Chapter 8
Those deep green grassy knowes of the valley are peculiarly susceptible of change. In the morning with a blue sky, or with breaks of sunlight through the fleeting clouds, the green hillsides and the stream smile and gleam in sympathy with the cheerfulness of heaven. But under a grey sky, or at the gloaming, the Yarrow wears a peculiarly wan aspect--a look of sadness. And no valley I know is more susceptible of sudden change. The spirit of the air can speedily weave out of the mists that gather upon the massive hills at the heads of the Megget and the Talla, a wide-spreading web of greyish cloud--the 'skaum' of the sky--that casts a gloom over the under green of the hills; and dims the face of loch and stream in a pensive shadow. The saddened heart would readily find there fit analogue and nourishment for its sorrow. Which is all very true. But, as has been said, Tweed and Teviot show exactly these conditions, and what of their minstrelsy remains is not touched with this strangely morose sense. May not the solution lie in the very legend of the "Dowie Dens" itself, and in the remarkable cup-like configuration of the valley as seen from the point already indicated and under the wan aspects which are admittedly a distinctive feature of the Yarrow at all seasons of the year? Out of this have emerged very probably the spirit of the balladists and their ballads. One after another have simply followed suit, and the likelihood is that had gladness and not gloom been the burden of some far back strain, we should not have had the Yarrow we possess to-day. Men of the most diverse temperaments have come under the sad spell of the Yarrow. The most lighthearted sons of song have succumbed to the general feeling. Wordsworth himself would have preferred to strike another note, but the enchantment of the spot held him fast:
"O that some Minstrel's harp were near To utter notes of gladness, And chase this silence from the air, That fills my heart with sadness!"
All the verse writers of the last century were mere continuators of their fellow-bards centuries before. There are, to be sure, some flippant spirits who would dare to alter the very atmosphere of Yarrow, but what a poor attempt at the impossible! Yarrow must ever abide the embodiment of the most heart-piercing, and at the same time, the most winsome melody the world has listened to.
Popularly speaking, the best of the Yarrow ballads concerns itself with the famous "Dowie Dens" tragedy, of which there seems to be some authentic reference in the Selkirk Presbytery Record for 1616. It is there narrated how Walter Scott of Tushielaw made "an informal and inordinate marriage with Grizell Scott of Thirlestane without consent of her father." Just three months later, the same Record contains entry of a summons to Simeon Scott, of Bonytoun, an adherent of Thirlestane, and three other Scotts "to compear at Melrose to hear themselves excommunicated for the horrible slaughter of Walter Scott." We have here probably the precise incident on which the unknown "makar" founded his crude but intensely picturesque and dramatic lay. How much of womanly winsomeness and heroism, of knightly dignity and daring, and the unconquerable strength of love are portrayed in the following stanzas! There are, indeed, few ballads in any language that match its strains:
"She kiss'd his cheek, she kaim'd his hair, As oft she had done before, O; She belted him with his noble brand, And he's away to Yarrow.
* * * * *
"'If I see all, ye're nine to ane; And that's an unequal marrow; Yet will I fight, while lasts my brand, On the bonnie banks of Yarrow.'
* * * * *
"Four has he hurt, and five has slain; On the bloody braes of Yarrow, Till that stubborn knight came him behind, And ran his body thorough.
* * * * *
"Yestreen I dream'd a dolefu' dream; I fear there will be sorrow! I dream'd I pu'd the heather green Wi' my true love on Yarrow.
* * * * *
"She kiss'd his cheek, she kaimed his hair; She search'd his wounds all thorough; She kiss'd them till her lips grew red, On the dowie houms of Yarrow."
A fragment of rare beauty, believed to be based on the same incident (unlikely however) was one of Scott's special favourites. Rather does it shrine a similar tragedy, one of many such which must have been common enough in those troubled and lawless times. How melting is the pathos of the following verses, for instance!
"Willie's rare and Willie's fair, And Willie's wondrous bonny, And Willie's hecht to marry me, Gin e'er he married ony.
"Yestreen I made my bed fu' braid, This night I'll make it narrow, For a' the livelong winter night, I'll lie twin'd of my marrow.
She sought him east, she sought him west, She sought him braid and narrow; Syne, in the cleaving of a craig She found him drown'd in Yarrow.
Somewhat akin is the "Lament of the Border Widow," located at Henderland, in Meggetdale, not far from St. Mary's Loch. In the preface to this ballad in the "Minstrelsy," Scott states that it was "obtained from recitation in the Forest of Ettrick, and is said to relate to the execution of Cockburn of Henderland, a Border freebooter, hanged over the gate of his own tower by James V. in the course of that memorable expedition in 1529 which was fatal to Johnie Armstrong, Adam Scott of Tushielaw, and many other marauders." The grave of "Perys of Cockburne and hys wyfe Marjory" on a wooded knoll at Henderland, is still pointed out. But the historicity of the ballad has been questioned from the statement (which seems to be correct) that Cockburn was actually executed at Edinburgh, instead of at his own home. There is no evidence, however, to assume that the ballad commemorates this particular occurrence or that it has any connection with the grave referred to. For genuine balladic merit it will be difficult to match:
My love he built me a bonny bower, And clad it a' wi' lilye flower, A brawer bower ye ne'er did see Than my true love he built for me.
There came a man, by middle day He spied his sport, and went away, And brought the King that very night, Who brake my bower and slew my knight.
He slew my knight, to me sae dear; He slew my knight, and poin'd his gear; My servants all for life did flee, And left me in extremitie.
I sewed his sheet, making my mane; I watched the corpse myself alane; I watch'd his body night and day; No living creature came that way.
I took his body on my back, And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sat; I digg'd a grave, and laid him in, And happ'd him with the sod sae green. But think na ye my heart was sair, When I laid the moul' on his yellow hair; O think na ye my heart was wae, When I turned about away to gae?
Nae living man I'll love again, Since that my lovely knight is slain, Wi ae lock of his yellow hair, I'll chain my heart for evermair.
PLATE 22
"HE PASS'D WHERE NEWARK'S STATELY TOWER LOOKS OUT FROM YARROW'S BIRCHEN BOWER"
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_See pp. 116_)
One might speak, too, of the "Douglas Tragedy," the scene of which is laid in the Douglas Glen, in the heart of the quiet hills forming the watershed betwixt Tweed and Yarrow. Here lived the "Good Sir James"--Bruce's right-hand man, who strove to carry his heart to the Holy Land. It was from this Tower at Blackhouse that Margaret the Fair was carried off by her lover, and about a mile further up on the hillside the seven stones marking the spot where Lord William alighted and slew the Lady's seven brothers in full pursuit of the pair, are objects of curious interest. This ballad, it is interesting to note, is one widely diffused throughout Europe, being specially rich in Danish, Icelandic, Norse, and Swedish collections. Indeed, almost all the Yarrow ballads--and many others--are common to Continental _volks-lieder_, and are found in extraordinary profusion from Iceland to the Peloponesus. Here is evidence, by no means slight, of the theory that ballads originate from a common stock, and that in the course of ages they have simply become transplanted and localized. Then the Yarrow valley contains the scene of the "Song of the Outlaw Murray"--a distinctively Border production (74 verses in all) composed during the reign of James V. Murray divides with Johnie Armstrong the honour of being the Border Robin Hood, but to Murray a very different treatment was meted out. The Outlaw's lands at Hangingshaw and elsewhere were his own, though he held them minus a title. James fumed at this, and determined to bring the Forest chief to submission:
"The King of Scotland sent me here, And, gude Outlaw, I am sent to thee; I wad wot of how ye hald your lands, O man, wha may thy master be?"
"Thir lands are MINE! the Outlaw said: I ken nae King in Christendie; Frae England I this Forest won When the King and his knights were not to see."
Upon which the King's Commissioner assures the Outlaw that it will be worse for him if he fails to give heed to the royal desire:
"Gif ye refuse to do this He'll compass baith thy lands and thee; He hath vow'd to cast thy castle down And mak a widow of thy gay lady."
But Murray is defiant, and James is equally resolved to crush him. Friends are pressed into the Outlaw's service, and very soon he has a goodly number of troopers all ready to render service in the hour of their kinsman's need, well knowing that in aiding him they would be doing the best thing for themselves, as "landless men they a' wad be" if the King got his own way in Ettrick Forest. But, like all good ballads, this, too, ends happily. A compromise is effected, by which the Outlaw obtains the post he had long coveted--Sheriff of the Forest:
"He was made Sheriff of Ettrick Forest, Surely while upward grows the tree; And if he was na traitour to the King, Forfaulted he should never be.
"Wha ever heard, in ony times, Siccan an Outlaw in his degree Sic favour get before a King As the Outlaw Murray of the Forest free?"
Of right "Tamlany"--by far the finest of the Border fairy ballads--belongs more to Ettrick than to Yarrow. The scene is laid in Carterhaugh, at the confluence of the two streams, two miles above Selkirk. The ballad (24 stanzas) is too long to quote, but may be read in all good collections. For the same reason also we must pass over the "Battle of Philiphaugh," commemorating Leslie's victory over Montrose in 1645; and the "Gay Goss-Hawk," the dramatic ending of which is laid at St. Mary's Kirk, high upon the hillside overlooking the waters of the Loch. Nothing is left now save the site, and a half-deserted burying-ground where "Covenanter and Catholic, Scotts, and Kers and Pringles--all sorts and conditions of men--sleep their long sleep at peace together." Among the shrines of Yarrowdale, this is not the least notable. Like the grave of Keats outside the walls of Rome, as some one has said, "it would almost make one in love with death to be buried in so sweet a spot among the heather and brackens, and the sighing of the solitary mountain ash." St. Mary's Loch lies shimmering at our feet. Scott's "Marmion" picture is still wonderfully correct:
"Oft in my mind such thoughts awake, By lone Saint Mary's silent lake; Thou know'st it well--nor fen, nor sedge Pollute the pure lake's crystal edge; Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink At once upon the level brink; And just a trace of silver sand Marks where the water meets the land.
Far in the mirror, bright and blue, Each hill's huge outline you may view; Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare, Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake is there, Save where, of land, yon slender line Bears thwart the lake the scatter'd pine, Yet even this nakedness has power, And aids the feeling of the hour."
All this delightsome countryside is Hogg-land too, let us remember, as well as Scott-land. For here, in ballad-haunted Yarrow, the immortal James spent the best years of his life, failing so tantalizingly as farmer, but as poet, "King of the Mountain and Fairy school," dreaming so well of that most bewitching of all his conceptions--"Bonnie Kilmeny." Yonder, overlooking Tibbie Shiel's "cosy beild"--a howff of the Noctes coterie--stands the solitary white figure of the beloved Shepherd as Christopher North's prophetic soul felt that it must be some day. Hogg was born in the neighbouring Ettrick valley--in 1770 presumably. His birth-cottage is extinct now, but a handsome memorial marks the spot. Most of his life, as has been said, was passed in the sister vale, first at Blackhouse, then at Mount Benger, and at Altrive (now Eldinhope), where he died three years after his truest of friends--Sir Walter. The Ettrick homeland guards his dust. Close by is the resting-place of Thomas Boston, that earlier "Ettrick Shepherd" whose "Fourfold State" and "Crook in the Lot" are not yet forgotten. In the sequestered Yarrow churchyard sleeps Scott's maternal great-grandfather, John Rutherford, who was minister of the parish from 1691 to 1710. Scott spoke of Yarrow as the "shrine of his ancestors," and himself, like Hogg, and Willie Laidlaw, frequently worshipped within its old grey walls. Further down the stream, the "shattered front of Newark's towers" reminds us that here Scott placed the recital of the "Lay." He would fain have fitted up the ancient fabric as a residence, had it been possible. Almost opposite, the birthplace of Mungo Park, the first of the knight-errantry of Africa, attracts attention, and a mile or two nearer Selkirk, are Philiphaugh, and "sweet Bowhill," the two finest domains in the Forest. The Covenanters' Monument within Philiphaugh grounds is worthy of notice, and on the Ettrick side, Kirkhope and Oakwood, both in fairly good repair, are excellent specimens of the peel period. At Selkirk, the capital of Ettrickdale, Scott's statue as "the Shirra"--a most admirable representation--looks out at scenes upon which his eyes in life must often have feasted. Here we read the lines that express his heart's deep love for a district interwoven so closely with all the years of his working life:
"By Yarrow's streams still let me stray, Though none should guide my feeble way; Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break, Although it chill my wither'd cheek."
PLATE 23
VIEW OF NEW ABBEY AND CRIFFEL
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
VI. THE LEADER VALLEY.
To the present writer, the valley of the Leader, or Lauderdale, has attractions and memories that are second to none in the Border. "Here, first,"--to use Hogg's lines--
"He saw the rising morn, Here, first, his infant mind unfurled To ween the spot where he was born The very centre of the world."
Lauderdale constitutes one of the "three parts" into which Berwickshire, like Ancient Gaul, is divided. The others are the Merse, (_i.e._, March-Land)--often a distinctive designation for the entire county, but applicable especially to the low-lying lands beside the Tweed; Lammermoor, so named from the Lammermoor Hills ranging across the county from Soutra Edge and Lammer Law in the extreme north-west, to the coastline at Fast Castle and St. Abbs. Lauderdale, the westernmost division, running due north and south, embraces simply the basin of the Leader and its tributaries so far as the basin is in Berwickshire. Its total length is not more than twenty-one miles, from Kelphope Burn, the real origin of the Leader, to Leaderfoot, about two miles below Melrose, where it meets the waters of the Tweed. Leaderdale and Lauderdale are but varieties of the name. A little off the beaten track, perhaps, it can be easily reached by rail to St. Boswells and Earlston, or to Lauder itself, from Fountainhall, on the Waverley Route, by the light railway recently opened. Its upper course among the Lammermoors is through bleak, monotonous hill scenery; but the middle and lower reaches pass into a fine series of landscapes--the "Leader Haughs" of many an olden strain--- flanked by graceful green hills and swells, and plains, that are hardly surpassed in Scotland for agricultural wealth and beauty. Of Berwickshire generally, it may be said that it has few industries and no mineral wealth to speak of. Its business is chiefly in one department--agriculture. For that the soil is particularly well adapted. Especially is this true of the Merse and Lauderdale districts, where the farmers take a high place in agricultural affairs, many of them being recognised experts and authorities on the subject. Thousands of acres on the once bald and featureless hill-lands of Lauderdale have been brought within the benign influence of plough and harrow, and are choice ornaments in a county famous for its agricultural triumphs all the world over. But Romance, rather than agriculture, is the true glory of the Leader Valley. It will be difficult to find a locality--Yarrow excepted--which is more under the spell of the past. May not Lauderdale, indeed, be claimed as the very birthplace of Scottish melody itself? Robert Chambers styled it "the Arcadia of Scotland," and was not Thomas of Ercildoune the "day-starre of Scottish poetry?"
This, too, is the country of St. Cuthbert. At Channelkirk, he was probably born. At all events the first light of history falls upon him here, as a shepherd lad, watching his flocks by the Leader, and striving to think out the deep things of the divine life, with the most ardent longings in his soul after it. The traditional meadow, whence he beheld the vision which changed his career, is still pointed out, and his reputed birthplace at Cuddy Ha' keeps his memory green amongst those sweet refreshing solitudes. It is interesting to note Berwickshire's connection with the three most famous Borderers of history--St. Cuthbert, Thomas the Rhymer, and Walter Scott, of Merse extraction, whose dust Berwickshire holds as its most sacred trust.
Lauder and Earlston are the only places of importance in the valley. The former--it is, by the way, the only royal burgh in the shire--boasts a considerable antiquity. It is still a quaint-looking but clean town, with long straggling street, and one or two buildings--the parish kirk and Tolbooth--offering decidedly Continental suggestions. Lauder's old-worldness and isolation are at an end, however. After much agitation, a railway-line now connects it with the rest of the world, and already the signs of a new life are apparent. Within a very few years the inevitable changes will be sure to have passed over this once quiet and exclusive little town. It is the "Maitland blude," which dominates Lauder, and Thirlestane Castle, built, or renovated rather, in the time of Charles II., is still a place to see. Amongst Scottish families, the Maitlands were first in place and power. Not a few of them were greatly distinguished as statesmen and men of letters--the blind poet and ballad-collector, Sir Richard; William Maitland, the celebrated Secretary Lethington; Chancellor Maitland, author of the satirical ballad, "Against Sklanderous Tongues;" Thomas, and Mary, Latin versifiers both; and the infamous "Cabal" Duke, the only bearer of the title. Within the well-kept policies of Thirlestane, tradition has located the site of the historic Lauder Bridge, so fatal to James III.'s favourites in 1482. Dr. John Wilson, of Bombay, Orientalist and scholar, was born at Lauder in 1804, and James Guthrie, the first Scottish martyr after the Reformation, was its minister for a short period.
Earlston is seven miles down stream from Lauder. Before reaching the town of the Rhymer some spots of interest call for notice. At St. Leonard's--a little way out--a hospital off-shoot of Dryburgh, lived Burne the Violer, the last of the minstrel fraternity, a supposed prototype of the Minstrel of the "Lay," and author of the fine pastoral poem, "Leader Haughs and Yarrow," the verse-model for Wordsworth's "Three Yarrows." One verse was a great favourite with Scott and Carlyle, both of whom were known to repeat it frequently:--
"But Minstrel Burne can not assuage His grief, while life endureth, To see the changes of this age, Which fleeting time procureth; For mony a place stands in hard case, Where blythe folk ken'd nae sorrow, With Humes that dwelt on Leader-side, And Scotts that dwelt on Yarrow."
Blainslie, famous for its oats ("There's corn enough in the Blainslies"), and Whitslaid Tower, a long ago holding of the Lauder family, are passed a mile or two on. At Birkhill and Birkenside the road forks leftwards to Legerwood, where Grizel Cochrane of Ochiltree (afterwards Mrs. Ker of Morriston), heroine of the stirring mail-bag adventure narrated in the "Border Tales," sleeps in its lately restored kirk chancel. Chapel, and Carolside with a fine deer park, and most charming of country residences--at the latter of which Kinglake wrote part of his "Crimean War"--sit snugly to the right, in the bosky glen below.
PLATE 24
CRIFFEL AND LOCH KINDAR
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
Earlston, the Ercildoune of olden time--name much better suited to the quiet beauty of its charming situation--has no unimportant place both in Scottish history and romance. It has been honoured by many royal visits. Here David the Sair Sanct subscribed the Foundation Charter of Melrose Abbey in 1136, and his son the Confirmatory Charter in 1143. Other royal visitors followed; there James IV. encamped for a night on his way from Edinburgh to Flodden; Queen Mary made a brief stay at Cowdenknowes as she passed from Craigmillar to Jedburgh; and lastly came Prince Charlie (unwelcome) on his march to Berwick-on-Tweed. But above all it is renowned as having been the residence (and birthplace probably) of Thomas the Rhymer, or True Thomas, or simply, as literary history prefers to call him, Thomas of Ercildoune. The Rhymer's Tower, associated with this remarkable personage, stands close to the Leader. Only a mere ivy-clad fragment remains (some 30 feet in height), but the memories of the place stretch back to more than six centuries, when Thomas was at the height of his fame as his country's great soothsayer and bard--the _vates sacer_ of the people. His rhymes are still quoted, and many of them have been realised in a manner which Thomas himself could scarcely have anticipated. Scott makes him the author of the metrical romance "Sir Tristrem," published from the Auchinleck _MS._ in 1804, but the Rhymer is unlikely to have been the original compiler. With his Fairyland adventures and return to that mysterious region, everybody is familiar. A quaint stone in the church wall carries the inscription:
Auld Rymr's Race Lyes in this place,
and the probability is that Thomas sleeps somewhere amidst its dark dust, unless, indeed, he be still spell-bound in some as yet undiscovered cavern underneath the Eildons, waiting with Arthur, and Merlin, the blast of that irresistible horn which is to "peal their proud march from Fairyland."
Mellerstain in Earlston Parish, is the burial-place of Grisell Baillie, the Polwarth heroine and songstress, and author of the plaintive "Werena My Heart Licht I wad Dee." Cowdenknowes, "where Homes had ance commanding," one of the really classical names in Border minstrelsy is the scene of that sweetest of love lyrics, the "Broom o' the Cowdenknowes":--
"How blithe, ilk morn, was I to see My swain come o'er the hill! He skipt the burn and flew to me: I met him with good-will."