Part 14
Following the coast road from St. Andrews to Kirkcaldy, we were seldom out of sight of the sea, and passed through several little fishertowns centuries old and quite looking their years. Largo is the birthplace of Alexander Selkirk, whose experiences on a desert island gave DeFoe the idea of "Robinson Crusoe." The house where he was born still stands and a stone figure of Crusoe is set just in front in a niche in the wall. In all of these coast towns an old-world quiet seemed to reign save in the "long town" of Kirkcaldy, through whose dirty streets, thronged with filthy children, we carefully picked our way. Here we turned inland, passing a succession of towns whose rubbish-covered streets were full of drunken miners--it was Saturday afternoon--who stumbled unconcernedly in front of the car; and not a few drunken women joined in the yells which often greeted us. The road was very bumpy and it is a far from pleasant or interesting route until the neighborhood of Dunfermline is reached.
Dunfermline should be a household word in America, for here is the modest slate-roofed cottage where our great dispenser of free libraries was born and which he purchased some years ago. He is a sort of fairy godfather to Dunfermline and has showered on the town more wealth than the canny burghers know what to do with. We had a letter of introduction to one of the linen manufacturers--linen-making is the great industry of Dunfermline--and he insisted upon showing us about the town. He pointed out some of the benefactions of Mr. Carnegie, who, besides the regulation free library, gave a large sum toward the restoration of the abbey church and to establish a public park. Still more, he has set aside a sum of no less than half a million sterling, the income from which is to be spent under the direction of a board of trustees in promoting "the higher welfare, physical, intellectual and moral, of the inhabitants." So great are his benefactions that Dunfermline has been afforded the opportunity of becoming a model town in every respect, though the experiment is still in its infancy.
The abbey church is one of the most interesting in Scotland and is the shrine of all patriotic Scots, for here is buried King Robert the Bruce, whose name is cut in huge letters in the balustrade surrounding the tower. The nave of the church has been restored and is now used as a place of worship, and there remains enough of the ruined monastery to give the needed touch of the picturesque.
On leaving the town we were somewhat at a loss for the road, and asked a respectable-looking gray-whiskered gentleman if he could direct us to Alloa.
"Oh," said he, "there are twa roads to Alloa--do you wish the upper or the lower road?"
We expressed our indifference; we only wanted the best.
"I'm no saying which is the best," he said cautiously.
"But which would you take yourself?" we insisted.
"Since you must be sae particular, I'd say that I should tak the lower road."
"Let it be the lower road, then,"--but he held up his hand at the first click of the starting lever.
"Since you have decided to tak the lower road, I might say that I live a few miles out on this, and seeing there's an empty seat, perhaps ye'll be willing to give me a ride." It was now clear why he had been so non-communicative. He did not wish to unduly influence us for his own advantage; but after it was all decided on our own motion, he felt free to avail himself of the opportunity to be relieved of a tiresome walk. A few miles out he pointed to a neat residence--his home--and our canny Scotsman left us.
The next day we were in Edinburgh, after passing the night at Stirling. It had rained fitfully during our tour in Fife and a gray mantle still hung over "Auld Reekie,"--though perhaps the name is less appropriate than when Scott first used it. The Fifeshire roads averaged bad--rough and stony and often quite slippery from the rain. We were glad to pass the day in our comfortable rooms at the North British watching the rain-soaked city from our windows. But it was no better on the following day and we were soon on the North Berwick road in the same discouraging drizzle. Nothing could be more depressing under such conditions than the succession of wretched suburban towns through which we passed for some distance out of Edinburgh. The streets, despite the rain, were full of dirty children and bedraggled women, and we were glad to come into the open road along the sea. It is a road that must afford magnificent views in fine weather, but for us it wended along a wind-swept, chocolate-colored ocean that was quickly lost in the driving rain. There are numerous seaside resorts between Portobello and North Berwick, though the latter is the more popular and is supplied with palatial hotels.
It was just beyond here that we caught sight of the object of our pilgrimage along the Firth--the old Douglas castle of Tantallon, which, mirrored in Scott's heroic lines, excited and dazzled our youthful imagination. It stands drearily on a bleak headland and was half hidden in the gray gusts of rain when
"Close before us showed His towers, Tantallon vast."
But its vastness has diminished since the day of which Scott wrote, for much of the castle has disappeared and the sea wall which ran along the edge of the rock has crumbled away. Still, the first impression one gets of the shapeless ruin as he crosses the waterless moat and rings the bell for admission is one of majesty, despite the decay riot everywhere. We waited long, almost despairing of gaining entrance, when the keeper appeared at the gate. He was not expecting visitors on such a stormy day and had been drowsing over old papers in his little booth inside.
There is not much to remind one of the fiery parting between Douglas and Marmion so vividly described by Scott. But a mere shell of the castle remains; the draw-bridge of the ringing lines is gone, and the inner walls from which the retainers might have watched the fierce encounter have long since crumbled away. The courtyard where the doughty warriors engaged in their altercation is covered with grasses and starred with wild flowers. About all that remains as it was in the day of Douglas is the dungeon hewn from the solid rock beneath the walls. We wandered about the roofless, dripping ruins as the old keeper told us the story of the castle and pointed out the spots that have been identified with the song of Scott. Here stood the battlements from which the disconsolate Clare contemplated the desolate ocean--here was the chapel where Wilton was armed by old Archibald--
But the rain has ceased and blue rifts are coming in the sky. As we look oceanward, a mountainlike bulk rises dimly out of the dull waters. "Bass Rock," says our guide, "and a peety it is that the sea is too rough for the boots today." A weird island it is, less than a mile in circumference, rising to the stupendous height of four hundred feet, though it little looks it from Tantallon--our guess was less than a quarter as great. In old days the rock was quite inaccessible; it was early fortified and in later times was made a prison. Here was confined a group of the persecuted Covenanters, who lay in the damp, dark dungeons, "envying the freedom of the birds"--the gulls and wild geese that wheel almost in clouds about the rock. Dreadful times these--but to appreciate the real horror of such a fate one would have to stand on Bass Rock when the storm walks abroad and the wild German Ocean wraps the rock in the white mist of the angry waves. The rock serves little purpose now save as a site for a lighthouse, built a few years ago, and as a resort for curious tourists, who can visit it when the weather allows landing to be made.
Turning southward through the Lammermuir Hills, we find at the little village of East Linton a surprise in the Black Lion, another of those homelike and wonderfully comfortable Scotch inns which offer genuine cheer to the wayfarer. Here a fire dances in the grate and our luncheon is one that the more pretentious hotels do not equal. We resume our flight under leaden skies through the low gray mists that sweep the hilltops. Haddington is famed for its abbey church, very old and vast in bulk. Jane Welsh Carlyle is buried in its choir--for she chose to lie beside her father in her long sleep.
The moorland road to Melrose is finely engineered, following the hills in long sweeping lines with few steep grades or sharp curves. In places it is marked by rows of posts so that it may be followed when covered by the snows. Melrose Abbey, familiar from former visits, claims only a passing glance, as we hasten on to its old-time rival at Jedburgh, which is now somewhat off the beaten path and few know of the real interest of the town or the extent and magnificence of its abbey ruin, whose massive tower and high walls, pierced by three tiers of graceful windows, dominate any distant view of the place.
We brought the car up sharply on the steep hillside in front of the abbey and an old woman in a nearby cottage called to us to "gang right in--ye'll find the keeper in the gardens." And we did--surprised him at work with his flowers--a hale old man of seventy with bushy hair and beard, silver white, and a hearty Scotch accent that wins you at once. He dropped his garden tools and came forward with a quick, elastic step, greeting us as if we had been expected friends. When he espied the lady member of our party, he began to cut roses until he had made up quite a bouquet, which he gallantly presented her. Then he began a panegyric on Jedburgh and the abbey, assuring us that a stay of several days would be necessary to get even an idea of the ruins and the historic spots of the vicinity. His face visibly fell when we told him we must be off in an hour.
"Ah," said he, "sic haste, sic haste to get back to England! Ye should bide longer in old Scotia and learn her history and her people. I grant ye England is a great nation, but the Scotch is the greater of the two."
Then his enthusiasm got the better of him, and forgetting the abbey he began to point out the beauties of the valley of the Jed, over which we had a far-reaching view, and to recite snatches of the poetry of Burns appropriate to the scene. I had thought that I knew a little of the beauty and spirit of Burns, but it all seemed to take on new meaning from the lips of the quaint old Scotsman. It was worth a journey to Jedburgh, and a long one, to hear him recite it. Then he began to point out the things of interest about the abbey, and so many they seemed to him that he had difficulty in choosing which he should enlarge upon during our short stay. He showed us the Norman doorway, the most elaborate in the Kingdom, so remarkable that the Marquis of Lothian, the owner of the abbey, has caused an exact duplicate to be made in the wall near by to preserve the wonderful detail nearly obliterated in the original. He led us among the great pillars, still intact, springing up into the mighty arches of the nave, and pointed out the gracefulness of the numerous windows with slender stone mullions. There are many notable tombs, among them one with a marble effigy of the late Marquis of Lothian, a really superb work of art, by George Frederick Watts. Nor did he forget the odd gravestones in the churchyard with epitaphs in quaint and halting verse, telling of the virtues of the long-forgotten dead, of one of whom it was declared:
"Here Lyes a Christian Bold and True, An antipode to Babel's Creu, A Friend to Truth, to Vice a Terrour; A Lamp of Zeal opposing Errour. Who fought the Battels of the Lamb, Of Victory now Bears the Palm."
And there is another stone with a threat as grim as that of the Bard of Avon, for the epitaph expresses the wish that
"Whoever Removes this Stone Or causes it to be Removed May he die the last of All his Friends."
The stone lies flat, above the grave, and our guide declared,
"I had an unco hard time to get a photo of it for my book, for I did na fancy moving it, to be sure."
"Your book? And have you written a book?" He was off in a moment and with almost boyish enthusiasm brought forth a neat volume, "Poetry and Prose of Walter Laidlaw, F. S. A.," and we found on later perusal that it has not a little of true poetic fire, of which an example or two may not be amiss. It is not strange that one so full of patriotism and admiration for his native Scotland should deprecate the tendency of her people to emigrate to foreign lands, and he expostulates as follows:
"What ails the folk? they've a' gane gyte! They rush across the sea, In hope to gather gear galore, 'Way in some far countree.
"But let them gang where'er they may, There's no' a spot on earth Like ancient Caledonia yet, The land that ga'e them birth.
"They ha'e nae grand auld Abbeys there, Or battered castles hoary, Or heather hills, or gow'ny glens, That teem wi' sang and story.
"Nae doot they've bigger rivers there, An' broad an' shinin' lakes; I wadna leave oor classic streams Or burnies, for their sake.
"The lonely cot, the bracken brae, The bonnie milk-white thorn; The bent frae where the lav'rock springs To hail the dawn o' morn.
"The thrashy syke, the broomy knowe, The gnarled auld aik tree, Gi'e joys that riches canna buy In lands ayont the sea."
But not all of his fellow-countrymen feel so about it, and numbers of them all over the world are "gathering gear" year after year with proverbial thriftiness, though they seldom lose their love for old Caledonia, or forget--to quote Mr. Laidlaw again:
"the thatched cot with ivy clad, The hame o' boyhood's happy days.
"Content were we with but-and-ben A divot shiel, a broom-thatched byre; We got our eldin frae the glen, In winter kept a roosin' fire.
"There my kind mother sang sae cheery While she was spinnin' on the wheel; The winter nights we ne'er did weary, We liked her sangs and cracks sae weel.
"When faither us'd oor shoon to mend, Auld Border tales he wad relate; Or read ben in the other end The grave 'Night Thoughts' or 'Fourfold State.'"
Besides the poems, the book contains several addresses and essays which show the bent of Mr. Laidlaw's mind, among them, "Robert Burns," "Dr. John Leyden," and "The Songs of Scotland."
Besides his literary achievements, we learned that Mr. Laidlaw is a Fellow of the Scotch Antiquarian Society and a recognized authority on the antiquities of Jedburgh and vicinity. We left him with regret, and hope that some day our wanderings may enable us to renew his acquaintance.
We followed the Teviot road to Kelso, a few miles away, where the substantial and comfortable appearance of the Cross Keys induced us to stop for the night--after an investigation by which we assured ourselves that conditions within accorded with outward appearances, a practice to which we had become more and more partial.
Kelso is situated at the junction of the Teviot and the Tweed, and is surrounded by an exceedingly picturesque country. A fine view is afforded from the stone-arched bridge over the Tweed--westward the Eildon Hills, beloved of Scott, are visible in the blue distance, and, nearer at hand, the moorish facade of Floors Castle, against a mass of somber woods. The river is greatly broadened here and the meeting of its waters with the Teviot is celebrated in song and story. Of Kelso Abbey little remains save the shattered central tower and a few straggling walls. It was one of the smaller ecclesiastical establishments of Scotland founded by David I. in 1130 and was burned by the English during the invasion of 1545.
Closely following the beautiful Tweed road, which for the greater part of the distance to Coldstream keeps in full view of the river, we re-cross the border quite early on the following morning.
XIV
MORE YORKSHIRE WANDERINGS
Flodden Field lies adjacent to the road which we pursued southward from the Tweed, but there is little now to indicate the location of the historic battlefield. Song and story have done much to immortalize a conflict whose results were not especially important or far-reaching--the world knows of it chiefly through the vivid lines of "Marmion." It is not worth while to follow our hasty flight to the south; we are again bound for the Yorkshire moors and the distance we must cover ere night will not admit of loitering.
At Chillingham Castle we see the herd of native wild cattle made famous by Landseer's picture. The keeper led us into the park within a hundred yards of a group of animals, which have become so tame that they took no notice of our presence. The cattle are white, with long curving horns and black muzzles, and the purity of the stock is carefully maintained. The herd is believed to be a direct descendant of the wild ox of Europe, the progenitor of our domestic cattle, and its preservation is quite analogous to the few remaining buffaloes in America. The animals retain many peculiarities of their wild state; one of the most remarkable of these is the habit which the young calves have of dropping suddenly to the ground when surprised. The bulls are often dangerous and it is related that King Edward, when Prince of Wales, killed one of the animals, arresting with a well-aimed shot its savage charge toward him. Evidently the present prince did not care to repeat his father's experience, for he had been at Chillingham a few days before and declined the opportunity offered him by the Earl of Tankerville of slaying the king of the herd.
"'E said 'e 'adn't time," explained the keeper with an air of disgust that showed he looked on the prince's excuse as a mere subterfuge.
On a former occasion we had failed to gain admittance to Alnwick Castle, owing to a visit of the king the previous day. We were more successful this time and were conducted through the portions usually shown to visitors, chiefly the remaining parts of the old fortress--the "castle good" that in early days "threatened Scotland's wastes." The home of the warlike Percys for many generations, few castles in England have figured more in ballad and story and few have been the center of more stirring scenes. But the old castle is almost lost in the palace of today, upon which the late Duke of Northumberland is said to have expended the enormous sum of three hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling. The walls at present enclose an area of five acres and it would be hard to imagine more pleasing vistas of forest and meadowland than those which greet one from the battlements. The great park is worthy of the castle, and taken altogether there is perhaps no finer feudal estate in England.
From Alnwick to Newcastle and from Newcastle to Darlington the road is familiar; only an occasional town or village interferes with our flight to the southward. Newcastle, with its bad approaches and crowded, slippery streets, causes the greatest loss of time, but we make it up on the broad, level stretch of the Great North Road to Darlington. At Richmond we leave the lowlands and strike directly across the rough moorland road to Leyburn in Wensleydale.
Here in the remote Yorkshire hills is one of the most romantic bits of England and within a comparatively small space is much of historic interest. Shall we go to Bolton Castle, which we see off yonder, grim and almost forbidding in the falling twilight? Its jagged towers and broken battlements are outlined darkly against the distant hills; indeed, in the dim light it seems almost a part of the hills themselves. We follow the rough narrow road that dwindles almost to a footpath as it approaches the village. Our car splashes through a rapid, unbridged little river, climbs the steep bank, creeps through tangled thickets, until it emerges into the main street of Castle Bolton, if a wide grass-grown road with a few lichen-covered cottages on either side may be dignified with the name. At the end of the street, towering over the slate-roofed hovels about it, is the castle, its walls in fairly good repair and three of its four original towers still standing. The fourth crumbled and collapsed from the battering Cromwell gave it--for even this remote fortress in the moors did not escape the vengeance of the Protector.
Bolton Castle, nevertheless, is better preserved than the majority of those which have been abandoned to ruin; the great entrance hall, some of the stairways, the room of state and many chambers are still intact. One may climb the winding stairs and from the towers look down upon the mass of ruined grandeur--sagging and broken roofs, vacant doorways and windows and towers whose floors have fallen away--the melancholy work of time and weather, for these have chiefly affected the castle since it was dismantled by its captors. One is relieved to turn from such a scene to the narrow green valley through which the river runs and out beyond it to the wide prospect of brown hills with gray villages and solitary cottages.
The history of Bolton Castle is long and varied--too long to tell in detail. It was built in the twelfth century by Richard, the first Lord Scrope, founder of the family, which figured so largely in the fierce struggles of the northern border. From that time to the death of the last representative of the family in 1630, Bolton Castle was almost continually the center of stirring scenes. The Archbishop of York in 1405 was a Scrope, and he preached a fiery sermon denouncing the reigning King Henry as an usurper. The bold churchman lost his head for his temerity, but his execution sowed the seed of the long and terrible wars of the Roses. Nor will the reader of "Marmion" forget Scott's reference to "Lord Scrope of Bolton, stern and stout," who with "all Wensleydale did wend" to join the English at Flodden Field. The closing scene came like the closing scene of many an English castle, when Col. Scrope, the last owner, was compelled to surrender to the forces of Parliament and the castle was dismantled. Since then it has stood stern and lonely in the Yorkshire hills, and nearly three centuries of decay have added to the ruin wrought by the captors.