me ; 
 But I weel may compare wi' his bastard blood, * 
 Though I hadna a yowe on the Logan Lee. 
 
 * Graham o' Slipperfield and his grey mear, 
 
 Young Powmood wi' his greyhounds three, 
 Charlie and his pistols clear 
 
 Ye'll ne'er hae a yowe on the Logan Lee. 
 
 >Ewes. 
 
 1 Robert Hunter of Polmood died in 1689, and his estate passed to his 
 illegitimate son, George Hunter. The succession was disputed by 
 Adam Hunter, tenant in Alterstane, in an interminable lawsuit, which 
 lasted into the nineteenth century.
 
 THE TWEED 17 
 
 ' But young John Graham is a weel-faured man, 
 
 And a cunning 1 lad he seems to be ; 
 For he cam doun by the Langcleuch Fit, 
 And hill be the Laird o' the Logan Lee. ' 
 
 At Kingledoors the valley broadens out, and at 
 Drummelzier 2 stand the ruins of Tinnis Castle, 
 where the family of Tweedie once held great sway. 3 
 They own no land in these parts now, but they are 
 remembered for the length and violence of a blood- 
 feud between them and their near neighbours, the 
 Veitches of Dawick, whose lands also have passed 
 into other hands. The first Tweedie appears to 
 have succeeded to Drummelzier by marriage with 
 the daughter and heiress of Laurence Fraser, a cadet 
 of the house of Oliver. He and his successors, not 
 content with their duty in repelling English invasion, 
 and in lifting English cattle, set up as freebooters 
 on their own account, levying blackmail upon peace- 
 able travellers and harrying their neighbours' lands. 
 With the Tweedies rode the Crichtons of Cardon 
 and Porteous of Hawkshaw. Two of them, * Wil- 
 liam Twedy of Drummelzeare and Adam Twedy of 
 Dreva,' were among those arraigned for the murder of 
 
 1 Clever. 
 
 * Note that the z in this and other Scottish names like Cadzow, 
 Dalziel, etc., does not represent the soft sibilant, but the consonantal^, 
 as in ' year ' and ' yellow. ' Drummelzier is pronounced ' Drummellyer,' 
 
 3 The mythical origin of the name Tweedie is given in Scott's notes 
 to the Lay of the Last Minstrel. The Laird of Drummelzier, returning 
 from a prolonged absence as a crusader, found his wife with a fine 
 boy, ' whose birth did not by any means correspond with the time of 
 his departure. ' She told him that she had been walking by the Tweed 
 one day, when the Spirit of the river appeared, and compelled her to 
 yield to his embraces. The indulgent husband accepted the explana- 
 tion : the child grew into a very powerful man, and received the name 
 of Tweedie in virtue of his putative paternity. All of which recalls the 
 Homeric legend of the nymph Tyro, who, becoming enamoured of the 
 river Enipeus, was seduced by Neptune in the guise of that stream. 
 
 2
 
 i8 THE STORY OF 
 
 David Riccio in 1566. The feud with the Veitches 
 had been running long before that date. No one 
 knows its origin, but it is sure to have been a quarrel 
 about land. The frequent occurence in this district 
 of the place-name Threipland (Scots, to threep, to 
 quarrel] testifies to that common source of disagree- 
 ment. Anyhow, in the sixteenth century the Veitches 
 had for allies the Burnets of Barns, Geddes of Rachan, 
 and Lord Fleming of Biggar. In 1 590 the head of 
 the Veitches was an immensely powerful man known 
 as the Deil of Dawick ; his friend Burnet, called 'the 
 Hoolet, or the Owl, was his match in stature and 
 strength. Between them they managed to daunt 
 the tyrant Tweedie of Drummelzier. But one day 
 in June the * Deil's ' son, Patrick Veitch, being in 
 Peebles, was recognised by young Tweedie of Drum- 
 melzier. There were six Tweedies in the town 
 altogether, besides two Crichtons and a Porteous 
 long odds against a single Veitch. No attempt was, 
 however, made against the young fellow in Peebles, 
 which was at that time a place of fashion and resort. 
 The nine rascals divided into two bands, one of 
 which galloped forward to Neidpath Castle ; the 
 other tarried in the town till they saw their victim 
 ride homewards alone. When he entered the gorge 
 of the Tweed at Neidpath the two parties closed, 
 and the young laird of Dawick was seen alive no 
 more. They swung for it, no doubt, these cowardly 
 assassins ? Not a bit. The extreme and unusually 
 vigorous step was taken of putting them in Edin- 
 burgh tolbooth ; but the Tweedies had no difficulty 
 in finding cautioners c to satisfy pairties, ' Scott of 
 Buccleuch standing forward for them, and the mur- 
 derers went free. The feud was unappeased. Four
 
 THE TWEED 19 
 
 days after the slaughter of Patrick Veitch, two Veit- 
 ches met John Tweedy, Tutor of Drummelzier, in 
 the High Street of Edinburgh, who presently was 
 lying in the kennel with Veitch of Syntoun's rapier 
 through his heart. 
 
 The last we can glean about this vendetta is in a 
 proclamation by James VI. and I., dated at Greenwich 
 the loth March 161 1, which, after reciting 'that the 
 deadly feid betwixt Veitches and Tweedies is as yet 
 unreconciled, ' calls upon the Privy Council to 
 summon before them * the principalls of either sur- 
 name, ' and force them to agree on pain of imprison- 
 ment. Such was one of the first effects of a strong 
 central government. 
 
 On Drummelzier Haugh the Tweed receives from 
 the west the Biggar Water. There is here no sug- 
 gestion of magnitude or relative proportion : it is a 
 Norse name, from bygg^ barley, and signifies simply 
 the by gg garth) or barley field, commemorating prim- 
 itive agriculture. l Sir Archibald Geikie has drawn 
 attention to the singular fact that although the Clyde, 
 in its course from the Erricstane watershed, has run 
 twice as far as its sister Tweed, and has attained 
 more than double the volume, it passes Biggar within 
 seven miles of the Tweed at Drummelzier, and is 
 separated from it, not by a ridge or elevated ground, 
 but by a flat tract of loose sandy deposit. It would 
 require but a slight engineering effort, he says, to 
 throw the whole volume of the Clyde at Biggar into 
 the Tweed valley. 2 In fact, Tom Stoddart was long 
 puzzled by the appearance of salmon and their young 
 
 1 The same name, less altered, appears as Biggart, near Beith, in 
 Ayrshire, and as Biggarts, near Moffat. 
 1 Scenery of Scotland, 2nd ed., 349.
 
 20 THE STORY OF 
 
 in this part of the Clyde, which is hopelessly closed 
 against the ascent of these fish from the western sea 
 by the falls of Cora Linn, eighty feet in height. 
 
 * The fact is accounted for in this way. After passing 
 Tinto Hill, the bed of the Clyde approaches to a level with 
 that of Biggar Water. . . . On the occasion of a large flood, 
 the two streams become connected, and the Clyde actually 
 pours a portion of its waters into one of the tributaries of the 
 Tweed. ' l 
 
 Biggar was of old a burgh of barony of the Flem- 
 ings. Here, in 1545, Malcolm, Lord Fleming, 
 High Chancellor of Scotland, founded a collegiate 
 church, and dedicated it to St. Nicholas, patron of Big- 
 gar. Of late pointed style, cruciform in shape, 
 without aisles and with an apsidal east end, this build- 
 ing still serves as the parish church, and its square 
 battlemented tower lends a sober dignity to the little 
 grey town. It was probably the last church to be 
 built and endowed in Scotland before the Reform- 
 ation. In the manse of the Moat Park Church of the 
 United Presbyterians, Dr. John Brown was born in 
 1810, kindliest of essayists, the author of Horos Sub- 
 secivos and of Rab and His Friends. 
 
 Drummelzier Haugh and the steep slopes of 
 Scrape above it are full of misty memories of the 
 wizard Merlin. A little below Drummelzier Kirk, 
 says Dr. Pennecuik, writing in 1715, * the particular 
 place of his grave, at the foot of a thorn tree, was 
 shown me, many years ago, by the old and reverend 
 minister of the place. ' The reputed burial-place is 
 on the Powsail Burn the stream of willows just 
 above its junction with the Tweed; but it must be 
 
 1 The Angler's Companion for Scotland, 2nd ed., 346.
 
 THE TWEED 21 
 
 confessed that this clashes with the legend which 
 assigns him a resting-place with King Arthur and his 
 knights, in the enchanted halls under the triple Eil- 
 dons, nearly thirty miles hence. An ancient pro- 
 phecy 
 
 * When Tweed and Powsail meet at Merlin's grave, 
 Scotland and England that day ae king shall have ' 
 
 is said to have been fulfilled on the coronation day of 
 James VI. and I., 25th July 1603, wnen a tremendous 
 flood caused the two streams to mingle their waters 
 at this spot. 
 
 Much confusion exists about the identity of Merlin 
 Wyllt or Caledonius, who was a different person from 
 Merlin Emrys or Ambrosius, also a wizard, upon 
 whom Vortigern, the Prince of south-east Britain, be- 
 stowed a town on the summit of Snowdon. This 
 was in the fifth century ; whereas the events in the 
 life of Merlin Wyllt recorded by Gildas took place in 
 the latter half of the sixth century. Professors Skene 
 and Veitch laboured to unravel the puzzle, which is 
 unintelligible unless one remembers that by his 
 victory of Ardderyd 1 (Arthuret, near Carlisle) in 573, 
 at which Merlin Wyllt was present, the Christian 
 Rydderch Hael overthrew the pagan forces under 
 Gwendoleu, and established himself as King of Cum- 
 bria or Strathclyde, a Welsh realm extending from 
 the Derwent to Dunbarton. 2 
 
 Merlin fled from the fatal field of Ardderyd, and, 
 according to the statement in one of his extant poems, 
 lived in the Caledonian Forest for fifty years. But 
 whereas he admits that he was crazed with grief, his 
 
 1 Pronounced Artheryd, with a soft dental, like th in ' this. ' 
 3 Dun Bretan, the fortress of the Britons or Welsh.
 
 22 THE STORY OF 
 
 reckoning need not be taken literally. Possibly his 
 4 ten years and forty ' may signify ten years and forty 
 days. 
 
 4 Sweet apple tree, growing by the river ! 
 
 Whereof the keeper shall not thrive on the fruit ; 
 
 Before I lost my wits I used to be round its stem 
 
 With a fair playful maid, matchless in slender shape. ' 
 
 Ten years and forty, the sport of the lawless, 
 
 Have I been wandering darkling among sprites, 
 
 After wealth in abundance and entertaining minstrels. 
 
 I will not sleep, but tremble for my leader, 
 
 My lord Gwendoleu and the people of my country, [donia 
 
 After suffering from disease and despair in the forest of Cale- 
 
 May I become a servant of the Lord of Noble Retinues ! * 
 
 Rydderch Hael established Christianity in Strath- 
 clyde, appointing the energetic Kentigern or Mungo 
 as bishop, a state of things very disagreeable to the 
 heathen Merlin. The lord of Drummelzier was one 
 Meldred, whose name is probably preserved in the 
 original form Dunmeller, the fortress of Meldred. 
 Fordun, writing in the fourteenth century, records 
 the tradition that Merlin met Bishop Kentigern prope 
 oppidum Dunmeller near the village of Drummelzier 
 and that Meldred's shepherds afterwards clubbed 
 him to death. 
 
 Professor Skene suggested that this Haugh of 
 Drummelzier was probably the scene of the seventh 
 of King Arthur's twelve battles, which Gildas states 
 took place in silva Caledonis, id est y catcoit Celidon * in 
 the forest of Caledon, that is, the battle of the Cale- 
 donian Forest ' ; but Professor Veitch seems to be 
 
 1 The Vivien of the legend and of Tennyson's idyll. 
 1 Black Book of Carmarthen, xvii. SeeSkene's Four Ancient Books of 
 Wales, i. 372, ii. 18.
 
 THE TWEED 23 
 
 nearer the mark in indicating Cademuir, formerly 
 written Cadmore, as the true battlefield, to the east of 
 Manor Water, six or seven miles lower down the 
 Tweed, cad being the Welsh for a battle. Howbeit, 
 the Caledonian Forest was a big affair, rilling the whole 
 of Strathclyde, whereof Ettrick, Selkirk, and Cadzow 
 forests remained in the Middle Ages but the surviv- 
 ing fringe ; wherefore it is not easy to determine the 
 exact spot for this great combat. 
 
 The prehistoric remains of Upper Tweeddale are 
 innumerable. Attack and defence were the primary 
 business of primitive man, and almost every hill-top 
 bears a stone fort of circular earthwork. They add 
 to the interest of summer rambles among the hills ; 
 let him who, musing on the dim past, tries to recon- 
 struct the scene in imagination, bear in mind that the 
 land was densely wooded when its human occupants 
 sought points of vantage for defensive works. No 
 fewer than seventy-six of these ancient forts have been 
 described with plans by Dr. David Christison in an 
 exhaustive paper printed in the Proceedings of the 
 Scottish Antiquaries for iSSy. 1 
 
 1 The forts of Selkirkshire are dealt with by the same competent hand 
 in the Proceedings for 1894-95.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 FROM BIGGARFOOT TO ETTRICK WATER 
 
 AFTER its reinforcement by Biggar Water, al- 
 though still more than 600 feet above the sea, 
 the Tweed loses the irresponsible character of 
 a mere upland stream, and takes on the airs and 
 graces of a river. At this point, too, it parts with its 
 pastoral surroundings and winds among well-tilled 
 fields and hillsides, to which much of the original 
 sylvan character has been restored. Notably at Da- 
 wick or Dalwick, the wic or dwelling in the dale, 
 which the Veitches, perhaps broken by the long feud 
 with the Tweedies, yielded to a lawyer, James Nae- 
 smyth, towards the close of the seventeenth century. 
 This gentleman's grandson, Sir James Naesmyth of 
 Posso, studied under the great Linnaeus in Norway, 
 and turned his studies to good and lasting account, 
 for it is to him that the traveller owes that splendid 
 prospect of forest which stretches behind the modern 
 house far along the flanks of Scrape (2347 feet). It 
 is said that Linnaeus personally helped Sir James to 
 lay out this fine wood, wherein the silver firs alone 
 are worth a summer day's travel to behold. Dawick 
 disputes with Dunkeld the honour of having been 
 the first place in Scotland where larches were planted. l 
 Opposite Dawick extend the fine grounds and 
 
 1 Dawick is now the property of Mrs. Balfour.
 
 THE TWEED 25 
 
 plantations of Stobo Castle, the centre of a large estate 
 which once belonged to the Murrays, but was sold in 
 1767 to James Montgomery, Chief Baron of the 
 Exchequer in Scotland. His grandson, Sir Graham 
 Montgomery, was member for the county from 1852 
 till 1880, dying in 1901. The next baronet, Sir 
 James, it may be remembered, fell from a night ex- 
 press travelling to London, and was thus killed in 
 November 1902. The property has now been sold. 
 
 The parish church of Stobo is one of the very few 
 in Scotland which escaped destruction or irreparable 
 defacement in the fury of the Reformation. The 
 structure is Norman, but the windows in the south 
 wall have been reconstructed in sixteenth century 
 pointed, and a porch of the same date has been put 
 up in front of the Norman south door. It is to be 
 regretted that when Sir Graham Montgomery was 
 restoring the building in 1868 the Norman chancel 
 arch was pulled down, and replaced by a modern 
 pointed one. The { jougs,' or iron collar for the 
 correction of evildoers, still hung in the south porch 
 a few years ago. 
 
 There are some remarkable trees at Dawick and 
 Stobo. An oak at Dawick measured 80 feet high 
 in 1880, with a clean bole of 42 feet, girthing 10 feet 
 8 inches five feet above the ground. Another oak 
 at Stobo was the same height, with 35 feet of clean 
 bole, and girthed 9 feet 4 inches at a height of five 
 feet. A sycamore at Stobo, 63 feet high, girthed 
 17 feet 8 inches at five feet above the ground. 1 
 
 Along the north-east border of Stobo parish runs 
 the Water of Lyne, scene of an episode which ought 
 to be read about in Harbour's Brus by anybody who 
 
 1 Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society, 1880-81.
 
 26 THE STORY OF 
 
 will be at pains to master the old northern English 
 in which that delectable poet cast his verse. It took 
 place in 1308. The noble, but terrible, Edward 
 Longs hanks had been dead for eighteen months : 
 his ignoble, ill-starred son reigned as Edward II.; 
 but the violent disputes with his own barons had 
 diverted attention from Scottish affairs, and the 
 cause of independence was waxing apace. Still there 
 was a strong English party in Scotland, for the cross 
 of St. George still flew over every chief fortress in 
 that country. Sir James of Douglas had been busy 
 for some months rousing the men of Tweeddale to 
 action, and with good success, for King Edward 
 forfeited the lands which Aymer de Valence, Earl of 
 Pembroke, owned in that district, because his tenants 
 * had traitorously joined Robert de Brus. * 
 
 One summer night Douglas sought lodging at a 
 house on the Water of Lyne, but found it was full 
 of company already. Creeping under a window, he 
 listened, and what he heard convinced him that those 
 within were no friends to the good cause. 
 
 Nerhand the hous, sa listnet he, 
 And heard thar sawis like dele, ' 
 And be that persavit wele 
 That tha war strange men. ' J 
 
 Douglas immediately took vigorous measures. He 
 made his men surround the house, burst open the 
 door, and surprised the company before they could 
 get on their harness. Some were slain, some escaped 
 in the darkness, but at least one prisoner of price 
 
 1 ' Heard every part of what they said ' curiously misinterpreted 
 by the transcriber of the Edinburgh MS. in 1489, who rendered the 
 line ' Herd ane say tharin " the Dewill. " ' 
 
 f The Brtts, bociv. 15.
 
 THETWEED 27 
 
 remained in the person of Thomas Randolph, King 
 Robert's nephew. 
 
 Randolph, a lad of mettle, hitherto most eager in 
 pursuit of the King of Scots, was brought before 
 his uncle, who received him kindly, and expressed a 
 hope that he would now become a dutiful liege. But 
 the young squire answered fiercely, taunting the 
 king with having challenged open war and stooped 
 to unknightly ruses. Back to prison with him, 
 then ! where a few weeks' reflection brought him to 
 another mind. He took service under King Robert, 
 and discharged it so well that he was created Earl of 
 Moray, became the generous rival of Douglas in his 
 king's confidence and favour, and after King Robert's 
 death in 1329 was chosen Regent. 
 
 This bit of history seems to have associated itself 
 with the Roman camp at Lyne, which goes by the 
 name of Randal's Wa's or Randal's Trencher. A 
 notable work it is, situated 700 feet above the sea, 
 in the heart of the Peeblesshire hills, causing one to 
 wonder why the Roman commanders should have 
 chosen such a desolate, solitary region as the station 
 of a powerful force, for the fortifications enclose a 
 space of upwards of six Scots acres. But, as Chalmers 
 pointed out, the position was one of considerable 
 strategic importance, commanding the junction of 
 the main routes from the south-eastern and south- 
 western districts of North Britain with those from 
 Strathclyde and Lothian. * It was a fair inference, 
 therefore, that the object of the Romans was to 
 protect this important connection between the main 
 east and west routes by which, from time immemorial, 
 invading armies have penetrated into Scotland ; and 
 it is noteworthy that these connecting roads, although
 
 28 THE STORY OF 
 
 running through a hill country, encounter no high 
 pass, and have such easy gradients that they are 
 favourite cycling routes at the present day. ' 
 
 Another and later Regent of Scotland, upon 
 whose deserts men cannot be got to agree so readily 
 as upon those of the gallant Randolph of Moray, 
 has left his memorial on the Water of Lyne. James 
 Douglas, Earl of Morton, chose himself a fair site 
 at the confluence of Lyne and Tairth whereon to 
 build a mighty castle, where he might lodge when 
 hunting in the royal forest. He lived to see it 
 nearly finished on a fine scale the great hall measures 
 50 feet long by 22 feet broad but never did he lay 
 his head therein. The Regent was summoned before 
 the Council to answer for his part in the murder of 
 Darnley, and on 2nd June 1581 his head was struck 
 off by * the Maiden, ' * a kind of guillotine, which, 
 it is said, Morton himself had directed to be used 
 in Scotland, after seeing the clean work it wrought 
 upon criminals in Yorkshire. Drochil Castle was 
 never finished : it remains a massive and impressive 
 monument of the vanity of human wishes. 
 
 The flat elevated tableland which fills the angle 
 between Lyne Water and Tweed is called SherifFs 
 Muir or Shire Moor, not to be confused with 
 Sheriffmuir, near Dunblane, where on I3th Novem- 
 ber 1715 the Duke of Argyll and the Earl of Mar 
 fought a drawn battle. SherifFs Muir in Tweeddale 
 was so named as the spot where the sheriff of the 
 county used to muster the local forces for service 
 on the Border. 
 
 1 Proceedings of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, 1901, 154-186, 
 where a full account may be found of the recent excavation of this 
 camp. 
 
 * Now in the National Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh.
 
 THE TWEED 29 
 
 The quaint little parish church of Lyne claims 
 passing notice as a late-pointed building, probably 
 of the early seventeenth century, measuring inter- 
 nally only 34 feet by 1 1. 
 
 About a mile below Lyne Water foot, Tweed 
 receives on her right bank the Manor Water, and 
 here we enter the very realm of romance, for in this 
 solitude dwelt David Ritchie, a deformed recluse, 
 whom Walter Scott saw in 1797, and handed down 
 to fame as * the Black Dwarf. ' * Bowed Davie ' had 
 the head, body, and arms of an immensely powerful 
 man set upon legs so short that his only support 
 seemed to be two enormous finlike feet. Early 
 soured by the heartless derision which met him 
 whenever he went abroad, especially from children, 
 he built himself a cot in a secluded spot below 
 Cademuir, where he lived till his death in 1811, a 
 hermit, uncertain in his behaviour to strangers, but 
 devoted to the beauties of nature and fond of poetry. 
 Sir Thomas Dick Lauder describes * Bowed Davie ' 
 reading aloud Shenstone's Pastorals and Paradise Lost 
 in a most unmusical voice. 
 
 Follow Manor Water above the Black Dwarf's 
 abode, and you find yourself once more, first in 
 pastoral scenes, then amid the desolate hills. 
 
 Of old, one of a laird's privileges was the right of 
 * thirlage ' that is, of compelling his tenants to 
 grind their corn at his own mill. Hence the sati- 
 rical stanza 
 
 1 There stand three mills on Manor Water, 
 
 A fourth at Posso Cleuch ; 
 Gin heather bells were corn and here [barley] 
 
 They wad hae grist eneugh. '
 
 30 THESTORYOF 
 
 Ruined peel-towers stud the course of the stream, 
 once of great strength and, one would say, of greater 
 discomfort. Castlehill, for instance, a stronghold of 
 Veitch's ally, the Hoolet o' Barns, is a mere rectan- 
 gular block, 37 feet 6 inches by 39 feet 6 inches, 
 and with walls 7 feet thick. Domestic arrangements 
 had to be conducted within a total free area of 23 
 feet 6 inches by 25 feet 6 inches. Posso Castle 
 stands a couple of miles higher up the glen ; but we 
 shall never get on with our journey if we *pause to 
 take note of all these towers, erected on every laird's 
 land for alternate purposes of refuge and robbery. 
 Messrs. MacGibbon and Ross have done incalculable 
 service to historians, antiquaries, and architects by 
 their admirable work on Scottish castles. l The 
 humblest of these have not escaped notice and 
 description, and readers curious upon such matters 
 will find in the historical notes nearly all that need 
 be told of these ghosts and skeletons. 
 
 Resuming the downward course of Tweed, a walk 
 of a mile brings us within view of a castle which, by 
 reason of the beauty of its site and its architectural 
 interest, commands more than passing notice. Orig- 
 inally a keep above ordinary strength, the walls being 
 over ten feet thick, it was much enlarged and beauti- 
 fied in the seventeenth century by the first Earl of 
 Tweeddale, to whose ancestors, the Hays of Yester, 
 Neidpath had belonged for centuries. The earl did 
 not live to see the work finished ; in an evil hour the 
 estate passed into the hands of the last Duke of 
 Queensberry the notorious ' old Q ' who wrecked 
 the scenery by felling and selling the magnificent 
 timber which clothed this gorge of the Tweed. One 
 
 1 Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland. 5 vols.
 
 THE TWEED 31 
 
 might have forgiven him, had he shown the grace to 
 replant ; but not he ! All he cared for was to spite 
 his heir, and to get cash to spend on pimps and prize- 
 fighters in London. On doctors, too, for this 
 wretched old debauchee endeavoured to prolong his 
 worthless existence by paying the French physician, 
 Pere Elisee, a sum of money for every day he lived. 
 In addition to this, one Fuller, an apothecary in 
 Piccadilly, sued the duke's executors for ^10,000, 
 representing fees for 9340 visits and attendance on 
 1215 nights during the last seven years and a half of 
 his patient's life, and actually obtained verdict for 
 payment of 7500. Wordsworth visited Neidpath 
 in 1803, eight years after the woods had been felled; 
 and scourged the old reprobate with unaccustomed 
 bitterness in the well-known lines beginning 
 
 * Degenerate Douglas ! oh the unworthy lord. ' 
 
 This work of devastation is about all for which this 
 heir of a noble name is remembered on Tweedside at 
 this day. 
 
 A mile below Neidpath, Eddlestone Water joins 
 the Tweed from the north, and at the confluence 
 stands the royal burgh of Peebles, where a bridge of 
 five arches was thrown across the river about the year 
 1467, and still remains, widened in accordance with 
 modern notions of safety and convenience. Prettily 
 situated, Peebles owes little beauty to the taste of its 
 recent architects. The church of Holy Rood, or the 
 Cross Church, was built by order of Alexander III in 
 1261, in gratitude for sundry miracles performed at 
 a great cross which was dug up in that year. Frag- 
 ments of the wreck of this church remain in a modern
 
 32 THE STORY OF 
 
 fir plantation on the west of the town. It was 102 feet 
 in length, and must have been a beautiful structure, 
 but in 1784 it was dismantled, and used as building 
 material for the present parish church ; an example of 
 the dishonour that may be done by good men to grace 
 and beauty. The other church of Peebles, the col- 
 legiate one of St. Andrew, met with a less inglorious 
 doom. Erected in 1195, it was burnt irredeemably 
 by the English in 1548, and nothing of it remains 
 now but the tower, which Dr. William Chambers 
 restored at his own charges in 1883 more honour 
 to him had he been less successful in concealing the 
 old work. He is buried at the foot thereof. 
 
 The provost and town council, blind to the true 
 interests of their burgh, have been sadly utilitarian 
 in past years. Of the city walls few vestiges remain. 
 Even the ancient town cross they permitted Sir John 
 Hay to transplant to his neighbouring park of Kings 
 Meadows in 1 807 ; but conscience smote their grand- 
 children, who obtained restoration of the cross to the 
 town in 1859. 
 
 The days of glory for Peebles were those of the 
 early Stuart kings. It was the centre of a district 
 famous for sport. There was a royal castle there, now 
 demolished ; it became the Balmoral of the royal 
 family of the day. Not only so, but it was a centre 
 of gaiety and business for all classes throughout 
 Tweeddale; ! so that the modern English joke which 
 represents a Tweeddale man as exclaiming, * They 
 may talk o' Lunnun and o' Pairis, but for real pleas- 
 ure gie me Peebles 1 ' was not far from the truth in 
 old times. At least we have the royal word for it 
 
 1 Tweeddale proper, as distinct from the Tweed valley consists of 
 the shire of Peebles.
 
 THE TWEED 33 
 
 the word of James I. of Scotland, the most accom- 
 plished of his dynasty. In his poem Peblis to the Play y 
 the king strikes a lower key than in The Kings Quair y 
 but strikes it with such truth and sympathy with the 
 pleasures of his people that one cannot doubt his 
 kindly nature and quick power of observation. 1 
 
 ' At Beltane, when ilk bodie bownis 
 To Peblis at the play, 
 To heir the singin and the soundis, 
 The solace, suth to say, 
 Be firth and forest furth they found, 
 They graythit tham full gay ; 
 God wait that wold they do that stound 
 For it was their Feist Day, 
 
 They said, 
 Of Peblis to the play. ' 
 
 The long poem which follows gives a description, 
 minute as it is graphic, of the incidents of a gala 
 day rustic courtship, tavern scenes, and home- 
 going evidently painted from life by one who 
 delighted desipere in loco. 
 
 Part of * the play ' was horse-racing, an important 
 one, if we may judge from an order by the Lords of 
 Council so late as April 1608, which prohibits the 
 sport because of the risk of bloodshed owing to 
 * quarrels, private grudges, and miscontentment ' 
 existing between families. 
 
 The last monarch to visit Peebles was the ill- 
 
 1 The authorship of the poem has been disputed on the high authority 
 of Professor Skeat, mainly on philological grounds. The language and 
 metre are considered to be those of a later date than 1437 ; but 
 Professor Veitch thought that the discrepancy might be accounted for 
 by oral transmission and the variants of later copyists (Border History 
 and Poetry, ii. 55-63). ' The play ' does not mean a dramatic perform- 
 ance, but a general festivity. 
 
 3
 
 34 THESTORYOF 
 
 starred Darnley, who spent some time hunting there 
 in 1565. 
 
 Five furlongs to the east of Peebles the Gatehope 
 Burn crosses the road on its way to the river, marking 
 the ancient boundary of Ettrick Forest. 
 
 In leaving the town the traveller has the choice of 
 keeping to the left bank of the river, passing the 
 towers of Upper and Nether Horsburgh, the ruined 
 strongholds of an ancient family of that name, whose 
 seat is now at the Pirn, on Gala Water, and so on 
 to the pleasant little watering-place of Innerleithen ; 
 or he may cross the bridge and enter Ettrick Forest 
 by way of Traquair. But let him take which way 
 he will, he cannot escape the spell cast upon all this 
 land by Walter Scott ; for Innerleithen proudly 
 claims to be the original of his St. Ronan's Well, 
 and at Traquair one is confronted by the closed 
 gates barring the long, straight avenue leading to 
 Traquair House, flanked by pillars bearing aloft two 
 stone bears, which do duty in the Tullyveolan of 
 Waverley. Closed, these gates, and the avenue 
 disused since 1796, when the seventh Earl of Tra- 
 quair lost his countess, and decreed that the gates 
 should not be opened until another Countess of 
 Traquair should come to the old house. l But the 
 title expired with the eighth earl, who died in 1861 ; 
 on the death of whose sister, Lady Louisa Stuart, 
 in 1875, wanting but four months to complete her 
 hundredth year, the property passed by will to the 
 Hon. Herbert Constable-Maxwell, who has assumed 
 the additional name of Stuart. 
 
 The house itself is of great size and extreme 
 
 1 Dr. John Brown says these gates have ' never been opened since 
 the '45 ' (Horce Subsecivce ' Minchmoor ').
 
 THE TWEED 35 
 
 interest, preserving, as Mr. David MacGibbon has 
 remarked, c its antique aspect better than any other 
 inhabited house in Scotland. Since the end of the 
 seventeenth century, when the last additions were 
 made, almost nothing seems to have been done to 
 the building beyond the necessary repairs. ' l 
 
 Quair Water rises upon Dun Hill (2433 feet), 
 famous in old time for the quality of the falcons 
 which were reared upon its crags. The memories 
 connected with the Quair are less sanguinary than 
 is usual in the Border land ; her Muse is distinctly 
 of an amatory spirit. Robert Crawford of Drumsoy 
 (died in 1733) was a native of Renfrewshire, but he 
 drew his inspiration from Tweedside. The cream 
 of his verse is The Bush aboon Traquair, which it is 
 said he wrote to fit an old air, the words of which 
 had been forgotten. This poem is less tainted with 
 artificial classicism than most others of the seven- 
 teenth century, and is supposed to commemorate 
 the unsuccessful wooing of one of the Stuarts of 
 Traquair by young Murray of Philiphaugh. 
 
 ' My vows, my sighs, like silent air 
 
 Unheeded, never move her. 
 At the bonny bush aboon Traquair, 
 
 'Twas there I first did love her. ' 
 
 Of the * bonny bush ' itself nothing now remains 
 but a few decrepit birches inside a modern clump 
 planted on a knoll about a mile above Traquair 
 House. Principal Shairp of St. Andrews, visiting 
 the spot in 1867, caught its spirit 
 
 1 Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland, ii. 440.
 
 36 THE STORY OF 
 
 ' Now the birks to dust may rot, 
 
 Names of 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. ' 
 
 Nay, the very minister of the parish must yield 
 to the soft influence of the place. The Rev. James 
 Nicol (1769-1819) 4 gave himself away * in some 
 very musical lines 
 
 * Where Quair rins sweet amang the flowers, 
 
 Down by yon woody glen, lassie, 
 My cottage stands it shall be yours, 
 Gin ye will be my ain, lassie. 
 
 For had I heir'd the British crown, 
 
 And thou o' low degree, lassie ; 
 A rustic lad I wad hae grown, 
 
 Or shared that crown wi' thee, lassie. ' 
 
 Reluctantly leaving bonny Traquair, four miles 
 or so lands us among the woods of Elibank, and 
 under the walls of Elibank Tower, standing on the 
 foot-slope of Elibank Law (1715 feet). Sir Gideon 
 Murray, descended from Andrew of Blackbarony, 
 who perished at Flodden, and ancestor of Lord 
 Elibank, the present owner, built this castle in 1595 ; 
 but it is now a wasted ruin, and the modern home 
 of the family is on lower ground near the river. 
 
 This Sir Gideon, a person of much authority in 
 the government of James VI., had a wife of a very 
 practical mind, if the story by which she is remem- 
 bered be well founded. The Murrays had been 
 long at feud with the Scotts ; they spent much of
 
 THETWEED 37 
 
 their time lifting each other's cattle. One night Sir 
 Gideon caught his enemies in the act, and was lucky 
 enough to capture young Scott of Harden, heir of 
 the famous Auld Wat o' Harden. Now the Murrays 
 were blessed with three daughters, but never a 
 husband for any of them. Under such circumstances 
 it behoved the prudent mother to be watchful. She 
 asked her husband how he intended to deal with his 
 prisoner. 
 
 * Strap him up to the dule-tree, l wife, * quoth Sir 
 Gideon ; * what else ? ' 
 
 * Na, na, ' replied the lady, * ye can do better than 
 that, Sir Gideon, you that has three ill-faured lasses 
 to marry. Hang the winsome young laird o' Hard- 
 en ! Hout na ! ' 
 
 Murray reflected a minute before answering. 
 
 1 'Shrew me ! ' he exclaimed at last, { but ye 're no 
 far wrang, my leddy. Young Harden shall wed wi' 
 mickle-mou'd Meg, or he'll strap for it. ' 
 
 Scott was offered his life on these terms : he 
 vowed he preferred the gallows ; but he changed his 
 mind at the foot of the dule-tree. He wedded 
 muckle-mou'd Meg, who made him an excellent 
 wife, and Sir Walter Scott traced direct descent from 
 their third son. The only obvious discrepancy 
 between local tradition and history is that his bride's 
 name was really Agnes Murray, not Margaret. His 
 second wife was Margaret Ker of Linton. 
 
 A couple of miles below Elibank stands Ashiestiel, 
 memorable for all time as the first home of Walter 
 Scott on Tweedside. He had been appointed Sheriff 
 of Selkirkshire in 1799, but had hitherto kept his 
 
 1 The hanging-tree, a necessary part of the establishment of a baron 
 who had ' power of pit and gallows. '
 
 38 THE STORY OF 
 
 little country residence at Lasswade. * I left, ' he 
 says, * the pleasant cottage I had upon the side of 
 the Esk for the pleasanter banks of the Tweed, in 
 order to comply with the law, which requires that 
 the sheriff be resident, at least during a certain 
 number of months, within his jurisdiction,' and here 
 the seven happiest years of his life were spent. 
 Fruitful years, too ; for though Wcrverley was not 
 yet, Scott was busily garnering that vintage of legend 
 and history whence such an ample stream of narrative 
 and romance should flow in later years. Moreover, 
 it was at Ashiestiel that he composed The Lay of the 
 Last Minstrel (1805), Marmion (1808), The Lady of 
 the Lake (1810), and the introductory epistles to 
 Marmion. When Scott resigned the lease of Ash- 
 iestiel in 1 8 1 2 to enter upon possession of Abbots- 
 ford, a wider horizon opened before him, but it was 
 crossed with clouds which never darkened his earlier 
 and humbler sphere. The old oak still grows by 
 the river where he had his seat, and the Shirra's 
 Knowe, a little south of the house, has taken per- 
 manent rank among the place-names of the district. 
 Follow the Glenkinnen Burn up from Ashiestiel 
 and you come to the secluded hill-farm of William- 
 hope, where on a day in 1803 rode together two 
 men of note, Walter Scott and Mungo Park. 
 Mungo, born in the farm of Fowlshiels on Yarrow, 
 had already won fame by five years of African travel, 
 had married the sweetheart of his apprentice days, 
 and had resolved to settle in his native dale, to 
 practise as a surgeon. But the wander-spirit had 
 firm hold over him ; he had not the fortitude to 
 resist proposals from the Government to undertake 
 another exploration of the Gambia and the Niger,
 
 THETWEED 39 
 
 and he was on the eve of departure. As they rode, 
 Park's horse stumbled. * A bad omen, ' observed 
 the sheriff. f Freits l follows them that fears them, * 
 was the traveller's laughing reply ; he struck spurs 
 into his nag and rode away. ' I stood and looked 
 after him, ' Scott used to say, * but he never looked 
 back. ' They met no more. Park was slaughtered 
 by some natives on the Niger some time in the 
 autumn of 1805. 
 
 Older and gloomier memories than this haunt the 
 ridge of Williamhope. 2 The place was once called 
 Galeswood, but it took the name of William's Cross 
 from a memorial stone set up to commemorate the 
 encounter of two knights named William Douglas. 
 The elder of these was known as the Knight of 
 Liddesdale, the son of Sir James Douglas of Lothian, 
 whose prowess against the English gained for him 
 the title of Flower of Chivalry. He won back from 
 them most of the Douglas lands on the Border, but 
 in 1346 he was taken prisoner, along with young 
 King David II., at the battle of Neville's Cross. Six 
 years' imprisonment in the Tower of London sapped 
 the integrity even of the Flower of Chivalry. He 
 betrayed the cause by which he had won his renown, 
 and c became King Edward's man ' on condition of 
 receiving extensive lands in Annandale and Moffat- 
 dale. 
 
 Meanwhile the younger William, nephew of the 
 c good Sir James, ' and afterwards first Earl of 
 Douglas, had been educated in France since the 
 death of his father, Sir Archibald * the Tineman, ' at 
 
 1 Omens. 
 
 * The suffix ' hope, ' so common in Tweeddale and Ettrick, is the 
 Scandinavian equivalent of the Gaelic ' glen ' which prevails in other 
 districts.
 
 40 THESTORYOF 
 
 the battle of Halidon Hill in 1333. The Knight of 
 Liddesdale was his godfather and guardian during 
 his minority. Returning in 1351 to take up his 
 lordship, young William found that the Knight had 
 quietly annexed a good deal of his rightful inherit- 
 ance, and had allowed his lands to be overrun by 
 Englishmen. He set to work to recover them and 
 expel the strangers, but no meeting took place 
 between godfather and godson until one day, in 
 August 1353, the young lord found the Knight 
 hunting in Ettrick Forest, where he had no right to 
 be. No man knoweth what took place ; there would 
 be high words, followed by swift blades. Perhaps 
 Lord Douglas had the stronger following. Anyhow, 
 only one William Douglas rode away from that 
 meeting. The other lay stark in the greenwood. 
 
 Scott's nearest neighbour at Ashiestiel was Alex- 
 ander Pringle of Whytbank, scion of an immemorial 
 Border race, who built the present house of Yair. 
 The name signifies a fish weir, is in fact the same as 
 the Anglo-Saxon wer, a weir or dam. This is one 
 of the loveliest parts of the Upper Tweed, and meet 
 tribute has been paid to its beauty by one of her 
 latest and most faithful lovers. 
 
 * Brief are man's days at best ; perchance 
 I waste my own, who have not seen 
 The castled palaces of France 
 
 Shine on the Loire in summer green. 
 
 And clear and fleet Eurotas still, 
 You tell me, laves his reedy shore, 
 
 And flows beneath the fabled hill 
 
 Where Dian drove the chase of yore.
 
 THE TWEED 41 
 
 And " like a horse unbroken " yet 
 
 The yellow stream with rush and foam, 
 
 'Neath tower and bridge and parapet, 
 Girdles his ancient mistress, Rome. 
 
 I may not see them, but I doubt 
 If seen I'd find them half so fair 
 
 As ripples of the rising trout 
 
 That feed beneath the elms of Yair. ' l 
 
 Nearly opposite Yair stands the roofless house of 
 Fernielea, once a fine example of seventeenth-century 
 domestic architecture, and the seat of a branch of 
 the Rutherfurd family. How such a charming 
 residence came to be deserted is a puzzle nobody 
 seems to know but reverence is its due for one 
 reason, if for no other. It was here that Alison 
 Rutherfurd (1712-1794), a daughter of the house, 
 and afterwards Mrs. Patrick Cockburn, composed 
 one of the two extant versions of that exquisite dirge 
 The Flowers o the Forest. It is remarkable that the 
 other version should have been composed about the 
 same time, say 1750, by Jean Elliot of Minto. The 
 original words which went to the music that inspired 
 both these ladies have been lost saving only the first 
 line 
 
 1 1 have heard them liltin' at the ewes milkin* ; ' 
 another fragment 
 
 * I ride single in my saddle, ' 
 and the refrain 
 
 * The Flowers o' the Forest are a' wede * away ; ' 
 
 1 The Last Cast, by Andrew Lang. 
 Withered.
 
 42 THESTORYOF 
 
 but the air is preserved in the collection of John 
 Skene of Hallyards (d. 1 644). 
 
 Though these verses are so well known, a stanza 
 of each may be quoted for comparison. 
 
 Alison Rutherfurd's, which is considered the elder 
 version by a few years, referred to the financial dis- 
 asters which had overtaken certain families in the 
 neighbourhood of Fernielea. 
 
 * I Ve seen the smiling 
 Of fortune beguiling, 
 
 I Ve felt all its favours, and found its decay ; 
 
 Sweet was its blessing, 
 
 Kind its caressing, 
 
 But now it is fled, fled far, far away. 
 
 I 've seen the Forest 
 
 Adorned the foremost, 
 
 With flowers of the fairest, most pleasant and gay ; 
 
 Sae bonny was their blooming, 
 
 Their scents the air perfuming, 
 
 But now they are wither'd, and wede all away. ' 
 
 Jean Elliot took for her theme a grander catas- 
 trophe the crushing massacre of Flodden Field. 
 
 * I Ve heard them liltin' at the ewe-milkin' ' 
 Lasses a-liltin' before the dawn of day ; 
 
 But now they are moanin' on ilka green loanin', 
 The Flowers o' the Forest are a' wede away. 
 
 Dule and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border 1 
 The English, for ance, by guile wan the day ; 
 The Flowers of the Forest, that foucht aye the foremost, 
 The prime o' our land, are cauld in the clay. ' 
 
 1 To secure the music of this line ' ewe ' must be pronounced in the 
 Scottish manner ' yow. '
 
 THE TWEED 43 
 
 It is a curious literary coincidence that both these 
 ladies, composing independently, should have used 
 the same faulty rhyme { forest ' and * foremost. ' 
 
 There are some fine nuts for etymologists to crack 
 in the place-names of Peeblesshire. Some of the 
 farm names have been thrown into jingle by for- 
 gotten bards. 
 
 4 Bonnington lakes and Cruikston cakes, 
 
 Kademuir and the Rae ; 
 And hungry, hungry Hundelshope, 
 And skawed Bell's Brae.' 
 
 Again 
 
 ' Glenkirk and Glencotha, the Mains o' Kilbucho, 
 Blendewan and the Raw, Mitchellhill and the Shaw, 
 There's a hole abune the Threipland 
 Has held them a'. ' 
 
 The 'hole abune the Threipland' is a wet hollow 
 in a hillside where there is a cave, connected by 
 tradition with Covenanting times, and the rhyme 
 indicates that the people in these farms found a 
 refuge there.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 ETTRICK AND YARROW 
 
 ONE may be lightly beguiled into an excursion 
 through Ettrickdale and Yarrow, but it is no 
 easy matter to make escape from these upland 
 vales, so thickly are they peopled with memories of 
 the past. 
 
 * There *s a far bell ringing, 
 And a phantom voice is singing, 
 Of renown for ever clinging 
 
 To the great days done. ' 
 
 Suppose we take that King of Scots for a guide, 
 whose itinerary is so plainly set forth in the ballad of 
 The Outlaw Murray. We may ford the river, as he 
 did, at Cadonfoot, and hear the selfsame music of the 
 shallows that has been sounding all through the 
 centuries ; but after that how sorely changed is every 
 furlong of the way ! 
 
 * The King was comand through Cadon Ford, 
 
 And full five thousand men was he ; 
 They saw the derke foreste them before, 
 They thought it awsome for to see. ' 
 
 Now the whole forest is one vast sheepwalk, and 
 almost the only trees that greet the eye, except a few
 
 THETWEED 45 
 
 scattered birches in the steep cleuchs, are the fine 
 plantations round the Duke of Buccleuch's modern 
 house of Bowhill and Lord Napier's house of Thir- 
 lestane. 
 
 The king mentioned in the ballad is James IV., and 
 the outlaw is probably John Murray, eighth laird of 
 Philiphaugh, who claimed to hold Ettrick Forest in- 
 dependently of the Crown. King James sent a mes- 
 senger to call the outlaw to account, who, having 
 found ^Murray in his castle of Hangingshaw on 
 Yarrow, received defiant answer as follows : 
 
 1 " Thir lands are mine ! " the Outlaw said, 
 
 " I ken nae king in Christentie ; 
 Frae Soudron l I this foreste wan, 
 
 When the king nor his knights were not to see. " 
 " He desyres you '11 cum to Edinburgh, 
 
 And hauld of him this foreste free ; 
 And gif ye refuse to do this, 
 
 He '11 conquess baith thy lands and thee. 
 He hath vow'd to cast thy castell down, 
 
 And mak a widowe o' thy gaye ladye ; 
 He'll hang thy merry men, payr by payr, 
 
 In ony frith where he may them find. " 
 " Ay, by my troth ! " the Outlaw said, 
 
 " Then would I think me far behinde ; 
 Ere the king my feir countrie get, 
 
 This land that 's nativest to me, 
 Mony o' his nobles sail be cauld, 
 
 Their ladyes sail be right wearie. " 
 
 To this challenge the king replied in person and 
 in force, but before proceeding to strong measures 
 he tried to win over his rebellious liege by diplomacy. 
 Strange to say, he succeeded. Scotsmen had not as 
 
 1 Southron, Englishman.
 
 46 THESTORYOF 
 
 yet learned, as they did later, to mistrust the kingly 
 word. Murray came out into the open, met the king 
 in conference at Penmanscore, and flinched not from 
 repeating his sole claim to be Lord of the Forest. King 
 James knew a man when he saw him : here was one 
 worth the winning. After a long palaver he said 
 
 * " Will ye give me the keys of your castle, 
 With the blessing of your fair ladye ? 
 
 I '11 make thee Sheriff of Ettrick Foreste, 
 Surely while upward grows the tree. 
 
 Gif ye be not a traitor to your king, 
 Forfaulted sal ye never be. " 
 
 On these honourable terms the outlaw bowed the 
 knee, and became the king's man ever thereafter. 
 After all, King James has not brought us very far on 
 our way up Ettrickdale ; indeed, he has led us up the 
 tributary Yarrow ; so it will be better to treat these 
 streams in the same way as the others, and trace them 
 rapidly from their sources. 
 
 Round the cradle of Ettrick Water, then, stand 
 three majestic sponsors in a semicircle Capel Fell 
 (2223 feet), Wind Fell (2180 feet), and Ettrick Pen 
 (2269 feet). Ettrick runs the usual course of hill 
 burns for ten miles or more before it passes between 
 the ruined tower of Gamescleuch on the right, built 
 by Simon * of the Spear, ' and Thirlestane on the left, 
 where Simon's father, John Scott, had his abode. In 
 1699 William Scott, a lineal descendant of this John, 
 married Elizabeth, heiress of the barony of Napier, 
 who transmitted the title to her son as fifth Baron 
 Napier, great-great-great-grandfather of the present 
 Lord Napier and Ettrick, whose residence remains at 
 Thirlestane.
 
 THETWEED 47 
 
 A mile or so above Gamescleuch, Ettrick receives 
 a burn called Tima, into which the little Red Syke 
 tumbles in much haste from the bare brow of a hill 
 on the east written in the ordnance survey Law Kneis, 
 but pronounced by the shepherds Lan'ease. 
 
 * When the Red Syke at e'en sounds loud, 
 And the Lan'ease carries a cloud, 
 
 And the corbie croups on the auld thorn, 
 
 We 're sure, Willie Wise, there '11 be rain the morn.* 
 
 There is another stave connected with Tima, com- 
 memorating a solitary hag named Meg Linton, a re- 
 puted witch, who lived in a hovel called Bogle 
 Sauch, and died of starvation there. 
 
 * Auld Meg Linton, o' the Pool o' Midnight haugh, 
 Is buried aneath the Bogle Saugh. 
 
 Sae auld Meg Linton is cauld and dead, 
 
 And nocht in her house but a pykit sheeps-head.' 
 
 Pool Midnight, an eerie basin in the Tima beside the 
 Bogle Sauch, was the scene of the suicide of Wee 
 Johnnie, a respectable weaver, with ill-fortune and a 
 worse wife. 
 
 * Let nane that gaes by the Gatecleugh foot 
 
 Look east or west at the auld birk tree ; 
 For there, at e'en, will Wee Johnnie be seen, 
 Wi' his neck twined round wi* loom-cords three.' 
 
 Tima has its source at Tamleuchar, the most 
 desolate spot on Eskdalemuir. A cross stood there 
 once, and many a weary treasure-hunt has been 
 started on the strength of a rhyme connected there- 
 with.
 
 48 THESTORYOF 
 
 * Atween the wet ground and the dry 
 The gold o' Tamleuchar doth lie. ' 
 
 The land between Tima and the Rankil Burn was 
 the heritage in 1415 of Robert Scott, who exchanged 
 part of it with the Monks of Melrose for the Moor- 
 land called Bellenden on the divide between Ettrick 
 and Teviotdale. The Scotts waxed apace in propor- 
 tion as the Black Douglases waned, and added land to 
 land in both valleys. The head of the clan, Sir David 
 Scott of Branxholm, appeared in James III.'s parlia- 
 ment of 1487 as Dominus de Buccleuch, a title derived 
 from a farm on the Rankil Burn three miles above its 
 junction with the Ettrick. Sir Walter Scott, in his 
 notes to The Lay, has lent sanction to a shadowy le- 
 gend connecting this place with an incident of the 
 chase in the days of Kenneth Mac Alpin, who reigned 
 as first King of Scots, 844-859. The progenitor of 
 the family of Scott is said to have tackled successfully 
 a buck which the king held at bay, and the ravine 
 where this happened was known ever after as the Buck 
 Cleuch. Heraldry has endorsed the tradition, but 
 has altered the buck into a stag trippant, with golden 
 horns and hoofs, which is the crest of the Duke of 
 Buccleuch in this twentieth century. Readers may 
 yield what credence they can se non t vero 2 venere- 
 vole this fact remains, that here is the cradle of a 
 great family ; and further, that Bellenden, being on 
 the ridge dividing Ettrick from Teviotdale, became 
 the mustering-place of the clan, and * Bellenden ! 
 Bellenden ! ' its slogan or battle-cry. 
 
 A little lower down Ettrick Water was the tower 
 of a scion of the house of Scott, Delorain, a name with 
 which Sir Walter took poetic licence, throwing the
 
 THETWEED 49 
 
 stress on the first and last syllables. Ettrick men, 
 having no exigencies of metre to serve, invariably 
 accent the second syllable, which reveals the name as 
 a Gaelic one dal Orain, Oran's land. 
 
 The hoary ruin of Tushielaw, on the left bank of 
 Ettrick opposite Rankil Burn, is fraught with gloomy 
 memories. Here dwelt Adam Scott, whose lawless 
 doings had earned him the title of* King of Thieves, ' 
 and whose end has been the subject of a good deal of 
 misrepresentation. It has been repeatedly stated that 
 James V. himself apprehended and was present at the 
 hanging of the Laird of Tushielaw and of William 
 Cockburn, laird of Henderland on Meggat Water. 
 The true facts are set forth in the Justiciary Records 
 for 1530, proving that these two gentlemen were 
 apprehended, brought to Edinburgh, tried, and duly 
 beheaded on 1 8th May, a full month before King 
 James set out upon his memorable excursion to the 
 Borders. 1 Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch, despite his 
 kinship with both malefactors, was the direct agent, 
 under royal warrant, in their apprehension. 
 
 One might linger long in Ettrickdale, musing and 
 maundering over the past, but for considerations of 
 space and time. It is impossible to quit this green 
 upland without a passing tribute to one whose out- 
 ward personality was thus vigorously sketched by 
 Carlyle in 1832 
 
 * A little red-skinned, stiff sack of a body, with quite the 
 common air of an Ettrick shepherd, except that he has a 
 highish though sloping brow (among his yellow grizzled hair), 
 and two clear little beads of blue or grey eyes that sparkle, 
 if not with thought, yet with animation. I felt interest for 
 the poor " herd body, " wondered to see him blown 
 
 1 Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, i. 145.
 
 50 THE STORY OF 
 
 hither [to London] from his sheepfolds, and how, quite 
 friendless as he was, he went along cheerful, mirthful, 
 musical.' 
 
 In Scottish phrase, James Hogg had 'an unco 
 guid consate o' himsel',' as well he might, for his 
 poetical gifts were of no common order, and raised 
 him far above the general run of rural bards. He 
 was born near Ettrick Kirk in 1770, and was trained 
 to his father's calling of shepherd. Like most other 
 men of mark, he inherited his bright intellect from 
 his mother, Margaret Laidlaw, who used to sing to 
 him as a child the old Border ballads. It was her 
 unrivalled knowledge of these that brought the 
 Hoggs a visit from Walter Scott, in his search for 
 material for the third volume of his Border Minstrelsy. 
 By that time, 1803, Hogg had published a small 
 volume of Pastorals, etc., which fell quite flat. He 
 was at some field work when they brought him 
 word that * the Shirra and some o' his gang ' were 
 at the cottage, and wanted to see him. Mrs. Hogg 
 delighted Scott by chanting the ballad of Auld Mait- 
 land. He asked her if it had ever been in print. 
 * O na, na, sir,' said she, * there never was ane o ' my 
 sangs prentit till ye prentit them yoursel', an' ye hae 
 spoilt them a'thegither. They were made for singing, 
 an no' for reading, an' they'll never be sung nae 
 mair.' Scott laughed merrily, and answered the 
 dame by a couplet from Wordsworth. * Ye'll find,' 
 she persisted, 'that it 's a' true that I 'm tellin' ye. ' 
 And so it has proved ; for, as James Hogg himself 
 said, * from that day to this, these songs, which were 
 the amusement of many a long winter evening, have 
 never been sung more. '
 
 THE TWEED 51 
 
 Few people read the Ettrick Shepherd now ; some 
 love his verse When the Kye comes Hame, for 
 example without any suspicion of the authorship ; 
 but the late Professor Ferrier's judgment holds 
 good, pronouncing him to be, ' after Burns, proximus 
 sed longo interuallo, the greatest poet that has ever 
 sprung from the bosom of the common people.' 
 James Hogg was laid in the lonely kirkyard of 
 Ettrick : fitting epitaph from his own hand might 
 have been found in one of his early poems 
 
 * Flow, my Ettrick ! it was thee 
 
 Into life that first did drap me ; 
 Thee I'll sing, and when I dee 
 
 Thou wilt lend a sod to hap me. 
 Pausing swains will say, and weep, 
 " Here our Shepherd lies asleep. " 
 
 Before quitting Ettrick, note must be made of yet 
 another of those towers which stud all this Border- 
 land so closely. Oakwood has fared better than 
 many of them, being still wind and weather tight, 
 although the upper floors are used only as a granary 
 and storehouse, and the ground floor as a cartshed. 
 As the property of Lord Polwarth, it remains in the 
 family of Scott, who have owned it since 1517, 
 when it was taken from Lord Home and granted by 
 James V. to Michael Scott. Here, doubtless, is the 
 source of that local tradition which affirms that in 
 the thirteenth century the wizard Michael Scott of 
 Balwearie was the lord of Oakwood. Sir Walter 
 Scott has embalmed the following story among those 
 notes to The Lay which some people find more to 
 their taste than the poem itself. 
 
 When Michael came to live at Oakwood, he heard
 
 52 THE STORY OF 
 
 a great deal about the Witch of Falsehope, a sorcer- 
 ess living on the opposite side of Ettrick Water. 
 Desiring to test her quality, he rode over one day, 
 dismounted, and, leaving his horse and greyhounds 
 in charge of his serving-man, entered the house. 
 The witch was jealous of the wizard ; would answer 
 no questions, and denied having any supernatural 
 power. Michael having carelessly laid his wand upon 
 the table, the sorceress snatched it up and struck him. 
 Aware that mischief had been wrought upon him, 
 Michael beat a hasty retreat. As he moved, his body 
 shrank, his ears lengthened, his raiment changed to 
 fur, and he crossed the threshold in the form of a 
 hare. ' Haloo ! ' cried his man, * haloo-loo-loo ! ' and 
 slipped the greyhounds upon the quarry. Michael 
 ran a cruel course, finally escaping into the sewer of 
 his own tower, where he caught his breath, reversed 
 the spell, and reappeared in his proper habit. 
 
 Michael would have his revenge upon the male- 
 volent witch. Riding one day in harvest to the brae 
 above her house, he sent his servant to ask her for 
 some bread for his greyhounds. She was in the act 
 of baking for the reapers, but she told the fellow to 
 go to some other place. The man then acted as his 
 master had instructed him in the not unexpected 
 event of a refusal. He placed a paper over the house 
 door, inscribed with cabalistic signs, and with the fol- 
 lowing couplet 
 
 * Maister Michael Scott's man 
 Sought meat and gat nain.' 
 
 Immediately the witch began dancing round the fire, 
 which, as usual in primitive households, was in the
 
 THE TWEED 53 
 
 middle of the floor, incessantly repeating the rhyme. 
 Dinner-time arrived: the farmer sent down one of the 
 reapers to fetch the food. The first messenger caught 
 the infection, and joined in the dance ; so did the 
 next, and the next, until the house was full of dancing 
 people, all shouting the rhyme at the top of their 
 voices. Last of all came the farmer himself, who, 
 hearing the din, looked cautiously through the window 
 and beheld his wife in the last stage of exhaustion, 
 dragged round the fire by his maddened workers. 
 Instantly it occurred to him that she had offended the 
 warlock. He made speed to Oakwood Tower, and 
 besought Michael to reverse the spell upon his house- 
 hold. 
 
 ' Go back to your house, ' was the reply, * enter it 
 backwards, and with your left hand take the ticket 
 from over the door.' 
 
 Which the agitated husband did, and all fell calm 
 again, though the dinner was spoilt. 
 
 Though Michael Scott the Wizard probably never 
 was at Oakwood, the adventure with the witch may 
 have befallen his namesake; for that a witch there was 
 is testified by a summit on Falsehope (properly 
 Fauldshope, the glen of the sheepfolds), still called 
 Witchie Hill. 
 
 As we took James IV. as a guide into Ettrick 
 Forest, so we may follow his son James V. along the 
 course of Yarrow. Like many a Stuart, this monarch, 
 who made such a sorry end, began his reign with 
 portentous energy. We have seen how he set Buc- 
 cleuch to catch Henderland and Tushielaw. It was 
 not enough : the Marches continued * in grete ruyne 
 and out of all gude order, ' Buccleuch himself being 
 the cause of much of the mischief. So in 1 530 King
 
 54 THESTORYOF 
 
 James clapped him in prison, and at the same time 
 sent into durance the Lords Maxwell, Home, Both- 
 well, and other Border lairds, seeing that, in Sir 
 James Balfour's words, * they had winked at the 
 willanies ' constantly committed by their kinsmen and 
 dependants. Gathering a strong force, therefore, the 
 king rode up Yarrow to Meggatdale, where he began 
 his campaign with a great hunting. Eighteen score 
 of harts were slain ; poor sport, one would say, seeing 
 that it was but the month of June, and the velvet was 
 thick and tender on their horns. All manner of 
 small game, too, was taken by hawks. Having pro- 
 visioned his troops in this agreeable fashion, the king 
 took in hand the grim part of the business. He rode 
 by what still bears the name of the King's Road, from 
 St. Mary's Loch to Ettrick Water, across Bellenden 
 Moor, and so into Teviotdale, where we shall take 
 later note of his proceedings. 
 
 It cannot be the size of St. Mary's Loch that has 
 earned it fame, seeing that it measures but three 
 miles in length, and at no part exceeds half a mile 
 in breadth ; and many another mere excels its un- 
 adorned beauty, albeit Wordsworth, gentlest but 
 most unequal of poets, felt moved to utter this 
 deplorable stanza 
 
 * Throughout her depths St. Mary's Lake 
 
 Is visibly delighted ; 
 For not a feature of those hills 
 Is in the mirror slighted. ' 
 
 Neither can it be the quality of the angling that has 
 made the name of this lake familiar to millions who 
 have never looked upon its waters, for its trout were
 
 THE TWEED 55 
 
 ever inferior in size and numbers to those of Meggat 1 
 and Yarrow. It was the solitude of hills and water 
 and their message from an elder world that drew 
 hither men like Christopher North, John Gibson 
 Lockhart, and the Ettrick Shepherd, that endeared 
 to them Tibbie Sheils's little tavern on the narrow 
 neck of meadow separating St. Mary's Loch from the 
 Loch of the Lowes. Here they argued, laughed, 
 wrote, sang, and, it must be added, drank after a 
 fashion that finds favour with us no more. Noctes 
 Ambrosian<e had a brilliant day, but it is a day that is 
 dead ; their boisterous pugnacity and forced style 
 have lost the charm that fascinated our grandsires. 
 Nevertheless the Ettrick Shepherd remains the genius 
 loci. What Burns did for the West, and Walter 
 Scott for all the North, James Hogg achieved for 
 St. Mary's Loch : he made it known to all the world. 
 It is meet, therefore, that his plaided figure, in good 
 Denholm freestone, should preside over the scene. 
 The statue was erected in 1860 at the foot of 
 Chapelhope, on the far side of the loch from Altrive, 
 where he farmed so badly and wrote so well. 
 
 On the north-west shore of the loch, opposite 
 Altrive, is the graveyard and site of St. Mary's 
 Church, which gave the lake its name. The destruc- 
 tion of this little shrine Sancta Maria de Lacubus 
 was a characteristic episode in the blood-feud between 
 the Scotts and the Cranstouns. In prosecuting this 
 warfare, Janet, Lady Buccleuch, with two hundred 
 spearmen, pursued the laird of Cranstoun on 2 fth June 
 1557, till he sought sanctuary in the kirk. Most 
 unluckily for the fugitive, the parish priest was a 
 
 1 There is another stream called Meggat Water, on the western 
 watershed, a tributary of the Dumfriesshire Esk.
 
 56 THE STORY OF 
 
 Scott, and took sides with the pursuers. Cranstoun, 
 it seems, escaped with his life, for the parties were 
 subsequently bound over to keep the peace (which 
 assuredly they did not do), but the kirk was burnt 
 down, and was never rebuilt. 
 
 Every step of the way down Yarrow is interwoven 
 with song, generally breathing of sore hearts and 
 severed lovers, sudden death and widowed hearths. 
 Some of these ballads record the fortune or the fate 
 of individuals whose names have been as clean 
 forgotten as those of the bards themselves. Such is 
 the tender dirge of Wiltie 
 
 * Willie 's rare and Willie ' fair 
 
 And Willie 's wondrous bonny, 
 And Willie hecht ' to marry me, 
 Gin e'er he married ony. 
 
 Yestreen I made my bed fu' braid ; 
 
 This night I '11 make it narrow ; 
 For a' the livelong winter night 
 
 I lie twined f o' my marrow. 
 
 O came ye by the waterside ? 
 
 Pu'd you the rose or lily ? 
 Or came ye by the meadow green ? 
 
 Or saw ye my sweet Willie ? 
 
 She sought him east, she sought him west, 
 She sought him braid and narrow ; 
 
 Syne in the cleaving of a craig 
 
 She found him drowned in Yarrow/ 
 
 In the ballad known as The Douglas Tragedy^ the 
 identity of the actors cannot be established, but the 
 
 1 Promised. 
 1 Bereaved.
 
 THETWEED 57 
 
 scene is laid with more than usual precision. In the 
 old tower of Blackhouse, far up the Douglas Burn, 
 a tributary of Yarrow, a certain rather an uncer- 
 tain Lord Douglas is represented as living with his 
 wife, seven sons, and two daughters. To judge of 
 the scale of accommodation by the ruin that remains, 
 it must have been a tight fit for so large a family, 
 and difficult for any of them to accomplish anything 
 clandestine. Howbeit, one night the elder daughter 
 eloped with one Lord William, and her mother, 
 discovering it, roused the family. 
 
 * " Rise up, rise up now, Lord Douglas, " she says, 
 
 " And put on your armour so bright ; 
 Let it never be said that a daughter of thine 
 Was married to a lord under night. 
 
 Rise up, rise up, my seven bold sons, 
 
 And put on your armour so bright, 
 And take better care of your youngest sister, 
 
 For your eldest's awa the last night. " 
 
 Lord Douglas and his seven sons set out in 
 pursuit, and overtook the fugitives. Lord William 
 slew the seven brothers, and turned upon the father. 
 
 * " O hold your hand, Lord William, " she said, 
 " For your strokes they are wondrous sair ; 
 True lovers I can get many a ane, 
 But a father I can get never mair. " 
 
 Lord William bids her choose between father and 
 lover ; she chooses the lover, of course ; down goes 
 the father, and the lovers ride away.
 
 58 THE STORY OF 
 
 1 they rade on, and on they rade, 
 
 And a' by the light o' the moon, 
 Until they came to yon wan water, 
 And there they lighted doun. 
 
 They lighted doun to tak a drink 
 
 Of the spring that runs sae clear ; 
 And doun the stream ran his gude heart's blood, 
 
 And sair she 'gan to fear. 
 
 " Hold up, hold up ! Lord William, " she says, 
 
 " For I fear that you are slain. " 
 " 'Tis nocht but the shade o' my scarlet cloak 
 
 That shines in the water sae plain. " 
 
 But Lord William has got the death-stroke. Just as 
 the lovers arrive at his mother's door he breathes his 
 last. 
 
 * Lord William was dead lang ere midnight, 
 
 Lady Marg'ret lang ere day ; 
 And all true lovers that go thegither 
 May they have mair luck than they. ' 
 
 On the hillside above Blackhouse, 1 1 80 feet above 
 the sea, stand what are called the Douglas Stones, 
 supposed to be seven in number, and to mark where 
 the seven brothers fell. But, as Professor Veitch has 
 explained with heartless candour, there are not seven 
 stones, but thirteen, and these are ' obviously greatly 
 older than any reasonable date which can be assigned 
 to the story in the ballad. ' l They form, in short, 
 one of those prehistoric circles so commonly and so 
 unwarrantably termed Druidical. 
 
 One cannot pass away from Yarrow without notic- 
 
 1 Border History and Poetry, ii. 177.
 
 THETWEED 59 
 
 ing another of its lays, mournful though it be, like 
 all its early minstrelsy, and harping on a similar 
 theme the violent death of lover or husband. 
 There has been much discussion about the chief actors 
 in the tragedy of the Dowie Dens of Yarrow. They 
 were both Scotts, you see ; and though it be possible 
 to identify individuals in this most prolific clan so long 
 as they are fighting side by side against c our auld 
 enemy of Ingland, ' when they take to cutting one 
 another's throats passa ! This much seems pretty 
 clear, that in the early years of the seventeenth 
 century one Walter Scott eloped with Grizel Scott of 
 Thirlestane ; and this more is certain, that on 22nd 
 October 1 6 1 6 four gentlemen of the name of Scott, 
 kinsmen and allies of Thirlestane, were summoned at 
 the kirk of the Forest * to hear themselves excom- 
 municat for the horrible slaughter of Walter Scott. ' 
 The culprits put in no appearance, and there the 
 matter ends, so far as history is concerned. The scene 
 of the slaughter is traditionally laid in Deuchar 
 Swire, near the present parish kirk. 
 
 * " Yestreen I dreamed a dolefu' dream ; 
 
 I fear there will be sorrow ; 
 I dreamed I pu'd the heather green 
 Wi' my true love on Yarrow. 
 
 But in the glen strove armed men ; 
 
 They've wrought me dule and sorrow ; 
 They've slain they've slain the comeliest swain 
 
 He bleeding lies on Yarrow. " 
 
 She kissed his cheek, she kaimed his hair, 
 She searched his wounds all thorough ;
 
 60 THESTORYOF 
 
 She kissed them till her lips grew red, 
 On the dowie houms o' Yarrow.' ' 
 
 All through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 
 the dirge-like strain flows on Hamiltoun of Ban- 
 gour, John Logan, William Laidlaw, James Hogg, 
 John Wilson (< Christopher North '), Walter Scott, 
 Henry Liddell how many more have yielded to the 
 spirit of this vale ! They may not be numbered ; but 
 that the spell is still potent let these stanzas, not many 
 years from the mint, testify 
 
 ' September and the sun was low, 
 
 The tender greens were flecked with yellow, 
 And autumn's ardent after -glow 
 
 Made Yarrow's upland rich and mellow. 
 
 No sound, no word, from field or ford, 
 Nor breath of wind to float a feather, 
 
 While Yarrow's murmuring waters poured 
 A lonely music through the heather. 
 
 O Yarrow 1 garlanded with rhyme 
 
 That clothes thee in a mournful glory, 
 
 Though sunsets of an elder time 
 
 Had never crowned thee with a story, 
 
 1 Professor Veitch was of opinion that Willie's drowned in Yarrow 
 and the Dowie Dens had their origin in the same incident,and considered 
 these two ballads as variants of a single original version, which he 
 published for the first time (Border History and Poetry, ii. 194). More- 
 over, he inclined to identify the heroine with Mary Scott of Dryhope, 
 the Flower of Yarrow, who afterwards married Wat of Harden in 1576. 
 Veitch made a lifelong study of Border minstrelsy, and was far more 
 scrupulous than Scott in adhering closely to the current versions. 
 Passed from mouth to mouth and generation to generation, it is easy to 
 imagine how inextricably the characters and incidents in these ballads 
 became confused with each other.
 
 THE TWEED 61 
 
 Still would I wander by thy stream, 
 
 Still listen to thy lonely singing, 
 That gives me back the golden dream 
 
 Through which old echoes yet are ringing. 
 
 Love's sunshine ! sorrow's bitter blast ! 
 
 Dear Yarrow, we have seen together ; 
 For years have come and years have past 
 
 Since first we met among the heather. 
 
 Ah ! those indeed were happy hours 
 When first I knew thee, gentle river ; 
 
 But now thy bonny birken bowers 
 To me, alas ! are changed for ever. 
 
 The best, the dearest, all have gone, 
 Gone like the bloom upon the heather, 
 
 And left us singing here alone 
 
 Beside life's cold and winter weather. 
 
 I too pass on ; but when I 'm dead, 
 
 Thou still shalt sing by night and morrow, 
 
 And help the aching heart and head 
 To bear the burden of its sorrow. 
 
 The summer flowers shall linger yet, 
 
 Where all thy mossy margins guide thee, 
 
 And minstrels, met as we have met, 
 
 Shall sit and sing their songs beside thee.' 
 
 These verses appeared in a volume entitled Poems, 
 by J.B. Selkirk, 1883. The real name of the poet 
 was James Brown, who was a partner in the firm of 
 J.H. Brown and Co., tweed manufacturers in Selkirk. 
 Born in Galashiels in 1832, he continued in the busi- 
 ness of Messrs. J. & H. Brown until late in life, when
 
 62 THE STORY OF 
 
 failing health compelled him to retire. In July 1899 
 he received a testimonial locally; subscribed, which, 
 with a grant of ^150 from the Civil list fund 
 amounted to 440. He died on 27th December 
 1 904. Five years previously he had chanted his swan- 
 song in Blackwood's Magazine. 
 
 THE FALL OF THE CURTAIN 
 
 * The curtain's falling and the lights burn low ; 
 So, with God's help, I 'm ready now to go. 
 I 've seen life's melodrama paid the price 
 Have known its loves and losses, hopes and fears, 
 The laughter and the tears, 
 And now, God knows, I would not see it twice. 
 
 I Ve crossed life's ocean, faced its blinding foam, 
 But now, Heaven whispers, I am nearing home ; 
 And though a storm-tossed hull I reach the shore, 
 A thing of tatter'd sheets and broken spars, 
 Naked against the stars, 
 I soon shall be at peace for evermore. 
 
 For if again I pass these waters through, 
 
 I know the kingdom I am sailing to. 
 
 What boots it where I lie ? beneath the sod, 
 
 Or down the dark impenetrable deep 
 
 Where wayward seamen sleep 
 
 All gates are good through which we pass to God.' 
 
 One great treat that awaits the traveller through 
 this Border land is to watch a shepherd's collies at 
 work. Collies were all the rage a few years ago as 
 pets for fashionable folk ; and very easily the rascals 
 became resigned to a life of compulsory indolence.
 
 THE TWEED 63 
 
 Now their reign is over, and Scots terriers are all the 
 vogue ; nor is that to be mourned, for it is but a sorry 
 thing to see a collie loafing about the parks and streets 
 of London, pampered and combed, with never a 
 chance of putting to the test his fleet sagacity, his con- 
 summate understanding of an hereditary calling. In 
 the showrooms collies still hold a favoured place ; 
 more than one fashionable sire has brought the ex- 
 orbitant price of a thousand guineas. But here again 
 it is not the peculiar qualities of the race that com- 
 mand esteem. The judges have decreed an arbitrary 
 and fictitious standard of excellence, founded upon 
 trivial points such as length of nose, colour of coat, 
 and so on. Hear a note by Dr. John Brown, author 
 of Rab and His Friends, as he was coming down off 
 Minchmoor. 
 
 4 We now descended into Yarrow, and forgathered with 
 a shepherd who was taking his lambs over to the great 
 Melrose fair. He was a fine specimen of a border herd 
 young, tall, sagacious, self-contained, and free in speech and 
 air. We got his heart by praising his dog " Jed, " a very 
 fine collie, black and comely, gentle and keen. " Ay, she's 
 a fell yin ; she can do a' but speak. " On asking him 
 whether the sheep dogs needed much teaching " Whyles 
 ay and whyles no. Her kind (Jed's) needs nane. She sooks't 
 wi' her mither's milk." On asking him if the dogs were 
 ever sold, he said " Never, but at an orra [odd] time. 
 Naebody wad sell a gude dowg, and naebody wad buy an 
 ill yin." ' 
 
 Yarrow loses itself in Ettrick Water below the 
 meadow called Carterhaugh, the scene of the fairy- 
 tale of Young Tamtane, which, altered and modernised 
 though it be, is undoubtedly one of the most ancient
 
 64 THE STORY OF 
 
 pieces of Scottish minstrelsy. Whereas the ballad 
 consists of more than sixty stanzas, it would be 
 unprofitable to quote more than relates to the crisis. 
 Tamlane, a corruption of Thomelin, or little Thomas, 
 having been spirited away by the Queen of the Fairies 
 at nine years old, grew no more in stature from that 
 day, and as he was known to haunt the Carterhaugh, 
 and to be of a dangerously amative nature, maidens 
 were strictly cautioned to avoid that spot. This was 
 quite enough to fire the curiosity of a certain wayward 
 and beautiful Janet 
 
 * She prinked hersell and prinned hersell 
 
 By the ae light o' the mune, 
 And she's awa to Carterhaugh 
 To speak wi' young Tamlane.' 
 
 She met him, sure enough, and, as was more seri- 
 ous, bore him a son. Then Tamlane tells her his 
 story, and explains how he may be delivered from 
 Elfland. He bade her wait at Miles' Cross on Hallow 
 E'en (3 ist October), when the fairy folk would ride 
 past, and instructed her how she was to act for his 
 deliverance. 
 
 * Gloomy, gloomy was the night 
 
 And eiry was the way, 
 And fair Janet in her green mantle 
 To Miles' Cross she did gae. 
 
 Betwixt the hours of twelve and one 
 
 A north wind tore the bent, 
 And straight she heard strange elritch sounds 
 
 Upon the wind that went.
 
 THETWEED 65 
 
 About the dead hour of the night 
 
 She heard the bridles ring ; 
 And Janet was as glad o' that 
 
 As ony earthly thing. 
 
 And first gaed by the black black steed, 
 
 And then gaed by the brown ; 
 But fast she gripped the milk-white steed 
 
 And pu'd the rider down. 
 
 She pu'd him frae the milk-white steed, 
 
 And loot the bridle fa', 
 And up there raise an erlish cry 
 
 " He's won amang us a' ! " 
 
 They shaped him in fair Janet's arms 
 
 An esk but and an ether, ' 
 She held him fast in every shape 
 
 To be her bairn's father. 
 
 They shaped him in her arms at last 
 
 A mother-naked man ; 
 She wrapped him in her green mantle 
 
 And sae her true love wan.' 
 
 Then there is a terrible scene with the Queen of 
 the Fairies, who vows that had she known what was 
 coming she would have torn out Tamlane's eyes and 
 heart, and replaced them with wooden orbs and a 
 heart of stone ; but Janet has broken the spell, and 
 for aught that is known to the contrary, Tamlane 
 made her an exemplary husband. 
 
 The most notable ruin on Yarrow is that of New- 
 ark, a name borne by four other castles in Scotland, 
 besides several in England. This one, about a mile 
 
 1 A newt and also an adder. 
 
 5
 
 66 THESTORYOF 
 
 above Bowhill, on the right bank of the river, is 
 referred to as the * new werke ' in a charter to 
 Archibald, Earl of Douglas, in 1423, so it was 
 probably built not long before that date in place of 
 an older fortress. The Forests of Ettrick and Sel- 
 kirk, being originally part of the private patrimony 
 of the kings of Scots, were granted in free regality 
 to the Good Sir James of Douglas by Robert I. in 
 1325, in token whereof the king placed an emerald 
 ring upon his faithful baron's finger. 1 The kings 
 of England continued to claim these forests so late 
 as 1403, when Henry IV. granted them to Percy, 
 Earl of Northumberland, with the significant proviso, 
 * so far as it was in his power to give. ' The ' Black 
 Douglas ' retained the Forests until the fall of that 
 house in the person of the last earl in 1455, wnen 
 the lands were declared to be perpetually annexed 
 to the Crown. In 1476 James III. bestowed New- 
 ark upon his queen, Margaret of Denmark, and 
 although the * Red Douglas ' continued in favour 
 during the next reign, and the chief of that branch, 
 the Earl of Angus, was appointed Sheriffof Roxburgh, 
 Selkirk, Peebles, and Lanark, James IV. retained 
 the Forests as his patrimony, and Newark as his own 
 house. He granted Ettrick Forest and Newark to his 
 queen, Margaret Tudor, who, it will be remembered, 
 married Angus within a year of her consort's death 
 at Flodden. In 1522 she offered Angus a free gift 
 of the Forest if he would consent to a divorce. These 
 and many other events in the history of the old castle 
 are brought freshly to mind by the royal arms sculp- 
 tured on the west gable. 
 
 1 ' The Emerald Charter ' is printed in Robertson's Index, p. 10, No. 
 26, and in Sir William Eraser's Douglas Book, iii. II.
 
 THETWEED 67 
 
 It was in this massive keep, roofless now, and reft 
 of all its fine freestone coigns, that the Duchess of 
 Monmouth spent her widowhood after the execution 
 of her husband in 1685. It was here that Walter 
 Scott represented her receiving the Last Minstrel 
 and listening to his Lay. It was ( new ' no longer 
 when Lord Grey captured it in 1548 for Edward VI. ; 
 still less so when it was garrisoned by Cromwell's 
 troops after the battle of Dunbar in 1650. 
 
 Next to Newark lies Bowhill, on the slopes of 
 Pernassie Hill, between the confluent streams of 
 Ettrick and Yarrow. It is the manor-house of the 
 great Forest estates, acquired by the Duke of 
 Buccleuch no longer ago than the middle of the 
 eighteenth century ; but in the sixteenth century it 
 was the property of a family of Scotts, cadets of 
 Thirlestane ; William Scott, brother of the laird of 
 Bowhill or Bolhill, being one of the three-and-thirty 
 stalwarts who rode with Buccleuch to the rescue of 
 Kinmont Willie. 
 
 Scott of Bowhill was both cause and actor in a 
 bloody tragedy in the year 1600. Young Archibald 
 Napier of Merchistoun having complained to him 
 that a valuable horse had been stolen from his house 
 of Mure, Scott detected a covert insinuation in 
 Napier's words, drew upon him, and bade him 
 defend himself or die. Napier, having no ill-will 
 against the other, avoided an encounter in other 
 words, took to his heels ; but Scott dogged him all 
 day, and c at the evning focht him in the stret of the 
 gait' [narrow part of the road] c betwix low dykes, 
 quhair he culd nocht flei. ' Thus brought to bay, 
 Napier fought gallantly, and slew his man. The 
 case of aggression was so clear against Scott that
 
 68 THESTORYOF 
 
 Napier was not put upon his trial. Nevertheless, 
 blood for blood was the inexorable social code. The 
 three brothers of the dead man, together with other 
 Scotts, and young Crichton of Sanquhar, waylaid 
 Napier beside his own house, the Wowmet, near 
 Edinburgh, and there did him to death. For this 
 atrocious crime no penalty was exacted. The mur- 
 derers, indeed, were * put to the horn ' as rebels ; 
 but their chief, the puissant Buccleuch, took up their 
 cause, and tried to compromise with the Napiers for 
 1000. Alexander, brother of the murdered Archi- 
 bald, would not hear of it. l All is dishonorabell, ' 
 quoth he, * quhair thair is not eie for eie and tuith 
 for tuith. ' The case was still unsettled when Alex- 
 ander took his seat on the bench in 1626 as a Lord 
 of Session (Lord Lauriston), and remained so until 
 the two families were auspiciously united by the 
 marriage of William Scott of Thirlestane to Margaret, 
 Baroness Napier of Merchiston, in 1699. 
 
 Below the confluence of Ettrick and Yarrow is 
 Philiphaugh, anciently Fulhophalch the haugh or 
 meadow of the foul hope, or boggy glen a 
 place which all Scotsmen must hold in memory, 
 mournful or gladsome, according as their sympathies 
 go with King or Covenant. It was here that the 
 star of Montrose set, to rise no more. A series of 
 brilliant victories in the north Tippermuir, Aber- 
 deen, Inverlochy, Auldearn, Alford, and Kilsyth 
 had wellnigh cleared the country of Covenanters : 
 but he had parted with most of his Highlanders, 
 always a difficult race to hold in hand after a spell of 
 fighting. Three thousand had left him because he 
 would not let them plunder Glasgow ; Colkitto had 
 marched against Argyll in Kintyre ; the Gordons,
 
 THETWEED 69 
 
 taking offence at some fancied slight to their chief, 
 went home in a body. Keeping his Irish levies 
 together, Montrose marched to Kelso, where he had 
 been promised fresh troops by the Lords Traquair, 
 Home, Roxburgh, and others. These promises were 
 indifferently kept by some of these gentry, and 
 broken by the rest ; indeed, Traquair is suspected 
 of having kept General Leslie, who lay at Berwick, 
 informed of Montrose's movements, while Home 
 and Roxburgh allowed themselves to be taken pris- 
 oners. Montrose then marched up the Tweed, 
 pitched his camp on the flat ground to the west of 
 Ettrick Water, J lying himself at Selkirk on the east 
 bank ,on the night of I2th September 1645. Next 
 morning Leslie, under cover of a fog, it is said, 
 surprised the camp, coming round the north flank of 
 Lingly Hill, falling on Montrose's left flank, and so 
 obtaining an easy victory. 
 
 In a metrical account of the battle, which has 
 more spice of a partisan ditty than lilt of an old 
 ballad, Leslie is represented as picking up an old 
 fellow at the Lingly Burn, who, having a good 
 hatred of Montrose, offered to lead the way to 
 where he was encamped. 
 
 1 " O were ye ever a soldier ? " 
 
 Sir David Lesly said. 
 " O yes : I was at Solway flow 
 Where we were all betrayed. * 
 
 1 ' On the present cricket-ground of Selkirk, ' says Mr. A. Lang 
 (History of Scotland, iii. 157). 
 
 1 If he meant the battle of Solway Moss, he must indeed have been 
 an old man, for that was in 1542.
 
 7 o THE STORY OF 
 
 " Again I was at curst Dunbar 
 
 And was a prisoner ta'en ; l 
 And mony a weary night and day 
 
 In prison I hae laen. " 
 
 " If ye will lead these men aright, 
 
 Rewarded shall ye be ; 
 But if that you a traitor prove, 
 
 I '11 hang thee on a tree. " 
 
 " Sir, I will not a traitor prove ; 
 
 Montrose hath plundered me ; 
 I '11 do my best to banish him 
 
 Awa* frae this countrie." 
 
 He halved his men in equal parts, 
 
 His purpose to fulfil ; 
 The one part kept the waterside, 
 
 The other gaed round the hill. 
 
 The nether party fired brisk, 
 
 They turned, and seemed to rin ; 
 
 And then they a' came frae the trench, 
 And cried, " The day's our ain ! " 
 
 The rest then ran into the trench, 
 
 And loosed their cannons a* ; 
 And thus, between his armies twa, 
 
 He made them fast to fa'. 
 
 Now let us a' for Lesly pray, 
 
 And his brave company ! 
 For they hae vanquished great Montrose, 
 
 Our cruel enemy.' 
 
 1 This is puzzling too, for the battle of Dunbar was on 3rd Septem- 
 ber 1650.
 
 THE TWEED 71 
 
 Montrose, with forty horse, rode to Traquair, 
 where he did not find the perfidious earl, and thence 
 escaped to the north. His Irish contingent made a 
 fine stand : five-sixths of them fell ; the remainder 
 surrendered upon promise of quarter, but when they 
 claimed their lives it was explained to them that the 
 promise was a personal one to their adjutant, Stuart. 
 They were marched into a field at Newark, and shot 
 down in batches, at a place still known as the Slain- 
 men's-lee. 1 
 
 A mile and a half below the junction of Ettrick 
 and Yarrow stands the town of Selkirk, the Sele- 
 chirche of the twelfth century the church of the 
 shieling, or shepherd's hut. Like Galashiels, the 
 shieling on Gala Water, the chief industry of Selkirk 
 has ceased to be that of shepherds and hunters ; an 
 important woollen manufacture has sprung up, and 
 this ancient burgh of David I. now has a population 
 of more than i i,ooo. 2 The woollen mills have sup- 
 planted another industry, that of shoemaking, for 
 which the town was famous a couple of hundred 
 years ago. In 1745 it supplied more than 3000 
 pairs of shoes to the requisition of Prince Charlie's 
 Highland commissariat. 
 
 As the longbow was the national weapon of 
 Englishmen, so the Scots relied on the pike, and 
 never became decently proficient as archers. But 
 the bowmen of Ettrick and Selkirk Forests were an 
 exception. At the battle of Falkirk in 1298, where 
 King Edward broke the power of Wallace, Sir John 
 le Steward of Bonkill commanded a fine contingent 
 
 1 This is the best that can be made out of contemporary accounts 
 of this affair, which are very contradictory. 
 8 Including the royal burgh and police burgh.
 
 72 THE STORY OF 
 
 of them. They were ranged between the * schilt- 
 romes, ' or solid clumps of pikemen ; and when the 
 Scottish cavalry, taken in flank, galloped off the 
 field, the * Flowers of the Forest ' were cut to pieces 
 with their leader. Walter of Hemingburgh, a con- 
 temporary English chronicler, testifies to their 
 devotion, and to their fine stature and handsome 
 features. l 
 
 Selkirk was avenged at Bannockburn, where her 
 bowmen did timely service ; but of eighty c souters ' 
 who marched to Flodden it is said that only their 
 leader, William Brydone, town-clerk, returned to 
 the Forest. The standard, which was long revered 
 as one which Brydone captured and brought home 
 with him, is still preserved in the old burgh ; but 
 the graceless lads who used to throw stones at it as 
 the ' Weaver's Dishclout ' were not far wrong in 
 the matter of its true origin, for there can be little 
 doubt that it was but a trade ensign. 
 
 William Brydone blamed the Homes for the loss 
 of his comrades by failing to support them in the 
 crisis of the battle. Hence the well-known ditty 
 
 THE SOUTERS O' SELKIRK 
 
 * Up wi' the souters o' Selkirk 
 
 And down wi' the fazart * Lord Home ! 
 
 But up wi' ilka braw callant 
 
 That sews the single-soled shoon. 
 
 And up wi' the lads o' the Forest 
 
 That/ne'er to the Southron wad yield ! 
 
 1 ' Homines elegantis forma et procerae staturze.' 
 * Craven.
 
 THE TWEED 73 
 
 But deil scoup o' Home and his menzie 
 That stude sae abiegh 2 on the field. 
 
 Fye on the green and the yellow ! s 
 
 The craw-hearted loons o' the Merse ; 
 But here's to the souters o' Selkirk, 
 
 The elshin, the lingle and birse. 
 Then up wi' the Souters o' Selkirk ! 
 
 For they are baith trusty and leal ; 
 And up wi' the lads o' the Forest, 
 
 And down wi' the Merse to the deil ! ' 
 
 Purists have attempted to assign to this spirited 
 stave an origin in a football match between Selkirk 
 and the Merse. No doubt it was adapted, as much 
 popular verse has been, to various events in the 
 experience of modern burghers ; but the poem bears 
 the genuine stamp of antiquity. The c fazart ' lord 
 was executed on a charge of treason three years 
 after Flodden ; but it does not follow that the 
 charge was founded upon fact. 
 
 In 1113 Earl David, afterwards King of Scots, 
 founded in Selkirk a Tyronensian abbey, which was 
 moved a few years later to Kelso. 4 
 
 Two hundred years later, in September 1309, 
 
 1 Men pronounced ' menyie ', the z representing in Scottish ortho- 
 graphy the consonantal y. 
 1 Aloof. 
 
 3 The liveries of the Homes. 
 
 4 The signatures to the original charter to the Abbey of Selkirk are 
 interesting as showing how many Norman knights David brought 
 with him from the court of England. Out of twenty-eight names, 
 eleven are Norman, including Robert de Brus, first Lord of Annandale, 
 and ancestor of Robert i. of Scotland. There are also nine Saxon 
 signatures and one Celtic, besides those of Queen Matilda, the Bishop 
 of Glasgow, etc. The Gaelic etymology of Yarrow is well preserved 
 in this charter, where the name is written ' Garua' = garbh, rough. 
 Doubtless it would be originally amhuinn garbh, the rough water, the 
 same as ' Garrv ' in Perthshire and Inverness-shire.
 
 74 THE STORY OF THE TWEED 
 
 Edward II. invaded Scotland by an unusual route. 
 The accustomed lines of English invasion were by 
 Berwick or Roxburgh on the East March, or by 
 Carlisle and Annandale on the West March. This 
 time Edward came by Selkirk, and penetrated as far 
 as Linlithgow. Bruce pursued his usual strategy, 
 avoiding a pitched battle, and driving off cattle and 
 all manner of supplies, so that the English army 
 was forced to retire before winter, in order to avoid 
 starvation. Negotiations for peace having been 
 opened, King Robert met the English commissioners 
 at Selkirk before Christmas. A further meeting 
 was fixed to take place at Melrose, but the King of 
 Scots, warned that treachery was intended, avoided 
 the same, and the war went on.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 ABBOTSFORD, MELROSE, AND EILDON 
 
 IN the year 1525 the Red Douglas, Archibald, 
 sixth Earl of Angus, was appointed Warden of 
 the East and Middle Marches, which did so well 
 please Henry VIII. of England, that he directed Dr. 
 Magnus to present the earl with a gift of jioo. 
 Angus had also been made guardian to his stepson, 
 young King James V., in rotation with certain other 
 nobles, each to hold office for one year in succession. 
 The year of Angus ended on ist November 1525, 
 when his deadly rival, the Earl of Arran, should 
 succeed him. To suffer this would be fatal to Angus's 
 ascendency ; nay, it would set him on the sure road to 
 the scaffold ; for the Red Douglas had as many foes 
 in Scotland as he had friends in England. So he 
 made use of power while it was his to hold the person 
 of the King, and none dare say him nay. None, at 
 least, save bold Sir Walter Scott Wicked Wat of 
 Branxholm, Lord of Buccleuch who, it is said, re- 
 ceived a secret entreaty from the young King for 
 deliverance from the thraldom of his stepfather. 
 
 Accordingly, in the late summer of 1526, Buc- 
 cleuch seized his opportunity when Angus was return- 
 ing with King James from a perambulation of the 
 Marches. The Court, on its way to Edinburgh, lay 
 a night at Melrose. Next morning, when Angus and
 
 76 THESTORYOF 
 
 the King set forth with an escort of three hundred 
 spears, they found the way to the bridge held by Buc- 
 cleuch with a party of six hundred. Angus demanded 
 a passage in name of the King. Buccleuch replied 
 that he knew the King's mind better than Angus. 
 Then Angus, committing the King to the custody of 
 his brother, Sir George Douglas of Pittendreich, en- 
 deavoured to force a passage. A brisk encounter 
 took place in the fields of Darnwick, and matters were 
 going ill with Angus, when he received timely rein- 
 forcement. Lord Home, with the Kers of Cessford 
 and Fernyhirst, had bidden adieu to the King in 
 Melrose. Word of the affray was brought to them ; 
 they galloped out to Darnwick with a squadron of 
 eighty horse, and charged the Scotts on their flank 
 with such fury that they broke and fled. However, 
 the Scotts were at all times awkward customers to 
 follow ; at a spot still called Turn-again they stood at 
 bay, and one named Elliot slew Ker of Cessford, and 
 so broke the pursuit. Lockhart has put on record 
 how Sir Walter Scott's affection was early nailed to 
 this spot. 
 
 * I have often heard him tell that, when travelling in his 
 boyhood with his father from Selkirk to Melrose, the old man 
 suddenly desired the carriage to halt at the foot of an 
 eminence, and said, " We must get out here, Walter, and 
 see a thing quite in your line. " His father then conducted 
 him to a rude stone on the edge of an acclivity about half a 
 mile above the Tweed at Abbotsford, which marks the 
 spot 
 
 Where Home and Douglas in the van 
 Bore down Buccleuch's retreating clan, 
 Till gallant Cessford's life-blood dear 
 Reeked on dark Elliot's border spear. '
 
 THETWEED 77 
 
 The result was that, so soon as Scott's pen had 
 brought him affluence, he bought in 1 8 1 1 the place 
 originally known as Clarty Hole, that is, the Dirty 
 Hole, subsequently modified euphemistically into 
 Cartley Hole in 1 8 1 1 . * The farm, ' he wrote to his 
 brother-in-law, ' comprehends about a hundred acres, 
 of which I shall keep fifty in pasture and tillage, and 
 plant all the rest. ... I intend building a small cot- 
 tage here for my summer abode. ' Such was the 
 beginning of Abbotsford (for that was the more ro- 
 mantic name with which Scott obliterated the homely 
 one of Cartley Hole), which Dean Stanley justly 
 pronounced to be a 'place to see once, and never 
 again.' Architecturally it is the Strawberry Hill of 
 Scotland, described by Ruskin as { perhaps the most 
 incongruous pile that gentlemanly modernism ever 
 designed. ' 
 
 Mrs. Hughes, writing from Abbotsford, gives the 
 key to the whole scheme in a single sentence, when 
 she lauds the plaster ceilings * painted like oak with 
 such exactness that it is impossible to detect it from 
 the finest oak carving without scraping it. ' Quid 
 plura ? Yet is this sorry sham endeared to all 
 generations by a thousand memorials of one of the 
 kindliest hearts and brightest natures that ever took 
 the form of man. Yea, the very paint and stucco 
 the paltry battlements and senseless embrasures 
 are ennobled by remembrance of that brave struggle 
 with, and victory over, adversity that must have 
 broken any feebler spirit and less puissant hand. 
 One may not grudge Abbotsford as the goal of its 
 myriad tourists ; for had Scott not fixed his affections 
 upon Tweedside, where would have been the charm 
 of all this vale ?
 
 78 THESTORYOF 
 
 " My first visit to the Tweed ", wrote William Scrope 
 long ago, " was before the Minstrel of the North had sung. . . 
 The scenery therefore, at that time, unassisted by story, lost 
 its chief interest... Since that time I have seen the cottage 
 of Abbotsford, with its rustic porch, lying peacefully on the 
 haugh between the lone hills... I have seen that cottage 
 converted into a picturesque mansion, with every luxury and 
 comfort attached to it ; the unproductive hills I have viewed 
 covered with thriving plantations, and the whole aspect of 
 the country civilised. But amidst all these revolutions, I 
 never perceived any change in the mind of him who made 
 them... There he dwelt in the hearts of the people, 
 diffusing life and happiness around him. He made a home 
 beside the Border river, in a country and a nation that have 
 derived benefit from his presence and consequence from his 
 genius. From his chambers he looked out upon the grey 
 ruins of the Abbey, and the sun which set in splendour behind 
 the Eildon Hills. l Like that sun, his course has been run, 
 and though disastrous clouds came across him in his career, 
 he went down in unfading glory... Abbotsford, Mertoun, 
 Chiefswood, Huntly Burn, Allerley ! when shall I forget 
 you ? " 
 
 There were other attractions about Cartley Hole, 
 drawing Scott towards that particular reach of the 
 Tweed which, to the uninformed eye, offers less 
 charm than many fairer scenes on that river. Along 
 the south-east of the estate of Abbotsford runs the 
 Huntly Burn through the Rymer's Glen, so named 
 after True Thomas of Ercildoune, who is believed to 
 have lived from 1219 to 1299. He shares with the 
 shadowy Merlin and the dreaded Michael Scot the 
 fame of a prophet ; and if he claimed not, as they 
 did, to work enchantment, he was, at all events, the 
 
 1 Just a trifle out of true reckoning here, seeing that the Eildons lie 
 to the east-south-east of Abbotsford !
 
 THETWEEO 79 
 
 subject of a very notable one. Before entering upon 
 that let it be marked that Thomas was a genuine 
 human being, appearing as " Thomas Rymor de 
 Ercildoune" witnessing a charter of Petrus de Haga 
 (Haig) of Bemersyde, between the years 1260 and 
 1270. That was at a time before men in general had 
 fixed surnames ; his poetic gift no doubt gained 
 Thomas the appellation of Rymor or Rhymer to 
 distinguish him among other Thomases ; but local 
 tradition is firm to the effect that the name of Thomas's 
 family was Learmont. * 
 
 As to his prophecies, which were delivered from 
 under a great tree on the north-eastern slope of 
 Eildon (the spot now marked by a big stone), they 
 are not worth much attention by reason of the 
 numerous forgeries which were interpolated in later 
 years to serve political ends. One only of the mul- 
 titude of forecasts ascribed to him seems from its very 
 simplicity to bear the stamp of Thomas 
 
 " At Eildon tree, if you shall be, 
 
 A brigg ower Tweed you there may see. " 
 
 Three bridges are visible from that place now ; but 
 to span the Tweed seemed little short of a marvel in 
 the thirteenth century. As Scott has observed, 
 however, this prediction was not extraordinary for 
 one who had " that sort of insight into futurity pos- 
 sessed by most men of a sound and combining judg- 
 ment. " 
 
 It was on Huntly Burn, then, that Thomas laid the 
 opening scene of the romance by which he is chiefly 
 
 1 There is another Thomas Rymer (1641-1713), distinguished in 
 literature as compiler of the Foedera, who is sometimes confused by the 
 careless with him of Ercildoune.
 
 8o THE STORY OF 
 
 remembered, a version of that " Sir Tristrem " which 
 has been rendered in so many lands. 
 
 * In a mery mornynge of Maye, 
 By Huntle bankkes my selfe allone. 
 I herde the jay and the Throstylle cokke, 
 The Mawys menyde hir of hir song, l 
 The wodewale beryde as a belle, * 
 That all the wode abowte me ronge. 
 Allone in a Ion ing* als I laye, 
 Undyr-nethe a semely tree, 
 I was war of a lad ye gay 
 Come rydyng owyr a fayre le. " 
 
 Note the exceeding tenderness for rural sights and 
 sounds breathed in these lines, which was almost lost 
 in the later versions. 
 
 Thomas's adventures began, as might be expected, 
 with the appearance of the " ladye gay. " But this 
 was no earthly dame ; it was the Queen of Elfland, 
 who spirited the Rhymer away to her mysterious 
 realms beneath the Eildon Hills. The romance of 
 Sir Tristrem, considered to be, if not the oldest, at 
 least one of the oldest of extant Scottish poems, 
 was discovered by Ritson among Auchinleck MSS. 
 in 1744, and first edited and annotated by Sir 
 Walter Scott. But before this original had come 
 into his hands, he had published in the Border 
 Minstrelsy the following version of the story still 
 current among the peasantry a hundred years ago, 
 
 1 The Mavis (thrush) moaned, wailed, in her song. 
 
 1 Professor Veitch notes the " woodwale " as the woodlark, but 
 " woodwail " is still a local name for the green woodpecker which dis- 
 appeared from Scotland with the fall of the forest. It would be a fair 
 exploit for any landowner to re-establish this beautiful and harmless 
 bird. I have failed in two attempts, but intend to persevere. 
 
 1 A green glade.
 
 THE TWEED 81 
 
 which enables one to follow the narrative more easily 
 than in the vernacular of the thirteenth century. 
 
 * True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank ; 
 
 A ferlie l he spied wi' his ee ; 
 And there he saw a lady bright 
 
 Come riding down by Eildon Tree. 
 
 Her skirt was o' the grass green silk, 
 
 Her mantle o' the velvet fine ; 
 At ilka tett o' her horse 's mane 
 
 Hung fifty siller bells and nine. 
 
 True Thomas he pu'd aff his cap, 
 And louted low upon his knee 
 
 " All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heav'n 1 
 Thy peer on earth I ne'er did see. " 
 
 " O no, O no, Thomas, " she said, 
 '* That name does not belong to me ; 
 
 I am but the Queen of fair Elfland 
 That am come hither to visit thee. 
 
 " Harp and carp, Thomas, " she said 
 
 " Harp and carp alang wi' me ; 
 And if ye dare to kiss my lips, 
 
 Sure of your bodie I will be. " 
 
 " Betide me weel, betide me woe, 
 
 That weird shall never daunton me ! " 
 
 Syne he has kissed her rosy lipe 
 All underneath the Eildon Tree. 
 
 " Now ye maun gang wi' me, " she said 
 " True Thomas ye maun gang wi' me ; 
 
 And ye maun serve me seven years, 
 
 Through weel or woe, as chance may be. " 
 1 A marvel.
 
 82 THE STORY OF 
 
 She's mounted on her milk-white steed. 
 
 She's ta'en True Thomas up behind ; 
 And aye, whene'er her bridle rang 
 
 The steed flew swifter than the wind. 
 
 O they rade on, and further on ; 
 
 The steed gaed swifter than the wind ; 
 Until they reached a desert wide, 
 
 And living land was left behind, 
 
 " Light down, light down now True Thomas, 
 And lean your head upon my knee 
 
 Abide and rest a little space, 
 
 And I will show you ferlies three. 
 
 " O see ye not yon narrow road, 
 
 So thick beset with thorns and briers ? 
 
 That is the path of righteousness, 
 Tho' after it but few enquires. 
 
 " And see ye not that braid, braid road, 
 That lies across that lily leaven ? 
 
 That is the path of wickedness, 
 
 Tho' some call it the path to heaven. 
 
 " And see ye not that bonny roadj; 
 
 That winds about the fernie brae ? 
 That is the road to fair Elfland 
 
 Whaur thou and I this night maun gae. 
 
 " But Thomas, ye maun haud your tongue, 
 
 Whatever ye may hear or see ; 
 For if ye speak word in Elfyn land 
 
 Ye'll ne'er get back to your ain countrie. "
 
 THE TWEED 83 
 
 they rade on, and further on ; 
 They wauded rivers aboon the knee ; 
 
 And they saw neither sun nor moon, 
 But they heard the roaring o' the sea. 
 
 It was mirk night, there was nae stern light, ' 
 They wauded thro' red blude to the knee ; 
 
 For a' the blude that's shed on earth 
 
 Rins through the springs o' that countrie. 
 
 Syne they came on a garden green, 
 And she pu'd an apple frae a tree 
 
 " Tak' this for thy wages, True Thomas ; 
 It will give thee a tongue can never lee. " 
 
 " My tongue is mine ain, " True Thomas said ; 
 " A Gudelie Gift ye wad gie to me ! 
 
 1 neither dought * to buy nor sell 
 
 At fair or tryst, where I may be. 
 
 " I dought neither speak to prince nor peer, 
 Nor ask grace from a fair ladye. " 
 
 " Now hold thy peace ! " the ladye said, 
 " For as I say, so must it be. " 
 
 He has gotten a coat of the even cloth, 
 And a pair of shoes of velvet green. 
 
 And .till seven years were gane and past, 
 True Thomas on earth was never seen. ' 
 
 After seven years of sugared thraldom in Elfland, 
 Thomas was allowed to return to Ercildoune, and to 
 exercise among men the prophetic power he had 
 acquired. But he was bound to return when sum- 
 
 1 Starlight. 
 
 * Preterite of ' to dow. ' to be able. If Thomas's tongue could not 
 lie he would cut a poor figure at fair or market !
 
 84 THESTORYOF 
 
 moned by the Queen ; and so one day, when he was 
 entertaining guests at Ercildoune, they brought him 
 word of a great ' ferlie. * A hart and a hind had 
 come out of the forest, and were standing in the 
 village street. Thomas recognised the summons. 
 He rose at once, followed the wild creatures into the 
 depths of the forest and has never been seen since. 
 But we are told to look for his return some day, 
 when it shall please the Queen of Elflandto give him 
 fresh leave. 
 
 It may seem that time might be better spent than 
 over these childish legends ; yet it should be borne 
 in mind how firmly people believed them in what is 
 sometimes called the Age of Faith, and allowed their 
 actions to be controlled by that belief. 
 
 In 1586, for instance, a wretched woman named 
 Alison Pearson was arraigned on a charge of witch- 
 craft, one of the principal counts in her indictment 
 being as follows. 
 
 ' Item for banting and repairing with the gude neigh- 
 bours (fairies) and Queene of Elfland, thir divers years past, 
 as she had confest ; and that she had friends in that court 
 which were of her own blude, who had gude acquaintance 
 of the Queene of Elfland... and that she saw not the 
 Queens this seven years, and that she was seven years 
 ill-handled at the court of Elfland ; that however she had 
 gude friends there, and that it was the gude neighbours that 
 healed her, under God. * 
 
 Upon this and pages of similar trash about the 
 'gude neighbours' (even her judges used this 
 periphrasis in referring to the fairies, lest that vin- 
 dictive race should take offence) upon this and the
 
 THE TWEED 85 
 
 like, I say, Alison was convicted, condemned, and 
 burned at the stake. 
 
 Haifa mile below Abbotsford, Tweed receives the 
 afflux of Gala Water, which runs a troubled course 
 of twenty-one miles from the Moorfoot Hills in 
 Midlothian, descending in that distance from an 
 elevation of noo feet to one of 280. The early 
 Saxons named this valley Wedale, or the Vale of Woe, 
 and here, according to Professor Skene, took place 
 King Arthur's eighth great battle against the pagans. 
 
 The name Wedale, which appears variously 
 written in ancient manuscripts Wedel, Wedhall, 
 Weddale, etc. became the surname of sundry of 
 its inhabitants when they passed to other districts. 
 With that lamentable indifference to grace in sound 
 which is an infirmity of British ears, it has been 
 allowed to assume the grotesque form of Waddell. 
 There was a church in Wedale in very early times, 
 where was treasured a piece of the true cross 
 deposited there by King Arthur. It enjoyed the 
 privilege of sanctuary, and Wyntoun makes the 
 curious statement that the Black Priest of Wedale, 
 the Thane of Fife, and the Lord of Abernethy were 
 the only three persons entitled to the privilege of 
 Macduff that is, if any of them slew a gentleman 
 in ' suddane chawdmelle, ' he should be held guilt- 
 less on payment of 24 merks fine, and 1 2 merks for 
 a yeoman. 1 
 
 Writing about 1845, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder 
 declared that, well as he was acquainted with most 
 parts of Scotland, he knew none which was so c com- 
 pletely metamorphosed ' since the days of his youth 
 as Gala Water. 
 
 1 Wyntoun's Cronykil, VI. 19.
 
 86 THESTORYOF 
 
 * The whole wore a pastoral character. Crops were rare, 
 and fences hardly to be met with. Not a tree was to be 
 seen, except in the neighbourhood of one or two old places, 
 and especially at and around Torwoodlee and Gala House. 
 Everything within sight was green, simple and bare ; 
 the farmhouses were small and unobtrusive, and one or two 
 small places of residence only, belonging to proprietors, were 
 to be seen. The Break-neck road ran along the west side 
 of the valley, being conducted in straight lines right up and 
 down hill. ' 
 
 Sir Thomas lived to see a new road with easy 
 gradients engineered along the east bank of the 
 water ; the valley fenced and ploughed, and thriving 
 plantations clothing the slopes on either side. What 
 would he think could he stand this day at Crosslee 
 and watch the London express with its sleeping or 
 dining car, thundering down the vale, leaping from 
 this side to that of the patient stream, which once 
 had to be taken into serious account by a maiden 
 going to meet her sweetheart ? 
 
 * Braw, braw lads o* Gala Water ! 
 Oh Braw lads o' Gala Water ! 
 I'll kilt my coats abune the knee 
 
 And follow my love through the water. 
 Braw, braw lads ! ' 
 
 What would that excellent baronet exclaim could he 
 visit Galashiels, which he lived to see develop from a 
 cluster of cottages round a single woollen mill into a 
 large and thriving manufacturing village of not less 
 than 3500 inhabitants ? It now contains a population 
 of over 13,000. 
 
 Thirteen thousand * Sour Plums ' ; what a crop ! 
 For the people here proudly claim the title of the
 
 THETWEED 87 
 
 c Sour Plums of Galashiels, ' from an exploit perform- 
 ed upon the English in the reign of Edward III. 
 A party of soldiers having taken up their quarters in 
 the hamlet, and seeing no signs of the enemy, began 
 wandering among the woods to gather wild plums. 
 One of the Scotts riding in with a clump of spears 
 perceived his opportunity, and vowed, that these 
 should be the sourest plums men ever gathered. He 
 fell upon the scattered Englishmen, cutting them 
 down almost to a man. Some of them fled to a place 
 nearly opposite Abbotsford, which is still called the 
 Englishman's Syke. l To commemorate this exploit, 
 the arms of the town display a plum-tree * fructed 
 proper ' that is, in full bearing between two foxes, 
 which seem to have been added for some vague 
 association with the fox and sour grapes. The words 
 of the song f Soor Plooms in Galashiels ' are irretriev- 
 ably lost, but the air which fitted them remains. Sir 
 Walter Scott has told us how his uncle Thomas, 
 when he lay dying at the age of ninety, bade his son 
 James play him that tune, his favourite, on the pipes. 
 
 * No occasion, ' wrote Ruskin, * for death-bed repentance 
 on the part of this old gentleman ; no particular care even for 
 the disposition of his handsome independence ; but here is a 
 bequest of which one must see one's son in full possession 
 here is a thing to be well looked after, before setting out for 
 heaven that the tune of "Sour plums in Galashiels" may still 
 be played on earth in an incorrupt manner, and no damnable 
 French or English variations intruded upon the solemn and 
 authentic melody thereof. ' 
 
 Whether it be because Galashiels lay further from 
 the English border than other dales, or that the swift 
 
 1 Syke, a marshy rill.
 
 88 THE STORY OF 
 
 uprising of manufacturers has unravelled the web of 
 song and story, I know not ; but there seem to be 
 fewer memories of the olden time on Gala Water than 
 may be recovered elsewhere. The very name of 
 Galashiels the shiels or cots on Gala maybe sought 
 in vain among ecclesiastical records. The parish was 
 formerly named Lindean, from a place on the south 
 bank of Ettrick, where the Kers of Faldonside are 
 buried. 
 
 Jealous as one must rightly be of any tampering 
 with the ancient minstrelsy, Burns may not be blamed 
 for his industry in setting new words to old music. 
 He could not help it, any more than a lark can help 
 singing. 
 
 ' There's braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes, 
 
 That wander through the blooming heather ; 
 But Yarrow Braes nor Ettrick shaws 
 Can match the lads of Gala Water. ' 
 
 Yet what are these words without their inspiring 
 melody, one of the sweetest in all the Caledonian 
 repertory ? 
 
 Torwoodlee, on the right bank of Gala Water a 
 couple of miles above the town, has been, and remains 
 in possession of an ancient Border family of Pringle 
 (formerly Hoppringle) since 1509. A modern man- 
 sion has replaced the house which, roofless and ruin- 
 ed now, was built by George Pringle in 1601 instead 
 of a still older keep which was sacked by the Elliots 
 and Armstrongs one winter night in 1568, when the 
 laird was barbarously murdered. Redress against 
 these dreaded marauders was out of the question be- 
 fore the union of the kingdoms. England and
 
 THETWEED 89 
 
 Scotland being at war continually, it was easy for of- 
 fenders against the laws of one country to seek 
 protection in the other. There was nothing to 
 distinguish this outrage, and the impunity of its per- 
 petrators, from scores of similar cases, save this, that 
 thirty-nine years after the raid in January 1607, the 
 murdered man's grandchildren took advantage of the 
 union of the Crowns (1603) to endeavour to bring 
 the surviving malefactors to justice. The endeavour 
 failed ; at least it succeeded only so far as that John 
 Elliot of Capshaw was * put to the horn ' i.e. pro- 
 claimed outlaw, an infliction which he had long before 
 learned to regard with equanimity. As a typical 
 example of the incidents in a blood-feud, the ' dittay, ' 
 or part of it, against the criminals will bear quotation. 
 
 * Foresamekill as the said Johnne Ellote of Copschaw. 
 Robert Ellote, callit Marteinis Hob, and Jok Airmestrang, 
 callit the Lairdis Jok, with thair complices, with convocation 
 of the haill Clannis of the Airmestrangis, Ellotes, Batiesones, 
 Grahames and remanent Clannis, duelland [dwelling] als- 
 weill on the Inglis as the Scottis Bordouris, all cowmone 
 thevis, outlawis and brokin men, to the number of thre 
 hundreth persones or thairby, boden in feir of weir [fully 
 armed] with jakis,speiris,steil bonnetis, lance-stalffis [staves], 
 hagbutis and pistoletis. . . in the moneth of December, the 
 yeir of God I m V c threscoir aucht yeiris, [did] come fordward 
 in hosteill maner, baith on hors and fute, to the Place of 
 Torwoidlie, and thair, under silence and clud of nycht with 
 foir-hammeris and geistis [joists, beams], dang up the zeittis 
 [broke up the gates] of the said place, and be force of 
 violence enterit within the samyn [the same] ; and tuik the 
 said George Hoppringill furth of his bed, and convoyit him 
 away as captive and prissoner with thame, to the Skaldeneise 
 within the Sherefdome of Selkirk ; and thair maist crewallie
 
 9 o THESTORYOF 
 
 and unmerciefully Murdreist and slew the said umq le 
 George. * 
 
 Of course they carried off a great deal besides the 
 unlucky laird. There follows a list of goods, which 
 includes seventeen horses, one thousand pounds in 
 cash, three pieces of silver plate, two dozen silver 
 spoons, and so forth, whereof not a stiver was ever 
 recovered for the heirs. 
 
 Old Gala House, the place of another branch of 
 Pringles, stands deserted also, in favour of a spick- 
 and-span example of the so-called Scottish baronial 
 style. The old house stands on the site of one still 
 older, which bore a stone with the date 1583, dis- 
 playing the arms of Pringle the five pilgrim's 
 scallops on a black saltire with the cinquefoils of 
 Borthwick, being the scutcheons of Andrew Pringle 
 and Marion Borthwick his wife. Andrew's grand- 
 son, David, married Margaret, daughter of Auld 
 Wat of Harden and Mary Scott, the * Flower of 
 Yarrow. ' They had no children, but David's sister 
 Jean, having married Margaret Scott's brother Hugh, 
 became heiress to her father, and that is the origin 
 of the Scotts of Gala. A richer admixture of 
 ancient Border blood could scarcely be contriv- 
 ed. Hugh's and Jean's arms are carved upon 
 the same shield over the entrance to the family 
 mausoleum in Galashiels kirkyard, with the date 
 1636. 
 
 On a wooded hilltop about half a mile behind 
 the modern house of Torwoodlee is a circular 
 camp of the kind which crowns so many similar 
 uplands. This one is remarkable among others, 
 because it seems to be the northern terminus of a
 
 THE TWEED 91 
 
 work which, under the various names of the Catrail, 
 the Pict's Wark, and the Deil's Dyke, has been the 
 subject of speculation and controversy among 
 antiquaries for generations past, and will be so for 
 generations to come. The identity of Junius of the 
 Letters has not called forth greater variety of sug- 
 gestion than has this mysterious earthwork. It 
 consists of a ditch or fosse, flanked by two earthen 
 banks, running in a line, once continuous probably, 
 but now broken and defaced by agriculture, from 
 Peel Fell in the Cheviots, across the Slitrig to Pike 
 Fell (1516 feet), which it climbs, and down the 
 Teviot, where there are a number of prehistoric forts. 
 Crossing the Teviot, it may be traced over Com- 
 monside Hill, past Broadlee Loch, into the Rankil- 
 burn glen, and so to the summit of Corse Head 
 (1319 feet), where there has been a strong fort. 
 Thence it strikes across the dales of Ettrick and 
 Yarrow, over the Minchmuir, crosses the Tweed 
 near the mouth of Howden Pot Burn, passes 
 through the wood at Hollybush farm, and so by 
 Rink Hill and Mossilee to the fort at Torwoodlee, 
 completing there a total course of about forty-eight 
 miles. 
 
 * In most places now the work appears almost like 
 a brown benty road across the moorland . . . indeed 
 its line has been actually superseded here and there 
 by mountain roads . . . The old makers of the 
 ditch had worked down to the hard ground, and this 
 was utilised as a line of mountain road, and came to 
 be defaced from its former appearance as a ditch and 
 mound.' But it was not designed as a road originally. 
 Proof of that is that, in crossing streams, it is drawn 
 aside to no ford, but sometimes strikes the channel
 
 92 THE STORY OF 
 
 where the banks are precipitous, reappearing on the 
 opposite side. l 
 
 As to the purpose of such an extended work, the 
 commonest and most obvious suggestion is that it 
 was defensive, and the prefix of the name Catrail has 
 been explained as the Welsh cad Gaelic catb, a 
 battle. But had the work been defensive, the ditch 
 surely would not have been between the two mounds, 
 but on the outer side of both, if two there were. 
 Analogy with the Deil's Dyke in Galloway at once 
 occurs ; but that well-known work, running, like the 
 Catrail, over hill and dale sixty miles from the 
 shores of Loch Ryan to the Nith near Sanquhar, 
 was almost certainly a defence erected by the Picts 
 of Galloway against their inveterate foes, the Britons 
 of Strathclyde. In the Galloway work there is but 
 one mound, to be strengthened by a stockade, with 
 a fosse running along the outer or Strathclyde face 
 thereof. A second rampart, outside the ditch, would 
 greatly weaken the defence by affording shelter to 
 an attacking force. Nevertheless, Professor Veitch, 
 taking into account the apparent relation of the 
 Catrail with the numerous hill forts along its line, 
 was of opinion that this ditch was dug by the 
 Britons of Strathclyde as a defensive boundary 
 against the Angles of Northumbria about the begin- 
 ning of the seventh century of our era. Having no 
 alternative explanation to offer, I must be content 
 to leave it so ; merely observing that if that was the 
 origin and purpose of the Catrail, it is to be hoped 
 that the Britons were better Christians than they 
 were military engineers. 
 
 1 This description is condensed from Professor Veitch's detailed 
 account of the Catrail (Border History and Poetry, i. 183-209). He 
 traversed and examined the work throughout its length.
 
 THE TWEED 93 
 
 A short way below Galashiels the Elwand or Allan 
 Water crosses under the highroad in its haste to 
 reach the Tweed. This little stream has been speci- 
 ally associated with the fairy folk, and passes through 
 a narrow gorge called the Fairy Dean or the Nameless 
 Dean. At the head of the glen is a remarkable 
 group of three towers, ruinous now, standing within 
 short distance of each other Hillslap, Colmslie, and 
 Langshaw. Colmslie was a strong house of the 
 Borthwicks ; there is a fine lilt in the fragment of 
 verse connected with it just enough to make one 
 wish for more. 
 
 * Colmslie stands on Colmslie Hill, 
 The water it flows round Colmslie Mill ; 
 The mill and the kiln gang bonnily, 
 And it's up wi' the whippers o' Colmslie ! ' 
 
 Hillslap is now known as Glendearg, because Scott 
 so named the castle in The Monastery^ the scene of 
 that romance being laid on Allan Water. It bears 
 the date 1585 on the door-lintel, with the initials 
 N.C. and E.L., those of Nicolas Cairncross and his 
 wife. The family of Cairncross has disappeared 
 from the roll of landowners, and was never of much 
 note. The said Nicolas went bail on 2yth May 1591 
 for a kinsman, ' Robert Carnecroce callit Mettle Hob, 
 who, with three other rascals, was indicted for the 
 forcible abduction of Jean Ramsay, Lady Warristoun. 1 
 
 The Allan joins the Tweed in the grounds of the 
 Pavilion, formerly the hunting-seat of the Lords 
 Somerville, of whom the nineteenth and last died in 
 
 1 Mother-in-law of the beautiful Jean Livingston, Lady Warristoun, 
 who in 1600 was beheaded for the murder of her husband, and her 
 nurse was burnt at the same time as accomplice.
 
 94 THESTORYOF 
 
 1870, leaving his property to his daughter, the Hon. 
 Mrs. Henry. An historic family that of Somerville, 
 but notice of them may be deferred till we come to 
 their ancient lands of Linton, which lay upon the 
 very highway of English invasion. 
 
 Far as the fame of Tweed has run, and myriad as 
 are those who travel from afar to visit its classic 
 scenes, there is perhaps no place in all its valley 
 which has such a wide renown as Melrose. I shall 
 speak no word of disparagement ; yet it may be that 
 disappointment is in the minds of some who see it 
 for the first time, so busy has the modern builder 
 been in its streets, so spruce are the villas which 
 have sprung up in its suburbs. The abbey is there, 
 unsurpassed in the beauty of death ; but all grace 
 has fled from its environment. More closely inter- 
 woven with Scottish history than Dryburgh, the 
 sepulchre of more of Scotland's great ones than Jed- 
 burgh, less marred in its main structure than Kelso, 
 it has none of the sylvan seclusion of the first, and 
 seems more closely elbowed than the others by the 
 petty concerns of everyday life. Were it possible 
 to transplant the abbey, together with its rich asso- 
 ciations, to the site of the original foundation below 
 Leaderfoot, then indeed Melrose would sit enthron- 
 ed, peerless among the shrines of our northern land. 
 
 The Melrose of to-day Kennaquhair of The Abbot 
 and The Monastery is not that maol ros, that naked 
 headland in the wood, whereon Aidan of Lindisfarne, 
 disciple of Colum of the Churches, financed by 
 Oswald, King of Northumbria, built his church and 
 monastery in 636, and appointed his beloved disciple 
 Eata first abbot. That establishment, the site of 
 which still goes by the name of Old Melrose, was
 
 THETWEED 95 
 
 wrecked in the ninth century by Kenneth Mac Alpin, 
 first King of Scots. Drycthelm, converted by a 
 vision of hell, purgatory, and heaven, became a 
 monk there, and eventually head of the community. 
 This paragon of austere piety used to bathe daily in 
 the Tweed, summer and winter, without undressing 
 before his plunge or changing his wet garments 
 afterwards. 
 
 It was David I. who founded the new monastery 
 in 1136 at a small village called Fordel, thenceforth 
 to be Melrose for all time, and peopled it with Cister- 
 cians from Rievaulx in Yorkshire. The new build- 
 ing, which we may suppose to have been of the same 
 exquisite late Norman design as Jedburgh Abbey, 
 stood till 1322, when it was merged in the sacrifice 
 incurred by the Scottish nation in their struggle for 
 independence. The Earl of Warenne's English 
 army, retreating from Edinburgh in that year, wreak- 
 ed their wrath first upon Holyrood Abbey, which they 
 burnt and sacked. Melrose they served in the same 
 way, slaying the prior and two of the brethren who 
 attempted to defend it, and then marched onto destroy 
 the beautiful monastery of Dryburgh. Fair reprisal, 
 it must be owned, for similar evil work wrought by 
 the Scots when they were over the border earlier in 
 the year. Three years later, at a Parliament held by 
 Robert I. at Scone in 1325, the abbot and convent 
 received a grant of 2000 out of the revenues of for- 
 feited lands, with which they rebuilt their church and 
 monastery. The finest part of the ruins as they 
 remain to us date from this period. This includes 
 the nave, from the crossing to the rood loft, and part 
 of the transepts, together with the flying buttresses 
 along the south front, and the south transept with its
 
 96 THE STORY OF 
 
 splendid window. Kemp, architect of the Scott 
 Monument in Princes Street, Edinburgh, borrowed 
 the dimensions and general plan of that work from 
 the great transept arches of Melrose. 
 
 It is well known that King Robert the Bruce, 
 when on his deathbed, charged * the gentle knight 
 Sir James of Douglas ' to carry his heart to the Holy 
 Land and present it at the Holy Sepulchre. But it 
 is not so generally known that he did not intend that 
 it should remain there. A few months before his 
 death, Robert had written to his son and successor 
 David, specially commending the abbey and convent 
 of Melrose to his care, and desiring that his heart 
 might be buried before the high altar. Which was 
 duly performed, after the sorrowing comrades of the 
 Black Douglas had brought the heart home in its 
 silver casket, together with the body of their chief. 
 
 Edward III. respected the Scottish abbeys in his 
 wars, and even restored to Melrose certain lands in 
 England belonging of right to the convent. His 
 successor, Richard II., confirmed the protection; but 
 in 1385 he was so infuriated by the failure of his 
 expedition into Scotland that, after sleeping a night 
 in the abbey, he burnt it down. However, so great 
 were the terrors of Holy Church in the fourteenth 
 century, that in 1389 King Richard made atonement 
 by remitting the duty upon a thousand sacks of wool 
 exported by the monks from his harbour of Berwick. 
 But the monks did not play fair. They were detected 
 in trying to smuggle out twelve hundred sacks instead 
 of a thousand, and the privilege was withdrawn. 
 Howbeit, the lands of the monastery were extensive, 
 and its revenue very great ; so the monks had no 
 difficulty in providing funds to erect the present east
 
 THETWEED 97 
 
 end of the choir, with its Perpendicular window 
 tracery, which is the only conspicuous example in 
 Scotland of that style of Gothic building. While 
 English architects followed their own peculiar school 
 of Perpendicular, Scottish designers borrowed the 
 more graceful Flamboyant from the Low Countries. 
 
 The final ruin of this fair fane befell in the sixteenth 
 century. Henry VIII., incensed at the rejection of 
 his proposals for the marriage of the infant Queen of 
 Scots with the Prince of Wales, vowed he would have 
 Mary out of the strongest keep in Scotland, and sent 
 Lord Hertford in 1544 to devastate the land. The 
 campaign assumed a degree of ferocity unexampled 
 since the sack of Berwick in 1296 by Edward I. The 
 Merse and the Lothians were turned into a desert ; 
 the abbey and palace of Holyrood were gutted with 
 fire, so was the abbey of Newbotle. Melrose, also, 
 was practically destroyed, its tower probably being 
 blown up ; so that when the two knights, Eure or 
 Evers and Layton, whom Hertford left to carry on 
 the work of destruction, visited the abbey in the fol- 
 lowing year, there remained nothing of mischief for 
 their hands, except to deface the tombs of the Doug- 
 lases. They thought, perhaps, to quench the in- 
 expugnable spirit of independence by obliterating the 
 memorials of such champions as the victor of Otter- 
 bourne and the Knight of Liddesdale ! 
 
 Eure and Layton lived not long to boast of their 
 performance, yet long enough to rue it. The Earl 
 of Angus, who most justly had been imprisoned on a 
 charge of treason, had been released in 1 544 that he 
 might aid his country in her extremity. No doubt 
 he had been in league with the English ; but they had 
 been so thoughtless as to raid and occupy some of 
 
 7
 
 98 THE STORY OF 
 
 his lands. Nay, more : King Henry had conceived 
 such well-merited distrust of his former confidant, 
 that he set a price of two thousand crowns upon the 
 head of Angus, and gave wide tracts of Douglas ter- 
 ritory to Eure and Layton. Nothing short of this 
 would have made Angus loyal to his country ; but he 
 was in earnest now. He vowed that these knights 
 should have the titles to his lands written upon their 
 skins with sharp pens and bloody ink. Joining forces 
 with his old enemy Arran, he marched to Jedburgh, 
 Eure and Layton falling back upon Ancrum Moor. 
 The Kers of Ferniehirst and Cessford were in the 
 English force, with the red cross of St. George sewed 
 upon their sleeves. Angus was reinforced by Buc- 
 cleuch and Norman Leslie, famous fighters both, 
 bringing up his strength to not less than a thousand 
 spears; but still he was far inferior in numbers to the 
 enemy. Acting on Buccleuch's advice, the Scots 
 dismounted and went into ambush at Penielhaugh, 
 sending their horses to the rear. Eure mistook this 
 for a movement of retreat, and ordered an advance. 
 Suddenly he came upon the Scots drawn up between 
 him and the low February sun. The English charged 
 in vain against the steady squares ; they wavered and 
 broke. The Kers tore off their red badges, and 
 joined their countrymen in the bloody pursuit. Eure 
 and Layton were both slain with hundreds of their 
 men ; a thousand prisoners were taken and twelve 
 guns. * Ah, welaway ! ' sighed Arran over Eure's 
 body, * that ever such slaughter and bloodshed should 
 be among Christian men. ' 
 
 With the name Lilliard's Edge, applied to a certain 
 spot on Ancrum Moor, is associated the somewhat 
 nebulous memory of a certain damsel of Teviotdale,
 
 THETWEED 99 
 
 whose lover was slain by the English. To avenge 
 him, she marched with Angus to Ancrum Moor, and 
 her fate was recorded on a cross which, it is said, used 
 to stand on the spot, bearing the following inscrip- 
 tion 
 
 * Fair Maiden Lilliard lies under this stane ; 
 Little was her stature, but great was her fame ; 
 Upon the English loons she laid mony thumps, 
 And when her legs were cuttit off, she fought 
 
 [upon her stumps. ' 
 
 If the monument was a genuine one, the rhyme should 
 have run c Fair Maid o' Lilliard, ' for the place was 
 known as Lilliard's Edge long before the date of the 
 battle. In the twelfth century it was written * Lili- 
 syhates, ' beside the streamlet * Lilliesietburne, ' and 
 obviously the name owns a common origin with that 
 of the neighbouring parish of Lilliesleaf, formerly 
 Lillesclive. 
 
 After this last destruction came the Scottish Re- 
 formation ; the Earl of Both well, Douglas of Loch- 
 leven, and Sir John Ramsay were successively 
 appointed Commendators, and finally the lands of the 
 abbey passed into possession of the Scotts of Buc- 
 cleuch. The building itself suffered the usual fate of 
 becoming a common quarry for building a tolbooth, 
 repairing mills and sluices, and erecting vulgar dwell- 
 ings in the town. Finally, crudest fate of all, in 1 6 1 8 
 the nave was made to serve as the parish kirk, with 
 a new roof and square piers concealing the old ones 
 on the north side. It is amazing that through all these 
 vicissitudes so much remains of what must have been 
 an exquisitely lovely building. 
 
 The dominant feature in the landscape near Mel-
 
 ioo THE STORY OF 
 
 rose, and for many miles around, is the triple crest 
 of Eildon, which has drawn to itself enough legend, 
 myth, and history to store the whole realm of Scot- 
 land withal. It is the isolation of this upheaval of 
 porphyritic trap, and its peculiar three-cleft form, 
 which have gained for it more notice and given it 
 more powerful influence upon human imagination 
 than the far loftier summits among which we took our 
 way in Upper Tweeddale. 1 
 
 1 In the south of Scotland, ' observed Walter Scott, 
 'any work of great labour and antiquity is ascribed, 
 either to the agency of Auld Michael, of Sir William 
 Wallace, or of the devil ' ; and, sure enough, Michael 
 Scot is held accountable for the shape and position 
 of the Eildons. According to one story, the wizard, 
 happening to have no particular work for the familiar 
 demon who served him, and being under superior 
 obligation not to allow that restless sprite to join the 
 ranks of the unemployed, bade him c bridle the 
 Tweed with a curb of stone. ' He had underrated 
 his auxiliary's power ; the task was accomplished in 
 a single night, and stands to this day the cauld or 
 weir across the river at Kelso. Next Michael order- 
 ed the demon to carve the single cone of Eildon into 
 three ; which was executed as easily and swiftly as 
 the other job. Finally, the wizard hit upon the 
 notion of setting the little devil to weave sea sand 
 into ropes, which kept the creature quiet till his 
 services were wanted in earnest. 
 
 The other story is more circumstantial, and Scrope 
 quotes it as the more popular version in the district. 
 Michael, being at constant feud with the monks of 
 
 1 The three crests of Eildon rise respectively to no more than 1385, 
 1327, and 1216 feet.
 
 THE TWEED 101 
 
 Melrose, whose holy water and exorcisms interfered 
 in the most exasperating way with his incantations, 
 resolved to spite them by erecting a mountain 
 between their monastery and the sun, and gave the 
 necessary instructions to his familiar. The demon, 
 with a single scoop of his shovel, carried enough 
 material from the Cheviots to form one of the three 
 Eildon, Hills ; another scoop supplied material for 
 the second Hill ; but in his third trip he awkwardly 
 spilt half his shovelful on the way back ; which 
 accounts, not only for the lesser size of the third 
 Eildon but also for the position of the lone peak of 
 Ruberslaw (1392 feet) which stands so conspicuously 
 in Teviotdale, representing the spilt half-shovel- 
 ful. This was a lucky accident for the monks, 
 interrupting the construction of a mountain which, 
 if completed, must have thrown their pleasant abode 
 into the shade. Michael, incensed at his demon's 
 slovenliness, rushed at him to chastise him. The 
 imp flew down to the river, embarked in his shovel, 
 and sped downstream, Michael after him in a boat, 
 forgetting that running water was fatal to his power 
 of enchantment. Certain monks, enjoying the dis- 
 cord in the rival establishment, followed in a third 
 boat to see the fun, and with them sailed True 
 Thomas of Ercildoune, nothing loth. The chase went 
 forward as far as Makerstoun, where dwelt a witch 
 friendly to Michael. She flew out of the Corbie's 
 Craig in the form of a raven, and her warning note 
 reminded the wizard of the mistake he had made in 
 going afloat. Landing at once, his power returned 
 to him as soon as he stood on dry ground. He 
 employed it to cast a bar of rock across the river, 
 whereby the flow should be stopped and the demon's
 
 102 THE STORY OF 
 
 boat be left adry. But in his excitement Michael left 
 one foot in the water ; the whole force of the current 
 concentrated in that spot, forming the Trows, a 
 stream well known to many a salmon fisher, where 
 in very low water an active fellow might in former 
 times leap across the whole volume of the Tweed. 
 The demon finally made his escape to sea, was seen 
 no more, and a sandbank marks the place where he 
 left his shovel. 
 
 Let us turn from the visionary and unsubstantial 
 for a moment, and mark the change which occurs in 
 the solid earth under our feet at this point in the 
 journey. Hitherto, ever since we left Tweed's 
 Well many a mile behind us and a thousand feet 
 above us, we have been travelling upon river gravels, 
 boulder-clay, and more recent peat, accumulated 
 upon the hard and twisted beds of Silurian rock, 
 most ancient of stratified deposits. Now we enter 
 upon a newer, though still ancient, geological 
 horizon ; the soil changes in hue from hazel to brick 
 red ; the crags by the river are of softer material, 
 worn into outlines less rugged than those of the 
 
 oo 
 
 uplands we have quitted. From Melrose to the sea 
 the river channel is carved through the old red sand- 
 stone, which is torn and interrupted by volcanic vents 
 of the carboniferous or Permian age. These ancient 
 vents, monuments of a bygone era of prodigious 
 volcanic activity, impart peculiar features to the 
 scenery of the valley, such as Eildon Ruberslaw, 
 Minto Craigs, Peniel Heugh, Bonchester, and 
 Dunian. 
 
 You may note a change in the climate, too, from 
 the soft air of the Westland. Strained of sea damp 
 as it flowed over the high grounds, the atmosphere
 
 THE TWEED 103 
 
 is more mellow in summer, more shrill in winter, 
 than it is on the Atlantic seaboard. But plain prose 
 is easily baffled in attempting to define the peculiar 
 aura of Tweedside. Only to those who have the 
 gift of song is it given to convey its subtle charm. 
 Here is Twilight on Tweed, by one of her latest 
 singers : 
 
 ' Three crests against a saffron sky 
 
 Beyond the purple plain, 
 The dear remembered Melody 
 Of Tweed once more again. 
 
 Wan water from the Border hills, 
 
 Dear voice from the old years, 
 Thy distant music lulls and stills, 
 
 And moves to quiet tears. 
 
 Like a loved ghost thy fabled flood 
 
 Fleets through the dusky land ; 
 Where Scott, came home to die, has stood 
 
 My feet returning stand. 
 
 A mist of memory broods and floats, 
 
 The Border waters flow ; 
 The air is full of ballad notes 
 
 Borne out long time ago. 
 
 Old songs they sung themselves to me 
 Sweet, through a boy's day-dream, 
 
 While trout below the blossomed tree 
 Plashed in the golden stream. 
 
 Twilight, and Tweed, and Eildon Hill, 
 
 Fair and too fair you be ; 
 You tell me that the voice is still 
 
 That should have welcomed me. ' ' 
 ' Andrew Lang.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 FROM LAUDERDALE TO DRYBURGH 
 
 Two miles to the east of Melrose we come to 
 Leaderfoot, where the Leader Water falls into 
 the Tweed, after a course of twenty-one miles 
 from its source on Lammer Law, in which distance 
 it descends from 1375 feet above the sea to 2 1 5 a fall 
 of 1 1 60 feet. Its valley bears the name of Lauder- 
 dale, whence the family of Maitland derived their 
 earldom. These Maitlands trace their descent from 
 Sir Richard de Matulant or Mautland, who owned the 
 lands of Thirlestane in the thirteenth century, and 
 Thirlestane Castle remains the chief seat of the present 
 Earl of Lauderdale. l It is a magnificent example of 
 Scottish domestic architecture of the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries, built by Chancellor Maitland 
 (created Lord Maitland of Thirlestane in 1590), and 
 greatly added to and embellished by the Earls and 
 Dukes of Lauderdale. 
 
 It is believed to stand on the site of Lauder Fort, 
 built by the English under Edward I. The ballad of 
 Auld Maitland, already referred to, * relates to a fruit- 
 
 1 Like Thirlestane Castle in Ettrick, this place derives its name from 
 a 'thirled' or perforated stone, which has passed from sight and memory. 
 One such stone still exists in Kirkcowan parish, Wigtownshire, and is 
 used by lovers for ' handfasting ' i.e. clasping hands through the orifice 
 in the stone. 
 
 * See p. 50 ante. ' This ballad, ' said Professor Aytoun in the first 
 edition of his Ballads of Scotland, ' if genuine ' must be regarded as one
 
 THE TWEED 105 
 
 less siege of Thirlestane by Edward II., whereof all 
 other record has perished. 
 
 * For fifteen days that braid host lay, 
 
 Sieging auld Maitland keen ; 
 Syne they hae left him, hail and fair 
 Within his strength o' stane. ' 
 
 The Maitlands seem to have been a quiet law- 
 abiding race, for their names do not appear, like those 
 of every other Border family, as frequent actors or 
 victims in crimes of violence. Sir Robert Maitland 
 of Thirlestane had a charter in 1345 of the lands of 
 Lethington, now called Lennoxlove, in East Lothian: 
 and from him was descended Sir Richard Maitland 
 of Lethington (1496-1586), lawyer, statesman, and 
 poet, one of the few admirable public characters in 
 Scotland during the sixteenth century. He occupied 
 his leisure in collecting early Scottish poetry, and it 
 was after him that the Maitland Club, a literary 
 society of the eighteenth century, was named. 
 
 Of his second son William, better known as 
 Secretary Lethington, the record is not so uncloud- 
 ed. He acted in place of Huntly, the Chancellor, 
 who refused to attend the Parliament which, in 
 August 1560, put an end to the authority of the 
 Pope and Church of Rome in Scotland. He was an 
 
 of the very oldest productions of the Scottish muse ; ' and proceeds to 
 give reason for doubting its authenticity. ' The ballad, ' he argues ' was 
 never made for recitation. It is singularly deficient in the very quality 
 which tends most to the preservation of ancient song. ' He declares 
 that nobody could learn it by heart and repeat it after an interval of two 
 months. This is far from convincing. Tarn o' Shanter was not com- 
 posed for recitation : it has no refrain : yet I have heard a Wigtown 
 lawyer recite it after dinner from beginning to end, with neither halt 
 nor hover. Aytoun modified his opinion before preparing the second 
 edition of his book.
 
 106 THE STORY OF 
 
 accomplice with Bothwell in the destruction of Darn- 
 ley in the House-o'-Field, and expiated the errors, 
 and worse, of a tortuous career, which earned him 
 the nickname of 'Mitchell Wylie ' (Machiavelli), by 
 dying in prison at Leith in 1573. 
 
 The memories of Lauderdale reach far beyond 
 that date. On the Headshaw Burn, four miles below 
 its source on None Cairn Edge (1479 ^ eet ) an< ^ a 
 couple of miles above its junction with Leader Water, 
 is the parish Church of Channelkirk, near Holy 
 Water Cleuch. Here, close to a prehistoric hill-fort, 
 is St. Cuthbert's Well, among hill pastures where the 
 future saint, still bearing his Irish name, Mulloch, 
 served as a shepherd lad. Bede describes how, in 
 651, Mulloch beheld the vision of Bishop Aidan 
 of Lindisfarne being borne to heaven by angels. 
 Straightway resolving upon a religious life, he pre- 
 sented himself at Old Melrose, was received by 
 Prior Boisil, submitted to the tonsure, and received 
 the new name of Cuthbert. He spent ten years 
 there before entering upon his great missionary work. 
 Being appointed guest-master, he entertained an angel 
 unawares, who, in departing-, presented him with 
 three loaves, * such as the world cannot produce ; 
 excelling lilies in whiteness, roses in perfume, and 
 honey in sweetness.' l (In these days of sugar boun- 
 ties and abundant confectionary, it profits to remember 
 that, before the discovery of cane sugar, honey was 
 practically the only direct source of sweetness). 
 
 Cuthbert's discipline at Melrose was of appalling 
 severity. He used to recite the Psalms of David 
 from beginning to end standing in ice-cold water. 
 When Boisil died of the buidhe conaill or yellow 
 
 1 Vita S. Cuthbert VII.
 
 THE TWEED 107 
 
 plague in 660, Cuthbert succeeded him as Prior of 
 Melrose. Four years later he was appointed Prior 
 of Lindisfarne, where he died in 687. His last 
 words to the brethren, as recorded by Bede, had 
 been more precious had they been fewer. f Keep 
 peace one with another, and ever guard the divine 
 gift of charity. Maintain concord with other ser- 
 vants of Christ, and do not think yourselves better 
 than others' one would fain believe that the 
 gentle Cuthbert stopped there, and that it was a 
 churchman of a later and sterner cast who added 
 * of the same faith and manner of life. Only have 
 no communion with those who err from the unity 
 of Catholic peace. ' * There spake the uncomprom- 
 ising ecclesiastic there sounded the note of weary 
 centuries of intolerance and persecution to come. 
 
 After Cuthbert's death a church was built beside 
 the Holy Well in Lauderdale, and called Childes- 
 chirche (now corrupted into Channelkirk) to com- 
 memorate the boyhood of the shepherd saint. As 
 for his early patron Boisil, he too was canonised, and 
 his name has been borrowed for the neighbouring 
 parish of St. Boswells, formerly known as Les- 
 suden. 
 
 The upper part of Lauderdale remains intensely 
 pastoral. Its chief town, Lauder, a royal burgh 
 under a charter of James IV. in 1502, nestles under 
 the park walls of Thirlestane Castle, with a dwind- 
 ling population of eight hundred souls. c Lousy 
 Lauther ' was a disrespectful title in the eighteenth 
 century, now happily inapplicable. Edward I. 
 lodged here on the Sunday after Ascension 1295, 
 returning from his invasion of Lothian. The town 
 
 1 Vita St. Cuthbert XXXIX.
 
 io8 THE STORY OF 
 
 holds a foremost place in a rhyme still current about 
 places in this district. 
 
 * The lasses o' Lauther ate mim and meek ; 
 The lasses o' Fanns smell o' peat reek ; 
 The lasses o' Gordon canna sew a steek, 
 But weel they can sup their crowdie. ' 
 
 The lasses o' Earlston are bonny and braw ; 
 The lasses o' Greenlaw are black as a craw ; 
 The lasses o' Polwart are best o' them a', 
 And gie plenty o' meal for their crowdie. ' 
 
 Tranquil and apart, Lauder dozes its life harmlessly 
 away ; yet on a summer day long ago, it was the scene 
 of a central event in Scottish history. The fifteenth 
 century had run more than half its course before the 
 revival of learning, spreading from its source in Italy 
 through sympathetic France, began to make itself felt 
 in Scotland. Among the readiest to yield to its 
 influence was the dreamy and intellectual King 
 James III. Careless of the scowls of his unlettered 
 barons, he chose students and craftsmen as his favour- 
 ites, with startling indifference to the claims of birth 
 and feudal dignity. He spent whole days discussing 
 matters of art and learning, allowing the Scottish 
 nobles to nurse that bitterness and spirit of revenge 
 which spring most surely from a sense of intellectual 
 inferiority. Some of them took counsel with the King's 
 brothers, Albany and Mar, who detested the upstarts 
 as much as anybody, and readily joined in a plot for 
 their expulsion. The conspiracy was made known to 
 the King, whose all-powerful adviser, Thomas 
 Cochrane, a builder or architect, caused the princes to 
 
 1 Crowdie milk porridge, hence meals generally.
 
 THETWEED 109 
 
 be imprisoned. When Mar died in Craigmillar 
 dungeon, his title and revenues were bestowed on 
 Cochrane. Albany, escaping from Edinburgh Castle, 
 made his way to France, whence he returned to 
 England in time to join the army of the Duke of 
 Gloucester (afterwards Richard III.) in its invasion of 
 Scotland in 1482. 
 
 The bale-fires flew from height to height, from 
 tower to tower, along the Border, summoning barons 
 and yeomen to the accustomed task of national 
 defence. King James rode from Edinburgh and put 
 himself at the head of the assembled army, though 
 Archibald Douglas, fifth Earl of Angus, having suc- 
 ceeded Albany as Warden of the East Marches, was 
 the actual commander of the forces. The King had 
 torn himself away from his beloved books and jewel- 
 lery, true, but he had brought with him the detested 
 Cochrane and his gang. Even in this urgent crisis 
 he could not bear to part with them. And the danger 
 was at the door ; nay, it was over the doorstep, for 
 had not Berwick fallen already, captured by the 
 English, to be held by them, as it turned out, for all 
 time ? 
 
 Alas ! Scotsmen were not united as of yore to repel 
 the invader. Not a lance would these angry nobles 
 lay in rest till the Court had been purged of those 
 whom Angus classed as c fiddlers and bricklayers. ' 
 He summoned a meeting of peers in the Kirk of 
 Lauder. Lord Gray bitterly compared the assembly 
 to the mice who determined that, in the common 
 interest, a bell should be hung round the cat's neck. 
 The difficulty was to find a volunteer who would 
 carry out the delicate operation of hanging it. 
 
 'I WILL BELL THE CAT,' growled.the Warden,
 
 no THE STORY OF 
 
 winning the name by which he is best known in 
 history. 
 
 Another Douglas, Sir Robert of Lochleven, kept 
 the kirk door during the conference. Cochrane, the 
 new-made Earl of Mar, hearing that the barons were 
 assembled within, rode down to claim admission, with 
 a following of three hundred, dressed in his liveries 
 of white doublets with black bands. He himself was 
 gorgeously arrayed in a riding-coat of black velvet, a 
 heavy gold chain round his neck * to the awaillour ' 
 (value) of 500 crowns and a baldrick of silk and gold 
 across his shoulder. He wore a gold-mounted 
 hunting-horn, too, with a large beryl set in it. All 
 this we learn from old Pitscottie, who adds l This 
 Cochrane was so proud in his consait that he contit no 
 lord to be marrow (equal) to him, thairfor he raschit 
 (rushed) rudlie at the kirk dore. ' 1 
 
 Altercation arose between Cochrane and Sir Robert 
 Douglas, when Angus, perceiving the opportunity, 
 passed swiftly down the aisle, and bade the newcomer 
 welcome. He was admitted ; but no sooner was he 
 in the trap than the door was flung to and barred in 
 the faces of his followers. Angus then facing his 
 prey, tore the golden chain from Cochrane's neck. 
 4 A rope would fit it better,' said he. Sir Robert taking 
 his cue, pulled ofFthe gay horn. t Hunter of mischief 
 he has been too long, ' was his remark. 
 
 4 My lords! ' cried Cochrane, * is this mows [acting] 
 or earnest ? ' 
 
 4 Hard earnest, ' quoth the Warden, ' and so you 
 will find it. ' They haled the wretched man to the 
 king's tent, and there they seized the other objects 
 of their hate, all but young John Ramsay, who clung 
 
 1 Pitscottie, I. 174.
 
 THE TWEED in 
 
 to the king's person. Him they spared because of 
 his tender years. They put their victims through 
 the form of a trial : before the summer sun had set 
 Cochrane and his fellows were dangling lifeless over 
 the parapet of Lauder Bridge. 
 
 The church in which the luckless Cochrane was 
 entrapped was pulled down in 1617 to make way for 
 the present pseudo-Gothic building. 
 
 Of later date and less lugubrious character is 
 another story connected with the district. There 
 lies in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries a 
 curious silver chain known as Midside Maggie's 
 Girdle, the gift to the society of Mr. Robert 
 Romanes and Mr. James Curie. It weighs 7 oz. 1 1 
 dwt., and bears on the disc-shaped clasp the hall-mark 
 for the year 1608-9, anc ^ * ts history is as follows: 
 
 The farm of Tollis Hill was tenanted in the 
 seventeenth century by three brothers of the name 
 of Hardie, their landlord being John, second Earl, 
 afterwards first Duke, of Lauderdale. The farm 
 lies in the hill-country towards Lammerlaw, and the 
 part of it named Midside was held by Thomas 
 Hardie, whose wife, Margaret Lylestone, a thrifty, 
 well-doing woman, was commonly known as * Midside 
 Maggie.' One bad winter Hardie lost most of his 
 sheep in the snow, and was unable to pay his rent. 
 Maggie went to the earl at Thirlstane Castle and 
 laid the case before him. * Very well, ' said he, 
 good-humouredly, ' as you say there is such wealth 
 of snow on Tollis Hill, I'll forgive you the rent if 
 you bring me a snowball in June. ' One may fancy 
 the anxiety with which this struggling couple watched 
 the wreaths dwindling in the cleuchs. It happened 
 to be a very backward season, and Maggie actually
 
 ii2 THE STORY OF 
 
 was able to carry a snowball to the castle on the first 
 of June, and the earl was as good as his word. 
 
 Things went well with the Hardies after this, but 
 ill with the earl. A staunch Royalist, he was taken 
 prisoner at Worcester in 1651, and lay in the Tower 
 for a number of years. The Hardies were as loyal 
 to their lord as he was to his king. They carefully 
 laid by the rent, and one fine day Midside Maggie 
 put it all in gold pieces, baked them in a bannock, 
 stepped it off to London, like Jeanie Deans in later 
 years, and managed to convey the same to the pris- 
 oner in the Tower. 
 
 Soon after this, Lauderdale, through favour of 
 Monk, was set at liberty, went oversea to Holland, 
 and returned with the king in 1660. He had not 
 forgotten Maggie. She and her children sat rent 
 free in Midside ever after, and the earl gave her the 
 silver girdle as guerdon, saying, * Every bannock has 
 its maik but the bannock o' Tollishill. ' The girdle, 
 it will be remarked, was already fifty years old when 
 it was given to Maggie. It descended to Maggie's 
 posterity, the last of whom, Thomas Simson, went 
 off to America in 1880, depositing the precious 
 heirloom with Mr. Romanes of Lauder, who finally, 
 in 1897, persuaded the owner to consign it to the 
 National Museum of Antiquities. 
 
 Previous to the Maitlands obtaining ascendency 
 in Lauderdale, there was another family of landown- 
 ers there named de Lawedre or Lauder of that Ilk, 
 ancestors of the present Sir Thomas Dick Lauder of 
 the Bass. They had several towers in the district : 
 the ruins of one may be seen on the left bank of 
 Leader at Whitslaid, a couple of miles below Lauder. 
 One of the family, William Lauder, * vocatus Wil-
 
 THE TWEED 113 
 
 liam-at-the-West-Poirt, ' was Bailie of Lauder, and 
 lost his life when the tolbooth was burnt down by 
 his dangerous neighbours the Homes. Alexander, 
 Earl of Home, and a number of his clan, received 
 remission for this crime in 1607. l 
 
 The family gradually lost ground in this district, 
 the last landowner therein of that name being laird 
 of Carolside, below Earlston, known as Beau Lauder. 
 He must have been as great a dandy as the ill-starred 
 Thomas Cochrane, for he was a well-known figure 
 in the Edinburgh streets at the end of the eighteenth 
 century, figged out in scarlet, with lace ruffles, 
 embroidered waistcoat, satin shorts, white silk stock- 
 ings, and gold shoe-buckles set with stones. 
 
 At Earlston the old world and the new meet 
 again, for this little town of a round thousand inhab- 
 itants stands between a station of the North British 
 Railway on the one side, and a fragment of Thomas 
 the Rhymer's tower on the other. Its ancient name 
 of Ercildoune was transmogrified into the slipshod 
 Earlston when the burgh of barony passed into 
 possession of the Earls of Dunbar, and continues to 
 denote its ownership, now that it belongs to the Earl 
 of Haddington. But seeing that there are two other 
 places in southern Scotland called Earlston, it seems 
 a pity that the original form should be discarded, 
 even were there no historic reasons for resuming it. 
 
 From Earlston to Cowdenknowes the way is short 
 and the transition natural, so closely are the two 
 places associated in song. 
 
 4 Ercildoune and Cowdenknowes, 
 
 Where Home had ance commanding, 
 
 And Drygrange wi' its milkwhite ewes, 
 
 'Twixt Tweed and Leader standing.
 
 ii4 THE STORY OF 
 
 The bird that flies through Redpath trees 
 And Gladswood banks each morrow, 
 
 May chant and sing sweet Leader Haugh 
 And bonny houms o' Yarrow. ' 
 
 Cowdenknowes, once the principal dwelling of the 
 Homes (English readers will suffer admonition to 
 pronounce the name as if written Hume), has passed 
 into other hands now, but the interesting tower of 
 the seventeenth century has been preserved and in- 
 corporated with the modern house, the ground floor 
 having been adapted as an entrance hall. That the 
 Homes were harsh rulers and hard riders is one of 
 the clearest lessons of Border history, though some of 
 their neighbours ran them hard in both respects. 
 Dismal stories still float round the old tower of Cow- 
 denknowes stories of horrible cruelty passed upon 
 prisoners in its dungeons, and of kindly Scots swing- 
 ing on the * burrow's tree ' before the door. There 
 is a melancholy sough, too, in the name of Sorrow- 
 lessfield, a place on the opposite side of Leader, said 
 to have been the abode of a family called Fisher, 
 who were all slain on one battlefield, leaving none 
 alive to mourn for them. But inasmuch as Robert 
 Chambers tells of two brothers of the name who 
 owned the property in succession in comparatively 
 recent times, we may be inclined to substitute 
 the matter-of-fact explanation of * sorrel leas, ' 
 i.e. the dry, brown field, or the field of sorrel (sour 
 dock). 
 
 There are gentler associations than these about 
 Cowdenknowes, which have shaped themselves, as 
 seem inevitable in this valley, into melody and verse. 
 There are three versions of The Broom of Cowden-
 
 THE TWEED 115 
 
 tyiowcs ; the following lines form part of what is said 
 to be the oldest : 
 
 * " O the broom, and the bonny, bonny broom, 
 
 And the broom o' the Cowdenknowes " 
 An' aye sae sweet as the lassie sang 
 
 F the bught, 1 milking the ewes. 
 The hills are high on ilka side, 
 
 An' the bught in the lirk o' the hill ; 
 And aye as she sang, her voice it rang 
 
 Out o'er the head o' yon hill. 
 There was a troop o' gentlemen 
 
 Cam ridin' merrilie by, 
 And one o' them has rode out o' the way 
 
 To the bught, to the bonny May. 
 " Weel may ye save and see, bonny lass, 
 
 An' weel may ye save and see. " 
 " An' sae wi' you, ye weel-bred knight ; 
 
 An' what's your will wi' me ? " 
 " The night is misty and mirk, fair May, 
 
 And I hae ridden astray ; 
 And will ye be sae kind, fair May, 
 
 As come out and point the way ? " 
 " Ride out, ride out, ye ramp rider ! 
 
 Your steed's baith stout and strang ; 
 But out o' the bught I daurna come, 
 
 For fear ye might dae me wrang. " 
 " O winna ye pity me, bonny lass ? 
 
 O winna ye pity me ? 
 An' winna ye pity my poor steed, 
 
 Stands trembling at yon tree ? " 
 " I wadna pity your poor steed, 
 
 Though it were tied to a thorn ; 
 For if ye wad gain my love the night, 
 
 Ye wad slight me ere the morn. 
 For I ken ye by your weel-busket hat, 
 1 Sheep-pen.
 
 n6 THE STORY OF 
 
 An* your merrie twinklin' e'e, 
 That ye follow the laird o' the Oakland Hills, 
 
 An' right aft in his companie. " 
 He's ta'en her by the middle jimp, 
 
 An' by the grass-green sleeve ; 
 He's lifted her ower the fauld dyke, 
 
 And speered ' at her sma' leave. 
 O he's ta'en out a purse o' gowd, 
 
 And streek'd her yellow hair ; 
 " Now take ye that, my bonny May, 
 
 Of me till ye hear mair. " 
 
 Then there follow several stanzas describing the 
 usual period of suspense and deadly apprehension on 
 the part of the maiden ; but it all comes right in the 
 end. Fair May had grown pale and ill, when, 
 eighteen weeks after her adventure, the knight rides 
 that way again. 
 
 4 " Weel may ye save and see, bonny May, 
 
 Weel may ye save and see ! 
 Weel I wot ye' re a bonny May, 
 
 But whae 's aucht * that babe ye are wi* ? " 
 Never a word could that lassie say, 
 
 For never a ane could she blame ; 
 An' never a word could the lassie say 
 
 But " I hae a gudeman at hame. " 
 " Ye lie, ye lie, my very bonny May ! 
 
 Sae loud's I hear ye lie ; 
 For dinna ye mind that mirk, mirk night, 
 
 I was in the bught wi' thee ? " 
 Then he's leapt off his berry-brown steed, 
 
 An' he's set that fair May on. 
 " Ca* out the kye, gude father, yoursel, 
 
 For she's ne'er ca' them out again. 
 
 1 Asked. 
 
 1 Who owns.
 
 THE TWEED 117 
 
 I am the laird o' the Oakland Hills, 
 
 I hae thirty ploughs and three ; 
 An' I hae gotten the bonniest lass 
 
 That's in a' the north countrie. " 
 
 Drygrange, once the site of the granary of Melrose 
 Abbey, now that of a conspicuous modern mansion, 
 stands a mile below Cowdenknowes, on the right 
 bank of Leader. Half a mile further on, the high 
 road to St. Boswells and Jedburgh crosses the Tweed 
 on a lofty bridge. From this point downwards as far 
 as Kelso, the course of the river is one continuous, 
 but changing, scene of beauty. Where its banks are 
 steep, they are densely clad with timber, some of it 
 exceedingly fine ; where they are flat, the surface is 
 either rich pasture or scrupulously tilled. For some 
 distance below the influx of Leader Water, the cliffs 
 rise high on both sides of Tweed, with spaces of 
 4 haugh ' or meadow in the windings. The modern 
 mansions of Ravenswood on the right bank, and 
 Gladswood on the left, command views of river-reaches 
 which it would be hard to exceed in loveliness. At 
 Old Melrose the Tweed sweeps round three-fourths 
 of a circle, enclosing the promontory the maol ros 
 where Aidan founded his monastery in 636. As the 
 Church grew in wealth and influence, so the clergy, 
 secular and regular, became more fastidious about 
 their comfort. They found the ground about Old 
 Melrose inconveniently steep, and persuaded King 
 David to transplant them to the level land at Fordel. 
 
 The loop in the river here, which encloses a fine 
 haugh, as well as the height, bears an ancient des- 
 criptive name, well known to salmon-fishers. It is 
 called the Cromwell, representing the Anglo-Saxon
 
 n8 THE STORY OF 
 
 crumb wyll, crooked pool. * Wele, ' commonly written 
 * wheel, ' is a frequent name in the south of Scotland 
 for river pools with a bend in them. Cromwell circles 
 under a remarkable cliff on the left bank, where 
 scattered pines maintain a precarious hold. It is 
 called the Gateheugh, from the road that runs along 
 its brow ; another good Scottish word, for * gate ' has 
 not here its modern restricted meaning, but signifies 
 a road or way. * Let no traveller who is not pressed 
 for time decline to breast that ' gate. ' It is winding, 
 it is exceedingly steep, and to describe the surface as 
 indifferent would be to flatter it ; but in all the course 
 of Tweed I know of no scene comparable to this for 
 combined beauty and association with the past. 
 
 4 More mighty spots may rise more glaring shine 
 But none unite in one attaching maze 
 The brilliant, fair and soft the glories of old days.' 
 
 It was here that * the Shirra' ' always reined in his 
 horse to view his beloved Borderland. Three hun- 
 dred feet below, the broad river winds its course, now 
 shimmering in the silver light, now reflecting the 
 sombre hue of sloping woods. Beyond the Tweed, 
 over the massive oaks of Old Melrose, rise the mystic 
 crests of Eildon, backed by the low, dim outlines of 
 Ettrick and Selkirk Forests. Due south, the solitary 
 cone of Ruberslaw rears itself from the plain above 
 the shaggy crest of Minto Craigs. Here, almost at 
 your feet, stands hoary Bemersyde ; beyond it, the 
 peaceful girth of Dryburgh. To the north you may 
 trace the flowing lines of the Lammermuirs ; and 
 
 1 The Scottish word for ' gate ' is ' liggate, ' the way into the ' lea ' or 
 field.
 
 THE TWEED 119 
 
 there stands the lonely tower of Smailholm, a lightless 
 beacon against the eastern sky. 
 
 Conspicuous out of all proportion to its dimensions, 
 this keep of Smailholm never fails to arrest a 
 stranger's eye and to prompt the inquiry What is 
 that ? Well, it is * the outstanding sentinel of all the 
 lower valley of the Tweed' ; in other respects, just a 
 Border pele, built, or rebuilt, by the Pringles of Gala 
 in the sixteenth century, and distinguished among 
 scores of its kind by its lonely and commanding 
 position. You may watch from its summit the 
 rainclouds gather on Slitrig and Ettrick to the west, 
 or, turning east, perceive the glimmer of the North 
 Sea beyond Berwick. It is less decayed than most 
 deserted towers, for the steep roof still sheds off the 
 rain and wards out the snow ; but the chief renown 
 of Smailholm is that here was the seed sown of that 
 garden of historic fact and poetic fancy which was to 
 be the delight of generations unborn. Six of Walter 
 Scott's brothers and sisters had died in infancy ; and 
 he, a weakly child, seemed like to follow the same 
 way. So his parents determined that ' Auld Reekie * 
 was no fit nurse for him, and sent him to country 
 quarters at his grandfather's farm of Sandyknowe, 
 close under Smailholm Tower. Here he remained, 
 with the exception of twelve months at Bath, till he 
 went to school at Kelso, listening to endless stories of 
 Border raids and warfare from old Sandy Ormiston, 
 the cow-bailie. 
 
 * And still I thought that shatter'd tower 
 The mightiest work of human power ; 
 And marvell'd as the aged hind 
 With some strange tale bewitch'd my mind,
 
 120 THE STORY OF 
 
 Of forayers, who, with headlong force, 
 
 Down from that strength had spurred their horse, 
 
 Their southern rapine to renew 
 
 Far in the distant Cheviots blue. ' 
 
 He was close on thirty before he published his first 
 original poem, Glenfinlas y which was followed by the 
 Eve of St. John, the scene of which was laid in Smail- 
 holm. The battlefield of Ancrum Moor lies in view 
 on the southern horizon. Scott's kindly face had 
 been furrowed, his hair blanched, with the anxieties 
 of twenty troubled years, before he had recourse to 
 the same scenery once more, and represented young 
 Graeme, in The Abbot^ as rescued from drowning in 
 the tarn which sleeps at the foot of the old tower. 
 
 At the summit of the Gateheugh, then, midway 
 between the great abbeys of Melrose and Dryburgh, 
 on a September afternoon in 1832, there paused to 
 rest a band of mourners, silent with a sorrow deeper 
 than moves many who meet * to pay the last mark of 
 respect. ' 
 
 It was no common funeral this. These men were 
 bearing from Abbotsford to the prescribed resting- 
 place in St. Mary's aisle of Dryburgh the mortal re- 
 mains of the intellectual lord of all that land. 
 
 A band of mourners, did I say ? Rather a band 
 among mourners ; for in every hamlet through which 
 they took their course the wayside was lined with folk, 
 the very hillsides were peopled, and thousands of 
 heads were bared to * the Shirra'. ' Never man 
 lived more universally loved than Sir Walter Scott ; 
 never man dying left behind so many sorrowing 
 hearts. It was more than mere sentiment that caused 
 Scott to choose Dryburgh Abbey as his last resting-
 
 THE TWEED 121 
 
 place. The land had passed into the hands of the 
 Haliburtons of New Mains, whose lineal represent- 
 ative was Sir Walter's paternal grandmother. Had 
 Dryburgh remained in that family, he would have 
 inherited it; but the owner having gone bankrupt,* the 
 ancient patrimony, ' said Scott regretfully, c 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. ' The 
 right of sepulture was granted to the Scotts by the 
 Earl of Buchan in 1791. 
 
 Bemersyde, perched on a steep bluff overhanging 
 the Haly Wele, a famous salmon pool whereof more 
 anon, is distinguished by the fulfilment of a prophecy, 
 which, if it was not spoken by True Thomas, as it is 
 reputed to have been, at all events is of very high 
 antiquity. 
 
 ' Tyde, tyde, whate'er betyde, 
 Haig shall be Haig of Bemersyde.' 1 
 
 Of the great feudal families of Tweedside, how 
 many have disappeared. Avenel and de Soulis, de 
 Vipont, de Morville, and Comyn are blown clean out 
 of remembrance ; Douglas, de Vesci, and Maxwell 
 have passed to other shires. Gone, too, are the once 
 powerful religious communities, the Cistercians of 
 Melrose, the Premonstratensians of Dryburgh, the 
 Tironensian monks of Kelso, and the Canons Regular 
 of Jedburgh, all extensive landowners in the valley of 
 
 1 This rhyme was malignantly adapted long ago to another old 
 family in the Tweed valley, Purves of that Ilk. 
 
 1 Whate'er betyde, whate'er befa', 
 There's aye be gowks at Purves Ha'.'
 
 122 THE STORY OF 
 
 the Tweed ; but the modest heritage for which Petrus 
 del Haga did homage to Malcolm the Maiden (i 1 53- 
 1 1 65) still owns a good Haig as its lord. Reckoning 
 by centuries, the story is a venerable one : how much 
 more so does it appear when note is taken of the 
 change in manners and social order ! The aforesaid 
 Petrus appears as witness to the instrument whereby, 
 in 1 1 66, Richard de Morville, Constable of Scotland, 
 sold to Henry St. Clair the persons of Edmund the 
 son of Bonda, and Gillemichel his brother, together 
 with their sons and daughters and all their future 
 progeny. The price was not exorbitant three 
 merks, about forty shillings. There was little concern 
 in those days about allotments or labourers' dwell- 
 ings. 
 
 Though the Haigs do not owe their permanence to 
 their power they were ever few in number and of 
 small possessions neither do they owe it to the in- 
 dolence of the race. The fifth laird fought under 
 Wallace at Stirling Bridge ; the sixth was on the right 
 side at Bannockburn, and met a soldier's death at 
 Halidon Hill in 1333 ; the eighth and tenth both died 
 in the hour of victory over the English one under 
 James, second Earl of Douglas, on the moonlit slopes 
 of Otterbourne in 1388; the other, under William 
 Douglas, second Earl of Angus, in 1435, when Percy 
 was properly chastised at Piperdean for breaking 
 truce. Gilbert, eleventh laird, was with Douglas, Earl 
 of Ormonde, when he routed the Percys once more at 
 Sark in 1449. The twelfth and thirteenth lairds 
 fought on opposite sides at Sauchieburn in 1488 ; and 
 William Haig, the thirteenth, fell at Flodden in 1513. 
 His son Robert, fourteenth laird, distinguished him- 
 self in the destruction of the English force under
 
 THE TWEED 123 
 
 Evers and Lay ton at Ancrum Moor in 1544, receiv- 
 ing in reward remission of certain Crown duties due 
 by him. The seventeenth laird had eight sons, four 
 of whom fell in battle in the service of the King of 
 Bohemia in 1629 and 1630. The fifth son, David, 
 succeeding in 1638, left the estate to his eldest born, 
 Antony, who began life in the Swedish army, but 
 turned Quaker, and caused the children who were 
 borne to him by his wife, Jean Home of Bassendean, 
 to be christened Jacob, Zerubabel, Hannah, a second 
 Zerubabel, Lazarus, Emmanuel then comes a back- 
 sliding Hibernia, William, and Joan. Further we 
 need not follow the race, unless it be to add that the 
 Quaker's brother William got into hot water for 
 joining Lord Balmerino in his Supplication against Par- 
 liamentary Bishops, which the Lord Advocate of the day 
 denounced as a * scandalous, reproachful, odious, 
 infamous, and seditious libel, most despitefully belch- 
 ed and vomited forth, ' and called upon all good men 
 * to crush the cockatrice in the egg, and to abhor it 
 as a pestilential clout ! ' 
 
 Bemersyde Tower itself is not nearly so venerable 
 as the family of its lord. It consists of a fine keep 
 erected not earlier than in 1 535, doubtless upon older 
 foundations, still inhabited, and, having received ex- 
 tensive modern additions, remarkably comfortable. 
 Sir Walter Scott considered that, like the neighbour- 
 ing Smailholm, this pele had been erected in com- 
 pliance with an act of James V., calling upon every 
 landowner on the Borders of 100 valuation to erect 
 a tower as a refuge for his poorer neighbours in times 
 of invasion. * 
 
 In front of the door stands ' the Covin' Tree, ' a 
 
 1 Border Antiquities, vol. ii.
 
 124 THE STORY OF 
 
 gnarled Spanish chestnut of great girth and age, but 
 of moderate stature. In the flower-garden beyond 
 are some enormous clipped hollies. 
 
 From Bemersyde an ancient and narrow paved 
 causeway of bridlepath leads down past the monk's 
 orchard to a loop of the river, embracing the quiet 
 haugh where Dryburgh Abbey rears her shattered 
 towers. The way slants through a sharply sloping 
 wood, and as the stranger saunters down he becomes 
 suddenly aware of a stupendous Presence a colossal 
 graven image towering above him on the crest of the 
 brae. It is a statue of Wallace which the eleventh 
 Earl of Buchan, living at Dryburgh in the early part 
 of the nineteenth century, caused to be hewn out of 
 red sandstone and set up here. The figure is twenty 
 feet high ; of small artistic merit, yet impressive from 
 its bulk and commanding position, fronting the 
 Eildon Hills and the westering sun. The sculptor 
 was one Smith of Darnwick. 
 
 Of all the abbeys in the Tweed valley, none is so 
 sweetly placed as Dryburgh none so reverently 
 tended. Founded by Hugh de Morville, it was con- 
 secrated on St. Martin's day, nth November 1150, 
 * that no demons might vex it, ' and colonised by 
 White Friars, or Premonstratensians, from Alnwick. 
 Of the original building there are considerable re- 
 mains, which formed the monastic buildings sacristy, 
 fratery, chapter-house, and so on surrounding the 
 cloister. These are in the transition style between Nor- 
 man and pointed Gothic. This is well shown inside 
 the chapter-house, which has an arcade of intersecting 
 round arches, surmounted by pointed windows. The 
 church is of later work, and has been a noble example 
 of the best period of Gothic building. The nave and
 
 THE TWEED 125 
 
 choir are roofless, but the arches and fine clerestory 
 of the north transept and the vaulting of the side aisle 
 remain to show what we have lost in the ruin of this 
 splendid fane. It suffered at the same intervals as 
 Melrose, being greatly injured in 1322 by Edward II., 
 who camped in the grounds, and set the building on 
 fire when he marched away. Rebuilt with funds 
 provided by Robert I., it was destroyed again in 1385 
 by Richard II., and received its death-blow in 1544 
 from Evers and Layton, who carried off the internal 
 fittings. 
 
 It is worth returning upstream from Dryburgh to 
 cross the suspension-bridge, were it but for the bird's- 
 eye view of the abbey and its charming environs as 
 one stands on Braeheads, the crest of a lofty red clifF 
 overhanging a right-angled turn in the river. The 
 quiet little hamlet of Lessuden lies between the high- 
 road and the Tweed, a mile apart from the parish 
 church of St. Boswells, where stood the original vil- 
 lage, containing sixteen * bastel ' or fortified houses. 
 The place was ruined and burnt by Evers and Layton 
 in their last fatal raid of 1 544 ; and fragments of 
 Norman carving are all that remain to lend interest 
 to the church itself. Lessuden consists of a single 
 street, ending on St. Boswells green, where are the 
 kennels of the Duke of Buccleuch's foxhounds, and 
 an excellent inn of the old coaching fashion. A new 
 village, distinguished as Newtown St. Boswells, has 
 sprung up round the noisy North British railway- 
 station, a mile to the west of Lessuden, and is in- 
 teresting only to farmers and salesmen, by reason of 
 the importance and frequency of its cattle and sheep 
 markets. 
 
 Bowden, the next parish, contains the burial-vault
 
 126 THE STORY OF THE TWEED 
 
 of the Kers of the Roxburghe line. The sixth duke, 
 who died in 1879, was the twenty-second chief of the 
 clan in succession to be buried there. The seventh 
 duke was laid in the south transept of Kelso Abbey 
 in 1892. No explanation can be hazarded of a 
 strange jingle connected with this place. It doe^ not 
 even rhyme, though it runs. 
 
 * Tillieloot, tillieloot, tillieloot o' Bowden ! 
 Oor cat's kittled in Archie's wig ; 
 Tillieloot, tillieloot, tillieloot o' Bowden ! 
 Three o' them naked and three o' them clad.' 
 
 It is probably no more than a nonsense rhyme, re- 
 presenting the iteration of the song of a thrush. 

 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 FROM MERTON TO KELSO 
 
 AT no part of its course does the Tweed wind so 
 wantonly as between Dryburgh suspension- 
 bridge and the woods of Merton. The 
 river's destiny is in the North Sea, and eastward it 
 must flow to meet it ; but it is ever turning back to- 
 wards the beautiful abbey, as if unwilling to desert it. 
 At first it runs an even course of two miles straight 
 north-east. Presently it sweeps round under Clint 
 Hill and turns back south-west almost to Lessuden 
 again ; then comes another majestic loop which brings 
 it to the rocks of Craigover, the first serious turmoil 
 in its whole course from Tweed's Well. The river 
 is now running due north, but, yielding to a red sand- 
 stone barrier, it bends gently away to the east close 
 under Lord Polwarth's substantial mansion, graced 
 with splendid trees. 
 
 Lord Polwarth is a Scott of Scotts, in direct descent 
 from Auld Wat of Harden, whose ample lands he has 
 inherited. A mile below his house, on the right bank 
 of the river, stands the ruined castle of Littledean, a 
 remarkable building, unlike any other of its class in 
 Scotland. It was once the home of a branch of the 
 Ker clan, though it belongs to Lord Polwarth now, 
 and probably dates from the early part of the sixteenth 
 century. The walls are fully six feet thick, those to
 
 128 THE STORY OF 
 
 the south and west being built in a semicircle (a very 
 unusual feature), well furnished with shot-holes. 
 The steep river-bank ensured defence from attack on 
 the north, and a ravine on the east side the * little 
 dean ' which gives the place its name made that 
 aspect secure. 
 
 Rutherford, now in the peaceable possession of the 
 English family of Antrobus, was once a place of im- 
 portance in the Border annals, and through its 
 proprietors in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
 gave its name to a small clan famous for its fighting 
 men. From very early times there was here a church 
 and hospital for the reception of strangers and the 
 maintenance of poor and infirm persons, originally 
 dedicated to the Holy Virgin, but consecrated afresh 
 in the reign of Robert III. to St. Mary Magdalene. 
 About the year 1 820 the very sites of these buildings 
 were obliterated by the plough, * and the grave-stones 
 were broken up and thrown into drains by an im- 
 proving farmer. ' l Before the Reformation the Kers 
 of Littledean had obtained possession of the lands of 
 Rutherford, and the family of the former owners had 
 moved eastward into Jedworth Forest, where their 
 descendants still own the estate of Edgerston. Max- 
 ton, the parish containing the lands of Rutherford, 
 probably derives its name from Maccus, the son of 
 Undewyn, who obtained extensive lands in Roxburgh- 
 shire in the twelfth century, and founded the house 
 of Maxwell. 
 
 After passing Rutherford, Tweed enters the rocky 
 defile of Makerstoun, from immemorial time the 
 dwelling-place of a branch of the great Celtic family 
 of Macdougal or M'Doual, long and still connected 
 
 1 New Statistical Account.
 
 THE TWEED 129 
 
 with Argyle and Galloway. Mention has been made 
 above or Michael Scott's attempt to dam the Tweed, 
 to which some attribute the formation of the cauld at 
 Kelso ; 1 but others, with at least equal confidence, 
 assign that origin to the Trows of Makerstoun. 
 These Trows (Anglid Troughs) consist of a bar of 
 trap rock 450 feet in width through which the river 
 rushes in four narrow slits, descending 16 feet in the 
 transit. Two of these channels are 35 feet deep, and 
 they used to be so narrow that at low water an active 
 man might leap from one to the other without wet- 
 ting his feet. But one came to grief here on a day, so 
 further mischance was avoided by artificially widening 
 the channel. 
 
 Below Makerstoun, on the left bank, lies the stately 
 demesne of Floors, the palace of the Duke of Rox- 
 burghe, whose ancestors, in days when chieftainship 
 carried definite privilege and power, hotly disputed 
 Ker of Fernihirst's claim to be reckoned head of the 
 * cappit Kers. ' It was one of those questions which 
 can never be decided except by agreement, and agree- 
 ment was hard to come by in feudal times. So luck- 
 less William Ker of Ancrum, grandson of the laird of 
 Fernihirst, found to his cost in 1590, when Robert 
 Ker, younger of Cessford, the rival house, ended the 
 dispute by murdering him, being instigated, it is said, 
 by his mother to adopt that conclusive form of 
 argument. The Fernihirst branch, now represented 
 by the Marquess of Lothian, spell their name Kerr, 
 and are said to be descended from Thomas Ker of 
 Fernihirst, a younger brother of Ker of Cessford in 
 the fifteenth century. Sir George Mackenzie, how- 
 ever, declared that the Fernihirst Kers must be des- 
 
 1 See p. 72 ante. 
 
 9
 
 130 THE STORY OF 
 
 cended from the elder brother, because they carry the 
 same arms as the Kers of England and France without 
 any difference, namely a white chevron on a red field 
 with three red stars on the chevron ; and so the 
 Marquess of Lothian displays them at this day ; 
 whereas the Duke of Roxburghe, as Ker of Cessford, 
 carries his white chevron on a green field, with three 
 black stars on the chevron. This difference Sir 
 George accounted for in the following manner. In 
 the reign of James IV. a laird of Cessford was killed 
 fighting the English in a green meadow ; wherefore 
 the King directed that thenceforward the Kers of 
 Cessford should display their chevron upon a green 
 field instead of a red one, with the honourable addition 
 of three unicorns' heads ; which arms are now carried 
 by the Duke of Roxburghe. 
 
 The battle of Melrose in 1526, where Ker of Cess- 
 ford fell, 1 marked the outset of a deadly feud between 
 the Kers of both branches and the Scotts, which ran 
 its bloody course for thirty-eight years. When need 
 arose, these families fought side by side to repel 
 English invasion ; but so soon as the Border was se- 
 cure again they were at each other's throats. In 1535 
 the laird of Buccleugh was imprisoned and his lands 
 forfeited for levying war upon the Kers, but he was 
 restored by Act of Parliament in 1542. Ten years 
 later Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch was set upon by 
 some of the Ker faction in Edinburgh and slain in the 
 street, and so matters went on till the year 1564, when 
 the Government made a determined effort to stanch 
 the feud. The provisions of a contract, undertaken 
 in that year before the Lords of the Council, between 
 Sir Walter Ker of Cessford on the one part and 
 1 See p. 56 ante.
 
 THE TWEED 131 
 
 Sir Walter Scott of Branxholm (Buccleuch) on the 
 other, are of a singular kind. Each chieftain ans- 
 wered for his whole clan. First, Buccleuch under- 
 took that neither he nor any of his people should 
 take any action, criminal or civil, against the laird of 
 Cessford * for ony slauchter or blude committit in 
 tyme bypast,' including the slaughter of Buccleuch's 
 grandfather in 1552, and Cessford undertook the 
 same obligation towards Buccleuch, including the 
 slaughter of Cessford's father in 1526. Each family 
 having bagged the chief of the other, they should 
 now cry quits. But whereas the laird of Fernihirst, 
 with that section of the Kers represented by the 
 lairds of the Hirsell, Woodhead, Prymsydloch, 
 Torbet, Graden, and Highton, had refused to stanch 
 the feud, Buccleuch and his friends were declared to 
 be * na wayis prejugit [prejudiced] anent thair 
 actionis quhatsumevir that thai haif intentit or may 
 intent ' against these gentlemen. Finally, the laird 
 of Cessford undertook to come to St. Giles's Church 
 in Edinburgh, and there, in presence of the con- 
 gregation, * reverently upone his kneis ask God 
 mercy of the slauchter foirsaid [that of the laird of 
 Buccleuch], and siclyk, ask forgevenes of the same 
 fra the said Laird of Bukcleucht.' 1 
 
 Fernihirst and his friends must have found the 
 combination of Buccleuch and Cessford too strong 
 to be withstood, for we find their signatures append- 
 ed to a remarkable ' band, ' concluded at Kelso in 
 April 1569, between the barons, municipal officers, 
 and others on the East and Middle Marches for the 
 repression of crime on the Border. The signatories, 
 
 1 Original in General Register House, Edinburgh, vol. vii. fol. 131. 
 Also printed in Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, iii. 390.
 
 132 THE STORY OF 
 
 thirty-two in number, represent the chief families of 
 Scott, Ker, Home, Douglas, Turnbull, Cranstoun, 
 Macdougal, etc., and the burghs of Jedburgh, 
 Hawick, and Selkirk ; they bind themselves to put 
 an end to * the innumerabill slauchteris, fyre-rasings, 
 heirschippis [plunderings], and detestabill enormities 
 dalie committit,' and to that end declare war upon 
 
 * all personis of the suirnames of Armestrang, Eliot, 
 Niksoun, Croser, Littil, Batesoun, Thomsoun, 
 Irwing, Bell, Johnnestoun, Glendonyng, Routlaige, 
 Hendersoun, and Scottis of Ewisdaill, ' together 
 with their wives, families, and tenants, who should not 
 find surety before the Wardens for good behaviour 
 within eight days of the completion of the * band. ' 
 Those who could not find surety * we shall persew to 
 the deid [death] with ffyre, swerd and all vther kynd 
 of hostilitie, and expone thaim and all thing in thair 
 possessoun in pray to the men of weir [war]. ' Truly 
 a formidable measure of police ; but it failed. The 
 barons could not afford to put down those hardy 
 moss-troopers, upon whom they relied as auxiliaries 
 in quarrels among themselves and in the English war; 
 so Armstrongs, Elliots, and others in Liddesdale, 
 Eskdale, and the Debatable Land continued their 
 system of rapine and blackmail until the union of the 
 Crowns forced them into more orderly courses. 
 
 Meanwhile, however, the great feud between the 
 Kers and Scotts was finally stanched ; and, in the same 
 year that witnessed the completion of the above 
 
 * band, ' Sir Thomas Ker of Fernihirst married Janet, 
 daughter of William Scott, younger of Branxholm and 
 Buccleuch. The third son of this marriage was the 
 well-known Robert Carre, James VI.'s favourite, 
 created Viscount Rochester and Earl of Somerset.
 
 THE TWEED 133 
 
 Immediately opposite Floors on the right bank of 
 the river is a low green ridge, with scattered groves, 
 lying between the Tweed and Teviot above their 
 junction. This Mesopotamia this tongue of land 
 between the rivers must ever have powerful attract- 
 ions for Scotsmen, apart from the grandeur of the 
 landscape, for here stood the town and castle of Rox- 
 burgh, a name famous in our early annals. In the 
 twelfth century the town was girt with wall and fosse ; 
 it contained three churches, schools, and a royal mint, 
 was the fourth town of the realm in respect to popu- 
 lation, and its castle was one of the four great national 
 strongholds, the others being Edinburgh, Stirling, 
 and Berwick. The total disappearance of this once 
 important town, and the erasure, almost as complete, 
 of the great fortress which gave it importance, is one 
 of the most remarkable features in Scottish topo- 
 graphy. Cities may dwindle and decay, but they 
 seldom vanish altogether ; here was one where King 
 Edward I., coming on the Monday after Ascension 
 Day 1295, found good entertainment at the house of 
 the Grey Friars ; on the following day he moved to 
 the castle, where he lodged eight days. l Yet of this 
 town not even the foundations can be traced ; and of 
 the great castle only a few shapeless fragments of its 
 massive walls remain. 
 
 Originally an integral part of the Saxon kingdom 
 of Northumberland, Roxburgh town and castle be- 
 came incorporated with Scotland when David I., hith- 
 erto Earl of Northumberland, ascended the throne 
 in 1124. From the moment that Bruce drew the 
 sword against King Edward in 1306, the possession 
 of .this key to the Middle Marches was the cause of 
 
 1 Voyage ofKynge Edwarde into Scotland (Archaeologia, xxi. 478).
 
 i 3 4 THE STORY OF 
 
 incessant conflict. It was in English hands in that 
 year, James the Steward having surrendered it to 
 Edward on ijth May 1296, immediately after the 
 sack of Berwick. In the autumn of 1306, when the 
 Prince of Wales captured the Queen of Scots and the 
 King's two sisters Marjorie and Marie de Brus in 
 Kildrummie Castle, Edward ordered that the two 
 princesses were to be confined in cages in the castles 
 of Roxburgh and Berwick ; the Countess of Buchan, 
 also, was to be caged in the Tower of London. This 
 sounds a more barbarous doom than it really was. 
 Directions for the construction of these cages have 
 been preserved : they were made of wooden lattice 
 strengthened with iron, and were erected inside turrets 
 of the respective castles. Moreover, English wait- 
 ing-women were provided to attend on the ladies, and 
 comforts denied to ordinary prisoners were attended 
 to ( et q la kagt soit east fait q la contesse y eit essement de 
 chambre cortoise). l Edward 1. malleus Scottorum 
 showed no mercy to men among his enemies, but it 
 is an error to suppose that he inflicted indignity or 
 suffering upon the ladies whom he had to imprison in 
 pursuance of his policy. He was a ruthless foe, but 
 a chivalrous one. 
 
 Roxburgh Castle remained in English possession 
 until 1314 the year of Bannockburn, when it was 
 recovered by a neat stratagem of Good Sir James of 
 Douglas. Choosing Shrove Tuesday, when he knew 
 the garrison would be merry-making on the eve of 
 Lent, he picked sixty stout fellows and made them 
 cover their armour with black frocks. Then in the 
 dusk he led them to the green brae under the walls, 
 
 1 Documents, etc., illustrating the History of Scotland. Edited by Sir 
 R. Palgrave, p. 358.
 
 THE TWEED 135 
 
 where they scattered on all fours, so that the sentries 
 should mistake them for browsing cattle. A crafty 
 fellow named Sym of the Ledous (Leadhouse) had 
 rigged up some rope-ladders with hooks to fling over 
 the battlements, and was the first to scale the wall. 
 Sym slew the sentry, and also another man who heard 
 the scuffle and came to his comrade's help, before they 
 could give the alarm ; Douglas and his men followed 
 quietly, forming up outside the great hall where 
 dancing was in full swing. Suddenly the doors were 
 flung open; the black-coated Scots rushed in crying c A 
 Douglas ! a Douglas ! ' and we may imagine that the 
 revellers got a short shrift, poor fellows ! However, 
 the governor, Sir William de Fiennes, a knight of 
 Gascony, was in the keep, and managed to hold it all 
 next day. Receiving a fearful wound in the face (of 
 which he died not long after), he capitulated on con- 
 dition of being allowed to march out with the honours 
 of war and pass into England. King Robert caused 
 the castle to be rased, according to his uniform 
 strategy in this war. 
 
 The year 1332 is a black one in Scottish annals. 
 The Regent, Randolph Earl of Moray, last of the 
 famous trio who had accomplished the independence 
 of their country, died suddenly, of poison, as was 
 confidently affirmed. There was no hand firm 
 enough to handle the reins except that of March, who 
 betrayed his trust, and threw in his lot with the 
 usurper, Edward Baliol. Roxburgh Castle must 
 have been rebuilt by this time, for here Baliol acknow- 
 ledged Edward III. as his feudal lord and alienated 
 to him the towns, castles, and territories of Berwick 
 and Roxburgh. 1 King Edward thereafter was often 
 
 ' Fcedera, iv. 536, 538, 548 (folio edition).
 
 136 THE STORY OF 
 
 in Roxburgh, twice celebrating his birthday there. 
 
 So matters remained till 1342. David II. had not 
 long returned from his nine years' exile in France, 
 when they brought him word that Sir Alexander 
 Ramsay of Dalwolsey (Dalhousie) had taken Rox- 
 burgh Castle by a night escalade. 1 The young King 
 showed his gratitude for this signal service by making 
 this gallant knight Sheriff of Teviotdale and Cons- 
 table of Roxburgh Castle fitting reward, indeed, 
 but, as it turned out, a fatal honour for Ramsay. 
 
 Experienced men foresaw the trouble, * for few 
 were the things that King David did with mature 
 deliberation and the advice of wise men ; but his acts 
 were often headstrong, on his own judgment and 
 without counsel, as afterwards became plain. ' J For 
 Sir William Douglas, Knight of Liddesdale and 
 Flower of Chivalry, of whom we have heard before, 
 had recovered all Teviotdale from the English by his 
 own good sword, and held those offices which he was 
 now bidden to resign in favour of Ramsay. Rox- 
 burgh Castle he had failed to win ; he could not brook 
 that the honour of taking it should be another's. 
 Ramsay was his old comrade-in-arms, yet he should 
 pay for this affront. Douglas handed over his offices 
 to his successor with perfect outward show of friend- 
 liness ; but in his heart he cherished a horrible ven- 
 geance. 
 
 The new sheriff, having summoned a court to meet 
 in the church of Hawick, was waiting while it as- 
 
 1 Sir Thomas Gray, the English writer of Scalacronica, expresses 
 himself as scandalised by the impiety of this act. It took place on 
 Easter morning ' at the very hour of the Resurrection, ' and he draws 
 the moral that all concerned therein came to an evil end (Leland's 
 synopsis : the original passage in Scalacronica having been written on 
 the missing folio). 
 
 * Liber Pluscardcnsis, ii. 222.
 
 THE TWEED 137 
 
 sembled, when superuenitfilius invidiae c there arrived 
 that brat of jealousy ' 1 the Knight of Liddesdale 
 with a strong following. They seized Sir Alexander 
 Ramsay, bound him in a saddle, and carried him off 
 to the lonely castle of Hermitage, where this brave 
 knight was flung into a dungeon (horse and all, they 
 say), and literally starved to death. a inexterminabilis 
 invidia diaboli ! c O the unquenchable jealousy of the 
 devil ! ' exclaims Bower in relating this tragedy, 3 and 
 winds up with an appropriate quotation from Seneca ; 
 but, after all, what shocked this pious Abbot of 
 Inchcolm most in the whole affair was the sacrilege 
 committed in Hawick Church. To King David, the 
 worst part of Douglas's crime was that it was com- 
 mitted upon the person of his officer ; but he pardoned 
 the offender and actually bestowed the offices rendered 
 vacant by the murder upon the assassin himself! 
 The first obligation upon the Crown of Scotland, 
 overriding justice and humanity, was ever to keep 
 in good humour enough powerful barons to overawe 
 the rest. Among all the kings of Scots, after 
 Alexander III., Robert the Bruce was the only one 
 whose lords were made to feel that violence and 
 treason did not pay. 
 
 Thenceforward, Douglas rose ever higher in favour 
 with King David, receiving enormous tracts of for- 
 feited lands : albeit there can be little doubt that he 
 was in treasonable negotiation with the King of 
 
 1 Liber Pluscardetisis, ii, 222. 
 
 1 In his notes to The Lay, Scott says that one ' digging for stones 
 about the old castle of the Hermitage, broke into a vault containing a 
 quantity of chaff, some bones and pieces of iron ; amongst others, the 
 curb of an ancient bridle, which the author has since given to the Earl 
 of Dalhousie, under the impression that it may possibly be a relic of his 
 brave ancestor. ' 
 
 1 Bower's Continuation of Fordun's Chronicle.
 
 138 THE STORY OF 
 
 England for the restoration of Edward Baliol. The 
 Flower of Chi valry held high command under David in 
 the ill-starred expedition to Tynedale in 1 346, and was 
 taken prisoner with his king at the battle of Neville's 
 Cross, near Hexham, on iyth October. Where so 
 many Scottish knights died in their harness, this 
 Douglas might have found a fitting end. But he 
 had two strings to his bow. King David entered 
 upon eleven years of captivity in England ; but 
 Douglas purchased his freedom by treason. He 
 bound himself by an indenture executed in London, 
 iyth July 1352, to be the King of England's faith- 
 ful liege, and to hold his lands of Liddesdale always 
 open for the free passage of English troops into 
 Scotland. l It has been told in an earlier chapter 
 how that foul compact was voided and the knight 
 balked of his wages by the sword of another and a 
 truer William Douglas. a 
 
 One of the evil consequences to Scotland of the 
 disaster at Neville's Cross was that Roxburgh Castle 
 passed once more into English keeping, and hither 
 came the victorious Edward III. after the capture of 
 Berwick in 1355. Hither also came another Edward 
 Edward Baliol and totally resigned to the King 
 of England his kingdom of Scotland. He laid his 
 crown at the stronger Edward's feet, together with 
 a portion of Scottish soil, and disappeared from 
 history with a pension of ^2000. 
 
 In 1435 James I. laid determined siege to * the 
 castell of Marchmound, that is to say, Roxburgh.... 
 At last quhen the kyng had lyne at the sege fore- 
 said XV. dayis and waistit all his munitioun and 
 
 1 Bain's Documents, etc., iii. 286. 
 ' See p. 29, ante.
 
 THE TWEED 139 
 
 powder, he returnit haim. ' 1 Another attempt, 
 made by James II. in 1460, had a better issue, 
 though not for the King of Scots himself. He had 
 taken the town, and levelled it ; but on 3rd August 
 he was watching his gunners serve the great piece 
 called The Lion, when it burst and killed him on 
 the spot. His queen, Mary of Gueldres, nothing 
 daunted, brought young James III., a boy of eight 
 years, and allowed no respite to the garrison, who 
 capitulated shortly after. She then ordered the 
 complete destruction of the great castle, and although 
 Protector Somerset attempted to repair the ruins for 
 a garrison of five hundred men in 1547, it ceased to 
 be the place of strength to hold which had cost the 
 shedding of so much good blood. The land on 
 which town and castle had stood was granted by 
 James IV. to Walter Ker of Cessford in 1499, and 
 it remains the property of his descendant, the Duke 
 of Roxburghe. 
 
 The present village of Roxburgh, a couple of 
 miles further up the Teviot than the old town, 
 offers no temptation for lingering there. 
 
 Teviot and Teviotdale are too serious an enter- 
 prise for the middle of a chapter, so we will pass 
 the junction of the rivers, and so on to the good 
 town of Kelso. The handsome gateway standing 
 close to the bridge leads into Springwood Park, the 
 well-timbered demesne of Sir George Douglas, who 
 derives his descent from the ancient house of Cavers. 
 The name chosen for this place sounds sadly sub- 
 urban ; pity that the old one should have been 
 discarded. It was formerly called Maxwell, having 
 been granted, with the salmon fishery, by David I. 
 
 1 Bellenden's History.
 
 140 THE STORY OF 
 
 [1124-1153] to Maccus the son of Unwin. The 
 fishery became known as * Maccus' wele ' ; the lands 
 took its name from the fishery, and the owners of 
 the land, as was customary in feudal times, borrowed 
 the name of the land as a surname, becoming de 
 Maccuswell or Maxwell. The salmon cast below 
 Kelso Bridge is still called Maxwheel, but the 
 family of Maxwell had migrated to the western 
 Border before the end of the thirteenth century. 
 
 In the absence of early scripts it would be vain to 
 attempt an explanation of the name Kelso, so utterly 
 does the modern rendering conceal what is probably 
 its meaning. But in one of the Welsh bruts (Book 
 of Ta/iessin, xviii.) the place is called Calchvynyd, 
 which is plain Welsh calch mynydd for chalk-hill, 
 and in the twelfth century it is written Calchou, 
 referring, says Chalmers, to * a calcareous eminence 
 which appears conspicuous in the middle of the 
 town, and which is still called the Chalk Heugh. ' * 
 Kelso, then, doubtless means simply Chalk Hill ; 
 for although there is no real chalk there, gypsum 
 crops out on the face of the aforesaid brae, and 
 gypsum is a calcareous deposit. The noble bridge 
 of five arches spanning the united waters of Tweed 
 and Teviot was finished in 1803 by young John 
 Rennie, to replace one built in 1754, which was 
 swept away by the mighty flood of 26th October 
 1797. Rennie's bridge was the first one ever carried 
 on elliptic arches, a design which he afterwards re- 
 peated in Waterloo Bridge, London. The bridge of 
 1754 was a successor to a c great stone brigge with 
 arches ' which the Scots broke down as a measure of 
 defence against Protector Somerset in 1547. 
 
 1 Caledonia, ii. 156.
 
 THE TWEED 141 
 
 Kelso, with its population of four thousand, is 
 now but a cheerful market-town, well-to-do, bright, 
 and favoured by a sylvan and richly cultivated en- 
 vironment. But it was once the great ecclesiastical 
 centre of Scotland, in an age when ecclesiastical 
 authority overawed all other in the realm. When 
 David, Earl of Huntingdon, in 1113, transplanted 
 thirteen Benedictine monks from Tiron in Picardy 
 to his gloomy Forest of Selkirk, and bade them 
 build a monastery at the f schele chirche,' they little 
 relished the grim skies and weeping soil of that 
 upland. So when David became King of Scots he 
 took pijLy on the shivering Frenchmen ; in 1126 he 
 translated their abbey of SS. Mary and John to * the 
 place called Calkow, ' and here in 1128 was begun 
 the building of a magnificent conventual church. 
 Immense possessions were granted to the monks by 
 the pious David, yielding an annual rental of ^3716, 
 the value of which in modern money it is impossible 
 to calculate ; but it may be mentioned that two 
 hundred years later, in 1327, the total revenue on 
 the King's * great custom ' on merchandise exported 
 from the kingdom amounted to only ^1852. 
 
 The abbot of Kelso stood highest amongst the 
 spiritual lords of Parliament, and in 1165 the Pope 
 bestowecf upon him the privilege of the mitre. The 
 abbot also claimed precedence over the superiors of 
 all. other monasteries in Scotland ; but in 1420 
 James i. awarded that eminence to the Prior of 
 St. Andrews, in consideration of the greater antiquity 
 of that foundation. 
 
 The Tironensian monks had a noble conception of 
 what a great church should be. The fragments rem- 
 aining testify to a structure in that late Norman and
 
 142 THE STORY OF 
 
 transitional style of Gothic which, in the judgment of 
 some lovers of architecture, is more impressive even 
 than the pointed order at its meridian. The tower 
 has much of the external character of a Norman keep, 
 with its massive corner protections or flat buttresses; 
 indeed, it is to the military and strongly defensive 
 nature of the building that we owe the survival even 
 of those sorely defaced parts of the church which 
 remain standing. Nothing short of the strongest con- 
 struction could have saved it from effacement as com- 
 plete as befell Roxburgh Castle. It is well that from 
 the fourteenth to the seventeenth century no more 
 powerful explosive than gunpowder was in use ; one 
 trembles to think to what purpose Dacre and Hert- 
 ford might have employed dynamite or lyddite. This 
 monastery was the first to suffer in Bruce's wars ; 
 the upper part of the tower dates from its repairs in 
 1344. In June 1523, a period when the war with 
 England culminated in its ferocity, Lord Dacre, 
 having captured * Dand ' Ker in the castle of Ferni- 
 hirst, marched upon Kelso, sacked the town, gutted 
 the monastery, fired the dormitories, and completely 
 unroofed the abbey. The monks were scattered far 
 and wide as mendicants, in reality as well as in name, 
 wherever they could find shelter ; and although James 
 Stuart, the King's bastard, was nominal abbot the 
 last to hold that office the glory of that great 
 establishment was gone and its work wellnigh at an 
 end. The lands and rents still remained, however ; 
 Melrose and St. Andrews were given also to the 
 pluralist James, Holyrood and Coldingham to his 
 brothers Robert and John respectively ; the united 
 incomes of these five great houses falling little short 
 of the revenue of the Crown at that time.
 
 THE TWEED 143 
 
 In 1542 the Duke of Norfolk better known north 
 of the Tweed as Earl of Surrey, ' Scourge of the 
 Scots ' crossed the Border, and in eight days burnt 
 fourteen towns and hamlets, including Floors, with 
 Fair Croft, and Kelso with its abbey. Next came 
 Hertford's expedition in 1545. One would say that 
 little more damage could be wrought at Kelso ; 
 nevertheless twelve monks had gathered again round 
 the desecrated altar, and collected a garrison of some 
 seventy Borderers and townsmen. Summoned by 
 York Herald to surrender, these gallant fellows de- 
 fied the English lord, and repulsed an attack by 
 Spanish mercenaries. Then Hertford bombarded 
 the monastery, and the garrison retreated into the 
 church tower, which was taken next day by assault. 
 Some of the defenders had escaped in the night ; 
 only forty-five remained, who were all put to the 
 sword except five. Thereafter Hertford caused all 
 the lead to be stripped from the roofs of the abbey 
 buildings, and the towers and walls to be mined. On 
 the Sunday following, to quote York Herald, who 
 wrote a report upon this terrible campaign, * the 
 abbey of Kelse was razed and all put to royen [ruin], 
 howsses and towres and stypeles, and the wittaieles 
 cam, and [ tne ] cartes [were] loden again w* the leed 
 [lead] of the said abbey. . . . Yesterday byng 
 Satterday whas 3 Scottes men hang in thes campe and 
 
 9 schleyn in fild be the horshemen On 
 
 Monday wy departyt from Kelsey abbey that was.' * 
 
 When Protector Somerset came to Kelso two 
 years later, after the battle of Pinkie, he found the 
 town deserted, the abbey much in the condition we 
 
 1 From a MS. in Trinity College, Dublin, printed by the Society of 
 Scottish Antiquaries, vol. i. pp. 271-276.
 
 H4 THESTORYOF 
 
 behold at the present day ; so he encamped in the 
 Friar's Haugh below Roxburgh Castle, which he set 
 his troops to fortify. Leaving a garrison of five 
 hundred there, he marched into England, but not 
 before the chief men of the Kers (both branches) 
 and many other Border families had come in to 
 make submission to him. Buccleuch and the Scotts, 
 be it noted to their honour, were not among them. 
 
 And so ended the active history of the great 
 Abbey of Kelso. Its lands and revenues were taken 
 over by the Lords of the Congregation in the name 
 of the Crown in 1559. In that or the following 
 year a few monks who still clung to it were driven 
 out by the Reformers, and their poor fittings and 
 furnishings destroyed by the mob. 
 
 The town of Kelso, lying as it did in the fairway 
 between England and Scotland, continued to witness 
 a full share of what was stirring. In 1570 took 
 place the last, but not the least destructive, inroad 
 of an English army into Scotland, specially directed 
 against the Scotts and Kers, as staunch adherents of 
 Queen Mary. Sussex and Hundon were Queen 
 Elizabeth's generals upon this occasion : they wound 
 up their raid by a rendezvous at Kelso, with the 
 comfortable assurance that they had burnt and 
 destroyed fifty strong castles and peles, and more 
 than three hundred villages. 
 
 In the next century General Leslie made Kelso 
 the headquarters of the Covenanting army in 1639 ; 
 and hither came Montrose in 1644, lured by the 
 empty promises of the Kers, who were probably in 
 direct communication with Leslie. Disappointed in 
 his assurance of royalist support from both sides of 
 the Border, Montrose marched up the Tweed to
 
 THE TWEED 145 
 
 meet with disaster at doleful Philiphaugh. In 1715 
 Kelso was the appointed place of muster for the 
 Jacobites of the West under Lord Kenmure, the 
 Highlanders under Macintosh of Borlum, and the 
 dalesmen of northern England under Lord Derwent- 
 water and Mr. Foster. They lay there three days, 
 and then marched on to Preston. Again, and lastly, 
 in 1745, Prince Charlie lay at Kelso a couple of 
 nights on his march to Derby. 
 
 10
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 TEVIOTDALE AND BORTHWICK WATER 
 
 THE reader will now consent to quit the rich 
 valley and gracious woods through which 
 I have been leading him and ascend once 
 more to the great water-divide of southern Scotland, 
 in order to trace from its source Tweed's sister, 
 Teviot, a stream as well dowered in song and story 
 as the other. 
 
 The Teviot rises at a point 700 feet above the 
 sea, a little more than thirty-seven miles from its 
 junction with the Tweed at Kelso, Wisp Hill 
 (1950 feet) and Todhope Hill (1961 feet) being its 
 most conspicuous sponsors, marking the boundary 
 between the shires of Roxburgh and Dumfries 
 Teviotdale and Eskdale. The scenery and land 
 surface is of the same character as that of upper 
 Tweeddale, and the sole industry in both places is 
 sheep-farming ; but, of old, in proportion as Teviot- 
 dale lay nearer to the English border than Tweed- 
 dale, life and property in the first were even more 
 precarious than in the other. Moreover, just over 
 the ridge on the western watershed lay a district 
 between the Sark and the Esk which, after Bruce 
 won the independence of Scotland, was claimed by 
 both nations, held by neither, and at last recognised 
 as neutral, known as ' Eatable or Threip Lands '
 
 THETWEED 147 
 
 the Debatable Land. This region became the 
 haunt of both Scots and English, broken men, often 
 of good family, who, ruined by the fortune of war, 
 and incapable of extracting an honest living out of 
 these uplands, frankly took to brigandage. From 
 time to time the central government made spas- 
 modic efforts to suppress these raiders, but in 
 ordinary times the sole authority was vested in the 
 Warden of the Marches. That high official had his 
 own legitimate interests to serve in the protection of 
 his lands from English inroads ; no more effective 
 auxiliaries than these excellent irregulars. Far from 
 being earnest in desiring to extirpate the Armstrongs, 
 Elliots, and others, successive Wardens secured 
 support and swelled their own following by taking 
 bonds of < manrent' or mutual service from the 
 petty chiefs. In short, the Warden was usually 
 pretty blind as to the means by which his neighbours 
 maintained themselves, so long as they respected 
 the property of himself and his friends. 
 
 Even the King's government willingly employed 
 the men of the Debatable Land for offence or de- 
 fence against England. They could put in the field 
 a force contemptible neither in numbers nor quality. 
 Every freebooter's house was a tower of defence, 
 and the available force of the Armstrongs and others 
 was estimated in 1528 by the Earl of Northumber- 
 land at three thousand cavalry. As to quality, these 
 mosstroopers .had fallen off no whit from Froissart's 
 description in 1327. 
 
 * They carry with them no provisions of bread or wine, 
 being of such temperate habits that they will live for a long 
 time on flesh half-sodden, without bread, and drink the 
 river water for wine. They have therefore no use for pot
 
 148 THE STORY OF 
 
 or pans, for they dress the flesh of cattle in their skins, and 
 being sure to find plenty of cattle in the country which 
 they invade, they carry none with them. Under the flap 
 of his saddle each man carries a broad plate of metal ; behind 
 the saddle a little bag of oatmeal. When they have eaten 
 too much of the sodden flesh, and their stomachs feel weak 
 and empty, they place this plate over the fire, mix their 
 oatmeal with water, and put a little of the paste on the hot 
 plate, so making a thin cake, which they eat to warm their 
 stomachs... They are mounted upon little hackneys that are 
 never tied up or dressed, but turned to pasture on the heath 
 or in the fields at the end of every day's march.' 
 
 Well might the rulers of Scotland hesitate to 
 destroy such splendid fighting material during the 
 long struggle against powerful England. But it 
 went ill with the Armstrongs and their friends when 
 there came a temporary suspension of arms, such as 
 the triple treaty of peace concluded in 1515 between 
 England, Scotland, and France. Special and string- 
 ent measures were arranged in that treaty for joint 
 action between the English and Scottish Wardens to 
 repress Border raiding. They did not take im- 
 mediate effect ; but after young James V. had 
 shaken off the thraldom of his stepfather Angus, he 
 showed all the precocious energy of the Stuarts in 
 dealing with the men of the Debatable Land. He 
 imprisoned Lord Maxwell, the Warden, took matters 
 into his own hand, and we do not follow Teviot far 
 from its source before arriving at a scene which 
 brings vividly to mind the rule of this monarch, not 
 yet of full age, whose purpose was that of the first 
 James when he swore that c the key should keep 
 the castle and the rush bush the cow through all 
 Scotland.'
 
 THE TWEED 149 
 
 It was the climax of that midsummer hunting 
 of 1530 in Meggatdale, which was described in 
 chapter iii. of this volume. 1 Acting in concert with 
 Lord Dacre, the English Warden, James rode over 
 in force from Ettrick to Teviotdale, and encamped 
 at Carlanrig, near the junction of the Frostly Burn, 
 where there was a chapel and hamlet, to the south- 
 west of the present kirk of Teviothead. It is 
 alleged, and commonly believed, that the King had 
 proclaimed indemnity to all broken men who should 
 come in and make submission to him. Now the 
 most dreaded of all freebooters of the Debatable 
 Land at this time was Johnnie Armstrong of Gil- 
 nockie, brother to the Laird of Mangerton. Three 
 years before, the English Warden had burnt Johnnie's 
 tower of Gilnockie, in the church lands of Canonbie 
 on the Esk ; but Johnnie still rode free, secure in 
 the protection of the Scottish Warden, Lord Max- 
 well, who had received him as his vassal, and taken 
 a bond of manrent from him. Now the King had 
 taken the precaution to lay Maxwell in prison ; and 
 Johnnie, threatened by the authority of both England 
 and Scotland, began to find things getting too hot 
 for him. It may well be that he was willing to 
 abide within the law if only means of keeping body 
 and soul together were open to him ; so, trusting to 
 the royal word, he rode boldly into the King's camp 
 at Carlanrig to make obeisance. Behind him rode 
 four-and-twenty stout fellows, * verrie richlie appar- 
 elled.' 8 They were brought before the King, who, 
 displeased at their splendour, pointed at Gilnockie 
 and asked angrily, * What wants yon knave that a 
 
 1 See p. 40, ante. 
 
 1 Lindsay of Pitscottie.
 
 i 5 o THE STORY OF 
 
 king should have ? ' The ballad of Johnie Armstrang 
 tallies so closely with the sequel as told by contem- 
 porary chroniclers that no other version need be 
 given in this place. 
 
 ( Some speak of lords, some speak of lairds, 
 
 And sic-like men of high degree, 
 But I shall sing of a gentleman, 
 
 Sometime called Laird of Gilnockie. 
 
 The King has written a loving letter 
 
 Wi' his ain hand sae tenderlie ; 
 And he has it sent to Johnie Armstrang 
 
 To come and speak wi' him speedilie. 
 
 The Ellots and Armstrangs did convene ; 
 
 They were a gallant companie ; 
 " We '11 ride and meet our lawful King, 
 
 And bring him safe to Gilnockie. 
 
 ** Make kinnen ' and capon ready then, 
 
 And venison in great plentie ; 
 We'll welcome hame our royal King ; 
 
 I hope he'll dine at Gilnockie. " 
 
 They ran their horse on the Langholm howm, 
 And brak their spears wi' muckle main ; 
 
 The ladies looked frae their loft windows : 
 " God bring our men weel back again ! " 
 
 When Johnie cam before the King, 
 
 Wi' a' his men sae brave to see, 
 The King he moved his bonnet to him, 
 
 He ween'd he was a king as he. 
 
 " May I find grace, my sovereign liege, 
 Grace for my loyal men and me ? 
 
 For my name it is Johnie Armstrang, 
 
 A subject o' yours, my liege, " quo* he. 
 i Kinnen, cutting = a rabbit
 
 THE TWEED 151 
 
 " Away, away, thou traitor strang ! 
 
 Out o' my sicht soon mayst thou be ! 
 I granted never a traitor's life, 
 
 And now I '11 not begin with thee. " 
 
 " Grant me my life, my liege, my King ! 
 
 And a goodlie gift I '11 gie to thee ; 
 Full four-and-twenty milk-white steeds 
 
 Were a' foaled in ae year to me. 
 
 " I '11 gie thee all these milk-white steeds, 
 That prance and nicher at a spear ; 
 
 With as meikle gude English gelt 
 
 As four o' their braid backs can bear. " 
 
 " Away, away, thou traitor strang ! 
 
 Out o' my sicht soon mayst thou be 1 
 I granted never a traitor's life, 
 
 And now I '11 not begin with thee. 
 
 " Grant me my life, my liege, my King ! 
 
 And a costly gift I '11 gie to thee ; 
 Gude four-and-twenty ganging mills, 
 
 That gang through a' the year to me. 
 
 " These four-and-twenty mills complete 
 Sail gang for thee throughout the year ; 
 
 And as meikle of gude red wheat 
 As a' their happers dow to bear. " 
 
 " Away, away, thou traitor strang 1 
 Out o' my sicht soon mayst thou be ! 
 
 I granted never a traitor's life, 
 
 And now I '11 not begin with thee. " 
 
 " Grant me my life, my liege, my King ! 
 
 And a great gift I '11 gie to thee ; 
 Bauld four-and-twenty sisters' sons 
 
 Sail for thee fight though a' should flee. "
 
 152 THE STORY OF 
 
 " Away, away, thou traitor strang ! 
 
 Out o' my sicht soon mayst thou be ! 
 I granted never a traitor's life, 
 
 And now I '11 not begin with thec. " 
 
 ** Grant me my life, my liege, my King ! 
 
 And a brave gift I '11 gie to thee ; 
 All between here and Newcastle town 
 
 Sail pay their yearly rent to thee. " 
 
 " Away, away, thou traitor strang ! 
 
 Out o' my sicht soon mayst thou be ! 
 I granted never a traitor's life, 
 
 And now I '11 not begin with thee. " 
 
 " Ye lie, ye lie, now King ! " he says, 
 " For all a king and prince ye be ; 
 
 For I hae lo'ed naething in a' my life, 
 I will daur say't, but honestie 
 
 " Save a fleet horse and a fair woman, 
 Twa bonnie dogs to kill a deer ; 
 
 But England shuild find me meal and malt, 
 Gif I had lived this hundred year. 
 
 " She suld hae found me in meal and malt, 
 And beef and mutton in great plentie ; 
 
 But ne'er a Scots wife could hae said 
 That I had hurt her a puir flie. 
 
 " To seek het water aneath cauld ice, 
 
 I trow it is a great follie ; 
 I askit grace at a graceless face, 
 
 And there is nane for my men and me. 
 
 " But had I kenn'd, or I left my hame, 
 How thou unkind wad'st been to me, 
 
 I wad hae kept thy Border side, 
 In spite o' a' thy peers and thee.
 
 THE TWEED 153 
 
 " Wist England's King that I was ta'en, 
 
 gin a blyth man he wad be ! 
 For ance I slew his sister's son, 
 
 And on his breast-bane brak a tree. " 
 
 Johnie wore a girdle about his middle 
 Embroidered o'er wi' burning gold, 
 
 Bespangled wi' the same metal, 
 Maist beautiful was to behold. 
 
 There hung nine targats at Johnie's hat, 
 And ilk ane worth three hundred pound 
 
 " What wants yon knave that a king should have, 
 But the sword of honour and the crown ? 
 
 " O whaur gat ye those targats, Johnie, 
 That blink sae brawlie abune thy bree ? " 
 
 "I gat them in the field fechting, 
 
 Where, cruel King, thou daur'st na be ! 
 
 " Had I my horse and my harness gude, 
 
 And riding as I wont to be, 
 It shuild hae been tauld this hundred year 
 
 This meeting o* my King and me. 
 
 " God be wi' thee, Christy my brother ! 
 
 Lang live thou, Laird o' Mangertoun ! 
 Lang maist thou live on the Border side, 
 
 Ere thou see thy brother ride up and doun. 
 
 " And God be wi' thee, Christy my son ! 
 
 Where thou sits on thy nurse's knee ; 
 But an thou live this hundred year 
 
 Thy father's better thou 'It never be. 
 
 " Fairweel, my bonnie Gilnock-ha' ! 
 
 Where on the Esk thou standest stout ; 
 Gif I had lived but seven year mair 
 
 1 wad hae gilt thee round about. "
 
 154 THE STORY OF 
 
 Johnie murdered was at Carlinrigg, 
 
 And a* his gallant companie ; 
 But Scotland's heart was ne'er sae wae 
 
 To see sae mony brave men dee. 
 
 Because they saved their country dear 
 Frae Englishmen : none were sae bauld ; 
 
 While Johnie lived on the Border side 
 Nane o* them durst cam near his hauld.' 
 
 Lindsay of Pitscottie breathes a kindly sigh for 
 poor Johnnie, whose memory on the western Border 
 is cherished much as Englishmen cherish that of 
 Robin Hood. 
 
 * The king hanged Johne Armstrang, Laird of Kilnokie, 
 quhilk monie Scottis menne heavilie lamented, for he was 
 ane doubted [redoubtable] man, and als gude ane Christane 
 as evir was vpoun the Borderis. And albeit he was ane 
 lous leivand [loose-living] man, and sustained the number of 
 xxiiij weill-horsed able gentlemen with him, yitt he nevir 
 molested no Scottis man. Bot it is said from the Scottis 
 border to New Castle of Ingland, thair was not ane 
 of quhatsoever estate hot payed to this Johne Armstrang ane 
 tribut, to be frie of his cumbir, he was so doubtit [dreaded] 
 in Ingland.' 
 
 'Hereabouts, ' wrote Miss Wordsworth in 1803, 
 ' Mr. Walter Scott had directed us to look about 
 for some old stumps of trees, said to be the place 
 where Johnnie Armstrong was hanged, but we could 
 not find them out. ' One would fain disbelieve the 
 statement that King James entrapped these men by 
 a proclamation of pardon ; there can be little doubt 
 that Johnnie rode in on the faith of it. True, he 
 and his men had been excommunicated ; all men 
 were absolved from keeping faith with them ; but
 
 THE TWEED 155 
 
 should a king the Fountain of Honour stoop to 
 shelter behind priestly devices ? It is to be feared 
 that among his other Renaissance studies, James 
 had steeped himself in the principles of Machiavelli. 
 * A monarch's promises, ' wrote the Duke of Alva 
 bluntly to Philip n. in 1573, ' are not to be regarded 
 as so sacred as those of humbler mortals. ' 
 
 Six miles below Carlanrig, after Teviot has been 
 reinforced from the south-east by one of those 
 innumerable Allan Waters that are found ail over 
 Southern Scotland, the road passes close by a house 
 famous beyond most others in Border history. 
 Those who chose the site of Branxholm Tower had 
 a keen eye for a military position, as was expedient 
 in this region. The Castle, which has been masked 
 by much modern building, stands on rising ground 
 at a sharp turn of the Teviot, and commands a clear 
 view up and down the glen. Sir Walter Scott has 
 repeated the tradition of how the lands of Branxholm 
 passed into possession of his ancestor, Sir William 
 Scott of Buccleuch, in the reign of James I. (1406- 
 1437). Half of the barony formed part of the 
 estate of Sir Thomas Inglis of Manor, a knight of 
 unwarlike habits, who complained bitterly of the risk 
 and loss he suffered from the proximity of Branx- 
 holm to the English border. Buccleuch had no 
 misgivings on that score, and offered to exchange his 
 estate of Murthockstone or Murdiestoun in Lanark- 
 shire for Sir Thomas's share in Branxholm ; which 
 offer was gladly accepted. Buccleuch, in setting 
 seal to the bargain, observed significantly that Cum- 
 berland cattle were quite as good as those of Teviot- 
 dale, and began a system of raiding on English 
 ground, which became hereditary among his stout
 
 156 THE STORY OF 
 
 posterity. In 1443 this Sir William's grandson, Sir 
 Walter Scott, in reward for good service against the 
 rebellious house of Douglas, received a grant from 
 James II. of the other half of the barony of Branx- 
 holm, to be held in blench for the annual payment 
 of a red rose. 
 
 The oldest part of the existing house of Branx- 
 holm has been so thoroughly incorporated with later 
 work as to be past recognition. The ancient castle 
 was burnt by the Earl of Northumberland in 1532, 
 and the walls were blown up during Surrey's invas- 
 ion in 1570. It was rebuilt in the years 1571-6 in 
 a manner very unusual in the northern kingdom, 
 the entrance door being an example, almost unique 
 in Scotland, of the Tudor style. Between the arch 
 of the door and the dripstone above is carved the 
 following legend : 
 
 * In warld is nocht nature hes wrought that sal last ay, 
 Thairfore serve God, keip weil the rod, l thy fame sal 
 
 [nocht dekay. 
 
 Schir Walter Scot of Branxholme, Knycht: Margret 
 
 [Douglas 1571.' 
 
 In panels over the door are the arms of Scott and 
 Douglas, with an inscription recording that Sir 
 Walter began the work on 24th. March 1571, died 
 on 1 7th. April 1574, and that * Dame Margret 
 Douglas his spous ' finished the building in October 
 1576. Lady Margaret was the eldest daughter of 
 David Douglas, seventh Earl of Angus ; so that 
 Branxholm, conferred upon a Scott for service against 
 a Douglas, was completed by a lady of that house 
 for a Scott. 
 
 1 The road. 

 
 THE TWEED 157 
 
 After the fall of the Black Douglas, Buccleuch 
 was without peer in Teviotdale. A volume might 
 be filled with a mere selection from the exploits and 
 forays in which the family bore a part. Something 
 has been spoken in earlier chapters of their doings 
 in Tweeddale, but the scenes of some of Buccleuchs* 
 most famous feats, such as the rescue of Kinmont 
 Willie from Carlisle Castle, lie outside the limits of 
 this sketch. Nothing illustrates better how com- 
 pletely the Scotts of Buccleuch had won the heredit- 
 ary confidence of their weaker neighbours in Teviot- 
 dale and Liddesdale than the ballad of Jamie Telfer 
 o' the Fair Dodhead. l So vividly does it set forth 
 the conduct of a * Hot Trod, ' that is, the pursuit 
 of marauders making ofF with booty so clearly 
 does it give the details of * warning the water, ' that, 
 long as it is, I will venture to give it in full. These 
 old ballads, rough in metre and shaky in rhyme, 
 suffer more than other verse by being presented in 
 snippets. 
 
 The incident is such an one as must often have 
 interrupted the routine of a country gentleman's life 
 on the Border. The characters in the ballad are 
 touched so graphically, the localities are so accurately 
 set forth, even the weather * the gryming o' a new 
 
 1 The deference paid to ' the bauld Buccleuch ' has survived even 
 into this democratic age. During the lifetime of the fifth Duke of 
 Buccleuch I was in the Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh smoking a 
 cigar in the open air. One of the officials came up, and said gruffly : 
 ' There's nae smokin' allowed here. ' ' Oh, ' said I, ' I don't think my 
 tobacco will injure your plants. ' ' I don't know about that, ' quoth 
 he of the brass buttons, ' but I can tell ye there's nae smokin' allowed 
 in the gardens. ' ' All right', said I, ' if I meet Professor M'Nab (The 
 Curator at that time) I'll square him.' 'Ye'll what?' exclaimed the 
 man, eyeing me up and down, ' Ye'll square the Professor ? ' ' Yes, ' I 
 answered nonchalantly, ' he is a friend of mine.' 'God ! I tell ye if ye 
 were the Duke o' Buccleuch himsel' ye widna square oor Professor ! ' 
 I collapsed at once, and threw away my cigar.
 
 158 THE STORY OF 
 
 fa'n snaw* is so carefully touched in, that one 
 seems to be listening to one who took part in the 
 events of that winter night. In fact in the sixth 
 stanza from the end, the poet speaks as one of the 
 * Hot Trod ' 
 
 * There was a wild gallant amang us a'. ' 
 
 JAMIE TELFER O' THE FAIR DODHEAD 
 
 * It fell about the Martinmas tide, 
 
 When our Border steeds get corn and hay, 
 
 The Captain o' Bewcastle ' bound him to ride, 
 
 And he's ower to Tividale to drive a prey. 
 
 The first ae guide that they met wi*, 
 It was high up in Hardhaugh swire ; f 
 
 The second ae guide that they met wi', 
 It was laigh down in Borthwick Water. 
 
 "What tidings, what tidings, my trusty guide ? " 
 " Nae tidings, nae tidings, I hae to thee ; 
 
 But gin ye'll gae to the fair Dodhead, ' 
 Mony a cow's cauf I '11 let thee see. " 
 
 1 The office of Captain of Bewcastle was held by the chief of the 
 Nixons. 
 
 * Swire, literally, ' the neck ', hence the neck of a pass. Hardhaugh 
 Swire is one of the passes between Liddesdale and Teviotdale. 
 
 * Identified by Sir Walter Scott with the Dodhead opposite Singlehill 
 on Ettrick, where, he said, were remains of a tower. Despite his hif h 
 authority, supported by Professor Veitch, it puzzles one to believe that 
 Jamie ran first to Stobs, eleven miles in a bee line without taking hills 
 into account, passing close to Branxholm on the way, and then six 
 more to Coulthart Cleugh, making seventeen in all, before he got a 
 mount. Moreover, when the Captain was overtaken, he had driven 
 cattle up the Frostylee into the plain beyond, at least twenty miles from 
 Ettrick, and no man can drive cattle much faster than two miles an 
 hour. As he ' Lifted ' them just before dawn ('the sun wasna up, but 
 the moon was down ') it must have been nightfal before Willie Scott 
 charged him. It seems far more probable that ' the fair Dodhead ' was 
 on the Dod Burn between Teviot and Slitrig Waters. There is 
 no tower there now ; but there was a general demolition of these old 
 strengths after the Union, and there happens to be a Peel Brae on this 
 Dod Burn.
 
 THE TWEED 159 
 
 And whan they cam to the fair Dodhead, 
 
 Right hastily they clam the pele ; 
 They loosed the kye oot, ane and a', 
 
 And ranshackled the house right weel. 
 
 Now Jamie Telfer's heart was sair, 
 
 The tear aye rowin* in his e'e ; 
 He pled wi' the Captain to hae his gear, 
 
 Or else revengit he wad be. 
 
 The Captain turned him round and leugh, 
 Said " Man ! there's naething in thy house, 
 
 But ae auld sword without a sheath, 
 That hardly now wad fell a mouse. " 
 
 The sun wasna up, but the moon was down, 
 It was the gryming o' a new fa'n snaw ; 
 
 Jamie Telfer has run ten mile afoot 
 
 Between the Dodhead and the Stobs Ha'. ' 
 
 And whan he cam to the fair tower yett * 
 He shouted loud and weel cried he, 
 
 Till out bespak auld Gibbie Elliot 
 
 " Wha's this that brings the fray to me ?" 
 
 " It's me, Jamie Telfer o' the fair Dodhead, 
 
 And a harried man I think I be. 
 There's naething left in the fair Dodhead 
 
 But a waefu' wife and bairnies three. " 
 
 " Gae seek your succour in Branxholm Ha', 
 For succour ye'se get nane frae me ! 
 
 Gae seek your succour whaur ye'se paid blackmail, 
 For man ! ye ne'er paid aught to me. " 
 
 I Stobs Ha', now Stobs Castle, a house of the Elliots on Slitrig Water, 
 where the War Office have lately established a camp of exercise. 
 Gate.
 
 160 THE STORY OF 
 
 Jamie has turned him round about, 
 
 VVi' aye the saut tear in his e'e 
 "I* 11 ne'er pay mail to Elliot again, 
 
 And the fair Dodhead I '11 never see. 
 
 " My hounds may a'rin master less, 
 My hawks may fly frae tree to tree, 
 
 My lord may grip my vassal lands, 
 For there again maun I never be. " 
 
 He has turned him to the Tiviot side, 
 
 E'en as fast as he could drie, 
 Till he cam to the Coultart Cleugh, ' 
 
 And there he shouted baith loud and hie. 
 
 Then up bespak him auld Jock Grieve 
 
 " Whae's this that brings the fray to me ?" 
 
 " It's me, Jamie Telfer o' the fair Dodhead. 
 A harried man I trow I be. 
 
 ** There's naething left in the fair Dodhead 
 But a greeting wife and bairnies three, 
 
 And sax poor cauves stand in the sta' 
 A* routing loud for their minnie. " 
 
 " Alack a wae ! " quo' auld Jock Grieve 
 
 " Alack my heart is sair for thee ! 
 For I was married on an elder sister, 
 
 And you on the youngest o' the three. " 
 
 Then he has ta'en out a bonnie black, 
 Was right well fed wi* corn and hay ; 
 
 He's set Jamie Telfer on his back 
 To the Catslockhill to tak the fray. 
 
 1 Coultherdscleugh is on the right bank of the Teviot a long mile 
 below Tcviothead kirk.
 
 THE TWEED 161 
 
 And whan he cam to the Catslockhill, 
 He shouted loud and weel cried he, 
 
 Till out and spak him William's Wat ' 
 " O whae's this brings the fray to me ? " 
 
 " It's me, Jamie Telfer o' the fair Dodhead, 
 
 A harried man I think I be ! 
 The Captain o' Bewcastle has driven my gear, 
 
 For God's sake, rise and succour me ! " 
 
 " Alack for wae ! " quo' William's Wat, 
 
 " Alack, for thee my heart is sair ; 
 I never cam by the fair Dodhead 
 
 That ever I fand thy basket bare. " 
 
 He's set his twa sons on coal-black steeds, 
 
 Himsel' upon a freckled gray, 
 And they are on wi' Jamie Telfer 
 
 To Branksome Ha' to tak the fray. 
 
 And whan they cam to Branksome Ha', 
 They shouted a' baith loud and hei. 
 
 Till up and spak him auld Buccleuch, 
 
 Said " Whae's this brings the frae to me ? " 
 
 " It's me, Jamie Telfer o' the fair Dodhead, 
 
 And a harried man I think I be ; 
 There's nought left in the fair Dodhead 
 
 But a greeting wife and bairnies three. 
 
 " Alack for wae ! " quo' the gude auld laird, 
 And ever my heart is wae for thee. 
 
 But fye ! gar cry on Willie my son, 
 And see that he come to me speedilie ! 
 
 1 William's Wat was properly one of the Scotts. 
 
 ii
 
 i6 2 THE STORY OF 
 
 " Gae warn the water, braid and wide ! 
 
 Gae warn it sune and hastilie ! 
 They that winna ride for Telfer's kye, 
 
 Let them never look in the face o' me ! 
 
 " Warn Wat o' Harden and his sons, 
 Wi' them will Borthwickwater ride ; 
 
 Warn Gaudilands ' and Allanhaugh, 
 And Gilmanscleuch and Commonside. * 
 
 " Ride by the gate * at Priesthaughswire, * 
 And warn the Currors o' the Lee ; 
 
 As ye come down the Hermitage Slack 
 Warn doughty Willie o' Gorinberry. " 
 
 The Scotts they rade the Scotts they ran 
 
 Sar starkie and sae steadily, 
 And aye the ower-word o' the thrang 
 
 Was " Rise for Branksome readily ! " 
 
 The gear was driven the Frostylee 8 up 
 
 Frae the Frostylee unto the plain, 
 When Willie has looked his men before, 
 
 And saw the kye right fast driving. 
 
 " Whae drives thir kye ? " * gan Willie say, 
 " To mak an outspeckle r o* me " 
 
 " It's me, the Captain o' Bewcastle, Willie ; 
 I winna layne 8 my name for thee." 
 
 1 Now Goldielands, a tower commanding the junction of Tevtot and 
 Borthwick Water. 
 
 * All places inhabited by families of Scotts. 
 
 The road on Borthwick Water to the North. 
 
 4 A place on the Allan Water due south of Branxholm. 
 
 * Hermitage and Gorrenberry are in the watershed of Liddell, 
 through which the Captain of Bewcastle must pass in returning with 
 his booty. 
 
 * Up the Frosty Burn, where it joins the Teviot at Carlanrig, and 
 so over into Liddesdale. 
 
 7 A laughing-stock. 
 
 8 Conceal.
 
 THE TWEED 163 
 
 " O will ye let Telfer's kye gae back ? 
 
 Or will ye do aught for regard o' me ? 
 Or faith o' my body ! " quo' Willie Scott 
 
 ** I'se ware l thy dame's calf-skin on thee. " 
 
 " I winna let the kye gae back, 
 Nor for thy love nor for thy fear ; 
 
 But I will drive Jamie Telfer's kye 
 In spite of every Scott that's here." 
 
 " Set on them, lads ! " quo' Willie then, 
 
 " Fye lads ! set on them cruellie ! 
 For e'er they win to * the Ritterford 
 
 Mony a toom ' saddle there sail be.'* 
 
 Then till't they gaed, wi' heart and hand ; 
 
 The blows fell thick as bickering hail ; 
 And mony a horse ran masterless, 
 
 And mony a comely cheek was pale. 
 
 But Willie was stricken ower the head, 
 
 And through the knapscap 4 the sword has gane ; 
 
 And Harden grat 4 for very rage, 
 
 When Willie on the ground lay slain. 
 
 But he's taen aff his gude steel-cap, 
 
 And thrice he's waved it in the air- 
 The Dinlay 6 snaw was never mair white 
 Than the lyart 7 locks o' Harden's hair. 
 
 Waste or spoil. 
 
 Win to, reach. 
 
 Empty. 
 
 Headpiece, steel bonnet 
 
 Wept. 'Auld Wat o' Harden ' was fourth in descent from the second 
 son of George Scott of Synton by a Scott of Robertson. He is the 
 hero of the ballad The Flower of Yarrow, the heroine being his wife, 
 daughter of Philip Scott of Dryhope. He died in 1629. Sir Walter 
 Scott believed that " Willie " was a natural son of Buccleuch. 
 Dinley Fell (1755 feet) overlooks the scene of this combat. 
 7 Blenched.
 
 164 THE STORY OF 
 
 " Revenge, revenge ! " auld Wat' gan cry ; 
 
 " Fye, lads ! lay on them cruellie ! 
 We'll ne'er see Tiviotside again, 
 
 Or Willie's blude avenged sail be." 
 
 O mony a horse ran masterless, 
 
 The splintered lances flew on hie ; 
 But ere they wan to the Kershope ford, ' 
 
 The Scots had gotten the victorie. 
 
 John o' Brigham there was slain, 
 And John o' Barlow, as I hear say ; 
 
 And thirty mae o' the Captain's men 
 Lay bleeding on the ground that day. 
 
 The Captain was run through the thick o' the thigh 1 
 O weel may his lady for him mak maen ! 
 
 If he had lived this hundred year, 
 
 He had never been loved by woman again. 
 
 " Hae back thy kye ! " the Captain said ; 
 
 " Dear kye, I trow, to some they be ! 
 For gin I should live a hundred years 
 
 There will ne'er fair lady smile on me. " 
 
 Then word is gane to the Captain's bride, 
 Een in the bower where that she lay, 
 
 That her lord was prisoner in enemy's land, 
 Since to Tividale he had led the way. 
 
 " I'd sooner hae sewed a winding-sheet, 
 And helped to put it ower his head, 
 
 Than hae seen him mained, as nae man shuild be, 
 Whan he ower Liddel his men did lead." 
 
 1 The Kershope Burn joins the Liddel Water from the left, three and 
 a half miles below Newcastleton, and forms the boundary between 
 England and Scotland the March throughout its course of nine miles. 
 
 1 This line in the original was thus decorously paraphrased by the 
 Scott.The Captain's injury was far more severe teste loeva vulneratus- 
 which explains the significance of the following three stanzas.
 
 THE TWEED 165 
 
 There was a wild gallant amang us a', 
 
 His name was Watty wi' the Wudspurs, ' 
 
 Cried " On for his house in Stanegirthside ! * 
 If ony man will ride wi' us." 
 
 When they cam to the Stanegirthside, 
 They dang wi' trees and burst the door ; 
 
 They loosed out a' the Captain's kye, 
 And set them forth our lads before. 
 
 There was an auld wife ayont the fire, 
 
 A wee bit o' the Captain's kin ; 
 " Whae daur loose out the Captain's kye ? 
 
 Or answer to his men and him. " 
 
 When they cam to the fair Dodhead 
 They were a welcome sight to see, 
 
 For instead o' his ain ten milk-kye, 
 
 Jamie Telfer has gotten thirty-and-three. 
 
 And he has paid the rescue shot, s 
 
 Baith wi' gowd and white monie ; 
 And at the burial o' Willie Scott 
 
 I wot was mony a weeping e'e.' 
 
 At the risk of outrunning all patience of readers, 
 the picture must be completed by quoting from The 
 Fray of Suport, 4 a modern ballad, in which an 
 
 1 Wud, mad. Watty Wudspurs was the third son of Sir William Scott 
 of Harden, who married ' Muckle mou'd Meg ' of Elibank (see p. 28, 
 ante), and grandson of Auld Wat o' Harden. He was ancestor of the 
 Scots of Raeburn. 
 
 * On the English side of Liddel Water. 
 
 3 This is an interesting line, showing that it was the custom to pay 
 salvage for cattle and goods recovered from the enemy. ' Paying the 
 shot ' is commonly regarded as a term akin to slang, but in truth it is 
 good and very old English. The Anglo-Saxon scot, sceot, softened 
 into shot, signified ' payment '. 
 
 4 Suport is on the English side, near the Kershopefoot, on the 
 very Border.
 
 166 THE STORY OF 
 
 Englishwoman who has been harried by a band of 
 Scotsmen summons her neighbours to the Hot 
 Trod. Breathless with speed, almost inarticulate 
 with rage, she chides Sim o' the Lambhill and 
 Jocko' Suport Mill for not turning out smartly to 
 her summons ; then, with all the volubility of her 
 sex, she tells her tale of woe. The iteration of the 
 yelling refrain is as startling as the warning shouts 
 of firemen in a street. 
 
 * Fy, lads ! shout a' a' a* a* a' 
 My gear's a' gane. 
 Weel may ye ken, 
 
 Last night I was right scarce o' men ; 
 But Toppet Hob o' the Mains had guestened in my house 
 
 by chance ; 
 I set him to wear the fore-door wi' the spear while I kept 
 
 the back door wi' the lance ; 
 But they hae run him thro* the thick o' the thie and broke 
 
 his knee-pan, 
 And the mergh l o' his shin-bane has run down on his spur 
 
 leather whang ; 
 
 He's lame while he lives, and where'er he may gang. 
 Fy, lads ! shout a' a' a' a' a* ! 
 My gear's a' gane. 
 
 Rise, ye carle coopers, frae makin' o' kirns and tubs 
 
 In the Nicol forest woods. 
 
 Your craft has nae left the value o' an oak rod ; 
 
 But if ye had had ony fear o' God, 
 
 Last night ye hadna slept sound 
 
 And let a' my gear be ta'en. 
 
 Fy, lads ! shout a' a' a' a' a' ! 
 
 My gear's a' gane.' 
 
 1 Marrow.
 
 THE TWEED 167 
 
 Borthwick Water, deriving from the bleak upland 
 of Eskdalemuir, runs a course of ten miles parallel 
 to the Teviot, at no point more than three miles 
 distant to the north-west ; then at Borthwick brae it 
 turns sharp to the east, and three miles more brings 
 it to a junction with its sister-stream. High up 
 among its headwaters is the great sheep-farm of 
 Howpasley, the scene in comparatively recent days 
 of a peculiarly revolting episode in a clan feud, 
 because the victims were not human beings struck 
 down in open mellay, but defenceless dumb animals. 
 It arose in 1618 out of a dispute between Sir James 
 Douglas of Drumlanrig and c the Lady Howpaslet, ' 
 the widow, apparently, of a deceased laird of How- 
 pasley. About the year 1614 the estate came into 
 Douglas's possession, probably as the result of an 
 unredeemed mortgage. It had long been in possess- 
 ion of a branch of the Scotts ; and * the Lady ', 
 having no intention of letting it go, summoned the 
 Scot clan to a meeting in Hawick to take measures 
 for her reinstatement. According to the * band ' 
 which every Scott obeyed under the chief Buccleuch, 
 each man was bound strictly to respect the c room ' 
 or possession of every other member of the clan. 
 Even Buccleuch himself, if charged with encroaching 
 upon the room of another, which might easily happen 
 in a wide, unfenced hill country, had to submit to 
 the judgment of four persons of the name of Scott. 
 
 The meeting, which seems to have been presided 
 over by the Lady Howpaslet and her kinswoman, 
 Jean Scott of Satchells, determined that Douglas 
 should be prevented from stocking his lands, and 
 adopted means described in the * dittay ' of the trial 
 that followed as of * sic monstruous and vnhard of
 
 1 68 THE STORY OF 
 
 crewaltie as the lyk quhairof hes nocht bene hard 
 amangst the vvyld Irisch and savadge people, let be 
 within any reformed and ciuile pairt of his majestie's 
 dominionis. ' Four rascals were hired namely 
 1 George Scott, cordiner in Hawick the Souter, l 
 called Marione's Geordie ; Walter Scott, son to 
 Braidis Andro ; Ingrem Scott and Jok Scott, callit 
 the Sukler, ' to slay such stock as Douglas had put 
 on the land. They went up Borthwick Water ' in 
 the glomeing ' of an April night, and so to How- 
 pasley, where they fell upon a flock of sheep and 
 * maist barbaruslie and inhumanely, as savadge and 
 crewall beistis, destitute of natural reasone, with 
 thair drawin suordis and utheris wappones, ran 
 throw the haill flok of scheip, slew and menyet f to 
 the number of threscoir, quhairof fouretir or thairby 
 war slane be streiking of thair heids and cutting 
 thame in tua throw thair bakis ; and the rest of 
 thaim, thair spaldis 3 and legis wer strukin away fra 
 thame in maist barbarous maner, and war sa left 
 spreuling in thair deid-thraws vpone the grund. ' 4 
 
 It may be noted in passing as something un- 
 expected that the public prosecutor should have so 
 much commiseration to expend upon the sufferings 
 of mere sheep, in an age when witch torture had 
 been brought to its highest perfection, and the 
 burning of heretics had not passed completely out 
 of vogue. 
 
 Howbeit, all the accused were hanged except Jock 
 the Suckler, who saved his neck for the nonce by 
 turning King's evidence. But, being * wanted * 
 
 1 Shoemaker. 
 
 1 Maimed. 
 
 1 Shoulders. 
 
 4 Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, iii. 380-396.
 
 THE TWEED 169 
 
 upon a charge of sheep-stealing committed four 
 years previously, unlucky Jock was rearrested, tried 
 before a jury whereof nine out of fifteen were Arm- 
 strongs, unfriendly to the Scotts, and sent to the 
 gallows tree. The chief culprits, Lady Howpaslet 
 and Jean Scott, got off free, although the dittay 
 against their instruments admitted that these fellows 
 had acted * be the instigation, na dout, of sum 
 persones of gritter qualitie and conditoun nor thame 
 selffis. ' Lady Howpaslet recovered her estate from 
 Douglas of Drumlanrig, which remains in the pos- 
 session of Scotts to this day, and the story is rounded 
 off by the fact that the present owner, the Duke of 
 Buccleuch, is also Lord of Drumlanrig. 
 
 The most conspicuous feature alike in the scenery 
 and history of Borthwick Water is the castle of 
 Harden, * of which Tweedside's modern singer, 
 John Leyden (1755-1811), has painted the winter 
 aspect in a few vigorous lines : 
 
 * Where Bertha hoarse, that loads the meads with sand, 
 Rolls her red tide to Teviot's western strand, 
 Through slaty hills whose sides are shagg'd with thorn, 
 Where springs in scattered tufts the dark green corn, 
 Towers wood-girt Harden far above the vale, 
 And clouds of ravens o'er the turret sail.' 
 
 Readers a hundred years ago were less meticulous 
 in the matter of ornithology than they are now ; 
 else would Leyden never have substituted the im- 
 possible raven for the irrepressible jackdaw. Robert 
 Scott, a cadet of the house of Synton, first acquired 
 the estate from Lord Home in 1501, and it was his 
 grandson, { Auld Wat,' the chief's right-hand man in 
 
 1 Not to be confused with a place of the same name in Liddesdale.
 
 1 70 THE STORY OF THE TWEED 
 
 all his ridings, who has made the place famous in 
 story. To his wife the * Flower of Yarrow, ' tradition 
 ascribes the training of a certain lad whom Auld 
 Wat brought home in one of his forays. This lad, 
 whose name has been forgotten, is commonly believ- 
 ed to have composed many of the ballads which 
 have been handed down to us in this day. Margaret, 
 daughter of Auld Wat and the Flower, known for 
 some obscure reason as ' Maggie Fendy, ' married 
 Gilbert Elliot of Stobs, commonly called * Gibbie wi' 
 the gowden garters, ' perhaps the same from whom 
 Jamie Telfer received such a heartless answer in his 
 need. From the fourth of their six sons descended 
 the family of the present Earl of Minto.

 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 FROM SLITRIG TO JED WATER 
 
 THE modern traveller is likely to be better 
 acquainted with the Slitrig Water than with 
 any other in this region, because, northward 
 bound by the Waverley route, after passing the 
 dreary brown moors about Riccarton, the train 
 climbs the * swire ' of Whitter-hope Edge, drives 
 through a couple of rock tunnels, emerges from the 
 northern watershed, and runs close along the Slitrig 
 Water to its junction with Teviot in the town of 
 Hawick. About a mile to the north of these tunnels 
 the line crosses that mysterious earthwork the 
 Catrail, of which a length of four miles or so here 
 has escaped obliteration in its winding north wester- 
 ly course to Torwoodlee. The old Border * makers' 
 never shirked the local names, not they, but revelled 
 in them, how harsh soever they might be ; and 
 handed them on as they sounded from the lips of 
 their own people. Scott was of that mind too, 
 though he took occasional liberties, changing Carter- 
 hole into Abbotsford, Burnsfoot into Chiefswood, 
 and altering the stress on Dolorain to suit his metre, 
 yet he held the old names in loving reverence. Not 
 so his friend Leyden, who, affected by the classical 
 craze, improved Borthwick into Bortha and Slitrig 
 (which perhaps is more correctly written Slitterick, 
 on the analogy of Ettrick) into Slata.
 
 i 7 2 THE STORY OF 
 
 From the sixteenth century onwards, the Elliots 
 were the chief family on Slitrig, firm adherents of 
 the Scotts in all their feuds and fightings. Origin- 
 ally, it is believed the Elliots belonged to Forfar- 
 shire, taking their name from the Elliot Water, and 
 transplanted to Liddesdale by the Earl of Douglas 
 about the close of the fourteenth century. Redheugh 
 or Lariston was their chief house in Liddesdale, 
 where they throve but indifferent well, allying them- 
 selves with the Armstrongs and other broken clans 
 of the debatable land, and brought trouble upon 
 themselves in consequence. Before the end of the 
 sixteenth century, however, a branch of the house 
 of Lariston was firmly settled at Stobs, whence 
 sprang a number of subsidiary lairds, who prospered 
 amain under the shelter of puissant Buccleuch. 
 
 The ancient burgh of Hawick has lost all trace of 
 the defensive character essential to a Border town in 
 other days. The houses used all to be * bastel ' 
 built, that is, with thick stone walls having no door 
 to the street, but an entry to a back court, whence 
 a stair ^ave access to the second floor. Now all is 
 changed. The present population of i8,coo is 
 housed just as in any other manufacturing town. 
 When last I lay in Hawick about ten years ago, the 
 sole conspicuous vestige of antiquity remaining in 
 the form of stone and lime was the Tower Hotel 
 that part of it, at least, which was the castle of 
 Douglas of Drumlanrig, as superior of the burgh. 
 This building survived the last burning of the town 
 by the English in 1570. But an oral relic of times 
 far anterior to that has been preserved in what is 
 called the * Colour Song. ' The ceremony of Com- 
 mon Riding takes place in June, when the Cornet
 
 THE TWEED 173 
 
 precedes the magistrates in their perambulation to 
 the burgh marches, after which the f Colour Song ' 
 is chanted by the crowd assembled in the town. The 
 words of this ditty are modern, the composition of 
 James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd ; but the refrain 
 seems to date from pagan times : 
 
 1 Up wi ' Hawick's rights and common ! 
 Up with a' the Border bowmen ! 
 Teribus and Teri-Odin, 
 We are up to ride the Common. ! ' 
 
 This has been interpreted as a battle-prayer to 
 Odin, but its true origin is quite unknown. 
 
 'The Teviot,' says Dick Lauder, writing about 
 1840, c is a peculiarly pure stream, while its purity 
 is rendered more apparent by its pebbly bed. ' Alas 
 for this once fair water ! The growth of the hosiery 
 and woollen industry of Hawick has taken grievous 
 effect upon its current, which is now badly polluted, 
 more's the pity, for it flows through a lovely vale, 
 and is naturally an ideal salmon and trout, stream. 
 
 The estate of Cavers, lying on the right bank of 
 the Teviot below Hawick, remains in possession of 
 the descendants of Archibald, the second. illegitimate 
 son of the second Earl of Douglas he who perished 
 at Otterburn in 1388. The earl left Drumlanrig to 
 his elder natural son William, and Cavers to Archi- 
 bald. There are some interesting relics preserved 
 at Cavers, which are of undoubted antiquity, but the 
 precise origin of which have been the subject of a 
 good deal of amicable controversy. 
 
 The most important of these relics is a flag of 
 sage green silk, l about 12 feet long in its present 
 shortened state, and about 3 feet wide at the staff
 
 174 THE STORY OF 
 
 end or " hoist ", narrowing to the ends, which seem 
 to have been originally forked. ' l About this flag 
 there are three various traditions current. The 
 first of these is mentioned by Bishop Percy of 
 Dromore in a memorandum preserved among the 
 Duke of Northumberland's MSS. at Syon House. 
 The Bishop was shown the flag when he visited 
 Cavers in 1744, and says that * the family of Douglas 
 of Cavers, hereditary Sheriffs of Teviotdale, have 
 long had in their possession an old standard, which 
 they believe to be the very pennon won from 
 Hotspur by the Earl of Douglas, to whom their 
 ancestor was standard-bearer in the expedition (to 
 Otterburn). ' Now, although we may accept Frois- 
 sart's word for it that Douglas did encounter 
 Hotspur in single combat before the gates of New- 
 castle, that he did capture the pennon from his 
 adversaries' lance, and that it was to recover that 
 pennon that Percy followed Douglas to Otterburn, 
 it is clear that this Cavers flag cannot be the pennon. 
 A pennon was a small pointed or forked affair, like 
 that on a modern lancer's weapon. No knight in 
 his senses would have gone into single or any other 
 combat with twelve or thirteen feet of silk hanging 
 to his lance. 
 
 The second variant of the tradition represents the 
 flag as Percy's banner captured at Otterburn. The 
 objection to this explanation is conclusive. The 
 flag is not a knightly banner, which was square, and 
 displayed only the armorial bearings of its owner. 
 It is a standard, a variety of flag which came into 
 
 1 The description is taken from the Earl of Southesk's paper on 
 this relic in the Proceedings of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries for 
 1901-2, pp. 246-280.
 
 THE TWEED 175 
 
 fashion during the reign of Edward III., and, under 
 the Tudor Kings, was of fixed dimensions according 
 to the rank of him who displayed it, graduated from 
 eight to nine yards long for a monarch down to four 
 yards for a simple knight. But it could not have 
 been the Percy standard, seeing that the devices 
 painted upon it are the St. Andrew's Cross next the 
 staff, a lion and the Douglas heart and stars, with 
 the Douglas motto, Jamais arriere (written Jamais 
 arreyre) on the tapering fly. 
 
 The third account (which, I believe, is the one 
 accepted by the present family of Cavers) makes out 
 that the flag is the Douglas standard carried at 
 Otterburn by Archibald Douglas, founder of the 
 Cavers line. To this there appear only two ob- 
 jections, either of which is fatal to the tradition. 
 The second Earl of Douglas carried no lion on his 
 shield, and the lion is conspicuous among the devices 
 on this flag. The earldom reverted at his death to 
 his relative Archibald the Grim, third Earl of 
 Douglas, who, as Lord of Galloway, certainly quarter- 
 ed the lion of Galloway with the heart and stars of 
 Douglas. The other objection is that, inasmuch as 
 the Otterburn earl was only thirty when he was 
 slain, his second natural son cannot have been of an 
 age to act as standard-bearer in the battle. l 
 
 Another objection, which applies to all three of 
 these variants, is that there is no instance of the 
 motto Jamais Arriere in Douglas heraldry until it 
 appears on the seal of Archibald, eighth Earl of 
 Angus (1557-1588). Lord Southesk, sifting all the 
 
 1 But he may have been ' the little boy, was near of Douglas kin, ' 
 mentioned in the ballad of Otterbourne as announcing the approach 
 of the English.
 
 176 THE STORY OF 
 
 circumstances, came to the conclusion that the Cavers 
 flag was a Douglas standard, dating not from 1388, 
 but from some years after 1452, and belonging not 
 to the Black Douglas branch, but to the Red. 
 When George Douglas, illegitimate son of the first 
 Earl of Douglas, became Earl of Angus in 1397, 
 he quartered the lion of Angus with the heart and 
 stars of Douglas, and so did all his descendants, 
 including the fourth earl, who, on the fall of the 
 Black Douglas in 1455, received a grant of all the 
 lands belonging to that great house, and being 
 Warden of the Marches in 1452, appointed Douglas 
 of Cavers his keeper of Hermitage Castle. It is not 
 improbable then, that the Cavers flag was the official 
 standard displayed by the keeper on that fortress. 
 
 With the flag is preserved at Cavers an embroider- 
 ed glove, supposed to have been taken by the Earl 
 of Douglas at the same time as he captured Hotspur's 
 pennon, and to have been a gage of that knight's 
 lady. That may be so, but the initials K.P. worked 
 upon the glove are difficult to identify, for Hotspur's 
 wife was Elizabeth Mortimer, his mother Margaret 
 Nevill and his only sister Margaret Percy. What 
 fair lady answered to K ? 
 
 Hassendean Burn joins the Teviot from the north 
 a short distance below Cavers, a name that was 
 written of old Halstanedene, Hadestanden, and 
 Astenesdene, and has been further altered in the 
 modern song Jock o' Hazeldean. Of the tower that 
 once commanded the junction of the waters, the 
 only remaining fragment has been made to serve as 
 the gable of a cottage. It was a house of the Scotts 
 Sir Alexander Scott of Hassendean fell at Flodden. 
 In 1564 there occured a serious interruption in the
 
 THE TWEED 177 
 
 alliance of the Scotts and the Elliots, probably arising 
 out of the action of Martin Elliot of Braidley, a son 
 of the laird of Redheugh, who claimed to be chief 
 of the whole clan of Elliot in Liddesdale and Teviot- 
 dale. This gentleman was in constant intrigue with 
 the English, received pay from Queen Elizabeth, 
 undertook that his clan should become English with 
 their whole surname, and their friends the Arm- 
 strongs, and pledged himself to deliver to the English 
 Warden Queen Mary's castle of Hermitage for 
 which he was ready to give four of the name of 
 Elliot as hostages. 1 It may be supposed that such 
 proceedings were odious in the eyes of the bold 
 Buccleuch, the Scotts being perhaps the only Border 
 clan untainted by traitorous dealings with the southern 
 power, and especially devoted at this time to the 
 cause of Queen Mary. Anyhow, the Elliots seem 
 to have struck the first blow in a feud which raged 
 with intense fury for a couple of years between 
 them and the Scotts. On the i8th October 1564, 
 they attacked Hassendean, and slew David Scott, 
 the laird. Three days later six men named Elliot, 
 and strange to say, James the son of Walter Scott, 
 tenant in Hassendean, were put upon their trial in 
 Edinburgh for the crime. Five of them were con- 
 victed ; three were beheaded by torchlight on the 
 same evening ; while William Elliot of Horsliehill 
 was condemned to banishment, a sentence which 
 was remitted in the following year by Queen Mary 
 at the instance of Ker of Fernihirst. But the family 
 of Horsliehill never recovered their standing. The 
 property was sold before the end of the century, and 
 the feud having been stanched, Elliot entered the 
 
 1 Scrope to Cecil 28th 1565 : Ms. Record Office. 
 
 12
 
 178 THE STORY OF 
 
 service of Auld Wat o' Harden, who gave him a 
 natural daughter in marriage, whence are descended 
 the Elliot Lockharts of Wolfelee. ! 
 
 Hassendean formed of old a separate parish, and 
 the church, with some fine Norman work, stood at 
 the junction of the burn with the Teviot, * but was 
 dismantled on the suppression of the parish late in 
 the seventeenth century. This was done during 
 the minority of the chief heritor in the parish, Mary, 
 Duchess of Buccleuch, and was so much resented by 
 the people that they assembled in force and killed 
 the first man who mounted the ladder to begin the 
 work of demolition. Since then the Teviot has 
 swept away the churchyard, and has so altered its 
 own course that the site of the old kirk is now 
 marked by a sandbank on the south bank. 
 
 This term * dean ' representing the Anglo-Saxon 
 denu, Middle English dene, a narrow wooded valley 
 or glen, takes the place in lower Teviotdale of the 
 * hopes ' and * cleughs ' of the upper country. It 
 recurs again in Denhold, a village at the mouth of 
 the Dean Burn, a short distance below Hassendean. 
 More ancient than it appears, Denholm was burnt 
 by Lord Hertford in 1545. An obelisk on the 
 village green commemorates John Leyden, the poet, 
 who was born here in 1775. Two miles to the south 
 of the village Ruberslaw (1392 feet) rises abruptly 
 from the plain, marking with its rugged cone the 
 site of a volcanic shaft in the carboniferous age. On 
 the opposite side of Teviot Minto Crags (729 feet), 
 
 1 Pitcairn's Criminal Trials i. 456*, 466*. See also Proceedings of 
 the Society of Scottish Antiquaries 1880-1, pp. 93-100, for the curious 
 details of this sudden feud. 
 
 1 There is an etching of it in Cardonnel's Picturesque Antiquities 
 1788.
 
 THE TWEED 179 
 
 thickly clothed with trees, and Minto Hills (905 
 feet), form a beautiful setting for the modern seat 
 of the Earl of Minto, chief of the Elliot clan. The 
 estate was bought from the Turnbulls at the close 
 of the seventeenth century by Gilbert Elliot (1651- 
 1718), in whose veins the Border blood ran strong, 
 for his grandsire, ' Gibbie wi ' the gowden gartins ' 
 married, as aforesaid, 3 auld Wat Harden's daughter, 
 * Maggie Fendy. ' A famous union this proved to 
 be, for the energy of both families was perpetuated, 
 and turned to good account in the service of the 
 state. Gilbert, first of Minto, applied himself to 
 the profession of ' writer ' the Scottish term for 
 solicitor and won early distinction in the trial for 
 treason of William Veitch, the Covenanting divine 
 (1640-1722), for whom he acted as agent so success- 
 fully as to obtain the commutation of the death sen- 
 tence into one of banishment. This was in 1679. 
 
 Soon after Gibbie himself got into trouble through 
 his Presbyterian zeal. For the active part he took 
 in promoting Argyll's rising in 1685 he was con- 
 demned for treason and forfeited, but was pardoned. 
 Admitted an advocate in 1688, he became clerk to 
 the Scottish Privy Council in 1692, was made a 
 baronet in 1700 and a judge in 1705, with the title 
 of Lord Minto. His old client, Veitch, by this 
 time was minister of Dumfries, and Minto never 
 failed when his duties took him to that town to rally 
 him about their early acquaintance, 
 
 1 Ah, Willie, Willie ! ' he would say, * had it no ' 
 been for me, the pyets had been pyking your pate 
 on the Nether Bow port. ' 
 
 ' Ah, Gibbie, Gibbie ! ' was the minister's retort, 
 
 * See p. 170, ante.
 
 i8o THE STORY OF 
 
 * Had it no ' been for me, ye would hae been writing 
 papers yet at a plack the page ! ' 
 
 Gibbie's son (1693-1 766), also, became Sir Gilbert 
 first, and then a judge with the title of Lord Minto. 
 It is told of him that each year, as he passed with 
 the other Lords of Justiciary from Jedburgh to 
 Dumfries on circuit, his friend Armstrong of Sor- 
 bietrees always brought out a large brandy bottle to 
 refresh the cavalcade withal. On . one occasion, 
 when Henry Home, afterwards Lord Kames, accom- 
 panied the judges for the first time, Armstrong 
 whispered to Lord Minto l Whatna lang, black, 
 dour-loo kin ' chiel's that ye hae amang ye in the 
 front o* the coach ? ' * That, ' replied Minto, * is a 
 man come to hang the Armstrongs.' * Faith, then, 
 Gibbie, it's time the Elliots were riding ! ' retorted 
 Sorbietrees, as he shut the coach door. 
 
 Gibbie the second was succeeded by his son, Gib- 
 bie the third Sir Gilbert Elliot (1722-1777), states- 
 man, philosopher, and poet ; while the fourth 
 baronet, also Sir Gilbert (1751-1814), rose to be 
 Governor-General of India and first Earl of Minto. 
 His son, second Earl of Minto and fifth Sir Gilbert 
 Elliot in succession, was a Minister in Melbourne's 
 Cabinet (1835-41) and in Peel's (1846). His son, 
 succeeding in 1859 as tmr d Earl, broke the spell, 
 apparently from being named William instead of 
 Gilbert, for he was the first of his line not to earn 
 distinction in the public service. The tradition, 
 however, has been well restored by the present hold- 
 er of the earldom, who inherited the ancient family 
 name of Gilbert, and, having carried it to great 
 honour as Governor-General of Canada, was appoint- 
 ed Governor-General of India in the autumn of 1905.
 
 THE TWEED 181 
 
 Minto Crags was crowned by a remarkably well- 
 preserved specimen of a Border pele, which has the 
 curious name of Fatlips. It was the stronghold of 
 Turnbull of Barnhills, a branch of the Bedrule family, 
 whereof there will be more to tell presently when 
 we enter the valley of Rule Water. A short way 
 below the summit of the crags is a flat ledge called 
 Barnhill's Bed, where the laird is supposed to have 
 kept his outlook. 
 
 * On Minto Crags the moonbeams glint, 
 Where Barnhill hewed his bed of flint j 
 Who flung his outlawed limbs to rest 
 Where falcons hang their giddy nest, 
 
 * Mid cliffs from which his eagle eye 
 For many a league his prey could spy ; 
 Cliffs doubling, on their echoes borne, 
 The terrors of the robber's horn. ' 
 
 Lower down are the remains of another tower, 
 supposed to be Stanyledge, the house of another 
 Turnbull. Both Fatlips, or Minto Tower, and 
 Barnhills were wrecked by Lord Hertford in 1545. 
 Of the history of this robber laird nothing is known 
 but by vague tradition, but in the Justiciary Record 
 it is stated that * Hectour Trumbill of Stanyledge, 
 Hector Trumbill of Barnehillis : George Trumbill, 
 
 O ' 
 
 his brother, and Gavin Trumbill their radir-brother 
 (uncle) ' were all outlawed in 1 604 for the slaughter 
 of William, James, Robert, John, Andrew and 
 Thomas Grameslaw, sons of John Grameslaw in 
 Little Newton. I have not found any other men- 
 tion of this horrible massacre, and no particulars 
 are given in the Records, but Barnhills must have 
 been a disagreeable neighbour. 
 
 Three miles or little more to the north of Minto
 
 i8 2 THE STORY OF 
 
 another Turnbull had a castle at Belses. This laird 
 was simply an atrocious villain, and met his doom 
 in 1602, when he was tried for the slaughter of John 
 Hamilton Cumnock in 1579, and of William Turn- 
 bull, younger of Rawflat, in 1 600. Also for seizing 
 Adam Turnbull, servant to Walter Turnbull, finding 
 him with fetteris, and hinging him be the feit and 
 schoulderis (shoulders) over ane balk (beam) for the 
 space of X days, quhairthrow (whereby) his feit rottit 
 fra him. ' Also for shooting William Turnbull, 
 younger of Rawflat, brother of the murdered William, 
 in the arm and thigh in 1602, besides a host of 
 minor crimes such as sheep and cattle stealing, burg- 
 lary, etc. Evidence was defective against the accus- 
 ed, and he was acquitted on the main charges, but 
 convicted of * weiring and schuting with hagbuttis 
 and pistolettis, * and was sentenced to be taken to 
 the Market Cross of Edinburgh, and there ' his 
 richt hand to be strukin fra his airme. ' This was 
 on 2oth July. A month later the mutilated wretch 
 was tried afresh on a charge of * the filthie cryme of 
 incest and adulterir with Marioun Trumbill spous 
 to Jok Trumbill in Belsis, his brother sones wyfe, ' 
 and being convicted was hanged forthwith. l 
 
 Opposite Minto Crags the Rule Water comes as 
 an important affluent to the Teviot, draining the 
 northern and eastward slopes of the range that sheds 
 Slitrig Water from its western face. After the 
 confluence of the Lurgies and Wauchope Burns, 
 Rule enters its narrow main valley, passing the 
 kirk and manse of Hobkirk (properly Hopekirk), 
 where James Thomson spent some of his early years 
 and composed much of The Seasons. 
 
 1 Pitcairns's Criminal Trials ii. 421, 425.
 
 THE TWEED 183 
 
 The present spiritless parish church, built in 
 1858, replaced a wretched structure of 1692 or 
 thereabouts, which was built of far nobler material. 
 When it was taken down, the rubble-work was 
 found to contain many carved stones from an earlier 
 building, which were scattered and used as marks 
 for graves. That excellent antiquary, Mr. A.O. 
 Curie, has succeeded recently in recovering a few 
 carved capitals enough to fill one's heart with bitter- 
 ness against the cruel hands that wrecked the ancient 
 fane. For it is evident from the style of decoration 
 on these stones, which is similar to that displayed in 
 Edrom Church and on the east cloister doorway of 
 Dunfermline Abbey, that here stood the original 
 Ecclesia de Roule, an exquisite example of Norman 
 building dating from the first half of the twelfth 
 century. Mr. Curie also discovered in a game- 
 keeper's garden at Harwood, a mile and a half from 
 Hobkirk, the mutilated head of a cross, not Celtic 
 but mediaeval, which had been built into the wall of 
 a byre. Earlier than that, it was ascertained that 
 this stone had been unearthed from the foundations 
 of Appotsyde, once the tower of the family of 
 Loraine, now extinct. The hill road to Slitrig and 
 Liddesdale lay past this tower, and Mr. Curie 
 suggests that this cross stood by the wayside, citing 
 the analogy of other wayside crosses of similar 
 peculiar design, the limbs of the cross being of the 
 patee or Maltese form, strengthened by a circular 
 band left in the solid stone. The meaning of such 
 crosses is explained in Wynkyn de Word's Dives et 
 Pauper (1496) : * For this reason ben crosses be the 
 waye ; than whan folke passying see the cross they 
 shoulde thynke on hym that deyed on the croysse
 
 1 84 THE STORY OF 
 
 and worshippe hym above all thynges. ' Less 
 sordid reminders, surely, than the field-signs of 
 soaps and patent pills with which we suffer our 
 routes of travel to be defaced nowadays ! 
 
 Close to Bedrule, a tiny hamlet beside the kirk 
 of the parish so named, may be traced the foun- 
 dations of that tower where once the chief of the 
 lawless little clan of Turnbulls held sway. The 
 entire race has passed away ; none of the name is 
 numbered now among the landowners of Scotland ; 
 but all up and down this water they have left their 
 mark on the landscape in the shape of ruins, or at 
 least foundations, of their strongholds Wauchope, 
 away up among the moors ; Hallrule, in the pleasant 
 haugh below Bonchester ; Fulton, a well-preserved 
 house on the right bank fronting dark Ruberslaw, 
 and so forth. 
 
 The chief of the Turnbulls, a giant in stature and 
 strength, met his death in single combat before the 
 battle of Halidon Hill on I9th July 1333. The 
 English army was drawn up awaiting the ill-judged 
 attack of the Scots under Archibald Douglas, * The 
 Tineman,' Regent of Scotland, when Turnbull stood 
 forth leading a huge mastiflfon a leash, and challeng- 
 ed any English knight to single combat. Sir Robert 
 Benhale or de Venale, a young cavalier of Norfolk, 
 accepted the challenge, though greatly inferior in 
 height and strength to the Scottish champion. 
 Turnbull loosed the mastiff at the Englishman, 
 who, stepping nimbly aside, caught the beast such a 
 swinging blow on the loins as severed its hind 
 quarters from the fore. Then he faced Turnbull, 
 
 1 See Mr. Curie's paper, Proceedings of the Society of Scottish 
 Antiquaries, 1903-4 pp. 416-421.
 
 THE TWEED 185 
 
 whose mighty bulk put him at a disadvantage. 
 Benhale was too quick for him, parried his attacks, 
 leapt out of reach of his mace, until the giant was 
 completely blown. Then Benhale went in : first he 
 shore off Turnbull's left hand and then his head. 
 
 The Turnbulls were a clan formidable out of all 
 proportion to their size, and seem to have been at 
 feud with all their neighbours in succession. After 
 making up their quarrel with the Scotts, they did not 
 shrink from attacking the powerful Kers. In 1601 
 six of them, including Thomas of Minto and Hector 
 of the Firth, together with the five Davidsons and 
 'Jaquie' Laidlaw of Rawflat, were tried for the 
 murder of Thomas Ker, brother to Sir Andrew of 
 Fernihirst, and of his servant George Glaidner. 
 This was a most daring outrage, committed in 
 broad light on Holy Cross Day (4th May) at 
 Jedburgh Fair. The Turnbulls attacked Ker's 
 house with a force of thirty men. Ker's brother 
 Sir Andrew, Provost of Jedburgh, gave chase, over- 
 took the murderers, and slew two of them, to wit, 
 Robert Turnbull of Bewlie and William Middlemas 
 of Lilliesleaf. For this rough and ready reckoning 
 he was tried formally with eighteen others ; but 
 there was no miscarriage of justice. Proceedings 
 against the Kers were not pressed; but of the Turn- 
 bulls four were sentenced to death, though only 
 one seems to have been brought to the gallows 
 Andrew, brother to the * Gude man of Bewlie, ' 
 slain by the Kers. 1 Little is heard of the Turnbulls 
 in local history after this. 
 
 The name of this parish, Bedrule, carries us far 
 back into Celtic times for it is said to commemorate 
 
 1 Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, ii. 370-381.
 
 i86 THE STORY OF 
 
 Bethoc, the wife of Radulph, the son of Dunegal, 
 who was joint proprietor with her husband, and had 
 probably been heiress, of the manor which appears 
 in the thirteenth century as Rulebethock, and in the 
 fourteenth as Bethokroule. 
 
 In this tuneful Border land there is no deed so 
 dark, no life so obscure that it may not be embalmed 
 in song ; and thus it happened that a drunken brawl 
 between two strolling fiddlers furnished Allan Cun- 
 ningham with the theme of one of his best-known 
 lays. William Henderson lived at Priesthaugh in 
 Teviotdale in the seventeenth century, earning a 
 livelihood by his skill on the violin. The liveliness 
 of his strains combined with his convivial habits to 
 earn him the byname of * Rattlin', Roarin' Willie'. 
 He had a rival, Robin of Rule Water generally 
 known as * Sweetmilk ' from the place of his abode. 
 These two were drinking together in Bedrule one 
 day, when they fell to disputing about their res- 
 pective merits as musicians. Words would not 
 settle the matter ; they adjourned to the river bank 
 to fight it out with swords ; Willie ran Robin 
 through the heart, and went into hiding. Had 
 Sweetmilk been without powerful friends, a few 
 months in retreat might have absolved Willie from 
 the consequences of his act, at so light a ransom 
 was mere human life reckoned in those days. But 
 Sweetmilk was the special minstrel of the Elliots of 
 Stobs and Falnash ; so it came to pass that when 
 Willie rashly put in an appearance at the Rood Fair 
 of Jedburgh the Elliots recognised him, chased him 
 to Oxnam Water, brought him back to Jedburgh, 
 and hanged, or had him hanged, on the same day. 
 Willie was the popular favourite, and seems to have
 
 THE TWEED 187 
 
 had all the sympathy of the countryside with him. 
 
 * Our Willie's awa to Jeddart 
 
 To dance on the Rood-day, 
 A sharp sword by his side, 
 
 A fiddle to cheer the way. 
 The joyous tharms o' his fiddle 
 
 Rob Rule has handled rude, 
 And Willie left Newmill banks 
 
 Red wat wi' Robin's blude. 
 
 Our Willie's awa to Jeddart 
 
 May ne'er the saints forbode 
 That ever sae merry a fellow 
 
 Should gang sae black a road. 
 For Stobs and young Falnash 
 
 They followed him up and down 
 In the links o' Ousenam Water 
 
 They found him sleeping sound. 
 
 Now may the name o' Elliot 
 
 Be cursed frae firth to firth I 
 He has fettered the gude right hand 
 
 That keepit the land in mirth. 
 That keepit the land in mirth, 
 
 And charmed maid's hearts frae dool ; 
 And sair will they want him, Willie, 
 
 When the birks are bare at Yule. 
 
 The lasses o' Ousenam Water 
 
 Are rugging and riving their hair, 
 And a' for the sake o' Willie, 
 
 His beauty was so rare. 
 His beauty was so fair 
 
 And comely for to see 
 And drink will be dear to Willie 
 
 When Sweetmilk gars him dee. '
 
 188 THE STORY OF 
 
 We must now leave the banks of the Teviot in 
 order to follow from its source a very important 
 tributary flowing in from the left the Ale. To do 
 so takes us back into a neighbourhood where we 
 have spent much time already, for the Ale Water 
 rises in the same upland as gives rise to the Rankil 
 Burn in Ettrick, besides some minor affluents of 
 Borthwick Water. It flows past Bellenden to within 
 three miles of the Ettrick of Selkirk, so thoroughly 
 watered is all its pleasant land. The name Ale is 
 one of a puzzling group. Originally written Alne, 
 it is obviously the same word as the Aln at Alnwick, 
 and the root may be recognized in Allan Water, a 
 feeder of the Tweed near Melrose, which used to be 
 written Elwand, and in the Elvan Water, a tributary 
 of the Clyde, which used to be written Elwan. The 
 preposterous derivation from the Gaelic aluinn, 
 beautiful, may be dismissed with a wish that people 
 would give up darkening judgment with wild shots 
 like this. The Ale is a bonny stream, but not one 
 whit more so than scores of others : besides, 
 primitive races don't name natural features from 
 emotional impulse. Probably all these names are 
 worn forms of a vocable signifying c water ' in some 
 forgotten language. 
 
 For the first five miles of its course the Ale is a 
 mere mountain runner, leaping over innumerable 
 cascades in its haste to reach a smoother channel. 
 Presently, passing under the hill road from Hawick 
 to Ettrick, it finds repose in Alemuir Loch, a nearly 
 circular basin with a diameter of 450 yards, reputed 
 as the abode of the water kelpie, and affirmed to be 
 thirty fathoms deep. Issuing from Alemuir, the 
 stream skirts Ettrick Forest in a seven miles course
 
 THE TWEED 189 
 
 to Ashkirk, passing by Salanside and Sinton, ancient 
 fortresses of the Scotts, and so on to the lands of 
 Riddell, which seem to have been known in the 
 twelfth century as West Lillesclive. At all events 
 Gervase of Rydale, Sheriff of Roxburgh in the 
 reigns of Alexander I. and David I., died before 
 1 153, and Walter of Rydale, his son, was confirmed 
 in the lands of Lillesclive by the latter king. Rydale 
 or Riddell, therefore, seems to have been an 
 imported name, conferred by the early owners 
 upon this property to distinguish it from Lillesclive 
 proper, which was a barony of the Bishop of 
 Glasgow. l 
 
 The Riddells, in common with many others in this 
 district, suffered from proximity to the troublesome 
 Turnbulls, who in 1502 burnt the house about their 
 ears and drove away five hundred sheep. 2 After 
 eight centuries of possession the family recently 
 parted with their ancient heritage. 
 
 The older name Lillesclive remains in the modified 
 form of Lilliesleaf, which designated the parish in 
 the twelfth century, and no doubt earlier, if we 
 knew it. One groans in spirit on hearing that the 
 ancient church was replaced by a new one ; but it is 
 a matter of indifference that this in turn has been 
 much pulled about by a later generation. Visitors 
 who have learnt by mournful experience to wince as 
 sorely at the work of restorers as at the waste of 
 reformers, know what to expect in the announcement 
 of the Gazetteer that * recent improvements have 
 
 1 In like manner, a younger son of Sir Walter Riddell (c. 1660), ob- 
 taining property in Dumfriesshire, called it Glenriddell. and became 
 the progenitor of Robert Riddell, the friend, correspondent, and convive 
 of Robert Burns. 
 
 1 Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, i. 34.
 
 190 THE STORY OF 
 
 changed this church from a plain, barnlike edifice to 
 one of taste and elegance. ' 
 
 Within this parish, measuring about six miles by 
 five, there remained at the close of the eighteenth 
 century no fewer than fourteen castellated houses of 
 the Turnbulls, Scotts, Riddells, and Kers. Of the 
 last two families the names are united in the person 
 of the present owner of Cavers-Carre, who is descen- 
 ded in the female line from Ralph, second son of Sir 
 Andrew Ker of Fernihirst, and in the male line from 
 a second son of Sir Walter Riddell of that Ilk. 
 
 All this upper part of the Ale Water suffered 
 periodical devastation in common with the rest of the 
 Border land. In one of his reports to the English 
 Privy Council, Lord Dacre states that 'the watter of 
 Ale, fro Askrige [Ashkirk] to Elmartour [Alemuir 
 Tower] in the said Middilmarchis, wherupon was 
 fifty pleughes, lyes all and every of them waist now, 
 and noo corne sawne upon none of the said grounds. ' 
 
 The Ale pursues a generally eastern course 
 through miles of pleasant meadow land until about 
 a mile from its junction with Teviot, when it turns 
 sharply to the south and then nearly due west, 
 enclosing the promontory whereon is built the 
 ancient village of Ancrum, that is Alne-crumb, the 
 crook of Alne or Ale. The stream here has wrought 
 itself a deep and tortuous channel through the red 
 sandstone beds, leaving steep cliffs picturesquely clad 
 with wood wherever trees may find a footing. In these 
 cliffs are hewn many caves of unknown antiquity, 
 reminding one of the rock-dwellings still inhabited 
 in the Loire valley. One of the Ancrum caves is still 
 associated with the name of Thomson, the poet of The 
 Seasons, who made it his frequent summer resort.
 
 THE TWEED 191 
 
 The manor and barony of Alnecrum or Ancrum 
 formed part of the possessions of the Bishop of 
 Glasgow as early as 1 1 1 6, and the old house of An- 
 crum was an episcopal palace until the Reformation. 
 Then it passed to Ker of Fernihirst, who is stated 
 to have rebuilt it after its destruction by the English 
 in 1 544. That was by no means the first time it had 
 suffered at their hands, for in 1513, after the battle 
 of Flodden, they burnt down the village, as well as 
 the Templar's * spital' or hospital. In 1670 the 
 property was acquired by Sir John Scott of Kirk- 
 style, who traced lineal descent from the wizard, 
 Michael Scott of Balwearie. The old house of An- 
 crum was finally and totally destroyed by fire in 
 1873, though the English cannot be suspected of 
 the mischief this time. Having been rebuilt on the 
 former lines, the work had scarcely been finished 
 when, by a strange fatality, fire broke out again and 
 consumed it. It was erected a third time in the 
 form it bears at present. This long series of evil 
 vicissitude has effaced all vestiges of the architecture 
 which must once have adorned this ancient ecclesias- 
 tical site. As for the parish church, it is vain to 
 seek for beauty there : what can be expected from a 
 structure built in 1762 and subjected to alteration 
 in 1832 ? 
 
 The Ale never recovers its easterly course after 
 its abrupt wheel to the south at Ancrum, but joins 
 the Teviot at a right angle opposite Timpendean, 
 a ruined tower of the Douglas family. On the left 
 bank of Teviot, to the east of the Ale, lies the ample 
 and well-wooded park surrounding Monteyiot 
 House, the modern seat of the Marquis of Lothian, 
 who is descended from Mark Ker, the brother of
 
 i 9 2 THE STORY OF 
 
 Walter, ancestor of the Dukes of Roxburghe. 
 Mark was Abbot of Newbottle, but having accepted 
 the reformed religion, took unto himself a wife, 
 begat several children, and died in 1581. His eldest 
 son, Mark Kerr, was created Earl of Lothian. Note 
 the double rr, please ; for although Kers of the Rox- 
 burghe line are content with a single consonant, 
 those of the Lothian branch insist upon their right 
 to a pair. 
 
 Immediately below Monteviot park the Teviot 
 receives an important tributary in the shape of the 
 Jed Water, a stream which has witnessed more 
 bloodshed and violence than most others of its 
 dimensions. It rises on the flanks of the Carlin 
 Tooth (1810 feet) and Hartshorn Pike (1789 feet), 
 within a few hundred yards of the head waters of 
 the Liddel. Another branch flows from Dand's 
 Pike and farseen Carter Fell ; while a third tributary, 
 furthest to the east, is most famous of all, for its 
 channel forms the road to the Reidswire that red 
 * swire * or pass which witnessed one of the last acts 
 in the long tragedy of the Border. 
 
 But before describing the Raid of the Reidswire, 
 of which the crisis took place in the pass itself, let us 
 recall a drama enacted nearly two centuries earlier, 
 half the actors in which passed by this road to a 
 theatre that they were to make for ever famous. 
 There had been peace on the Border for two years 
 after the young Earl of Douglas had raided the rich 
 lands of Cockermouth in 1386. No counterstroke 
 had followed on the part of the English, for King 
 Richard's hands were full with domestic quarrels ; 
 while Percy and Nevill, the two great powers on the 
 East March, were nearly at civil war about the
 
 THE TWEED 193 
 
 Wardenship. Clearly it was a great opportunity for 
 an expedition ; but blear-eyed Robert III., King of 
 Scots, was a hopelessly pacific person, and could not 
 be got to perceive the enormous advantage of burn- 
 ing his neighbour's houses and crops, and slaying 
 the Tynedale peasants. So his barons, headed by 
 his pugnacious son the Earl of Fife, took matters 
 into their own hands, held a meeting in Aberdeen, 
 and arranged secretly all the preliminaries of a great 
 invasion. A strong force Froissart puts it at 50,000, 
 but we may safely strike off two-thirds from that 
 estimate was appointed to muster at Southdean on 
 Jed Water early in August. Warden Percy was 
 duly warned by spies of what was impending : one 
 young English gentleman acting that hazardous part 
 very near came to disaster. He tied his horse to a 
 tree, entered Southdean Church, where a council of 
 war was sitting, heard enough to serve his purpose, 
 and slipped out to get his horse. The horse was 
 there no longer, ' for a Scot they are all thieves, 
 these Scots had stolen him. ' 1 The spy set off on 
 foot for the Border, but his boots and spurs excited 
 suspicion. He was stopped at the outposts and 
 brought before Douglas, who found means to extract 
 the admission from him that Percy was well aware 
 of what was afoot, and intended to make a counter- 
 raid so soon as the Scots should enter English soil. 
 Hearing this, the Scottish leaders determined to go 
 one better. They had troops enough for two raids : 
 the Earl of Fife should lead the main body upon 
 Carlisle, while Douglas should take a flying column 
 and harry Northumberland. 
 
 Douglas and Moray, therefore names how shi- 
 
 1 Froissart, iii. 124. 
 
 13
 
 194 THE STORY OF 
 
 ning in the story of Scottish independence ! rode 
 forward through the Reidswire at the head of 300 
 or 400 spears and 2000 bowmen. 
 
 * It fell about the Lammas tide, 
 
 When the muir men win their hay, 
 
 The doughty Douglas boun' him ride 
 Into England to drive a prey. 
 
 He chose the Gordons and the Graemes, 
 With them the Lindsays light and gay ; 
 
 But the Jardines ' would not wi' him ride, 
 And they rue it to this day. 
 
 Then they harried the dales o' Tyne, 
 
 And half o' Bambroughshire, 
 And the Otterdale, they burnt it haill 
 
 And set it a' on fire. ' 
 
 They passed by Ottercop and Rothley Crags, 
 pushing forward as far as Brancepeth on the York- 
 shire border. Then they wheeled to the left and 
 marched for Newcastle, where Hotspur and his 
 brother Ralph were in force, while the old Earl of 
 Northumberland lay at Alnwick, hoping to take the 
 Scots in flank as they returned from their enterprise. 
 Douglas encamped on the rising ground outside the 
 walls of Newcastle ; Hotspur had but to lie within 
 his defences, for his enemy had no cannon or siege 
 engines. But such was not the chivalrous custom 
 of the time. Challenges to single combat were 
 offered and accepted on both sides. Douglas met 
 Hotspur h outrance ; the famous English knight 
 went down before the spear of the young earl, who 
 
 1 Probably a late interpolation made after the Jardines had risen in 
 the world. In the fourteenth century they were of little note, being 
 but respectable vassals of Annandale.
 
 THE TWEED 195 
 
 tore Percy's pennon from his lance, and, as he left 
 the lists, boasted that he would carry it to Scotland 
 and display it from his highest tower. 
 
 ' By God ! ' cried Hotspur, * you shall never leave 
 Northumberland alive with that. ' 
 
 ' Then you must come and take it this night, * 
 retorted Douglas. * It shall stand before my tent, 
 for him to take it who dares. ' 
 
 Thus Froissart, though the ballad gives a different 
 version of the fact. It represents Hotspur fixing a 
 tryst with Douglas. 
 
 * Now gae ye up to the Otterburn 
 
 And bide there dayis three, 
 And gin I come not ere they end, 
 
 A fause knight ca' thou me ! ' 
 
 Anyhow, the Scots moved off in a leisurely way, 
 burning Portland Tower, about five miles out of 
 Newcastle, on the first day, and on the third day 
 laying siege to Otterburn Tower in Redesdale, about 
 thirty miles from Newcastle. Douglas knew well 
 enough that if Hotspur's scouts brought him word 
 that the Earl of Fife's column was busy at a safe 
 distance, his chivalrous enemy would not fail to 
 redeem his pledge. 
 
 4 They lichted high on Otterburn 
 
 Upon the bent sae brown, 
 They lichted high on Otterburn 
 
 And pitched their pallions ' doun. 
 
 And he that had a bonnie boy, 
 
 He sent his horse to grass ; 
 And he that had nae bonnie boy, 
 
 His ain servaunt he was. 
 1 Pavilions, tents.
 
 196 THE STORY OF 
 
 Then up and spake a little boy 
 
 Was near of Douglas kin ' 
 " Methinks I see an English host 
 
 Come branking us upon. 
 
 " Nine wargangs * beiring braid and wide. 
 
 Seven banners beiring high ; 
 It would do any living gude 
 
 To see their colours fly ! " 
 
 " If this be true, my little boy, 
 
 That thou tells unto me, 
 The brawest bower o' the Otterburn 
 
 Shall be thy morning fee. 
 
 " But I hae dreamed a dreary dream 
 
 Ayont the Isle o' Skye ; 
 I saw a deid man win a fight, 
 
 And I wot that man was I. " 
 
 Douglas had pitched his camp in a wood, as a 
 protection from archery, preferring that situation to 
 the stronger, but treeless, one near at hand the 
 old Roman station of Bremenium. 
 
 The Scots were at supper when their pickets were 
 driven in by the English skirmishers. They stood 
 to arms at once, gaining some valuable minutes by 
 reason that Percy, in the dusk, mistook the baggage 
 bivouac, outside the entrenchment, for the real camp. 
 While he was so occupied a detachment of Scots 
 crept through the wood and fell upon his flank. 
 After a fierce tussle the Scots began to yield ground, 
 
 1 Perhaps one of his two natural sons, William or Charles, lords, in 
 later years, of Drumlanrig and Cavers. In the version of this ballad 
 given by Scott in the first edition of the Minstrelsy, the little boy slew 
 Douglas with his own hand treacherously, an obvious device to ensure 
 fulfilment of the dream about the dead man winning a field. 
 
 * Columns.
 
 THE TWEED 197 
 
 being heavily outnumbered ; then Douglas thrust 
 forward into the thick of the mellay. In his haste 
 his armour had not been braced rightly. 
 
 * He belted on his gude braid sword, 
 
 And to the field he ran ; 
 But he forgot his hewmont l strong 
 
 That should hae kept his brain. ' 
 
 The ballad represents Percy as the slayer of the 
 Douglas for poetic symmetry, no doubt, for Frois- 
 sart merely says that the earl fell with spear wounds 
 in shoulder, belly, and thigh, and that as he went 
 down an axe gashed his skull. He sent his page to 
 bring his nephew Sir Hugh Montgomerie, 2 and if 
 the verses that follow be not history, they are ballad 
 poetry at its finest. 
 
 ' " My nephew gude, " the Douglas said, 
 
 " What recks the death of ane ? 
 Last night I dreamed a dreary dream, 
 
 And I ken the day's thine ain. 
 
 " My wound is deep I fain would sleep 
 Take thou the vanguard o' the three, 
 
 And bury me by the bracken bush 
 That grows on yonder lily lea. 
 
 " O bury me by the bracken bush 
 
 Beneath the blooming brier j 
 And never let living mortal ken 
 
 That a kindly Scot lies here. " 
 
 > Helmet. 
 
 * ' And fetch my ae dear sister's son, 
 
 Sir Hugh Montgomerie. ' 
 
 Not very intelligible. Douglas had but one sister, Isabel, Countess of 
 Mar, who first married Sir Malcolm Drummond, and afterwards Alex- 
 ander Stuart.
 
 198 THE STORY OF 
 
 He lifted up that noble lord, 
 
 Wi* the saut tear in his e'e, 
 And he hid him by the bracken bush 
 
 That his merry men might not see. 
 
 The moon was clear the day drew near 
 
 The spears in flinders flew ; 
 And many a gallant Englishman 
 
 Ere day the Scotsmen slew. 
 
 The Gordons gay in English blude 
 They wat their hose and shune ; 
 
 The Lindsays flew like fire about 
 Till a' the fray was dune. 
 
 The Percy and Montgomerie met, 
 
 That either of other was fain ; 
 They swakkit swords and sair they swat, 
 
 And the blude ran down between. 
 
 " Now yield thee, yield thee, Percy," he cried, 
 
 Or else I'll lay thee low ! " 
 " To whom maun I yield ? " Earl Percy l said, 
 
 " Since I see that it maun be so." 
 
 " Thou shalt not yield to lord or loon, 
 Nor yet shalt thou yield to me ; 
 
 But yield thee to the bracken bush 
 That grows on yonder lily lea ! " f 
 
 This deed was done at Otterburn 
 
 About the breaking of the day ; 
 Earl Douglas was buried at the bracken bush, 
 
 And Percy led captive away. ' 
 
 1 A mistake ; he was not Earl Percy, his father having only been 
 created Earl of Northumberland in 1377. 
 
 1 A handsome concession, for it would have freed Percy from the 
 necessity of paying ransom ; but such a concession never was made. 
 Percy was held to ransom at 3000, to which the English Parliament 
 voted 1000.
 
 THE TWEED 199 
 
 If Douglas was indeed buried at the bracken 
 bush, his body was afterwards removed to Melrose 
 Abbey. Percy's brother Rafe, being sore wounded, 
 yielded to Sir John Maxwell. It was so dark he 
 could not distinguish who was his captor. I am 
 Rafe Percy, ' said he. { Sir Rafe, ' answered Max- 
 well, * rescue or no rescue ? I arn Maxwell. ' 
 ' Well, ' quoth Sir Rafe, * I am content ; but I pray 
 you take some heed to me, for I am sore hurt ; my 
 hosen and my greaves are full of blood. ' He was 
 allowed to go on parole to Newcastle, * to seike him 
 leiches that were fine and gude. ' 
 
 The English version of the story is given in the 
 ballad of Chevy Chace, in which apparently some 
 other episode has got jumbled up with the affair 
 of Otterburn, for the story does not tally so closely 
 with history as the Scottish verses. 
 
 Whether the dying Douglas made any such speech 
 as is reported may never be known. Poets (and 
 Froissart was poet as well as chronicler) never allow 
 that heroes should die mute like foxes. Wyntoun 
 says the earl's fate was not known in the Scottish 
 army till next morning. Likely enough, as the 
 Scots were in hot pursuit of the enemy, capturing 
 Sir Matthew Redman, Governor of Berwick, after a 
 long chase. But whether Douglas spoke those 
 words or not, they have received a tender claim 
 upon our regard from an incident mentioned in 
 Lockhart's Life of Scott. Broken in fortune, shattered 
 in health, the gallant old c Shirra ' was industrious 
 to the last. He travelled with Lockhart to visit 
 Douglas Castle, the model for Castle Dangerous in 
 his last romance. Silent he stood, viewing the green 
 vale and dark moorland under a lowering summer
 
 200 THE STORY OF 
 
 sky. Tears gathered under his aged lids, for 
 he felt that he must soon take his last look upon 
 the land he loved so well ; then, striking his 
 stick into the turf, he repeated slowly the words 
 of the dying Douglas at Otterburn ' My wound 
 is deep, ' etc. 
 
 The scenery round the upper part of Jed Water 
 is of the usual wild pastoral kind. The march 
 between England and Scotland runs along the crest 
 of the Cheviots. Every drop that falls north or 
 west of the water-divide finds its way to the Tweed : 
 rain that falls south or east of it runs into the Tyne. 
 A burn that flows in from Wolflee Hill on the west 
 goes by the name of Peden's Cleuch, and doubtless 
 was one of the many shelters frequented by the 
 dauntless and much hunted Alexander in the * killing 
 time. ' But it is about the eastern affluents of this 
 water that memories cling most closely, for of old, 
 as at the present day, one of the chief riding roads 
 into England lay at a height of 1450 feet over the 
 foot of Catcleuch Shin the pass known as the 
 Reidswire. It became famous through a bloody 
 encounter which arose out of what was meant to be 
 a friendly conference, and which forms the subject 
 of one of the best-known of Border ballads. The 
 Raid of the Reidswire took place during the regency 
 of the Earl of Morton. It was in June 1575 that 
 Sir John Forster, the English Warden, met Sir John 
 Carmichael, the Scottish Warden, at the Reidswire, 
 for the settlement of sundry Border claims of the 
 usual kind. 
 
 It did not conduce to the peaceful transaction of 
 judicial business that each Warden appeared at the 
 head of several hundred men.
 
 THE TWEED 201 
 
 * Carmichael was our warden then, 
 
 He caused the country to convene ; 
 And the Laird's Wat, that worthy man, 
 
 Brought in that sirname weel beseen. ' 
 The Armestranges, that aye hae been 
 
 A hardie house, but not a hale,* 
 The Elliot's honours to maintain 
 
 Brought down the lave 3 o' Liddesdale. 
 
 Then Tividale came to wi' speed, 
 
 The Sheriff brought the Douglas down, 4 
 Wi' Cranstoun, Gladstain, good at need, 
 
 Baith Rule Water and Hawick town. 
 Bonjeddart 5 bauldly made him boun, 
 
 Wi' a' the Trumbills, 6 strong and stout ; 
 The Rutherfoords, with grit renown, 
 
 Convoyed the town of Jedbrugh out. 
 
 Of other clans I cannot tell, 
 
 Because our warning was not wide. 
 By this our folks hae ta'en the fell 
 
 And planted pallions 7 there to bide. 
 We lookit down the other side, 
 
 And saw come breasting o'er the brae, 
 Wi' Sir John Forster for their guide, 
 
 Full fifteen hundred men and mae. 
 
 1 Weel beseen= well appointed. Sir Walter Scott was in doubt 
 about the identity of the leader of the Scotts on this occasion, but 
 inclined to suppose it was the young laird of Buccleuch, he who after- 
 wards delivered Kinmont Willie from durance in Carlisle. 
 
 2 Referring to the frequency with which the Armstrongs, being 
 outlaws, were found fighting under English colours. 
 
 3 The rest. 
 
 4 That is, Douglas of Cavers, Hereditary Sheriff of Teviotdale, 
 brought down his following. 
 
 5 Douglas of Bonjedward. 
 
 6 Turnbulls. 
 
 7 Pavilions, tents.
 
 202 THE STORY OF 
 
 It grieved him sair that day, I trow, 
 
 Wi' Sir George Hinrome o' Schipsydehouse ; * 
 Because we were not men enow 
 
 They counted us not worth a louse. 
 Sir George was gentle, meek and douce, 
 
 But he * was hail and het as fire ; 
 And yet, for all his cracking crouse, * 
 
 He rued the Raid o' the Reidswire. 
 
 To deal with proud men is but pain, 
 
 For either must ye fight or flee ; 
 Or else no answer make again, 
 
 But play the beast and let them be. 
 It was na wonder he was hie 
 
 Had Tynedale, Reedsdale at his hand, 
 Wi' Cukdaill, 4 Gladsdaill 4 on the lee, 
 
 And Hebsrime 6 and Northumberland. 
 
 Yet was our meeting meek enough, 
 
 Begun wi' merriment and mowes, 7 
 And at the brae aboon the heugh 
 
 The clerk sate down to call the rowes. 
 And some for kine and some for ewes, 
 
 Called in of Dandie, Hob and Jock ; 
 We saw come marching o'er the knowes 
 
 Five hundred Fenwicks in a flock, 
 Wi' jack and spear and bows all bent 
 
 And warlike weapons at their will ; 
 Altho' we were na weill content 
 
 Yet, by my troth, we fear'd na ill. ' 
 
 1 Sir George Heron of Chipchase. 
 
 1 Forstcr. 
 
 1 Loud boasting. 
 
 4 Coquetdale. 
 
 * Perhaps Glaisdale, a parish in the north riding of Yorkshire. 
 
 Hebburn or Hebron, a village near Morpeth. 
 7 Acting, mummery.
 
 THETWEED 203 
 
 With so much combustible lying about, it is not 
 surprising that the gathering soon parted with its 
 judicial character. A true bill having been found 
 by the joint court against an English freebooter 
 called Farnstein, or, as some accounts have it, Henry 
 Robson, Carmichael, in accordance with Border law, 
 claimed delivery of him pending satisfaction being 
 done to the injured party. Forster declared that 
 Farnstein had absconded : Carmichael, believing this 
 to be an evasion of justice, bade the English Warden 
 * play fair.' Forster made an insulting retort, and 
 the two knights were in a fair way to coming to 
 blows, when the Tynedale men let fly some arrows 
 among the Scots. Then the mellay became general; 
 the Scots were having the worst of it, Carmichael 
 himself being felled and made prisoner, when sudden- 
 ly the rocks resounded with the well-known battle- 
 cry * Jethart's here ! ' announcing the timely arrival 
 of a force from Jedburgh. * To it, Tynedale ! * 
 shouted the English in reply, but Jedburgh's onset 
 turned the day. Sir George Heron was slain, with 
 four-and-twenty Tynedale bowmen, and the Warden 
 himself with several English gentlemen were taken 
 prisoners. It was a complete triumph for the Scots. 
 
 * But little harness had we there, 
 But auld Badreule had on a jack ; l 
 And did right weel, I you declare, 
 Wi' a' his Trumbills at his back. 
 Gude Ederstane * was not to lack, 
 
 1 Sir Andrew Turnbull of Bedrule, a notorious freebooter, had on an 
 iron jack or cuirass. 
 
 * Rutherfurd of Edgerstone, a very ancient family, represented by 
 the present owner of this property.
 
 204 THE STORY OF 
 
 Nor Kirktoon, ' Newtoun, * noble men ! 
 Thir's a' the specials I of speake 
 By J others, that I could na ken. ' 
 
 The bard, it will be noticed, throws all the blame 
 for this untoward fray upon the English, and 
 specially on Sir John Forster's overbearing temper. 
 No doubt the other side could have given a different 
 version ; but the Scots seem to have made out a 
 good case, judging by what followed. Carmichael 
 took his prisoners to Edinburgh, much to the dis- 
 quiet of Regent Morton, inasmuch as Scotland and 
 England happened to be enjoying one of those rare 
 intervals of peace which broke the wasteful routine 
 of war. Queen Elizabeth would not be slow to 
 exact vengeance for such an outrage upon her 
 Warden ; wherefore Morton ordered the immediate 
 release of the prisoners without ransom, and sent 
 Carmichael to explain matters at the English Court. 
 Apparently he made good his case, showing that his 
 party had only acted in self-defence, for he was not 
 detained by the irascible Queen. 
 
 Sir John Carmichael was not a Borderer, and his 
 appointment as Warden by the Regent had been 
 bitterly resented by Angus, the Kers, Scotts, and 
 Maxwells, but he proved himself such a vigorous 
 and useful official that, although his patron Morton 
 was executed in 1581, Carmichael was continued as 
 Warden till 1591, when he resigned in favour of 
 Lord Maxwell. Better it had been for Carmichael 
 
 1 Doubtful whether it was Douglas of Kirkton or Kirkton of 
 Stewartfield. The former, I think. 
 
 : Grameslaw of Little Newton, fighting this day side by side with 
 the Turnbulls. It was twenty-nine years later that the family of 
 Grameslaw were massacred by the Turnbulls (see p. 181, ante). 
 
 1 Besides.
 
 THETWEED 205 
 
 had he never resumed the office, for he had made 
 himself many enemies among the broken clans. 
 Lord Maxwell was slain by the Johnstones in the 
 battle of Dryfe Sands, 6th December 1593. His 
 kinsman, Lord Herries, having been appointed to 
 succeed him in the wardenship, was also beaten in 
 an encounter with the Johnstones in October I595> 
 when the King and Council adopted the remarkable 
 policy of dismissing Herries and making the 
 victorious laird of Johnstone Warden in his place. 
 It was not a successful experiment, for in 1599 both 
 Herries and Johnstone were imprisoned, and the 
 West and Middle Marches were in hopeless dis- 
 order, every laird's hand against his neighbour. 
 The veteran Sir John Carmichael, having no kin 
 among the Border clan, was recognised as the only 
 man to restore order. Re-appointed Warden in 
 1 60 1, he was riding to hold a court at Lochmaben, 
 when the Armstrongs waylaid him and did this 
 fearless old gentleman to death. Orders were issued 
 for the arrest of * Thomas Armstrang, sone to 
 Sandeis Ringane, 1 the said Ringane, Thomas's fader, 
 Lancie, Hew, Archie, and Watt Armstrangies, Sym 
 of the Syde, Lancie of the Syde, Rob Sandie, Rob 
 Scott, Thome Tailzeour, William Forrester, Williame 
 Grahame of the Braid, and divers vtheris'; but the 
 only one who had the bad luck to be caught at the 
 time was the first-named, Thomas, who was senten- 
 ced, first, to have his right hand struck off; second, 
 to be hanged ; and third, that his body be taken to 
 the gallows on the Burgh Moor * to be hangit vp in 
 
 1 The old form of naming men from their parentage survived long 
 in Liddesdale and the Debatable Land. 'Sandeis Ringane' means 
 Ninian, the son of Alexander.
 
 206 THE STORY OF 
 
 irne cheinis ' the first example in Scottish criminal 
 procedure of hanging a convict in chains. Thomas, 
 sad to say, was a brother of far-famed Kinmont 
 Willie. 
 
 Only one other seems to have been brought to 
 justice for the murder of the Warden, namely, 
 Sandie Armstrong of Rowanburn, who five years 
 later, in 1606, was hanged, as no doubt he richly 
 deserved ; nevertheless, ruffian as he was, one cannot 
 refuse a place to the pathetic lines said to have been 
 composed by him when awaiting his doom. 
 
 ARMSTRONG'S GOOD-NIGHT 
 
 This night is my departing night, 
 
 For here nae langer maun I stay ; 
 There's neither friend nor foe o' mine 
 But wishes me away. 
 
 What I hae done through lack o' wit 
 
 I never, never can recal ; 
 I hope ye're a' my friends as yet, 
 
 Good-night, and joy be wi' ye all ! ' 
 
 After Jed Water has descended a thousand feet 
 from its lofty cradle in the Cheviots its banks acquire 
 a sylvan glory with which the embarrassed trout- 
 fisher might willingly dispense, but which imparts 
 exceeding loveliness to the landscape. 
 
 Edgerstone Castle, the ancient stronghold of the 
 Rutherfurds, has disappeared, although the lands 
 remain in possession of that family. Among the 
 'exployts don upon the Scotts' by Hertford in 1544, 
 the capture of Edgerstone is reported as having been 
 accomplished * by pollicie ' with Scots in English 
 pay.
 
 THETWEED 207 
 
 A couple of miles below Edgerstone, on the west 
 bank of the water, is the reputed site of old Jeddart 
 or Jedworth, one of two churches which Bishop 
 Ecgfred of Lindisfarne founded in the ninth century. 
 About the year 1093 Bishop Walcher was slain by a 
 band led by Eadulf Rus, who was himself killed by 
 a woman shortly after, and buried in this place. 
 
 Again, two miles further down the stream, on the 
 east bank, stands the castle of Fernihirst, a place of 
 much renown in Border warfare, although the present 
 beautiful house dates no further back than 1598. 
 
 The former castle, on the same site, was built by 
 Sir Thomas Ker a hundred years earlier, and, stand- 
 ing as it did beside the usual route of English 
 invasion, had but a brief and troubled existence. 
 When the Earl of Surrey laid waste Teviotdale in 
 1523, he found that Fernihirst * stode marvelous 
 strongly within a grete woode ; ' yet he managed to 
 take it by storm after * long skirmyshing and moche 
 difficultie, ' and thoroughly dismantled it. The 
 redoubtable Dand Ker, laird of Graden, a famous 
 rider in these wars, was taken prisoner on this occas- 
 ion, but managed to make good his escape shortly 
 after. Sir Andrew Ker of Fernihist died in 1545, 
 and was succeeded by his son John, who, with most 
 of his clan and many other gentlemen of the Border, 
 made unwilling submission to Protector Somerset, 
 seeing no other chance of existence in the distracted 
 condition of the realm. But in June 1549 the 
 arrival of 6000 French, German, and Italian auxi- 
 liaries under Andre de Montalembert, Sieur d'Esse, 
 put another colour on the situation. The * assured ' 
 Scottish nobles and gentlemen scrupled not to throw 
 over their allegiance to England ; the tide of victory
 
 208 THESTORYOF 
 
 turned, and the Scots, aided by their foreign friends, 
 began to indemnify themselves with excessive ferocity 
 for the massacre of Pinkie and the wrongs inflicted 
 during the English occupation. The two nations 
 had been at war, almost without intermission, for 
 more than two centuries ; nor had they spared each 
 other ; but no period can compare with this for 
 barbarous cruelty. 
 
 It may be urged in palliation of the share of the 
 Scots in these horrors that the ogre King of England, 
 Henry VIII., had issued orders through his Privy 
 Council to the Earl of Hertford in 1544 that he 
 should give no quarter, * putting man, woman, and 
 child to fire and sword, without exception, when any 
 resistance shall be made against you ' orders which 
 were only too faithfully fulfilled. Yet it is to be 
 hoped that the high-water mark in brutality was 
 marked by the proceedings which took place when 
 the laird of Fernihirst came to his own again. 
 Shrewsbury, when he marched back to England in 
 1 548, left a garrison in Fernihirst, and these English 
 soldiers officers and men had made themselves 
 peculiarly odious by committing frequent outrages, 
 especially upon women. Sir John Ker having col- 
 lected his men, made a combined assault with a 
 French column upon his own castle, and stormed 
 the outworks. The garrison retreated into the 
 keep, but the besiegers breached the thick wall by 
 a mine. The English commander crept out of the 
 hole, and surrendered to a French officer, De la 
 Mothe-rouge, claiming protection as his prisoner ; 
 but one of the Scots, recognising in the Englishman 
 theravisher of his wife, rushed upon him and struck 
 off his head at one blow before the French gentleman
 
 THETWEED 209 
 
 could interfere. The rest of the prisoners were put 
 to horrible torments before they were slain. I 
 myself, ' says M. Beaug6, a French officer serving 
 with the allies, f sold them a prisoner for a small 
 horse. They laid him on the ground, galloped over 
 him with their lances in rest, wounding him as they 
 passed. When slain, they cut his body in pieces, 
 and bore the mangled gobbets in triumph on the 
 points of their spears. I cannot greatly praise the 
 Scots for this practice ; but the truth is, the English 
 tyrannised over the Borders in a most barbarous 
 manner, and I think it was but fair to repay them, 
 as the saying goes, in their own coin. ' 
 
 Thus Sir John Ker recovered his paternal tower, 
 though he did not keep it very long. In 1570 the 
 Earl of Sussex took advantage of the miserable state 
 of Scotland after the assassination of the Regent 
 Moray, and once more Teviotdale and the Merse 
 were laid waste. The English claimed to have 
 destroyed in this expedition three hundred farm- 
 towns and cast down fifty castles, Fernihirst being 
 one. Ker was a foremost partisan of Queen Mary, 
 and was one of those who rode with Buccleuch, 
 Huntly, and Lord Claud Hamilton in that spirited 
 raid upon Stirling, 3rd September 1571, when the 
 Earls of Morton and Argyll, with seven other lords, 
 were captured for a time, and the Regent Lennox 
 died by Captain Calder's bullet. The cause of 
 Queen Mary was on the brink of triumph, but the 
 Border men turned to looting, Mar rescued the 
 prisoners with a party of soldiers, and so the affair 
 miscarried. 
 
 The walls of Fernihirst remained roofless till Sir 
 John Ker and his son Sir Thomas had both passed 
 
 14
 
 210 THE STORY OF THE TWEED 
 
 away, to whom Andrew Ker succeeded in I586. 1 
 He took in hand to build the present house, * a 
 charming example, ' says that excellent authority the 
 late Mr. David M'Gibbon, 'of a Scottish mansion of 
 the period. ' 8 It is sad to see it so dilapidated. 
 Part of it is still inhabited by work-people, who, it 
 may be feared, have found the panelling of the 
 unoccupied rooms very convenient for firewood. In 
 the circular library is a fine wooden ceiling in a 
 deplorable state of decay. * Although but a small 
 apartment, it has been fitted up with the most fas- 
 tidious taste and care. ' : The chapel, with its ornate 
 doorway, now serves the purpose of a stable. Thus 
 has the glory departed from Fernihirst, once reckoned 
 among the principal fortresses of the Middle Mar- 
 ches ; and although the chief of this branch still 
 challenges the claim of the Duke of Roxburghe, as 
 Ker of Cessford, to the chieftainship, and as Mar- 
 quess of Lothian quarters the sun in splendour in 
 an azure field with the paternal chevron of Ker, 
 Monteviot and Newbottle have supplanted in his 
 esteem the ancient house of his fathers. 
 
 1 He was created Lord Jedburgh in 1622. 
 
 * Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland. 5 vols. 
 
 Ibid.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 JEDBURGH 
 
 FAMOUS in Scottish history is a place bearing the 
 musical name of Lintalee, nearly opposite 
 Fernihirst on Jed Water, for here Sir James 
 Douglas formed a camp of observation after the 
 rule of King Robert had been firmly established by 
 the great victory at Bannockburn. 
 
 In the autumn of 1316 matters were pretty 
 peaceable on the Border, for Edward II. was as 
 usual engaged in fierce disputes with his barons. 
 The King of Scots had sailed for Ireland to help his 
 brother Edward in the conquest of that realm, 
 leaving his own kingdom in the joint-guardianship 
 of Douglas and Walter the Steward. Douglas was 
 employing the slack time in building for himself a 
 castle at Lintalee overlooking the camp. King 
 Edward of England had summoned his forces to 
 assemble at Newcastle on a day in October for the 
 invasion of Scotland, but failed to put in an appear- 
 ance himself, so the army was disbanded. The 
 Earl of Arundel, however, hearing by his spies that 
 a raid upon the Scottish border might be made 
 profitably at this time, marched a column through 
 the Cheviots down the Jed Water. Barbour prob- 
 ably over-estimates his force at ten thousand men, 
 but is most likely correct in stating that the English
 
 212 THE STORY OF 
 
 were armed with felling-axes for the destruction of 
 Jedworth Forest, because it gave such convenient 
 harbour to raiding Scots. Douglas, having received 
 timely warning of Arundel's approach, laid an am- 
 buscade of bowmen in one of the narrow wooded 
 gorges of the Jed through which one of the English 
 columns had to pass. The day of barbed-wire 
 entanglement was not yet, but Douglas, a practised 
 soldier, made use of the material at hand to effect 
 the purpose of hindrance to troops under a hot fire. 
 He caused his men to bend down a lot of young 
 birches, and weave their tops together across the 
 paths. The English advanced guard entered the 
 defile without hesitation ; when they came to the 
 obstruction, the cliffs rang to the cry, * A Douglas ! 
 a Douglas ! ' the bowmen poured in a sleet of 
 arrows, and Douglas led a charge upon the rear of 
 the column. The English had neither time nor 
 room to form for defence ; they were shot and hewn 
 down by scores, Sir Thomas de Richmond, a knight 
 of Yorkshire, falling by Douglas's own hand. 
 
 Meanwhile another column of the English, moving 
 by a different route, had occupied the new house of 
 Lintalee without opposition, and were making free 
 with such victuals and drink as they could find 
 therein. Douglas, having routed the main body, 
 returned sharply to his camp, surprised the party in 
 the house, and put most of them to the sword. 
 
 They may be lightly told now, these stirring 
 exploits of the days of chivalry ; but who shall reckon 
 the misery of countless households, whose bread- 
 winners were liable at any moment to be summoned 
 at the will of their lords to run the chances of hand- 
 to-hand battle ?
 
 THE TWEED 213 
 
 A short distance to the north of Lintalee stood 
 the tower of Hundalee, belonging to the Ruther- 
 furds, but it was demolished in the eighteenth 
 century, and the site is occupied by a modern 
 country house. 
 
 We have now come to war-worn Jedburgh, trav- 
 elling by the same route as was followed of yore 
 by countless English expeditions, treading the ground 
 that has been soaked times without number with the 
 blood of both nations, and moving among fields and 
 houses the very names of which are associated with 
 memories of rapine and violence. Jed Water mur- 
 murs as sweetly as ever among her leafy bowers ; 
 sombre Carter Fell and Catcleuch Shin to the south, 
 Windygate and the Cheviot to the east, still mark 
 the frontier which it was the chief duty of the burg- 
 esses of Jedburgh to guard ; but Surrey and Hertford, 
 could they stand again on Dunion Hill and overlook 
 the town which, in 1523 and 1544, they successively 
 committed to the flames, would scarcely recognise 
 the scene of their destructive industry. The castle 
 had already disappeared in their day, for when, in 
 the year 1409, the men of Teviotdale rose and 
 wrested it from the English, who had been in poss- 
 ession since Edward Baliol ceded it in 1356, the 
 castle was demolished, lest the fortune of war should 
 place it again in the hands of the enemy. It was a 
 building of such exceeding strength that the national 
 council held at Perth decreed that every householder 
 in Jedburgh should pay a tax of twopence towards 
 the expenses of its destruction ; but the Regent 
 Albany put his veto on the decree, declaring that no 
 tax had been or should be imposed during his 
 regency, and the cost was defrayed out of the royal
 
 214 THE STORY OF 
 
 customs. There remained, however, six bastile 
 towers, which did not protect the town from being 
 burnt by Sir Robert Umfraville in 1410, the year 
 after the castle had been destroyed. Six years later 
 the same knight returned and gave the town to the 
 flames, and in 1464 the Earl of Warwick once more 
 laid it in ashes. 
 
 Then came the Earl of Surrey in 1523, and we 
 have his own account of how he served Jedburgh: 
 
 * Whiche towne is soo surely brent that no garnysons 
 [garrisons] ner none other shal bee lodged thre unto the 
 time it bee newe buylded. The towne was much better 
 than I went [weened] it had been, for there was twoo 
 tymes moo [more] houses therein than in Berwicke, and 
 well buylded, with many honest and fair houses therein 
 sufficiente to have lodged a thousand horsemen in garnyson, 
 and six good towres therein, which towne and towres be 
 clenely destroyed, brent and throwen down. ' 
 
 Proximity to the Border, as was explained in a 
 former chapter, was fatal to the town of Roxburgh. 
 After the destruction of its castle it vanished from 
 the face of the earth. Not so Jedburgh. * Jethart's 
 here ! ' cried its stout burghers after each successive 
 desolation, and set to work to rebuild their streets 
 with a patience as pathetic as that of villagers on a 
 volcano. When Hertford thundered at its gates in 
 1 544 the six bastile towers were no more, but there 
 stood plenty of new houses ready for the torch. 
 And ir any man wish to know how Jedburgh was 
 served by this indefatigable commander, let him 
 read the narrative of one who marched with Hertford 
 and described what he saw in The Late Expedition 
 into Scotlande. His account of the burning of Dun-
 
 THE TWEED 215 
 
 bar, which preceded that of Jedburgh, may serve as 
 a fair example. The work was not reckoned satis- 
 factory unless the inhabitants were burnt as well as 
 their houses : 
 
 'That nyght [i6th May 1544] they looked for us to 
 have burnt the towne of Dunbar, which we differred tyll 
 the morning at the dislodgynge of our campe, which we 
 executed by five hundred of our hackbutters [musketeers] 
 beyng backed with five hundred horsemen. And by reason 
 we took them in the mornynge, who, having wautched all 
 night for our comynge, and perceyvynge our army to 
 dislodge and depart, thoughte themselves safe of us, were 
 newly gone to theyr beddes ; and in theyr fyrste slepes 
 closed in with fyer, men, women, and children were 
 suffocated and burnt. ... In these victories, who is to be 
 moste highest lauded but God ? ' 
 
 They did not scamp their work, these English 
 lords, yet one grand feature in the landscape resisted 
 all their attempts to destroy it. Upon a command- 
 ing height over the river the hoary tower of St. 
 Mary's Abbey of Jedburgh still stands * four-square 
 to all the winds, ' and though the noble nave be 
 roofless and the choir ruined, the church remains 
 more entire than any other on the Border. It is a 
 splendid example of Norman and transitional build- 
 ing. The west end stands entire, with a circular 
 window in the gable and a fine doorway in the 
 richest style of late Norman ornament ; while the 
 nave and clerestory of the choir are pointed work. 
 The south side of the choir shows the only remain- 
 ing example in Scotland of a treatment occurring 
 occasionally in England. The main piers huge, 
 simple cylinders have been carried up to the full 
 height of the arches over the triforium supporting
 
 216 THE STORY OF 
 
 the clerestory, the effect being exceedingly majestic. 
 The arches of the nave are in the first pointed style 
 with bold mouldings : it is doubtful whether this 
 part of the church was ever built in the Norman 
 style, the square plinths upon which the clustered 
 piers are based are characteristic of transitional work. 
 So much of the choir as remains is late Norman 
 work, but the east end, which has been destroyed, 
 was probably transitional, like the nave. The 
 Norman north transept is well preserved, with a 
 fifteenth-century chapel thrown out beyond it, now 
 used as a mortuary chapel for the Lothian Kerrs. 
 
 The year 1 1 1 8 is given by Barbour as the date of 
 the foundation of a monastery at Jedburgh by Earl 
 David, afterwards King of Scots. At first a priory, 
 Jedburgh was erected into an abbey before the death 
 of its founder, and richly endowed by the 'sair sanct 
 for the Crown. ' Like the other religious houses on 
 the border, the Augustinian canons of Jedburgh 
 swore fealty to Edward I. in 1296, a precaution 
 which failed to protect them from loss in the war 
 that broke out the following year, for their fine 
 church and monastic buildings were plundered and 
 burnt, and the lead stripped off the roofs, while the 
 canons themselves were fain to accept shelter from 
 Edward himself until their property should be 
 repaired. Curiously enough, although the abbey 
 was restored to wealth and prosperity in the reign of 
 Robert I., hardly anything is known of its subse- 
 quent history until 1523, when the Earl of Surrey 
 stormed the church and took it, after fifteen hundred 
 burgesses had maintained a stubborn defence from 
 sunrise till nightfall. In 1544 Lord Evers pillaged 
 and burnt it, and in the following year Lord Hert-
 
 THE TWEED 217 
 
 ford completed its destruction, so far as lay in his 
 power. The stains of fire still remain broad and 
 dark on the fine ashlar work which defied the flames. 
 The noble tower remained erect above the devasta- 
 tion, and although the priests and monks were set 
 adrift to return no more, and litanies and singing 
 were hushed for ever, the spirit of the Jeddart men 
 could not be crushed, and they laboured hard to 
 repair it, so valuable was it as a lookout. So in 
 1575 they used the beams of the refectory roof for 
 strengthening the tower, of which the crown arch 
 fell in 1743. After the Reformation * the western 
 half of the nave, fitted up in the modern style,' 1 (too 
 well we may understand what is conveyed in that 
 phrase !), was made to serve as the Presbyterian 
 parish church, the south aisle, with its groined 
 arches, being removed in 1793, and * a wall built 
 between the pillars to make the church more com- 
 fortable. ' 2 The violence of Surrey and Hertford 
 pale almost to insignificance beside such cold-blooded 
 defacement. Since 1875, however, the faithful of 
 Jedburgh have paid their vows in a brand new kirk, 
 erected by Schomberg Henry, ninth Marquess of 
 Lothian, at a cost of ^i 1,000 ; the abbey church has 
 been restored to its dignified desolation, and is well 
 cared for by Kerr of Fernihirst, better known now 
 as tenth Marquess. Built into a staircase of the 
 abbey church is a stone which bears an inscription 
 commemorating the presence in Teviotdale of a body 
 of Roman troops. It is part of a Roman altar, and 
 the inscription runs as follows : 
 
 1 Origines Parochiales, i. 371. 
 
 J MacGibbon and Ross's Ecclesiastical Architecture, i. 416.
 
 218 THE STORY OF 
 
 I O M VEXI 
 LLATIO RETO 
 RUM GAESA 
 Q . C . A.IVL 
 SEVER TRIE 
 
 which may be extended thus, says Dr. Collingwood 
 Bruce : 
 
 Jovi optima maxima : vexillatio Rcetorum Gcesatorum quorum 
 curam agit Julius Sevtrinus tribunus, 
 
 and translated : 
 
 'To Jupiter the best and greatest : the vexillation 
 [detachment] of Rhzetian spearmen whom the tribune 
 Julius Severinus commands. ' 
 
 Rhaetia, it may be noted, the home of these foreign 
 soldiers, is now the canton of Grisons, in the east of 
 Switzerland. These Rhaetian troops, who were arm- 
 ed with a peculiar g<esum or javelin, have left their 
 memorials also at Risingham in Northumberland ; 
 and from an inscription on a Roman altar at that 
 place we get the tribune's full name Julius Sever- 
 inus, otherwise it would have been natural to inter- 
 pret the abbreviated IVL SEVER as Julius Severus. 
 
 Mediaeval orthography has run even more than 
 usual riot in spelling the name Jedburgh or Jedworth, 
 as this ancient town was alternatively called. In 
 compiling the Origines Parochiales (O for some com- 
 petent hand to carry that invaluable work to fitting 
 completion !) Mr. Cosmo Innes recorded no fewer 
 than eighty-one different forms taken from early 
 manuscripts Geddeworde, Jeddeworth, Geddkirch,
 
 THE TWEED 219 
 
 Jeddewod, Jethart, Jeddart, and so forth. The 
 burgh has been reckoned a royal one from times 
 anterior to any written record, claiming, with less 
 reason than the departed Roxburgh, to be one of 
 the four towns constituting the original burghal 
 Parliament of Scotland. It was certainly a favourite 
 resort of the early kings, and continued long to be 
 a place of muster for the army and a seat of royal 
 justice. King Malcolm the Maiden died there in 
 1 165 ; in 1285 it was the scene of Alexander III.'s 
 wedding with Yolande, daughter of the Comte de 
 Dreux, whose loveliness fired the sober Fordun into 
 unwonted superlatives. Speciosissima domina he calls 
 her, and says that Jedburgh was fixed as the place 
 of her nuptials because of its great natural beauty. 
 
 Queen Victoria visited the town in 1869, but 
 Mary Queen of Scots was the last monarch to hold 
 a court there, which she did in the autumn of 1566, 
 in order to quell the chronic disorder among the 
 broken clans of the Marches. There was much 
 need in that district for a royal 'justice air, ' but 
 that did not shield the Queen from being discredited 
 with a different motive by her watchful and relentless 
 enemies. Readers must form their own opinion 
 upon the facts ; as in the sixteenth, so in the twen- 
 tieth century, there is little chance of agreement 
 among them. 
 
 James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, was Warden 
 of the Middle and West Marches, having been so 
 appointed in 1 558 ; in which capacity it was his duty to 
 attend the queen's court at Jedburgh. But it was also 
 his duty to bring in certain freebooters to make their 
 peace with the Queen or to be judicially dealt with 
 at her 'justice air. ' While vigorously discharging
 
 220 THE STORY OF 
 
 this task, Bothwell, on the very day that the Queen 
 rode out from Edinburgh on her progress to Jed- 
 burgh, came upon one of the worst of the Border 
 thieves, John Elliot of the Park, commonly known 
 as Little Jock Elliot, l and arrested him. Jock, as 
 he rode beside the Warden, asked whether his life 
 would be spared. * The said Erie Bothwill said, 
 gif ane assyiss [assize] wald mak him clene, he was 
 hertlie contentit, bot he behuvit to [must] pas to 
 the Quenis grace.' 5 Jock, with many crimes on his 
 conscience, slipped from his horse and made a bolt 
 of it ; whereupon Bothwell put a pistol-shot into 
 him, lighted to catch him, but stumbled and fell. 
 * The saide Johne, persaveand [perceiving] himself 
 schot and the erle fallin, he geid [went] to him 
 quhair [where] he lay and gaif him thrie woundis 
 ane in the bodie, ane in the heid, and ane in the 
 hand ; and my lord gaif him twa straikis with ane 
 quhingar [short sword] at the paip [breast] and the 
 said theif depairtit ; and my lord lay in a swoun 
 quhill [until] his servantis come and caryit him to 
 the Hermitage. ' Jock was picked up dead of his 
 
 1 He is immortalised in Sir Robert Maitland of Lethington's well- 
 known metrical picture of the Borders at this period : 
 
 ' Thai spulzie puir men of their packs, 
 Thai leave them nocht on bed or backs ; 
 
 Both hen and cock, 
 
 With reel and rock [distaff], 
 
 The Laird's Jock 
 
 All with him takes. 
 
 Thai leave not spindle, spoon nor spit, 
 Bed, bolster, blanket, shirt nor sheet ; 
 
 John o* the Park 
 
 Rypis [bursts open] chest and ark ; 
 
 For all such wark 
 
 He is right meet. ' 
 * Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 100.
 
 THE TWEED 221 
 
 wounds within a mile of the scene of the encounter, 1 
 while Bothwell lay in his castle very weak for many 
 days, and it was commonly reported that he was 
 dead. On the face of it, there was nothing but an 
 act of gracious sympathy in the Queen riding over 
 to inquire for her wounded Warden on the first day 
 when she was clear of official duties ; but see how 
 Buchanan, Mary's inveterate slanderer, garbles dates 
 to suit his purpose. He represents her as ' flinging 
 away in haste like a mad woman by great journeys 
 in post in the sharp time of winter,' to visit her 
 lover. Her lover ! alas, that is no term for Bothwell, 
 who loved only himself and his own ambition ; but 
 Mary's wayward heart had gone out to this strong 
 man, and she was never circumspect. f She must, ' 
 continues Buchanan, * betray her outrageous lust, 
 and, in an inconvenient time of year, despising all 
 discommodities of the way and weather, and all 
 danger of thieves, she betook herself headlong to 
 the journey with such a company as no man of any 
 honest degree would have adventured his life and 
 goods among them.' Then he describes how she 
 returned to Jedburgh, made all things ready for 
 Bothwell, and received him there, when ' their 
 company and familiar haunt together was such as 
 was smally agreeing with both their honours.' 
 There was food for scandal was not this Maria 
 Verticordia ? but mark how Buchanan, in his 
 eagerness to drive it home, has given away his case 
 and cast a slur upon the head of his own party. 
 Queen Mary arrived at Jedburgh on 9th October, 
 not in * the sharp time of winter,' and opened her 
 circuit court, which sat for six days and was closed 
 
 1 Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 100.
 
 222 THE STORY OF 
 
 on the I4th. On the loth and I ith she presided 
 at meetings of the Privy Council ; on the 1 5th she 
 received the French Ambassador le Croc ; on the 
 1 6th, her first leisure day, she rode over to Her- 
 mitage to inquire for her sick Warden, and returned 
 to Jedburgh the same night. It was wicked weather, 
 it is true, slashing rain and furious wind, but Mary 
 was a huntress, rode a slapping pace, and cared not 
 for storm or shine. As for the disreputable com- 
 pany in which Buchanan alleges she rode, his own 
 idol, the Earl of Moray, afterwards his * Good 
 Regent,' was one, the Earl of Huntly was another, 
 brother of the Countess of Bothwell, and Secretary 
 Lethington a third ! 
 
 The whole party was drenched long before it 
 arrived at Hermitage, but the Queen would not 
 change her clothes. In the few hours she spent in 
 the castle (which, after all, was a royal one, and not 
 a private house of Bothwell's) she signed the appoint- 
 ment of one George Sinclair to a certain office in 
 Edinburgh, l and made arrangements for victualling 
 the garrison. Then she set out in the storm on her 
 return journey. At the head of the Braidlee Burn, 
 on the divide between Liddesdale and Teviotdale, 
 is a place still called the Queen's Mire, where her 
 white palfrey got bogged, and her people nearly 
 lost her in the darkness. But she finished the 
 journey, went to bed, and was seized with violent 
 fever and pains, the consequence of fatigue and 
 exposure, for she had ridden between fifty and sixty 
 miles. She lay at the point of death till 25th, 
 prayer being made for her in all the churches, all 
 men hourly expecting her end. On that day they 
 
 1 Privy Seal Register, dated ' at Armitage, i6th. October 1566. '
 
 THETWEED 223 
 
 thought she was actually dead-'eene closit, mouth 
 fast, and feit and arms stiff and cauld.' As to 
 Buchanan's poisonous innuendo about her inter- 
 course with Bothwell at this time, * smally agreeing 
 with both their honours,' judge whether either of 
 these persons were in a state to carry on dalliance. 
 It is true that Bothwell came to Jedburgh during 
 the Queen's illness. Bishop Leslie writing on 2yth 
 October mentions that * my Lord Boythwell is heir, 
 quha convalescis weill of his woundis,' l but this was 
 scant occasion for tender passages. Poor Lady ! 
 she has enough to answer for without being called 
 to account for the prurient exaggerations of a 
 malignant pedant. ' Would that I had died at 
 Jedburgh ! ' she is reported to have sighed in later 
 years, and none may say that it had not been better 
 for her fame and happiness that fate had so decreed. 
 She had another and more plangent weird to dree. 
 
 Mary was so far recovered as to be able to leave 
 Jedburgh on 8th November, after paying Lady 
 Fernihirst 40 in the way of rent for the house she 
 had occupied during these thirty days. There it 
 stands, that grim old building, still inhabited ; its 
 dark thatched roof and sombre walls striking a strange 
 far-off note among the snug shops and spruce villas 
 on the banks of Jed Water. It is three stories high, 
 with the arms of Kerr and Home over the arched 
 doorway, which is now built up. At the end of the 
 eighteenth century it was owned and occupied by 
 Dr. Lindsay, father of Burn's c sweet Isabella Lind- 
 say. ' In 1 88 1 it belonged to Colonel Armstrong 
 of St. Petersburg. 
 
 The people of Jedburgh turned against their 
 
 1 Keith's Church History, ii. 134.
 
 224 THESTORYOF 
 
 Queen in the hour of her trouble, and in 1571 stood 
 an assault by the lairds of Buccleuch and Ferni hirst, 
 who were beaten off eventually on the arrival of 
 some of Regent Morton's troops under Lord Ruth ven. 
 
 In the last Scottish invasion of England, that of 
 1745, Prince Charlie led part of his Highlanders 
 through Jedburgh, and lay the night at No 9 Castle 
 Gate. 
 
 Mention has been made of the effective part borne 
 by the men of Jedburgh in the Raid of the Reids- 
 wire. Their favourite weapon was ever the 'Jethart 
 staff,' about the precise nature of which antiquaries 
 are not agreed. Some describe it as a pole seven or 
 eight feet long, with a broad, keen axe-blade, and a 
 sharp hook ; but Major, a contemporary authority, 
 says it was a stout staff with a steel head four 
 feet long ! Did he mean that the staff or the head 
 measured four feet ? In 1516 the Scottish Govern- 
 ment forbade the use of this weapon, and directed 
 that ' speris, axis, halbertis, bowis and culweringis ' 
 should be used instead ; l but not only was the 
 order rescinded, but in 1552 the merchants of Edin- 
 burgh were ordered by the Town Council always to 
 have * long valpynnis ' (weapons) in their houses, 
 * sic es hand-ex, Jedburgh staif, hawart (Halbert), 
 jawalyng, with Knaipschawis (steel caps) and jakkis, 
 and that they cum thairwith to the Hie-gait incon- 
 tinent efter thecommoun bell ryngyng, or that thay 
 se ony cummaris (disturbance) of slauchteris tulzies 
 or appearance thereof. ' etc. etc. 
 
 * Jethart justice,' a proverbial expression for hang- 
 ing a man first and then trying him, is said to have 
 originated in the summary procedure of a court held 
 
 1 Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, i. 262.
 
 THE TWEED 225 
 
 here by Lord Home in 1606, when a number of 
 lawless fellows were dealt with sans ceremony. But 
 Crawford in his Memoirs takes it back to 1574, 
 when the Regent Morton held a bloody assize in 
 Jedburgh, and had no time to listen to evidence. 
 
 Largely as violence and oppression, slaughter and 
 arson, figured in the annals of Jedburgh, they pre- 
 vailed not to purge these light-hearted Borderers of 
 their mirth. The annual Roodmass fair, with its 
 games on the Dunion, was a fair rival to Peebles at 
 the Play, and many a maiden's pulses quickened as 
 the day drew near : 
 
 Ye'll be kissed and I'll be kissed, 
 
 We'll a' be kissed the morn. 
 The braw lads o' Jethart 
 
 Will kiss us a' the morn.' 
 
 There is circumstantial, if not conclusive, evidence to 
 support the assertion that this practice has survived 
 the cessation of Border war. 
 
 The whole of the parishes of Jedworth, Old Jed- 
 worth, and Upper Crailing so far as they lay outside 
 the burgh boundaries, were comprised in Jed Forest, 
 which was more than a merely nominal woodland ; 
 it was a dense primeval growth of oak and pine, 
 through which roamed herds of red deer of great 
 size. 
 
 Originally part of the kingdom of Northumber- 
 land, the market town and forest were probably 
 brought into possession of the Scottish kings by 
 David, Earl of Northumberland, and in 1221 Alex- 
 ander II. settled them upon his queen, Johanna, as 
 part of her dower. In the halcyon reign of Alex- 
 ander III, the question of English claims to this 
 
 15
 
 226 THE STORY OF 
 
 desirable territory was never raised ; but with the 
 death of that king and his granddaughter, the Maid 
 of Norway, peace spread her wings and took flight 
 from the Borders for many a day. Jedburgh, town 
 and forest, were often in English occupation during 
 the fourteenth century ; although in 1320, and again 
 by the famous Emerald Charter in 1325, King Robert 
 made them over to good Sir James of Douglas. On 
 the fall of the Black Douglas in 1455 these possess- 
 ions passed to his victorious rival Angus. Differ- 
 ences arose between the Red Douglas and Ker of 
 Fernihirst, who claimed the right of holding courts 
 in the forest as hereditary bailiff of the abbey. The 
 Red Douglas at that time was the formidable fifth 
 Earl of Angus 'Bell-the-Cat' who could well afford 
 to disregard the feelings of the laird of Fernihirst ; 
 but the position of his grandson, the sixth earl, was 
 not so well assured. The factions of Douglas and 
 Hamilton were very evenly balanced in their contest 
 for power, and in April 1520 Arran and Archbishop 
 Beaton very nearly succeeded in capturing Angus 
 when he was in Edinburgh with a following of only 
 fourscore. It had been more ; but Fernihirst and 
 the Kers, out of revenge for the insult offered them 
 in the matter of the forest courts, deserted to the 
 Hamiltons. However, Angus got timely warning 
 from his uncle, Bishop Gavin Douglas, who had 
 attempted to reconcile the parties. He made the 
 best of the little force at his disposal. Aided by the 
 townsfolk, with whom he was popular, he caused all 
 the wynds leading into the High Street to be barri- 
 caded, and posted his men at the head of Blackfriar's 
 Wynd to receive an attack. Presently the Hamil- 
 ton's came swinging along from the Dominicans'
 
 THETWEED 227 
 
 church in greatly superior force, supported by the 
 Kers, and led by Sir Patrick Hamilton. Finding 
 their passage blocked by Angus f Cleanse the 
 causeway ! ' cried Sir Patrick. < Cleanse the cause- 
 way ! ' shouted his men, and charged furiously. But 
 Angus had posted his little force so wisely that the 
 assailants were repulsed, Sir Patrick Hamilton being 
 slain by the hand of Angus himself. The mellay 
 was still raging, when the old cry of * A Douglas ! a 
 Douglas ' sounded from another quarter. William 
 Douglas, Abbot of Hollyrood, and Home of Wed- 
 derburn had forced the Hamilton guard at the city 
 gate, and arrived on the scene with a strong rein- 
 forcement for their kinsman. The Hamiltons broke 
 and fled. It was now the turn of the Douglases to 
 cry * Cleanse the causeway ! ' The Master of Eglinton 
 and about seventy of Arran's men were killed ; even 
 Archbishop Beaton only saved himself by seeking 
 sanctuary at the Altar of the Dominicans, where 
 Bishop Gavin interceded for him. Arran and his 
 son, Sir John Hamilton, escaped together on the 
 back of a cart-horse, riding through the Nor' Loch 
 to the open country, and Angus remained in possess- 
 ion of the capital. 
 
 The Kers, though badly worsted in the c Cleanse- 
 the-Causeway ' raid as it was called, by no means 
 abandoned their ancient claim. The eleventh Earl 
 of Angus having summoned a court in Jedburgh 
 Forest for 2ist. May 1612, Fernihirst issued sum- 
 mons for his court to assemble on the same day. 
 Thereupon the Earl's younger brother, James Doug- 
 las, Provost of Abernethy (the Earl himself was 
 only twenty-one), challenged Fernihirst's son to single 
 combat. The Privy Council interfered. James
 
 228 THE STORY OF 
 
 Douglas was imprisoned in Blackness Castle for 
 having * undewtifullie behavit * ; Fernihirst and his 
 son were ordered into Ward in Edinburgh Castle 
 under penalty of j 10,000. Angus, who had brought 
 his kinsman the Earl of Morton with a strong 
 following to defend his rights, was reprimanded for 
 such a display of force ; but received confirmation 
 of his rights to hold courts in the forest, while the 
 Kers were forbidden to interferre with him under 
 penalty of 20,000 merks. And so this obstinate 
 dispute was brought to a settlement. 
 
 Although Jed Forest itself has long since disap- 
 peared, the aspect of the land is far from bare, for 
 plantations have been raised round all the numerous 
 country houses in the neighbourhood. Two trees 
 of note, reputed survivals of the old forest, still 
 remain, or at least were flourishing twenty years 
 ago. One of these, known as the Capon Tree, a 
 little to the south of the town, is a short-stemmed, 
 spreading oak, with a circumference in 1880 of 24 
 feet 3 inches at the base. It is said to have been a 
 mustering-place for the Kers in time of war, but its 
 name doubtless indicates that under its branches the 
 chief or his representative sat at the receipt of cus- 
 tom, capons being an important item in the payment 
 of rent by * kind. ' A capon, also, was often the 
 * reddendo,' exacted by a feudal superior for the land 
 held by a vassal. 
 
 Another and finer oak stands near Fernihirst 
 Castle and is called not undeservedly, the * King 
 of the Forest, ' for it has a bole of 43 feet, and in 
 1880 measured 17 feet in circumference four feet 
 above the ground. l 
 
 1 Transactions of the Highland & Agricultural Society, 1881 p. 206.
 
 THETWEED 229 
 
 And so we pass from Jedburgh, not without reluc- 
 tance, for one may travel far before coming to 
 another resting-place so sweet and pretty as this 
 venerable little burgh with its modest-industry and 
 three thousand inhabitants. * Jethart's here ! ' and 
 owes its preservation to the stout hearts and ready 
 hands of its burgesses, who brought it through 
 troubles in the past that must have whelmed far 
 wealthier communities poorer in spirit. Long may 
 it flourish, rich in memories of an honourable past ! 
 
 In the couple of long miles between the town and 
 Jedfoot bridge, where Jed Water joins the Teviot, 
 there is nothing of superior interest to what one is 
 likely to find in the next of Teviot's tributaries, the 
 Oxnam Water, or Ousenham, as the natives call it, 
 faithful to the pronunciation current when patient 
 old Timothy Pont made his wonderful maps towards 
 the close of the sixteenth century. Therefore, 
 instead of following Jed Water in its northward 
 course, we may cross the river, strike eastward 
 across the ridge, leaving Hartrigge woods on the 
 left, and so arrive in three miles or so at the parish 
 church and village of Oxnam. 
 
 At its south-eastern corner this parish seems to 
 have pinched some acres of hill pasture from England, 
 for the march crosses the watershed, and is formed 
 for nearly a mile by the head-water of the English 
 Coquet. 
 
 Wading Street, the great Roman road between 
 Yorkshire and Lothian, runs for seven miles along 
 the eastern side of the parish, but cannot be pronoun- 
 ced in a state of repair for wheel traffic. If you are 
 tempted to trace it, you will be led upon the head- 
 water of the Kale, which the Wading Street crosses
 
 230 THE STORY OF 
 
 at a point only a mile distant from Oxnam Water at 
 the foot of Woden Law, where there is a circular 
 camp, and nearly opposite on Pennymuir are remains 
 of a rectangular one, probably Roman, commanding 
 the ford. 
 
 From immemorial time these steep green sides of 
 Cheviot have been far famed for the breed of sheep 
 reared on them ; and nowhere is the pasture sweeter 
 or richer than upon the uplands of Kale. 
 
 * O the sheep-herding's lightsome amang the green braes, 
 Where Kale wimples clear 'neath the white-blossomed slaes; 
 Where the wild thyme and meadow-queen scent the saft gale, 
 And the cushat croods leesomely doon in the dale. 
 There the lintwhite and mavis sing sweet frae the thorn, 
 And blithe lilts the laverock aboon the green corn ; 
 And a' things rejoice in the summer's glad prime 
 But my heart's wi' my love in the far foreign clime. ' 
 
 We are in Howman parish here, which suffered 
 no less than its neighbours from the English armies. 
 In 1544 Lord Hertford detached Robert Colling- 
 wood with his Irish levies to this sequestered vale, 
 where they * brent the tounes and stedes of Shapely 
 (Sharplaw), Hownomkirk, Hounom town, Heve- 
 syde, Hownome Grange, etc., and brought away 
 certain prisoners, with 280 nolt (cattle), 200 shepe, 
 and 40 horse. ' 
 
 Hownam kirk, whereof John the son of Orm s 
 was patron in 1185, stood in the form of a cross at 
 the junction of the Capehope Burn with Kale Water ; 
 but the present structure does not invite inspection. 
 
 ' Joanna Baillie. 
 
 f Orm's name is preserved in Ormiston on the Teviot, where once 
 stood a pele tower.
 
 THE TWEED 231 
 
 The fancy which has dubbed a semicircle of great 
 stones to the east of the village the Eleven Shearers, 
 and the tradition which explains them as so many 
 workers changed into stone for reaping on the Lord's 
 day, bear upon the face of them the stamp of the 
 Calvinist Reformation. 
 
 Place-names do not always bear their meaning so 
 plainly that all may read it ; on the contrary, they 
 often receive a spelling which suggests something 
 totally different, whereby snares are spread for the 
 amateur etymologist. Two such examples occur on 
 opposite sides of Kale Water two or three miles 
 below Hownam kirk. One of these is a hill called 
 Grubbit Law, which, in plain Scots of to-day, signifies 
 a hill whence tree-roots had been grubbed. What 
 can be plainer ? This fine green hill was once rough 
 forest, reclaimed by a thrifty peasantry. Possibly, 
 but the name contains no reference to that industry, 
 but comes from a mill at its foot, which so far back 
 as 1 170 the aforesaid John the son of Orm, in making 
 over the land of Huneden or Hownam to the Monks 
 of Melrose, referred to as the land of Grubheued or 
 Grubbeheued. l The owner of this land was not less 
 pious than his neighbour, for in 1 1 8 1 Huctred of 
 Grubheued and Symon his son, in presence of Jocel- 
 ine, Bishop of Glasgow, granted some of his land to 
 the same monks, in consideration of receiving { their 
 fraternity, their prayers, and a participation in all the 
 privileges of their Church' 2 benefits to which, as 
 a good Christian, he surely was entitled without 
 such solid consideration. But it was by mundane 
 bargains such as this that the Church made sure her 
 
 1 Liber de Melrose, pp. 119-122. 
 1 Ibid. i. no.
 
 232 THE STORY OF 
 
 foundations. Deeds of gift to monks, and manu- 
 scripts referring to their squabbles about possession, 
 form by far the largest surviving part of the material 
 for early Scottish history. Simple laymen, conscious, 
 no doubt, of much in their private conduct that 
 would not bear analysis, compounded by liberal 
 gifts to the Church ; but seldom does one find one 
 so simple as a landowner in this valley of the Kale, 
 who presented the monks of Kelso with seven acres 
 of land to grow corn for holy bread ! Seven acres 
 of good corn land was liberal reckoning for such a 
 purpose. 
 
 The other name mentioned as deceptive is that of 
 the parish in which the land of Grubbit lies More- 
 battle, to wit. Surely here we have direct reference 
 to some conflict upon this much contested soil. 
 Not a bit. The parish was written Merebotele and 
 Merbotyl in the Liber de Melros and Glasgow 
 Register of the twelfth century, and does not appear 
 as Morbottle till the end of the sixteenth. < Battle ' 
 is a very modern corruption of the Anglo-Saxon 
 botl, a dwelling ; mere botl means the dwelling of 
 the lake. l 
 
 The Church of Morebattle was dedicated to 
 St. Laurence, whose name seldom occurs in connect- 
 ion with Scottish ecclesiastical foundations. The 
 old building is gone ; the present one dates from 
 that unpromising period 1757 ; when the New 
 Statistical Account was being compiled in 1844 it 
 was undergoing alterations which, we are assured 
 * will render it more comfortable and handsome.' 
 To its comfort the present deponent cannot testify ; 
 
 1 Cf. Buittle, John Ballot's castle in Galloway, Newbottle Abbey, 
 Bootle in Lancashire, etc.
 
 THE TWEED 233 
 
 upon its comeliness let any impartial traveller pro- 
 nounce judgment. The well below the churchyard 
 retains memories of a pious past in its name 
 Laurie's Well. 
 
 A little more than two miles to the west of 
 Morebattle village stands a ruined castle of more 
 than common note, being Cessford, the strength of 
 the Kers of that line, rivals of the house of Ferni- 
 hirst. The keep is believed to be the same as stood 
 here in the fourteenth century ; and none but a 
 building of extraordinary strength could have sur- 
 vived the vicissitudes through which this one has 
 passed. The Walls vary from 12 feet to 13 feet 
 6 inches thick. Surrey besieged it in 1523, in the 
 absence of its owner, Sir Andrew Ker (the same who 
 fell three years later in the affair with the Scotts at 
 Melrose) * who was attending elsewhere to his duties 
 as Warden. Let the English earl tell the story of 
 his good luck in his own words to Henry VIII, 
 which are instructive as to the manner of siege 
 operations in the sixteenth century. 
 
 ' We went to Sesford and layed our ordynance too the 
 same about VII of the clok in the morning, which was 
 esteemed to be the strongest place of Scotland, save Dunbar 
 and Fas castell. I had with me one very good cortowte, f 
 one very good colveryne, one demy colveryne, four lizards 
 and four fawcons. The sayd fortress was vawmewred with 
 erth of the best sorte that I have sen, and had a barbican, 
 with another false barbican within the same, to defend the 
 gate of the dongeon, and dyvers pecis of iron gonnyis (guns) 
 within. 
 
 1 See p. 76, ante. 
 
 * Cortowtes and culverines were heavy pieces drawn by oxen ; the 
 others were field-guns.
 
 234 THE STORY OF 
 
 * Our battery began at the vawemeure, which did little 
 prevayle or, in maner, did small hurt thereunto. After 
 that I causid to shote the best pecis at the place of the 
 dongeon (keep) that was thought most weke, whereof none 
 effecte ensewed ; for within fewe shottis the cortowtis exile 
 tre (axle-tree) brake, and being of newe mountid with 
 anothir exeltre, was within three shotis soo erased in the 
 seid exiltre that I durste noon suffre her to be shot, having 
 noo newe to bring her home withall. In the mean tyme, 
 divers of your graces servaunts, as the Lord Leonard, Sir 
 Arthure Darcy, Sir William Parre, Harvy and others, took 
 scaling ladders and entered the barmkyn ' right daungerfully, 
 where many that entered with them were hurte, as well 
 with caste of stonys as with shot of ordynaunce. They 
 took very long ladders purposely made for that entent, and 
 sett theme to the dongeon too have scaled the same ; and 
 the ordynaunce with archers shoting continually at the 
 vamewre and lapes ; but all that wold not prevaile . . . which 
 perceived, remooved the two colverynes to another syde of 
 the dongeon and shot at an old wyndowe, about six fote fro 
 the ground, and the same being mewred [built up], was 
 opened and something enlarged, and then the gonners, for a 
 reward of me promised, undertooke to throwe in the same 
 four, barrellis of powdre with shovellis, whiche right herdily 
 they accomplished. The Scotts, perceiving the same, threwe 
 fire into the hous where our men had throwen in the 
 powder, bifore they had all accomplished their busynes, 
 with the which three of our gonners were marvelously 
 brente, but, thanked be God, not slayne, and the said 
 poudre spent, to our knowledge, without doing hurte to 
 the fortresse, which was nothing plesant to us your Graces 
 servaunts, trusting verely by means therof to have throwen 
 a parte of the dongeon. 
 
 * Notwithstanding within a while after, the warden of the 
 marches of Scotlande, owner of the same [Sir Andrew Ker], 
 being within a myle, fearing his men to be gotten with 
 
 1 The outer garth.
 
 THE TWEED 235 
 
 assaulte and so slayne, ' sente too me offring me the place, 
 his men having licence to depart with bag and bagage ; 
 which, after requysicion made unto me by all the Lords 
 openly for a color, 3 I condissended unto, and was very glad 
 of the said appointement ; for in manner I sawe not howe 
 it would have been won ; it was tenable for twenty four 
 hours against three of your Graces best curtowts, the wall 
 being no less than fowrteen fote thick. 
 
 *I next threw down Whitton, now six o'clock at night, 
 all day rayning and the coldeste wether, men tired, horses 
 without mete, returned to England, your Graces subjects be 
 the most joyful people I ever saw, more rejoicd than if 
 Edinburgh had been taken. ' 
 
 The reader may well weary at these interminable 
 annals of arson and slaughter, but he cannot under- 
 stand this Border land unless he has in mind the 
 ordeal through which it has passed. 
 
 On the north side of the Kale Water, opposite 
 Morebattle, lies the parish of Linton, a name which, 
 strange as it may seem, bears exactly the same inter- 
 pretation as Morebattle, being the lin tun, or dwelling 
 beside the lake. The loch, which lay to the south- 
 east of the parish church, has been drained away 
 stat nominis umbra. The said church deserves more 
 respectful attention than most of its neighbours in 
 this valley. It is very ancient : Blahan was the 
 name of its priest in 1127, and Sir Richard Comyn 
 presented it to the monks of Kelso for the salvation 
 of the soul of Henry, King David's first-born, who 
 
 1 The rules of war justified the slaughter of the garrison of any 
 place taken by storm after being summoned. Instances of suchi 
 penalty being inflicted by British commanders occurred during the 
 Indian wars of the Marquess Wellesley. 
 
 * That is, he caused his officers to ask him to grant the terms in 
 order to ' save his face ' before the Warden.
 
 236 THE STORY OF 
 
 died in 1152. Albeit the structure has suffered 
 severely from alteration and restoration, the walls 
 are of Norman work, and there is a piece of sculp- 
 ture in the tympanum of the porch embodying a 
 very ancient tradition of the district. The porch, 
 be it observed, is a recent addition, the sculpture 
 having been removed from the old doorway in 1858. 
 To the secular mind the subject suggested is the 
 encounter of St. George with the dragon ; but to 
 the eye of faith (in local lore) it represents the 
 exploits of William the son of Roger de Somerville, 
 who dwelt at Linton Tower, now demolished, in the 
 twelfth century. Roger was lord of Whichenour, 
 in Staffordshire, but having taken part in the rebellion 
 against King John, put the Border between him and 
 the tyrant, and died in 1214, at the age of ninety- 
 four, 'at his sones house of Lintoune tour, and was 
 laid in the quier of Lintoune church. ' l It seems 
 that this part of Roxburghshire was infested by a 
 destructive monster of the nature of a dragon, which 
 harboured in a place still called the Worm's Hole, 
 and defied all pursuit, until young Somerville tackled 
 it and drove his spear down its throat. All doubts 
 about the veracity of this tale must be dispelled by 
 a single glance at the armorial bearings of the 
 Somervilles at this day. Their crest is a golden 
 wheel, and upon it a dragon vert, spouting out fire 
 before and behind truly a dreadful beast and who 
 so sceptical as to require more conclusive proof 
 than that ? If more were demanded by any doubt- 
 ing Thomas, it is no longer forthcoming, but it is 
 
 ' Memorie of the Somervilles, p. 34, quoted in Origines Parochiales, 
 432.
 
 THE TWEED 237 
 
 said to have existed at one time in the shape of some 
 lines carved under the sculpture on the church. 
 
 * The wode ' laird of Lariston 
 Slew the Worm of Wormes glen 
 And wan all Lintoun parochin. ' 
 
 The Somervilles of Linton made a considerable 
 figure in history during several centuries, Sir Thomas 
 having been created Lord Somerville before the year 
 1430, when he was Justiciary of Scotland south of 
 the Forth. In the time of Hugh, fifth Lord Somer- 
 ville, came the end of Linton Tower. First in 1522 
 the English Warden entered Teviotdale with two 
 thousand men, * and went to Leynton tour and set 
 upon it with spere and shield, and in conclusion, or 
 it past none [before it passed noon], wann it and 
 brant it clene down to the bare stane walles. Not- 
 withstanding all the men that were within, which 
 was xvi, were saved by reason of a gable of the 
 house that was of stone, and the wind that was their 
 friend, for betwix the said gable and the batialing, 
 they lay unto the huse rofe was fallen, where we left 
 them, all except one Robyn Carre, whiche cam down 
 in a rope when the huse was first fired. ' Next year 
 came Lord Surrey to complete the work, and he 
 enumerates Linton among the two hundred and 
 eighty-seven f fortresses, abbeys, frere-houses, mar- 
 ket townes, villages, towres and places brent, raced 
 and cast downe' in that expedition. The land had 
 passed into the possession of the Kers before 1538, 
 and the Somervilles settled upon their property of 
 Carnwath, in Lanarkshire. The fifth lord had been 
 
 1 Mad.
 
 238 THE STORY OF 
 
 a Reformer ; not so his son James, sixth Lord Somer- 
 ville, for he, the Earl of Atholl, and Lord Borthwick 
 were the only three who voted against the ratification 
 of the Confession of Faith in 1560. Gilbert, eighth 
 Lord Somerville, made sad havoc of his fortune. 
 He entertained James VI. with such splendour in 
 his castle of Cowthally as gave his Majesty the 
 chance of making a better joke than usual. He said 
 the place ought to be called Cow-daily, because he 
 noticed that a cow and ten sheep were killed there 
 every day. The family never recovered from Gil- 
 bert's extravagance ; the estates were sold, and the 
 nineteenth and last Lord Somerville died in 1870. 
 The lower reaches of the Kale Water are exceed- 
 ingly lovely, and before debouching in the Teviot 
 the stream plunges into a deep ravine, where 
 Covenanters used to hold conventicles in the killing 
 time. Near the junction of the waters, on the north 
 side of Teviot, there stood ' the fayre tower called 
 Ormeston, ' as Lord Dacre called it in reporting to 
 the Earl of Surrey his * exployts don upon the 
 Scotts ' in 1523. This tower he * kist down,' but 
 the site thereof deserves passing notice, as having 
 been the dwelling-place of an important family who 
 
 /* / 
 
 took their name from it. John the son of Orme 
 has been mentioned above as the patron of Hownam 
 church in 1185. Ormiston, no doubt, was the 
 paternal home, for which John de Ormiston did 
 fealty in 1296 to Edward I. He may have been 
 descended from the original Orme, but it may be 
 noted once for all that many lands had changed 
 owners in the interval, and that during the thir- 
 teenth and fourteenth centuries, when surnames 
 were first becoming universal, men assumed the
 
 THE TWEED 239 
 
 names of their estates, often quite irrespectively to 
 their lineage. 
 
 James, the Black Laird of Ormiston, and his 
 brother Hob, figure darkly in the tragedy of Kirk- 
 o'-Field. They worked with Hepburn of Bowton, 
 young Hay of Talla, the valet Dalgleish and the 
 porter Powrie, under Bothwell's personal direction, 
 in carrying the gunpowder in two travelling-trunks 
 into the grounds of the house where Darnley lay. 
 Then on Sunday, 9th February 1567, while Queen 
 Mary was paying a last visit to her consort, they 
 brought the powder into the house. Six years later, 
 in 1573, the Black Laird was brought to trial for 
 complicity in the affair with Bothwell, Archibald 
 Douglas, and others. Ormiston and some of the 
 meaner ruffians paid for their share with their lives ; 
 but Archibald knew too much. His servant, 
 Thomas Binning, was hanged, but it was not until 
 26th May 1586, nineteen years after the crime, that 
 Archibald was submitted to a shamelessly collusive 
 trial for the l crewall, horribill, abhominabill and 
 tressonabill murthour of vmquhile Henrie King of 
 Scottis of gud memorie. ' Archibald had flourished 
 like a green bay-tree in the interval. Morton had 
 made him Parson of Glasgow and raised him to the 
 bench. And now Archibald's brother, William of 
 Whittingehame, sat on the bench to try the case ; 
 Morton's dying deposition and Binning's evidence, 
 both deeply implicating Archibald, were withheld 
 from the jury, which included George Home of 
 Spott, who in 1582 had been tried for complicity in 
 the very same crime. The only part of the proceed- 
 ings that does not stink is that ten Scottish gent- 
 leman paid forfeit of 40 each rather than serve as
 
 240 THE STORY OF THE TWEED 
 
 jurymen in this demoniac travesty of justice. Archi- 
 bald was acquitted, of course. As for the Black 
 Laird of Ormiston, his dying speech on the scaffold 
 somewhat touches compassion. * It is not merveill, ' 
 quoth he, * that I have been wickit, for the wickit 
 companie that ever I have been in ; bot speciallie 
 within this seaven yeiris by-past, quhilk I never saw 
 twa guid men or ane guid deed. ' A study of Scot- 
 tish history at this period inclines one to perceive no 
 exaggeration in this confession. 
 
 That seems to have been practically the end of 
 the line of Ormiston, for in the following century 
 the lands were possessed by the Kers of Cessford. 
 The laird of Ormiston, indeed, does make a last 
 appearance when the Scottish Solomon, James VI., 
 was exerting himself, not without success, to stanch 
 the feud between Cessford and Buccleuch, and 
 endeavoured to settle other vendettas at the same 
 time. It is recorded in the draft contract that 
 * thair is particularlie deidlie feid [feud] and actionis 
 betuix the said Walter Ker of Cesfurde, knycht, 
 and the said James Ormstoun of that ilk,' who had 
 stolen some of Cessford's lands and killed one of 
 his servants. The commissioners are directed to 
 settle the affair on equitable terms. 
 
 Yet there is one more mournful reminder of this 
 ancient line. The Rev. A. Milne, minister of 
 Melrose, writing in 1743, mentions that * George 
 Ormiston, late hangman in Edinburgh, was a cadet 
 of this family, if not the representative of it a 
 memorandum to old families not to be puffed up 
 with pride on account of their antiquity, for they 
 know not what mean offices they or theirs may be 
 obliged to stoop to.'
 
 F 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 FROM KALEMOUTH TO COLDSTREAM 
 
 ROM Kalemouth we travel due north through 
 scenes of ever-increasing loveliness to rejoin 
 the Tweed. 
 
 * Bosom'd in woods where mighty rivers run, 
 Kelso's fair vale expands before the sun ; 
 Its rising downs in vernal beauty swell, 
 And, fringed with hazel, winds each flowery dell. 
 Green spangled plains to dimpling lawns succeed, 
 And Temple rises on the banks of Tweed. 
 Blue o'er the river Kelso's shadow lies 
 And copse-like isles amid the waters rise. ' 
 
 Not a flattering sample this of Leyden's verse ; 
 he could do, and did, better than that, though he 
 was ever prone to eke out his decasyllabics with too 
 many epithets. We passed his birthplace at Den- 
 holm a while ago, and now recall him to memory 
 amid those scenes which he was so busy interpreting 
 to his countrymen when Scott eclipsed him with 
 more dazzling flame. Born in 1775, J^n Leyden 
 was already collecting and adding to Border lore 
 when Scott, only four years his senior, made his 
 acquaintance, and enlisted him as chief contributor 
 to the Minstrelsy. In 1803, the year after the first 
 two volumes of that work were published, Leyden 
 went out to Madras as assistant surgeon. In India 
 
 16
 
 242 THESTORYOF 
 
 he found the Elliot as powerful and as ready to 
 befriend a vassal as he had been in Teviotdale. 
 Leyden's writings in prose and verse had not 
 escaped notice from the Governor-General, Lord 
 Minto, who made him assay-master of the Calcutta 
 mint, and took Leyden with him to Java in 1811, 
 where the poet died at the age of six-and-thirty. 
 The Ettrick Shepherd's elegy was more generous, 
 and also more just, than bards are wont to bestow 
 upon their contemporaries. 
 
 * Sweet rung the harp to Logan's hand ; 
 Then Leyden came from Border-land, 
 With dauntless heart and ardour high, 
 And wild impatience in his eye. 
 Though false at times his tones might be, 
 Though wild notes marred the symphony, 
 Between the flowing measure stole 
 That spoke the bard's inspired soul. * 
 
 We have seen how grandiloquently Leyden des- 
 cribed the confluence of Tweed and Teviot, bestowing 
 on them the epithet Eighty,' which, had he known, 
 he would have kept in reserve until after beholding 
 the union of Ganges with Jumna. Less dignified, 
 but not less descriptive, is the metaphor applied by 
 Sir Thomas Dick Lauder to illustrate the effect of 
 Teviot upon the dominant river. 
 
 * Like a gentleman of large fortune, who has just received 
 a great accession to it, the Tweed, having been joined by 
 the Teviot, leaves Kelso with a magnitude and air of im- 
 portance that it has nowhere hitherto assumed during its 
 course, and which it will be found to maintain until it is 
 ultimately swallowed up by that grave of all rivers the sea." 
 Scottish Rivers, chap. xvi.
 
 THE TWEED 243 
 
 This is true enough. The river, which is about 
 to become first half then wholly English, seems 
 anxious to assume an appearance in keeping with the 
 more affluent southern nationality. No more cre- 
 puscular dalliance with drooping boughs at Dawick 
 Bank, nor irresponsible brawling at Caddonfoot ; 
 no more headlong frolics at the Gateheugh, Craigover, 
 or the Trows of Makerstoun. Henceforward we 
 sweep in stately curves, broad bosomed as Trent or 
 Thames, slumbering occasionally in lakelike f dubs ' 
 long reaches of still water at Sprouston, Birgham, 
 Carham, and the like. Our landscape opens into 
 ampler lines ; what we lose in wilder beauty we gain 
 in opulence and space. 
 
 The highroad on the right bank of Tweed runs 
 through a fine and fertile champaign to the village 
 of Sprouston, hallowed in memory of many an 
 honest angler as the abode of Jamie Wright, than 
 whom none could busk a bonnier fly, and none 
 knew how to display it to greater advantage in the 
 sight of salmon. Bordered by the English march, 
 the rich crops and fat cattle of this fine tract offered 
 of old a standing temptation to marauding bands. 
 Hadden Stank and Redden Burn were often fixed as 
 meeting-places for the English and Scottish commis- 
 sioners to settle disputes and determine boundaries ; 
 and Hadden Rig was the scene of a brisk encounter 
 in 1 542 between the Earl of Huntly's Scots and 
 three thousand English cavalry under Captain Robert 
 Bowes. Lord Home came up with four hundred 
 spears in the nick of time to save the day for the 
 Scots. The English were routed, and six hundred 
 of them taken prisoners, with many officers. Not 
 long after, in the same year, the Duke of Norfolk
 
 244 THE STORY OF 
 
 passed that way in force, and burnt the villages of 
 Sprouston, Hadden, and Redden. 
 
 If in leaving Kelso we follow the highway down 
 the left bank of Tweed, it leads in a north-easterly 
 direction, scarcely clearing the flowery suburbs of 
 Kelso before it plunges into Sir R. Waldie Griffiths' 
 leafy woods of Hendersyde. Then it runs close 
 along the low cliff bordering Sprouston Dub, famed 
 by salmon-fishers, and so across a stream called by 
 a name that has vexed the souls of generations of 
 antiquaries and etymologists. The Eden such the 
 simple name, borne by rivers of Fife and Cumberland, 
 as well as by this one of Roxburghshire, yet no man 
 can read the riddle of its meaning Eadann y suggests 
 Mr. J. B. Johnston, l the Gaelic for a hill face, but 
 does not explain why one stream should be called a 
 hill face more than another, especially in a country 
 where level ground is the exception. One must be 
 content to add the meaning of Eden to the long list 
 of things that are past finding out ; though it may 
 be noted that it is a name of hoar antiquity, the 
 village of Ednam Eden ham having been so called 
 as far back as the reign of King Edgar, who died in 
 1 107. That monarch restored the monastery of 
 Coldingham, which had been destroyed by the 
 Danes, and in one of the few charters remaining of 
 that time Thor informs his lord, Earl David (after- 
 wards King David i.) that King Edgar had given 
 him Ednaham wilderness ; that he had inhabited it, 
 built a church there dedicated to St. Cuthbert, and 
 endowed it with one plough. 8 
 
 Ednam has shared the common fate of so many 
 
 1 Place Names of Scotland, sub voce Eden. 
 1 Skene's Celtic Scotland, ii. 368.
 
 THETWEED 245 
 
 Border villages. The last time the English burnt it 
 was in 1558 ; of the old church no vestige remains ; 
 cold and grim on its site stands its successor erected 
 in 1 800. James Thomson, the poet of The Seasons, 
 was born here in 1 700, a fact duly commemorated 
 by an obelisk fifty-two feet high, set up in 1820 ; 
 but he drew his inspiration from other scenes, for, 
 ten days after his birth, his father moved to the 
 manse of Southdean, on Jed Water. Few people 
 read Thomson now ; still fewer remember, if they 
 ever knew, that he was an ardent fly-fisher, with a 
 becoming contempt for those who pollute their 
 fingers with bait. 
 
 1 Now, when the first foul torrent of the brooks, 
 Swell'd with the vernal rains, is ebb'd away ; 
 And whitening down their mossy-tinctured stream 
 Descends the billowy foam, now is the time, 
 While yet the dark-brown water aids the guile, 
 To tempt the trout. The well-dissembled fly 
 The rod, fine-tapering with elastic spring 
 Snatch'd from the hoary steed the floating line 
 And all thy slender watery stores prepare. 
 But let not on thy hook the tortured worm 
 Convulsive twist in agonising folds, 
 Which, by rapacious hunger swallowed deep, 
 Gives, as you tear it from the bleeding breast 
 Of the weak, helpless, uncomplaining wretch, 
 Harsh pain and horror to the tender hand. ' 
 
 A trifle turgid, perhaps, but the principles are un- 
 exceptionable. 
 
 Eden Water has its source far back in Legerwood 
 parish, on the very verge of Lauderdale, close to 
 the ruined pele of Corsbie. This was of old Gordon 
 territory ; it is matter for dispute whether the family
 
 246 THESTORYOF 
 
 of Gordon gave it the title which they had brought 
 from a place of that name in France, or whether 
 they took their name from this Berwickshire parish. 
 Adam de Gordon was one of the prisoners taken by 
 Sir James Douglas on that night when he made the 
 notable capture of Thomas Randolph and Stewart 
 of Bonkill on the Water of Lyne. 1 Gordon made 
 his escape, and two years later received from 
 Edward II. a grant of the lands of Stichill, further 
 down Eden Water, which Thomas Randolph had 
 forfeited by his adherence to the Bruce. However, 
 the sun soon crossed to the other side of the hedge ; 
 the crown of Scotland was firm on Bruce's brow, 
 the coronet of Moray on that of Randolph, before 
 the whelming victory of Bannockburn (1314), by 
 which time Gordon had changed his allegiance, and 
 Stichill remained in possession of his descendants, 
 the Gordons of Lochinvar, till 1628, when John 
 Gordon, afterwards Viscount Kenmure, sold it to 
 Robert Pringle. 
 
 Just as the original Gordon probably named his 
 Berwickshire estate from his paternal home in 
 France, so, when the family became chiefs in Strath- 
 bogie, did they import with them the name Huntly 
 from the vale of Eden, and bestow it upon the 
 Aberdeenshire town and parish, which bear it at 
 this day. 
 
 At Mellerstain the Eden Water spreads into an 
 ornamental lake. This property came into posses- 
 sion of the Earls of Haddington by the marriage of 
 Rachel Baillie, the heiress, with Lord Binning, 
 eldest son of the sixth earl, in consequence of which 
 the family name has since been Baillie-Hamilton. 
 
 1 See p. 27. ante.
 
 THETWEED 247 
 
 The connection has honourable associations, for 
 Rachel's mother was Lady Grizell Baillie, the poetess, 
 remembered for her chivalrous enterprise in 1684, 
 when she was but nineteen years of age. She was 
 the daughter of Sir Patrick Home, afterwards first 
 Earl of Marchmont, the close friend of Robert 
 Baillie of Jerviswood and Mellerstain. Baillie, 
 who had been imprisoned and fined in 1676 for 
 contumacy, was arrested in London on a charge of 
 complicity in the Rye House plot, tried in Edin- 
 burgh, and condemned to be hanged. Home, 
 urgently desiring to communicate with Baillie, in- 
 trusted his daughter with a letter, which she was to 
 find means to deliver to him in prison. She rode 
 alone through the Merse in the night, passed through 
 the city gate in the morning, beneath the grinning 
 heads of those who had laid down their lives in the 
 cause of spiritual liberty, for which Baillie and 
 Home were equally ready to suffer. She fulfilled 
 her mission, bringing back word from the con- 
 demned man to her father ; but she left her heart 
 behind her. George Baillie's son, Robert, won it 
 from her during that brief interview in the prison, 
 and gave her his own in exchange. After that the 
 Homes had to go into exile in Holland. Then 
 came the Revolution, and they were free to return 
 to Scotland. Queen Mary would have taken Grizell 
 into her court in London as maid of honour ; but 
 the girl declined, for she longed for the sweet hill 
 air of the Borders. Her father's property was 
 restored to him, and thither she went, to wait until 
 Robert Baillie came to claim his bride. Perhaps it 
 was during these years of waiting that she wrote the 
 tender lines :
 
 248 THESTORYOF 
 
 * Oh the ewe-buchtin's bonnie, baith e'ening and morn, 
 When our blythe shepherd lads play on the bog-reed and horn; 
 While we're milkin', they're liltin', baith pleasant and clear, 
 But my heart's like to break when I think o' my dear. 
 
 Oh the shepherds take pleasure to blow on the horn 
 To raise up their flocks o' sheep soon i' the morn ; 
 On the bonnie green banks they feed pleasant and free, 
 But alas ! my dear heart, all my sighing 's for thee. * 
 
 Here we have two out of the three principal 
 industries on the Border of old, one or all of which 
 furnished the theme of every lyric war, shepherd- 
 ing, and love-making. War has ceased in that land, 
 whose people 
 
 4 hang the trumpet in the hall 
 And study war no more ; ' 
 
 modern sheep-farming has parted with much of its 
 Arcadian simplicity ; shepherd lads pipe no more, 
 nor summon their flocks with the horn ; but the old 
 business of love-making runs its accustomed course. 
 
 Nenthorn, founded as a parish in the thirteenth 
 century under the name of Naithansthirn, which may 
 give a clue to its meaning, was once a manor of the 
 puissant de Morvilles, Hereditary Constables of 
 Scotland, until they threw in their lot with John 
 Baliol and Edward I. the losing side. Now their 
 very name is lost to remembrance in the district 
 where they held such sway. 
 
 East of Nenthorn, Eden Water enters the pretty 
 demesne of Newton Don, to which it contributes 
 the chief ornament in the cascade called Stichill Lynn. 
 A stream of more innocent appearance could hardly
 
 THE TWEED 249 
 
 be imagined, yet it has claimed its victims in a tragedy 
 unsung. Newton Don, now the residence of Captain 
 Charles Balfour, M.P., was in 1795 tne seat f Sir 
 Alexander Don, who married a sister of the fifteenth 
 and last Earl of Glencairn. She bore him two 
 lovely daughters. They had just been brought out 
 in Edinburgh by their mother, Lady Harriet, and 
 were walking one summer evening with a friend, 
 Miss Ramsay, on the opposite side of the stream to 
 the mansion-house. Hearing the dinner bell, they 
 ran down to some stepping-stones, which gave easy 
 passage to the slenderest soles. Above the stepping- 
 stones there was at that time a mill, which, by the 
 operation of its sluices, caused sudden rising or fall 
 of the current. Just as the three girls were in mid- 
 stream, down came a foaming torrent and swept 
 them away. Miss Ramsay managed to catch hold 
 of a branch and saved herself, but her two fair com- 
 panions were drowned. 
 
 A long mile to the north of Stichill House looms 
 a massive pile, far seen across the verdant Merse, 
 crowning a rocky height. This is Hume Castle, 
 once the chief place of the fiery clan which now 
 puzzles the southerner by writing its name Home. 
 They pronounce it Hume, however, though neither 
 spelling represents, according to modern notation, 
 the original sound which rhymed with * room, ' and 
 came to be written 'Home' for the same reason that 
 old-fashioned people in the last century spoke of 
 * Room ' for * Rome. ' They sprang from a grand- 
 son of the third Earl of Dunbar, who acquired the 
 lands of Home by marriage, early in the thirteenth 
 century, and adopted from them his surname. Here 
 Mary of Gueldres lodged in 1400, while her husband,
 
 250 THE STORY OF 
 
 James II., was busy bombarding Roxburgh Castle 
 with the intense diligence that cost him his life. 
 
 The fourth Lord Home lost his life in a skirmish 
 on the day before the disastrous battle of Pinkie. 
 His widow held the castle gallantly against Protector 
 Somerset ; but the English artillery prevailed, and 
 she had to haul down her ensign the white lion on 
 the green flag. Two years later her son, fifth Lord 
 Home, recaptured the castle, and put every English- 
 man in it to the sword. In 1569 Hume Castle was 
 held by a garrison of two hundred and forty of Lord 
 Home's men. The Earl of Sussex, marching from 
 Wark in overwhelming force, with siege-guns batt- 
 ered the place for twelve hours, when it capitulated 
 once more, and the Homes were allowed to march 
 out in hose and doublets. 
 
 Even after the union of the Crowns there was no 
 peace for Hume Castle. Colonel Fenwick sum- 
 moned it in 1650 in name of Protector Cromwell. 
 Thomas Cockburn, the governor, returned a defiant 
 answer in prose and verse. 
 
 * Right Honourable, ' ran the first, * I have received a 
 trumpeter of yours, as he tells me, without a pass, to 
 surrender Home Castle to the Lord General Cromwell. 
 Please you, I never saw your general. As for Home Castle, 
 it stands upon a rock. Given at Home Castle, this day 
 before 7 o'clock. So resteth, without prejudice to my 
 native cowntry, 
 
 Your most humble servant, 
 
 T. COCKBURN. ' 
 
 The doggerel reply was as follows : 
 
 < I, Willie Wastle, 
 Stand firm in my castle ; 

 
 THE TWEED 251 
 
 And a' the dogs o' your town 
 Will no' pull Willie Wastle doun. ' 
 
 Alas, behind all this bravado lay no stomach for 
 English lead and iron ! Fenwick's artillery had de- 
 livered but a few rounds when Cockburn beat the 
 chamade, and the castle was razed. About the time 
 of the union of Parliaments, Home, Earl of March- 
 mont, representing a junior branch of the family, 
 owned the estate ; and it is to him that the landscape 
 owes the imposing pile which now stands upon this 
 ancient site. It is but a gazebo a mock fortress to 
 please the eye ; erected on the old foundations out of 
 the old materials, it serves as a memorial of the 
 stormy past. 
 
 In the fifteenth century the Scottish Parliament 
 constituted Hume Castle the centre of the system of 
 beacon warnings on the Border. 
 
 * Item : it is sene spedfull [expedient] that thar be cost 
 maide at the est passage betwix Roxburghe and berwik, and 
 that it be waukyt [watched] at certane furds the quhilk, gif 
 myster be [if there is a muster], sail mak takynis [tokens] 
 be balys [bale-fires] birnyng and fyre. In the first, a baill 
 to be maide be the waukers of the furds quhar it may be 
 sene at hvme [Hume Castle]. A baile is warnyng of ther 
 cumyng quhat power whatever thai be of. Twa bailes 
 togedder at anis [once] thai cuming in deide. Four balis, 
 ilk ane besyde vther and all at anys as four candills, sal be 
 suthfast knawlege that thai ar of gret power and menys. 
 Als far as hadingtowne, dunbar, dalkeithe, or tharby. 
 Thir samyn takynis to be watchyt and maide at Eggerhope 
 Castell ande mak takyn in lik maner. And than may all 
 lothiane be warnyt, and in especiall the Castell of Edinburgh. 
 And thai four fyris to be maide in lyk maner that thai in fyf 
 [Fife] and fra snivelling [Stirling] est, and in the est part
 
 252 THE STORY OF 
 
 of louthiane and to dunbar, all may se thaim and come to 
 the defence of the lande. And thai will not be sleuthfull 
 thairin to be warnyt of thir [these] fyris thai sail wit that 
 cumyng over Tweide. And than, considering thar fer 
 [fair] passage, we sail, God willing, be als sone redy as thai. 
 And all pepill drawe that are in the west half of Edinburgh 
 thereto. And all fra Edinburgh est to hadingtone. And 
 al merchaundys of Burowys to presentlie hoiste quhar it 
 passes. And at Dunpenderlaw and North Berwyklawe 
 balys to be brynt for warnyng of the cost syde of the see 
 [sea-coast] in forme befor writyn. ' ' 
 
 This picturesque system of beacon warnings con- 
 tinued in force till the invention of the electric 
 telegraph. The last occasion when it was put in 
 action was during the winter of 1 803-4, when Napol- 
 eon lay at Boulogne with one hundred thousand men, 
 and a flat-bottomed flotilla was being prepared to 
 ferry them over the Channel. No man knew when 
 the descent might be made, but all was ready. Par- 
 liament, before it was prorogued, had decreed a levy 
 en masse of all able-bodied citizens, but that measure 
 never took effect. Before the next session four 
 hundred thousand volunteers had been enrolled, and 
 were busy drilling over the length and breadth of the 
 realm. In no part of it did enthusiasm run higher 
 than in the Border district. The Sheriff of Selkirk 
 Walter Scott, no less was the very soul of the 
 movement ; neither Wicked Wat of Branksome nor 
 Auld Wat o* Harden would have busied himself 
 more heartily in preparing for war. The old watch- 
 knowes were manned ; beacons were piled as of yore ; 
 the first kindling was to warn the Border that the 
 French were on the sea, when every man should 
 
 1 Acts of Scots Parliament, ii. 44.
 
 THE TWEED 253 
 
 hasten to the muster-well. On the last night of 
 January the watch at Hume Castle saw a blaze in the 
 direction of Berwick. f They're coming ! ' was the 
 cry. A torch was thrust into the pile ; the signal 
 was taken up instantly, and crag after crag flared forth 
 its summons, just as in the old times of English war. 
 Scott himself was at Gilsland ; but he covered the 
 distance of one hundred miles which lay between that 
 place and the rendezvous of his troop at Dalkeith 
 within four-and-twenty hours. There was a good 
 deal of banter, and some natural irritation, when these 
 brave fellows found that they had been hoaxed unin- 
 tentionally ; but Scott was delighted with the alacrity 
 displayed. * At Dalkeith the yeomanry were hos- 
 pitably feasted by the Duke of Buccleuch. Lord 
 Home called in vain upon the Selkirk men for the 
 old song 
 
 1 Up wi' the Souters o* Selkirk, 
 
 And doun wi' the Earl o' Home* 
 
 so he sang it himself, and was rapturously hailed and 
 enrolled as a Souter. 
 
 A mile below Edenmouth the Tweed swerves 
 suddenly from its north-easterly course, turns south- 
 east, meets English soil at Carham, and becomes the 
 boundary between the two countries. Opposite 
 Carham, on the Scottish bank, lies the hamlet of 
 Birgham among its green fields ; to the eye one of 
 those tranquil scenes where the concern of men seems 
 wrapped up in the favour or unkindness of the 
 seasons, the rise and fall of agricultural markets, and 
 the incidence of rent : to the understanding a spot 
 whereon the Muse of History has set her seal. For 
 
 1 See the notes to The Antiquary on the subject.
 
 254 THE STORY OF 
 
 it was out of an event at Birgham that the long-drawn 
 dispute between England and Scotland took its rise, 
 so that men say to this day, ' Go to Birgham and buy 
 bickers 1 ' It was here that the treaty was struck in 
 the summer of 1290 which, if envious fate had not 
 interposed, should have knit together two nations 
 which ought never to have been sundered. 
 
 * Quhen Alysandyr cure Kyng was dede 
 That Scodand led in love and 1, 
 Away wes sons of Ale and Brede, 
 Of wyne and war, of gamyn and gl, 
 Our gold wes changyd into lede. 
 Chryst, born into Virgynit, 
 Succour Scotland, and remede ! 
 That stad is in perplexit. ' ' 
 
 Alexander, last of the Kings of Peace, was dead. 
 He had won the love of his subjects and the fear of 
 his barons ; the kindly heart, the wise head, the firm 
 hand, were cold in death, and the governance of the 
 realm had passed to his grandchild, the Maid of 
 Norway, who now became, in right of her mother, 
 Margaret, Queen of Scots. Not undisputed Queen, 
 for the land was like to be rent in the interests of 
 other claimants, and wavered on the brink of anarchy 
 for two years, until King Edward opened negotiations 
 for the marriage of his son, afterwards Edward II., 
 with the child Queen. The Pope granted the 
 necessary dispensation for cousins-german ; and on 
 1 8th July 1290 the marriage-treaty was concluded at 
 Birgham. Everybody knows how that fair and 
 statesmanlike project miscarried through the untime- 
 
 1 Cantus, quoted by Wyntoun, Chronicle, vii. 3619-3626.
 
 THE TWEED 255 
 
 ly death of the young Queen of Scots, 1 how Edward's 
 claim to be Lord-Paramount of Scotland was laid 
 before the conference at Norham on loth May 1291, 
 and accepted by the eight competitors for the suc- 
 cession at the adjourned conference of Upsettlington 
 on 2nd June, and how King Edward gave his final 
 award in favour of John Baliol at the final conference 
 at Berwick on iyth November 1292. All this, and 
 many incidents in the three centuries of war which 
 it entailed, take rank among the best-known parts ot 
 the Scottish chronicle ; reference to them would be 
 superfluous, even impertinent, were it not that we are 
 passing among the very scenes where these found- 
 ations of national history were laid. As the eye 
 travels over the peaceful landscape, with its teeming 
 fields, sloping woods, and gliding river, it is good to 
 recall what fierce passions here were raised, what man- 
 ful battle was done for either cause, and how happily 
 all these wasteful disputes have been laid to rest. 
 
 Opposite Birgham stands the parish church of 
 Carham, on a bold bluff jutting over one of the surest 
 salmon casts in Tweed. Opposite in a sense more 
 than merely topographic, for Carham Burn marks the 
 march between England and Scotland, and from Car- 
 ham downwards the right bank of Tweed is English 
 soil. 
 
 In the eleventh century Scotland, as we know it, 
 was still in the making, Malcolm II., King of Scots 
 in Alba, being one of the chief makers thereof. It 
 
 1 It was natural that men should demur in their belief that a life so 
 precious had come to a natural end. Stories of foul play flew about, 
 and in 1301 a woman was burned in Norway for claiming to be 
 Margaret, Queen of Scots, and alleging that she had been kidnapped 
 and sold by Ingebiorg, wife of Thor Hakonsson (Proceedings of the 
 Scottish Antiquaries, x. 403-416).
 
 256 THE STORY OF 
 
 was at Carham in the year 1018 that he won a great 
 victory over Edulf Cudal, Danish Earl of Northum- 
 berland, whereby he obtained cession of the territory 
 of Lothian, hitherto part of the kingdom or earldom 
 of Northumbria. A crucial point this in Scottish 
 history, for upon it hinged the whole claim of the 
 suzerainty of English kings over the northern realm. 
 The Anglo-Norman chroniclers averred that Lothian 
 was bestowed upon Malcolm's father, Kenneth II., 
 by King Eadgar of England, who received Kenneth's 
 homage for the same ; but there is little room 
 for doubt that Lothian became Malcolm's in 
 right of conquest the consequence of the battle of 
 Carham. 
 
 Hitherto our concern has been with fortresses on 
 Scottish soil erected and held as a protection against 
 English invasion, but from Carham downwards 
 Tweed herself marks the frontier, and a mile below 
 Carham Hall, on the English side, stood the great 
 castle of Wark, which has disappeared almost as 
 completely as that of Roxburgh. 
 
 Three times in the first year of Stephen's reign 
 (1135-1154) did David i., King of Scots, lay siege 
 to this stronghold. Twice he was repulsed ; the 
 third time the garrison, in the last extremity of 
 hunger, capitulated on terms ; the keep was dis- 
 mantled and the outworks razed. In the following 
 February, Stephen and David made up their quarrel 
 for the nonce, Wark, among other Northumbrian 
 castles, being handed over by the Scots to the 
 English. It was repaired by Henry n. in 1158-61, 
 William de Vesci accounting for large sums spent 
 in building during those years, and it was garrisoned 
 as a royal keep ; but in 1212 it had become the
 
 THE TWEED 257 
 
 * honour ' or manor of de Ros of Hamelak, l although 
 various kings of England continued to borrow it 
 from its owners at times of national emergency. 
 
 In 1252 King Henry granted de Ros a weekly 
 fair and market to be held at Wark, and also an 
 annual fair, ' on the vigil, the day and the morrow 
 of Pentecost, and the two following days. ' Sir 
 Robert de Ros of Wark-on-Tweed joined Wallace 
 in arms in 1302, and among other exploits plundered 
 and burnt Wark-on-Tyne ; but his brother William, 
 Lord of Hamelak, remained faithful to his English 
 allegiance, and received the castle and manor of 
 Wark as his reward from King Edward I. William 
 left no heirs, so in 1367 Margaret, daughter and 
 heir of Sir Robert, sought and obtained from 
 Edward III. pardon for herself, reversal of her 
 father's forfeiture, and reinstatement as lady of the 
 manor. 8 
 
 Previously to that, in 1 343 or thereabouts, Bruce's 
 late-born son, David II., in returning from a suc- 
 cessful foray in Durham, passed near Wark Castle, 
 which was then in possession of the Earl of Salisbury. 
 His countess was in residence, with Sir William de 
 Montagu in command of the garrison. They beheld 
 the clouds of dust raised by the Scots' columns and 
 the herds of cattle which they were driving off; 
 they waited till the main body had passed ; then out 
 sallied Montagu with forty horse and fell upon the 
 rearguard. The Scots, encumbered with booty, 
 
 1 De Vesci and de Ros, being descended from two illegitimate 
 daughters of William the Lion, both put in claims as competitors for 
 the Crown in 1291. 
 
 1 I do not trouble readers with references for all these details Much 
 information may be found in the collections of Palgrave, Raine and 
 Bain. 
 
 17
 
 258 THE STORY OF 
 
 made a poor defence ; many of them were slain, and 
 the English captain made good his retreat to the 
 castle with one hundred and sixty laden horses which 
 he had taken. Young David turned for vengeance, 
 assaulted the place, was repulsed, and proceeded to 
 invest it. Edward III. was marching in force towards 
 the Border. It was imperative that he should be 
 warned of the plight of Wark, so Montagu himself 
 rode out under cloud of a stormy night, passed 
 through the Scottish lines, and found his way to 
 King Edward's headquarters. On the approach of 
 the English army David hurriedly raised the siege, 
 and drew off into Scotland. King Edward was 
 received at Wark with great rejoicing ; the Countess 
 of Salisbury was a charming hostess ; she dropped 
 her garter when dancing with the King, who gallantly 
 bound it under his royal knee, a proceeding of which 
 Queen Philippa did not wholly approve ; so Edward 
 restored the garter to its lovely owner with the 
 chivalrous disclaimer, Horn soit qui mal y pense ! 
 Such, at least, is one account of the origin of the 
 Most Noble Order of the Garter, although other 
 versions of the story alter the date to 1346 and the 
 scene to Windsor Castle. 
 
 In 1399 the Scots took the castle from Sir Thomas 
 Gray, ' put his people and children to ransom at 
 1000, burned his houses, and beat down the castle 
 walls' ; for which misadventure Sir Thomas received 
 pardon from Henry IV. on 24th May 1400. Rebuilt 
 once more, Wark was stormed again in 1419 by 
 William Haliburton of Fast Castle, who caused the 
 whole garrison to be put to the sword ; the compli- 
 ment being returned by the English a few weeks 
 later, when they obtained access through a sewer
 
 THE TWEED 259 
 
 leading from the kitchen to the Tweed. About this 
 time the redoubtable Border family of Grey became 
 possessed of Wark-on-Tweed in succession to that 
 of de Ros ; and in 1695 Lady Mary Grey, daughter 
 and heir of Grey, Earl of Tankerville, married 
 Charles Bennet, second Lord Ossulston, and brought 
 the property of Wark into that family, the earldom 
 of her father being bestowed upon her husband in 
 1714. 
 
 Again the Scots captured Wark Castle in the 
 reign of Henry VI., and demolished the fortifications; 
 and yet again, after the Earl of Surrey had rebuilt 
 them, in 1513, on their march to Flodden. In 
 1523 the Duke of Albany lay upon the Scottish side 
 of the Tweed, and sent Andrew Ker of Fernihirst 
 with four thousand Scots and French to assault the 
 place. They stormed the outworks and breached 
 the inner wall ; but the garrison, under good Sir 
 John Lisle, made good their defence till nightfall. 
 It was raining heavily ; Tweed was waxing ; the 
 coming spate threatened to cut off Ker's column 
 from the main body, and Surrey was not far off 
 with a powerful army. So Ker beat his retreat 
 across the Tweed, and the English possession of 
 Wark has never been challenged since. 
 
 Just above Coldstream Tweed receives from the 
 Scottish side the waters of a curious little stream 
 called the Leet, which, though of insignificant volume, 
 runs a course of fourteen miles through the heart of 
 the Merse. Ditchlike in dimensions though it be, 
 its trout would put to shame those of many waters 
 of greater pretension ; in fact, Tom Stoddart account- 
 ed them the best of any tributary of the Tweed 
 above Coldstream, He says that one day in April
 
 260 THESTORYOF 
 
 1841 he took with fly six-and-twenty of these trout, 
 which weighed 29 Ib. 
 
 The Leet rises in Whitsome parish, a richly cul- 
 tivated vale, wherein the Templars once had prop- 
 erty, and passes into Swinton parish, the lands of 
 which gave the name to the family which still pos- 
 sesses them, claiming descent from Edulf de Swinton, 
 who held under a charter from Malcolm Ceannmor 
 (1058-1093.) 
 
 Fifth in descent from Edulf came Sir Alan de 
 Swinton, a knight of gigantic frame who died about 
 the year 1200, and whose sepulchral effigy, one of 
 the oldest sculptured tombs in Scotland, is built into 
 the wall of the parish church. It is very rudely 
 carved ; on a slab behind the figure are represented 
 the three boars ' heads erased, which, with a chevron, 
 are still the arms of the family. The chained boar 
 above the arms is the crest of the Swintons, and 
 indicates a later date than that assigned to the 
 recumbent figure, seeing that crests did not come 
 into fashion till the middle of the fourteenth century. 
 The inscription runs : 
 
 HIC JACET 
 
 ALANVS SVINTONUS 
 
 MILES DE EODEM. 
 
 Under this monument was a vault, which, when 
 opened, was found to contain a stone coffin and 
 three skulls, one of which was of immense size, and 
 was supposed to be that of Sir Alan. A cast of it 
 was taken for Sir Walter Scott, and remains at 
 Abbotsford beside a similar one taken from the skull 
 of King Robert the Bruce.
 
 THE TWEED 261 
 
 In the lower part of its course the Leet traverses 
 the finely wooded park of the Hirsel, a country seat 
 of the Earl of Home, representative in the female 
 line of the once all-puissant house of Douglas. The 
 name Hirsel is the old Scots for a sheeprold, agree- 
 ably significant of the pacific change in the condition 
 of society, enabling a Border baron to dispense with 
 a fortified dwelling-place. Three miles or so east 
 of the Hirsel is the little village and parish church 
 of Eccles, indicating by its name ecclesia, a church 
 the site of an ancient religious foundation. The 
 village has never recovered from Lord Hertford's 
 destructive raid in 1 545, when St. Mary's Cistercian 
 nunnery, founded in 1155, was burnt to the ground, 
 together with the parish church of St Cuthbert. 
 Half a mile north of Eccles stands a memorial cross 
 of the twelfth century, in honour, say some people, 
 of a Percy of a de Soulis, maintain others. The 
 place used to be known as Deadriggs, but now goes 
 by the name of Crosshall. 
 
 At the embouchure of the little Leet, Tweed 
 makes a stately sweep, south-east, north-east, and 
 finally north-west, recovering herself abruptly, and 
 resuming a general north-easterly direction where 
 the pretty town of Coldstream clusters about the 
 steep banks. By the ford here Edward I. entered 
 Scotland in 1296 ; and here, in 1650, General Monk 
 formed the corps of Fenwick and Haslerig into the 
 Coldstream Regiment, the ranks being filled chiefly 
 by Border men. After ten years' campaign in 
 Scotland, Monk marched the regiment to London, 
 there to become household troops of Charles II., 
 now known as the Coldstream Guards. 
 
 Its position on the Border rendered Coldstream a
 
 262 THE STORY OF 
 
 powerful rival of Gretna Green in the matter of 
 elopements from England, and here it was that 
 Henry Brougham concluded his runaway match 
 with Mrs. Spalding in 1819. Of the Cistercian 
 Priory, founded in 1 143 by Cospatrick, Earl of 
 March, no trace remains aboveground ; but litera 
 scripta manet its chartulary was published by the 
 Grampian Club in 1879. 
 
 There is a left-handed compliment to the maidens 
 of this neighbourhood in the following local jingle: 
 
 ' Buchtrig and Belchester, 
 Hatchetknowe and Darnchester, 
 
 Leetholm and the Peel ; 
 If ye canna get wived in ane o' thae places 
 
 Ye '11 ne'er dae weel. ' 
 
 Three miles below Coldstream, on the English 
 bank, is Tilmouth, where Tweed receives the river 
 Till, which, though flowing entirely within English 
 soil, has a closer connection with Scottish history 
 than may be claimed for many a northern stream, 
 seeing that it flows close past the fatal field of Flod- 
 den. The Till is formed by the confluence of two 
 streams, the Bowmont and the Breamish, to seek the 
 sources of which one must pass far into the heart of 
 the Cheviots. 
 
 * The foot o* Breamish and the head o' Till 
 Meet together at Bewick Mill. ' 
 
 To record a tenth part of the feats of arms wrought 
 in the valleys of these streams to note one in every 
 score of the churches and castles that stand near 
 their banks would fill a separate volume. The tide 
 of battle ebbed and flowed across the Border for 

 
 THE TWEED 263 
 
 centuries, and if closer attention has been given in 
 these pages to events on Scottish soil and monu- 
 ments of Scottish history, it is because the northern 
 nation has always claimed the Tweed as a Scottish 
 river. Nevertheless, out of the crowded memories 
 of these dales, two or three claim notice even in the 
 most succinct survey. 
 
 The first of these looms through the mist of five 
 centuries a memory of disaster on the Scottish 
 arms. It was in harvest-time of 1402 that Archi- 
 bald, fourth Earl of Douglas, marched with ten 
 thousand men through the most fertile tract of 
 Northumberland, wasting ripe crops and driving off 
 cattle in the approved style as far as the very walls 
 of Newcastle. Henry IV. was busy at the time 
 putting down rebellion in Wales, but the Earl of 
 Northumberland lay at Alnwick, with the fiery 
 Hotspur, burning to take the field. Of all the 
 Scottish nobility none were so uncertain in their 
 allegiance as the house of Dunbar. Now on one 
 side, then on the other, it requires close comparison 
 of dates to determine in which camp they are to be 
 found. At this time their chief, George, Earl of 
 March, was a renegade in the service of the enemies 
 of Scotland, and, being at Alnwick with the Percys, 
 persuaded them, though with difficulty, to lie still 
 till Douglas should pass northward again, encumb- 
 ered by his spoil. The Earl of Northumberland, 
 then, mustered his forces at Wooler, between the 
 waters of Glen and Breamish. 
 
 The Scots columns, returning, bivouacked on low 
 ground at Millfield, where Percy moved to attack 
 them. Douglas refused battle, drawing off to the 
 stronger position of Homildon, where, on a bare
 
 264 THE STORY OF 
 
 upland, he awaited attack in the usual Scottish 
 formation of * schiltroms' or squares. Hotspur was 
 for charging at once, but March held his rein and 
 bade him behold the fair target offered to his archers 
 by the dense masses of the enemy. March's craft 
 prevailed. The clothyard shafts were sent winging 
 into the throng ; the Scots pikemen were falling in 
 scores. 
 
 * Better die in open mellay than be shot down 
 like deer, ' cried Sir John Swinton, and called for 
 volunteers. Adam Gordon, a knight with whom 
 Swinton was at mortal feud, was the first to respond. 
 He fell on his knees, craved Swinton's pardon, and 
 was dubbed knight-banneret on the spot. Together 
 they rode down the hill, followed only by some 
 fivescore spears. Douglas, hesitating, gave them no 
 support, and the whole party were allowed to perish 
 in full sight of their comrades. Then, when it was 
 too late, Douglas sounded the charge, and led it. He 
 fell, a prisoner, blinded of an eye and with five arrow 
 wounds ; Murdoch, Angus, Moray, and many others 
 were taken also ; Lindsays, Livingstones, Ramsays, 
 St. Clairs all the best blood of Scotland were among 
 the slain. * What need of more ! ' exclaims the 
 chronicler Bower in winding up this dreary chapter, 
 * the flower of Scottish chivalry, as it were, was taken 
 and held to ransom. ' 1 Among the slain were four 
 Scottish earls, and many barons, bannerets, knights, 
 and esquires ; and King Henry gave Nicolas Mer- 
 bury, Esquire, a present of 40, so delighted was he 
 on perusing the despatches brought to him by the 
 said Nicolas. s Otterburn was avenged, but now the 
 
 1 Bower, xiv. c. 14. 
 
 * Bain's Calendar, ix. 129.
 
 THE TWEED 265 
 
 blood of Homildon cried in its turn for vengeance, 
 which the Scots, rent by internal feud, were in no 
 plight to seek promptly. Requital had to wait till 
 1421, when, on French soil, it was exacted in full 
 by the Earl of Buchan in his victory over the Duke 
 of Clarence at Beauge. * An accursed breed, these 
 Scots, ' quoth Henry V. when he heard of his 
 brother's defeat and death ; * let me go where I will, 
 I find them in my beard !' l and died a few months 
 afterwards, as the pious chronicler of Pluscardine 
 declares, because he had plundered the shrine of 
 St. Fiacre, son of a king of Scots. 
 
 The Breamish heads eastward at first, as if to 
 break an independent way to the North Sea ; but 
 the high ground about Eglingham sets it upon a 
 northerly course, and, after passing under the crags 
 of Chillingham, famous for its white wild cattle, it 
 turns sharp to the left at Chatton, and meeting- 
 Bowmont Water below Wooler, these two bright 
 streams between them form the sullen Till. 
 
 About five miles from Wooler the conspicuous 
 cone of Yeavering Bell (1172 feet) attracts attention 
 from eyes accustomed to the tame outlines and 
 gentle slopes of the Cheviots. Here Bishop Paul- 
 inus made his headquarters in the year 625, when 
 he brought jEthelburh, sister of Eadbald, King of 
 Kent, to wed with Eadwine, King of Northumber- 
 land, having first made a Christian of him. And 
 not of Eadwine only, for during the thirty-six days 
 that Paulinus remained here, the country people 
 thronged round him, and he baptized them in the 
 Glen Water that winds round the back of Yeavering 
 Bell. The summit of this hill, bleak and gusty as 
 
 1 Liber Pluscardensis, x. 27.
 
 266 THE STORY OF 
 
 it is, was once populous, the plateau on the top 
 being still surrounded by a thick wall, containing 
 the foundations of a large village. The name of 
 the missionary, who afterwards became Archbishop 
 of York, is preserved in that of Pallinsburn, the 
 seat of the Askew family. 
 
 Before running its devious course of twelve miles 
 from the Scottish border, Bowmont Water passes 
 between the villages of Town Yetholm on its left 
 bank and Kirk Yetholm on its right bank. Practi- 
 cally these form but a single village, many miles 
 from everywhere, with a combined population of 
 less than seven hundred and fifty inhabitants. Of 
 venerable antiquity, Yetholm has a sorely chequered 
 reputation a place with a past, in short, rather 
 sensitive under close scrutiny. From the seven- 
 teenth century onwards it was the metropolis of the 
 Gipsies, and in the eighteenth century was deeply 
 implicated in the smuggling of strong drink across 
 the Border. When Will Faa, the Gipsy King, died 
 at Coldingham about 1783, his subjects, mounted 
 on three hundred asses, escorted his corpse to Kirk 
 Yetholm for burial ; but in 1817 the Gipsy population 
 of this place was reckoned at no more than one 
 hundred and nine. The royal line of Faa was 
 extinguished in 1883 in the person of Esther Faa 
 Blythe, who lived to deplore the faded glory of her 
 court, for, to quote her own words, * Kirk Yetholm 
 had turned sae mingle-mangle that ane micht think 
 it was either built on a dark nicht or sawn on a 
 windy ane the folks maist a' Irish noo, and nane 
 o' my seed, breed or generation.' 
 
 A strange history, that of the Gipsies. Appearing 
 first in Scotland during the fifteenth century, speak-
 
 THETWEED 267 
 
 ing a strange tongue, governed by their own laws 
 and claiming rank and precedence among them- 
 selves, these nomads professed to be Christian 
 fugitives from Saracen oppressors, and seem to have 
 been taken at their own valuation by that most 
 pious prince James IV. Jurisdiction over their own 
 people was granted them by James V. in 1540, by 
 a writ in favour of ' Johnne Faa, Lord and Erie of 
 Littil Egipt,' directing the sheriffs of Edinburgh, 
 Haddington, and other counties to support him \r\ 
 the exercise of his authority, ' conform to the lawis 
 of Egipt.' They soon fell out of credit : in 1 603 
 the Scottish Parliament decreed their banishment on 
 pain of death, which caused them to gravitate 
 towards the Border, across which they might slip as 
 often as the laws of either realm were enforced 
 against them. In 1624 Capitane Johnne Faa with 
 seven other Gipsies were put upon their trial and 
 executed as c vagaboundis, sorneris, common thevis 
 callit, knawn, repute, and halden Egiptianis.' Next 
 Helen Faa, the captain's widow, and eleven other 
 Gipsy women were sentenced to be drowned, but 
 this doom was commuted by the King to one of 
 banishment. And now there is no distinct Gipsy 
 community ; their race has been merged in the 
 general population. The Romany speech is heard 
 no more, neither does any bear the name of Faa ; 
 although that of Marshall, representing a Gipsy sept, 
 remains common enough ; and George Romney, the 
 painter, belonged to a family said to derive their 
 surname from Romany. 
 
 Pass we now to that ridge of mournful memory 
 near which a sudden bend in the Till gives a name 
 to the hamlet of Crookham ; for here in the last days
 
 268 THESTORYOF 
 
 of August 1513 the King of Scots entrenched his 
 army, containing all that was best and bravest of his 
 realm, and awaited the approach of English Surrey. 
 Wark and Eital strengths had surrendered to him ; 
 Norham also, wellnigh impregnable, had yielded 
 after five days' siege ; the game was surely in the 
 Scottish King's hands. So at least thought Surrey, 
 for while the Scots were well provisioned and their 
 communications sure, the English were on short 
 commons, with no beer, and weary with marching and 
 counter-marching in the rain. But Surrey was a 
 fine tactician, and King James was negligent in 
 scouting. He allowed his enemy to manoeuvre be- 
 hind Barmoor, full seven miles to the east of the 
 camp at Flodden ; took no precaution to ascertain his 
 subsequent movements ; and the first he knew was 
 that Surrey, on the afternoon of 9th September, was 
 marching upon him from the north, having recrossed 
 the Till at Twizel Bridge, passing his columns over 
 the picturesque arch which still spans the stream. 
 Still James had but to hold his ground, for he was 
 splendidly posted, and might have lain on the ridge 
 well provisioned till hunger should compel the 
 English to move elsewhere. But chivalrous tradition 
 vitiated the Scottish King's strategy. What followed 
 is written in history as the battle of Flodden. Had 
 it been so, victory must infallibly have remained with 
 the Scots. It was James's demon that made it the 
 Battle of Branxton. Forming line of battle in five 
 divisions, the King took command of the central one 
 himself. ' Forward, banners ! ' was the order, and 
 the whole array descended from the commanding 
 position of Flodden to meet the enemy on the lower 
 ground of Branxton.
 
 THETWEED 269 
 
 What followed is known to all men. If the King 
 of Scots had blundered, he and his soldiers, gentle 
 and simple, showed how brave men should take their 
 punishment. Next morning, when the English were 
 collecting their spoil, they found King James lying 
 stark, in the middle of a bodyguard of twelve dead 
 earls, fourteen lords, an archbishop, a bishop, and a 
 pair of abbots; while far and wide upon the blood-bol- 
 tered slopes lay the Flowers o' the Forest in swathes. 
 A hush seems to lie upon the scene of this awful 
 massacre. The Till has none of the rattling sharp- 
 ness of other Border streams, but winds silent and 
 profound through the meadows till it merges pass- 
 ively in the greater Tweed. The local rhyme may 
 be threadbare with age and use, but it still carries a 
 fitting strain of dread. 
 
 * Says Tweed to Till 
 
 " What gars ye rin sae still ? " 
 Says Till to Tweed 
 
 " Though you rin wi' speed, 
 And I rin slaw, ...,.., 
 
 Whaur ye droon ae man, 
 / droon two ! " 
 
 It has been a current slander upon Henry VIII. 
 that when Surrey reported his victory and suggested 
 that the body of King James, Henry's brother-in- 
 law and cousin, should receive sepulture in St. Paul's 
 Cathedral, a flat refusal was returned. King Henry 
 has plenty to answer for without adding falsely to 
 his indictment. James had died excommunicate, and 
 so could not receive Christian burial without special 
 sanction from the Pope. King Henry wrote to Pope 
 Leo X. for that sanction, and obtained it ; but the 
 King of Scots, it is supposed, had been buried 
 meanwhile in the monastery of Sheen, in Surrey.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 NORHAM CASTLE AND WHITADDER 
 
 HALF-A-DOZEN miles below Coldstream say 
 eight by the windings of the river Ladykirk 
 stands in a fine setting of woodland. The 
 kirk itself might attract little notice in any English 
 or French village ; but in Scotland it is remarkable 
 because, despite its hazardous proximity to the 
 Border, it has come unscathed through the terrible 
 raidings of the sixteenth century. Erected in 1 500, 
 a debased period, by James IV. out of gratitude for 
 an escape from drowning in the Tweed, it measures 
 94 feet 6 inches in length, is built in the form of a 
 cross with apsidal ends to the chancel and transepts. 
 The whole is covered with pointed barrel vaulting, 
 roofed over with overlapping stone flags. To resist 
 the pressure of this massive structure the walls are 
 supported by numerous buttresses, each crowned 
 with a short pinnacle. 
 
 Ladykirk Bridge was built in 1839 to supersede 
 a dangerous ford Ubbanford, it is called in ancient 
 writings which, during the Border wars, often gave 
 passage to armies or marauding bands of both nations. 
 The see of Durham was famous of old for its suc- 
 cession of military prelates, and among them all 
 there was none, not even the dauntless Antony Bek 
 of Edward I.'s reign, more restless as a neighbour,
 
 THE STORY OF THE TWEED 271 
 
 more dangerous as a foe, than Bishop Ranulf 
 Flambard Rafe the torch-bearer who was con- 
 secrated in 1099. Symeon of Durham has recorded 
 how in 1 12 1 the 'magnificent' Bishop Flambard 
 ordered the erection of a tower upon the height 
 overlooking Ubbanford, to put an end to the incur- 
 sion of * robbers and Scots. ' Flambard died in 
 1128 : ten years later his new castle of Norham was 
 invested by David I. of Scotland, and, although 
 vigorously defended at first by nine knights, it 
 capitulated and was promptly dismantled. There 
 remain of Flambard's work the whole east side and 
 part of the south side of the keep. In 1 1 54 Hugh 
 de Pudsey, a priest of no more than four-and-twenty 
 years old, became Bishop of Durham, and imme- 
 diately set his architect, Robertus Ingeniator, to 
 rebuild the fortress of Norham on a superb scale ; 
 and although the outer defences have nearly all 
 disappeared, the great curtain wall described by 
 Camden as connecting the many towers of the outer 
 enceinte having been undermined by the Tweed, 
 the gateway of the bridge across the moat still 
 remains, and the Norman keep still frowns across 
 the Merse, defiant even in the last stages of decay. 
 Second in importance and strength to none of the 
 Border fortresses, fierce and frequent were the 
 conflicts waged for its possession ; many a fine 
 pageant enlivened the brief periods of truce. 
 
 In the year 1200, Berwick Bridge having been 
 carried away by a flood, William the Lion, King of 
 Scots, passed this way on his journey to London, 
 where he was to press before King John his claim 
 on Northumberland. The bills of fare for two of 
 the King's meals in Norham have been preserved.
 
 272 THE STORY OF 
 
 The season being Lent, no meat was allowed, yet 
 the variety was such as to read about it almost 
 suffices to give one heartburn : 
 
 I 
 
 Frumentie ryall and mammonie to potage 
 
 Lung [ling] in foyle 
 
 Cunger p in foyle 
 
 Lampreys with galantine 
 
 Pyke in latmer sauce 
 
 Cunger roasted 
 
 Halibut roasted 
 
 Salmon in foyle roasted 
 
 Carp in sharp sauce 
 
 Celes [ ? seals] rost 
 
 Salmon baked 
 
 Custard planted 
 
 Leche Florentine 
 
 Fritter dolphin 
 
 II 
 
 Jolie ipocras and prune drendge to potage 
 Sturgeon in foyle with welkes 
 Turbit 
 Soles 
 
 Bream in sharpe sause 
 Carps in armine 
 Tenches flourished 
 Crevesses [crayfish] 
 Camprons [?] rost 
 Roches fried 
 Lampreys baked 
 Quince and drendge baked 
 Tart melior 
 Leche Florentine 
 Fritter ammell [Phoney fritter] 
 Fritter pome [apple fritter] 
 A subtiltie in three stages with towers embatteled
 
 THETWEED 273 
 
 Malwesse wine of Malvoisie was provided in 
 liberal measure to wash down all this good cheer 
 withal. 
 
 Edward I. was particularly indifferent to splendour 
 in dress, and is known to have set his face against 
 the increasing foppery of both clergy and laity. Yet 
 he seems to have departed from his customary sim- 
 plicity in attire when he summoned his nobles to 
 meet him at Norham in May 1291, to decide the 
 knotty point of the Scottish succession. It is 
 recorded that he rode in a jupon of scarlet silk, with 
 a tabard or ' coat of arms ' over it, embroidered with 
 the lilies of France and the leopards of England. 
 On his head was a golden crown, on his breast a 
 golden brooch, on his shoulders many jewels. If 
 all this was meant to overawe the Scottish magnates 
 with a sense of the superior wealth of England, 
 Edward's suite played up with spirit to the same 
 key. Bishop Antony Bek's mitre was trimmed with 
 pearls ; his crosier was of gold set with jewels ; his 
 very hood sparkled with precious stones, and a heavy 
 sword swung beside his saddle. Following him rode 
 abbots in scarlet and green and long-pointed shoes 
 monks with furred sleeves and jingling bells on their 
 bridles friars who seemed c not poor men in thread- 
 bare capes, but apparelled like the Pope himself. ' 
 Even Chief-Justice Brabazon and his lawyers made 
 a dazzling show in scarlet shoes, scarlet gowns faced 
 with blue, girt with silk striped of many colours, and 
 wearing white silken coifs. 
 
 In the sixteenth year of Edward II. 's disastrous 
 reign, 1323 to wit, Norham Castle was committed 
 to the custody of that fine old soldier Sir Thomas 
 
 18
 
 274 THE STORY OF 
 
 Gray 1 of Heton, coupled with the sheriffship of 
 Norhamshire and Islandshire. By this time the 
 English government had become so deeply seamed 
 with dissension between the King and his indignant 
 barons that the defence of the Scottish border was 
 left, practically, in the masterly hands of William de 
 Melton, Archbishop of York. But for him and his 
 lieutenants Sir Thomas Gray on the East Marches 
 and Sir Andrew de Harcla on the West Marches 
 the northern counties of England must have passed 
 into permanent possession of the King of Scots. Sir 
 Thomas Gray had a son of the same name, who, 
 being taken prisoner in a skirmish on Nesbit Moor 
 in 1355, beguiled his captivity in Edinburgh Castle 
 by compiling the record entitled Scalacronica the 
 Ladder Chronicle in allusion to the crest adopted 
 by his family a scaling-ladder. Written in Norman- 
 French, which was still the official language of Eng- 
 land in the fourteenth century, this chronicle has 
 never been translated, except in so far as Leland 
 made a brief abstract of it in English. 
 
 That portion which deals with the times when 
 Gray and his father were actively engaged is of 
 infinite value to the historian, for Gray is the only 
 historical writer of that period who was not a cleric. 
 We have, therefore, in his narrative a unique 
 example of military affairs under the three first 
 Edwards described by an eye-witness who was a 
 soldier, and thoroughly understood his subject. 
 The passages relating to Norham Castle give such 
 vivid insight into the vicissitudes of life in a Border 
 fortress that I make no apology for translating for 
 
 1 The English family of this name now write it ' Grey, ' while the 
 Scottish Grays retain the usual orthography of the fourteenth century.
 
 THETWEED 275 
 
 the first time a liberal extract from this work. This 
 extract begins with events of the year 1318. 
 
 * The King of England [Edward ii.] undertook hardly 
 anything more against Scotland, so much had he lost by 
 indolence of what his father had conquered. Gilbert de 
 Middleton, also, held against him many of the fortresses 
 within his Marches of England, and raised against much of 
 Northumberland. In the bishopric of Durham, Gilbert 
 pillaged two cardinals who had come to consecrate the 
 bishop, and seized Louis de Beaumont, Bishop of Durham, 
 and his brother, Henry de Beaumont, because the King had 
 caused his cousin, Adam de Swinburne, to be arrested, for 
 having spoken too frankly to him about the condition of the 
 Marches. This same Gilbert, with support of others on 
 the Marches, made a raid into Cleveland and committed 
 other mischief, having nearly the whole of Northumberland 
 at his command, except the castles of Bamborough, Alnwick, 
 and Norham. The first two of these were treating with 
 the enemy one by hostages, the other by collusion when 
 the said Gilbert was taken in the castle of Mitford by 
 treachery of his own people, [his captors being] William de 
 Felton, Thomas de Heton, ! and Robert de Horncliff, and 
 was hanged and drawn in London. 
 
 * In consequence of all this, the Scots had become so bold 
 that they subdued all the Marches of England and dismantled 
 the castles of Wark and Harbottle ; so that scarcely did any 
 English dare to oppose them, and they subdued the whole 
 of Northumberland by means of the treachery of the 
 deceitful country-people. Thus they had scarcely anything 
 more to do in any part of these Marches, except at Norham, 
 where a knight Sir Thomas Gray * was in garrison with his 
 relations. 
 
 1 This was probably the chronicler himself, for his father, Sir 
 Thomas Gray of Heton, was constable of Norham Castle at this time, 
 and most likely had enough to keep him there. 
 
 * The chronicler's father.
 
 276 THE STORY OF 
 
 * It would be too lengthy a matter to relate the exploits ' 
 and the feats of arms, and the suffering for want of food, 
 and the sieges, which he experienced during the eleven 
 years which he spent during the evil and calamitous period 
 for the English. Moreover, several persons have compiled 
 the history of his days in the said castle. 
 
 * It was evident that after the town of Berwick was taken 
 out of possession of the English, the Scots had so greatly 
 the upper hand and were so insolent, that they made little 
 account of the English, who could not regain spirit, but 
 allowed it to perish. 
 
 * At that time there came a certain page * to a great 
 banquet of lords and ladies in Lincolnshire, bringing a war 
 helmet with a curious gilded crest to Sir William Marmion, 
 with a letter from his lady commanding him to repair to the 
 most dangerous place in Great Britain, and there to make 
 this helmet famous. Straightway it was decided by the 
 chevaliers present that he should go to Norham, as the most 
 perilous and adventurous place in the country. 
 
 * The said William went off to Norham, whither, within 
 four days of his arrival, Sir Alexander de Mowbray, brother 
 of Sir Philip de Mowbray, formerly constable of Berwick, 
 came before the castle of Norham with the most celebrated 
 chivalry of the March of Scotland, and, with more than 
 eightscore men-at-arms, drew up before the castle at the 
 hour of noon. At that time those within the castle were 
 just sitting down to dine. The constable, Thomas de 
 Gray, drew up his garrison before the barriers, saw the 
 enemy formed up in array close in front, and, looking back, 
 beheld the said Sir William Marmion coming on foot, all 
 glittering with gold and silver, splendidly attired, and with 
 the helmet on his head. The said Thomas, well knowing 
 the cause of his having come, cried aloud to him : "Sir 
 Knight, you have come here as knight errant to make that 
 helmet famous, and it is a far more becoming thing that 
 
 1 Let punyes. 
 
 1 Vndamoiselfayc.
 
 THETWEED 277 
 
 deeds of chivalry be wrought on horseback than on foot, 
 where that is possible. Mount your horse ; behold the 
 enemy ; spur forward and charge among them. I will deny 
 my, God if I rescue not your body alive or dead, else shall 
 I die myself! " 
 
 * The knight mounted a beautiful charger, spurred 
 forward, and charged into the midst of the enemy, who 
 struck him down, made shipwreck of his countenance, l and 
 dragged him from the saddle to the ground. 
 
 * At this moment the said Thomas came up with his whole 
 garrison, with lances lowered. They struck the horses in the 
 bowels, so that they threw their riders, drove back the 
 enemy's cavalry, raised the fallen knight, replaced him on 
 his horse, and pursued the enemy, of whom many were left 
 dead in the first encounter, and fifty valuable horses were 
 taken. The women in the castle brought horses out to 
 their men, who mounted, gave chase, and cut down all 
 whom they could overtake. 
 
 * Thomas de Gray caused to be slain at the Yarford one 
 Cryn, a Fleming, a sea admiral and brigand, who was in high 
 command under Robert de Brus ; the other fugitives were 
 chased as far as the nunnery of Berwick. 
 
 * Another time Adam de Gordon, a Scottish baron, having 
 collected more than eightscore men-at-arms, came before the 
 said castle of Norham, thinking to seize the cattle which 
 were grazing outside the said castle. Some young fellows 
 of the garrison ran rashly to the extreme end of the town, 
 which at the time lay waste and in ruins, and began skir- 
 mishing. The hostile Scots surrounded them. The said 
 sortie party established themselves behind some old walls and 
 defended themselves stoutly. At this moment the said 
 constable, Thomas de Gray, issued from the castle with his 
 garrison, and, perceiving his people in so much danger from 
 the enemy, said to his lieutenant : 
 
 ' " I put you in charge of this castle, although in truth it 
 is my duty to guard it in the King's service, so that I may 
 
 1 Ly naufrerent hu visage.
 
 278 THE STORY OF 
 
 drink the same cup that my people yonder have to drink. " 
 'So off he started at high speed, having with him of 
 common people and others not more than sixty all told. 
 When the enemy saw him approaching in this fashion, they 
 left the skirmishers among the old walls, and drew out into 
 the open fields. The men who were within the ditches, 
 seeing their chieftain coming in this manner, leapt the 
 ditches and ran out into the field upon the said enemy, who 
 spurred upon them and drove them back. Thereupon, up 
 came the said Thomas with his people, when the horses fell 
 into confusion ; the men of foot, crouching on the ground, 
 killed the horses and rallied to the said Thomas, charged the 
 enemy and chased them from the field across the water of 
 Tweed. Many were taken and many slain ; many horses 
 lay dead ; so that had they [the English] been mounted, 
 hardly one [of the Scots] would have escaped. 
 
 * The said Thomas de Gray was twice besieged in the 
 said castle once for nearly a year, and another time for 
 seven months. The enemy erected fortifications against him 
 one at Upsettlington, another at Norham church. Twice 
 he was revictualled by the lords Percy and Nevill, greatly 
 to the relief of the said castle. These [lords] became wise, 
 noble and rich, and did good service on the Marches. 
 
 ' On one occasion during de Gray's time the outer ward of 
 the said castle was betrayed on the eve of St. Catherine by one 
 of his people, who killed the porter and admitted the enemy, 
 who were concealed in a house outside the gate. The inner 
 ward and the donjon were safely held. The enemy did not 
 remain there beyond three days ; but, fearing the coming of 
 the said Thomas, who presently returned from the south, 
 where he had been at the time, they evacuated the outer 
 ward and burnt it, after failing in an attempt to mine it. 
 
 * Many fine feats of arms happened to the said Thomas 
 which are not recorded here. ' ' 
 
 1 Scalacronica, fol. 209", 210, 210*, 211 ; pp. 144-147 of the edition 
 printed for the Maitland Club in 1836.
 
 THE TWEED 279 
 
 Four times in its history Norham Castle was taken 
 by the Scots by David I. in 1138, by Robert I. in 
 1326, by Douglas and Moray in 1327, and by 
 James IV. on his way to Flodden in 1513 but the 
 captors were never able to hold it for more than a 
 month. 
 
 Opposite Norham, on the Scottish side, lies the 
 parish of Ladykirk, containing the hamlet of Upsett- 
 lington, where, on 2nd June 1291, the conference 
 between Edward I. and the Scottish magnates, ad- 
 journed from Norham on nth May, reassembled to 
 receive his award. Eight out of the nine competitors 
 for the Crown appeared before the English King : 
 the ninth, John de Baliol, mistook the day but turned 
 up on the morrow. On 4th June all present sur- 
 rendered the kingdom of Scotland into the hands of 
 King Edward, agreeing to accept his decision as 
 Lord-Paramount as to who was to be King of Scots. 
 Again the conference met at Berwick on 2nd August, 
 by which time four fresh competitors had put in 
 claims, making thirteen in all ; and on I5th October 
 a parliament was summoned at Berwick to receive 
 Edward's final award. He delivered judgment in 
 favour of John de Baliol on iyth November. 
 
 One may look dispassionately upon these proceed- 
 ings in the perspective of centuries. Lord Hales has 
 denounced Norham and Upsettlington as disgraceful 
 chapters in Scottish history ; but they record the acts 
 of the whole Scottish nation so far as the existing 
 constitution admitted of any act being national. The 
 bitterness which Scotsmen still bear (some of them) 
 to the memory of Edward I. the greatest ruler 
 England had ever owned up to that time had no 
 existence at the time of these conferences. In their
 
 280 THE STORY OF 
 
 perplexity the Guardians of Scotland had recourse to 
 his arbitration as the most likely means of protecting 
 the realm from the unspeakable miseries of a disput- 
 ed succession. He gave his award deliberately and 
 fearlessly to the best of his judgment, and as ruler of 
 England he was justified in exacting the best security 
 he could devise against the evils which he had sought 
 by contracting his heir, the Prince of Wales, in mar- 
 riage with the Queen of Scots. 
 
 Below Ladykirk the river winds in a series of 
 majestic reaches till it passes under the Union 
 Bridge at Paxton. This was the first suspension- 
 bridge in Great Britain, erected in 1820 to the design 
 of Captain Sir Samuel Brown, R.N., at a cost of 
 j$oo. Paxton House, a fine example of the work 
 of the architect Robert Adam (1728-1792), is the 
 mansion of an estate abutting upon the ancient 
 boundary of the liberties of Berwick-on-Tweed. 
 
 The last of Tweed's tributaries deserving notice 
 before that river merges with the North Sea is the 
 Whitadder, which forms its junction two long miles 
 above Berwick-on-Tweed. For the last time, then, 
 the reader is invited to quit the rich Merse, and, 
 passing to the bleak summits of the Lammermuirs, 
 survey the course of Whitadder, some thirty-four 
 miles in length, and take note of its principal feeders. 
 On the flank of Clint's Dod, which rears itself to the 
 respectable height of 1307 feet in Whittinghame 
 parish, Haddingtonshire, Whitadder takes her rise, 
 and speeds in a south-easterly course between Spart- 
 leton Edge and Redstone Rig crests of the Lam- 
 mermuir range. Of Gamelshiel Tower, on the east 
 bank, only one end of a small keep remains ; it was 
 probably a strength of the Hepburns. Of Penshiel,
 
 THE TWEED 281 
 
 on the west bank, once a fortalice of the monks of 
 Melrose, some of the vaulting still stands, perhaps 
 part of the original building mentioned in a grant by 
 the Earl of Dunbar to the monks of the Isle of May 
 in the year 1200. 
 
 Below the junction with Bothwell Water is Crans- 
 haws parish church, and beside it the well-preserved 
 castle of Cranshaws, dating from the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, an ancient possession of the Earls of Morton, 
 still remaining with that branch of the Douglas. 
 The lord of this barony used to enjoy the services 
 of a * brownie ' one of those invisible household 
 spirits so helpful while kept in good humour, so 
 spiteful when slighted. The brownie of Cranshaws 
 undertook all the work of f inning ' the corn, thresh- 
 ing it, and 'mowing' it that is, heaping it in the 
 barn. One day the said lord rudely criticised the 
 brownie's work, complaining that he had * mowed ' 
 it like a sloven ; which his supernatural ally resent- 
 ed so deeply that next morning all the corn was 
 found to have been thrown over the Raven's Craig, 
 a mile further down the Whitadder ; andjthis must 
 be the reason, of course, why the Douglas family no 
 longer enjoy the advantage of the brownie's help 1 
 
 Inside the church, which, dating only from 1739, 
 contains no other feature of interest, is a stone panel, 
 carved with the royal arms of Scotland, as they were 
 before the union of the Crowns in 1603, with a pair 
 of unicorns supporting. People tell (and believe) a 
 quaint story about this stone how that James VI. 
 attending divine service in Cranshaws kirk was 
 scandalised by the minister's omission to pray for the 
 royal family, and sent the stone to be set up opposite 
 the pulpit as a perpetual reminder.
 
 282 THE STORY OF 
 
 A little below Cranshaws, Whitadder is doubled in 
 volume by the inflow of the Dye Water, a most 
 troutful stream, rising between Lowran's Law(i68i 
 feet) and Willie's Law (1628 feet) in the western 
 Lammermuirs. Near Byrecleugh, a quaint old 
 shooting-box of the Duke of Roxburghe's, there is a 
 mighty cairn known as the Mutiny Stones, 240 feet 
 long, 75 feet broad, and 18 feet high. It is said to 
 commemorate a fight which took place here in 1402 
 between the men of Hepburn of Hailes and those of 
 the Earl of D unbar ; but in all probability it marks a 
 prehistoric place of sepulture. 1 
 
 About three miles further down the Dye Water, 
 on the north bank, is a hill of 1 1 94 feet, written 
 Wrink Law, but locally called Runklie, where is a 
 remarkable fortification of the kind usually termed 
 British. Next, the stream leads to Longrormacus, 
 an early religious site, as testified by the prefix 
 ' Long, ' which has no business to appear in that 
 form. It is the creation of the Ordnance Survey ; 
 for the name Langformacus seemed to the English 
 mapmakers to be Scottish dialect ' lang ' for ' long ' 
 whereas it represents the Welsh /, a church. 
 The parish church is still here, and a hamlet con- 
 taining less than four hundred inhabitants. 
 
 Below the junction of Dye Water with Whitadder 
 is Ellam Inn, much frequented by trout fishers, and 
 three miles further on Whitadder turns north to 
 meet the Monynut Water at Abbey St. Bathans, a 
 name that raises expectation of ecclesiastical remains. 
 It is supposed to represent a dedication to Batheine, 
 Columba's cousin, who succeeded him as Abbot of 
 
 1 I hazard this statement purely ex hypothcsi, for I have not seen the 
 stones.
 
 THE TWEED 283 
 
 Hy (Iona),and died A.D. 600. In the twelfth century 
 Ada, Countess of Dunbar, founded here a nunnery ; 
 part of which, or the church belonging to it, is incor- 
 porated in the present ill-favoured parish church. 
 The only traces of ancient art remaining are an east 
 window of two lights surmounted by a quatrefoil, and 
 the recumbent figure of a prioress within the church. 
 The name Godscroft, half a mile up the Monynut 
 Water, seems to indicate land attached to the 
 religious house, but owes its origin to a different 
 source. It was the dwelling-place of David Hume 
 (1560-1630), the devoted chronicler of the house of 
 Douglas. * Like Sir Walter Scott, David had an 
 ear for euphony, and, not relishing the suggestion 
 contained in the original name of his lairdship, he 
 altered it from Gowkscroft to Godscroft. But in 
 his day, and for many a day after, the land was 
 traversed by a privileged class, the gaberlunzies, 
 licensed mendicants, who picked up sustenance from 
 the doors of kindly housewives, and recorded their 
 experience in rhyme for the benefit of their kind. 
 Here is some of their doggerel describing the cheer to 
 be expected at places in this neighbourhood, in which 
 David Hume's mansion retains its ancient title : 
 
 ' Gowkscroft and Barnside, 
 Windy wallets fu' o' pride ; 
 Monynut and Laikieshiel, 
 Plenty milk, plenty meal. 
 Straphunton Mill and Bankend, 
 Green cheese as teugh as bend ; 
 Shannabank and Blackerstane 
 Pike the flesh to the bane. ' 
 
 1 Hume's history exists in MS. at Hamilton Palace, containing 
 much that was suppressed in the published editions. It is greatly to 
 be desired that it should be put into the hands of a competent editor.
 
 284 THESTORYOF 
 
 Another historian, of the same surname as him 
 of Godscroft, but of wider renown, David Hume 
 (1711-1776) lived much in this neighbourhood and 
 composed his Essays Moral and Political at Ninewells, 
 near Edrom. 
 
 Upon entering the parish of Duns, Whitadder 
 describes three parts of a circle round Cockburn 
 Law, a conical mass of granite rising to the height 
 of 1065 feet through the prevailing Silurian beds. 
 The summit of this hill, like so many others in this 
 warworn region, retains traces of an encampment or 
 fortified village, while on the north-eastern slope 
 may be recognised the remains of a prehistoric 
 * broch,' or circular tower with chambered walls. 
 Only two other specimens of this primitive style of 
 architecture are known to have survived through 
 the Middle Ages in southern Scotland, though 
 plenty of them remain north of the Highland line. 
 This one was destroyed during those years of 
 agricultural enterprise which set in towards the close 
 of the eighteenth century, the materials having been 
 quarried for building dikes and filling drains. 
 According to the old Statistical Account the tower 
 was eighty-six feet in diameter, and the chambered 
 walls were about sixteen feet in thickness. The 
 adjacent ground has been worked into heavy en- 
 trenchments. The building goes by the name of 
 Edinshall, perhaps commemorating Edwin, King 
 of Northumbria (A.D. 616-633), or some other 
 individual bearing this frequent name. Edington 
 and Ednam, both in this neighbourhood, and even 
 Edinburgh or Dunedin, are suggestive of a similar 
 origin. 
 
 People have returned to the custom of men of
 
 THE TWEED 285 
 
 old : * their inward thought is that their houses shall 
 continue for ever, and their dwelling-places to all 
 generations ; they call their lands after their own 
 names.' There was an intermediate stage in the 
 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when men took 
 their surnames from their lands, and this custom 
 still lingers in North Britain, where lairds and tenants 
 alike are best known locally by the names of their 
 estates or farms. 
 
 The sudden sweep described by Whitadder round 
 Cockburn Law and Edinshall is appropriately named 
 Elbick or * Elbow,' but the farmhouse within the 
 crook appears on the ordnance map under the mis- 
 leading title of Elba. 
 
 Duns Law (713 feet) is another boss of igneous 
 rock, greenstone, not granite, about four miles SSE. 
 of Cockburn Law, * and upon its flank once stood 
 the ancient town of Duns. The English destroyed 
 this in 1545, and the present pretty little town of 
 two thousand two hundred inhabitants was begun 
 about forty years later upon lower ground. * Duns 
 dings a' ' is its proud motto, that is, surpasses every- 
 thing ; * but in what respect,' dryly observed Robert 
 Chambers, * it would be difficult to imagine.' 
 
 On the broad, tabular summit of the Law is a block 
 of Old Red Sandstone, much altered by volcanic 
 heat, known as the Covenanters' Stone. Here in 
 the early summer of 1639 General Leslie was en- 
 camped with his whole force, while King Charles 
 remained irresolute at Berwick, spying his enemy's 
 position through a telescope. Montrose was not 
 royalist yet ; far otherwise, he was Covenanter-Gen- 
 
 1 Not to be confused with Dunse Law or Down Law (665 feet) at 
 the hilly end of Roxburgh parish.
 
 286 THE STORY OF 
 
 eral in the north of Scotland. Had he been the 
 King's man, it would have been easy to scatter 
 Leslie's forces, for they were in sore straits for 
 sustenance, and prayers proved but a depressing 
 substitute for rations. Ministers went about en- 
 couraging the troops, says Baillie, * by their good 
 sermons and prayers, morning and even, under the 
 roof of heaven, to which drums did call them for 
 bells. ' The precious time slipped away ; Leslie 
 brought up his supplies, and the King was first to 
 open the negotiations which ended in the hollow 
 Pacification of Berwick on i8th June. Of ancient 
 buildings Duns can boast none. Its Norman church 
 was superseded in 1790 by the sort of edifice that 
 experience teaches us to expect from builders of that 
 date. This was burnt down in 1879, but has been 
 rebuilt ; and now, thrice happy Duns ! the Ordnance 
 Gazetteer is able to record that it * contains 920 sit- 
 tings of pitch-pine, stained and varnished. ' Pitch- 
 pine, you know, is something, though perhaps not 
 exclusively devotional in its suggestion ; but when 
 you come to stain and varnish it Sathanas avaunt ! 
 
 It is well that the present writer knows not the 
 name of the incumbent in 1874, else he might be 
 tempted to proclaim it as that of the doer of a 
 barbarous deed ; for it is on record that he caused 
 the original chancel, which had survived as a burial 
 vault, to be removed * under the pretext of im- 
 proving the churchyard.' And so another relic of 
 Norman building was effaced from the Merse. 
 
 The environs of Duns were boggy once, but that 
 has been put all right by skilful draining, and what 
 was once merely the Hen Poo' is now a pretty sheet 
 of ornamental water in the well-timbered demesne
 
 THE TWEED 287 
 
 of Duns Castle. The original tower, with walls 
 eight feet thick, is supposed to have been built 
 about 1320 by Randolph, Earl of Moray, to whom 
 King Robert granted the lands ; but it is doubtful 
 whether any part of it remains, for we read how, 
 when Lord Hertford crossed the Tweed in 1545, 
 he * birnd and destrued the nonery cald Coldstreme, 
 so to Fogga, and thair campeit that nyght, and many 
 a town [farmstead] birnd that day, and a Monday 
 Downes [Duns] tower and towne awaretrown 
 [overthrown] and birnd all the pares w ch is 1. [the 
 parish which has fifty] towns and willaiges bylongeing 
 [belonging] to the said Downes ; and the nexht day 
 to West Nysbed, w was birnd and owaiertrown the 
 castell, and many mor.' l A list is added of fifty- 
 two places burnt in the parish and * the towre of 
 Dunce raced [razed].' The ancient tower with walls 
 8 feet thick now forms part of the present house ; 
 but the whole has been so masked by modern 
 building in the castellated style that it requires 
 careful scrutiny to distinguish Randolph's work. 
 Hay of Drummelzier obtained the estate at the close 
 of the seventeenth century, in whose family it still 
 remains. General Leslie made the castle his head- 
 quarters in 1639. 
 
 Duns parish is divided by the Whitadder from 
 the parish of Bunkle, which contains several places 
 of interest, notably the site of Bunkle Castle, which 
 became the possession and chief residence of Sir 
 Alexander the Steward in 1288 by his marriage with 
 the daughter and heiress of Sir Alexander de Bonkyll. 
 The barony passed by descent to Stewart, Earl of 
 
 1 Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1851-4, pp. 
 275, 278.
 
 288 THE STORY OF 
 
 Angus (1329-1377), thence to the Douglas Earls of 
 Angus (1389-1633), and finally to the Hon. Lucy 
 Montagu, Countess of the eleventh Earl of Home, 
 whose son, the present earl, owns it now. The seal 
 of Sir Thomas de Bonkyll, a cleric of the thirteenth 
 century, is preserved in the Record Office, showing 
 three buckles a somewhat feeble pun on the name 
 Bonkyll ; and the Stewarts of Physgill in Wigtown- 
 shire bear a buckle in the sinister point of their 
 shield, indicating descent from this line, with the 
 motto Sujfibulatus majores sequor * I follow my 
 ancestors with a buckle.' Bunkle Castle was des- 
 troyed in Hertford's raid of 1544, together with the 
 towers of Blanerne and Billie. 
 
 Irreparable outrage, worse than Hertford's, as 
 having been perpetrated in cold blood, was the 
 destruction in 1820 of the ancient parish church, 
 which dated, probably, from the eleventh century. 
 Such is the evidence of the only fragment remaining 
 a semicircular apse, with the choir arch and a 
 semi-domed roof, like that of St. Margaret's Chapel 
 in Edinburgh Castle. The material of this priceless 
 relic of early times was ruthlessly quarried and hewn 
 to build the present parish church, in which may be 
 seen some of the old ornamental carving rammed 
 into the rubble walls. 
 
 Of Blanerne, the house of the Lumsdaines since 
 the days of Robert the Bruce, a ruined keep remains, 
 and what is called the guardhouse, now fitted up as 
 a dairy to supply the modern mansion alongside. 
 The site of Billie Castle a dry knoll in the middle 
 of a marsh is marked only by a few grassy mounds. 
 Originally the property of the Dunbars, it passed 
 successively to the Earls of Angus, the Homes of
 
 THE TWEED 289 
 
 Wedderburn, and the Rentons, representing the 
 ancient foresters of Coldingham. Sir Thomas Lauder 
 tells a grisly story about an old lady of the family of 
 Home who lived alone here, collected her own 
 rents, and hoarded her money within her own 
 bedchamber. The door of this room was secured 
 by a heavy cylinder of brass, which the old dame by 
 means of a cord used to let fall into a slot after she 
 had gone to bed. Her solitary manservant, well 
 knowing where the cash was concealed, made his 
 plans to secure it. He filled the slot of the lock 
 with cherry-stones, so that the bolt would not act, 
 entered his mistress's room at midnight, cut her 
 throat and ransacked her store. He might have 
 walked downstairs and out of the front door without 
 risk of meeting anybody, but he chose instead to 
 escape through a window on the second floor, and 
 in so doing broke his leg. He was found concealed 
 in the shrubbery next day, and was put to a fitting 
 end on the gallows. 
 
 Old people repeat a rhyming prophecy of unknown 
 antiquity about these three castles: 
 
 1 Bunkle, Billie and Blanerne, 
 Three castles strong as airn, 
 Built when Davy was a bairn ; 
 
 They'll a' gang doon 
 
 Wi* Scotland's croon, 
 And ilka ain shall be a cairn. ' 
 
 At Broomhouse, where once stood a castle, there 
 is, or was lately, a cairn marking the grave of Sir 
 Anthony Darcy, Sieur de la Bastie, a French knight 
 whom the Regent Albany appointed Warden of the 
 Marches in place of Alexander, third Lord Home, 
 
 19
 
 290 THESTORYOF 
 
 who, with his brother William, was executed on a 
 charge of treason in October 1516. As it was 
 believed that de la Bastie had brought this about, 
 David Home of Wedderburn attacked him near 
 Langton on I2th October 1517, routed his party, 
 pursued him over the moor of Duns, where the 
 French knight's horse got bogged. De la Bastie 
 tried to escape on foot, but Home was too quick for 
 him ; he rode him down, cut off his head, bore it in 
 triumph through the streets of Duns, and fastened 
 it aloft on the battlements of Hume Castle. 
 
 At Edrom may still be seen a beautiful Norman 
 doorway, with three richly carved orders, sole 
 remainder of the original parish church, preserved 
 as the entrance to a burial vault at the west end of 
 the present building. Of a more recent aisle, founded 
 in 1499 by Robert Blackadder, Bishop of Glasgow, 
 the two angle buttresses remain, with canopied 
 niches for figures of saints, which have gone the way 
 of most of the ecclesiastical art of Scotland. Ber- 
 wickshire once was rich in Norman churches. The 
 walls of one remain at Chirnside, only three miles 
 from Edrom; but the western tower was demolished 
 in 1750, and the only architectural feature preserved 
 is the south doorway, consisting of an outer order 
 with mouldings, and an inner one enriched with the 
 chevron ornament. 
 
 Next to Chirnside comes Allanton, built at the 
 junction of Whitadder, with its chief tributary, the 
 Blackadder, a fine trout stream flowing from the 
 upland parish of Westruther on the confines of 
 Lauderdale. At its source is a hill called the Twinlaw 
 Cairns (1466 feet), connected in misty legend with 
 the fate of twin brothers of the family of Edgar,
 
 THE TWEED 291 
 
 who, having taken opposite sides in some warfare, 
 and ignorant of their mutual relationship, stood forth 
 as champions of their respective armies and perished 
 in single combat by each other's hand. Sir Thomas 
 Dick Lauder quotes at length a ballad describing 
 the combat ; but, as he justly remarks, it has lost all 
 trace of the antiquity which is claimed for it. 
 
 The family of Edgar possessed land in this parish 
 as early as the fourteenth century ; their old keep 
 of Wedderlie has been incorporated with a larger 
 mansion in 1680, and although much decayed, re- 
 mains a fascinating example of a Scottish country- 
 house of that period. The lands of Wedderlie were 
 bought by Lord Blantyre in 1733. Evelaw Tower 
 is not far off, at the foot of the hill of that name, a 
 Border keep of the usual type ; but there remain no 
 records of its history. 
 
 The junction of Faugrist Burn with Blackadder 
 has been heavily fortified, and the place is called the 
 Blackcastle Rings. Greenlaw, which used to divide 
 with Duns the dignity of the county town of Ber- 
 wick, cannot claim importance in proportion to its 
 antiquity, for it contains but twelve hundred in- 
 habitants. It grew up under the shelter of a castle 
 of the Earls of Dunbar, but the ' green law ' 1 or 
 conical height on which it originally stood is a full 
 mile to the south-east of the present village. The 
 church is modern, but in dignified accord with the 
 fifteenth-century tower and its corbelled out-parapet. 
 
 At Greenlaw the Blackadder abandons its south- 
 easterly course, striking sharply north-east, past 
 
 1 The Anglo-Saxon ' law ' is by far the commonest name for a hill 
 in this district, just as ' fell ' prevails in the Cheviots and on the western 
 Border, where the Scandinavian influence predominated. 

 
 292 THE STORY OF 
 
 Marchmont House, a stately pile designed by Robert 
 Adam, built in 1754, when Bedbraes Castle, which 
 stood here, was deemed inadequate to the dignity and 
 wealth of the third and last Earl of Marchmont. 
 The first earl was that Sir Patrick Home of Polwarth, 
 father of that Lady Grizel Baillie whose adventures 
 have been sketched in an earlier chapter. l He 
 rebuilt the parish church of Polwarth in 1703, no 
 improvement, as may be safely affirmed, upon the 
 former structure which dated from 1378. He had 
 good cause, too, to respect the old kirk, for in the 
 days of his adversity, after he had already suffered 
 five years' imprisonment and was * wanted ' again for 
 his part in Argyll's rising, he lay hid for many weeks 
 in the family burial-place under the church, his 
 daughter bringing food to him under cloud of night. 
 Opposite Marchmont House the site of a Roman 
 camp bears the name of Chesters, a common modifi- 
 cation of the Latin castrum. Nisbet House, a couple 
 of miles further down the water, has been identified 
 as the scene of that most dismal of ballads Edom o 
 Gordon, but Aytoun showed that the true House o' 
 the Rodes was Towie Castle in Aberdeenshire, that 
 * Edom ' was Adam Gordon of Auchindoun, and that 
 the subject of the ballad was an incident in the war 
 of anarchy which followed the dethronement of Mary 
 Queen of Scots. The landscape between this point 
 and the meeting of waters at Allanton is enriched 
 with the wooded parks of Kimmerghame, Wedder- 
 burn, Kelloe, and Blackadder House, whence the 
 Whitadder winds through fine alluvial land to 
 Hutton, where Edward encamped on that night in 
 March 1296 before his memorable sack of Berwick. 
 
 1 See p. 247, ante.
 
 THE TWEED 293 
 
 Wedderburn, by the bye, is one of the oldest pos- 
 sessions of the Home family. Sir David Home, slain 
 at Flodden, left seven sons by his wife Isabel Pringle 
 of Gala the Seven Spears of Wedderburn. 1 
 
 High on the right bank of the stream stands 
 picturesque Hutton Hall, a keep of the fifteenth 
 century, with rambling additions of later date. The 
 second Lord Home, who died in 1506, obtained the 
 lands by his marriage with the daughter of George 
 Ker of Samuelton in 1467, and probably built the 
 original tower, which was dismantled in Surrey's re- 
 taliatory raid in 1497. 
 
 A nameless bard has summed the characteristics of 
 Hutton parish with brevity, if not with wit : 
 
 ' Hutton for auld wives, 
 
 Broadmeadows for swine ; 
 Paxton for drucken wives 
 
 And salmon sae fine. 
 Crossrig for lint and woo', 
 
 Spittal for kail ; 
 Sunwick for cakes and cheese 
 
 And lasses for sale.' 
 
 Edrington Castle, opposite Paxton, once a place of 
 great strength and importance, has been quarried 
 away to near the ground level. Mordington may be 
 noticed, where Cromwell held his headquarters after 
 crossing the Tweed in July 1650 ; and so the Whit- 
 adder enters the bounds of Berwick-on-Tweed, joining 
 the river just before it broadens into the estuary. 
 
 1 Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto v. 6.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 BERWICK-ON-TWEED 
 
 THE c Berwick Bounds ' enclose an area of about 
 eight square miles defining the whole extent 
 or territory which the English succeeded in 
 wresting from their northern neighbours by dint of 
 three centuries of war. An exiguous gain was it 
 worth the price ? These few thousand acres of 
 cornland, windswept from the North Sea, were surely 
 scant counterpoise for sunny Aquitaine and Guienne, 
 opulent Bordeaux and the Pas de Calais all lost to 
 the Crown of England in the Hundred Years' War. 
 Such was the result of forcing the Scottish nation 
 into alliance with the kings of France such was 
 part of the price paid for the lesson that Scotsmen 
 may never be coerced. 
 
 Berwick-on-Tweed became a Scottish town when 
 Malcolm II. wrested Lothian from Northumbria by 
 his victory at Carham in 1018. David I. made it 
 one of the Four Burghs of Scotland, established 
 Flemish craftsmen there, founded the Cistercian 
 Nunnery of St. Leonard, and probably caused the 
 original castle to be built. All went well with the 
 thriving seaport till William the Lion attempted to 
 enforce his hereditary right to the whole ancient 
 earldom of Northumberland. During his great raid 
 in 1 172, Richard de Lucy and Humphrey de Bohun
 
 THE STORY OF THE TWEED 295 
 
 retaliated by crossing the Tweed and laying Berwick 
 in ashes the first in a long series of calamities to 
 come. King William himself was captured at 
 Alnwick, and when he regained his liberty in 1174 
 under the treaty of Falaise, it was at the price of 
 doing homage for his kingdom to Henry II. and of 
 surrendering the five principal Scottish castles, 
 whereof Berwick was one. It remained in English 
 hands for fifteen years, during which it was greatly 
 strengthened; and then reckless, impecunious Richard 
 Coeur de Lion remitted the homage and restored 
 the castles to William in consideration of a cash 
 payment of ten thousand marks. 
 
 In 1216 Berwick again underwent ordeal by fire. 
 Alexander II. of Scotland besieged Norham Castle, 
 assisted by a number of King John's rebellious 
 barons, but was forced by John's approach to raise 
 the siege and retire across the Border. On i5th 
 January 1216 King John stormed the town and 
 castle of Berwick, and, according to the Melrose 
 Chronicle, inflicted inhuman torments upon both 
 men and women. He then pushed forward as far as 
 Haddington, plundered Coldingham, returned to 
 Berwick, and in quitting it gave it to the flames, 
 thrusting a torch with his own hand into the thatch 
 of the house where he had lodged the night, contra 
 morem regum indecenter { scandalously contrary to 
 kingly etiquette. ' l 
 
 After John's death in 1216 peace reigned on the 
 Borders for a while, and Berwick became a busy 
 trade-port ; so that in 1266 the Franciscan monk of 
 Carlisle, writing what we call the Chronicle of 
 Lanercost, compared the town with Alexandria (which 
 
 1 Chronicon de Mailros, 122.
 
 296 THESTORYOF 
 
 it is not likely he ever saw) as having the sea for 
 the source of its wealth and the water for its walls. 
 All commerce at that time had to run the gauntlet 
 of Norse pirates, but despite the dread which these 
 sea-wolves had inspired on all our coasts, they found 
 their match in the men of Berwick. Erlend, Jarl of 
 Orkney, l having captured a ship belonging to a 
 certain merchant of Berwick called Cnut the Rich 
 and carried off Cnut's wife, who was on board 
 returning from a pilgrimage, Cnut paid a hundred 
 silver marks for the hire of fourteen vessels well 
 manned, and set off in pursuit. Unluckily Torfaeus, 
 who tells us this much, does not say how Cnut's 
 gallant enterprise ended. 
 
 The wealth of Berwick and its citizens in the 
 thirteenth century is well attested by their liberality 
 to the Church. * There was scarcely an abbey in 
 Scotland,' says Mr. John Scott, * that had not 
 property in Berwick.' 2 In 1286, the last year of 
 that excellent monarch Alexander III., Berwick paid 
 ^2190 into the Scottish exchequer to account of 
 customs derived chiefly from export duties on wool 
 and hides a sum equal to one-fourth of the whole 
 customs revenue or England. Had not the fair 
 project of marriage between the heir of England and 
 the Queen of Scotland been marred by the untimely 
 death of the bride in 1290, there is no saying to 
 what greatness Berwick might not have grown. 
 Her position as a seaport at the junction of two 
 nations united under one Crown must have ensured 
 her importance ; but as matters turned out, it was 
 that very advantage which brought about her undoing. 
 
 ' Orkney was Norwegian territory in the thirteenth century. 
 * Berwick-upon-Tweed, by John Scott, p. 14.
 
 THETWEED 297 
 
 Her citizens must have felt an agreeable sense 
 of the importance of their burgh during the summer 
 and autumn of 1292, for the King of England held 
 his court there and assembled his Parliament to 
 hear him give momentous award in favour of John 
 de Baliol against Robert de Brus. All the Scottish 
 magnates were there also, of course ; the streets 
 were thronged with prelates and earls, barons and 
 knights, with their innumerable retinues : conceive 
 how brisk trade must have been and what a com- 
 petition for lodgings. Alas ! it was but the splendour 
 of sunset. King Edward departed, and presently 
 began to exercise his suzerainty in a manner very 
 distasteful to the Scots. The trouble first took 
 shape out of a dispute between two citizens of Berwick. 
 Marjory Moigne, a widow, having sued Master 
 Roger Bertlemew for a debt, won her plea under the 
 law of the Four Burghs. Roger appealed to the 
 English court sitting at Newcastle ; King John 
 [Baliol] was prompted to forbid the appeal as con- 
 trary to the provisions of the treaty of Birgham, 
 which expressly debarred Scottish suitors being 
 summoned before an English court. King Edward 
 snapped his fingers at this interpretation of the treaty, 
 ordered the case to be heard, and the Scottish judg- 
 ment was reversed. In another case, MacdufF, the 
 Earl of Fife's son, failing to sustain a claim before 
 the Scots Estates, appealed to the English Parlia- 
 ment. King John was summoned to attend as an 
 English peer refused hesitated finally obeyed. 
 Before judgment was delivered Edward himself was 
 summoned to France to do homage for his posses- 
 sions there to King Philip, and no sooner was his 
 back turned than Scottish indignation broke forth.
 
 298 THE STORY OF 
 
 The malcontents negotiated a treaty offensive and 
 defensive with King Philip, expressly directed 
 against the King of England, and in this document 
 the Mayor of Berwick's signature stood first among 
 the representatives of Scottish burghs. At the same 
 time King John sent an expedition under Comyn, 
 Earl of Buchan, to harry the northern counties of 
 England an expedition which, if the English 
 chroniclers are to be credited, exceeded in savage 
 cruelty all that had gone before. But these partisan 
 writers are studiously careless of chronology. In 
 making out a case against the Scots, they do not 
 explain that the massacre of Corbridge was by way 
 of reprisal for the horrors of Berwick. Briefly the 
 sequence of events was thus : 
 
 King Edward, hearing of the Scoto-French treaty 
 while he was still in France, took immediate meas- 
 ures for instant and signal punishment. He sum- 
 moned a powerful army to meet him at Newcastle 
 on 25th March 1296, and ordered Osbert de 
 Spaldington to co-operate with a fleet of a hundred 
 sail. Meanwhile Buchan's army invaded Cumber- 
 land on 26th March, invested Carlisle on the 28th, 
 which town was held for the King of England by 
 Robert de Brus, son of ' the competitor ' and father 
 of the future King of Scots. Repulsed from Carlisle, 
 Buchan turned eastward, and, according to a notarial 
 instrument drawn upon King Edward's behalf some 
 months later (August 1296), burnt Hexham and 
 Corbridge, committing * Herodian ' barbarities on 
 pregnant women, and burning two hundred * little 
 clerks ' (schoolboys) at Corbridge. * Yes ; but 
 assuming this to be literally true, it took place on 
 
 1 Bain's Hist. Doc. Scot., ii. 217.
 
 THETWEED 299 
 
 8th April, and what meanwhile had been the course 
 of events on the eastern Border ? It were easy to fill 
 pages with description of the portents and apparitions 
 which had heralded them, conscientiously recorded 
 ex post facto of the huge ball of fire seen by *a 
 simple burgess of Haddington ' descending upon the 
 doomed city ; of the bloody Christ which terrified 
 some school-children in Berwick before Christmas ; 
 of the man robed in white, with wings on his 
 shoulders and a drawn sword, who visited the house 
 of the veracious chronicler of Lanercost (in Carlisle, 
 probably), and whom he * conceived to be an angel.' 
 Taken together, these phenomena betokened some- 
 thing unpleasant in store for busy Berwick ; taken 
 separately, one fears the evidence in their support 
 would not stand scrutiny by the Society for Psychical 
 Research. 
 
 King Edward led his army across the Tweed at 
 Coldstream on 28th March, when Antony Bek, 
 Bishop of Durham, joined him with a contingent of 
 fifteen hundred horse and foot, and on the 3Oth he 
 appeared before the walls of Berwick. Sir William 
 Douglas, *le Hardi,' father of the * Good Sir James,' 
 was in command of the castle and town, with a body 
 of knights of Fife and their supporters. The 
 townspeople, secure as they thought within their 
 walls, rashly taunted the English in gibberish which, 
 for reasons beyond our understanding, proved 
 peculiarly irritating to King Edward. The Latin 
 chronicler of Lanercost has preserved them in the 
 vernacular : 
 
 ' KyngEdward, wanne thou havest Berwic, 
 Pike thee 1
 
 3 oo THE STORY OF 
 
 Wanne thou havest getten, 
 
 Dike thee ! ' 
 
 In another version the personal sting is perhaps less 
 obscure : 
 
 * What wende the Kyng Edward 
 
 For his langge shanks, 
 For to wynne Berewyke 
 
 All our unthankes. 
 Go pike it him ! 
 And when he have it won, 
 Go dike it him ! ' 
 
 The first assault was delivered by the fleet, which 
 sailed up on the flood tide ; but on a landing being 
 attempted, the townspeople, women and all, flocked 
 down to the wharves, piled combustiles on board 
 several of the ships, and so burnt them ; the rest of 
 the squadron escaping on the ebb. Edward attacked 
 by land on Good Friday. There was no city wall, 
 only a ditch and stockade, which were easily carried ; 
 but Richard, the Earl of Cornwall's brother, and 
 cousin to the King, raising his visor to get a better 
 view, was struck dead by a bolt in the forehead, 
 which did so greatly enrage Edward that he gave the 
 order * No quarter ! ' Then began a horrible but- 
 chery lasting nearly throughout two days. Wyntoun 
 says that it was brought to an end when King 
 Edward saw a woman in the act of childbirth being 
 put to the sword. 
 
 * Thus thai slayand ware sa fast 
 All the day, qwhill ' at the last 
 This Kyng Edward saw in that tyde 
 A woman slayne, and off her syde 
 Until.
 
 THE TWEED 301 
 
 A barne, l he saw fall out, sprewland * 
 Besyd that woman slayne lyand. 
 Lasses, Lasses ! 3 than cryid he ; 
 Leve off, leve off ! that word suld be. ' 4 
 
 The Flemish merchants defended their Aula Rubra 
 or Red Hall right gallantly, holding out after the 
 town had been taken till evensong, when the hall was 
 fired, and thirty of them perished in the flames. 
 
 Accounts vary of the number massacred. Wyn- 
 toun, on the Scottish side, makes the lowest estimate, 
 putting the death-roll at seven thousand five hundred. 
 The Lanercost chronicler, from the English point of 
 view, complacently reckons it at fifteen thousand, 
 adding that * this most merciful prince showed that 
 humanity to the dead which he had offered to the 
 living. I myself saw large parties of men told offto 
 bury the dead, and all of them were entitled to the 
 reward of a penny from the King's treasury, although 
 they began work only at the eleventh hour. ' The 
 butchery was done without regard to age or sex ; 
 any women or children that were spared were sent 
 into perpetual exile, and the good town was ruined 
 for ever. It never recovered its trade ; from being 
 the greatest merchant city in Scotland it sank to the 
 grade of a fishing-port and garrison town. 
 
 No act of the first Edward has left such a dark 
 stain upon his fine character as this sack of Berwick. 
 Taking place a whole week before the atrocities of 
 Hexham and Corbridge, no palliation can be found 
 for him in respect of Buchan's outrages. At the 
 
 1 A babe. 
 
 * Sprawling. 
 
 8 Laissez, laissez I 
 
 4 Wyntoun's Cronykil, vm. c. xi. 11. 1831-1838.
 
 302 THESTORYOF 
 
 same time, it should not be forgotten that the im- 
 memorial custom of war sanctioned the sack of any 
 place, and the massacre of its garrison and citizens, 
 which, having been duly summoned, should be taken 
 by storm. The common assent of civilised nations 
 has brought about a change in this, favourable both 
 to soldiers and non-combatants ; but that change is a 
 very recent one. Down to the very end of the 
 Napoleonic wars the old rules held good, as British 
 troops gave proof at Seringapatam, Badajos, and 
 Ciudad Rodrigo. 
 
 The one spark of leniency shown by King Edward 
 in this affair was the permission he gave to the 
 garrison of Berwick to go free, after swearing that 
 they never again would bear arms against England ; 
 but their commander, Douglas c le Hardi,' was kept 
 a prisoner. Edward's policy of terror proved a 
 signal failure he lived not to learn how complete, 
 but he left the lesson to his successors. Torrents 
 of blood were to flow tons of treasure to be squan- 
 dered before English statesmen could be got to 
 understand that Scotsmen may be easily led, but 
 that they are the last people in the world to be 
 driven. For the moment it seemed as if King 
 Edward had accomplished his purpose. The Scots 
 had not yet found a leader whom they could follow. 
 Warenne's victory at Dunbar on 28th April shatter- 
 ed the cause of King John : on I3th May James the 
 Steward surrendered Roxburgh Castle, swearing on 
 the Holy Gospels to aid the King of England against 
 * John de Baliol, late King of Scotland,' then, after 
 spending three weeks personally laying out new 
 defences for Berwick, Edward went on a progress 
 through Scotland, exacting fealty from nobles and
 
 THETWEED 303 
 
 knights and their renunciation both of Baliol and 
 the French alliance. Returning to Berwick in 
 August, he held a Parliament there, and established 
 an Exchequer, to be managed under Hugh de 
 Cressingham, in all respects the same as his West- 
 minster Exchequer. 
 
 Next, in 1297, followed the rising which aborted 
 in the capitulation of Irvine, brought about by the 
 refusal of such mighty personages as the Bishop of 
 Glasgow, the Earl of Carrick, and Sir William 
 Douglas to serve under command of William Wallace 
 the Landless. These proud chevaliers, therefore, 
 once more made hollow submission to King Edward, 
 leaving Wallace, who had nothing but his life at stake 
 and the cause of his distressed country at heart, to 
 withdraw into Selkirk Forest and wage guerrilla war- 
 fare against the English. Douglas having failed 
 to produce the hostages required of him, was im- 
 prisoned at Berwick when Chancellor Cressingham 
 wrote to King Edward on 24th July as follows : 
 
 4 Cher sire, forasmuch as Sir William Douglas has not kept 
 the convenants which he made with Sir Henry de Percy, he 
 is in your castle of Berwick, in my keeping, still very savage 
 and very abusive (uncore mout sauvage e mont araillez) ; 
 but I will keep him in suchwise that, please God, he shall not 
 get out. And the church of Douglas is vacant, well worth 
 200 marks, as I have heard ; and if it please you to give it to 
 your Treasurer of Scotland (Cressingham himself) I believe 
 that you will have bestowed it well, for by the faith, which 
 I owe you he does not grow slack in your service, but takes 
 the greatest pains to make things go right.' 1 
 
 In another letter of the same date Cressingham 
 
 1 Preserved in Public Record Office. Printed in Stevenson's 
 Documents illustrating the History of Scotland, ii. 204.
 
 304 THESTORYOF 
 
 says that Douglas is kept in irons (en ferres e en 
 sauve garde, Deu mercy), and begs the king not 
 * to let him be liberated on any account of profit or 
 influence.' Douglas was removed to the Tower of 
 London in October, where he died some time before 
 the beginning of 1299. 
 
 Wallace, though deserted by his wealthy col- 
 leagues, managed by his indomitable energy and 
 confidence to assemble a considerable force of Clydes- 
 dale pikemen, Ettrick bowmen, and Highland 
 swordsmen. Warenne, Earl of Surrey, leaving his 
 command at Berwick, marched north to quell the 
 rising, and was totally defeated at Stirling Bridge 
 (roth September 1297), where Treasurer Cressing- 
 harri met his death. Warenne left this fatal field 
 and galloped back to Berwick at such speed that his 
 horse fell dead as soon as his rider quitted the 
 saddle. Then he pressed on to the south, leaving 
 the English garrison in the castle to look after 
 themselves. When Wallace returned from his raid 
 upon Northumberland in the winter of 1297-98, he 
 found the Scots in possession of the town, but the 
 garrison still holding out. In the following summer, 
 1299, the English reoccupied the town, and Patrick, 
 Earl of D unbar, was given command thereof, while 
 King Edward went forward to overthrow Wallace 
 at Falkirk. Dun bar was succeeded as governor in 
 1302 by a knight of great renown Sir John de 
 Segrave, who was wounded almost to death at the 
 battle of Rosslyn in the following February. 
 
 When Wallace was taken in 1305, tried, executed, 
 and cut into quarters as a traitor (which he certainly 
 was not, never having acknowledged King Edward), 
 his left arm was sent to Berwick to be exposed there.
 
 THE TWEED 305 
 
 A year later when the Countess of Buchan who 
 crowned Bruce at Scone, was taken at Kildrummie, 
 the King ordered his lieutenant at Berwick to place 
 her in a cage of strong lattice-work. Two English- 
 women were to be found in Berwick to serve her, 
 and she was to be so guarded that no Scot of either 
 sex should hold communication with her. The 
 Countess remained four years in this cage. 
 
 In 1310 she was handed over to the custody of the 
 Friars of Mount Carmel in Berwick, who guarded 
 her till 1313. 
 
 Down to that year the English government made 
 use of Berwick as their principal depot of supplies 
 for the desultory Scottish War. King Robert's suc- 
 cesses by this time had become so alarming that 
 Edward II. determined once more upon a supreme 
 effort to reduce Scotland to submission, and assembled 
 an immense host at Wark in June 1314 for the relief 
 of Stirling Castle. It had been ever King Robert's 
 strategy to avoid pitched battles with the power of 
 England ; repeatedly he had impressed his captains 
 with the importance of retiring and laying bare the 
 country before the enemy, allowing the invaders to 
 march and countermarch till they were forced to beat 
 a retreat for want of provender ; time after time the 
 wisdom of this course had been proved to the hilt. 
 But now Edward Bruce, with excess of chivalry, had 
 given his royal brother away. Since Lent he had 
 been closely besieging Stirling Castle. The English 
 governor, Sir Philip de Mowbray, proposed a sus- 
 pension of arms, pledging himself to surrender the 
 castle if it was not relieved within a year from mid- 
 summer 1313. Edward rashly agreed to this com- 
 pact; the King was very angry, but holding his
 
 306 THESTORYOF 
 
 brother's knightly honour as dear as his own, accept- 
 ed the challenge, though with much misgiving. 
 Both nations having a full year to prepare for a 
 pitched battle, victory seemed a foregone conclusion 
 for the wealthier and more powerful. Moreover, the 
 occasion was just what was needed to put the whole 
 chivalry of England on their mettle and, Piers 
 Gaveston having expiated his offences on the scaffold, 
 to induce the barons to compose those grievances and 
 disputes which hitherto had so sorely crippled the 
 power of their monarch. All of them except the Earl 
 of Lancaster and his adherents Warwick, Warenne, 
 and Arundel responded heartily to the summons. 
 
 It has been commonly stated that the English 
 army which assembled on the nth June at Wark 
 amounted to one hundred thousand of all arms, but 
 there is nothing in the Patent Rolls to show that the 
 total exceeded fifty thousand troops. Nevertheless, 
 in equipment, in splendour of display, and probably 
 in numbers, it was superior to any force that ever 
 crossed the Scottish border. 
 
 Edward marched by way of Berwick, so as to keep 
 in touch with his supplies from the fleet. Barbour 
 describes the magnificence of the sight when the 
 army marched north from that town : 
 
 4 Quhen the Kyng apon this kyn wyss 
 Hadordanyt as ik her duiuss, 
 His bataillis and his stering, 
 He raiss arly in a morning, 
 And fra Berwick he tuk the way. 
 Baith hillis and wall's helyt (shone) thai, 
 As the bataillis (columns) that war braid 
 Departyt our the feldis raid 
 The sone (sun) wes brycht and schynand cler,
 
 THETWEED 307 
 
 And armouris that burnyst wer 
 
 Swa blomyt (bloomed) with the sonnys beme 
 
 That all the land was in a leme (flame) 
 
 Baneris rycht fayrly flawmand (flaming) 
 
 And penselys ' to the wynd wawand (waving) ' 
 
 A brave sight it must have been, for war has never 
 been so pictorially perfect as it was at this period the 
 very noontide of chivalry. A few days later, behold 
 King Edward landing at Berwick, a broken fugitive, 
 having made his escape from Dunbar in a fishing 
 boat. Of all his superb army, thousands had laid 
 down their arms to the King of Scots ; thousands 
 more lay stark in the bogs of Bannockburn, the rest 
 were being hunted like vermin by the peasantry as 
 they sought to escape to the Border. It must have 
 been a bitter ordeal for the King of England to issue 
 from Berwick on 2 7th June a proclamation announc- 
 ing the loss of his signet, and warning all men 
 against obeying orders issued thereunder. How- 
 ever, it had fallen into honest hands. Roger de 
 Northburgh, Keeper of the Signet, had been taken 
 prisoner at Bannockburn with his two clerks, and 
 King Robert sent the seal to Edward, on condition 
 that it should not be used in Scotland. 
 
 Stirling Castle was surrendered according to com- 
 pact on the morrow of Bannockburn ; Bothwell 
 Castle capitulated to Edward Bruce a little later ; 
 and now the only Scottish fortress which still dis- 
 played the red cross of St. George was Berwick. 
 On the night of loth January 1316 King Robert 
 and Sir James Douglas attempted to surprise it by 
 escalade ; but the moon was bright ; the attack was 
 
 1 Pensils, the pointed or forked ensigns of knights.
 
 308 THE STORY OF 
 
 repulsed, and Douglas only escaped capture by 
 means of a small boat. A few weeks later Sir 
 Maurice de Berkeley, Governor of Berwick, wrote 
 to King Edward declaring that his men were actually 
 dying of starvation, and that the place must be lost 
 unless relief were sent speedily. He said that 
 whenever a horse died, the men-at-arms boiled and 
 ate it, refusing to give the foot-soldiers a single 
 mouthful till they themselves had eaten all they 
 could. On 1 4th February the garrison mutinied, 
 and a party of Gascons rode out to foray. Sir 
 James Douglas, being informed of this, set out to 
 intercept them at Scaithmoor as they were driving 
 in some cattle. Barbour, whose account is amply 
 confirmed by contemporary letters in the Tower 
 collection, says that Douglas, had with him but a 
 small clump of spears, but charged so furiously that 
 twenty men-at-arms and sixty footsoldiers were slain. 
 He adds that this was the hardest encounter Douglas 
 ever had to put through, which is likely enough, 
 seeing that the starving Frenchmen would fight 
 fiercely for their beef. Their Captain, Raymond de 
 Caillu, King's Sergeant-at-arms, was among the slain. 
 Hearing of this exploit, Sir Robert de Nevill, 
 the * Peacock of the North,' declared that he was 
 sick of hearing about the prowess of the Black 
 Douglas, and pledged his knightly word to attack 
 him whenever and wherever he should see his 
 banner displayed. Of course Douglas was told of 
 this, and of course he gave Nevill his opportunity. 
 He rode in the night to Berwick, where Nevill was, 
 and in the morning displayed under the walls his 
 well-known banner, the azure chief and silver stars. 
 To ensure the English chevalier's attention, he fired
 
 THETWEED 309 
 
 a few villages in the neighbourhood ; whereupon 
 out pricked the Peacock with a party of his best 
 men-at-arms. Douglas proposed single combat ; 
 Nevill could not but accept, and down he went at 
 the first onset to rise no more. But Douglas was 
 not satisfied : he led his troop in a charge upon the 
 English cavalry, which broke and fled, leaving 
 Nevill's three brothers, Sir Alexander, Ralph, and 
 John among the prisoners, and these gentlemen 
 were held to ransom for two thousand marks each. 
 It was not Napoleon who invented the principle of 
 making the war support the war. 
 
 No serious attempt was made upon Berwick until 
 1318, after King Robert returned from his Irish 
 campaign. He then took up his quarters in Old 
 Cambus woods, employing his men in the construc- 
 tion of siege engines ; but these were never called 
 into play owing to the part played by a certain 
 burgess of Berwick named Sim of Spalding. This 
 man, disgusted by the tyrannous conduct of the 
 English governor, Sir Roger de Horseley, sent 
 secret word to the Earl of March, offering to admit 
 an escalading party on a certain night when he, 
 Spalding, was to be on guard. When March showed 
 Spalding's letter to the King he was told that he 
 had done well not to take it to either Douglas or 
 Moray, so jealous was each of the other in deeds of 
 daring ; but it was arranged that both these knights 
 should share with March in the enterprise. The 
 column of attack mustered on 2yth March in Duns 
 Park, l where all horses were left. They marched 
 after dark to the city walls, set their ladders at * the 
 
 1 Not probably Duns Park on Whitadder, but a place of this name, 
 which cannot be identified on Lamberton Moor near Berwick.
 
 310 THE STORY OF 
 
 Kow * at the appointed hour, and were in possession 
 of the town before the alarm was given. A party 
 of Scots was told off for the indispensable work of 
 plunder, the main body being kept under arms with 
 their officers. But the discipline of these wild fellows 
 was unequal to such a test ; soon the officers were 
 left without any men ; nearly all had gone oft after 
 the booty. Day broke on the scene revealing the 
 state of matters to Governor de Horseley; a fine old 
 fire-eater, who had a strong garrison in the Castle. 
 The Scottish leaders also were fully aware of their 
 peril, and sent Sir William Keith of Galston through 
 the streets, driving the men back to their standards. 
 Keith did his work so briskly that a strong sortie 
 from the castle was repulsed. Barbour says that de 
 Horseley surrendered in six days, and later historians 
 have accepted the statement without question ; but 
 official correspondence lately published proves that 
 the stern old knight held out for sixteen weeks till 
 2Oth July, when he was compelled by famine to 
 strike his flag, after losing an eye. l He had 
 appealed to his King for relief in vain. Robert de 
 Blackburn, who had lost his brother and { all his 
 friends ' at Bannockburn, 8 swam the Tweed on 
 horseback, leading a string of twenty-one horses, 
 and carrying letters to King Edward. 
 
 King Robert appointed his son-in-law Governor 
 of Berwick young Sir Walter the Steward, future 
 progenitor of the Stuart dynasty, who had received 
 the knightly accolade on the field of Bannockburn. 
 No sinecure this post, as Sir Walter soon found, for 
 in 1319 King Edward, having temporarily composed 
 
 1 Bain's Hist. Doc. Scot, Hi. 113. 115. 
 Ibid, 113.
 
 THE TWEED 311 
 
 his quarrel with the Earl of Lancaster, and obtained 
 the Pope's sanction to use some of the funds collect- 
 ed for a projected crusade, assembled an army of 
 twelve thousand men at Newcastle under such re- 
 doutable commanders as Aymer de Valence, Earl of 
 Pembroke, Umfraville Earl of Angus, Sir Hugh de 
 Lowther, Sir Andrew de Harcla, and Sir Anthony 
 de Lucy. At the beginning of August this force 
 invested Berwick by land, while a powerful fleet 
 blockaded the estuary. A general assault was de- 
 livered on yth September but was repulsed, to be 
 renewed again on the I3th. The English had con- 
 structed a huge siege engine which they called the 
 Sow a wooden tower moving on wheels, designed 
 to land stormers on the ramparts, and at the same 
 time to convey a mining party to the foot of the es- 
 carp. One John Crab, a Flemish engineer in pay of 
 the Scots, made a machine to match the Sow a 
 powerful crane or catapult, also on wheels, by which 
 huge stones and fireballs could be discharged. 
 
 Early on the morning of the I3th a flourish of 
 English trumpets announced the advance of the 
 Sow. As it crawled ponderously forward Crab's 
 crane rolled along to meet it, Crab having been 
 warned that if he railed to demolish the Sow instant 
 death should be his doom. The excitement was 
 tremendous when the two great engines halted face 
 to face. Crab caused an enormous stone to be put 
 in position, and let fly, but his aim was bad. 
 
 * In hy he gert draw the cleket, l 
 And smartly swappit out the stane, 
 That even out ower the Sow is gane 
 
 1 Caused the trigger to be drawn.
 
 3 i2 THE STORY OF 
 
 And behind hir ane litil we ' 
 It fell. ' ' 
 
 On came the Sow. Crab's next shot fell short, and 
 before he could prepare another discharge the Sow 
 was touching the city wall, and the stormers were 
 lowering their gangway with loud cheers. He could. 
 not miss this time. The great stone crashed right 
 into the Sow's belly ; the men inside were thrown out 
 right and left; * Your Sow had farrowed ! ' cried the 
 Scots in derision. Then Crab plied his fireballs, and 
 the wrecked engine was soon ablaze. 
 
 Now came a cry for Crab from another quarter. 
 An English ship, her fortified tops full of crossbow- 
 men, drew alongside the river front. Crab's crane 
 rumbled away at its best speed to meet her. The 
 engineer had learned his trajectory better by this 
 time : the first shot brought down the mainmast with 
 all the sharpshooters, and fireballs did the rest. 
 
 One last assault came very near success. It was 
 reported to Sir Walter that the barricade outside the 
 Mary Gate had been forced, and that the English 
 were piling combustibles against the gate itself. 
 Bringing his reserve down from the castle, Sir Walter 
 drew the men up behind the gate, which he caused to 
 be flung open suddenly. Then he charged at their 
 head through the flames which had already been 
 kindled charged with such fury that the assailants 
 fled pell-mell. Seldom do sorties succeed, but this 
 one put an end to the operations of that day. 
 
 Famine must have accomplished what could not 
 be done by assault, and none knew this better than 
 the King of Scots ; so he planned a diversion that 
 
 1 Way. 
 
 * Barbour's Brus, CXXX. 86.
 
 THE TWEED 313 
 
 raid across the West Marches by Douglas and 
 Moray, which ended in the { Chapter of Myton, ' 
 where Archbishop Melton lost all his silver spoons 
 and scores of his clergy. The siege of Berwick was 
 raised on 24th September. 
 
 After this Berwick remained a Scottish town for 
 fourteen years. The experience of the last siege has 
 shown how faulty were its defences. The wall 
 erected to the first Edward's plan was so low that, 
 says Barbour, men on the top were within a spear- 
 thrust of those attacking from the outside. King 
 Robert now set this to rights, causing the wall to be 
 raised to a uniform height often feet. Some shape- 
 less fragments of the work may still be seen near the 
 Bell Tower. Although the town never regained its 
 tormer importance in commerce, its citizens turned to 
 best account the years of good government which 
 Scotland enjoyed under Robert I. In 1331, two 
 years after his death, the customs levied on exported 
 goods amounted in Berwick to 570, as compared 
 with 400 in Edinburgh, 484 in Aberdeen, 88 in 
 Perth, and 83 in Dundee. It was still the prin- 
 cipal trading centre of Scotland. l 
 
 Edward II. died his shameful death at Berkeley 
 Castle in 1327 : c grave, gentle and amiable in con- 
 versation, but indolent in action,' was the lenient 
 judgment passed on him by one who knew him 
 well. 2 The third Edward succeeded as a minor in 
 
 1 It may be noted that the fiscal policy of the Scottish government 
 at this time affords the earliest authentic example of free imports. No 
 duty was allowed to be levied on foreign imports, except the parva 
 costuma levied by every burgh on all produce, foreign or domestic, 
 coming within its boundary. Revenue was raised solely by duty on 
 exported goods. 
 
 1 ' II fust sagis, douce et amyable en parole, mais mesoerous en fait. ' 
 Gray's Scalacronica.
 
 3 i4 THE STORY OF 
 
 leading-strings to his mother Isabella and Mortimer, 
 murderers of his father. Truce prevailed at the 
 time between England and Scotland ; but it was 
 extremely precarious, and it has been alleged that it 
 was broken by the King of Scots besieging Sir 
 Robert de Manners in Norham Castle on the very 
 day, says the Lanercost chronicler, of young Edward's 
 accession. Against this may be set the original 
 documents whereby Edward 111., on I5th February, 
 three weeks after his accession, appointed Percy, 
 Nevill, and other knights as commissioners to main- 
 tain the truce made by the late King with { Robert 
 de Brus and his fautours ' (criminals). Anyhow, 
 both nations assembled their forces for war ; while 
 the English army was mustering at Newcastle, 
 Moray and Douglas crossed the West Marches and 
 entered upon what became known as the campaign 
 of Weardale. How the two armies manoeuvred and 
 reconnoitred how the chevaliers of both nations 
 performed heroic exploits before, and even within, 
 each other's lines and how, in the end, the Scots 
 gave their enemy the slip may be read with 
 advantage elsewhere, but has no direct relation with 
 the story of Berwick-on-Tweed. It may be noted, 
 in passing to our proper business, that Barbour 
 states that this campaign was notable for two novel- 
 ties namely, the display of crests on the helmets of 
 knights and the use in action of ' crakkis of weir ' 
 * cracks of war ' that is, cannon. 
 
 The Lincoln Parliament, held in the autumn of 
 1327, brings us back to Tweedside, because the 
 outcome of its deliberations was that John de 
 Denoun was sent to make certain proposals to the 
 King of Scots, whom he found busily besieging
 
 THE TWEED 315 
 
 Norham Castle. These proposals were as welcome 
 as they were unexpected. They consisted of direct 
 overtures for the marriage of Princess Joan, sister 
 of Edward III., to Prince David, heir of Scotland. 
 Hostilities were suspended at once, for the sole 
 cause of them existed no longer. The independence 
 of Scotland had been acknowledged by the only 
 monarch who had continued to dispute it King 
 Robert's sovereignty recognised by the only court 
 which called it in question. 
 
 The treaty of Northampton carried these overtures 
 into effect, establishing what English writers have 
 termed * the Shameful Peace. ' There was to be 
 perpetual peace between the two kingdoms the 
 Coronation Stone was to be restored to Scone 
 (which has never been fulfilled to this day) and 
 the King of England was to use his good offices at 
 the Papal See to obtain remission from excommuni- 
 cation for the King of Scots. The Ragman Roll, 
 being the damning record of all the Scottish gentle- 
 men who had done fealty to Edward I., was to be 
 returned to Scotland, and also that chip of the true 
 cross which the Scots had learned to revere as the 
 Black Rood. In return for the surrender of all 
 claim to suzerainty on the part of England, the 
 Scottish government bound itself to pay ^20,000 in 
 three instalments at Tweedmouth. 
 
 The royal marriage was fixed to take place at 
 Berwick in the summer of 1328. The battered old 
 town, so long the scene of bloody strife between the 
 nations, was chosen as the theatre of that act which 
 should unite them in lasting amity, and great was 
 the bustle of preparation. Peter the Mechanic (Petrus 
 machinarum\ a Flemish merchant of Berwick, was
 
 3 i6 THE STORY OF 
 
 sent to the Continent to lay in stores of furs, rich 
 cloths, and spices, on which he was allowed to charge 
 commission at the rate of ten per cent. His 
 purchases included cloth for the knights' robes, a 
 gift from the King, costing 173, 9 s - 2 d-> an d for 
 the esquires' 90. Hoods and capes of vair, 
 miniver, lambskin, etc., were provided in great 
 abundance ; much linen, also, for the household ; 
 twenty tuns of wine, 2200 eels in barrels, 436olb. 
 of almonds, 600 Ib. of rice, forty loaves of sugar, 
 1 80 Ib. of pepper, with mace, nutmegs, saffron, 
 and many other delicacies. Then another trader, 
 Thomas de Carnock, was despatched to Flanders to 
 spend 400 for the King in silks, satins, and jewel- 
 lery ; and so high did the reputation of the said 
 Thomas stand that the King, by a letter under his 
 own hand, exempted him from submitting his 
 accounts to audit. The household expenses, apart 
 from all this money spent abroad, amounted to 
 966, los. lod. a very lavish expenditure in 
 money of the fourteenth century ; but all must 
 have felt it a relief to commit extravagance in some- 
 thing less grim than preparations for war. The 
 bridegroom, created Earl of Carrick for the occasion, 
 was but four years old, the bride no more than six 
 Joan of the Tower, as she was called, having been 
 born in that place of dismal memories. King 
 Robert's growing infirmities kept him at Cardross, 
 but he sent those tried brothers-in-arms, Thomas 
 Randolph, Earl of Moray, and Good Sir James of 
 Douglas, to receive the bride at Berwick from the 
 hands of Queen Isabella and the Bishop of Lincoln, 
 Chancellor of England. 
 
 The common folk, burgesses, and country people
 
 THE TWEED 317 
 
 of both nations went about their merry-making with 
 a will ; English and Scottish knights, too, paladins of 
 chivalry, fraternised freely. The style of official 
 correspondence underwent a sudden change. Hith- 
 erto the King of Scots had been referred to inva- 
 riably as c our rebel Robert de Brus, lately Earl of 
 Carrick :' now Edward III. addressed letters (with a 
 privy grimace, no doubt) to * the magnificent Prince 
 Sir Robert, by the grace of God King of Scots, his 
 dearest friend, greeting and embraces of sincere 
 affection. ' l 
 
 * Tongue cannot utter, ' exclaims the chronicler of 
 Pluscardine, ' nor pen describe, what pride and joy 
 prevailed in Scotland after so much hardship. For a 
 time that country abandoned itself to festivity. ' 
 Ay, for a time only for three short years. Wise 
 King Robert died in 1329 ; peerless James of Doug- 
 las in 1330 ; dauntless Randolph of Moray in 1332, 
 leaving the King of Scots, a minor of eight years, to 
 meet the storm with which the fiery Edward was 
 preparing to devastate the north. He had espoused 
 the cause of the disinherited lords, and Berwick, as 
 usual, was to bear the brunt of invasion. * Great 
 oaks were felled at Cawood in Yorkshire and fash- 
 ioned into siege engines ; stones were quarried there, 
 rounded into balls, and shipped, with the catapults, 
 at Hull ; and on 4th April Berwick woke to find 
 herself once more beleaguered. 
 
 On 1 6th May 1333 King Edward arrived on the 
 south bank of the river, and took up his quarters in 
 Tweedmouth. A memorial of his presence remains 
 
 1 August 9, 1328. Bain's Hist. Doc. Scot., iii. 173. 
 * It had been ceded to the English by the usurper, Edward Baliol, 
 under the treaty of Roxburgh, but it remained loyal to King David.
 
 3 i8 THE STORY OF 
 
 in the name of Parliament Street. Berwick was now 
 a harder nut to crack than it had been ever before, 
 so diligently had King Robert improved its defences. 
 An assault by land and sea had failed before Edward's 
 arrival. Sir Alexander Seton was governor of the 
 town inflexibly loyal, as became one of that devot- 
 ed house. As much cannot be written of the Earl 
 of March, who commanded in the castle, unworthy 
 husband of Black Agnes of Dunbar. The siege re- 
 solved itself into a blockade. Citizens and soldiers 
 were put on short commons ; overtures from the 
 King of England resulted in a bargain like that made 
 by Philip de Mowbray at Stirling the place would 
 surrender if not relieved within a fixed time. Sir 
 Alexander Seton's son Thomas was handed over, 
 with others, as a hostage. 
 
 Before the date arranged for surrender Sir Archi- 
 bald Douglas, Guardian of Scotland, appeared with 
 a numerous army, sent Sir William Keith with men 
 and provisions into the town, crossed the river at the 
 Yare ford in full view of the enemy, and passed on 
 to waste and pillage Northumberland in rear of the 
 English. This we have on the testimony of Sir 
 Thomas Gray, who was present. He distinctly 
 states that the Scots * bouterent gentz et vitailes de- 
 denz la vile, ' * and this was claimed as relief of the 
 town within the terms of the agreement. Young 
 King Edward scouted the notion. * Relieved ! not 
 a bit; you are just as you were before ; better sur- 
 render quietly, or it will go ill with your hostages. ' 
 The besieged protested ; the English King met their 
 arguments by hanging Thomas Seton on a gibbet in 
 full view or the ramparts. Wyntoun fills in the 
 
 1 Scalacronica, folio 218 b.
 
 THE TWEED 319 
 
 picture with some ghastly details. He says that Sir 
 Alexander Seton had lost two sons already in the 
 defence of the town, and that now, when he and his 
 wife beheld a third threatened with a shameful death, 
 their spirits did not quail. 
 
 * Than sayd the lady that scho was yhyng [young], 
 And hyr lord wes yhowng alsua, 
 Off powere till have barnys ma. l 
 And set [allow] that thai twa dede war thare 
 Yhit off thare barnys sum lyvand [living] ware.' * 
 
 But King Edward's terrible argumentum ad hominem 
 prevailed. The parents of the other hostages had 
 not the same Roman fortitude as the Setons. They 
 beset the governor with entreaties, so that a fresh 
 bargain was struck. Berwick town and tower would 
 surrender if the siege was not raised within a fort- 
 night. Messengers were sent, under English safe- 
 conduct (for Edward III. was the soul of chivalry), 
 to recall Douglas from his foolish raiding. He 
 came he saw and was pulverised. 
 
 Better for Scotland had he never come had 
 Berwick fallen quietly for so closely had disaster 
 ever dogged the heels of this Douglas that already 
 he had earned the ominous title of * Tineman ' 
 the Loser. l He was Archibald, youngest brother 
 of the Good Sir James, and had been appointed 
 Guardian of Scotland during the absence of young 
 David II. in France, where he had been sent for 
 safety. This Archibald would make Berwick a 
 second Bannockburn, for had he not an army far 
 
 1 Able to have more children. 
 * Wyntoun's Cronykil, vm. c. xxvii. 1. 3886. 
 
 3 The name has also been applied, with equal reason, to Archibald, 
 fourth Earl of Douglas.
 
 320 THE STORY OF 
 
 stronger and better equipped than had conquered 
 there ? 
 
 Ay, but Archibald Douglas was not a second 
 Bruce, and Bruce's warning against pitched battles 
 he flung to the winds. While his columns were 
 recrossing the Tweed and marching into camp at a 
 place then called Duns Park, King Edward took up 
 a strong position on Halidon Hill, that rising ground 
 which one travelling north by rail may see from the 
 train about two miles to the north-west of Berwick. 
 He was not in easy circumstances ; the northern 
 shires had not mustered readily ; supplies were short 
 and deserters numerous. The Tineman, had he 
 possessed the wit, had only to bide his time and 
 wait. But he was * fey,' as Scotsmen term it ; his 
 doom was that he should never prevail, just as it 
 had been his brother's destiny never to fail. 
 
 On 1 9th July the Scottish line of battle was 
 formed on Lamberton Moor opposite the English 
 on Halidon Hill. Between the two positions, as at 
 Bannockburn, lay a marsh; and, as at Bannockburn, 
 a champion stood forward on either side to test 
 fortune by single combat the giant chief of the 
 Turnbulls for the Scots, Sir Robert de Venale or 
 Benhale for the English. The issue of that duel 
 the death of Turnbull has been told in another 
 chapter. * It was but a foretaste of what was to 
 follow. Douglas gave the command for a general 
 attack. In four divisions respectively under the 
 Earl of Moray (Randolph's son), the Steward of 
 Scotland, Sir Archibald Douglas himself, and the 
 Earl of Ross the Scottish line advanced and plun- 
 ged into the morass, where the English archers 
 
 1 See p. 184, ante.
 
 THE TWEED 321 
 
 wrought terrible slaughter. At the foot of a steep 
 brae on the far side an attempt was made to rally 
 the shattered ranks. Ross with his Highlanders 
 breasted the steep and perished in the charge. One 
 after another the other divisions followed, only to 
 be broken on the English hedge of steel or to be 
 cruelly shot down by those matchless bowmen. 
 The Tineman finished his career of disaster by a 
 soldier's death ; six Scottish earls Lennox, Ross, 
 Sutherland, Carrick, Menteith, and Atholl fell with 
 him. William, Lord of Douglas, son and heir of 
 the Good Sir James, three brothers Fraser, and 
 other good knights too many to number, laid down 
 their lives on that crowded field. Moray and the 
 Steward saved themselves in flight. 
 The pursuit was long and bloody. 
 
 * There men myhte well see 
 Many a Skotte lightly flee, 
 And the English after priking 
 With sharp swerdes them stiking. 
 Then their baners weren found 
 Alle displayde on the grounde. 
 And layne starkly on blode 
 As thei had foughten the floode.' * 
 
 Mediaeval arithmetic was taxed to estimate the 
 Scottish loss. English chroniclers put the slain 
 variously between 14,055 2 and 56,640, 3 while the 
 victors only reckoned fifteen slain on their side. 
 Let the numbers have been what they may, it was 
 all over, men said, with Scottish independence. 
 Edward Baliol, vassal of English Edward, was secure 
 
 ' Laurence Minot, Edward in. 's Claudian. 
 
 1 Continuation of Hemingford. 
 
 * Cambridge MS. quoted by Barnes. 
 
 21
 
 322 THE STORY OF 
 
 in so much kingship as it should please his superior 
 to allow him. Berwick surrendered at once ; the 
 Earl of March, governor of the castle, becoming 
 Edward III.'s * man ' for the nonce. The King of 
 England, in gratitude for these crowning mercies, 
 presented 20 a year for ever to the Cistercian nuns 
 of Halystane, that perpetual thanks might be offered 
 for the victory. An altar was to be placed in their 
 chapel dedicated to St. Margaret, upon whose feast- 
 day the battle had been fought. Nevertheless King 
 Edward, pious though he was, distrusted the Scottish 
 clergy. He scattered the monks of Berwick far and 
 wide among the English monasteries, that * the 
 occasion of their malignity might cease,' and imported 
 English friars in their place who should disseminate 
 sound political principles. 
 
 From this time Berwick became the great military 
 dep6t of the English kings in their Scottish wars. 
 The wool trade the great source of its revenues 
 fell away to a serious extent, and the citizens were 
 heavily rated to strengthen and maintain the fortifi- 
 cations. During six months' truce in 1341-2 King 
 Edward spent Easter at Berwick, and great joustings 
 took place during three whole days between English 
 and Scottish knights. One match especially moved 
 Wyntoun's admiration twelve a side when two 
 English knights were slain outright, and the Scottish 
 Sir John Hay died of his wounds. Sir William 
 Ramsay, a Scot,. was highly applauded for his courage. 
 He was struck through the helmet ; the truncheon 
 of the spear broke off, leaving the point sticking in 
 his skull. All men thought he must die ; a priest 
 shrove him straightway ; the Earl of Derby, standing 
 by, declared it was * a fayre sycht, no fayrere sycht
 
 THE TWEED 323 
 
 ma man se ! ' and prayed God that when it came to 
 his turn to die, it might be in as glorious a fashion. 
 When the shriving was over Ramsay's brother 
 Alexander tried his hand at a cure, and, marvellous 
 as it may seem, succeeded. His surgery was of the 
 heroic kind. He 
 
 * Gert lay hym down forowtyn lete, l 
 And on his helme his fute he sete, 
 And wyth gret strynth owt can aras* 
 The trownsown 3 that thare stekand * was. 
 He [William] rase allane, fra it wes owte, 4 
 And wyth a gud will and a stowte 
 He sayd that he wald ayl na thyng. 
 Tharoff the Erl [of Derby] had wonderyng, 
 And gretly hym commendit then, 
 And said " Lw ! stowt hards of men. " 
 
 Rough play this for peace-time ; but rougher was to 
 come on the morrow ; for Sir Patrick Graham, newly 
 landed from the Continent, arrived in a terrible 
 taking lest he should be too late for this splendid 
 tournament. Sir Richard Talbot, however, took 
 him on to run three courses : in the first of which 
 Graham's spear pierced the English knight's corselet 
 and bore him to the ground. Then it was discover- 
 ed that Talbot had put on two breastplates of the 
 new Milan fashion, and that the Scotsman's spear 
 had only entered his breast ' ane inch or mare.' So 
 they ran the other two courses without further 
 scathe, and Graham accepted Talbot's invitation to 
 
 1 Made them lay him (William) down without delay. 
 
 1 Arracher, drew out. 
 
 J Truncheon, spear-shaft. 
 
 4 Sticking. 
 
 4 As soon as it was out. 
 
 Wyntoun's Cronykil, vm. 5214 et seq.
 
 324 THE STORY OF 
 
 supper. While they were discussing their meal, 
 entered a nameless chevalier 
 
 * A cumly knycht 
 That semyt stowt, baith bald and wycht ' ' 
 
 who challenged Graham to a fresh encounter, bidding 
 him rise early next morning, hear Mass, get well 
 shriven, and come out to the barriers. Graham 
 * made tharoffna gabbing ' never hesitated accept- 
 ed the challenge, met his man, and killed him cleanly. 
 Then came the award of prizes by the heralds, the 
 chivalrous custom at international tournaments being 
 that the heralds of each nation should reward the 
 knight of the other side who had borne himself best. 
 Accordingly, the Scottish heralds pronounced that 
 knight winner who had run Ramsay through the 
 head, and the English heralds gave their prize to 
 Graham, for the following peculiar reasons, fully 
 approved by Lord Derby. It was held that Talbot 
 had not played fair in wearing a double breast-plate; 
 that technically he was dead, wherefore 
 
 * He that a knycht yhistyrday 
 Slew, and ane othir today, the prys [prize] 
 Suld have, Patryk the Grame that is.' 
 
 One cannot but marvel at the insatiable love of 
 fighting that in the brief and rare intervals of truce 
 found its only solace in these gladiatorial displays. 
 
 David II., returning to his kingdom a lad of eight- 
 een in 1342, was taken prisoner four years later at 
 the battle of Neville's Cross. Nevertheless the 
 English were losing their hold of Scotland. The 
 Knight of Liddesdale having recovered Ettrick and 
 
 1 Bold and strong.
 
 THE TWEED 325 
 
 Teviotdale for his country, set about feathering his 
 own nest, and ended his days in a quarrel with his 
 godson, as has been shown already. l In 1355 a 
 strong French contingent, bringing much needed 
 bullion forty thousand moutons d'or arrived in 
 Scotland. Edward III. being absent waging war in 
 France, the Scots saw their chance for another dash 
 at Berwick. Patrick, Earl of March, happening to 
 be in patriotic phase at the time, arranged with 
 Stewart, Earl of Angus for an escalade by night. It 
 succeeded well; the town was taken and plundered 
 not burnt, this time but the castle held out, strongly 
 garrisoned. This brought King Edward back to the 
 Border in force. 
 
 * Till wenge hym J on the Scottis men, 
 That he cald ill and wykyd then.' 
 
 On his approach, in January 1356, the Scots evacu- 
 ated the town. Edward Baliol, who accompanied 
 that other Edward, now made abject and final 
 surrender of his kingship, delivering his golden 
 crown, with a sod of Scottish soil, to the King of 
 England in exchange for a life-pension of 2000 a 
 year. A cheap bargain for Edward III., had it 
 carried all that it implied, for Baliol was well stricken 
 in years ; but in truth Scotland, with that marvellous 
 recuperative virtue which is the puzzle of historians, 
 was never further from subjection than at this 
 moment. King Edward carried his invasion as far 
 as Edinburgh, the Scots falling back and sweeping 
 away all victual before him. They could not prevent 
 the enemy destroying many fair churches, including 
 
 1 See p. 40, ante. 
 1 To avenge himself.
 
 326 THE STORY OF 
 
 the Abbey Church of Haddington c Lamp of the 
 Lothians,' but flaming rafters fill no bellies, and 
 the English host was in sore straits before it reached 
 the Border again. Men called this season ' the 
 Burnt Candlemas, ' because of the destruction 
 wrought in this fruitless foray, whereof the remem- 
 brance did not serve to sweeten relations between 
 the two countries. 
 
 Time and space probably the reader's patience 
 also would run short in an attempt to follow all 
 the incidents that chequered the history of Berwick 
 after this the raids and counter-raids that raged in 
 Richard II's feeble reign. On 2jth August 1377 
 the Scots were lucky enough to capture the governor, 
 Sir Thomas Musgrave, and hold him to ransom for 
 ten thousand marks. On 2 5th November following 
 the castle itself was taken by a ruse of some enter- 
 prising fellows l of the meaner sort, ' says Bower 
 ' robbers, ' says Walsingham. The names of six of 
 these adventurers have been preserved : Thomas 
 Hog was one, Jak de Fordun, Leighert, Gray, Art- 
 wood, and Hempsede the others. The Constable, 
 Sir Robert Boynton, was slain in the affray, to avenge 
 whom the Earl of Northumberland speedily came 
 on the scene, retook the castle after eight days' siege, 
 and put the whole party, forty-eight in number, to 
 death, save one whose life was spared because he 
 had betrayed the others. 
 
 Once more, in December 1384, the Scots got 
 possession of Berwick and burnt the town. It was 
 a time of truce, and the Scottish Warden, Douglas 
 of Dalkeith, wrote to King Richard a long, windy 
 justification of the proceeding, declaring that the 
 English had been the first transgressors :
 
 THETWEED 327 
 
 * I understand,' said he, * that giff your hee [high] Excel- 
 lence war clerly enf ourmete of the , brennyng, slachter and 
 takyng of prisoners and Scottis schippis that is done be your 
 men to Scottysmen within the saide trewis [truce] in devers 
 places in Scotland before the brynnyng of Berwike, the 
 quhilk skathis [which injuries] our lege lorde the Kynge 
 and his liege has pacientlye tholyte [borne] in the kepyng of 
 the saide trewis, and chargit me til aske and ger be askyte 
 be my deputy redresse tharof, the quhilk my depute has 
 askyte at dayis of March, ' and nane has gottyne, methink 
 o resoune yhe sulde erar [rather] put blame and punicioun 
 to the doarys of the saide trespas done agayn trewis in swilke 
 [such] maner, and callys thai rather brekare of the trew 
 than me, that has tholyte sa mykylle injur so lang and nane 
 amends gottyn.' 
 
 After burning the town the Scots got the castle 
 also, it is said by bribing the deputy-governor. But 
 they had no strength to hold it, and quietly surren- 
 dered it to the Warden, the Earl of Northumberland, 
 who, being like to be called on to pay with his head 
 for the loss of the fortress, paid a couple of thousand 
 marks in ransom to the captors. 
 
 During the Earl of Northumberland's rebellion 
 against Henry IV. in 1405, his son, Hotspur Percy, 
 being deputy-governor of Berwick, admitted the 
 Scots, who pillaged and burnt the town every house 
 in it, says Holinshed, except those of the Friars. 
 
 After this, for half a century the battered old 
 borough seems to have enjoyed comparative immun- 
 ity from mischief. James II. espoused the Lancas- 
 trian cause, and helped Henry VI. by raiding the 
 lands of the Yorkists. When that cause Was hope- 
 lessly wrecked at the battle of Towton (29th March 
 
 1 ' Days of March, ' namely, the joint courts held by the Wardens of 
 the English and Scottish Marches for the redress of grievances.
 
 328 THE STORY OF 
 
 1461), King Henry fled to Berwick. James II. had 
 been killed at the siege of Roxburgh Castle in the 
 preceding year, but the Queen-mother and young 
 James III. received the royal fugitive so kindly that 
 he made them a free gift of both town and castle, 
 1 to have and holde for ever. * 
 
 Once more, then, the tressured lion of Scotland 
 flaunted defiance across the Border from the grey 
 keep, and from Carham to the sea the Tweed divided 
 realm from realm. So matters continued for twenty- 
 one years, and might have endured for aye ; but just 
 as the Wars of the Roses had weakened the English 
 grasp on this coveted fortress, so it was torn from 
 the Scots when they were demoralised by civil dis- 
 sension. Edward of York besieged it in 1481, but 
 was repulsed and driven away. Next year came the 
 Duke of Gloucester with twenty-two thousand men, 
 having with him the renegade Albany. It has been 
 shown elsewhere how James III. marched from 
 Edinburgh to the relief of Berwick, and how Doug- 
 las * belled the cat ' at Lauder Bridge, paralysing the 
 kingly power. 1 The English made easy conquest of 
 the town, but Lord Hailes held out stoutly in the 
 castle, never doubting that relief was at hand. But 
 instead of relief came orders from Edinburgh that 
 the place was to be handed over to King Edward, 
 and so the Bounds of Berwick passed into English 
 keeping : fortress and town were lost to Scotland for 
 ever. 
 
 A Border fortress little more ; for the foreign 
 trade of this modern Alexandria had been scared 
 away, never to return, and of local industries there 
 never had been any except the salmon-fishings. Of 
 
 1 See p. 109, ante.
 
 THE TWEED 329 
 
 pageants the old town still had its share. Princess 
 Margaret of England rode this way in passing to her 
 marriage with James IV., King of Scots. 
 
 The xxix day of the sayd monneth [July 1502] the sayd 
 Quene departed from Alnewyk for to go to Barrwyk, and 
 at haff of the way, viz. Belleford, she bayted. For Syr 
 Thomas d'Arcy, Capittayne of the said Barrwyk, had maid 
 rady her dynner at the said place very well and hon- 
 nestly. . . . Betwyx Alnewyk and Barrwyk cam to the 
 Quene Maister Rawf Wodrynton, having in hys company 
 many gentylmen well apoynted ; his folks arayed in liveray, 
 well horsed, to the nombre of an hundreth horsys. 
 
 * At the comyng ny to Barrwyk was shot ordonnounce 
 the wiche was fayr for to here. And ny to the sayd place the 
 Quene drest hyr. And ichon [each one] in fayr aray went 
 the on after the other in fayr order. At the entrynge to 
 the bryge was the said Capittayne well apoynted, and in hys 
 company hys gentlemen and men of armes who receyved 
 the Quene into the said place. At the tother end of the bryge, 
 toward the gatt, was the Maister Marshall compayned of hys 
 company, ichon bearing a staffe in his haund. After him 
 was the college revested with the crosse, the wiche was 
 gyffen hyr to kysse by the archbishop as before. At the gatt 
 of the said towne was the maister porter, with the gard and 
 soyars of the said place in a row well apoynted. Ichon of 
 those had an hallebarde or other staffe in his haund as the 
 others. And upon the said gatt war the mynstryalls of the 
 sayd Capittayne pleynge of their instruments. In the midds 
 of the said towne was the Maister Chamberlayn and the 
 Mayre accompanyed of the bourges and habitaunts of the 
 said place in fayre ordre and well apoynted.' l 
 
 The Princess stayed two days in the castle, wit- 
 nessing bear-baiting and other diversions. On 
 ist August she set out once more, accompanied by 
 
 1 Sykes's Locaf Records, quoted in Scott's History of Berwick, p. 106.
 
 330 THE STORY OF 
 
 the Earl of Northumberland, and two thousand 
 gentlemen and others riding three abreast, as far as 
 Lamberton Kirk, where they handed her over to the 
 Scottish commissioners. 
 
 A memorable occasion this, for it was in virtue of 
 this marriage that James IV's great-grandson suc- 
 ceeded to the crown of England, and so, at last, the 
 feud between the two nations came to be stanched. 
 A hundred weary years of invasion and raiding were 
 to run before that happy consummation came about ; 
 but although many a time the burgesses gathered on 
 the walls to watch the smoke rolling over blazing 
 villages in the Merse, they never again had their own 
 houses burnt about their ears, which was a changed 
 experience for dwellers in that city. 
 
 Sir William Beretonj writing in 1635, has recorded 
 his impressions of the place. 
 
 * A stately Bridge over the Tweed, consisting of 1 5 arches, 
 was built by King James VI., as it is said cost 17,000. 
 This river is infinitely stored with salmon, one or two 
 hundred salmon at one draught. The Haven is a most 
 narrow, shallow-barred haven the worst I have ever seen. 
 It is a poor town; many indigent persons and beggars therein.' 
 
 In 1639, soon a ft er King Charles left Berwick, 
 where he had signed the * pacification, ' there befell 
 a mysterious event which is gravely recorded in the 
 official correspondence of the day. Sir James Doug- 
 las, writing to the Secretary of State, reports as 
 follows : 
 
 * On the 22nd August, not quite a month after the King 
 left Berwick, there was a most violent tempest of wind. At 
 Berwick Bridge, the end next England, there is put up
 
 THE TWEED 331 
 
 a very strong gate ; at least, there are three, which are shut 
 every night. The Sentinel walking over the Bridge about 
 one o'clock in the night, there came towards him, as he 
 reports, a black cat, which he did push at with his pike, yet 
 could not slay it, but it went to the gate, which, at that 
 instant, was blown up, the hasp breaking that received the 
 bolt of the lock. At 3 o'clock the Governor of Berwick 
 went, and finding it so, examined the soldier, who was in 
 great amazement, and upon the 25th the poor man died with 
 fear. Some report that the fort next Scotland was blown 
 up that same night, but no such certainty for it.' * 
 
 The castle, which plays such a commanding part 
 in the annals of Berwick, stood on the site now 
 occupied by the North British railway station, 
 between the river and the Mary Gate that gate 
 through which Johnnie Cope clattered in such haste 
 to announce his own defeat at Prestonpans. It was 
 no longer habitable when King Charles held his 
 court in Berwick. Queen Elizabeth had ordered 
 its demolition, and Lord Grey, the governor, used 
 part of it as material for the new fortifications that 
 inner wall, still existing, which superseded the wider 
 enceinte of Edward I. This was about 1560 : four 
 years later, Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford, being 
 governor, orders were given that the castle and the 
 Bell Tower should be razed ; but these orders were 
 not carried into effect. The castle, though much 
 defaced, continued to hold a garrison till the year 
 1603, when it was granted by the Crown to the 
 Earl of Dunbar. He began to reconstruct it as 
 1 a stately, sumptuous, and well-slated house ' but 
 did not live to see the work finished. The next 
 owner was the Earl of Suffolk, who sold it in 1641 
 
 1 State Papers, Charles i., 22nd August 1639.
 
 332 THE STORY OF 
 
 to the corporation as a quarry for their new church, 
 in which divine service was to be conducted by 
 Mr. Harrison, preacher and lecturer, in consideration 
 of a house and meadow, estimated together at the 
 value of 10 a year, and a salary or 14. The 
 vicar, Mr. Hunt, was an absentee High Churchman, 
 but, it is presumed, drew his salary of 6 from the 
 Guild in addition to 5, los. from the Crown. 
 
 When the corporation had taken all the material 
 they wanted from the castle, they sold it to Alder- 
 man Jackson for 100. About 1770 it became the 
 property of the Askews of Pallinsburn, and so 
 remained till the North British Railway Company 
 bought it in 1 843, and blew it up to make room for 
 the present station buildings. There remain now 
 only the foundations of a few towers and part of the 
 western curtain the White Wall stretching down 
 to the river. But the Bell Tower still stands firm, 
 and near it are two masses of masonry, representing 
 bastions in the fourteenth-century work of Edward I. 
 Mr. John Scott states that the platform of the 
 railway station is believed to occupy the area of the 
 Great Hall, where King Edward declared his award 
 in favour of John Baliol. 
 
 Few contrasts between past and present could be 
 more complete than that presented by the two 
 bridges of Berwick. The bridge begun in the reign 
 of James VI. and I. consists of fifteen arches, is 1164 
 feet long, and only 17 feet wide between the para- 
 pets. It was reckoned a masterpiece of seventeenth- 
 century engineering, and it took three hundred 
 workmen rour-and-twenty years to finish it, at a 
 cost of 17,000. The Royal Border Bridge, which 
 carries the railway on twenty-eight arches at a height
 
 THE TWEED 333 
 
 of 1 20 feet above the river, is 2000 feet long, 
 employed two thousand workmen for three years in 
 building, and cost 253,000. 
 
 Time has dealt harshly in some respects with 
 Berwick-on-Tweed ; her churches and religious 
 houses have all vanished or given place to edifices 
 which afford small solace to the eye or interest to 
 the antiquary ; she has sunk from her proud eminence 
 as the chief emporium of Scotland to inferior rank 
 among the fishing-stations of England. Yet neither 
 the destructive passions nor the constructive energy 
 of many generations has destroyed the noble land- 
 scape, of which you may catch a fleeting glance from 
 the window of a twentieth-century dining-car. 
 There is none of that grime amid which millions of 
 our fellow-countrymen are doomed to grope for a 
 living. River, sea, and sky are as free and pure as 
 they were when Malcolm the son of Kenneth 
 wrenched this fair territory from the grasp ofEadulf 
 Ciudel by the battle of Carham. Cold must be his 
 spirit, slow his imagination, for whom this scene 
 brings no message from the long past. Even the 
 Reform Act 011885, though it robbed the old 
 borough of its two members of Parliament and 
 swamped it in the Berwick-on-Tweed division of 
 Northumberland with only one member, could not 
 strip it of its historic dignity. This received official 
 recognition of a peculiar kind until quite recent 
 years, by the specific mention * of our town of 
 Berwick-on-Tweed ' in all royal proclamations. Its 
 burgesses claimed civic independence of both the 
 adjacent kingdoms ; and if any curious traveller 
 asked explanation of such an anomaly, he was told 
 that it arose during the Temptation on the Mount
 
 334 THE STORY OF THE TWEED 
 
 in the following manner. The Evil One, when he 
 showed the Saviour all the kingdoms of the world 
 and the glory of them, kept his thumb upon 
 Berwick-on-Tweed, so greatly did he covet it for his 
 own possession as the most desirable spot on earth !
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 TWEEDSIDE ANGLING 
 
 ANY reader who is in sympathy with the gentle 
 craft of angling must be wondering by this 
 time how one to whom that mystery remains 
 the only mundane illusion still unshattered has 
 managed to conduct this sinuous narrative thus far, 
 and yet has had no word to say about the fishing. 
 Well, the temptation has been almost irresistible, so 
 crowded are the memories of happy days, never to 
 return, spent upon these streams and * dubs ; ' but 
 to yield to it would have been to risk the due 
 proportion of this sketch. It was of set purpose 
 that the subject was avoided until there remained 
 but a single chapter for its admission, and the 
 Procrustean office of the publisher might be trusted 
 as a check alike upon the garrulity of age and the 
 volubility of a salmon fisher. A salmon fisher and 
 no more ; for although I have passed shining hours 
 in beguiling, or attempting to beguile, the speckled 
 residents in Tweed and its tributaries, the time so 
 spent has been as one of the smallest of those 
 tributaries to Tweed herself, in proportion to that 
 devoted to pursuit of the migratory tribes. Where- 
 fore, if I have aught to say about trout in these 
 waters, it must be mainly hearsay. 
 
 We have heard with our ears, and our fathers 
 have told us, of the prodigious baskets they used to
 
 336 THE STORY OF 
 
 obtain of yore, the like of which may never be had 
 now. We may be tempted to exclaim with a 
 character in one of Dean Ramsay's yarns * There's 
 surely mair leears in Peebles nor me, minister ! ' 
 Tom Todd Stoddart, for instance, mentions in- 
 cidentally having killed with fly in a single day 
 forty-two pounds weight of trout in Meggat Water; 
 and again he records how he and * Christopher 
 North,' fishing together one day in Jed Water, 
 landed thirty-six dozen four hundred and thirty- 
 two pink-fleshed trout. There is not the slightest 
 reason to doubt the truth of these wonderful stories. 
 In those days it was a mere question of moderate 
 skill and industry how many trout one chose to take. 
 Probably at this day there are as many trout landed 
 each year in the valley of the Tweed as ever there 
 were ; but while the area of angling water and 
 spawning-ground has been grievously diminished by 
 the pollution poured in from the mills of Galashiels 
 and Hawick, it is probably no exaggeration to esti- 
 mate the increase in the number of anglers during 
 the last fifty years at one thousand per cent. It 
 sounds pretty fabulous put in that way ; nevertheless, 
 it only means that ten persons cast angle in Tweed 
 nowadays for every one who went forth in the time 
 of our grandsires. See the railway platforms in 
 Edinburgh early on Saturday mornings in spring and 
 summer, and say whether I have exaggerated matters. 
 Not one of these eager fellows with rods and baskets 
 and waders could have spent their week-end 
 on Tweedside before the establishment of cheap 
 railway fares. And there is room and sport for all 
 of them if everybody would play fair. In the whole 
 of the British Isles there is no watershed, unless it
 
 THE TWEED 337 
 
 be that of the Shannon, which produces river trout 
 equal in number, size, and quality to those of 
 Tweeddale and Teviotdale. The Tay surpasses 
 the Spey approaches the Tweed in drainage area ; 
 there are good trout in both these rivers, but the 
 angling in the best of their tributaries is insignificant 
 compared with that in Biggar Water and the Lyne, 
 Jed Water and the Kale, Whitadder and the Eden 
 to name but half a dozen out of a list that can 
 scarcely be reckoned for multitude. 
 
 Fifty years ago none but a few enthusiasts like 
 Stoddart, and local pot-hunters, ever gave a thought 
 to Scottish river trout. In England it was other- 
 wise to some extent. (I am endeavouring to beat 
 the record by writing a chapter upon fishing without 
 once citing the authority or even quoting the name 
 of Iz-k W-lt-n.) It was early in the eighteen 
 hundreds that Colonel Hawker celebrated the charms 
 of the Hampshire Test, and before the century had 
 half run out a few people had thought it worth 
 while to pay moderate rents for the privilege of 
 trout-fishing in the southern counties. But in 
 Scotland the idea of spending money on the preser- 
 vation of trout, or on the hire of waters to catch 
 them in, is one of the latest outcomes of civilisation. 
 Use and wont sanctioned the capture of these fish 
 by all persons and by any means at all seasons ; any 
 endeavour to improve private fisheries was resented 
 as an infringement of public rights ; a good deal of 
 irritation was roused and a demand for free fishing 
 was set up. 
 
 Still there remained a great deal of free trout- 
 fishing in Tweed and its affluents ; but the rapid 
 increase of anglers, combined with and partly caused 
 
 22
 
 338 THE STORY OF 
 
 by the development of travelling facilities, threatened 
 to prove as fatal to sport in general as a system of 
 free strawberry-beds would be to the housewife's 
 prospect of jam-making. Remote glens, once soli- 
 tary and unfished except at long intervals by some 
 adventurous tourist or inexpert shepherd lad, were 
 depleted season after season by holiday-makers from 
 the towns, ay, and by foul fishers, too, whom the 
 railways enabled to send their booty to a profitable 
 market. These upper streams had been, from im- 
 memorial time, the prolific nurseries of the main 
 rivers. Had every trout been netted out of Tweed 
 and Teviot one year, the next season had seen these 
 rivers well stocked again from their natural semina- 
 ries. Moreover, there were always unscrupulous 
 individuals who slaughtered trout without ruth at a 
 season when all useful or harmless animals should 
 be respected. Many a day in November have I seen 
 great trout dragged out of Tweed on a line baited 
 with worms, with the ripe spawn running out of 
 them. Relief came from the very source which 
 had seemed to threaten the welfare of the fishery 
 from the multiplication of fishers. So long as the 
 proposal for a statutory close time for trout was 
 believed to come only from the land-owning class, 
 successive Governments treated it with indifference ; 
 but when the angling clubs of Tweedside and 
 Clydesdale, numbering many hundreds of members, 
 beheld their efforts to restock and protect their 
 waters rendered futile by the destruction of spawning 
 fish, they brought such effective pressure to bear 
 upon their representatives in Parliament that, no 
 longer ago than 1902, an Act was passed prohibiting 
 the netting of trout at any season, and the taking of
 
 THE TWEED 339 
 
 them by any means between I5th October and 
 ist March. Now, therefore, one may expect that 
 the natural fecundity of these waters will restore to 
 some extent the primaeval abundance of these lovely 
 fish. 
 
 Seeing, also, that in the purity and productiveness 
 of this great water system, not the privileged few 
 only, but the hard-working myriads in the hives of 
 industry, possess a direct interest, surely it is not 
 too much to hope that measures will be taken, if not 
 to remedy the pollution from mills, at all events to 
 take stringent measures to prevent it getting any 
 worse. Commercial and industrial interests are vital 
 to national prosperity, but the whole nation is 
 concerned in preserving its fairest scenes its most 
 accessible playgrounds. In all nature there is no 
 more mournful spectacle than a polluted river : the 
 type of purity becomes the very emblem of defile- 
 ment : the cradle of innumerable forms of life is 
 turned into the image of the most loathsome form 
 of death : the focus of all loveliness in landscape is 
 made the shame and reproach of the whole valley. 
 Legitimate haste to grow rich on the part of a few, 
 culpable indifference on the part of the many, have 
 permitted the worst of ruin to overspread some of 
 the fairest scenes in northern England and southern 
 Scotland. It will be a lasting reproach to the nation 
 if the mischief be allowed to increase. 
 
 It may be affirmed generally that every tributary 
 of the Tweed, even those upland channels which 
 score the sides of Ettrick and Eskdalemuir in winter, 
 dwindling in summer to insignificant rills, are natur- 
 ally capable of yielding excellent sport to the fly- 
 fisher. Many of them flow from sequestered lakes
 
 340 THESTORYOF 
 
 or tarns abounding in trout, which waters, being re- 
 mote from the ways of men, still retain much of their 
 pristine promise. The enterprising angler will hunt 
 out these choice retreats for himself. It may often 
 be his fortune, as it has been the present writer's, 
 when making his way to some important stream or 
 sheet of water of wide renown, to light upon some 
 secret linn among the rocks of an unsung rivulet, or 
 some reed-bound pool of trifling extent in the 
 heather, which others have passed by untried, wherein 
 great and unexpected reward awaits the explorer. 
 
 If he take Tom Tod Stoddart as his guide, sure he 
 cannot find a trustier one through Tweeddale and 
 Teviotdale as they were seventy years ago ; but time 
 has wrought its work upon these waters ; they are 
 not what they were, and each one must seek his profit 
 where he may find it. Yet never shall Tom Stod- 
 dart fall out of favour. He wrote with such a relish 
 of his subject, such a passion for the sport, such a 
 grateful sense of the glory of moorland air, flowing 
 water, and free winds, that, although he never wastes 
 his own time or his reader's patience in the laboured 
 craft of * word-painting, ' no man ever made his 
 pages more fragrant of the fresh air. To open his 
 Angler 's Companion at any chapter is like throwing 
 wide a window. You feel the breeze on your cheek 
 you hear the wings of summer flies the sun glints 
 on the ripple the flying clouds cast grateful shade 
 for here is a man telling you unaffectedly of what 
 he knew and loved, without a thought about grace 
 of phrase or pretty writing. 
 
 Tom had his flights too. Like so many of the 
 children of Tweedside, he was always breaking into 
 song. The son of a retired navy captain, he was
 
 THE TWEED 341 
 
 destined by his father for the bar, and in 1825 began 
 to attend classes at Edinburgh University in prepar- 
 ation for that sober vocation. Fate ruled that his 
 chief instructor should be one with inclinations far 
 outside the lecture-room and Parliament House. 
 Professor John Wilson the tempestuous Christ- 
 opher North of the Noctes was perhaps the last pre- 
 ceptor one would have chosen to wean a lad from the 
 waterside and wed him to the courts. He took him 
 to his own house, where Tom found himself in 
 company greatly to his fancy, but, as it turned out, 
 fatal to his professional future. Aytoun, Terrier and 
 Gordon, De Quincey, Hartley Coleridge and the 
 Ettrick Shepherd, < Delta ' and Henry Glassford Bell 
 what wonder if this student conceived among them 
 a taste for lore far different from Balfour's Practiques 
 and Dalrymple's Decisions I 
 
 In 1826 he visited Yarrow, the cradle of his race, 
 and two years later found himself in Tibbie Shiels's 
 'howff' on St. Mary's Loch in the company of 
 Professor Wilson, Aytoun, and the Ettrick Shepherd. 
 From that moment it was all over with Tom. Wig 
 and gown faded from his horizon. Rods, reels, 
 and rings of rising trout became all his care by day, 
 and the fashion of a gross age must be reckoned 
 responsible for much that had better not have gone 
 on at night. f There was mony a ane,' Tibbie Shiels 
 used to say in going over old times, * There was 
 mony a ane cam here, gentle and simple, but I aye 
 likit the Cock o' the North best that was Professor 
 Wilson, ye ken. I likit him and Mr. Tom Stoddart 
 and Hogg. Eh ! but they were the callants for 
 drinkin ' ! Mony's the time, when they were at it, 
 I've fried a bit o' ham, and took it to them and said
 
 342 THESTORYOF 
 
 "Ye'll just tak this bit ham, gentlemen; maybe 
 it '11 sober ye. " And they wad eat it, and just on 
 to the drinkin' again.' And so it came to pass in 
 after-years, when Sheriff Glassford Bell came across 
 Stoddart again, and asked him what he was doing 
 now : { Doing ? ' cried Tom, * man, I'm an angler ! ' 
 
 He was something more than that ; he was a 
 poetaster. Stoddart was not twenty-one when 
 Henry Constable published for him The Deathwake, 
 or Lunacy ; a Necromaunt in three Chimeras. The 
 title of the dish will deter most people from tasting 
 it ; but Mr. Andrew Lang has done so, and though 
 he declines to pronounce the piece a pearl of great 
 price, he declares that { it does contain passages of 
 poetry of poetry very curious, because it is full of 
 the new note the new melody which young Mr. 
 Tennyson was beginning to waken. It anticipates 
 Beddoes; it coincides with Gautier and Les Chimeres 
 of Gerard ; it answers the accents, then unheard in 
 England, of Poe.' One virtue The Deathwake pos- 
 sesses of which no critic shall prevail to rob it : it is 
 incalculably scarce. It fell flat upon the public, 
 and nearly the whole edition was returned to the 
 poet in sheets and stowed away in a garret. For 
 forty years to come it served the cook for kindling, 
 and so the whole edition ebbed slowly away. The 
 bibliophile's chance a slender one is to come across 
 a stray presentation copy. 
 
 In literature Tom was to do something better 
 than The Deathwake ; but in law he was hopeless. 
 Admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1833, he 
 never passed beyond the threshold ; at least he 
 never held a brief. He managed to make his 
 narrow very narrow allowance support him in
 
 THE TWEED 343 
 
 wandering over the length and breadth of Scotland, 
 casting angle, as one might do in those early days, 
 almost wherever he listed, and collecting materials 
 for his Art of Angling and Angler s Companion, two 
 treatises which, while they brought him a little useful 
 cash, also tended to curtail the freedom which had 
 given them birth. Not only did they tempt to the 
 riverside many competitors with Tom, but they also 
 opened the eyes of fishery owners to the sporting 
 capabilities of their waters. The time had not 
 arrived, indeed, when leave to fish was to be hard 
 to obtain by wandering strangers ; but the time had 
 gone by when Tom might fish where he pleased 
 without asking anybody's leave. And in a great 
 measure he had himself to thank for it. 
 
 The rod and the pen those were Tom's weapons, 
 and I will rest his claim to rank among the sweet 
 singers on Tweedside upon one song alone The 
 Taking of the Salmon. 
 
 ' A birr ! a whirr ! a salmon's on, 
 
 A goodly fish, a thumper ! 
 Bring up, bring up the ready gaff, 
 And if we land him we shall quaff 
 
 Another glorious bumper. 
 Hark ! 'tis the music of the reel 
 
 The strong, the quick, the steady ; 
 The line darts from the active wheel, 
 
 Have all things tight and ready. 
 
 A birr ! a whirr ! the salmon's out, 
 
 Far on the rushing river ; 
 Onward he holds with sullen leap, 
 Or plunges through the whirlpool deep, 
 
 A desperate endeavour.
 
 344 THE STORY OF 
 
 Hark to the music of the reel ! 
 
 The fitful and the grating ; 
 It pants along the breathless wheel, 
 
 Now hurried, now abating. 
 
 A birr ! a whirr ! the salmon's off! 
 
 No, no ; we still have got him ; 
 The wily fish is sullen grown, 
 And, like a bright, imbedded stone, 
 
 Lies gleaming at the bottom. 
 Hark to the music of the reel 1 
 
 'Tis hushed it hath forsaken ; 
 With care we'll guard the magic wheel 
 
 Until its notes awaken. 
 
 A birr ! a whirr ! the salmon's up, 
 
 Give line give line and measure ; 
 But now he turns keep down ahead, 
 And lead him as a child is led, 
 
 And land him at your leisure. 
 Hark to the music of the reel ! 
 
 'Tis welcome, it is glorious ; 
 It wanders through the winding wheel, 
 
 Returning and victorious. 
 
 A birr ! a whirr ! the salmon's in, 
 
 Upon the bank extended ; 
 The princely fish is gasping slow, 
 His brilliant colours come and go 
 
 All beautifully blended. 
 Hark to the music of the reel ! 
 
 It murmurs and it closes ; 
 Silence is on the conquering wheel, 
 
 Its wearied line reposes. 
 
 No birr 1 no whirr ! the salmon's ours, 
 The noble fish the thumper I
 
 THE TWEED 345 
 
 Strike through his gill the ready gaff, 
 And bending homewards, we shall quaff 
 
 Another glorious bumper. 
 Hark to the music of the reel 1 
 
 We listen with devotion ; 
 There's something in that circling wheel 
 
 That wakes the heart's emotion.' l 
 
 * Man, I'm an angler ! ' the summing up, it may 
 seem to the worldly-wise, of a wasted life, yet a life 
 whereof the memory still enriches the lovely scenes 
 in which it was led, and of how few lives can as 
 much be said. Untouched by professional ambition, 
 Stoddart earned all the reward he sought in a tight 
 line ; careless of lucre, he won renown as a fisher, 
 the only kind of fame he prized. * Contented wi' 
 little and canty wi' mair, ' it is surely no matter for re- 
 proach that he shunned the breathless struggle for 
 wealth which counts with some as the first duty of 
 man. The bar the bench may have missed an 
 ornament in Tom, but the world won an original, 
 which is a far rarer creature than a great lawyer. 
 
 Tom wanted but one year of threescore and ten 
 when, in June 1879, ^ e was fishing alone in the 
 Teviot, and fell into the swirling Turn Pool, some 
 miles above Kelso. He clambered out with some 
 difficulty ; cramp and chill followed, and it became 
 plain, even to himself, that his rambles were nearly 
 numbered. Yet, frail and broken as he was, it was 
 his lot to feel once more the thrill of hooking a 
 salmon. In September of the same year kindly 
 Mr. Forrest, before whose counter innumerable 
 anglers have been tempted and fallen, got the white- 
 
 1 These verses are printed by kind permission of Messrs. W. Black- 
 wood and Sons.
 
 346 THESTORYOF 
 
 bearded veteran down to Kelso cauld, where he 
 killed a fish the last in his long record. He 
 lingered among the flowers in his little garden at 
 Kelso till November 1880, passed quietly away, and 
 was laid in a corner of the cemetery chosen by him- 
 self, * where 1 can hear the Tweed.' 
 
 Well, as aforesaid, there is no better guide to the 
 trouting waters of this valley than Tom Tod 
 Stoddart. They retain their relative productiveness, 
 but much fishing has made the trout wary and 
 reduced the average weight. Colonel Thornton, 
 who made his celebrated sporting tour in the north 
 in 1786, would not find his quarry so facile and 
 numerous as in those primitive times. He notes 
 in his journal that he stopped his chaise to fish the 
 Teviot at Mindrum Mill before entering Scotland. 
 But Mindrum is on the Bowmont, not the Teviot, 
 and it was in that dainty stream that he took thirty- 
 nine trout in an hour or two's fishing. 
 
 * When fishing the last stream, I hooked a fish which 
 I thought of great magnitude, and took considerable pains 
 to kill him ; but he proved less than I imagined : about three 
 pounds and a half, but in the highest condition, thick to the 
 very fork, and yellow as saffron, as all these trout are.' 
 
 Leaving the description of the trout waters to 
 better instructed guides than myself, turn we to 
 consider Tweed as a salmon river. In that respect 
 it has suffered more sorely than any other in the 
 United Kingdom from political reasons. For cen- 
 turies it was the fiercely contested frontier between 
 two realms ; all the damage that could be done to 
 the fisheries by one nation was hailed as so much 
 detriment to the other. And so it came to pass
 
 THETWEED 347 
 
 that Tweed and her tributaries, like Solway on the 
 west, was left outside the general fishery laws of 
 both kingdoms ; each of these frontier watersheds 
 remains to this day under its separate and peculiar 
 Act, and Tweed salmon are exposed to capture for 
 a far longer period in each year than is permitted 
 in other rivers. It took a long time to impair the 
 splendid productiveness of this fine river, but that 
 has been accomplished at last. The modern im- 
 provement of netting, the sedulous removal from the 
 channel of every obstacle to the free sweep of the 
 seine, combined with the long stretch of river above 
 the tide which is surrendered to netting, practically 
 have put an end to spring and summer angling, 
 except in the lower reaches. It is hardly worth any 
 man's while to cast a line in the waters above Floors 
 until the nets are removed in September. The 
 proprietors from Innerleithen upwards, chief guard- 
 ians of the best spawning-grounds, have been robbed 
 of all chance of fair sport until a season when fish are 
 in a condition in which no fair sportsman would care 
 to take them. It is no longer their interest to check 
 poaching, and it is notorious that they have ceased to 
 make any attempt to do so. Hence the early running 
 fish, which naturally run to the upper waters and perpe- 
 tuate the spring and summer race, are nearly all 
 destroyed by ' black fishers,' and Tweed has become 
 to all intents and purposes an autumn angling stream. 
 The rod-fishing remains open until 3Oth November, 
 a full month too late, as all honest anglers would 
 agree, were it not for a peculiarity which distin- 
 guishes Tweed salmon from those of every other 
 river in the United Kingdom. Salmon of both 
 sexes as the spawning season draws near usually
 
 348 THE STORY OF 
 
 become discoloured and unsightly, the skin of the 
 females becoming dark and tarnished, that of the 
 males rusty red. But in the Tweed it is otherwise. 
 Gravid fish ascend from the sea in October and 
 November with all the summer lustre on their sides ; 
 anglers are deceived into the flattering belief that they 
 are taking seasonable fish. Nimium ne crede colon I 
 These fish are just as far gone with flesh just as 
 much deteriorated as the sooty and foxy-hued 
 spawners in other rivers. But what will you have ? 
 The riparian owners having been robbed of their 
 share of spring and summer fish by the nets, it is but 
 natural that they should claim an extra privilege so 
 as to recoup themselves from the autumn run. To 
 curtail their existing rights without corresponding 
 restriction of the netting would be manifestly unfair. 
 There seem to be only two ways of restoring the 
 balance : namely, first and best, to buy up the netting 
 rights above Thomas's Island, which would ensure 
 the admission to the upper waters of such fish as run 
 in during the weekly close time ; and secondly, to 
 modify the weekly close time so as to permit the 
 escape of a proportion of each run offish. Then, and 
 not before then, it would be fair to curtail the open 
 season for rods by at least a fortnight. 
 
 It remains true at the present time, as Stoddart 
 wrote seventy years ago, that, except in unusually 
 wet seasons, the salmon-fishing above Ashiestiel 
 is hardly worth attention. Plenty of fish are taken 
 above that point, but, as he truly said, they are c in 
 execrable condition. ' But from Ashiestiel down- 
 wards every reach of the river has its store of 
 sporting chronicle recalls the presence of some 
 bygone worthy. Take Caddonroot, for instance.
 
 THE TWEED 349 
 
 William Scrope had an ear for Scottish idiom and accent 
 such as is given to few Southrons. An Englishman 
 may tell a Scottish story well enough, yet hardly 
 shall he deceive a north countryman as to his nation- 
 ality. He may escape detection for a time ; but 
 suddenly the false turn of a phrase, or the misplace- 
 ment of stress, bewrays him, and he stands revealed. 
 But the following extract from his Days and Nights 
 of Salmon fishing is almost faultless, given, as Scrope 
 says, * as nearly as possible in the words ' of the 
 narrator, the famous Tom Purdie. 
 
 * I had risen a sawmon three successive days at the throat of 
 Caddon water-fut, and on the fourth day I was determined 
 to bring him to book ; and, when he rose as usual, I went up 
 to Caddon Wa's, namely, the pool opposite the ruins 
 of Caddon Lee, where there had been a terrace garden facing 
 south j and, on returning I tried my old friend, when he 
 rose again without touching the heuck ; but I got a glimpse 
 o' him, and saw he was a sawmon o' the biggest sort. I then 
 went down the river to a lower pool, and in half an hour 
 came up again and changed my heuck. I began to suspect 
 that, having raised the fish so often, I had become too 
 anxious, and given him too little law, or jerked the heuck 
 away before he had closed his mouth upon it. And as I had 
 a heavy rod and good line, and the castin' line, which I had 
 gotten frae the Sherra, * had three fadom o' pleit gut at the 
 end of it, and the flee was buskit on a three plies of sawmon 
 gut, sae I was na feared for my tackle. 
 
 ' I had putten a cockle-stane at the side o' the water 
 foment the place where he raise ; forbye, I kent fu' weel 
 where he was lyin' ; it was at the side o' a muckle blue clint 
 that made a clour in the rough throat, e'en when the Queed 
 was in a brown flood, as she had been for twa days afore. 
 Aweel, I thought I wad try a plan o' auld Juniperbank's 
 
 1 The Sheriff Sir Walter Scott.
 
 350 THE STORY OF 
 
 when he had raised a sawmon mair nor ance. I keepit my 
 e'en hard closed when the heuck was comin' owre the place. 
 Peace be here ! I fand as gif I had catched the branch o' an 
 aik tree swingin* and sabbin in a storm o' wind. Ye 
 needna doot I opened my eyne ! An' what think ye was 
 the sawmon aboot ? turnin' and rowin' [rolling] doon the 
 tap o' the water owre him and owre him, as ye hae seen a 
 hempie o' a callant row doun a green brae-side, at great speed, 
 makin' a fearfu' jumblin' and splashin', and shakin' the tap 
 o' the wand at sic a rate, that, deil hae me, but I thocht he 
 wad hae shaken my airms affat the shouther joints, tho' I 
 said to mysel' they were gey firm putten on. I never saw 
 a fish do the like, but ane in the Auld Brig pool in the 
 Darnwick water. I jalouse [suspect] they want to unspin 
 the line ; for a fish has far mair cunnin' and wiles aboot him 
 than mony ane wad think. At ony rate, it was a fashious 
 plan this yen fell on ; for or he wan to the fut o' the pool, 
 I was tired o' him and his wark, and sae was he, I'se 
 warrant ye. For when he fand the water turnin' shallow, 
 he wheeled aboot, and I ran up the pool as fast as I could 
 follow him, gien' him a' the line I could at the same time ; 
 and when it was just about a' affthe pirn [reel], and he was 
 comin' into the throat, he wheeled again in a jiffy, and cam 
 straight for my feet as if he had been shot out o' a cannon ! 
 I thocht it was a' owre between us, for I fand naething at 
 the wand as the line was soomin' i' the pool a' the way doon. 
 I was deid sure I had lost him after a' my quirks ; for whan 
 they cast a cantrip o' that kind, it's done to slacken the line 
 to let them draw the heuck out o' their mouths wi' their 
 teethy toung an' they are amaist sure to do sae. But he 
 was owre weel heuckit, this ane, to wark his purpose in that 
 gyse, as ye sail hear ; for when, by dint o' runnin' back 
 thrae the water as fast's I could and windin' up the line, I had 
 brought a bow on the tap o' the rod, I fand the fish had 
 reistit in the deepest part o' the pool, trying a' that teeth and 
 toung could do to get haud o' the heuck ; and there did he 
 lie for nearly an hour, for I had plenty o' time to look at my
 
 THE TWEED 351 
 
 watch, and now and then to tak mony a snuff too. But I 
 was certain by this time he was fast heuckit, and I raised 
 him again by cloddin' stanes afore him, as near as I durst for 
 hittin' the line. But when I got him up at last, there was 
 mickle mair to do than I thocht of ; for he ran up the pool and 
 doun the pool I dar' say fifty times, till my feet were sair wi' 
 gangin' sae lang in the channel. Then he gaed owre the 
 stream a'thegither. I was glad to let him change his gait 
 ony way ; and he gaed doun to Glenbenna, that was 
 in Whitebank's water, and I wrocht him lang thair. To 
 mak a lang tale short, ' [short ! quotha, honest Tom 1] 
 * before I could get at him wi' the gaff, I was baith hungry 
 and tyrt ; an' after a', he was firm heuckit, in the teuchest 
 part o' the body, at the outside o' the edge o' the wick bane. 
 He was a clean sawmon, an' three an' an twenty meal 
 punds.' 
 
 Windy as it is, I have let Tom Purdie tell his 
 story in his own way the graphic, simple narrative 
 that endeared him so much to his master, the great 
 story-teller. It is the best way to bring before 
 readers a figure, without whom Tweedside would be 
 shorn of one of its most honoured memories. * I 
 have lost, ' wrote Sir Walter Scott to Cadell, 4th 
 November 1829, ' my old and faithful servant my 
 factotum and am so much shocked that I really wish 
 to be quit of the country and safe in town. ' Tom 
 lies close to the wall of Melrose Abbey, of which the 
 burial-ground holds no worthier dust. 
 
 Dearly do the fishings of Tweed pay for that 
 woollen industry which has appropriated the name of 
 the river as the designation of its special fabric. 
 Gala Water, especially, discharges an evil-smelling, 
 highly coloured contribution which effectually closes 
 that stream against the ascent of spawning fish, and, 
 when the main river is low, spreads an ugly scum
 
 352 THE STORY OF 
 
 upon its surface and a filthy slime upon its bottom. 
 Nevertheless the Pavilion Water, extending from 
 Gala Water foot to Melrose, contains many excellent 
 casts, and retains much of its well deserved reput- 
 ation. The Drygrange fishings extend from about 
 Melrose Bridge to Leader Foot ; below that point 
 many an angler has had to chew the bitter cud of 
 hope deferred ; for the Leader Water is easily dis- 
 coloured in times of flood by the wash from cliffs of 
 red earth and friable sandstone, rendering the main 
 river thick and unfishable for miles below the 
 junction. Gladswood and Old Melrose have pretty 
 reaches of salmon water annexed to them, and then 
 comes bonny Bemersyde, perhaps the best, as it is 
 the most varied, of all the fishings in these parts, or, 
 indeed, in the whole length of Tweed above 
 Makerstoun. 
 
 The uppermost cast in Bemersyde Water is from 
 the left bank of the tail of Cromwell, where great 
 numbers of salmon congregate at times. Then 
 comes the Gateheugh ; a wilder piece of fishing- 
 water there is not in the whole river, and one that has 
 to be fished in a peculiar way. The river is very 
 wide and swift here; the salmon lie in little pots and 
 catches in a vast waste of boulders. The boatman, 
 wading to his armpits, picks his way down the very 
 centre of the torrent by secret shallows known only 
 to the expert, holding the boat from which the angler 
 casts his flies right or left according to the position 
 of the various casts. It is a truly sporting bit of 
 water, and the pleasure of fishing it is greatly en- 
 hanced by the magnificent cliffs and hanging woods 
 on the left side. The right bank along Cromwell 
 and Gateheugh belongs to Old Melrose.
 
 THE TWEED 353 
 
 Below the Gateheugh comes the Haly Weil, or 
 Holy Pool, so called from its former owners, the 
 monks of Melrose. Many and many a famous 
 fishing has been done here ; but perhaps the greatest 
 salmon ever hooked in Tweed came to an ignoble end 
 in this part of the water. Colonel Haig of Bemersyde, 
 fishing here late one evening a few years ago, found 
 himself fast in something heavy at the Cradle Rock. 
 The fish did not show, but, swimming deep and 
 sullen, pushed slowly downstream with resistless 
 force. Down, ever down, past the Woodside and 
 Jock Sure, over the Monk's Ford, and into the Tod 
 Holes in Dryburgh Water full half a mile below 
 where it was hooked. Here the Colonel at last got 
 a pull upon his fish, which he reckoned to be one of 
 moderate size foul-hooked. It was getting dark, 
 and he, rather impatient to be off home, sent his 
 attendant in with the net to finish the performance. 
 Finish it he did, but not in a happy way. The lad 
 had one try at the exhausted fish as it lay glimmering 
 in the gloaming, and cried to his master, ' He's that 
 big I canna get him into the net. ' f Oh, nonsense ! ' 
 cried the Colonel, * put it under him ; get his head 
 in ! I can't wait here all night. ' Another effort : 
 the rim of the net struck the line, severing the single 
 gut cast, and the great fish wallowed away across the 
 smooth tail of the pool. The Colonel did not realise 
 the magnitude of his disaster until two or three 
 weeks later, when he happened to be waiting for a 
 train at St. Bos wells station. The porter came to 
 him and said : 
 
 ' Hae ye ony mind, Colonel, o' yon big fush ye 
 slippit in the Tod Holes yon nicht ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, I mind him well, ' replied the Colonel ; * a 
 
 23
 
 354 THE STORY OF 
 
 good lump of a fish he was, I believe, but I never 
 saw him rightly.' 
 
 * Ay,' said the other dryly, c yon wad be the 
 biggest sawmon that ever cam oot o' the water o' 
 Tweed, I'm thinking.' 
 
 * Why, what do you know about him ? ' asked the 
 Colonel. 
 
 * Oh, I ken fine aboot the ae half o' him, onyway, ' 
 replied the porter. c Ye see, there was twa lads 
 clappit amang the trees below the Wallace statue fore- 
 nenst ye, waiting till it was dark to set a cairn net, ye 
 ken. Weel, didna they see ye coming doun the 
 water taigled wi' a fish ? and when ye cam to the Tod 
 Holes they saw ye loss him, and they got a visee o' 
 the water he made coming into the east bank, ye ken. 
 There's a wee bit cairn there, ye ken, wi' a piece 
 lound water ahint it, where they jaloused the fish wad 
 rest himsel' a wee. Weel, they waited till it was 
 mirk night, and then they jist whuppit the net round 
 him, and they sune had him oot. He was that big 
 he wadna gang into the bag they had wi' them ; so 
 they cuttit him in twa halves; and the tae half they 
 brocht to the station here to gang by rail to Embro '. 
 Weel, if the tither half was as big, yon fish bud to be 
 seeventy pund weight ; for the half o' him I weighed 
 mysel' , and it was better nor thirty-five pund. Ay, 
 a gran' kipper ! ' 
 
 It is a thing not easy to explain why the salmon 
 flies habitually used in Bemersyde Water should be 
 so much smaller than those in favour upon other 
 parts of the river, but so it is. Tweed boatmen are 
 terrible tyrants ; it would take a bolder man than the 
 present writer to act against their prescription, and 1 
 have seldom ventured to display at Bemersyde so
 
 THE TWEED 355 
 
 large a lure as the condition and depth of the water 
 seemed to justify. Once, indeed, when the river 
 was very heavy, after fishing the Haly Weil blank 
 with the usual small flies, I had the temerity to put 
 on a great Highland * eagle ', and immediately hooked 
 and landed a salmon. Never shall I forget the tone 
 of profound disdain with which the boatman observ- 
 ed ' Ay, that would be a fine bait for a pike ! ' 
 
 No man knew that water better than the said 
 boatman, Moodie by name. A fine, handsome, tall, 
 black-bearded fellow he was is still, I hope ; and a 
 notable exploit he performed one evening in this 
 water about twenty years ago. He was alone, fishing 
 the uncertain cast called Jock Sure, when he hooked 
 a mighty fish. He had to play it dead and tail it 
 out, for the use of the gaff is prohibited in the Tweed 
 after the close of the net season. No mean feat this, 
 for the fish weighed forty-two pounds ; nor is it a 
 mere legend, for the fish is there, stuffed, to testify 
 to Moodie's prowess. Unlike Tom Purdie, Moodie 
 was laconic, and the incidents of the struggle had to 
 be f howked oot ' of him. 
 
 Dryburgh Water, upper and lower, comes next 
 below Bemersyde, and there are some picturesque 
 casts in the loops and reaches of the river round the 
 old abbey. The salmon, however, do not seem to 
 rest here so comfortably as in Bemersyde above and 
 in Lord Polwarth's Mertoun Water below. The 
 latter, indeed, is a most delightful stretch of varied 
 pool and stream, containing the rocky * foss ' at 
 Craigover, and the long rippling reach called Willow- 
 bush, where a fifty-pounder was landed to the fly a 
 few years ago, and where, in the autumn of 1903, I 
 had the luck to take twelve fish weighing a hundred
 
 356 THE STORY OF 
 
 and ninety-five pounds between eleven A.M. and five 
 P.M. The average weight was diminished by the 
 intrusion of a four pound grilse among eleven salmon. 
 
 Many a one who has cast angle in this delightful 
 stretch of water the last thirty years carries with him 
 kindly reminiscence of the head fisherman, Goodfel- 
 low. Even in the old days, before family names 
 were fixed, when men were designated according to 
 their mental or physical qualities, no better appella- 
 tive could have been devised for this admirable 
 specimen of his class than the surname bequeathed to 
 him by his sires. He is a tyrant, as all Tweed boat- 
 men are, but a benignant one ; his rule is an example 
 of that wise and good despotism which all men in 
 their hearts admit to be the only perfect form of 
 government. A despot, yet a democrat. A large and 
 varied assortment of the titled aristocracy must have 
 passed through Goodfellow's hands anglers of every 
 degree of incompetency and efficiency ; yet he classes 
 them all alike, never addressing any one by a loftier 
 title than l mister ', and assuming, apparently, that 
 each one is but an apprentice at the craft. A fish 
 rises and misses the fly. * Dod, mister, but you were 
 ower quick wi' that ane ! You pulled it clean awa' 
 from him. ' 
 
 You cast over a likely bit of water and nothing 
 moves. 
 
 * The fly's too high in the water/ says Goodfellow 
 reproachfully. * Let it doon aboot his heels, mister. 
 Sink it weel to him ! ' 
 
 You venture to produce a favourite fly, strange to 
 Tweed, but with which you have wrought mighty 
 deeds elsewhere. 
 
 1 Ay, pit that ane on. Pit it on and send every
 
 THE TWEED 357 
 
 fish in the water scoorin' back to Berwick ! ' where- 
 upon he will produce some tattered eidolon from the 
 recesses of a dingy pocket-book, and you must be of 
 more than common fortitude if your lustrous confect- 
 ion of silk and tinsel is not replaced in your box 
 with a sigh. 
 
 Mertoun Water ends at Littledean Tower, where 
 the Rutherford fishing begins, highly prized by those 
 who know it, of whom I am not one. Next below 
 Rutherford lies classic Makerstoun, to which most 
 anglers will give the palm for beauty and variety over 
 all the fishings in the river. The very names of the 
 different casts revive a host of association, though 
 there be none now living who remember Robert 
 Kerss Rob o' the Trows a very prince among 
 Tweed boatmen. The casts in order from the top 
 are Willie's Bank, Hirple Nelly, the Orchard-heads, 
 the Dark Shore, the Clippers, the Laird's Cast, 
 Elshie Stream, the Shot, the Red Stane, the Side 
 Straik, the Doors, the Nethern Heads, Willie's 
 Owerfa', and Killmouth. Between the Red Stane 
 and Killmouth is the only really dangerous water in 
 the whole of the Tweed dangerous, that is, in regard 
 to the natural advantage it gives to the fish over the 
 fisher. It is one of the few places in this river 
 where one may look for adventure. 
 
 The Duke of Roxburghe's fishings begin below 
 Killmouth, and extend, on the right bank at least, as 
 far as Carham Burn, fully nine miles. The Floors 
 Water proper, commanding both banks, reaches to 
 Maxwheel, below Kelso Bridge, and includes the 
 famous casts of the Slates, the Black Stane, Weetles, 
 Huddles, the Shot, Hedge-end, Shirt Stream, the 
 Skelly, the Coach Wynd, Income, Cobby Hole, the
 
 358 THE STORY OF 
 
 Putt, the Back Bullers (just above the junction with 
 Teviot), and Maxwheel. 
 
 Below the junction of the rivers the character of 
 the angling alters, and in the Sprouston Water we 
 encounter the first * dub ' a long, still stretch where 
 the river is held back by a c cauld ' or weir. The 
 mode of fishing such water is peculiar to the 
 Tweed. A breeze to ruffle the surface is essential. 
 Starting at the foot of the dub, the boat is paddled 
 very slowly upstream, the fly being cast across the 
 water and allowed to creep round astern, a fresh cast 
 being made after the line lies straight downstream. 
 It is dull work indeed when fish are not moving ; but 
 given a brisk curl on the water, the number and 
 weight of salmon that come to the fly compensate one 
 for the monotony of the toil. It is just the thing 
 for elderly sportsmen who can no longer stand the 
 test of wading and tramping necessary on a Highland 
 river ; but even so, the playing and landing of heavy 
 fish is no light labour. The bones of many a 
 younger man might ache after such a performance as 
 that of the late Hon. and Rev. Robert Liddell, who 
 in the year 1887, being then within a few months of 
 fourscore, and in the last year of his life, killed 
 eighteen fish, including two of over thirty pounds 
 weight, in Birgham Dub, in a single autumn day. 
 I have the assurance of his boatman that the rod 
 never left Mr. Liddell's hand except on two or three 
 occasions when, having landed to kill a salmon, the 
 fish ran faster than the veteran could follow, and he 
 surrendered the rod to his assistant, resuming it again 
 immediately he could overtake him. 
 
 This, as aforesaid, was in Birgham Water, where, 
 besides the Dub, there are some famous streams which
 
 THE TWEED 359 
 
 yield sport when there is no breeze upon the still 
 water, especially the Cradles, the Wheel, Flummie, 
 and the Kirkend, where the fishing merges in that 
 of Carham. Of Wark, Lees, Coldstream, and Till- 
 mouth fishings I may only speak from hearsay, but 
 that they command favour from those who know 
 them may be concluded from the rents which are 
 easily obtained for the angling. 
 
 1 Were all the rod-fishings on the river disposed 
 of at the rate of value set upon them by anglers, the 
 rent drawn from those alone would, there is no 
 question, approach that which is commanded by the 
 whole of the netting-grounds at the mouth of the 
 river.' Thus wrote Tom Stoddart seventy years ago ; 
 were he writing now, instead of ( approach ' he would 
 have to say * far exceed ', so greatly has the demand 
 for salmon-angling increased of late years. The day 
 cannot be far distant when the riparian owners of 
 Tweedside will follow the example of those of the 
 Tay, the Dee, and other northern rivers, and 
 indefinitely increase not only the value of their own 
 sporting rights, but the productiveness of the estu- 
 arine nets, by buying up all netting rights above the 
 tide. The regeneration of this fair river its 
 restoration as a spring and summer angling water 
 is merely a question of wise co-operation. It has 
 been proved elsewhere, beyond a shadow of doubt, 
 that, by reducing the number of nets and regulating 
 the weekly close time, the supply of fish to the 
 market, so far from being stinted, may be very 
 largely increased.
 
 ENVOI 
 
 IN following our river from its Scottish cradle in 
 the shadow of Corsehill to its English bridal 
 with the North Sea, the reader has traversed 
 shrill uplands where no kindly woodland lends 
 shelter from the blast where every hillside was 
 once fortified against its neighbour, where no manor 
 was secure without its pele tower and barmekin, 
 where green mounds and shapeless walls mark the 
 primitive shrines of dawning faith. He has passed 
 into a softer clime and a richer land, where the 
 monuments of the past are grander in scale and 
 nobler in design a land humming with industry 
 and closely set with prosperous homes. The stream, 
 which he first beheld as a furtive rill among the 
 heather and rushes, drawing volume from a thousand 
 glens and deans, has become a broad-bosomed river 
 set with towns, and mills, and shining housesteads. 
 Greatly as the aspect of river and landscape has 
 altered since we first set forth, the change is not 
 greater than that which has come over life upon the 
 Borders nay, upon the national life as a whole. 
 For just as this majestic river is the product of 
 innumerable rivulets, so the power of Britain has 
 been created by the incorporation and union first 
 of petty septs and clans ; then of provinces and 
 principalities ; lastly, after much tumult and chafing, 
 of realms themselves.
 
 THE STORY OF THE TWEED 361 
 
 The result is Peace Peace in a land where once 
 the clash of arms was seldom still ; and never will 
 he realise the full spirit of this valley who does not 
 care to fathom the passions of the past. It may be 
 an idle dream surely it is not an ignoble one to 
 picture the whole world lulled to peace in like 
 manner as this Border land has been. For hundreds 
 of weary years Scots and English conceived it to be 
 their chief mission in life to fly at each other's 
 throats burn each other's houses and crops steal 
 each other's goods and cattle. It is vain to hope that 
 it is within the destiny of the human race to bring 
 about in the general community of nations what 
 was once deemed impossible here, yet which has 
 been so thoroughly fulfilled. Here as a modern 
 singer had turned it : 
 
 ' Long years of peace have stilled the battle thunder, 
 
 Wild grasses quiver where the fight was won ; 
 Masses of blossom, lightly blown asunder, 
 
 Drop down white petals on the silent gun. 
 For life is kind, and sweet things grow unbidden, 
 
 Turning the scenes of strife to bloomy bowers ; 
 One only knows what secrets may be hidden 
 
 Beneath His cloud of flowers. 
 
 Poor heart ! above thy field of sorrow sighing 
 
 For smitten faith and hope untimely slain, 
 Leave thou the soil whereon thy dead are lying 
 
 To the soft sunlight and the cleansing rain. 
 Love works in silence, hiding all the traces 
 
 Of bitter conflict on the trampled sod, 
 And time shall show thee all earth's battle-places 
 
 Veiled by the hand of God. '
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abbey of St. Bathans, 282. 
 
 Abbotsford, 75-8. 
 
 ^Ethelburgh weds Edwin, King of 
 
 Northumberland at Yeaver- 
 
 ling Bell, 265. 
 Ale Water, 188, 191. 
 Alemuir Loch, 188. 
 Alexander III, 225, 296, marries 
 
 Yolande at Jedburgh, 219. 
 Allan Water, 93. 
 Ancrum, or Alne-crum, sandstone 
 
 caves, 190-1. 
 
 Ancrum Moor, battle of, 98-9. 
 Angus, Archibald Douglas, fifth 
 
 Earl, ' Bell the Cat, ' 109, 226. 
 Angus, Archibald, sixth Earl, affair 
 
 of Melrose Bridge, 66, 75, 76. 
 Angus, Earl of, battle of Ancrum 
 
 Moor, 98. 
 Angus, eleventh Earl, dispute with 
 
 Ker of Fernihirst, 226. 
 Armstrong, Johnnie (ballad), 150- 
 
 154- 
 
 Armstrong, Thomas and Sandie, 
 hanged for murder of Car- 
 michael, 206. 
 Arran,Earl of, 'Cleanse-the-Cause- 
 
 way ' Raid, 226-7. 
 Arthur, King 
 
 Battle Caledonian Forest, 22. 
 Battle Wedale, 85. 
 Ashiestiel, 37-38. 
 Auld Wat of Harden, 127, marries 
 
 ' Flower of Yarrow, ' 170. 
 Aytoun, Professor, quoted, 104-5, 
 292. 
 
 Baillie, Lady Grizell, 247, 292 : 
 poem, 248. 
 
 Bain, quoted, 264. 
 
 Baliol, Edward, 135,138,321,325. 
 
 Baliol, John de, 279, 297. 
 
 Ballads 
 
 Auld Maitland, 50, 105. 
 Battle of Otterburn, 195-6. 
 
 Broom of Cowdenknowes, 113- 
 
 114, 117. 
 Ballads 
 
 Colmslie Tower, 93. 
 
 Colour Song of Hawick, 173. 
 
 Douglas Tragedy, 56, 58. 
 
 Dowie Dens o' Yarrow, 59, 60. 
 
 Edom o' Gordon, 292. 
 
 Fall of Montrose, 69, 70. 
 
 Flower o' the Forest, 41, 42. 
 
 Fray of Suport, 166. 
 
 Hotspur and the Douglas Pen- 
 non, 195-6. 
 
 Jamie Telfer o' the Fair Dod- 
 head, 158-165. 
 
 Johnie Armstrong, 150-154. 
 
 Leslie and Montrose, 69, 70. 
 
 Mosfennan, or the Logan Lee, 
 15, 16, 17. 
 
 Rattlin' roarin' Willie, 187-8. 
 
 Redswire Raid, 195-6. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter. See that title. 
 
 Selkirk, J.B. See that title. 
 
 Sir Tristram, 79-84. 
 
 The taking of the Salmon, 343-5. 
 
 Souters o' Selkirk, 72-3. 
 
 The Outlaw Murray, 45, 46. 
 
 When the Kye comes Hame, 51. 
 
 Willie, 56. 
 
 Young Tamlane, 63-65. 
 Bannockburn, battle of, 307. 
 Barbour's Brus quoted, 25, 26, 27, 
 306-7.
 
 3 6 4 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Beacon warnings on the Border- 
 false alarm of 1804, 253. 
 Beaton, Archbishop, 227. 
 Bede, quoted, 106. 
 Bedrule and Turnbulls, 184-5 ; 
 ballad ' Rattlin' roarin' Willie, 
 186-7. 
 
 Bellenden and Buccleuch, 48. 
 Bemersyde 
 
 Haig family, 122-3. 
 Salmon fishing, 121, 352, 354. 
 Benhale, Sir Robert, 184. 
 Berwick bounds, 294. 
 Berwick Castle, 295. 
 Berwick on Tweed 
 
 Burnt (1172) Burnt by King 
 John (1216) Wealth of 
 Edward I. holds Court (1292) 
 Treaty made with France, 
 Edward sacks Berwick,298- 
 301. 
 
 Wallace occupies English re- 
 occupy, 304. 
 Taken by Bruce, 307. 
 English attack repulsed, 308. 
 Marriage of Prince David, 315- 
 
 317. 
 
 Besieged by English, 313. 
 Halidon Hill battle surrenders, 
 
 320, 322. 
 
 Great joustings, 322-4. 
 Taken by Scots reoccupied by 
 
 English, 325. 
 Various raids, 326, 327. 
 Henry VI. gives town to 
 
 James III., 328. 
 
 Final surrender to English, 328. 
 Black Cat on Berwick Bridge, 
 
 33i- 
 
 The Bridges, 332. 
 Civic independence, curious le- 
 gend concerning, 333-4. 
 Biggar and Biggar Water, 18, 19, 
 
 20. 
 Billie Castle and miser mistress, 
 
 288-9. 
 Bills of Fare Norham Castle for 
 
 William the Lion, 272. 
 Birgham and marriage-treaty of 
 Prince Edward with Mar- 
 garet, Queen of Scots, 254. 
 
 Birgham Water Salmon fishing, 
 
 255, 358. 
 ' Black Dwarf, ' The original of 
 
 Sir Walter Scott's, 29. 
 Blackadder, the, 290-1. 
 Blanerne (rhyme), 289. 
 Bothwell, Earl of 
 
 and Little Jock Elliot, 159. 
 
 Murder of Darnley, 239. 
 Borthwick Water, 167. 
 Bowden (rhyme), 126. 
 Bower, quoted, 264, 326. 
 Bowhill, 67. 
 Bowmen of Ettrick and Selkirk 
 
 Forests, 71. 
 Bowmont, the, 266. 
 Branxholm Tower, 155-6. 
 Branxton. See Flodden Field. 
 Breamish, The, 265. 
 British fortifications at Wrink 
 
 Law, 282. 
 Broad Law, 13. 
 
 Brougham, Henry, runaway match 
 concluded at Coldstream, 262. 
 Brown, Dr. John- 
 Born at Biggar, 20. 
 
 Quoted, 34, 63. 
 
 Brown, James. See Selkirk, J.B. 
 Bruce, Robert- 
 Battle of Bannockburn, 307. 
 
 Cast of skull, Abbotsford, 260. 
 
 Death, 313. 
 
 Kills rival, Red Comyn-pro- 
 claims himself King, 9. 
 
 Melrose Abbey, heart buried at, 
 96. 
 
 Norman ancestry, 73. 
 
 Sisters confined in cages by 
 Edward I., 134. 
 
 Tactics of, 305. 
 
 Takes Berwick, 307. 
 Brydone, William, 72. 
 Buchan, Countess of, imprisoned 
 
 in cage, 305, 
 Buchanan slanders Mary Queen 
 
 of Scots, 221. 
 Buccleuch, House of 
 
 1 Band ' every Scott obeyed, 167. 
 
 Blood-feud with Kers, 130-1. 
 
 Branxholm acquired, 155. 
 
 Crest, legend of, 48.
 
 INDEX 
 
 3 6 5 
 
 ' Dowie Dens o' Yarrow, ' 59, 
 
 60. 
 
 Feats (ballad), ' Jamie Telfer o' 
 the Fair Dodhead,' 158-165. 
 Janet, Lady Buccleuch, 55. 
 Melrose Bridge fray, 76. 
 Bunkle (rhyme), 289. 
 Burns, Robert, quoted, 88. 
 Byrecleuch and the Mutiny Stones, 
 282. 
 
 Cages for prisoners, 134. 
 Cairncross family, 93. 
 Caledonian Forest, extent of, 23. 
 Carham and Carham Burn, 253, 
 
 255, 357- 
 
 Crucial battle at, 256. 
 Carlanrig, tragedy of (ballad) 149, 
 
 155- 
 Carlyle and the Ettrick Shepherd, 
 
 49, 50. 
 
 Carmichael, Sir John 
 
 Reds wire Raid murdered, 203, 
 
 205. 
 Cannon first used in Scotland, 
 
 311-12. 
 
 Cartley Hole, 77. 
 Castles. See the various titles. 
 ' Catrail, The' 92, 171. 
 Cavers and the Douglas Standard, 
 
 173-6- 
 
 Cessford Castle, siege of, 233. 
 ' Chapter of Myton, ' 313. 
 Chesters, Roman Camp, 292. 
 Chirnside Church, 290. 
 Chronicle of Lanercost, 301, 314, 
 
 317. 
 Churches 
 
 Abbeys. See under their var- 
 ious titles. 
 
 Bunkle, 288. 
 
 Channelkirk and St. Cuthbert's 
 Well, 106-7. 
 
 Chirnside, 290. 
 
 Cranshaws and Royal Arms, 
 281. 
 
 Duns, 286. 
 
 Eccles, St. Mary's Nunnery and 
 St. Cuthbert's, 261. 
 
 Edrom, 290. 
 
 Haddington Abbey Church, 326. 
 
 Hassendean, 178. 
 Hownam, 230. 
 Ladykirk, 270. 
 Lilliesleaf, 189. 
 Linton, 235. 
 Morebattle, 232. 
 Peebles-Church of the Holy 
 Rood, 31, St. Andrews, 32. 
 Polwarth, 292. 
 St. Mary's at St. Mary's Loch, 
 
 54-55- 
 Stobbo, 25. 
 Swinton, 260. 
 Wedale, privilege of sanctuary, 
 
 85. 
 
 Claverhouse, John Graham, 10. 
 ' Cleanse the Causeway ' Raid, 
 
 226-7. 
 
 Clyde, The 
 
 Near to Tweed at Biggar, 20. 
 Source, 6. 
 Cochrane, Thomas, and ' Bell-the- 
 
 Cat, ' 109-111. 
 Cockburn Law, and prehistoric 
 
 ' broch, ' 284. 
 
 Coldingham monastery, 244. 
 Coldstream, Coldstream Regiment 
 
 originally raised at, 261. 
 Collies of the Border, 62-63. 
 Colmslie Tower and ballad, 93. 
 ' Colour Song ' of Hawick, 173. 
 Comyn John, 12, 13. 
 Corbridge Massacre, 298. 
 Covenanters, Conventicles, 10, II, 
 
 238. 
 Covenanters' Stone, Duns Law, 
 
 285. 
 Cowdenknowes and ballad, 113, 
 
 114, 115, 116. 
 Cranshaws 
 
 Castle and its brownie, 281. 
 Church and Royal Arms of 
 
 Scotland, 281. 
 Crawford of Drumsoy and ' The 
 
 Bush aboon Traquair, ' 35. 
 Cressinghame, Chancellor Hugh 
 
 de, 303, 304- 
 Crests on helmets of knights first 
 
 seen, 314. 
 
 Cromwell's outpost killed, Falla 
 Moss, 10.
 
 3 66 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Crook, Tree of, 13. 
 Crosses 
 
 Eccles, twelfth century, 261. 
 
 Lilliard's Edge, 99. 
 
 Peebles Town Cross, 32. 
 
 Tweed Cross, 5. 
 
 Wayside cross, Hobkirk, 183. 
 
 Darnley, murder of, 239. 
 David I. 
 
 Berwick made a burgh, 294. 
 
 Jedburgh and Kelso abbeys 
 founded, 73, 216. 
 
 Lays siege to Wark Castle, 256. 
 David II. 
 
 Chief events in reign, 136-7. 
 
 Lays siege to Wark Castle, 
 
 257- 
 Marriage with Princess Joan of 
 
 England, 315, 316. 
 Taken prisoner, Neville's Cross, 
 
 324- 
 
 Dawick, 18, 24. 
 Debatable Land between Sark 
 
 and Esk, and freebooter 
 
 dwellers entrapping Johnnie 
 
 Armstrong, 146-154 
 De Brus, Princesses Marjorie and 
 
 Marie confined in cages by 
 
 Edward I., 134. 
 De la Bastie, cairn marking grave, 
 
 289. 
 
 De Morvilles, 248. 
 De Ros, Sir Robert and daughters, 
 
 257- 
 
 De Ros of Hamelak, 257. 
 De Venale, Sir Robert, death at 
 
 Halidon Hill, 184. 
 De Vesci, William, 256. 
 Deil's Dyke in Galloway, 92. 
 Delorain, 48. 
 Denholm, 178. 
 Douglas, Archibald, murder of 
 
 Darnley, 239. 
 Douglas, Archibald the Tineman, 
 
 battle Halidon Hill, 184, 320, 
 
 321. 
 Douglas, Archibald, fourth Earl, 
 
 Battle of Homildon, 263-4. 
 Douglas, Bishop Gavin, 226. 
 Douglas, Earl of Hotspur, and the 
 
 Pennon, ballad, 194-9. 
 Douglas of Drumlanrig, 167-8. 
 Douglas, James, Earl of Morton, 
 
 builds Drochiel Castle, 28. 
 Douglas, Lord of Backhouse and 
 ballad, ' The Douglas Trage- 
 dy ' 58, 56, 57- 
 
 Douglas, Sir James, 26, 28, 66, 226. 
 Death, 28, 321. 
 Entraps English at Lintalee, 
 
 212-13. 
 
 Exploits at Berwick encoun- 
 ter with Neville, 307-8. 
 Douglas, Sir James 
 Meets Robert Bruce, 9. 
 Recovers Roxburgh Castle, 
 
 134-5- 
 
 Douglas, William. Abbot of Holy- 
 rood, 136-8, 227. 
 
 Douglas, Sir William ' le Hardi, ' 
 9, 299, 302, 303. 
 
 Douglas, William, first Earl. See 
 Knight of Liddesdale. 
 
 Douglas Standard preserved at 
 Cavers. 173-6. 
 
 Douglas tomb at Melrose defaced. 
 
 97- 
 
 Drochil Castle, 28. 
 Drummelzier, 17. 
 Drummelzier Haugh, 19, 20. 
 Dryburgh Abbey, 120. 
 
 Sir W. Scott buried, 120. 
 Dryburgh Water and salmon 
 fishing, 355. 
 
 Scenery, 124. 
 Drycthelm, 95. 
 Drygrange, 117, 352. 
 ' Dub ', method of fishing a, 358. 
 Dun Hill, 35. 
 Dunbar, burning of, 215. 
 Duns Law Town of Duns, church 
 
 castle, 284-6. 
 Dye Water, The, 282. 
 
 Earlston (Ercildoune), 79, 84, 113. 
 Eccles, church and cross, 261. 
 Eddlestone Water, 31. 
 Eden, 244. 
 Eden Water, 245. 
 Edgar family and Wedderlie, 
 289-291.
 
 INDEX 
 
 3 6 7 
 
 Edgerstone Castle, 206. 
 Ednam, 244. 
 Edrington Castle, 293. 
 Edrom Church, 290. 
 Edward I. 
 
 and Crown of Scotland, 279. 
 Norham Castle visited, 273. 
 Roxburgh Castle visited, 133. 
 Sack of Berwick journey 
 through Scotland, 299,301. 
 Treaty of marriage between 
 Margaret, Queen of Scots, 
 and Prince Edward, basis 
 of claim of English kings 
 to be Lords Paramount of 
 Scotland 254-5. 
 Edward II. 
 
 Battle of Bannockburn, 307. 
 Death, 313. 
 Edward III. 
 Forces David II. to raise siege 
 
 of Wark Castle, 258. 
 Invades Scotland ' Burnt 
 
 Candlemas, ' 326. 
 Restores land to Melrose Abbey, 
 
 96. 
 
 Treaty of Northampton, 315. 
 Visits Roxburgh Castle, 135-6. 
 Ecgfred, Bishop of Lindisfarne, 
 
 207. 
 Eildon Hills, legends concerning, 
 
 100, 101. 
 Elibank, 36. 
 Ellam Inn, 282. 
 Elliot Family, 89. 
 
 Blood feud with Scots at Has- 
 
 sendean, 177. 
 
 Elliot, Little Jock (and verses), 220. 
 Elliot 01 Minto, Jean, author of 
 ' The Flowers of the For- 
 est, ' 42. 
 
 Emerald Charter, The, 66, 226. 
 Envoi, 360. 
 
 Erriestane, meeting of Robert 
 Bruce and James Douglas, 9. 
 Ettrick Forest, 34, 44, 45, 46, 66. 
 Ettrick Shepherd, The, 51, 55, 
 
 341- 
 
 Quoted, 51. 
 
 Ettrick Water, with Capel Fell, 
 Wind Fell, Ettrick Pen, 46. 
 
 Eure or EversandLayton,Knights, 
 
 97, 125, 216. 
 Evelaw Tower, 291. 
 Evers. See Eure above. 
 
 Faa. See Gipsies. 
 
 Falla Moss, 10. 
 
 Fatlips of Minto Tower, 181. 
 
 Fernilea and ' The Flowers o' the 
 Forest,' 41, 42. 
 
 Fernihirst Castle, stormy history, 
 207-210. 
 
 Flambard, Bishop of Durham, 271. 
 
 Fleming of Biggar, 20. 
 
 Flodden Field, battle of, 268-9. 
 
 Floors, 129. 
 
 Floors Water, salmon fishing, 357. 
 
 ' Flowers o' the Forest ' two ver- 
 sions and authors, 41, 42. 
 
 Forts. See Prehistoric British, 
 Roman. 
 
 Fouling of the rivers, 339. 
 
 Fraser, Sir Simon, rebellion and 
 death, 12, 13. 
 
 Freebooters. See Debatable land. 
 
 Froissart, Description of Moss- 
 troopers, 147, 148. 
 Quoted, 147-8, 193, 195, 197. 
 
 Gaelic Language 
 
 Delorain, etymology of, 48-9. 
 
 Generic terms for rivers fem- 
 inine, 10. 
 
 Yarrow, etymology of, 73. 
 Gala Water, 85, 86, 88, fouling of, 
 
 351- 
 Galashiels and the ' Sour Plums, ' 
 
 86, 87, 88. 
 
 Gamelshiel Tower, 280. 
 Gamescleuch, ruined Tower of, 
 
 46. 
 Gateheugh, view from summit, 
 
 118,352. 
 
 Gatehope Burn, 34. 
 Gcikie, Sir Archibald, quoted, 19. 
 Gipsies, history in Scotland, 266-7. 
 Godscroft and David Hume, 
 
 rhyme, 283. 
 
 Goodfellow, fisherman, 356. 
 Gordon family, The, 245-6. 
 Graham, Sir Patrick, 323-4.
 
 3 68 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Gray. Sir Thomas, compiler Sca- 
 
 lacronica, 136, 274. 
 Gray family possess Wark-on- 
 
 Tweed, 259. 
 Greenlaw, 291. 
 Grubbit Law, 231. 
 
 Hadden Rig, encounter between 
 
 English and Scots at, 243. 
 Haig family, The, 122-3. 
 Halidon Hill, battle of, 320-1. 
 Haly Weil or Holy Pool, great 
 
 salmon lost in, 353-4. 
 Hamilton, Sir Patrick, and 
 'Cleanse-the-Causeway' Raid, 
 226-7. 
 Harden Castle and lines by John 
 
 Leyden, 169. 
 Hassendean, 176-8. 
 Hawick and the ' Colour-Song, ' 
 
 125. 
 
 Hawkshaw Burn, 10. 
 Hay of Drummelzier obtains Duns 
 
 Castle, 287. 
 Hay of Talla, 13. 
 Hays of Yester, 13, 30. 
 Henry V., 265. 
 Henry VIII. 
 Burial of King James, 269. 
 Devastation in Scotland by, 208. 
 Hertford, Lord, invades Scotland 
 Bunkle Castle and Church des- 
 troyed, 288. 
 Burns St. Mary's Nunnery, Ec- 
 
 cles, 261. 
 
 Edgerstone captured, 206. 
 Hownam district devastated, 
 
 233-5- 
 Jedburgh town and Abbey burnt, 
 
 215-17. 
 
 Kelso Abbey destroyed, 143. 
 Hillslap Tower and The Monastery, 
 
 93- 
 
 Hirsel, The, 261. 
 
 Hobkirk and its earlier church, 
 183. 
 
 H gg. James. See Ettrick Shep- 
 herd. 
 
 Holyrood Abbey, 95, 97. 
 
 Home family, 249-50, and Wed- 
 derburn estate, 289, 293. 
 
 Home, Alexander, Earl of, 113, 
 114, and 'Jethart Justice,' 
 224, 227. 
 
 Home, Sir Patrick, Lady Grizel 
 Baillie, a daughter of, 247, 
 292. 
 
 Homildon Hill, battle of, 263-4. 
 
 Horsburgh, Upper and Nether, 34. 
 
 Horse-racing in Stuart times, 33. 
 
 ' Hot Trod ' and ballad ' The Fray 
 of Suport, ' 158-165. 
 
 Hotspur, 194, 195. 
 Battle of Homildon Hill, 264-5. 
 Douglas and the Pennon, 194-5. 
 
 Hownam village and the eleven 
 shearers, 231. 
 
 Ho wpasley and revolting slaughter 
 of sheep, 167-9. 
 
 Hume Castle, stirring history, 249- 
 252 ; centre of beacon warn- 
 ings, 252. 
 
 Hume, David (1561-1630), 283. 
 
 Hume, David (1711-1776), 284. 
 
 Hundalee, 213. 
 
 Huntly Burn, 78. 
 
 Hutton Hall, and rhyme, 293. 
 
 Innerleithen, original of St. Ro- 
 
 nan's Well, 34. 
 Irving, Washington, impression of 
 
 Tweedside, 2. 
 
 James I. besieges Roxburgh, 138. 
 James II., 180; killed at Roxburgh, 
 
 139- 
 
 James III. 
 
 and Archibald 'Bell the Cat,' 109. 
 Henry VI. gives Berwick to, 328. 
 Siege of Roxburgh, 138. 
 James IV. 
 
 and the outlaw Murray, 44, 45. 
 Buried at Sheen, 269. 
 Grants jurisdiction over their 
 own people to the Gipsies, 
 267. 
 
 Killed at Flodden Field, 269. 
 Marries Princess Margaret of 
 
 England, 329-30. 
 
 James V., 40, 53, 54 ; Johnnie 
 Armstrong entrapped and 
 murdered, 149-155.
 
 INDEX 
 
 3 6 9 
 
 James VI. 
 
 Entertained by Lord Somerville 
 
 at Linton, 238. 
 
 Peblis to the Play, quoted, 33. 
 Settlement of various feuds, 19, 
 
 240. 
 Jed Forest 
 
 Extent of, and disputes concern- 
 ing, 225-8. 
 Noted trees Capon Tree, King 
 
 of the Forest, 228. 
 Jed Water, 192. 
 
 Jedburgh and its Castle, 213-14. 
 House occupied by Mary Queen 
 of Scots. See Introduction, 
 viii. 
 Mary Queen of Scots held a 
 
 Court, 221. 
 Scenery, 117. 
 Jedburgh Abbey, 215, 218; Roman 
 
 Altar, 217. 
 
 Jeddart or Jedworth, 207. 
 Jedfoot Bridge, 229. 
 ' Jethart Justice, ' 224-5. 
 ' Jethart Staff, ' 224. 
 John, son of Orm, 230-1. 
 ' Jougs ' in Stobo Church, 25. 
 Joustings at Berwick, 322-3. 
 
 Kale Water and Verses, 230. 
 Kelso Abbey and town, 140-2; 
 
 scenery, 100. 
 Kelso ' Band, ' 132. 
 Kentigern or Mungo, Bishop of 
 
 Strathclyde, 22. 
 Kerrs of Cessford. See Kers (Rox- 
 
 burghe branch). 
 Kers (Roxburghe branch) 
 Blood-feud with Turnbulls, 185. 
 Burial Vault, Bowden, 125-6. 
 Family History; blood-feud with 
 
 the Scotts, 98, 130. 
 Roxburgh Castle granted to, 
 
 139- 
 Kerrs of Fernihirst (Lothian 
 
 branch) 
 
 Assault Wark Castle, 259. 
 ' Cleanse-the-Causeway ' Raid, 
 
 226-7. 
 
 Dispute with Angus for holding 
 Court in Jed Forest, 227-8. 
 
 Family history, 129-30. 
 
 Mark, Abbot of Newbottle, 192. 
 
 Mortuary Chapel, Jedburgh Ab- 
 bey, 216. 
 
 United with Riddell of that Ilk, 
 
 190. 
 Knight of Liddesdale, The 
 
 Taken prisoner at Neville's 
 Cross, 39 ; slain by William 
 Douglas, 40, 325. 
 
 Treachery to Ramsay of Dal- 
 housie and King David, 
 39, 137. 
 
 Ladykirk, church and bridge, 
 
 270-1. 
 
 Laidlaw, Margaret, 50. 
 Lang, Andrew 
 
 ' Twilight on Tweed,' 103. 
 
 Verses on Yair, 40, 41. 
 Langshaw Tower, 93. 
 Lauder of that Ilk, family of, 112. 
 Lauder, Sir Thomas Dick, 85, 112. 
 
 Quoted, 85,86, 173, 242, 289,291. 
 Lauderdale, Earls of, 104-6. 
 Laurie's Well, 233. 
 Leader Water, 104, and salmon- 
 fishing, 352. 
 
 Leet, The, trout-fishing, 259-60. 
 Lessudon, 125. 
 
 Lethington, Secretary, 105, 220. 
 Leyden, John 
 
 Career. Verse on Kelso, 241. 
 
 Denholm, birthplace, 178. 
 
 Ettrick Shepherd's elegy, 242. 
 
 Lines on Harden Castle, 169. 
 Lilliard's Edge Cross and Verse, 
 
 99- 
 
 Lilliesleaf, and its many castellat- 
 ed houses, 189. 
 
 Lindsay, Dr., 154. 
 
 Linnaeus helped to lay out forest 
 at Dawick, 24. 
 
 Lintalee English entrapped by 
 Sir James Douglas, 212-13. 
 
 Linton and church, 235. 
 
 Littledean, Castle of, 128. 
 
 Lockhart, quoted, 76, 199. 
 
 Longformacus, 282. 
 
 Lothian acquired by conquest, 
 Malcolm II., 256. 
 
 24
 
 37 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Lothian, Marquis of, descended 
 from Kerrs of Fernihirst, 129. 
 
 Lyne, Roman camp, 27 ; parish 
 church, 29. 
 
 Maccus'wele or Maxwheel Fish- 
 ery, Kelso, 140. 
 
 MacGibbon, Mr. David, quoted, 
 210. 
 
 Maid of Norway. See Margaret, 
 Queen of Scots. 
 
 Maitland family, 104, 105. 
 
 Makerstoun and the Trows, 129, 
 salmon-fishing, 357. 
 
 Malcolm the Maiden, King, 219. 
 
 Malcolm II. wins Lothian by right 
 of conquest, 256. 
 
 Manor Water and various Castles, 
 29.30. 
 
 March, Patrick, Earl of, 325. 
 
 Margaret, Queen of James III., 66. 
 
 Margaret, Queen of James IV., 
 66, 329. 
 
 Margaret, Queen of Scots, betroth- 
 ed to Prince Edward, death, 
 226. 
 
 Mary of Gueldres, Queen of 
 James III., 139, 249. 
 
 Mary Queen of Scots holds a court 
 at Jedburgh, 221. 
 
 Maxton, 128. 
 
 Meldred, lord of Drummelzier, 22. 
 
 MelJerstain and Lady Grizell 
 Baillie, 246-8. 
 
 Melrose Abbey 
 History of, 94-97. 
 St. Cuthbert at, 106-107. 
 
 Merlin Emrys or Ambrosius, 21. 
 
 Merlin the Wizard and Drummel- 
 zier Haugh, 20, 21. 
 
 Mertoun Water, salmon-fishing, 
 355, 356. 
 
 Michael the Wizard. See under 
 Scot. 
 
 Midside Maggie's Girdle, in, 112. 
 
 Minto Crags, 178, 179, 181. 
 
 Minto Elliotts, descended from 
 Auld Wat of Harden and the 
 Flower of Yarrow, 179; rise 
 of the family, 180-1. 
 
 Monk, General, 261. 
 
 Montagu, Sir William de de- 
 fends Wark Castle, 257. 
 
 Monteviot House, 191. 
 
 Montgomery, owners of Stobo, 25. 
 
 Montrose, defeated at Philip- 
 haugh, 68-9, 7 1 - 
 
 Moody, fisherman, 355. 
 
 Mordington, Cromwell's head- 
 quarters, 293. 
 
 Morebattle and church, 232. 
 
 Morton, Earl of. See Douglas, 
 James. 
 
 Morton, Regent, 204, 224. 
 
 ' Mosfenman or the Logan Lee, ' 
 14, 15, 16. 
 
 Murray the Outlaw and James iv., 
 
 44,45- 
 Murray, Sir Gideon, and ' Micklc- 
 
 mou'd Meg, ' 36, 37. 
 Mutiny Stones, 282. 
 
 Naesmyth, Sir James, 24. 
 Napier and Ettrick, Lord, descent 
 
 of, 46. 
 Napier of Merchistoun, tragedy 
 
 of, 67-8. 
 Napoleon, proposed invasion of 
 
 England Beacon warning 
 
 on the Border, 252. 
 Neidpath Castle, 30. 
 Nenthorn or Naithansthirn, 248. 
 Nevill, Sir Robert de, encounter 
 
 with Sir James Douglas, 
 
 308-9. 
 
 Neville's Cross, battle of, 138. 
 Newark Castle, 65. 
 Newton Don and its tragedy, 
 
 248-9. 
 
 Nicol, Rev. T, poem quoted, 36. 
 Norham Castle, scenes of splen- 
 dour, passages from Scala- 
 
 cronica, 271-9. 
 North, Christopher, 55, 341. 
 
 Oakwood, 51, 
 
 Old Melrose, 04-5, 117. 
 
 ' Old Q, ' Duke of Queensberry 
 
 and Neidpath, 30, 31. 
 Oliver Castle, 12. 
 Order of the Garter, origin of, 
 
 258.
 
 INDEX 
 
 37 1 
 
 Ormistons, The 
 Black Laird implicated in Darn- 
 ley's murder, 239. 
 Family history, 238-9. 
 Otterburn, battle of, and ballads, 
 
 194-198. 
 
 Outlaw Murray. See Murray. 
 Oxnam Water and village, 229. 
 
 Pallinsburn, seat of Askew family, 
 
 266. 
 Park, Mungo, and Sir W. Scott at 
 
 Williamhope, 38-9. 
 Pavilion Water, salmon-fishing, 
 
 352- 
 
 Paxton House, 280. 
 
 Peden's Cleuch, 200. 
 
 Peebles, 32, 33. 
 
 Peetwit still destroyed because 
 unwitting betrayer of Coven- 
 anters, ii. 
 
 Pele or Tower, Act of James V. 
 concerning building of, 123. 
 
 Pennecuik, Dr., quoted, 6, 20. 
 
 Penshiel, 281. 
 
 Percy, Sir Rafe, yields to Sir John 
 Maxwell, 199. 
 
 Philiphaugh and the fall of Mont- 
 rose, 68. 
 
 Place-names derived from beast 
 and bird, 13, 14. 
 
 Poetry. Sec Ballads also Rhymes. 
 
 Polmood Burn, 13. 
 
 Polwarth, Lord, 51, 127. 
 
 Posso Castle, 30. 
 
 Prehistoric Remains 
 Circle above Blackhouse, 58. 
 Cockburn Law, a ' broch ' 285. 
 Upper Tweeddale, 23. 
 
 Prince Charlie 
 At Kelso, 145. 
 At Jedburgh, 224. 
 
 Pringle Family, 90. 
 
 Pringle of Whytbank, Alexander, 
 40. 
 
 Pringles of Gala, built Smailholm, 
 119. 
 
 Purdie, Tom, 349-50. 
 
 Quair Water, 35. 
 
 Queensberry, Duke of . See 'OldQ.' 
 
 Ramsay of Dalhousie, treacherous 
 
 death, 136-7. 
 Ramsay, Sir William, and the 
 
 Berwick jousts, 322-3. 
 Randal's Wa's or Randal's Tren- 
 cher, 27. 
 Randolph, Earl of Moray, 27, 
 
 135, 287. 
 
 Reidswire Raid, and ballad, 200-2. 
 Rennie, John, builder of Kelso 
 
 bridge, 140. 
 Rhymes, etc. 
 
 Armstrong's Good-night, 206. 
 Battle of Halidon Hill, 321. 
 Buchtrig and Belchester, 262. 
 Bunkle, Billie, Blanerne, 289. 
 Edward Longshanks, 300. 
 Ercildoune and Cowdenknow- 
 
 es, 113-14- 
 
 Fair Maiden Lilliard, 99. 
 Girls o' Jethart, 225. 
 Gowkscroft and Barnside, 283. 
 Haig of Bemersyde, 121. 
 Hutton Parish, 293. 
 ' I, Willie Wastle, ' 250-1. 
 Lasses o' Lauther, 108. 
 Little Jock Elliot, 220. 
 Ker and Elliot feud, 76. 
 Place-name Peeblesshire, 43. 
 Seton, Lady, 319. 
 ' Sow ' and ' Crab ' War En- 
 gines, 311. 
 Tamieuchar, 47, 48. 
 Tillieloot o' Bowden, 126. 
 Tima, The, 47. 
 Tweed to Till, 269. 
 Richard, Cceur de Lion, 295. 
 Richard II. and Melrose Abbey, 
 
 96. 
 Riddells of that Ilk, united with 
 
 Kerrs, 190. 
 Ritchie, David, original of the 
 
 Black Dwarf, 29. 
 Rival, derivation of word, I. 
 Robert III., 193. 
 Rochester, Viscount, 132. 
 Roman remains 
 Altar with inscription, Jedburgh 
 
 Abbey, 217-8. 
 Camp at Chesters, 292. 
 Camp at Lyne, 26.
 
 37 2 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Camps (probably Roman) on 
 Woden Law and Penny- 
 muir, 230. 
 
 Watling Street, 229. 
 Roman troops, Rhaetians, 218. 
 Romany. Bee Gipsies. 
 Roxburgh Castle, stirring history, 
 
 133-5- 
 Roxburghe, Dukes of. See Kers 
 
 (Roxburghe branch). 
 Ruberslaw, legend concerning, 
 
 102. 
 
 Rule Water, 181. 
 Ruskin quoted, 87. 
 Rutherford, Alison, author of 
 1 The Flowers o' the Forest, ' 
 
 42- 
 Rutherford 128 ; salmon-fishing, 
 
 357- 
 
 Rydderch Hael, 22. 
 Rye House Plot, 247. 
 
 St. Cuthbert and his well, 106-7. 
 St. Mary's Loch, 54, 55. 
 Salisbury, Countess of, at Wark 
 
 Castle, 258. 
 Salmon-fishing 
 
 Fishing law needs amendment, 
 
 347-8- 
 Various fishings described, 140, 
 
 330, 336-8. 
 
 Scalacronica, 136, 313 ; extract 
 relating to Norham Castle, 
 
 275-9- 
 
 Scot, Michael, the Wizard- 
 Attempts to dam the Tweed, 
 
 100. 
 
 Eildon Hill, legend, 101. 
 Witch of Falsehope bewitched, 
 
 52-3. 
 Scott family. See Buccleuch, 
 
 House of. 
 
 Scott, Adam, ' King of Thieves,' 49. 
 Scott, Grizel and Janet, 15. 
 Scotts of Gala, ancestry of, 90. 
 Scotts of Hassendean, blood-feud 
 
 with the Elliots, 177. 
 Scott, Sir Walter 
 Abbotsford, 87. 
 
 Anecdote concerning his uncle, 
 76. 
 
 Ashiestiel, Mungo Park, 38. 
 
 Beacon warnings on Border 
 (1804), 252. 
 
 Funeral at Dryburgh, 120. 
 
 Hillslap Tower and The Monas- 
 tery, 93. 
 
 Last visit to Douglas Castle, 
 199. 
 
 ' Mickle-mou'd Meg, ' an ances- 
 tress, 37. 
 
 Melrose Abbey and The Abbot, 
 The Monastery, 04-7. 
 
 Monument, Edinburgh, 96. 
 
 Newark Castle and The Lay, 67. 
 
 Notes to The Lay, 51. 
 
 Pioneer of replanting Tweed- 
 side, 3. 
 
 Quoted, 77, 100, 121. 
 
 Regard for local names, 48, 171. 
 
 St. Ronan's Well, Innerleithen, 
 
 34; 
 Sir Tnstrem, edited by, 80- 1. 
 
 Smailholm Tower and Eve o, 
 St. John, The Abbot, 119, 
 1 20. 
 
 Traquair House and Waverley, 
 
 34, 35- 
 Tom Purdie, servant to, 349- 
 
 351- 
 
 Visit to the Hoggs, 50. 
 Scrope 
 
 Extract from Days and Nights 
 of Salmon Fishing, 349-351- 
 Quoted, 78, 101. 
 Selkirk, 60, 61, 62. 69, 71. 
 Selkirk Forest, 66. 
 Selkirk, J. B. See Introduction 
 Poem on Yarrow, 60, 61. 
 ' The Fall of the Curtain, ' 62. 
 Seton, Sir Archibald, and family, 
 
 318-9. 
 Shairp, Professor, poem quoted, 
 
 36. 
 'Shameful Peace.' See Treaty 
 
 of Northampton. 
 
 Sheriff's Moor or Shire Moor, 28. 
 Shirra's Knowe, 38. 
 Siege rhymes, ' Sow ' and ' Crab ' 
 
 at Berwick, 311, 312, 
 Sir Tristrem, Thomas the Rhymer, 
 80, 81.
 
 INDEX 
 
 373 
 
 Skeat, Professor, quoted, 33. 
 
 Skene, Professor, quoted, 21, 22. 
 
 Slitrig Water, 171. 
 
 Smailholm Tower and Sir Walter 
 Scott, 119, 120. 
 
 Somerville, family of, 93-4, 237-8. 
 
 Somervilles of Linton and the 
 Dragon of the Glen, 236. 
 
 Springwood Park, 139. 
 
 Sprouston, 243. 
 
 Sprouston Water and salmon- 
 fishing, 243-4, 35 8 - 
 
 Stanyledge Tower, 181. 
 
 Stephen, King of England, 256. 
 
 Steward, Sir Walter the, 310. 
 
 Stichill Lynn, 248. 
 
 Stobo Castle and Church, 25. 
 
 Stoddart, Tom Tod- 
 Life and writings, 340-345. 
 Quoted, 19, 259, 260, 341-2, 346, 
 
 359- 
 
 The Taking of the Salmon, 343. 
 Stuart, Lady Louisa, of Traquair 
 
 House, 34. 
 Surrey, Earl of, raids Scotland. 
 
 (See also Hertford, Lord) 
 Battle of Flodden Field, 268-9. 
 Cessford Castle besieged, 233, 
 
 234, 235- 
 
 Jedburgh stormed, 214, 215, 216. 
 
 Linton Tower burnt down, 237. 
 
 Sussex, Earl of, raids Teviotdale, 
 
 209. 
 
 Swinton family and tomb in 
 Swinton Parish Church, 260. 
 Swinton, Sir John, Battle of Hom- 
 ildon Hill, 264. 
 
 Talla Linns, Convention of Cove- 
 nanters held, 10. 
 
 Talla Water, 10. 
 
 Tamleuchar, 47. 
 
 Tankerville, Earl of, Wark Castle 
 comes to, 259. 
 
 Teviot, The, 5, 146, 176; joins 
 Tweed, 242. 
 
 Teviotdale, 146. 
 
 Thirlage a laird's privilege and 
 rhyme, 29. 
 
 Thirlestane Castle, 46. 
 
 Thomas the Rhymer of Ercil- 
 
 doune, and quotations, 78-79, 
 81-4. 
 Thomson, James 
 
 Born at Ednam, verse on fly- 
 fishing, 245. 
 
 The Seasons composed at Hob- 
 kirk, 182, 190. 
 Threipland, significance of the 
 
 name, 18. 
 Till, the, 262. 
 Tinnis Castle, 17. 
 Timpendean, 191. 
 Tima burn and its rhymes, 47. 
 Torwoodlee, 88. 
 
 Traquair, Earls of, 34, 36, 69, 71. 
 Traquair House and Scott's Wa- 
 
 verley, 34, 35. 
 
 Treaty of Northampton, 315. 
 Trees 
 
 Covin Tree, Bemersyde, 123. 
 Jedburgh Forest, Capon Tree, 
 
 King of the Forest, 228. 
 Remarkable size, Dawick and 
 
 Stobo, 25. 
 
 Trout-fishing, 335, 336, 337, 338. 
 ' Trows, ' the legend, 129. 
 Turnbulls of Barnhills and Bed- 
 rule 
 
 Blood-feud with Kers, 185. 
 Burn out the Riddells, 189. 
 Chief's death in single combat, 
 
 184-5. 
 
 Family history, 179-181. 
 Tushielaw, 49. 
 Tweed Cross, 5. 
 Tweed, The 
 
 ' Cauld ' or weir at Kelso, 100. 
 Climate, 102-3. 
 Course and borders, 3, 4. 
 Meets English soil at Carham, 
 
 253- 
 
 Natural arena for feats of arms, i . 
 Origin of name unknown, 4. 
 Source, 5. 
 
 Teviot joins Twe;ed, 242. 
 Tributaries. See under their 
 
 names. 
 Tweeddale 
 
 Action of Snow and Ice Age 
 
 upon, 8. 
 Geological formation, 102.
 
 374 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Scenery, 7. 
 Tvveedie Family 
 
 Blood-feud with Veitches, 18. 
 
 Mythical origin of name, 17. 
 Tweedshaws, 8. 
 
 Twinlaw Cairns and legend of 
 Edgar brothers, 290-1. 
 
 Ubbanford, Edward I. enters 
 
 Scotland by, 270-1. 
 Union Bridge, Paxton, 280. 
 Upsettlington, 279. 
 
 Veitch, Professor, quoted, 2, 14, 
 21, 23, 33, 58, 60, 80, 92. 
 
 Veitch, William, defended by Gil- 
 bert Elliot, 179. 
 
 Veitches, blood-feud with Twee- 
 dies, 18, 24. 
 
 Venale, Sir Robert de, death at 
 Halidon Hill, 184. 
 
 Victoria, Queen, visit to Jedburgh, 
 219. 
 
 Walcher, Bishop, 207. 
 Wallace, William 
 
 Colossal statue, Dryburgh, 121. 
 
 Takes the field, 303-4. 
 Wark Castle, history of, 256, 259. 
 Water of Lyne, capture of Thomas 
 
 Randolph at, 25-7. 
 Watling Street, 229. 
 Wedaleand privilege of sanctuary, 
 
 85- 
 Wedderlie Keep, 291. 
 
 ' Wele, ' name for river-pool, 118. 
 Welsh, William, 14. 
 ' When the Kye comes Hame, ' 51 
 Whitadder, The, 280. 
 William the Lion 
 
 Bills of fare at Norham Castle, 
 
 271-2. 
 
 Captured, does homage for king- 
 dom, 295. 
 Williamhope 
 
 Mungo Park and Sir Walter 
 
 Scott, 38, 39. 
 Tragedy oi Knight of Liddes- 
 
 dale, 39 
 Witch of Falsehope and Michael 
 
 the Wizard, 53. 
 Witchcraft and fairies, 84. 
 Wordsworth 
 Quoted, 54. 
 Visit to Neidpath, 31. 
 Wordsworth, Miss, 154. 
 Wormal, 14. 
 Wright, Jamie, 243. 
 Wrink Law and British fortifica- 
 tions, 282. 
 Wynkyn de Worde, quoted, 183. 
 
 Yair, poem by Andrew Lang, 40, 
 
 41- 
 Yarrow and its ballads and songs, 
 
 53-74- 
 Yeavering Bell, Bishop Paulinus 
 
 makes converts at, 265. 
 Yetholm and the gipsies, 266. 
 ' Young Tamlane, ' 64, 65.
 
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