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— #-- 



HISTOET AND POETEY OF THE 
SCOTTISH BOEDEE 



HISTORY AND POETRY OF THE 
SCOniSH BOEDER 

THEIH MAIS FEATURES AND RELATIONS 



JOHN VEITCH, LL.D. 



yEW A.VD KSLAROED EDITION 



IX TWO VOLUMtJa 
VOL. II. 



WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 

EDINBURGH AND LONDON 

MDCCCXCIIl 



5 rye 



V,2. 



?l? 



CONTENTS OF THE SECOND TOLUIIE. 



I. HEDIAVAL TERIOD — PEATDRE8 OF BOBDKR LIFE ASD 
CHARACTER 

[. THE POETRY OP THE BORDERS — THE OLDER FOEUS 
DESCRIPTIVE OP SOCIAL HAHNERB, .... 

'. HISTORICAL BALLADS, 

'. HISTORICAL DALLAHa : THE YARROW, .... 
[, TBB POETRY OF THE BORDER — INFLUENCE OF THE 
SCEKERY— THE LOVB-aONOa AND GENERAL POETRY, . 
t. BORDER POETRY— EIQHTEENTH CENTURY, 
I. MODERN PERIOD— LEYDBS, HOGG, AKD SCOTT, 
:. EECEKT POETS, 



BORDEK HISTORY AND POETRY. 



CHAPTER I. 



MEDI.ffiVAL PERIOD- 



■FEA.TUBE3 OF BOBDEB UFE AND 
CHAKACTER. 



The families introduced into the valleys of the Tweed and 
its tributaries by David I. and his immediate successors 
have now nearly all disappeared from the district. With 
a few exceptions, even their names have passed away 
from the hiUs and glens over which they once ruled, or 
they are borne by landless representatives. But their 
abandoned towers or dwelling-places still form one of 
the most characteristic and suggestive features of the 
scenery of Tweedside. The ruined Border Feel meets 
you on many a knowe. But, as a rule, not much of it 
remains. In many cases the tower itself, with the quaint 
human life carried on within it — the comfort there was, 
the terror and alarm, the hopes and fears, the courage to 
face danger, — all have equally passed away ; and seldom 
TOU u. A 



2 BORDER HISTOEy AND POETRY. 

Qow have we aught but the solitary ash, whose roots are 
enwoven heneath the green mound, where hall was bright 
and hearthstoae gleamed. The names of the ancient 
possessoiB are mere dim memories ; even their very graves 
are forgotten. They have undei^one almost the last 
stage of human oblivion. 

Curiously enough the Border Keep bears the same 
name, peel or pile, as the Cymri gave to their hill- 
dwellings (pill, moated or foased fort).* The circular fort 
of the older race is found generally near the compara- 
tively modem keep, but higher up on the hill. These 
old mounded dwellings are arranged as carefully in sight 
of each other as are the medieeval towers ; and some of 
the larger of them, such as that on the East or White 
Meldon, near the junction of the Lyne with the Tweed, 
commands the view of upwards of twenty ring-forts and 
the lines of nearly as many valleys. But it certainly is 
curious, as showing the continuity of historical feeling, 
and the power of the past, that the race which actually 
displaced these old Cymri, settled on the hills, almost on 
the very spots where they bad lived, and borrowed from 
them the name of their dwellings. 

It would be difficult to fix the exact date of the 
erection of any existing building or ruin in the shape of 
a Border castle. The strengths of the Borders were so 
frequently destroyed and rebuilt in the reigns of the 
early Stewarts, that we must regard what remains of them 
rather as representing to some extent the more ancient 

' PUl in Biitiih and Comish, u well u in the Ungiuge of ancient Q»nl, 
ugnifies b f oeaed and moundad stronghold or fortreaa. It is unknown in 
Qoelic, but bu been borroned by the Teutonic, 



FEATDRE8 OF BOKDEE LIFE AND CHAEACTEE. 3 

form of structure, tban as the actual buildings of the time 
of Robert Bruce and bis son. This holds true even 
where we have record of a special licence for the build- 
ing. In the eleventh Parliament of James III., 2d April 
1481, there is an order for the repair and furnishing of 
caatlea and strengths near the Border and upon the sea- 
coaat^ We find two of the king's castles named — viz., 
Dunbar and Lochmaben ; and the owners of St Andrews, 
Aberdeen, Temptallon (Tantallon), Hume, Dowglas, Hailes 
Adringtowne, " and specially the Hermitage, that is in 
maist danger," are commanded to keep and defend them. 
Each lord is called upon " to stufTe his awin house, and 
strength them with victualles, men and artailzierie, and 
to reparrell them quhair it misters." ^ Long before this 
period, the land was obviously well covered with castles and 
castellated bouses. They were, in fact, tbe characteristic 
features of the old Scottish landscape. Alexander Hume 
of Folwarth, in his picture of a Scottish summer day 
— one of the first poems in the language that dared to 
be literally true to the Scottish landscape — says very 
characteristically : — 

" The rayODB of the Bunne we see 

DiminoBh in their strenth ; 
The scbad of everie towre and tree, 

Ei tended ia in lenth. 
Great ia the calm for everie quhair, 

Tbe wind ia settin do woe ; 
Tbe reik thiawea right up in the air. 

From everie towre and towne."^ 

And this was written as late as the time of James VI. 
We can trace tbe remains of the mediseval peels in tbe 

■C. S2. 'laneedad. * Thanit for a Sunmer Dag. 



4 BOEDER HISTORY A2TD POETRY. 

shape of mouldering ^all, or ivied gable, or simply green 
mounds, up the Tweed from Berwick to the Bield. They 
can be followed, further, up nearly all the side-valleya — 
up the glens of the waters and the hopes of the bums. 
The marks of hill-road and bridle-track will even now 
conduct the experienced mountaineer from ruin to ruin, 
and he will be astonished at the directness of the routes 
which the old dwellers in those remote towers knew and 
used. Very few of these old towers are now entire. 
Yet we can picture one of them well enough. The 
external appearance was that of a solid square mass of 
masonry — generally the greywacke of the district per- 
forated with holes or holes, which admitted air and light, 
and also served for defence. This was usually perched 
on a knoll or eminence — perhaps the top of a scarped 
rock with a. craggy face ; the Tweed itself, or one of its 
tributary waters or bums, flowed near ; some birches and 
hazels, an ash or an elm, dotted the knoll ; and on the 
green braes a few sheep or cattle quietly pastured. 

The tower was seldom of more than three storeys. 
The lowest, or apartment on the ground-floor, was almost 
universally vaulted ; and this was frequently the case with 
the storey immediately above, forming the hall or dining- 
room. The ground - floor apartment was probably the 
store-bouse for the Martinmas mart and winter pro- 
visions generally. It might in some cases have been a 
refuge for the cattle about the tower in times of danger. 
Occasionally there were two vaulted chambers on the 
ground-floor, divided by a thick wall, as in the case of 
the ancient Castlehill of Manor. The second and third 
storeys accommodated the family, with what comfort 



FEATUHES OF BOKDEE LIFE AND CHARACTEB. 5 

or decency it would be sometimes painful to imagine. 
There was usiuUy a narrow spiral stair leading to the 
top, on which there were projecting battlements — often 
machicoules — and in the centre of the space there, a 
kind of crow-gabled cottage, which served both as kitchen 
and watch-tower. Here also on the top or roof storey of the 
peel was the hartUan, the passage round and behind the 
battlements, which served as a place of outlook, and also 
as the witbdrawing-room for the ladies of the household 
on a quiet summer afternoon or evening. On the edge 
of the upper wall or roof, or attached sometimes to the 
chimney, hung an irou cone sunk in an iron grating, — 
" the fire-pan," filled with fuel, peat and pine-root, ready 
to be lit at the moment of alarm. The tower had gener- 
ally two doors — an inside wooden one, studded with iron 
nails, and an outside iron gate. The moss - troopers 
placed in pledge in the Vale of Jed Water were familiar 
with the significance of entry within " the ime yetts of 
Femiehurst," There was usually a courtyard in front of 
the tower, surrounded by a wall called the harmkyn, the 
access to which was through a strong iron gate or studded 
oaken or ashen door. According to the Act of Parliament, 
12th June 1535, the wall of the harmkyn was to be one 
ell thick, roughly, thirty-seven inches, and six ells in 
height, that is, over eighteen feet. The space enclosed 
was sixty feet. Within this the cattle could he driven 
at night, or in case of a surprise. Every proprietor of a 
hundred pound land of old extent was to build a barmkyn 
for the defence of his tenants and their goods, and, if be 
thought it desirable, he might build a tower for himself 
within the enclosure. Inside and around the courtyard 



6 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

enclosed by the barmkyn were the huta or dwellings of 
the immediat* retainers of the family. 

The accommodation for a family in these solid pieces 
of masonry was no doubt limited enough. It must, how- 
ever, be borne in mind that in the cases of the more con- 
siderable families, there was frequently, besides the tower 
or peel, an ordinary place of residence of a more com- 
modious character. The peel was in these instances 
reserved as a place of refuge in times of attack and 
danger, especially for the females and children of the 
family. Thus Carey, in his Memoirs, referring to his act- 
ings as deputy under Lord Scroope, while English Warden 
of the Marches, tells us that a Graeme, living within five 
miles of Carlisle, whom he had occasion to attack, " had 
a pretty house, and close to it a strong tower for hia own 
defence in time of need." When Carey approached the 
place, and before he could surround the house, " the two 
Scots [the brother Griemes] were gotten in the strong 
tower." ' They were, however, ultimately obliged to open 
the iron gate of the tower and surrender themselves as 
prisoners to the deputy. 

One of the best surviving examples of what must be 
regarded as at least latterly only a peel of refuge is that 
of Bams, on the Tweed, about three miles above the town 
of Peebles. It was probably at one time the residence of 
the family, but after its possessors, the Burnets, had mi- 
grated to a larger house, that stood to the west of it, and 
is now pulled down, this quaint old keep, with a date of 
1498, was preserved as a place of resort in times of 
alarm and danger. 

' Quoted in Note 48, Lay of the latt UintiM. 



PEATORES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 7 

Then several of the more cousiderable families, who 
lived in summer in the ancestral tower, had mansion- 
houses in the neighbouring town, to which they emigrated 
in winter. Thus, in Peebles, there was the town resi- 
dence of the Hays of Neidpath, Earls of Tweeddale, and 
of their successors, the Earls of March — viz., the Dean's 
House in the High Street, now the Chambers Institu- 
tion. The ancient lairds of Dawyck had also, up to 
the Union of the Crowns, and even later, a residence in 
Peebles, known latterly as " The Pillars," and situated to 
the north-east of the site of the town cross. Even the 
Dickiesouns of Wiukston and Smithfield, small and poor 
lairds, and always lawless and aggressive, had, strange to 
say, a town house in the Cowgate of Edinburgh. It was 
a quaint and curiously ornate structure, but, alas ! I am 
afraid it has gone down within these few recent years 
under the spirit of modem improvement, which means 
generally the vulgar Philistine intelligence, and is often 
veiy far from carrying with it unmitigated blessings. 

The internal fittings of these towers were, no doubt, 
rude enough. The upper or convex part of the vaulted 
roof of each storey was usually covered with a wooden 
floor, find, as a precursor of the modem carpet, the boards 
were generally strewn with the bent-grass of the moors, 
or the rushes of the haughs. With these were inter- 
mingled sweet-smelling herbs, such as thyme, bed-straw 
(galium), or fresh-odoured heather. The fragrance of the 
hillside would thus at least for a time be felt in the 
narrow and ill-lighted rooms. Glass was rare and costly, 
and the narrow boles that served tor windows were 
either left wholly open, or they were fitted with a board 



8 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Uiat served as a abutter. Well on in the time of the 
Stewarts, " glessin-work " — apm vitreum — was found only 
in the bouses of the wealthy.^ Gawaiu Douglas, in his 
famous Prologue on Winter, prefixed to the seventh book 
of the jEneid, speaking of bis getting up in the raw 
winter morning, tells us that he 

"Bad belt the fyire,* and the candill alycht, 
Syne bliaait me, and, in my weydia dycht, 
Anetekot wyndo* WMcktt* a lytUl on char,* 
Persaivit the momyng hlat, wan and bar." ' 

This window was evidently without glass, and common at 
the time. 

The significant feature of the picture, when these peels 
were the important points of the district, is that iron cone 
sunk in the iron grating, which holds the bale '' or need- 
fiTjt} It could tell its tale by night or by day — by ruddy 
glare or by dark cloud of smoke. This was the form of 
the bale-fire usually attached to the tower or castle. On 
some of the towers there was a beacon-turret of stone, 
into which " the fire-pan " was placed. There are re- 
mains of those picturesque lantern structures on the 

' Ou this point tliere *re some curioui entries in tha Atcouvit of the 
Lord High Treaturer af Stolland («e« Prefkce, p. ccii.} 

* Beit 'a to add, aupplement ; here, to add fuel, repleniah. 

* A projecting window, * Op«ued. ' Ajw. 

* WorJa by Small, in. 78. 

' Originally flame or blue, then ugnal-Sre ; AS. bad — funeral pile ; 
more likely loeL baal, ibvog fire. 

' Need-fire is aaid to be originally fire produced by the friotiqn of two 
piee«a of wood ; »ft«rw(rda beacon-fire. Its origin is gireu ai A.S. njrd, 
force, and fj/r, fire. Beaoon-fire was fyrwit with the .Ajiglo-Suon* — that 
is, fire.message or measengw ; ao with the Swedes ddbale, signifying the 



FEATUBES OP BOBBER LIFE AND CHABACTER. 9 

lowers of Holehouae or Hollows, Elshiesbields, Hoddaro, 
and Eepeutance.' There seems to be the broken part of 
one on the western — perhaps older — tower of Neidpath. 
What may be regarded as the other form of the beacon 
has been described as that of " a long and strong tree set 
up, with a long iron pole across the head of it, and an iron 
brander fixed on s stalk in the middle of it, for holding 
a tar - barrel" ' This form would doubtless be that 
generally used on a hill or eminence. 

The regulation of the bale-fire forms the subject of an 
Act of Parliament of James II., 13th October 1455. It 
is both curious and minute : " It is scene speedefuU that 
there be coist made at the East passage, betwixt Eoxbui^h 
and Benvick. And that it be walked at certain fuirds, the 
quhilkis gif mister^ be, sal make taikenings* be bailes burn- 
ing and fire. In the first, a bail to be made at Hume, be 
the walkers at that fuird, quhair it may be seene at Hume. 
And als that the samin persones may come to Hume in 
proper person, and their bailes to be made in this maner. 
Ane Baile, is waminge of their cumminge, quhat power 
that ever they bee of : twa bailes togidder at anis, they 
are cumming in deed : four bailee, ilk ane beside uther, 
and al at anis as four candelles, suithfast knawledge that 
they are of great power and meanis far, as to Hadingtoun, 
Dunbar, Dalkeith, or thereby. The samin taikenings to 
be watched and maid at Eggerhope Castell,^ fra they se 

' See ArruitrDiig'a lAddeidale, L 77, and Caitellated Arehiteelart i^ Scot- 
land, iii. 217. 
' St«veasoa, quutod by Scott, notM to the Lay, 47. 
Need. ' Signala, tokeumgB. 

Probably on Eggerhope (Edgerhope) Law, nearly oppoaite Lauder, on 
the east tide of the Leader. 



10 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

the fire of Hume, that they fire richt-swa. And in like 
maner, on Sowtra Edge aal see the fire of Eggerhope 
Castell, and mak takening in like maner. And then may 
all Lowthiane be warned, and in epeeiall the Caetell of 
Edinburgh, and their four fyres to be maid in like maner, 
that they in Fife and fra Striviling east, and the east 
parte of Lowthiane, and to Dunbar all may see them, and 
cum to the defense of the Kealme. And they will not be 
sleuthful them selve, for to he warned of their fyres; they 
aal wit of their cumming ouer Tweede, and then consider- 
ing that their far passage, we sal, God-willing, he als 
soone reddie as they, and al people be west Edinburgh to 
draw to Edinburgh, and fra Edinbui^h east to Hadding- 
toun. And all Merchandea of Bnrrowes to pursue the 
East quarter, quhair it passis, and at Dumpender Law 
and !North Berwick Law Bailes to be burnt in forme 
before written, for warning of the sea-coast"^ 

The keeper or chamberlain of Uowdam was enjoined 
" that he assuredly take heed that the watch-house of 
Trailtrow be keeped be the watch thereof : And in the 
time of warfare, the Beaken, as is devised, that is ever in 
weir and peace, the watch to be keeped on the house head ; 
and in the Weir the beaken in the fire-pan be keeped, 
and never fail! burning, so lang as the Englishmen remain 
in Scotland ; and with ane bell to be on the head of the 
Fire-pan, which shall ring whenever the fray is, or that 
the watchman seeing the thieves disobedient come over 
the Water of Annand, or thereabout, and knows them to 
be enemies ; and whoever bides fra the fray or turns 
again so long as the beaken bums, or the bell rings, 

■ Aeti of the Scott Parliament, I»e. II., 4S. 



FEATURES OF BORDER UFE AND CHARACTER. 11 

shall be holden as partakers to the enemies, and used as 
traitors to the head-burgh ot the shire." ' 

No signal ever stirred the breast more deeply, or told 
its story more clearly and picturesquely, than that glaring 
bale-fire. It did its work with incredible rapidity — a 
rapidity quite telegraphic. Each tower was so situated 
as to catch the warning from its neighbour, at a distance 
frequently of only two or three miles. When of an 
evening at the Fireburn, near Coldstream, the bale 

" Waved like a blood-Bag on the ekj, 
All flaring and iiQeven," 

the answering flame would rise and be seen so speedily 
al] up Teviotdale, up Ettrick and Yarrow, and up Tweed- 
dale to its furthest wilds, that by the early morning ten 
thousand armed men have been known to meet together at 
a single place of rendezvous ; for the hill-roads were direct 
and expeditious, and the Borderer on his hardy pony knew 
them as well beneath the grey cloud of night as in 

" The lee licht of the moon." 

It vas the flame of the beacon-fire along those valleys 
and streams, so often lit, which fused the people into a 
common body, kept them true to their allegiance to the 
Scottish king and the Scottish nationality. Hate and 
resistance to the Southerner, the common interest of self- 
defence, banded them into a unity among themselves, and 
kept them from breaking off from the king who reigned 
over them, but really only ruled in Fife and the Lothians. 
He was to tbem a rallying centre against a common and 

> NicolsoD, Bordtr LaiB$, 198. 



12 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

powerful foe, and little more than this. The " Hammer 
of the Scots," and those who continued hammering, 
while they thought to break, only welded them at 
every stroke into a harder and more inseparable nation- 
ality. It is sometimes said that Scotland carries no 
lesson for history. Nothing is less true. The history 
of Scotland has been a perpetual protest against des- 
potism. Its lesson is, first, the power of individualism, 
and latterly that of the rights of conscience. It was 
well not only for Britain, but for Europe, that there was 
one people at least who, from the first, could not brook 
and had the spirit to withstand government by unquali- 
fied prerogative, and the arrogance of feudal domination. 
It was a grand human instinct which led them to feel 
that the will of one man never could be counted upon as 
a righteous law for a nation. 

Pope John XXII. was led, through the misrepresen- 
tations of the English ambassadors at the Papal Court, 
to excommunicate the king, Eobert Bruce, and lay the 
kingdom under ecclesiastical ban. The interdict was 
met by a heroic Parliament held at Arbroath in 1320. 
Eight earls and twenty-one nobles appended their names 
to a letter from this Parliament to the Pope, which, for 
the principle it asserted, was worth any document in 
European history. It asked the Pope to require the 
English king to respect the independence of Scotland, 
and mind his own affairs. " So long as a hundred of 
us are left alive," say the signatories, " we will never in 
any degree be subjected to the English. It is not for 
glory, riches, or honours that we fight, but for liberty 
alone, which no good man loses but with his life." That 



FEATURES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 13 

is the spirit and the lesson of Scottish history. It is 
a spirit and a lesson that will be required through all 
history. 

If we turn, however, from this aggressive influence 
which welded the people of the Lowlands in one, to 
their internal relations, we shall find not much unity 
among them, and but little dependence on the Scottish 
Crown. There is one element which has not been suffi- 
ciently attended to in considering this point, and that is 
the ground of the tenure of lands in the district. This 
tenure in some parts of the Lowlands, particularly near 
the Border, to say nothing of the Debateable Land which 
lay between the Esk and the Sark, was not always re> 
cognised by the owner as flowing from or dependent on 
the Scottish Crown. During the first War of Independ- 
ence there no doubt was the forcible extrusion of persons 
from lands in the Lowlands, especially the Forest, who 
held them in virtue of English assumptions and English 
charters. This would be popularly regarded as both 
meritorious and patriotic Then, in the troublous times 
of the fourteenth century, during the contest between the 
descendants of Bruce and Baliol, there were probably 
cases of lands being violently taken from the actual 
holder on very slight pretexts. The only title to these 
was subsequent continued occupancy. This was deemed 
enough by popular opinion, or rather by the opinion of 
the clansmen who depended on the owner, their chief, 
and profited by his possession. This element tended 
to render the connection between the laird and the 
Crown weak, and to place both the laird and his re- 
tainers comparatively beyond the reach of law. The 



14 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

actual proprietor was indeed a little king in his own 
domain. This comes out in a very marked way in the 
Sang of tlie Outlaw Murray, This is undoubtedly an old 
ballad, and refers to some historical transaction not later 
than the beginning of the sixteenth century — ^possibly in 
the time of James IV.^ In it we find the king repre- 
sented as actually treating with a subject on something 
like equal terms. And we find the subject asserting his 
right to his lands, not as a feudal holding under the 
Crown, but as something which he had won by his own 
good sword. The ballad is well known ; but it may be 
useful here to notice some of the main features in it, as 
throwing light on life and manners in the Forest, within 
forty miles of the capital, apparently as late as the time 
of James IV. We have, first of all, the picture of the 
residence of the Outlaw, no doubt intended for the Castle 
of Hangingshaw : — 

** There's a feir castelle, bigged wi' lyme and stane ; 

I gin it stands not pleasauntlie ! 
In the fore-front o' that castelle feir, 

Twa unicorns are bra* to see ; 
There's the picture of a knyght, and a ladye bright, 

And the grene hollin abune their brie.^ 
There an Outlaw kepis five hundred men ; 

He keepis a royall cumpanie ! 
His merry men are a' in ae livery clad, 

O* the Lincome grene sae gay to see ; 
He and his ladye in purple clad, 

! gin they lived not royallie ! 
Word is gane to our nobil King, 

In Edinburgh where that he lay, 
That there was an Outlaw in Ettricke Foreste, 

Counted him nought, nor a' his courtrie gay." 



* See below, ii. 209. ' Brow. 



FEATDBES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 15 

A messenger is sent by the king, who says : — 

" ' The King of Scotlonde sent me here, 
And, gcde Outlaw, I ajn Bent to thee ; 
I wad wot of whom ye hald yonr landis, 
Or man, wha may thy master be 1 '" 

The answer ia obaracteriatic and to be noted : — 

" * Thir kndia are mine ! ' the Outlaw said ; 

' I ken uae King in ChriBtentie ; 
Frae Soudron' I this Foreste wan, 

When the King nor his knightia were not to see.' 
'He desyrea you'll cum to Edinburgh, 

And hauld of him thin Foreate fre ; 
And, gif ye refuse to do this, 

He'll conqueu baitb thy landis and thee. 
He hath vowed to cast thy castell down, 

And mok & widowe o' thy gaye ladye ! 
Hell hang thy merrye men, payr by payr, 

In ony frith * where he may them find.' 
' 'Ay> by my troth,' the Outlaw said, 

' Than would I thinke me far behinde. 
Ere the King my feir countrie get, 

This land that's nativest to me 1 
Uony o' hia uobilis sail be cauld, 

Their ladyes sail be right wearie.' " 

The king, on hearing this answer, is wroth, and be 
sutumoDS Perth, Angus, Fife, and the Lothiana ; but the 
outlaw is not far behind him, for he summons his friends 
and kinsmen, Halliday of Corehead, Murray of Cockpool, 
and Murray of Traquair. The king approaches the 
Forest with his retinue : — 

" The King was cumiog through Caddon Ford, 
And full fiTS thousand men was he ; 
They «aw the derke Foreate them before. 
They thought it awBome for to see." 

' Southern. ' Wood, heiv plice. 



16 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

The king, bowevei) takea the advice of Lord Hamilton, 
and, instead of having recourse to violent measures, sends 
Prii^e of Torsonce to treat with the outlaw, and ask 
him to meet the king at the Permanscoie.^ The outlaw 
consents, somewhat reluctantly. What weighs with him 
most is not so much himself or his own interest, but the 
thought that in this unequal contest with the king others 
dear to him are likely to be affected by his refusal ; — 
" ' It Btanda me hard,' the Outlaw Boid ; 
' Judge gif it Btonds na hard wi' me, 
Wba reck not losing of ntyeell, 
But a' my offapring after me. 
M7 meriye men's livea, my widow's teirs — 

There lies the pang that ptnches me ; 
Wliea I am straight in blaidie eard. 
Yon caatell will be right dreirie.'" 

£ven in presence of the king he asserts his original title 
to his lands : — 

" ' Thir landiB of Ettricke Foreste fair, 
I wan them from the eoemie ; 
Like aa 1 wan them, eae will I keep them, 
Contiair a' kingis in Chriatentie." 

He is induced, however, to surrender them to the king, 
who bestows them upon him again as a feudal investi- 
ture, and appoints him Sheriff of Ettrick Forest. This 
makes him directly responsible to the king for the con- 
duct of those dwelling in the Forest. The narrative of 
the ballad is not to be taken as representing literally 
an actual transaction ; but it is quite impossible that it 
could have assumed the shape and tone which charac- 
terise it, had there not been historical basis for this sort 
of tenure of land, and a strong popular feeling that con- 

' Probably Penmanscore. 



FEATDRES OP BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 17 

quest by the sword and broad arrow was a deal better 
than any form of feudal investiture. 

The weakness of central authority led to the constitu- 
tion of clanship among the Borderers. Of the king or 
his power, the Borderers — especially those iQ the central 
and mountainous districts — knew little ; and their re- 
spect for him or it was no greater than their knowledge. 
It was through the combination of the clau that the 
Borderers protected themselves from each other. It was 
also in this way that the chiefs, or principal men of the 
different districts, exercised discipline on those who 
adhered to them ; and it was through those chiefs that 
the Crown was able to control the lawlessness of their 
followers, by making the heads of the name or clan surety 
to satisfy persons injured, or to bring the offender to trial 
As, however, it not unfi-eqnently happened that both 
chief and man were engaged in the same lawless act, 
depredation on a neighbour's property or attack on his 
person, the system was far from being ePfective in repres- 
sion. It was necessary for the king directly to inter- 
fere ; and occasionally a vigorous monarch would make 
himself felt. When outrages became very clamant, the 
king would suddenly appear in person, with, of course, 
a strong body-guard, before the gate of some notorious 
reiver, and hang him then and there, or carry him ofif 
stra^htway to Edinburgh never to see his Border keep 
again. Both James IV. and his son James V. were 
distinguished in this line. The former, on the IStb 
November 1510, rode " furth of Edinbui^h " during the 
night to Jedburgh, and then to Rule Water, apprehended 
certain reivers there — some 200 Tumbulls — had them 

VOL. IL B 



18 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

brought before liim with halters round their necks and 
Daked swords in their hands, then taken to Jedburgh, 
where some of them were " justified " — that is, completed 
the reckoning of their lives by being hanged.' 

When the winter snows had vanished from the hills 
in the spring of 1529-30, the king, James V., had ap- 
parently thought it full time to make an example of 
certain Border reivers. This was the blackest spring 
they had experienced. The king rode into the glens of 
the Yarrow and the Ettrick at the head of a considerable 
force, and seized certain notorious offenders. These 
were William Cokburne of Henderland, and Adam 
Scott of Tuscbielaw. The popular tradition is that 
the one was hanged over his own gate at Henderland 
Tower, and the other on the historic ash-tree which till 
lately bore the marks of the frequent rope, as it stood a 
solitary symbol of feudal power by the grim and grand 
ruins of Tuschielaw. This is perliaps a popular fancy 
of what ought to have been the local and specific retri- 
bution in each case ; but the fact seems to be that there 
was some regard, at least, to the forms of justice, for 
both Cokburne and Scott were taken to Edinbui^h and 
duly tried thera On May 16, 1530, William Cok- 
burne of Henderland was convicted, in presence of the 
king, " of high treason, committed by him in brii^ng 
Alexander Forestare and his son. Englishmen, to the 
plundering of Archibald Somerville ; and for treasonably 
bringing certain Englishmen to the lands of Glenquhome." 
His lands were forfeited, and he himself beheaded.* 

' Pitcaim, Criminal Triali, i. •67. 

» Ibid., 1630, (B»p. 17, Im. v.. i. *m ; v. '271. 



FEATURES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 19 

This is, no doubt, the true account of the matter. A 
stone Id the old and now deserted burjing-place attached 
to what was the chapel, near the Tower of Henderland, 
has the inscription, " Here lyis Perys of Cokbume and 
hys wife MaijoTy." But this is evidently not the laird 
who was executed. There can be no doubt that the man 
who suffered was the William Cokburne referred to in 
Pitcaim's Trials} His son, also William, in 1542, 
lodged a petition gainst the justice of the sentence, and 
of the forfeiture, and he seems to have got the lands of 
his father restored to hiin.^ The wonderfully pathetic 
and touching ballad — The Widow's Lament — probably 
refers to the apprehension of Cokburne. The poor widow 
may have asked and got the body back from Edinburgh, 
and superintended its burial in a very lonely fashion. 
The retainers of a condemned and beheaded reiver were 
likely to be scanty enough. It must be remarked also 
that the ballad itself says nothing of where the knight 
was executed ; it speaks only of his having been slain by 
the king at the instigation of a foe, and of the widow 
burying him by herself in a heart-broken way. Though 
the verses are well known, I make no excuse for quoting 
them in full. They belong to the simplest, yet truest 
and most pathetic poetry : — 

' The CohbuTDei had avideDtly been a, turbulent lot. At the Justice 
Aire of Peeblea, in 14S3, " Edward Cokbume produced a remissioD for 
the sUoghter of Roger Twedf , in compui; with t^e Lurd of Hennirluide. 
Williun Cokbunia of Hennyrlande became surety to utiify the pertiei." 
At the seme time and pUoB " Sir WilUnm Cokbume of SenUiDg, Knight 
[Skirling, in Feebleaahire], produced a remiBsion for art uid port of the 
daughter of Walter Twedie, aon of Johu Twed; of Dntva, in Peeblii."— 
Pitcaim, i. *26. 

* Ktc«lm, Criminal TriaU, i. *145. 



20 BORDER HISTORY AND POBTRy. 

" My love he built me a bonny bower, 
And clad it a' wi' lilye ' flouir, 
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 bronght the King that very night, 
Who brake ray bower, and slew my knight. 

He slew my knight to me sae dear. 
He slew ray knight and poin'd ^ hi« gear ; 
My eervantu a' for life did flee. 
And left me in extremitie. 

I Hew'd hie sheet, making my mane ; 
I watch'd the corpse, myself alane, 
I watch'd his body, night and day ; 
No living creature came that way, 

I bore his body on my back, 
And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sat; 
I di^'J a grave, and laid him in, 
And happ'd him wi' the sod sae green. 
But think na ye my heart was sair, 
When I laid the moul on hia yellow hair; 
O think na ye my heart was wae, 
When I turned aboot away to gae I 
Nae living man 111 love again,. 
Since that my comely knight is slain; 
Wi' ae lock o' hia yellow hair, 
I'll chain my heart for evermaic," * 

A not less memorable case of "justification" was that 
of Adam Scott of Tuschielaw, " the King of the Borders," 



' Some inappropriate criticism hu been made on this line by Mr Child. 
LUyt here has plunly what it generally Jwia in the Border ballads, ths 
force of an adjective, and means simply pale'yellow. Lily Uvtn of the 
ballads meuis a flowering space or lawn of the early spring yellow. 

' LiteraDy, distrained ; Cokbume's estate was escheat to the Crown. 

' See below, iL 209. 



F£ATOEES OP BOEDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 21 

otherwise " King of Theivia " — a great Bame then among 
the clan of the Scotts. This haa come as clearly and 
distinctly down to us by oral tradition as any event in 
Border history. Yet tradition seems to have made the 
same mistake as in the case of Cokburoe of Hendeiland. 
For Scott was not hanged on the traditional and proper 
ash-tree, but, like Cokbume, was tried and beheaded in 
Edinburgh. He was convicted there on the 18th of 
May 1530, "of art and part of the theftuously taking 
Blackmail, from the time of his entry \vithin the Castle 
of Edinburgh, in ward from John Browne in Hoprow ; 
and for art and part of theftuously taking of Blackmail 
from Andrew Thorbrand and William his brother ; also 
from the poor tenants of Hopcailzow, and of art and 
part of theftuously taking BlackmaU from the tenants of 
EschescheilL" ' " Beheaded " is the curt and ominous 
sequel to the conviction. As all these places are in 
Peeblesshire, we get a glimpse of the ordinary sphere of 
bis depredations as on the banks of the Tweed. These 
he, no doubt, found richer in grain than the unploughed 
haughs and hills of the Ettrick. "VVe have no ballad 
commemorating the death of Tuschielaw. If any ever 
existed it has perished. It is somewhat odd that the 
fall of so prominent a man was not thus commemorated. 
Besides the ballad referring to Cokbume of Henderland, 
there was chanted for a long time in the Forest a set of 
pathetic verses commemoratiog the deatii of Murray of 
Ettrick Forest on the brae of Newark, by the emissaries, 
if not the very hand, of Buccleucb. These stanzas have 
unfortunately perished. The fate of Armstrong of Gil- 
' Piteurn, Criminal Triah, i. *145— 1630. 



22 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Dockie, to be immediately referred to, was embalmed in 
a noble poem. Perhaps the blackmail levy with which 
Scott was charged, and the ominous notches of the rope 
on the ash-tree by his tower — now, alas ! only a ruined 
stnmp ' — may lead us to suspect that popular feeling 
rather sympathised in this case with the action of the 
king than with the deeds of the reiver. 

The king, in his Border raid, had further either 
brought back or summoned to Edinburgh certain lairde 
who had secretly aided the reivers, or who had not 
exercised their authority to repress their depredations. 
Some of these were put in ward in the castles of Edin- 
burgh, Blackness, and Dumbarton. Among them were 
the Earl of Bothwell, who was finally banished the 
kingdom, the Lords Maxwell, Home, Lairds Buccleuch 
(called Balcleuch), Farnyhirst, Pollock [? Polwarth], 
Johnestoun, and Mark Ker. These lords and lairds 
were doubtless not the least anxious to repress the 
reivers ; they found them most useful auxiliaries as 
means of revenge, and trouble to hostile neighbours, 
when it suited them to employ them. The king, be- 
sides, had a strong apprehension that " they secreitlie 
should rayse weir betwixt the realmes." Their allegiance 
was, in fact, so unsteady from their intermediate position 
between the English and Scottish king, and from the 
severity with which the latter had treated several of the 
principal Borderers, that the intriguing Bothwell might 
have cast the balance in favour of England. Besides 
warding those mentioned, he made certain barons and 

' The tree was burnt through the coreleuneaa of aome boje a few yean 



FEATURES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 23 

lairds of Eoxburgh, Berwick, Peebles, and Selkirk find 
surety to enter before the justice when required. 

The following barons and lairds of Peeblesshire found 
caution in various sums to enter before the justice, on a 
warning of fifteen days, to underlie the law for all crimes 
to be imputed against them — viz. : John, Lord Hay of 
Yester ; William Murray of Eommanose (Romanno) ; 
William Stewart of Trakware; Thomas Myddilmaist of 
Grestoune ; ^ John Tuedy of Drummelzeare ; William 
Guvane of Cardrono; William Vache of Dawik; John 
Sandelands of that Ilk ; Mr John Hay of Smeithfield ; * 
Patrick Portuus of Halkschawis ; Alexander Tayt of 
Pyme. Among the barons and lairds of Selkirkshire 
who found caution for the same cause are John Vache 
[probably of Synton] and William Hunter of Polmude,^ 
though Pohnude is in Peeblesshire. 

We find a later entry, August 17 of the same year, 
to the following effect : " John Lord Hay of Yester, be- 
came in the Kingis Will, for negligence committed by 
Mr John Hay his brother, in outputting Adam Nyksone, 
and one called Elwald, common Thieves, given to him 
in custody by the King, in name of the said Lord Hay 
of Yester, as Sheriff Principal of Peebles. The Justice 
commanded him to ward within the town of Linlithgow, 
until his Majesty's will should be declared." * 

But the summer of the same year, 1530, was to 
witness a still more signal example of stern punishment 
by the same monarch. This was the execution, appa- 

^ OriginaUy Grevestoun, on the Tweed near Traquair — now part of that 
estate. Probably Sheriffs Town. 

' That is, Smooth-fidd ; now corrupted into Smithfield. 

3 Pitcaim, under May 19, 1630. * Pitcaim, i. *149. 



24 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

rently even without form of trial, of the laird of 
Gilnockie — Johnie Armstrong — and most of his fol- 
lowers, at Caerlanrig, in Teviotdale. " It is somewhat 
singular," says Pitcairn, " that the circumstances, as 
they are detailed in the popular ballad or song, are 
substantially correct ; and there cannot now be a doubt 
that Armstrong was most basely betrayed and put to 
death, even without the mockery of a form of trial." * 
The expedition during which this act took place was 
arranged, apparently, to unite pleasure and business. 
Towards the end of June, on the summons of the king, 
the Earls of Huntlie, Argyll, and AthoU, " with many 
othir Lordis and Gentlemen, to the number of twelf 
thousand, assemblet at Edinburgh, and thair fra went 
with the kingis grace to Meggatland, in the quhilkis 
bounds war slaine, at that tyme, aughteine scoir of 
deir." ^ It was particularly mentioned that the High- 
land earls were to bring their deer-hounds with them, 
and this was the result of the sport. The hunting of 
the deer, however, must have taken place mainly during 
the return journey, when the party was at Cramalt, from 
the 15 th to the 18th. The king was at Peebles on the 
2d July. Thence he crossed the hills to the Yarrow on 
the 4th, pitching his tents near the Douglas Bum. On 
the 5th the king and his followers rode across the hills 
to Caerlanrig in Upper Teviotdale, where he met, accord- 
ing to a form of summons which was held morally to 
imply protection to the parties, John Armstrong of Gil- 
nockie and his twenty-four well-appointed horsemen.* 

^ Criminal Trials^ i. *153. - Lindesay of Pitscottie. 

3 The number is variously stated at thirty-six and sixty. 



FEATURES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 25 

According to one version of the story, some words arose 
between the king and Armstrong, and the former, yield- 
ing to his somewhat hot and impulsive temper, ordered 
Gilnockie and nearly all his band to be hanged there 
and then ; or, according to another, and quite as likely 
an account, the king was instigated to this unjustifiable 
deed by Eobert, Lord Maxwell, who was glad to have a 
rival judicially executed, when he could not have him 
cut ofif in another way. The truth seems to have been, 
that, while Armstrong and his followers were on their 
way to the king, on invitation, but without an express 
letter of protection — trusting, in fact, to his honour — 
they were surprised by a band of men provided for the 
purpose, and brought before the king, as if they had been 
apprehended against their will. It is certainly odd that, 
while Henderland and Tuschielaw were taken to Edin- 
burgh and underwent a judicial process, Gilnockie was 
really hanged, without form of trial, where he met the 
king. Both Cokburne and Scott were reivers whose 
depredations were made upon their neighbours, while it 
was the pardonable boast of Armstrong that bis maraud- 
ing was entirely on the other side of the Border — in 
fact, a useful subject to the Scottish king, to be com- 
mended rather than hanged. 

The rich apparel of Armstrong and his retainers was not 
to be wondered at. He levied tribute in England from 
the Scottish Border to Newcastle. The king, on seeing 
him and his retinue, suddenly fell into one of his wrath- 
ful moods. " Throwardly he turned about his face, and 
bid tak* that tirrant out of his sight, saying, ' What wants 
yon knave that a king sould have ? ' Gilnockie, with 



26 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

the instinct of a true Borderer, addressed the king very 
persuasively, but in vain. Then the old Borderer proudly 
turned upon the Stuart and said : * I am bot ane fooll to 
seik grace at ane graceless face. But had I knawin, sir, 
that ye would have taken my lyfif this day, I sould have 
leved upoun the Borderis in disphyte of King Harie and 
yow baith, for I know King Harie wald doun weigh my 
best hors with gold to knaw that I war condemned to 
die this day.' " ^ 

My Lord Maxwell got for his reward in this matter a 
gift of all the personal and heritable property of Arm- 
strong (July 8, 1530). The ballad which commemorates 
the fate of Armstrong and his followers is one of the 
finest of the historical class, and has some wonderfully 
picturesque and lifelike touches. Popular feeling was 
entirely on the side of the victim on this occasion ; and 
the long-cherished belief in the withered trees, which bore 
the bodies of the doomed men, was inspired by a strong 
sense of the harshness and injustice of the execution : — 

" The trees on which the Armstrongs deed 
WP summer leaves were gay, 
But lang afore the harvest tide, 
They withered a* away." 

After ATmstrong had petitioned hard for his life, and the 
king had ordered him to death as a traitor, we have the 
spirited reply : — 

" * Ye lied, ye lied, now, King,* he says, 
* Altho* a King and Prince ye be ! 
For I*ve luved naething in my life, 
I weel dare say it, save honesty — 



1 Pitscottie's Chronicle, ii. 842, 843. 



FEATURES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 27 

Save a fat horse and a fair woman, 

Twa bonny dogs to kill a deir ; 
But England suld have found me meal and mault, 

Gif I had lived this hundred yeir ! 

She suld have found me meal and mault, 

And beef and mutton in a* plentie ; 
But never a Scots wyfe could have said, 

That e'er I skaithed ^ her a puir flee. 

To seik het water beneith cauld ice, 

Surely it is a greit folie — 
I have asked grace at a graceless face, 

But there is nane for my men and me ! 

But had I kenn*d ere I cam frae hame. 

How thou unkind wadst been to me ! 
I wad have keipit the Border side, 

In spite of all thy force and thee ! 

Wist England's King that I was taen, 

gin a blythe man he wad be ! 
For anes I slew his sister's son, 

And on his breist bane brak a tree.' 



There hang nine targats ^ at Johnie's hat, 
And ilk ane worth three hundred poun' — 

* What wants that knave that a king should have. 

But the sword of honour and the crown ? 

where got thou these targats, Johnie, 
That blink sae brawlie abune thy brie ? * ^ 

* I gat them in the field fechting. 

Where, cruel King, thou durst not be ! 



Farewell ! my bonny Qilnock Hall, 
Where on the Esk side thou standest stout ! 

Gif I had lived but seven yeirs mair, 
I wad hae gilt thee round about' 



^ Harmed. - Tassels. ^ Brow. 



28 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

John murdered was at Carlinrigg, 

And all his gallant companie ; 
But Scotland's heart was ne'er sae wae, 

To see sae mony brave men die, — 

Because they saved their country deir 
Frae Englishmen ! Nane were sa bauld, 

Whyle Johnie lived on the Border side, 
Nane of them durst come neir his hauld." 

I may mention that I have heard the greater part of 
this ballad recited long before I read it in Scott's ifin- 
strelsj/, and by one who had never seen the Minstrelsy or 
read the ballad in print. There were a few variations — 
particularly the following instead of the lines as now 
printed : — 



" So to seek grace frae a graceless face, 
When there's nane for my men or me." 



And— 



" Where gat ye that girdle, Johnie, 

That blinks sae brawlie abune yer brie] 
I gat it in the field o' battle, 
Where, cowardly King, thou durst na be." 

This is a small piece of evidence, if any were needed, 
that the ballad was known before Scott's time, and quite 
independently of the Minstrelsy. 

Gilnock Hall or Gilnockie stood on the east bank of 
the Esk adjoining the northern boundary of the lands 
of the Priory of Canonbie. Nothing of it now remains. 
It was probably destroyed either immediately after the 
execution of its laird, or in 1547, when several Border 
strongholds were demolished by order of the Governor of 
Scotland. Its foundations were cleared away only to- 



FEATURES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 29 

wards the end of last century.^ The Holehouse, Hollos, 
or Hollows Tower, on the other side of the river, higher 
up, still remains fairly preserved. It retains on its south 
gable the picturesque turret, whence the beacon showed 
against the sky its warning and thrilling flame for all 
the water. The Hollows, as it is called in modem times, 
is usually stated to have been the residence of the famous 
raider, Johnie Armstrong. If so, Johnie must have 
had two towers, one on each side of the river. We have 
a very distinct account of the burning of Holehouse in 
February 1527-28 by Lord Dacre, the English Warden. 
But for this reference, I should have supposed that the 
Holehouse was built after 1535, the plan of it being in 
accordance with the specifications of the Act of Parlia- 
ment of that date. Whether it was Holehouse or Gil- 
nockie that was burnt at this time, the facts show 
that the Armstrongs were equal to the occasion. They 
had got quiet notice of the intention of my Lord Dacre. 
Sande Armstrong had happened to be housed a night or 
two before in Cumberland with Archie Graham; and 
Archie, having much more sympathy with Border reivers, 
and especially with Armstrongs, their neighbours in the 
Debateable Land, than with English governors and their 
law, told Sande of the design against his clan; and 
Sande was swift and sure-footed. The result was that 
Johnie Armstrong and his friends, having got a quiet 
notice of Lord Dacre's purpose, left their own tower in 
the Debateable Land early in the morning, made a little 
bit of a circuit over the hills which they knew so well, 

^ Ihtmfrksshire Trans, Debateable Land^ as quoted. 



30 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

and as a quid pro qito, just wheu the Lord Warden was 
burning their poor tower by the Esk, " afore none " they 
were burning Netherby, his much more important place 
in Cumberland, and also harrying his cattle. 

After the father's unjustifiable execution, Christie, the 
son, went or was carried to England, whence, of course, 
in due time he made raids on the Scottish Border. It is 
satisfactory, however, to find that he finally became re- 
conciled to the Maxwells and Scotland, and that some 
recompense was made to him, owing, probably, to the 
widespread and increasing feeling of the injustice and 
treachery done to his father. Christie, on granting a 
bond of man-rent to John, Lord Maxwell, in 1557, got 
back the mails and dues of the lands of Gilnockie, and 
others that had been escheat to the Crown, and gifted to 
Kobert, Lord MaxwelL Further, in 1562, Christie was 
intrusted with the office of collector of the revenues of 
the Maxwell lands in Eskdala He accompanied the 
Lord Maxwell on his famous raid to Stirling Castle in 
1585. Whether Christie took a pai*t in the secret night 
retreat with the captive horses or not, I cannot say. A 
Borderer, however, was always ready to retreat, provided 
he had got a hold of the booty. 

The result of these stern measures was that the Borders 
were quieted for the remainder of the king's lifetime. He 
died 14th December 1542. Sir David Lyndsay, in The 
Complaint, thus refers to his dealings with the law- 
breakers of the time : — 

" Justice holds her sword on high, 
With her balance of equity ; 
And in this realm hath made such order 
Both through the Highland and the Border, 



FEATURES OP BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 31 

That Oppression and all his fellows 
Are hangM high upon the gallows. 
• ••••• 

John upon-land ^ heen glad, I trow, 
Because the rush hush keeps the cow." 

After the king's death, and during the queen-dowager's 
regency, matters appear speedily to have returned to 
their former condition. And they were never worse than 
in the two years from 1559 to 1561, when, the queen- 
dowager being deprived of office, there was no settled 
government in the country. It is to this period that we 
may refer the ballad of Sir Kichard Maitland of Lething- 
ton Aganis the Tfieivis of LiddisdailL ^ They had be- 
come very bold, and extended their depredations beyond 
their usual bounds into parts inconveniently near Mait- 
land's own lands. The account of them is curious and 
picturesque, and interesting as drawn by a contemporary 
hand, and the poem afifords a good specimen of the Low- 
land Scottish language in the time of Mary : — 

" Of Liddisdaill the commoun theifis 
Sae pertlie steillis now and reiffis,' 
That nane may keip 

Hors, nolt, nor scheip : nor yit dar sleip 
For thair mischiefis. 

They plainlie through the cuntrie rydis ; 
I trow the meikill devill thame gydis ! 
Quhair they onsett. 
Ay in thair gait * thair is na yett,^ 
Nor dure° thame bydis.'^ 



1 The farmer. ^ See Sibbald's SeoUith Poetry, iii. 104. 

' This is the old Northumbrian plural of the verb. ^ Road. 

B Gate, way. Oait is Scandinavian — Swedish, gata, a road : ytU is Saxon. 
• Door. ^ Hinders. 



32 BOBDER HISTOBY AND POETRY. 

Thay thie&B have neirhand' herreit- heill 
Ettrick Forest, and Lauderdaill ; 
Now ar they gane 
In Lothiane; and spairis nane 
That they will waill.' 

Bot * comnioun taking of blak maill, 
Thay that had flesche and breid and aill, 
Now ar ta. wraikit, 

ilaid puir and naikit ; fane to be akikit ' 
Withwatter-caill."' 

Each of the depredators had a nickoame or " to-name," 
and Maitlaud mentions the principal ones, with theit 
characteristics : — 

" Thai theifg that Bteillis, and tunis' bame, 
Ilk ane of thame hes ane lo-name ; 
Will of the LawiB, 

Hab of the Shawia ; to mak hair wawia ' 
They think na Bchanie. 

Baytb hen and cok, 
With reil and rok,° the Laird's Jok 
All with him takis. 

Johne of the Park "• 
Hyps '• kUt " and ark ; for all sic wark 
He ia richt meit 

He is veil kend, Johne of the Syde ; 
A gretar theif did never ryide : 



' AlmoeL ' Plundered. ^ Choose, lelect. 

-< Beeidea, or perhaps without ' Other reading itaitit, to be utia&ed. 

• Water-broth. ' Pact and carry. " Walla, 

' SpinniDg-wheel and diataS'. Scott glouea it "both tjie spinning in- 
atrument and the yam." 

"' An Elliott, who afterwarda, in a hand-to-hand encounter, wounded 
Bothwell, and was himself killed by tb« earl. 

" Searches. " Chert or trunk, kind of wooden box. 



FEATURES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 33 

He never tyris 

For to brek byris ; our muir and myris, 
Our gude can gyde." 

Clement's Hob is the last of the reiving list, and the 
writer very shrewdly puts his finger on the source of the 
evil when he says — 

"To 8ic grit stouth^ quha eir wald trow* it 
But gif sum greit man it allowit ? 
Rycht sair I rew 
Thoch it be trew, thair is sa few 
That dar avow it." 

Soon after Queen Mary's government was settled, strong 
measures were taken for the repression of those dis- 
orders. But the poem, apart from other evidence, shows 
of how little efficacy was the plan by which the more 
turbulent spirits were supposed to be kept in check, 
through their head or the chief of their name, who, as the 
legal phrase of the term went, became surety " to satisfy 
parties," after any deed of blood, or outbreak of slaughter, 
or unwarranted raid on a neighbour's goods. If the 
culprit had no chief to come forward for him, he was 
regarded as a " broken " man, and usually hanged — not 
for the crime, but for deficiency in bail. As to the 
satisfying the parties, this must have been exceedingly 
inefficacious, as we find the satisfaction repeated innumer- 
able times without the slightest apparent result in staying 
depredation or the feud of blood. Still this tie of clan- 
ship, and control by means of it — often cemented by a 
bond of man-rent — was the only sort of organisation that 
availed on the Borders for a long period. It was the one 

^ Theft. 2 Believe— Icel. trua, 

VOL. IT. C 



34 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

check on brute force and violence. And it helps us to 
understand the social life and history of those Borderers. 
Occupying an isolated portion of the country between 
England and Scotland, and having to depend chiefly on 
themselves for protection from the Southern foe, and 
from each other, the combination of clans and families 
was perfectly natui-al. The Scottish king showed his 
weakness to deal with them, especially with their agres- 
sions on England, so plainly, as even in time of peace 
to give the English king a legal power of retaliation, 
which was frequently exercised with the moat savage 
cruelty. 

Thus, divided into clans and combinations of families 
for protection, we need not wonder at the rise and sub- 
sistence through centuries of the family feuds, which 
appear to us so bloody and disgraceful. The feeling of 
revenge for injury to the person and for violent death is 
a trait of character which the Lowlander inherited from 
his Anglo-Saxon ancestry. It is rooted, no doubt, in a 
certain moral conception that the person or personality 
of a man is the most sacred thing about him, and the 
corresponding notion that any despite done to that must 
be wiped out in blood. It was this kind of notion which 
led the old Anglo-Saxon to feel that death even was prefer- 
able to captivity when be was taken in battle — that now, 
being no longer his own, but another's, his personality 
was degraded. So strong was this feeling, that if a man 
of good Saxon family should happen to be taken in 
battle, and prefer captivity to immediate death, he was 
regarded as a disgrace to his line, and often summarily 
despatched by his own blood relations. This sense of 



FEATURES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 35 

the absolute need of retaliation for hurt or death to the 
person, ruled the actions and the social history of the 
Border Scot from the earliest times to a period past the 
Union of the Crowns. It was at the root of the national 
struggle for life, when life meant mainly physical being 
and wellbeing. So strong was it in the middle period 
of our history, that it was transmitted from sire to son 
for successive generations through hundreds of years. 
Collateral branches of a family were not exempt from an 
obligation to be instruments of retaliation, or a liability 
to be the victims of it at the hands of the relatives of 
the stricken man. Our whole social life on the Borders 
for hundreds of years is full of instances of this kind of 
feeling. The Church even for a time recognised its 
power, if not its propriety. It was customary in these 
counties for long "to leave the right hand of male 
children unchristened, that it might deal the more deadly, 
in fact the more unhallowed blow to the enemy. By 
this rite they were devoted to l)ear the family feud or 
enmity." ^ 

*■*' Alas ! that Scottish maid should sing 
The combat where her lover fell ! 
That Scottish bard should wake the string 
The triumph of our foes to tell ! 
Yet Teviot's sons with high disdain, 
Have kindled at the thrilling strain 
That mourned their martial father's bier ; 
And, at the sacred fount, the priest 
Through ages left the master hand unblest, 
To urge, with keener aim, the blood-encrusted spear." * 

Now this seems to us a shocking sentiment; and no 

^ Mimtrdty, vii. 144. ' Ode on VUUing Flodden, John Ley den. 



1 



36 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY'. 

doubt it is not morally justifiable, on any high ethical 
code, or under a perfect system of social order or law. 
But in these trying times there was no protection in 
central authority for the weak or injured. There was 
neither defence nor retaliation, except such as the sur- 
vivors of the slaughtered man could give. The sense of 
personal dignity and family preservation was all that 
could be looked to in the matter. And I can quite 
understand how such a feeling should keep retaliation 
warm in men's breasts. At any rate it has been finely 
used for emotional efifect in the retrospective poetry of 
our times. There is that grand scene in the early 
part of Hie Lay of the Last Minstrel^ which has somehow 
a mysterious yet powerful hold on our sympathies : — 

" In sorrow o'er Lord Walter's bier 
The warlike foresters had bent ; 
And many a flower and many a tear, 
Old Teviot's maids and matrons lent : 
But o'er her warrior's bloody bier 
The Ladye dropped nor flower nor tear ! 
Vengeance deep-brooding o'er the slain, 
Had locked the source of softer woe ; 
And burning pride and high disdain, 
Forbade the rising tear to flow. 
Until, amid his sorrowing clan. 
Her son lisped from the nurse's knee, 
* And if I live to be a man, 
My father's death revenged shall be.' 
Then fast the mother's tears did seek 
To dew the infant's kindling cheek." 

These lines have been regarded, and justly, as among the 
finest in the poetry of Scott. They evidence, without 
doubt, a deep, true, and subtle insight into the workings 
of human emotion. But the pith of them is not his own. 



FEATURES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 37 

They are simply a transcript — no doubt an unconscious 
one — but still almost a literal transcript from an old 
ballad by a nameless author. Here is the original from 
Johnny Armstrong's Last Good Night ^ : — 

" then bespoke his little son, 
As he sat on the nurse's knee, 
If ever I live to be a man. 
My father's death revenged shall be." 

These lines were in Scott's ear when he wrote the stanzas 
given above. He had simply forgotten that they were a 
memory. 

Now and again we note a curious touch of relenting 
on the part of the Border lairds for the red-handed deeds 
in which they had a share. In 1473 a chaplainry was 
founded at the altar of St John the Baptist in the Parish 
Kirk of St Andrew in Peebles, with the end mainly of 
saying prayers and celebrating masses for the health of 
the souls of "James Tuedy of Drummelzier, William 
Cockburne of Henriland [Henderland], Paul Vaich 
[Veitch] of Dawic, Patrick Lewis of Menner, George 
Elphinstone of Henristone [now called Hayston], and 
Thomas Dekisone of Ormistone, and of their ancestors 
and successors, and also of the souls of all who have paid 
the debt of all flesh in wars or combats (' in guerris sive 
duellis ') between the foresaid parties." These were the 
lairds of the district whose estates were divided simply 
by a burn, whose families, moreover, usually intermarried, 
and who yet, when the absence of English invasion gave 
them no bond of unity, were occupied in constant red- 

' Evan's BaUadt, iii. 106. 



38 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

banded feuds. Memories of the slaughter of fathers, and 
even remote relations, were handed down to sons, as 
a heritage and obligation of revenge. Yet it indicated 
something of softening that they recognised the need of 
praying for a mercy to the dead, which they were in no 
way disposed to extend to the living. 

After the accession of James VI. the central govern- 
ment became stronger, and the civilising effects of the 
Eeformation spread over the country. The state, how- 
ever, of Highlands and Borders did not greatly improve. 
" The sterfull reife, thieft or receipt of tbieft, depreda- 
tiones, open and avowed, fire-raising, upon deadly feedes" 
continued, and were carried on apparently by a lower 
class than formerly. The servants and tenants of the 
lairds, and " broken men," were the chief direct instru- 
ments ; the " landis-lords," if they were cognisant of the 
irregularities, kept in the background. Cattle-lifting was 
evidently now not so respectable a pursuit as when the 
daughter of " the Flower of Yarrovc " — who had become 
the wife of Scott of Harden — married Gilbert Elliott of 
Stobbs, known as " Gibbie with the gowden garters." 
Gibbie found it inconvenient, somehow, to take home his 
bride from Harden, and left her for a month or so after 
marriage with her parents. But the old people were 
resolved not to keep the lady for nothing. Gibbie was 
accordingly bound over to pay for his wife's keep with 
her parents, and the price, according to agreement, was 
the full plunder of " the first harvest moon." This was 
thoroughly in keeping with the Harden motto, " Phcebe 
reparabit comua," or, freely translated, " We'll hae moon- 
light to-night again." 



FEATURES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 39 

In the eleventh Parliament of James VI., July 1587, 
certain very stringent Acts were passed with a view to 
the repression of these crying disorders. There was to 
be a special meeting of Privy Council on the first lawful 
day of every month, with a view to hear and decide on 
complaints ; ^ all " Landlords and Baillies of the landes 
on the Bordours and in the Hie-landes quhair broken 
men has dwelt, or presentlie dwells, sal be charged to 
find caution and souertie " that they apprehend the male- 
factors and present them for trial ; ^ further, as many of 
the tenants and dwellers on the lands of the lairds acknow- 
ledge the order and depend upon " Captaines, chieffes, and 
chieftaines of clannes, als-weill on the Hie-land, as on 
the Bordours," " against the wil ofttimes of the Lord of 
the ground," these chiefs are called upon to lodge persons 
as pledges at the nomination of the Secret Council, with 
a view to restrain disorder.* 

Again, all men born in " Liddis-daill, Esk-daill, Annan- 
daill, and the landes, sum-time called Debaitable,* or in 
the lands of the Hie-lands," who have long continued 
disobedient, are to be removed out of their present dwell- 
ings in the " Inland," unless their landlords become surety 
for them.^ 

The following is " the roll of the names of the Landis- 
lords and Baillies of Landes dwelling on the Bordoures 
quhair broken men has dwelt and presentlie dwellis, to 
the quhilk roll, the 94 Acte of this Parliament is re- 
lative " : — '' Middle March, — The Erie Both-well ; the 

1 Cap. 92. « Cap. 93. ^ Cap. 94. 

^ ThU was a tract of land lying between the Esk and the Sark. It was 
divided between the two kingdoms in 1552. See vol. ii. 149 et teq, 
» Cap. 96. 



40 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Laird of Farnie-hirst ; the Erie of Angus ; the Laird of 
Buck-cleuch ; the Schireffe of Teviot-daill ; the Laird of 
Bed-roule ; the Laird of Wauchop ; the Lord Hereis ; 
the Laird of How-paislay; George Turne-bull of Hal- 
roule ; the Laird of Littill-dene ; the Laird of Drum- 
langrig; the Laird of Chisholine. 

" West March. — The Lord Maxwell ; the Laird of Drum- 
langrig ; the Laird of Johnestoun ; the Laird of Aple- 
girth ; the Laird of Holinends ; the Laird of Gratnay ; 
the Lord Hereis ; the Laird of Dum-widdie ; the Laird of 
Lochin-war." ^ 

We have also "the roll of the clannes that hes captaines 
and chieftaines quhom on they depende, oftimes against 
the willes of their Landis-lordes, alsweill on the Bordours, 
as Hielandes, and of sum special persones of Braunches 
of the saidis clannes." Those of the Borders are : — 

" Middle Marche, — EUottes ; Arme-stranges ; Nick- 
sonnes ; Crosers. 

" West Marche. — Scottes of Eusdaill ; Beatisonnes ; 
Littles ; Thomsonnes ; Glendunninges ; Irvinges ; Belles ; 
Carrutheres; Grahames; Johnstones; Jardanes; Mofifettes; 
Latimers." ^ 

The quenching of the deadly feuds of the Lowlands 
was a still harder task than the repression of reif and 
depredations on neighbours' lands. The habit of per- 
sonal retaliation for personal injury had for centuries 
been, as we have seen, an almost constituent part of the 
social feeling of the Lowlander. The moral right of self- 
defence, in districts where the law was powerless to pro- 

^ Acts of the Scots Parliament ^'EleYenih Parliament, James VI. 
2 Ibid. 



FEATURES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 41 

tect the injured or punish the aggressor, had risen to a 
very positive ethical code. The nearest kinsman of the 
injured or slain was bound to take up the quarrel ; any 
of his kinsmen might take upon himself the duty of 
revenge ; and any relative of the man who had done the 
hurt was liable to have the wrath of the avenger directed 
against him. Family feuds of the deadliest sort thus 
naturally subsisted from father to son, through many 
centuries, in a self-generating manner. In dealing with 
such a state of things it was very difficult properly to 
apportion the wrong. Hence, all through the Acts of 
James VI. there is a certain recognition, if not of the 
intrinsic propriety of the custom, at least of its use and 
wont, and of the necessity of submitting each instance 
still subsisting to arbitration, with a decided allowance 
for the balance of mutual reprisals that might have 
taken place. In the sixteenth Parliament, November 
1600, this spirit comes out very clearly. It passed an 
Act entitled, " Anent removing and extinguishing of 
Deadly Fead." The king and Estates of Parliament, 
" for removing of the deadly feads that abounds within 
the Eealme," find it expedient " that the parties be 
charged to compeir before his Heighness and Secret 
CJounsell, to submit to twa or three friends on either 
side ; or to subscryve ane submission, formed and sent 
by his Majestic to them to be subscryved." The friends 
are to decern within thirty days, or to agree at their 
first meeting on an " overs-man." His Majesty is overs- 
man or arbiter, in the case of disagreement. The Act 
proceeds : " Because all feads are ane of thir thrie natures, 
namely, that there is either na slaughter upon either side. 



42 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

or slaughter upon ane side only ; or else slaughter upon 
both sides. The parties in the first may be commanded 
to agree, due satisfaction being otfered, and performed at 
the sight of friends and overs-man in mauer foresaid. 
Where there is slaughter upon both sides, his M^jestie 
may by rigour and equalitie of justice compel thein to 
agree, due satisfaction to be made on either side, accord- 
ing to the qualitie of the offence and persons oCTended. 
Where the slaughter is onely on the ane side, the party 
grieved can not refuse in reason to submit in maner 
foresaid, al quarrel he can beare to any person innocent, 
justice beiug made patent to bim against the giltie." ^ 

One of the last acts of James VI., before he left for 
England, was to visit in person the district of Upper 
Tweeddale, with a view tu stanch the bloody feud which 
for some centuries had subsisted between the lairds of 
Drummelzier and Bawyck. This feud between the 
Tweedies and the Veitches is a curious illustration of the 
old Border life, and needs a few sentences of nan-ative. 
The principal estate of the Veitches — that of Dawyck — 
was bounded on the west or upper side of the Tweed by 
that of Drummelzier, the property of the Tweedies from 
the time that a man of that name succeeded, in the four- 
teenth century, to Laurence Fraser or Frisel of Drummel- 
zier, apparently marrying his daughter, Tweedie, hitherto 
utterly unnoticed in documents, now became a person of 
consequence, Dawyck and Drummelzier were both early 
' baronies, and thus on a footing. Both names had cadets, 
allies, and retainers. The principal estates of the two 
families on Tweedside were of about equal value, but the 

' Sixteenth ParlismeDt, cap, 22. 



FEATQRES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 43 

Veitches had other lands besides in Peebles and Selkirk 
shires. The Veitches owned estates, what now would be 
regarded as considerable farms, from Sheriff Hall, near 
Dalkeith, on a line southwards, including Kingside, Cour- 
hope, Stewarton, and Lyne ; and nearly opposite Lyne, on 
the Tweed, was the principal property of Dawyck. They 
had also as early as 1404 the principal part of the barony 
of Manor. In Tweedsmuir they had Glenbreck ; and 
down the Tweed and up the Quair they had Fechan and 
The Glen. In Selkirkshire they had Corslee (Crosslee), 
North Syntoun, Clerklands, and Bowhill. The Laird of 
Dawyck had thus a large backing of followers, and at 
need could hold his own. The Tweedies had, besides 
Drummelzier, cadets in Dreva and other places, and they 
had allies in the Crichtons of Garden and in Porteous of 
Hawkshaw. Latterly they had Chapelhope on the Loch of 
the Lowes. The estate of Barns was immediately to the 
east of Dawyck, lower down the river. But it was never 
a barony, and the land had thus no baronial rights. 
Curiously enough, there was for some generations a feud 
between the Veitches and their neighbours, the Tweedies, 
on the west ; while there is not the slightest indication 
that there occurred even one conflict between the Burnets 
and the Veitches. The Tweedies were reputed turbulent 
and aggressive, and as in the habit of levying toll or mail 
on travellers through Upper Tweeddale. Among the 
persons " delaittit of the slaughter of David Eiccio," 19 th 
March 1565-66, are "William Twedy of Drummelzeare, 
Adame Twedy of Dreva, Johne Brown of Cultirmains." ^ 
It is probable that this old blood-feud arose from some 

^ Council Hecorda, i. 432. 



44 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

early deed of slaughter on the part either of Tweedy or 
Veitch. This was quite fitted to leave its deadly trail on 
the generations of the families. Some early intermar- 
riages had taken place between the Burnets and the 
Veitches, and so tended to social alliance. In the 
fifteenth century, John Burnet of Barns married Sybilla 
Veitch of the family of Dawyck. She died between 
1495 and 1497. She is buried with her husband, 
according to his will, under the east oriel window of 
St Gordian's Church, now part of the green mounds 
that mark the site of the ancient kirk. There, in the 
sacred enclosure, many of the old lairds and ladies of 
Manor and Tweed are lying; and the old life, the old 
feuds, and the old loves are all alike hushed in the 
sough of the passing burn, and covered by the greenery 
of graves, whose occupants no one can now distinguish. 

The son of John Burnet, by a second wife, Mariot 
Inglis, of the family of Murdieston and Manor, mar- 
ried Elizabeth Veitch of the house of Dawyck, and their 
grandson was William Burnet, locally known as "the 
Hoolet ^ of Barns." Contemporary with " the Hoolet " 
was William Veitch, laird, and known as "the Deil" 
of Dawyck, who lived nearly all through the sixteenth 
century. Both were men of immense stature, enormous 
physical strength, and undaunted courage. They lived 
to a great old age. " The Hoolet " is credited with 
one hundred and seven years. They were relations 
by blood, and constant allies in feuds and raids. " The 
Hoolet" got his name because he was supposed to see 
as well in the mirk night as in the daylight. "The 

^ Owlet or owl. 



FEATURES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 45 

Deil " got his sobriquet because it was believed that 
no one ever rose up from under his sword - stroke. 
The two were often together in the "Hot-Trod," for 
their estates and those of their neighbours in Peebles- 
shire were frequently visited and harried by the South- 
ern and even nearer marauders. And they had their 
privilege of the Commissioners of England and Scotland 
in 1398, when it was ordained and accorded "that 
all manner of men of baith rewms sal hafe fredome to 
follow their gudes that beis stollen or restit frae thaim, 
with hunde and home, out of the ta rewme into the 
toyir, at their lyking, or in quhat gudely manner to 
them byste." Or as it is more picturesquely put in the 
words of the speaker in The Black Dwarf: "Just put a 
lighted peat on the end of a spear, or hay-fork, or siclike, 
and blaw a horn, and cry the gathering-word, and then it's 
lawful to follow gear into England, and recover it by the 
strong hand, or to take gear frae some other Englishman, 
providing ye lift nae mair than's been lifted frae you. 
That's the auld Border law, made at Dundrennan in the 
days of the Black Douglas." 

Clearly enough the relationship between the Veitches 
and the Burnets — their neighbours on the east — was 
that of close friendship through the centuries. They had 
had foes on the west in those of the name of Tweedy, 
Crichton, and Porteous. The Veitches liad usually for 
their allies besides the Burnets, Geddes of Rachan, a very 
old family, with which they had intermarried. It is now 
extinct, but it gave us, in the last century, the cultured 
Cambridge scholar — prematurely cut off — James Geddes, 
the author of An Essay on the Composition and Manner 



46 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

of Writing of the Ancients, particularly Plato} They 
had also for allies occasionally the Lord Fleming of 
Biggar and Cumbernauld, as is witnessed by a bond of 
man-rent between William Veitch and the Lord Fleming 
(2 2d November 1531). 

This feud between Dawyck and Drummelzier culmi- 
nated in 1590 in a very deliberate and cruel murder. 
William Veitch, "the Deil of Dawyck," had a son, 
Patrick. This lad was in Peebles on some sort of 
business on a day in June 1590. He had to return 
home in the afternoon, riding through the defile of the 
Tweed, where Neidpath Castle stands. The Tweedies 
were in the town of Peebles on the same day. Young 
Veitch was "perceived" there by James Tweedy of 
Drummelzier. The Tweedies were in force, there being 
no less than six of them, and with them two Crichtons 
and one Porteous (of Hawkshaw), their allies. They 
watched the youth on the road home, and made a plot 
to waylay him. One section of the party got in front of 
him behind Neidpath Castle, and the other section lurked 
on the road nearer Peebles. As soon as Veitch was 
enclosed between the two divisions, in the narrow defile 
by the river, they set on him, and in a most cowardly 
manner, — nine to one, as in the ballad of The Donne 
Dens, — "with swords and pistolettes, cruellie and un- 
mercifullie slew him, upon set purpose, auld feid, and 
forethought." The Tweedies were, wonderful to re- 
late, actually put in prison in Edinburgh for the deed. 

^ He was bom in 1710 and died in 1749. The work waa publiahed 
at Glasgow in 1748. The whole estates of the Geddeses were sold in 
1752. 



FEATURES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 47 

Then followed, as usual, an interminable process of 
citations and sureties to " satisfie pairties," of whom 
Scott of Buccleuch was one for the Tweedies. They had 
probably been helpful to him in their line. But the 
perpetrators of this atrocity were never brought to 
punishment by the law. Meanwhile the Veitches, prob- 
ably anticipating the futile results of the law proceed- 
ings, took the matter into their own hand. Four days 
after the slaughter of Patrick Veitch — on the 20 th 
June — John Tweedy, Tutor of Drummelzier, one of the 
band of the conspiring assassins, was walking on the 
High Street of Edinburgh. He was met by John Veitch, 
" apperand of North Syntoun " ^ (in Sellcirkshire), and 
Andrew Veitch, brother of the Laird of Courhope, an 
estate and tower high up on the green slopes of the 
Harehope Hills. Some hot words passed about the fate 
of Patrick Veitch. The Veitch, younger of Syntoun, 
drew his sword, and then and there, after a sharp 
conflict, fatally cut down the Tutor of Drummelzier.^ 
This gave rise of course to further recrimination in a 
series of charges and counter-charges. 

The king had imagined that matters were made up ; 
but it was not so. At his Court at Greenwich in 1611 
he was disturbed by rumours of continued broils between 
these two families. He was old enough to remember 
people speak of the shuddering sensation which the news 

• 

^ North Syntoun was given by Archibald, Earl of Douglas, Burnamed 
the Tyneman, to Barnabas le Vache de Dawyk, styled " dilecto armigero 
nostro," in 1407. The master and the armour-bearer both feU— after 
having been together at Homildon and several other desperately fought 
fields — in the battle of VemeuU in 1424. 

' Cf. Pitcaim, Criminal Trials, under date. 



48 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

of another fatal hand-to-hand encoiinter between Dawyck 
and Drummelzier, arising out of the slaughter of Patrick 
Veitch, or perhaps from tionie earlier feud, had created 
at the Scottish Court, even in those times of atrocious 
deeds. On a morning in earl^ summer the two lairds, 
according to the traditioQ, had met by chance on the 
haugh of the Tweed. Possibly from the tradition it was 
the old laird of Dawyck, the father of the murdered 
boy. They were alone when they confronted each other. 
The memories of centuries of mutual violence and mutual 
deeds of blood were quickened in their hearts, and that 
strange savage feeling of blood-atonement seemed to.thrill 
in both. They ^reed to settle the strife of centuries 
then and there. And tradition tells iis that, as the 
birds waked the June morn, Drummelzier was found 
dead beside a bush by the river, and the blood had 
stained the white blossoms of the hawthorn-spray. Still 
the feud was carried on by son and son. And the 
king, in March 1611, in a proclamation, calls upon Lord 
Dunfermline and the other lords of the Privy Council 
to take steps to suppress this strife. The document is 
a curious one, and, as it has not been published before, 
I give it entire : — 

" James R., 

"Right truBtie ond right weel-beloved CouBengilla and 
Counsellora, We Greet you weel ; whereas we undeistnnd, that 
the deadly Feid betwixt Veitches and Tweedies is as yet un- 
reconciled, and our peace keept betwixt them only by the 
Means of Renewing of Assurances from Time to Time : But 
since we came so far, by great Pains in our Person, endureing 
our Stay there, and by Our continual Direction sensyne, sup- 
pressed that Monster within that Kingdom, so as wee do 



FEATURES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 49 

hardly think that there be any One Feid except this in all that 
Kingdome unreconciled ; and the Wrongs and Mischiefs done 
by either of them, as We understand, to others, being in such 
a Proportion of a Compensation as neither Party can either 
boast of advantage, or otherways think himself too much 
behind. Therefore, our Pleasure and Will is that you will 
call before you the Principalis of either Surname, and then take 
such Course for Eemoving of the Feid and Keqpncileing, as 
you have been accustomed to do in the like cases. And who- 
soever shall Disobey your Command and Direction, you shall 
committ them prisoners, and certifie Us thereof, to the E£fect 
wo may return unto you Our further Pleasure and Will there- 
in ; and so We bid you fareweell : 

"From our Court at Greenwich, the Tenth of March, 1611. 
To our right trustie and right weel-beloved cousins and coun- 
sellors, the Earle of Dunfermline, Lord Chancellor, and remanent 
Lords, and others of Our Privy Councill in Our Kingdom of 
Scotland." ^ 

I do not know whether we should most sympathise 
with the " great pains in person " of the king, or most 
admire the quiet assumption of the moral principle of 
the fair balance of injuries, which the power of righteous- 
ness in the world, working through the centuries, had 
contrived to adjust between the combatants. 

We may thus sum up the whole matter of Border 
story. The conditions of life on the Borders during all 
the mediaeval period, and down to the Union of the 
Crowns, brought out what may be called individualism 
of character in an emphatic manner. The weakness or 
paralysis of the central government was constant through 

^ Barns Family Papers. The original is in possession of William 
Burnett, Esq., Hay lodge, Peebles, the representative of the ancient 
family of Burnet of Bams, to whose kindness I am indebted for a copy of 
the paper. — (Note to first edition.) It is now the property of his family. 

VOL. n. D 



50 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

many generations. Each man had to trust for protec- 
tion of life and property to himself, — to the strength of 
his own arm, and the sweep of his own sword. Even 
the system of clanship, which to some extent existed, 
was simply a combination of individuals under a head 
or chief to make the prowess of each man more avail- 
able in his individual interest. No mistake can be 
greater historically than to judge of the deeds and the 
spirit of that old time by our modern standard — in 
other words, to look at the actions of individuals, or 
even combinations of individuals, at that date from the 
standpoint of a system of settled law and government, 
and a powerful and sure executiva There was no real 
protection for the individual in the central authority, 
so far as the Border country was concerned. When 
this authority was exercised to repress or punish crime 
— wounding, violence, even killing — it was done either 
in such a fitful and spasmodic way as for a time, it may 
be, to strike terror, but without inspiring continuous 
obedience, or its action was batfled by the power of a 
strong baron, who threw his shield over the ofifender. 
Hence the blood -feuds that subsisted through many 
generations, and hence also in a great measure the 
raids, the liftings, and the forays even in the Border 
land itself. Life, in a word, was to those Borderers of 
the olden time 

" A battle whose great scheme and scope 
They little cared to know, 
Content, as men-at-arms, to cope 
Each with his fronting foe." 

And obviously, if there was need for the individual 



FEATURES OF BORDER LIFE AND CHARACTER. 51 



relying on himself, even as against his neighbours, there 
was still greater need for his self-trust as against the 
national foes south of the Cheviots. 

" Our auld ennemys cummyn of Saxoiiys blud, 
That nevir yeit to Scotland wald do gud." ^ 

This was the feeling of Blind Harry. It was the feel- 
ing of the Lowlander all through the centuries, until, 
happily, the blue line of the Cheviots ceased to be a 
national barrier, — that line which was 

" The rampart once 
Of Iron War in ancient barbarous times, 
When disunited Britain ever bled. 
Lost in eternal broil ; ere yet she grew 
To this deep-laid, indissoluble State, 
Where Wealth and Commerce lift their golden heads ; 
And o'er our labours Liberty and Law 
Impartial watch, — the wonder of a world." 



^ WaUacef Buke Fyrat, p. L 



T 



52 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE POETRY OF THE BORDERS THE OLDER POEMS 

DESCRIPTIVE OF SOCIAL MANNERS. 



The poetry of the Borders, subsequent to the Bomantic 
epoch, has been inspired by the life and scenery of the 
district. It is a truly indigenous product, and consists 
in its earlier stage of Ballad and Song. This has taken 
its most artistic shape in the poetry of Scott, which grew 
directly out of the Minstrelsy. But, besides the Ballad and 
Song of the Borders, there are remains of an old fonn of 
poetic composition which deals not so much with action 
and emotion, as with the manners of the time — partly 
rustic, and partly ecclesiastical. This is a direct outcome 
of the district, as much as the Ballads; but it is not 
necessarily, as almost all these are, the production of men 
born and living in the district itself ; for social manners 
are open to any casual and acute observer. Still, what 
remains of this class of pictorial and didactic compositions 
is well worthy of notice. "We find in it a very instructive 
picture of the manners of the past, alike of rural life, of 
general society, and of the Church. The three poems 
still preserved for us of this class are, PeUis to the Play, 



POEMS DESCRIPTIVE OF SOCIAL MANNERS. 53 

The Thrie Tailes of the Thrie Priests of Peebles, and The 
Friars of Berwick, These all represent an element which 
has been emphatically marked in the history of Scottish 
poetry — the humorous painting of social manners, through 
which there gleams a genial laughter, and often a shrewd 
common - sense that points both the moral and the 
remedy. Peblis to the Play is unquestionably a very old 
poem. It is a painting in the manner which Teniers 
afterwards illustrated — a picture of rustic life and 
festivities, of the humorous and grotesque incidents of a 
mediaeval Feast-day in an old provincial town, the centre 
of a rural district. Something like the scene might 
indeed have been observed in the same locality well down 
in the present century. The " Play " was not, as Lord 
Hailes seems to imagine, the name for a stage-play ; but 
indicated the sports and festivities which took place 
at Peebles annually on Beltane, the third, not the first of 
May, as is usually supposed. These had, in all proba- 
bility, come in place of the ancient British practice of 
lighting fires on the hill-tops in honour of Baal, the 
Sun-god; hence the name Baalfein, Beltane — i.e., BaaFs 
fire. The Christian Church had so far modified the 
ceremonial as to substitute for the original idolatrous 
practice that of a day of rustic amusement. A fair 
or market, at the same period, which lasted for forty- 
eight hours, had also been instituted by royal charter. 
But even the practice of fire-lighting on the hill-tops 
was late in dying out. "With the usual tenacity of 
custom, it survived for long all memory of its original 
meaning. 

The authorship and the date of the poem have been dis- 



54 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

puted. Unbroken tradition points to James I. (1423-24 
to 1436-37) as the author; to whom, undoubtedly, we 
must ascribe The Kingis Quair} Feblis to the Play has 
certainly none of the pathos, delicacy of touch, true feel- 
ing for nature, which The Quair plentifully exhibits. But 
these qualities were not to be expected from the nature 
of the subject. There is, however, a fine realism in the 
painting of scenes and manners, a rich humour and 
finished execution. We could not look for other qualities 
in such a poem. And it must have been composed by a 
man who was intimately acquainted with the localities, 
the language of the district, and with the modes of dress, 
manners, and pursuits of the people. It is written in a 
Tweedside dialect. We had until lately, indeed have 
now, many of the words of the poem employed in exactly 
the same sense as they bear in it. The author, too, was 
obviously a man of large kindliness and culture. He 
laughs at, yet enjoys heartily, the oddities of the scena 
James I. fulfils all those requirements of authorship. 
During the thirteen years of his reign, in which the most 
accomplished of the Stewarts sought to civilise the savage 
and barbarous country to whose throne he had succeeded, 
his face was as familiar to the burgesses of Peebles, and 
in the valleys of the Tweed, the Manor, and the Meggat, 
as is the presence of Queen Victoria in Braemar and on 
Deeside. The district by the Tweed was the place of his 
sport and relaxation from that arduous task of govern- 
ment which he most dutifully assumed. He was an 
accomplished horseman, an excellent walker, a fleet 
runner. He handled bow and spear and sword with 

^ Quire, or little book. 



POEMS DESCRIPTIVE OF SOCIAL MANNERS. 55 

wonderful dexterity.^ Like his successors on the Scottish 
throue, down to the time of James VI., Meggatdale was 
for him a favourite hunting -field. That sport was to 
be got there in the olden time, we have proof in the 
fact that Mary on one occasion with a party killed 500 
head of game. But she at last found the sport so poor, 
that she resolved not to go back again. Her father, with 
the Highland lords, killed, as we have seen, in the 
memorable spring of 1529-30, "aughtene score of deir." 
James I. was thus familiar with the district The clois- 
ters of the Cross Church, and the Castle of Peebles, 
or more probably Neidpdth Castle, the seat of the sheriff 
of the shire, afibrded him lodging for the time of his 
stay. In 1427 he gifted to his confessor the Hospital 
of St Leonard, on the Tweed, about two miles below 
Peebles; and when, in 1437, he was so foully murdered 
in Perth, the people of Peebles, cherishing a kindly mem- 
ory of him, endowed a daily Mass for his soul in 
the Parish Church of St Andrew. All these circum- 
stances connect him very closely with the locality, the 
people, and their manners. And we can readily con- 
ceive the gifted king, in the pleasant retrospect of a May 
day on the Tweed, sitting down to give effect to the 
impulse of picturing what he had seen and enjoyed 
at the Beltane Festival. 

The title of James I. to the authorship of the poem 
has been sharply contested by Lord Hailes, Sibbald, and 
lately by Mr Skeat, and others, but, as appears to me, 
without much real force. Major seems almost certainly 
to allude to it in the oft-quoted paragraph in which he 

^ Bower, Scotichronieonj ii. 504. 



56 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

speaks of the king's writings : " Composuit . . . ju- 
cundum artificiosumque ilium cantum At Beltat/n, etc., 
quern alii de Dalketh et Gargeil mutare studuerunt : quia 
in arce aut camera clausus servabatur, in qua mulier 
cum matre habitabat."^ 

Major, it should be observed, was born in 1469. He 
was alive in 1549, and died about 1550. He wrote his 
Histary of Greater Britain in 1518, eighty-one years after 
the death of the king.^ He spent his life chiefly between 
Glasgow, St Andrews, and Paris, and was thus likely to 
be well informed in regard to such matters, and popular 
belief about them. The omission of any reference to 
James I. in Dunbar's Lament for the Makars has been 
set up as against the testimony of Major. But this, if it 
were of any force at all, would tell as much against the 
undoubted authorship of the Kingis Quair as of Peblis to 
the Play, 

The natural meaning of this passage seems to be that 
James I. was the author of that pleasant and artistic 
poem At Beltayn ; that some people had tried to change 
or improve upon it; and that the occasion or time of 
composition of the poem was while he was shut up in a 
tower in which a lady resided with her mother. This 
last clause indeed may mean that the reason why' at- 
tempts were made to change or parody the poem was 
that the king was kept a prisoner in the castle where the 

^ Major, De Gestis SeUorum^ f. cxxzv. : Paris, 1521. For the ai'guments 
against and for James's authorship, see Lord Hailes, Obtervations on the 
StaivUi of James /.; Sibbald, Chronicle of Scottish Poetry , L 137 ; Inring's 
History of Scottish Poetry, 151 — Carlyle's edition ; Skeat^ The Kingis 
Quair, Int., xix. 

^ See History of OretUer Britain, 212 note : ed. Constable. 



POEMS DESCRIPTIVE OF SOCIAL MANNERS. 57 

lady dwelt with her mother. Mr Skeat, however, would 
regard Major's words as meaning that " Jame's's poem was 
not to be got at, but was kept somewhere in safe custody ; 
on which account others of Dalkeith and Gargeil endeav- 
oured to write substitutes for it." This seems to be an 
extraordinary reading of the passage. It appears rather 
odd to suppose that it was the poem and not the king 
who was confined to the tower with the lady and her 
mother. We can understand a prince being so placed or 
guarded, but a piece of parchment would hardly be so 
circumstantially treated. Further, it is hardly consistent 
to suppose that the poem was thus kept secret, while it 
was describable by Major as pleasant and artistic, and 
capable also of being modified or imitated by apparent 
contemporaries. More than one imitation is said to have 
been made. 

The objection that the poem contains no resemblance 
to the Kingis Quair, and that it is dissimilar in tone, 
vocabulary, and metre, is really of very little value. 
One surely could produce instances of gaiety of tone in a 
grave poet, and there is no need whatever that a poet 
treating a festive subject should write in the metre 
suited to one of another and higher type. As for the 
objection that " the rollicking metre " of the poem has no 
imdoubted example before 1450, this might be met by 
the suggestion that we have it, perhaps, for the first 
time in Peblis to tlie Play, Some one, no doubt, set the 
example. Why not James I., with his admitted metrical 
and poetic capacity ? 

As to the vocabulary, and its difference from the 
diction and grammar of the Kingis Quaii\ this is met in a 



58 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

measure by the fact pointed out by Mr Skeat himself, that 
James I. deliberately abandoned the Northern dialect and 
grammar which he knew, and imitated the Midland (or 
Southern) dialect of Chaucer all through the Quair, yet 
relapsing now and again into Northern forms. It was 
extremely unlikely that he would carry out this imitation 
in the case of a poem describing the rustic sports and 
manners of. his country. He would naturally, almost 
necessarily, use the Nortliern tongue, that of himself and 
his countrymen. And so we find it. The language of 
Peblis to the Flay is of the North Anglian dialect ; and 
there are some of the forms of this dialect as it was 
before the latter half of the fifteenth century — as, for 
example, qtiha for quhilk, thai, and is slurred in the plural. 
On the other hand, we have the old forms ga and sua, 
the present participle in and — stiietand, settaiid, as in 
the Act of Parliament 1397, — and the very old forms of 
Hop'Calz6 for Kailzie, and Cardronow for Cardrona, But 
there is hardly ground for linguistic considerations in the 
matter. The date of authorship in this case cannot be 
conclusively decided by reference to the language, for the 
reason that we have no manuscripts except such as were 
transcribed long subsequently to the supposed period of 
composition. One great test-word of the date of Scottish 
literature is the article a, an, anc. Before 1475, an or 
ane was very rarely used before a consonant. After that 
date, at least after the year 1500, it was almost univer- 
sally so employed. This was a revival of the old Anglo- 
Saxon ; but it was due directly to imitation of the French 
un and une. In Feblis to the Play the latter usage cer- 
tainly prevails. This would seem to bring the poem 



POEMS DESCRIPTIVE OF SOCIAL MANNERS. 59 

down to at least the time of James III., or even James 
IV. But this circumstance ceases to have force when 
we consider that we have no MS. of the poem earlier 
than the latter part of the sixteenth century, and that we 
have no warrant for holding a MS. of this date to be 
the original. We thus cannot tell what amount of 
change in orthography may have been introduced by 
transcribers.! 

But the test of the article, so far as it is capable 
of being applied, rather tells in favour of the antiquity of 
Peblis to the Flay. For this poem is mentioned in Christis 
Kirk on the Grciie, also attributed to James I., though 
some writers hold it to be a production of James V. We 
may thus infer that Peblis to the Play is the older pro- 
duction of the two. The passage in Christis Kirk on the 
Grene is as follows : — 

" Was nevir in Scotland hard nor seen 
Sic dancing nor (leray,^ 
Noulhir at Falkland on the grene, 
Nor Peblis at the Play ; 
As wes of wowaris,^ as I wene, 
At Christis Kirk on a day : 
Thair came our kitties * weschin clene, 
In thair new kirtillis * of gray, 

Full gay, 
At Christis Kirk of the grene that day." 

Now, if we suppose that the reference here is to the 
poem, and not merely to the festival, an important con- 
clusion follows. For we find that in Christis Kirk on 
the Grene the use of the article a before a consonant is 

^ See Murray, DialcctB of Southern CountieSf 56. 

' Revelry. ' Wooers. * Country lasses. * Gowns. 



60 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

almost uniform. This leads us to suppose that it is a 
production before the year 1500, and not at all of the 
time of James V. ; for, while it is possible that the later 
usage of the article, the an or ane before a consonant, 
might have been introduced into an early manuscript by 
subsequent transcribers when the usage had grown up, it 
is highly improbable that the earlier usage, contrary to 
the habit of the time, would have been inserted into 
a later manuscript. Both the poems, therefore, may be 
regarded as productions of the fifteenth century. And 
if we consider the similarity of the stanza of the two 
poems, in itself of rare structure, the analogous nature of 
the subject, the similar qualities of quiet observation and 
kindly humour which they display, the power, too, in 
each, of vivid picturing almost by a single epithet, we 
shall not be far wrong in referring them to the same 
authorship. And in that fifteenth century there is no 
man more likely to have written them than the author 
of The Kingis Quair. 

The opening stanza of Feblis to tl\e Play indicates the 
time and circumstance of the poem, and the merry ring 
of the verse gives the key-note of- the poem — a certain 
outrageously joyous holiday feeling, the intenser for its 
rarity — and this is sustained with wonderful art all 
through the poem : — 

" At Beltane,! when ilk ^ bodie bownis ^ 
To Peblis to the Play, 
To heir the singin and the soundis,^ 
The solace, suth to say ; 



! Beltane, 3d May. ^ Every. ^ Makes ready to go. * Better wanit. 



POEMS DESCRIPTIVE OF SOCIAL MANNERS. 61 

Be firth * and forest furtli they found,* 
They graythit ^ tham full gay ; 
God wait * that wald they do that stonnd,^ 
For it was their Feist Day, 

They said, 
Of Peblis to the Play. 

All the wenchis of the west 

War up or the cok crew ; 

For reiling • thair micht na man rest. 

For garray ^ and for glew ; ® 

Ane said my curches ® ar nocht prest ; 

Than answerit Meg full blew," 

To get an hude ^* I hald it best ; 

Be Goddis sauU that is true, 

Quod scho 
Of Peblis to the Play. 

She tuik the tippet be the end. 
To lat it hing scho leit ** not ; 
Quod ane, thy bak sail beir ane bend ; 
In faith, quod she, we meit ^ not. 
Scho was so guckit " and so gend,** 
That day ane byt *® scho eit nocht ; 
Than spak hir fallowis that hir kend, 
* Be still, my joy, and greit not 

Now, 
Of Peblis to the Play.' 



Hop-Caily6, and Cardronow *^ 
Gaderit " out thik-fald,»» 



^ Enclosed wood or place. 

^ Issue, or go forth ; A. S. fundian, to go. * Dressed. 

* Knew. ^ Time ; German stundt, ^ Bustle. 

' Haste of preparation. ® Mirth. • Kerchiefs. 

"Blue. 11 Hood. w Let, allowed. "Mate. 

" Light, or foolish, also gauckit. " Playful. i« Bite. 

^' These are places ou the Tweed just below Peebles, now Kailzie and 
Cardrona. This line is most incorrectly printed by some editors, as : 
" Hope, Calz^ and Cardronow," as if three places were designated ; 
whereas there are but two — viz., Hop-Cailzie, or Kailzie, and Cardrona. 

M Gathered. ^ Manifold. 



BOEDER HISTORY AND POETET. 

With Hey and Hoib Rohumbtlovi ; 
The young folks were full bal(l.> 
The bagpyp blew, and thai out threw 
Out of the townis * untald. 
Lord Bic ane achout was thame amang, 
Quheu thai were out the wald^ 
Thair west, 
Of Peblia to the Play. 

Ane young iiian atert in-to that Eteid 

AIb cant as ony colt, 

Ane birken hat upon his heid, 

With ane bow and ane bolt ; 

Said, mirrie roaidiniB, think not lang ; 

The wedder is fair and aniolt. 

He cleikit np ane hie ruf sacg, 

• Tharfurt am man to Ihe lioU,' 

Quod he, 
Of Peblis to the Play. 

Than thai come to the townis end 

Withouttin more delai, 

He befoir, and acho * befoir, 

To see quha was maiat gay. 

All that lukit thame upon 

Leuche ' fast at thair array : 

Sum said that thai were mercat ' folk ; 

Sum said the Queue of May 

Was cum it. 
Of Peblia to the Play. 

Be that the sone was aettand fast,' 

And neir done was the day; 

Thair men micht heir schakin of chaftia 

Quben that thai went th^iir way, 

Had thair been mair made of this Bang, 

Mair auld I to you say. 

At Beltane ilka bodie bownd 

To Peblis to the Plav." 



POEMS DESCRIPTIVE OF SOCIAL MANNERS. 63 

The other stanzas contain some very rough, yet humorous 
scenes and pictures.^ 

The Thrie Tailes of the Thrie Priests of Peebles seems 
to be referred to in The Complaynt of Scotland, The 
production may thus be taken as earlier than 1549, or 
even 1547: "The Priest of Peblis speris ane questione 
in ane beuk that he conpilit, why that burges ayris 
thryuis nocht to the thrid ayr : bot he mycht hef sperit 
as weil, quhy that the successours of the universal 
comont pepil baytht to burght and land, thryuis nocht to 
the thrid ayr." ^ This is not quite an accurate descrip- 
tion of the poem ; for it does not profess to be compiled 
by a priest of Peebles, but is a series of Tailes sup- 
posed to be made by three priests who met there on 
St Bride's day. It is possible, however, that the reference 
here is to the author, who was probably well enough 
known at the time of the composition of the Complaynt 
— who might in truth, from the terms employed, have 
been living at that period. From the allusions in the 
poem, Sibbald refers it to the last years of the reign of 
James V., who died in 1542. The somewhat dissolute 
character of the king, the low state of the character of 
the nobility, and the abuse of ecclesiastical patronage, are, 
as he points out, emphatically censured. But the force of 
this is not great. The very same personal and social 
irregularities might have been censured in the times 
of James IV., or even of James III. 

Pinkerton, on the other hand, is inclined to regard the 
poem, from an allusion it contains, as earlier than 1491. 

* For the whole, see Sibbald, i. 121. 

^ The Complaynt of Scotland, c. xvi. 143 (Murray's edition). 



64 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

The first of the priests — John, " that master was in arte," 
hence called Maister John — is represented as a great 
traveller. Maister Archibald, the second priest, sug- 
gests: — 

" The first tail tauld mot ^ be Maister Johne : 
For he hath bene in monie uncouth ^ land, 
In Portingale, and in Civile the Grand ; 
In five Kynrikis ^ of Spane als hes he been ; 
In foure Christin and ane Heathin I wene. 
In Rome, Flanders, and in Venice town, 
And other landis sindrie up and down." 

The reference here to the one heathen kingdom of Spain 
is that of Granada, which was so until 1491. The 
poem was therefore written either before that date — 
probably in the reign of James III., 1460-1488 — or 
subsequently, but in the lifetime of a man who had been 
in Spain before Granada was christianised. The other 
supposition, that the author was ignorant of the spread 
of Christianity over the whole of Spain, can hardly be 
entertained. 

Pinkerton*s view is supported by the fact pointed out 
by Dr David Laing, that a portion of the tales, with the 
title, is found in a MS. which appears to have been 
transcribed twenty years before the date assigned to the 
poem by Sibbald. We have almost no data for deter- 
mining the authorship. Pinkerton ascribes the poem to 
Dean David Steill, the author of The Ring of the Roy 
Robert, in the Maitland MS. Sibbald, with his theory of 
its later composition, regards John Eolland as the author. 
The Tailes were first printed, and very incorrectly, in 
1603, by Eobert Charteris. They were reprinted by 

^ Must. ^ Foreign, strange. ' EjDgdoms. 



POEMS DESCRIPTIVE OF SOCIAL MANNERS. 65 

Pinkerton in 1792, in part by Sibbald in 1801, and by 
David Laing in his Early Metrical Tales, Edinburgh, 
1826. 

The " Thrie Priests " met together on the 1st February 
— ^St Bride's day — in Peebles, and, while enjoying their 
" collation," each of them in turn tells a story or taUe, 
The opening Lines present a curious picture of quiet 
enjoyment :— 

'* In Peebles toiin sometime, as I heard tell, 
The foremost day of Februar, befel, 
Thrie priestis went unto collation, 
Into ane privy place of the said toun, 
Where that they sat right soft and unfoot sair ; 
They lovit not nae rangald ^ nor repair.* 
And, gif I sail the sooth reckin and say, 
I traist it was upon Saint Brydis day ; 
Where that they sat, full easily and soft ; 
With many loud laughter upon loft. 
And, wit ye well, thir thrie they made good cheir ; 
To them there was nae dainties then too deir, 
With thrie fed caponis on a speet with creis, 
With mony other sundry divers meis. 
And them to serve they had not but a boy ; 
Frae company they keepit them sae coy ; 
They lovit not with ladry ^ nor with lown,* 
Nor with trumpours ^ to travel through the toun ; 
Bot with themself what they would tell or crack ; 
Umquhile ^ sadly, umquhile jangle and jack ; ^ 
Thus sat thir thrie beside ane felloun ® fire. 
Till their caponis were roistit lim and lyre ®." 

The plan of the first of the Tailes is to suppose that 
the king proposes to each of the Three Estates in Par- 
liament assembled certain questions. To the Burgesses 

^ Crowd, rabble. ' Concourse. ^ Common people. 

* Low fellows. * Stragglers. ® Sometimes. 

7 PratUe and idle the time. ^ Fierce, strong. 

• Fleshy parts. 

VOL. IL B 



66 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

or Commons he proposes, in Maister Johne's tale, the 
question — 

" Quhy burgee bairns thryvis not to the thrid air, 
But casts away it that their eldars wan ? " 

The answer is : — 

" They begin not where their fathers began, 
Bot, with ane heily ^ hart, baith doft * and derft, 
Thay ay begin quhair that their fathers left." 

The steps in the progress of a successful merchant of the 
time are very graphically sketched : — 

" Becaus their fatheris purelie can begin, 
With hap, and halfpenny, and a lamb's skin, 
And purelie rin frae toun to toun on feit, 
And then richt oft wetshod, werie, and weit ; 
Quhill at the last, of monie smals, couth mak 
This bonnie pedder' ane gude fute pak, 
At ilkane * fair this chapman ay was fund ; 
Quhill that his pak was worth fourtie pund. 
To beir his pak, when that he faillit force. 
He bocht ful sone ane mekill stalwart horse ; 
And at the last so worthelie up wan, 
He bocht ane cart to carie pot and pan ; 
Baith Flanders coffers, with counteris and kist ; ^ 
He waxe ane grande riche man or onie wist. 
And syne into the toun, to sel and by. 
He held a shop to sel his chaffery,® 
Then bocht he wol,^ wyselie couth it wey ; 
And after that sone saUit he the sey. 
Then come he hame a very potent man ; 
And spousit syne a michtie wyfe richt than. 
He saHit our the sey sae oft and oft, 
Quhill at the last ane semelie ship he coft,^ 
And waxe sae ful of worldis welth and win,*' 
His hands he wish in ane silver basin. 



^ Proud. ■■* Foolish and reckless. ^ Pedlar. 

* Every. ° Chest. ® Merchandise, 

7 Wool. ® Bought. » Gain. 



POEMS DESCRIPTIVE OF SOCIAL MANNERS. 67 

Forouten ^ gold or silver into hoard, 
Worth three thousand pound was his copburde,^ 
Riche was his gounis with other garments gay, 
For Sonday silk, for ilk day ^ grene and gray." * 

To the Lords he proposes the question : — 

" Quhairfor, and quhy, and quhat is the cais, 
Sa worthi lordis war in myne elders days, 
Sa full of fredome, worship, and honour, 
Hardie in hart to stand in everie stour, 
And now in you I find the haill contrair ? " 

The answer is, that justice is badly administered in the 
country, the husbandmen and tenants of the Lords op- 
pressed, and thus the Lords themselves impoverished, and 
led to disparage their character and honour by low 
alliances for the sake of money. To the Clergy and 
Bishops he proposes the question : — 

" Quhairfor and quhy 
In auld times and dayis of ancestry, 
Sa monie bishops war, and men of kirk, 
Sa grit wil had ay gude werkes to wirk ; 
And throw their prayers, maid to God of micht, 
The dum men spak ; the blind men gat their sicht ; 
The deif men heiring ; the cruikit gat their feit. 
Was nane in bail ^ but weil they culd them beit.^ 
And quhairfor now in your time ye varie, 
As thay did then quhairfor sa may not ye ? " 

In other words — Why have miracles and good deeds 
ceased in the Church ? The answer is as follows : — 

^ Not reckoning. 

^ Cupboard, an important article of furnishing in old Scottish houses, 
in which plate and other articles of ornament and value were displayed. 
« Every day, lawful day. * Sibbald, ii. 233, 234. 

» Fire, trouble. « Help. 



t 'I 



68 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

" The bishop cums in at the north-window ; 
And not at the dur, nor yit at the yet ; ^ 
But over waine and quheil* in wil he get. 
Qif he cummis not in at the dur, 
Goddis pleuch may never hald the fur,^ 
How should he kyth* mirakil, and he sa evil ? 
Never hot by the dysmel,* or the devil. 
For, now on dayes, is nouther riche nor pure 
Sal get ane kirk, all throw his literature. 
For science, for vertew, or for blude. 
Gets nane the kirk, bot baith for gold and gude." 

The second tale refers to tlie heedlessness of the king 
in frequently changing his servants, and the consequent 
temptation to avarice. The third tale is allegorical, and 
refers to Death as the messenger of God. What a man 
loves better than himself — money — refuses to accompany 
him. What he loves as well as himself — wife and rela- 
tions — these agree to go with him as far as the port or 
grave. What he loves less than these, and has very 
imperfectly served — viz., almsgiving or charity — is the 
only friend who is willing to accompany him into the 
presence of the mighty King of all, who now asks from 
him an account of the deeds of his life. 

The Tailes are very good specimens of what was for 
many centuries the staple of Scottish poetry — viz., the 
picture of habits and manners, in private life, in the 
Church, in the Courts of Justice, and at the Eoyal Court 
They are highly moral and didactic in tone, patriotic and 
boldly critical, suggesting remedies for crying evils. The 
versification, the ten-syllable rhyming couplet, is remark- 
ably smooth ; and the treatment and finish show very 
considerable artistic power. 

^ Gate. 3 Waggon and wheel ' Furrow. 

* Show. ' Perhaps necromaucy. 



POEMS DESCRIPTIVE OF SOCIAL MANNERS. 69 

The Friars of Berwick is a tale very much in the 
manner of Chaucer, and it is not unworthy of his style. 
It satirises the vices of the regular clergy in a way that 
must have come home to the sense of domestic purity of 
the people. It is evidently a production of the pre- 
Eeformation period, and, like the writings of Sir David 
Lyndsay, must have contributed in some measure to the 
ecclesiastical revolution of 1560. It is not a product 
peculiar to the Border district. It only shows that the 
Church and the practices of its representatives were the 
same south of the Forth as in Fife and the north-eastern 
counties which Lyndsay knew and portrayed. 

The picture of the town of Berwick, as it was ere the 
destruction of the castle and the dissolution of the mon- 
astic orders in 1539, is graphic and pleasing: — 

" As it befell, and hapinit into deid, 
Upon ane rever, the qubilk is callit Tweid ; 
At Tweidis mouth thair stands ane noble toun, 
Qubair mony lordis hes bene of grit renoune, 
And mony a lady bene fair of face, 
And mony ane frescbe lusty galand was. 
Into this toun, tbe qubilk is callit Berwik, 
Apoun the sey, thair standis nane it lyk, 
For it is wallit weill about with stane, 
And dowbil stankis ^ castin mony ane. 
And syne the castell is so Strang and wicht. 
With staitelie towrs and turrets b^ on hicht, 
With kirnaUs 2 wrocht craftelie with all ; 
The portcullis most subtellie to fall, 
Quben that thame list to draw tbame upon hicht. 
That it may be into na mannis micht, 
To win that hous by craft or subtiltie. 
Quhairfoir it is maist fair alluterrlie ; ' 



^ Deep ditches with standing water. ^ Battlements. ' Wholly. 



70 



BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 



Into my tyme, quhairever I have bein, 

Most fair, most gudelie, most plesand to be sene. 

The touD, the castle, and the plesand land ; 

The sea wallis ^ upon the other hand ; 

The grit Croce Kirk, and eik the Mason dew ; ^ 

The Jacobin of the quhytfe hew, 

The Carmeletis and the monks eik 

Of the four ordours war nocht to seik ; 

They wer all into this toun dwelling." 

The heart of the mediaeval artist is in this picture. 
The land, river, and sea have but scant notice ; but there 
is the strong feeling of the skilled, resolute work of the 
human hand — of its order, strength, and grace. Man in 
the mediaeval time was struggling with hard nature, and 
fierce foes of his own kind. And any triumph over these 
in the form of personal defence, self-concentration, out- 
flanking structure of wall and tower, was to" the imagina- 
tion of the time the highest object of interest and the 
finest subject of poetic art 



^ Waves. WaUy se, wavy sea, in G. Douglas. 



^ Maison Dieu. 



71 



CHAPTER III. 

THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 

The Border land of Scotland — that district of hill and 
valley through which flow the streams of the Liddel, the 
Teviot, the Ettrick, the Yarrow, and the Tweed — thus 
nursed in far back times of Scottish history, down to the 
Union of the Crowns, a people remarkable for personal 
courage and warlike spirit, for a proud feeling of indepen- 
dence, a stern strong individualism of character. Withal, 
they had hearts capable of being finely stirred by song — 
warmed to enthusiasm by the simple tale of local prowess; 
again touched to softness by the love strain, or by the 
story of widowed grief ; again awed by glimpses of that 
weird and supersensible world which their fancies and 
their fears created for them, and which they believed lay 
bordering so near this world of common life and everyday 
experience, that at any moment it might flash on them in 
the form of fairy pageant in the green glen, or weird wraith 
on the moor, or water-spirit mingling its wail with the 
sough of the flood. This Border land has been for long 
one of the great founts of Scottish poetry, — and of a form 
of poetry which possesses features so characteristic that 



72 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

no one who has an ear for the melody of the human soul 
can mistake its genuine, its native tones. Those features 
are simplicity of diction, picturesqueness of narrative, a 
truthful and simple realism, with deep feeling, and the 
complete subordination of the poet to his subject or 
theme. 

Tlie Ballad and Song of the Border land have taken 
their rise, character, and colouring almost entirely from 
local circumstances. Nothing can be less indebted to in- 
spiration outside of the district itself than these ballads. 
They have been a pure growth of the soil. Border men 
did the deeds which Border minstrels sung ; and Border 
maidens and widows felt the love and the sorrow which 
the poet glorified. The fresh air of old Border life and 
romance is upon these songs ; and now each man born 
into the district may share in the golden heritage of its 
poetry, which seems to have grown up among the people 
as freely and naturally as the birks by the burn-sides, or 
the heather-bloom on the hills. 

The special circumstances already noted in our historical 
sketches bore directly on the formation and character of 
the ballads. The position of the district, as lying between 
the centre of Scotland and the Borders of England — two 
hostile countries — made life in it for long restless and 
unquiet, left property open to constant danger of being 
driven or carried away. The men in the district were 
hence kept perpetually disciplined to arms for self- 
defence, or for aggression. And thus were nourished in 
them the stern virtues of courage, self-reliance, hardihood, 
and independence. 

The weakness of central government and law, which 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 73 

was unable to protect the Borderers either from the Eng- 
lish or from each other, led, as we have seen, to the for- 
mation and subsistence of clanship among them — a rela- 
tion nearly as strict on the Borders as in the Highlands 
of Scotland. This created the feeling of personal attach- 
ment to a chief. There was a good deal of roughness 
and coarseness in their life, a good deal of plain speaking, 
as in their ballads ; but their circumstances afforded the 
fullest scope for individualism of character, for personal 
courage and prowess, enduraace and daring, skill of fight 
and fence, not unmixed with a fine spirit of chivalry and 
a high sense of honour. It was not much of a peaceful 
or comfortable time : one clan or family was quite ready 
to burn the tower or " lift " the cattle of its neighbour ; 
but even their thieving had at least the virtue of openness. 
It was a habit of mutual reprisals or violent exchange. 
As old Satchells says : — 

" A freebooter is a cavalier who risks his life for gain." 

They certainly risked their lives in the act ; and they 
contrast favourably with some people in our own times, 
who safely and respectably rob by schemes of bubble 
companies, or cheat by means of adulterated goods, or 
send rotten ships to sea. 

Out of those circumstances rose the Historical Ballads 
of the district — that is, the poems that narrate Border 
exploits, either of a national or a personal kind, against 
the English on the other side, or of raids and forays of 
one clan upon another in the Border district itself. These 
simple rhythmical narratives are among the oldest com- 
positions of the district. The subjects of them, the ex- 



74 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

ploits of the chiefs of the clans and their vassals, were 
naturally the things that excited most interest in the 
country-side. And the minstrel or bard celebrated these 
long before he had any feeling for natural scenery as an 
object of poetic description ; or even before he cared to 
sing of love, or tenderness, or pity. Accordingly, we may 
place as among the earliest compositions the historical 
ballads, such as Auld Maitland, Battle of Otterboume, 
The Song of the Outlaw Murray ^ Johnnie Armstrong^ 
Jamie Telfer of the Fair Dodhead^ and so on. 

As far back in time as the historical ballads, and in- 
deed in some cases before them, I am inclined to place 
that class of ballads which relates to the supersensible, 
especially to the world of Fairyland, to beliefs about un- 
seen powers and their influence on human life, such as 
Thomas the Rhymour^s Ride to Fairyland, Young Tamlanef 
and others. For, alongside an interest in the exploits of 
the men among them, the heart of the people was, from 
an early period, strongly influenced by beliefs and fancies 
regarding the unseen. These beliefs were not probably 
engendered in the Border district. The Borderer held 
them in common with the northern and Teutonic nations. 
But the shapes which the beliefs took were due to local 
circumstances. 

The third class of ballads is that which refers to some 
tragic or pathetic incident in the life of a person or in 
a district, in which are mixed up the emotions of love, 
sorrow, tenderness, pity. Of this class we have examples 
chiefly in those of the Yarrow, ITie Dovglas Tragedy, The 
Dowie Dens, and so on ; and in the matchless wail of The 
Flowers of the Forest, 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 75 

Then we have the fourth class, that particularly of 
Songs rather than ballads, in which the poet seeks not to 
narrate chiefly, or even at all, but to give expression to 
the master emotion of successful or unsuccessful love, 
such as Lord Tester's Tiveedside, John Hay's Bonnie 
Lassie, and Robert Crawford's Bush ahoon Traquair, 

Sir Walter Scott in the Minstrelsy has classed, or 
rather thrown together, a great many ballads and songs 
under the head of " Eomantic." Among these are some 
founded on Fairy inspiration — such as Tamlane ; some 
on witchcraft and magical enchantment — as Kempion ; 
some properly historical ; and, finally, others still that 
represent strong emotions of love and grief. A classifi- 
cation of this sort is obviously of no real meaning or 
critical importance. Tlie central notion of romance 
seems to be the conception that the laws of nature and 
natural powers are subject to the control of supernatural 
agencies, or of persons to whom those agencies commu- 
nicate their powers. There is, in fact, supposed to be 
a fusion of the material and the spiritual, the former 
presenting no form of difficulty which the latter cannot 
overcome. Very few of the ballads, however, in Scott's 
classification fulfil this condition. His own Eve of St 
John and Leyden's CoiU of Keeldar might fairly come 
under this description ; and, abroad. Burger, Goethe, and 
Uhland furnish appropriate modern examples. But 
surely it was out of place to class with these ballads, or 
with the productions of the German school of last 
century, The Daicglas Tragedy and The Border Widow's 
Lament. 

Romance, in this, its primary and essential form, is an 



76 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

expression of the conviction that mere naturalism or 
materialism — the world as it exists for the senses — is 
not the whole of things, not all which men should rest in 
or accept ; but that somehow there is a transcendent 
sphere of power and being, which lives in the world, 
shows itself there, is yet above it and capable of mov- 
ing on through all time, and every variety of sensible 
phenomena. Romance postulates an extravagance and 
an extraordinariness in the manifestations of this power, 
because it supposes that the ordinary movements of the 
physical world are independent, and do not show super- 
natural agency as the marvellous does. This is the mere 
mistake of irreflection ; but it is well that, however 
imperfectly located may be the transcendent and eternal 
power, there is at least some form of its recognition — a 
consciousness of its nearness and pervading character. 

The secondary yet related meaning of romance seems 
to be that tendency of individualism in character, which 
leads to action and situation, not comprised within the 
limits of conventional rule, and which is novel and 
striking, as if the person were actuated by some new 
ideal of life or things. The romantic thus may or may 
not be a violation of law ; that, at least, is not in the 
actor's thoughts. It comprises, in fact, every form of 
individualism which asserts itself without regard to the 
usual course of conduct observed, or tradition accepted in 
the circumstances, and yet is in itself earnest and true to 
its conviction of what is noblest and best. But, whatever 
view we adopt of the nature of romance, there can be no 
doubt that, as it appears in the older ballads, it is mainly 
an inspiration from the Arthurian period — a traditional 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 77 

inheritance, without consciousness of it, from that epoch. 
And the ballads which express it are of the older type. 
They lead us back to the early fountains of European 
romance, as the Fairy ballads do to Scandinavian my- 
thology. 

I do not here profess to give more than a general and 
convenient classification of those ballads and songs. The 
truth is, there is no principle of division among them 
which, if rigidly laid down, would not at once be crossed. 
The supernatural and historical elements are constantly 
blended ; the mythic and legendary are mixed with both ; 
and the romantic, while appearing here and there dis- 
tinctly, is really in one or other of its forms all through 
the older Border poetry. I refer to dififerent ballads as 
under those various heads, because there may be found in 
them the one of those elements more distinctly marked 
than the other. This fusion of various features, natural 
to the circumstances and the feelings of the writers, 
forms the charm of the often inartistic verses. All these 
elements, moreover, seem equally real to the minstrel. 
The Fairy world, the power of the magician and wizard, 
the return from the dead, are spoken of with the same 
sense of reality as the hand-to-hand encounter in a 
deadly raid. The legend of the past is treated as the 
fact of the present. The romantic in feeling and deed is 
the natural. It is this blending of ideal and real which 
softens the otherwise hard and repulsive features of the 
old Border life. The fearless daring and stern courage of 
the moss-trooper would stand out unrelieved in its savage 
severity, were he not felt at the same time to be under 
the power of an awe and dread from the supersensible ; 



78 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

and were not the narrative of the cruellest deed now and 
again softened by a gleam of pity and of pathos, as the 
sudden and passing glimpse of sunlight tenderly illumines 
the rough grey crag of the Border hills. Hogg touched 
all the elements of Border poetry when he sung in The 
Wake : — 

" Each glen was sought for tales of old, 
Of luckless love, of warrior bold. 
Of ravished maid, or stolen child. 
By freakish fairy of the wild ; 
Of sheeted ghost, that had revealed 
Dark deeds of guilt, from man concealed ; 
Of boding dreams, of wandering sprite. 
Of dead lights glimmering through the night ; 
Yes, every tale of ruth or weir, 
Could waken pity, love, or fear. 
Were decked anew, with anxious pain. 
And sung to native airs again." 

Of the authors of the older ballads and songs of the 
Borders we know little or nothing. One tradition of 
authorship there is. Once the Flower of Yarrow — the 
Mary Scott who married Harden — was watching the 
return of her husband from a Border foray ; her ear 
caught the wail of a child among the spoils which 
Harden had carried home. The mother's heart was 
touched ; she took the child, and reared it, and it is said 
of him : — 

" Of milder mood the gentle captive grew. 
Nor loved the scenes that scared his infant view. 
In vales remote from camps and castles far, 
He shunn'd the fearful shuddering joy of war ; 
Content the loves of simple swains to sing. 
Or wake to fame the harp's heroic string. 
His are the strains, whose wandering echoes thrill 
The shepherd lingering on the twilight hill, 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 79 

When evening brings the merry folding hours, 
And sun-eyed daisies close their winking flowers. 
He lived o*er Yarrow^s Flower to shed the tear, 
To strew the holly's leaves o*er Harden's bier ; 
But none was found, above the minstreFs tomb, 
Emblem of peace, to bid the daisy bloom : 
He, nameless as the race from which he sprung, 
Saved other names, and left his own unsung." 

James Hogg, as well as Ley den, has referred touch ingly 
to the oblivion which covers the names of the bards of 
the Tweed and Yarrow : — 

" Woe that the bard, whose thrilling song 
Has pour'd from age to age along. 
Should perish from the lists of fame. 
And lose his only boon — a name ! 
Yet many a song of wondrous power. 
Well known in cot and greenwood bower, 
Wherever swells the shepherd'^ reed, 
On Yarrow's banks and braes of Tweed ; 
Yes, many a song of olden time. 
Of rude array, and air sublime. 
Though long on time's dark whirlpool toss'd. 
The song is saved, the bard is lost. 

Yet have I ween'd, when these I sung 
On Ettrick banks, while mind was young ; 
When on the eve their strains I threw, 
And youths and maidens round me drew ; 
Or chanted in the lonely glen. 
Far from the haunts and eyes of men ; 
Yes, 1 have ween'd, with fondest sigh, 
The spirit of the bard was nigh ; 
Swung by the breeze on bracken pile, 
Or hovering o'er me with a smile. 
Would Fancy still her dreams combine. 
That spirit too might breathe on mine ; 
Well pleased to see her songs the joy 
Of that poor lonely shepherd boy." ^ 



Wake, Second Bard's Song, 



80 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

There can be no doubt, however, that the habit of 
celebrating exploits in ballads and of giving expression 
to emotion in song was common on the Border of Scot- 
land in very early times. Barbour excuses himself for 
giving the particulars of a Border exploit, a victory 
gained by Schyr Johne the Soullis over Schyr Andrew 
Hardclay, for the reason that one may hear these any 
day sung by young women at play.^ His words are : — 

" I will nocLt rehers the maner, 
For wha sa likes thai may her 
Young wemen quken thai will play, 
Syng it amang tkaim ilk day.'' 

There can be little doubt that the Birace of Barbour and 
the Wallace of Blind Harry are both greatly indebted to 
songs and ballads existing before their time ; that both 
minstrels made use of them in their works ; and that thus 
the earlier compositions disappeared. As with Homer 
in this respect, there were pre-existing poems waiting to 
be fitted into the national epic. 

The Complaynt of Scotland with its list of songs and 
ballads is emphatic as to the number of floating ballads ; 
and Lesley bears testimony to the same fact. What has 
come down to us of song, ballad, and tune may, probably 
does, in some respects, represent the older minstrelsy ; but 
we have not precisely the oldest set of words or forms. 
There is, however, at least the continuity of inspiration, 
and in several cases the old airs have survived the loss 
of the original words, as in the case of Tlie Flowers of the 
Forest and Braw Braw Lads of Gala Water. The old 

^ Cf. Motherwell, Minstrdayy Introduction, xlviii. 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BOEDER. 81 

tunes haunting the ear of the more modern minstrel 
have become the sources of new and inspiring songs. 
Some doubts have been raised regarding the genuine- 
ness and authenticity of certain of the Border and other 
ballads of Scotland. This has been done chiefly by the 
late Dr Eobert Chambers.^ His view is that a consider- 
able number of those ballads were really written by one 
person, in imitation of the antique ; and he attributes 
these to Lady Wardlaw of Pitreavie (1677-1727). This 
lady was, as is now fully acknowledged, the authoress of 
Hardyknute. Dr Chambers regards as her composition, 
among others, the following Scottish historical ballads — 
viz., Sir Patrick Spcns, Gil Morice, Edward ! Edward ! 
GHlderoy, Young Waters, Edom o* Gordon, and Bonnie Earl 
of Moray. He founds chiefly on similarities in phrases 
and lines, — not a very powerful argument in regard to 
poems, which, if antique, must have come down in popu- 
lar memory and recitation. And if we look closely to the 
internal evidence afiforded by Lady Wardlaw's acknow- 
ledged composition, Hardyknute, and those other ballads 
now mentioned, we shall find very marked differences 
in spirit, style, simplicity, and distinctness of imagery, 
so as to make it highly improbable that Sir Patrick 
Spens, or Gil Morice, or Edom o' Gordon could have come 
from the same hand as Hardyknute, The telling part, 
however, against the hypothesis is that Gil Morice and 
Edom 0* Gordon are to be found in the Percy MS., written 
in all probability about 1650, by a native of Lancashire 
or Cheshire. This was twenty-seven years before Eliza- 
beth Halket of Pitfirrane, afterwards Lady Wardlaw, was 

1 See The Romantic Scottish BdUads, by R. Chambers (1859). 
VOL. II. F 



82 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

born. Another point is that while we have not more, as 
a rule, than one version of the modem imitation or 
forgery of the antique, we have almost always several, 
even differing, versions of the really old ballads.^ It 
is utterly improbable that these varying versions, to be 
found often in the south, west, and north of Scotland, 
could have arisen from a ballad produced in the 
middle of last century, or at any period nearly ap- 
proaching it. 

William Dunbar — the illustrious author of The 
Thistle and Rose and The Golden Terge — who, along 
with Gawain Douglas, adorned the reign of James IV. 
(1488-1513), and who lived from 1455 to about 1520, 
wrote in his old age a Lament for the Mahars (Poets). 
The Lament has a saddened tone about it. We seem to 
see, as Lord Hailes says, " the once gay Dunbar, now 
advanced in years, deprived of his joyous companions, 
and probably jostled out of court by other wits, younger 
and more fashionable than he. He mentions the names 
and mourns the death of no less than twenty-three 
Scottish poets ; of about twelve of whom not a single 
memorial now remains, or, at least, is known." Among 
the makars whose death Dunbar laments are the 
following : — 

" The gude Sir Hew of Eglintoun, 
Ettriik, Heryot and Wintoun, 
He hes tane out of this cuntrie. 
Timor Mortis conturbat me. 



^ The view of Chambers has deservedly met with little or no accept- 
ance. See, on this point, Nerval Clyne, Homantio SeoUUh BallcuU (1859), 
and Wheatley, Percy* 8 Rdiques, Introduction. 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OP THE BORDER. 83 

That skorpioun fell hes done infek ^ 
Maister Johne Clerk, and James Afflek, 
Frae ballat making and trigedie. 

Holland and Barbour he has berevit ; 
Allace ! that he nocht with us levit 
Schir Mungo Lokart of the Lie. 

Clerk of Tranent eik he has tane, 
That maid the Aenteris of Gawane ; 
Schir Gilbert Hay endit hes he. 



And he has now tane last of aw, 
Gud gentil Stobo, and Quintene Schaw, 
Of quhome all wightis hes pitie." * 

Dr David Laing supposed that Ettriik was a 
misreading for " Et eik " — that is, " and also." This 
would mean simply, " and also Heriot," and thus Ettriik 
as a separate poet would disappear. But Dr Schipper, 
in his most careful and able edition of Dunbar, gives 
good reasons for supposing that "Ettriik" was really 
the original reading.^ His conjecture, however, that 
Ettriik is an adjective, and refers to Heryot of Ettrick, 
is improbable. The poets are obviously named from 
their localities, as was usual in the old times for both 
poets and lairds ; and Heryot and Ettriik are well known 
as wholly different localities. That we do not know 
anything more about Ettriik is no conclusive proof what- 
ever that he did not exist ; and we know just as much 
or as little of some of the others mentioned by Dunbar. 
Sir Mungo Lockhart of the Lee points to Lanarkshire. 
He is mentioned as being dead in 1487. 

^ Probably made feckless, either incapable or dead. 

* Sibbald, I 209 and 325. 

» The Poenu of WUliam Dumhar, 287, 288. Cf. Schipper's edition, 285. 



84 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Others are named — as Blind Harry, Sandy Traill, 
Patrick Johnston, Mersar, EowU of Aberdeen, EowU of 
Corstorphine, Broun and Henryson of Dunfermline, Schir 
Johne the Boss. " Ettriik," " Heryot," and "Stobo" 
point probably either to the places of birth of the poets 
or their acquired residences. Designations thus origin- 
ating were very common at the time. Heriot lies up in 
the vale of the Gala Water, and Stobo is on the Tweed 
in Peeblesshire. We have very clear details about the 
person known as " Stobo." This was another name for 
Sir John Reid, a churchman and notary, clerk in the 
secretary's oflBce, in the reign of James III. On the 
29th March 1474 the king granted a pension of £20 
a-year to " Johne Eeid, alias Stobo," in consideration of 
his services as foreign secretary to the king's father and 
himself. Special reference is made to letters written 
by Eeid to the Pope, and to divers foreign kings and 
princes. The last payment of his pension is in 1504-5, 
when he is spoken of as deceased before July 13, 1505.^ 
It can hardly be doubted that Reid was named Stobo, 
from his birthplace in Peeblesshire, or from his con- 
nection with that ancient metropolitan church (ecclesia 
plebania)} Eeid clearly received his annual salary for 
efifective work done in the secretary's office ; but it is 
quite likely that his poetical talents recommended him 
for office to a king of the Stewart line, for in the 
Stewarts there was, as a rule, the taste of the poet, and 
not unfrequently his genius. Under the chivalrous and 
romantic James the Fourth, in 1490, we find that 

^ Treasurer's Accounts — Preface, p. c. 

^ For Shaw and Stobo, see Mackay and Laing ; Schipper, 290. 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 85 

" Blinde Harry " received xviii shillings (solidi), and 
that his name occurs at intervals as a recipient of royal 
bounty until 1491-92, when it appears for the last 
time.^ We have also in the same reign a recognition 
by the Treasury of " Wallass that tauld geists," and 
"Widderspune that tauld tailis to the King." These 
were possibly not only reciters, but makars. 

Somewhat later than these there is another name — or 
rather, there are two men of the same name, who were 
directly or indirectly connected with the Lowlands of 
Scotland, and who obviously enjoyed a high literary 
repute in their time. These were both called Sir James 
Inglis — the Sir being the designation at the time of a 
class of priests known as the Pope's Knights. One of 
them was in all probability the author of the Complaynt 
of Scotland. He was chaplain to the Abbey of Cambus- 
kenneth from about 1508 to 1550. He was present at 
the battle of Pinkie, and he survived until 1554. He 
has been confounded with Sir James Inglis, Abbot of 
Culross, who met his death, by violence, at least eighteen 
years before the Complaynt was published. The prin- 
cipal family of Inglis at this period, and from the time 
of Eobert II., was that of Manor and Manorhead. The 
family also, at an early period, possessed Branksome, 
Goldielands, and other properties in Teviotdale, as a fief 
under the Douglases. By a deed of excambion (23d 
July 1446) half these lands were exchanged for Mur- 
thockstone or Murdieston in Lanarkshire, then held by 
Sir Walter Scott, progenitor of the Dukes of Buccleuch. 
It was thus that the Scotts got a footing in Teviotdale, 

1 Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer ^ 133, edited by DickBOD. 



i: 



86 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

and added to the limited and bleak pastoral uplands of 
Bellenden and Buccleuch a wide and rich tract of land, 
which besides had the advantage, to men of their habits, 
of commanding important passes east and west into Eng- 
land. This excambion, in fact, opened up the career of 
the Scotts of Buccleuch. The family of Manor, doubt- 
less, sent their younger sons into the Church, just as did 
the turbulent Turnbulls of Minto and Bedrule, one of 
whom was Bishop of Glasgow and founder of the Uni- 
versity. The author of the Complaynt was a partisan of 
the French side, a Catholic and a churchman, and, as 
shown by the language of the work, a native of a south- 
em or Border county.^ Sir James Inglis of Cambus- 
kenneth is known to fulfil the first two conditions ; and, 
supposing him to have been a son of Inglis of Manor, he 
would fulfil the last of them. We have no direct evi- 
dence of the poetical talents of the author of the Com- 
playnt, but he certainly was intimately acquainted with 
the whole poetical literature of Scotland, whether com- 
mitted to writing or floating in oral tradition — a kind of 
knowledge he might very well have acquired in his 
Border home. There is strong presumptive evidence 
that a son of John Inglis, the laird of Manor, who died 
at an advanced age between 1495 and 1500, was the 
author of the famous Complaynt of Scotland. The other 
Sir James Inglis, of the Abbey of Culross, is referred 
to by Sir David Lyndsay as a poet of rich and varied 
faculty : — 

" And in the court bin present in thir dayis, 
That ballatis brevis • lustely, and layis, 

^ See Murray, Preface to the Complaynt^ p. cxvi. * Write. 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 87 

Quhilkis ^ to our prince dailie they do present, 
Quha can say mair than Schir James Inglis sayis, 
In ballatis, farsis,^ and in pleasand playis ? 
But Culross has his pen maid impotent." ' 

"This yeire, 1530," says Sir James Balfour, "the Laird 
of Tulliallane was beheidit the first day of Marche, for 
killing Mr James Inglis, Abbot of Culross; and with 
him a mounck of the same Abbey, a chiefife author of 
the Abbot's slaughter."* If, as is supposed. Sir David 
Lyndsay finished The Papingo in December 1530, the 
last line must mean that Inglis was already dead. 

That this Inglis held Church preferment in Fife does 
not, of course, prove him to be of Fife origin. He is 
said, indeed, to have been born in Fife, and there was an 
Inglis of Tarvet there ; but this, like the family of Ing- 
liston, was a cadet of the house of Manor. And thus, 
possibly enough, the two contemporary men of the 
name of Sir James Inglis were of the same Border 
stock. 

Is it too much to suppose that we have in the " Ettriik," 
the " Heryot," and the " Stobo " of Dunbar's makars, and 
possibly in the Inglis of The Papingo — all obviously 
famous men in their time — the author or authors of 
some of the oldest strains of the Tweed, the Ettrick, and 
the Yarrow ? " Trigedie," or tragedy, does not mean a 
play, but a poem with a tragical issue — like most of the 
Border poems. In this case, some of these poems would 
take us back, at least in their original forms, to the 
middle of the fifteenth century, while others would very 

1 Which. 2 Farces. 

* The Papingo f printed in 1538, finished in December 1530. 

* Annates of Scotland^ i. 261. 



^..i.iivj 1.-) Ml|)[)()S('(l to lja\'L' l)U('ll (HI 

tU'riii;j; lllin:^tr('l or vIoIlt of tlio > 
thai is, of tlic |H-ii(»(l wlit'ii llnj r; 
extinct. Lurne is said to have I'ui 
age with the family of Thirlestane- 
of Lauderdale. ^ Looking to the 
Nicol Burne, I have little doubt that 
him in his mind in the introductic 
Last Minstrel, when he spoke of the 

"The last of all the Bards wi 
Who sung of Border cLivah 
For, well-a-day ! their date 
His tuneful brethren all we 
And he, neglected and oppr 
Wished to be with them, an* 

The old wandering violer himsel 
stanza of Leader Hauglis and Yarr 

'^ But Minstrel Burne cannot i 

His grief while life endure 
To see the changes of this a^ 

That fleeting time procure 
For mony a place stands in 1 

Where blyth fowk kend m 
With Homes that dwelt on 1 

And RpMo ♦^~* J " 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 89 

the other ballads connected with the Yarrow that now 
survive. 

The Ballads of the Borders, historical and legendary, 
are obviously older than the Songs. Indeed, it is doubt- 
ful whether there is any Border song, or even Scottish 
song generally, now extant, which goes further back than 
the middle of the seventeenth century. We have record 
in various quarters of the names of older songs, and even 
of the airs to which they were sung, but beyond a frag- 
mentarj' line or stanza, the songs prior to that date have 
passed from memory. And, while some of the ballads 
may originally be referred to a considerably ancient date, 
the form in which we now have them must be held as 
representing the changes and additions, the suggestions 
and the passing touches, of many generations. They 
are, in fact, growths of the ages — the continuous ex- 
pression of the national heart, rather than individual 
productions. 

That form of the romantic ballad which relates to the 
feeling of supernatural powers above and around, is even 
an earlier product of the Border land than the historical 
ballad itself. This feeling was for long one of the most 
marked peculiarities in the history of the Lowland Scot 
He brought it with him from the Scandinavian north, and 
it was nursed into strength by the scenery of his adopted 
land. One of its most prevalent and powerful forms was 
that which acknowledged the reality and the sway of the 
world of Elf, or, as it was called latterly, of Fairy. Be- 
sides the well-known prevalence of Elfin belief from the 
earliest period among the Teutonic tribes, the ballad of 
^Thomas the lihymour, which turns on tliis feeling, has 



-and tlu'ii aiMrd t(» l>v rdcr Say 

'• I l.ii-l my li.illrt - nil YMw II 
S.it't .-IniiiniiiL: '' cl'o <l my ( 
And there twa selcoutli ^ laJi< 
Sae fain to speak to me. 

Ane clappit me then, wi* chee 
And rown'd * intill mine ea 

* Rise up, fair youth, and join 
Rise up, but doubt or fear ! 

Wake up, fair youth, and join 
And we will tread the ring, 

While mair nor eardly melody 
My ladies for thee sing.' 

Syne ane, the fairest May on n 
Sae sweet a sang began : 

The hurling stream was stilled 
Sae fast afore that ran. 

The striving stream was stilled 
Sae fast that wont to rin ; 

The sma' fish in the flood that i 
Amo' their faes now blin'. 

The fishes a' in flood that were, 

Lay still, baith fin and tail ; 

The sma' fowls in the shaw beg 

To whitf^rC IT* ♦V^'v A^^~ 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 91 

* O hear, thou fair, thou young swain, 

And thou wi* us will dwell ; 
Then will we teach thee book and rune. 
To read and write sae well. 

I'll lear thee how the bear to bind. 

And fasten to the aik tree ; 
The dragon, that liggs ^ on mickle * goud,^ 

Afore thee fast shall flee.' 

They danced out, they danced in, 

In the Elfer ring sae green ; 
All silent sat the fair young swain. 

And on his sword did lean. 

* Now hear, thou fair, thou young swain. 

But and thou till us speak. 
Then shall on swonl and on sharp knife 
Thy dearest heart-blood reek.' 

Had God nae made my luck sae gude, 

That the cock did waf * his wing, 
I boot* ha'e bidden on Elfer Hill, 

In the Elf-ladies' ring." 8 

Sir Oluf and the JElf King's Baughterr, in the same col- 
lection, further illustrates the existence and strength of 
the Elfin belief in the north of Europe. Sir Oluf, who 
was about to be married, refused the advances of the Elf 
King's daughter, whereupon — 

" She's smitten Sir Oluf — it strak to his heart. 
He never before had kend ' sic a smart ; 

Then lifted him up on his ambler red ; 

* And now Sir Oluf ride hame to thy bride.* 

And when he came till the castell yett, 
His mother she stood and leant thereat. 



^ Lies. 2 Much. 3 Gold. 

* Flap. * Must. 

' Jamieson's Ballads and Songs, i. 225. ^ Known or felt. 



.Alia w li;il -liall I .-ay t«> thy y( 

* ^'<"11 .-ay lliat \'\r 1 i«Mrii Iml 
'\t 1 I'l ii\c -_;iii my li« 'i .-*• aii«l li' ■ 

Ear ^ on the morn, when nij^ht 
The bride she cam wi' the bridi 

They skiuked ^ the mead, they 

* where is Sir Oluf, bridegroo 

* Sir Oluf has ridden but into tt 
To prieve gin his horse and hou 

And she took up the scarlet red 
And there lay Sir Oluf, and he ' 

Ear on the mom, whan it was d 
Three likes ^ were ta'en from the 

Sir Oluf the leal, and his bride s 
And his mither that died wi' sor 

And lightly the elves so feat and 
They dance all under the green\i 

These show at once the community oi 
Scandinavian and Lowland Scot in 
character and power. 

The ancient and picturesque epic 
in a measure to know and feel the 
side of the suDPTnntnroi u«i:-«- -- 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 93 

duced on the Continent, and was brought into our island 
by the Angles, who colonised Bernicia and Deira in the 
sixth century. A later opinion is that it was framed in 
Mercia as an allegorical poem, suited to the times, in the 
last quarter of the eighth century.^ It was at least a 
powerful and prevalent influence on early Anglo-Saxon 
literature, and the subsequent mediaeval romances. Hroth- 
gar's royal hall of Heorot had been invaded o' nights by 
a monster in human shape — Grendel — who slew and 
devoured follower after follower of the king. Beowulf, 
a stranger, guest of the king, watches the prowling assas- 
sin, sees and grasps him in terrible struggle. Grendel 
escapes, flees across the moor, but leaves his arm in 
Beowulf's grip. GrendeFs dam afterwards visits the hall 
when all are asleep, and slays a knight. These mysteri- 
ous visitants of evil, half fiendish, half human, dwell in 
a gruesome lake not far away. Beowulf undertakes the 
task of going down into its dark waters and slaying 
the monsters. This is the description of them and their 
abode, and it shows the kind of imaginary creations with 
which our Angle forefathers peopled solitary moor and 
lake and fen. The king says, " I did hear say by land- 
owners, leeds of mine, heads of halls, that they saw 
a pair of such huge mark-stalkers, keeping the moors, 
creatures of strange fashion ; one of them was, according 
to the clearest they could make out, a beldam's likeness, 
the other miscreated thing trod lonely tracks in man's 
figure, only he was huger than any other man ; him in 
old times the country-folk used to call Grendel: they 
know not about any father, whether they had any pedi- 

^ The Deeds of Beowulf, by John Earle, M. A., Int., Ixxv et aeq, (1892.) 



and ()\'c*v il Iiaiin rimy j^rovcs ; a 
r()(>ts oNcrshrouds the water. TIkt 
t'raifiil portent Itc seen, jii'e on the 
liveth of tlie children of men as 
Though the heath- reamer, when e: 
the hart strong in his horns, make 
driven from far ; sooner will he resij 
on the bank, sooner than he will 
head. That is no comfortable plac 
up the raging waves, murky to the 
stirreth foul weather till the air 
crack." ^ Beowulf was to face thes 
natural imagination and of dread( 
How he did it, and succeeded in exti 
son, is bravely told.* The point of i 
the world outside the dwellings of 
stone banks, narrow gullies, strait lon< 
travelled route, sheer bluffs, many ha 
— were dreadful and repulsive becaus 
which inhabited them — nicors, etyns i 
fiends in the lakes and fens. This 
early Saxon poetry. Layamon descril 



1 J i-i-- 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 95 

With fen and with reed, 

With water very broad, 
AVith fishes and with fowls, 

With ugly things. 
That water is immeasurably broad ; 

Nickers bathe therein, 
ThTere is play of elves 

In the venomous pool." * 

This was the early appearance of nature to our fore- 
fathers, of moor and lake, of river and solitude of moun- 
tain, of the lonely places of the earth — all peopled in 
their depth and breadth by forms mysterious and super- 
sensible, generally hostile to man, here and there showing 
a half -mad or even frolicsome and friendly spirit, as we 
have storm, darkness, passing gleam, sportive wind, and 
pleasant sunshine in the element of the atmosphere. 
Monkish Christianity afterwards made those superstitious 
forms into devils and angels, finally some of them into 
warlocks and witches. But the possession of the outly- 
ing world by forms mostly demoniac was one great reason 
why men feared and were repelled from grand and lonely 
nature — ^moor, mountain, river, and lake — all through the 
middle ages, and until very near our own time. And 
from this source in early Angle literature have come 
most of the popular beliefs regarding the supersensible 
world and its denizens which appear in our ballad litera- 
ture. It would be idle to seek to apportion the heritage 
to Saxon and Cymri, for we find — at and after the dawn 
of literature — at least among the people of Brittany, Corn- 
wall, and Wales, Mercia, Northumbria, and Strathclyde, 
beliefs of this kind very closely akin. 

There were various classes of Elves in Teutonic my- 

1 Cf. Wright, MiddU Arjes, i. viii. 



. ...^ , a li 1 III • '1 LI II l; lilt' ri>< 

ii])|)rua('liinu in soiiir ic-^jiccts to 
Tlu'lr atlriltiit<'s, aiiii»ii--t wliidi \V( 
luru.s of llic inuduni laiiy, wt-re super 
prescience, and skill in the meclianict 
the fabrication of arms. They are f 
capricious, vindictive, and easily irrit 
inal conception came in the middle t 
with notions of witchcraft ; but th( 
originally essentially distinct. To 
endowed with supernatural power 
imagine supernatural beings surrounc 
is quite another thing. The one mi| 
be felt as exceedingly repulsive and 
cially when connected with diabolici 
other was softened by being elevated 
outside of the real world — as belonging 
nor to hell ; and thus it was contemp 
mainly of wonder and awe. For purj 
Elfin conception was obviously the mi 
of the two. 

The Elf was in its origin a personi 
features of nature. Possihlv thp w« 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 97 

as they strike white into the depths of glens. Noon and 
midnight were the periods of full Elfin power. Even if 
we suppose the root to be the same with that of Elbe, or 
running stream, we may quite well include the notion of 
sparkling light. In the stream dwelt the more malig- 
nant Wader 'Elf y or Kelpie. He was the spirit of foam 
and flood. The ordinary elf was, however, a creation of 
the earth — a dweller in mountain and on moorland. 
The chase of light and shade, the fitful outbreak of the 
wind among the hills, the varying forms of cloud that 
now darken and then throw a shimmering gleam over 
the moor, represent the inconstant side of nature. This, 
not wholly beneficent or pleasing, not wholly hurtful or 
disagreeable to the dwellers on earth, was typified and 
reflected in the unsteady moral nature of the Elfin 
beings and in their freakish impulses, directed sometimes 
to the good and sometimes to the harm of mortals. The 
Elf or Fairy, as a creature of the wilds, was the sym- 
bolical balance of the good and evil wrought out there 
by natural powers; while the wocter-elf, or kelpie, the 
spirit that lived in the bum or water, being a similar 
natural personification, was yet more thoroughly an 
enemy of man ; for the element in which he resided 
commonly announced itself, in a mountainous country, 
by suddenly rising in flood and wrath, and thus pro- 
claimed itself most exclusively as a destroying power : — 

" The side was stey, and the bottom deep, 
Frae bank to brae, the water pouring ; 
And the bonny grey mare did sweat for fear. 
For she heard the water-kelpy roaring." ^ 



^ Annan Water, 
VOL. n. 



inixi'd witli a sciisu of leiidei'iit'ss a 
The niu'L;('<l i<k]>:s and tlic dcr]) ra\'( 
}uM>|ilL'd, and the dwellers lliciriii i 
correspouding not only to what was i 
but to what was outward, green, sui 
the elves lived in both worlds. Nat 
for the finer spots of earth fairer form 
men and women of earth. Thus it 
green on the hills, the sunny gUmi 
shaw, were peopled with ethereal forn 
knowes were supposed to cover secre 
spirits held their revels; and the 
sounds that come across the moorlai 
high up among lonely crags, were felt 
of the bells and the bridle-ring of the 
The attributes of the original Scand 
greatly modified during the middle ag( 
by classical conceptions, and by the 
poets. But in Scotland they retained 
and stern features of the original. To 
of the country might have some efiS 
naturally attribute a less malicious dis] 



*-.:_i-i.*— ■» 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 99 

The account which the knight in the ballad of The 
Young Tamlane — unsurpassed among Fairy poems — 
gives of his spiriting away by the Fairies, and of their 
life, may be taken as fairly embodying the popular faith, 
and as showing how closely it shadowed forth an im- 
personation of the aspects of outward nature. This 
ballad obviously presents some modern diction, and prob- 
ably also modern stanzas, which it has acquired in the 
course of its oral transmission. But the whole concep- 
tion of the story, and the main part of the details, point 
to a considerable antiquity. The title is also given in 
the Complaynt of Scotland, It was obviously well known 
as far back at least as the early part^ of the sixteenth 
century. But there is every probability, on internal 
grounds of story and conception, that the original is as 
old as the formation even of the northern English dialect 
"It seems," says Leyden, "to have been originally a 
romance of Faery, and was probably converted by popular 
tradition into a historical ballad." " Tam Lin " and 
" Tam Lene " are apparently corruptions of Thomalin or 
Tomlin. 

" The pypers' drone was out of tone. 
Sing young ThomHn ; 
Be meiTy and merry and twice so merrie. 
With the light of the moon." * 

The ballad runs as follows : — 

" When I was a boy just turned of nine, 
My uncle sent for me, 
To hunt, and hawk, and ride with him. 
And keep him cumpanie. 



» Complaynt of Scotland, Introd., 231, 273. (1801.) 



100 BOEDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

There came a wind out of the north, 

A sharp wind and a bdcII ; 
And a deep sleep came over me, 

And free my horse I fell. 

The Queen of Fairies keppit' me 

In yon green hill to dwell ; 
And I'm a fairy, lyth and limb, 

Fair ladye, view me well. 

Bat we that live in Fairyland, 

No eickneas know, nor pain, 
I quit my body when I will. 

And take to it again. 

I quit my body when I please. 

Or unto it repair ; 
We can inhabit at our ease, 

In either earth or air. 

Our shapes and size we can convert 

To either large or small ; 
An old nutshell's the same to us 

As is the lofty ball. 

We sleep in rosebuds soft and sweet. 

We revel in the stream ; 
We wanton lightly on the wind, 

Or glide on a sunbeam," 

But elfin p^eant or fairy dance never would tolerate the 
ecrutiny of mortal eye. Glance of it there might be ; a 
mortal might aee that it was, and be dazzled and inter- 
ested for a moment by the wondrous and unearthly sight; 
but no sooner was the group aware of the curious gaze of 
one of middle-erd than it passed away — the green spot 
of the revels, the hall with its crystal floor and golden 
roof, the quaint pageantry of living forms within it, were 
lost in the mists of the gloaming, or fused with the clear- 

> Caught while falling. 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 101 

spreading and formless glimpses of the autumn moon, out 
of which fancy had originally evoked them : — 

" When we cam there, wi* wee wee knichts 
Were ladies dancing, jimp and sma' ; 
But in the twinkling of an e'e 
Baith green and ha' war clein awa." 

The Elfin world was thus surrounded, to the popular 
imagination, with a deep sense of mystery. As a power 
that interfered with mortals, often spirited them away to 
an unseen realm, it was a source of dread. It inspired 
that peculiar feeling which arises from the thought of a 
power mysterious and supersensible, whicli yet touched 
the margin of this earthly life of ours. This is the feel- 
ing which, in various degrees of intensity, is displayed in 
the Fairy ballads, and which helps to give them their 
wonderful influence, even now, on the imagination. It 
is illustrated in the hold which the Queen of Elfinland 
had over Thomas the Ehymour, and in the haunting sense 
of a time of recall to "another cuntr^" which over- 
shadowed his whole subsequent life. And the mystery 
of Elfinland is deepened, and its power over the emotion 
of dread intensified, by the glimpses which we get, in the 
ballad of the Ehymour and others, of the dark ways that 
lead to the Elfin world, and the life that is there — neither 
checkered by mortal change or calamity, nor cheered by 
mortal hopes — removed, on the one hand, from the pitiless 
agony of hell, and shut out from the pure bliss of heaven. 
The two stanzas which describe the unearthly journey, illus- 
trate what has been said regarding the modifications which 
the older ballads have undergone. They are diflferent from 
the lines in the oldest copy, yet they are very grand : — 



- ..• , .. .1' u « I I 111 t Mi^ii rei I I ii 11* II' I 

F(»r ;i' llu' l>lu'lt' that's sIumI di cartli 
liiii^ tliioii-h tilt' springs n' that < lur 

Tlie buUiid ul' yV/c Ji/i//)jLu('/', but piii 
7%e Young Tamlanc, brings out the dar 
bright side of the Elfin faith. The latter 
as weird and awesome as the heart of ini 
The good folks of fairy were not altogetl 
powers of evil; for they had to pay 
every seventh year to hell, in the shaj 
of their own company, or of a living i 
this was a post-Christian element of tl 
from the notion of vicarious sacrifice, whi 
ages, the devil was supposed entitled 
notion appears in the old ballad of the 
the ground of the action in Young Tamla 
had been spirited away by Elfin enchan 
now in its power. The probability was 
infernal tithe came to be paid he woulc 
handed over to hell: — 

" Then would I never tire, Janet, 
In Elfish land to dwell ; 
But aye, at every seven vears. 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 103 

There was, Kowever, a possibility of rescue ; the enchant- 
ment which held him might be broken, and he himself 
restored to an earthly life. But what a degree of resohi- 
tion and courage on the part of the friend or lover of the 
Elfin thrall was needed to effect a rescue ! On one night 
of the year only was this possible. On Halloween, fair 
Janet, the lover of the Fairy-bound knight, must wait 
alone on the wild moor for the unearthly procession in 
which he was to pass, and there recognise, seize, and hold 
him captive : — 

" Gloomy, gloomy was the night, 
And eir}' was the way, 
And fair Janet, in her green mantle, 
To Miles Cross,^ she did gae. 

The heavens were black, the night was dark, 

And dreary was the place ; 
But Janet stood with eager wish 

Her lover to embrace. 

Betwixt the hours of twelve and one, 

A north wind tore the bent ; 
And straight she heard strange elritch sounds 

Upon the wind which went. 

About the dead hour of the night. 

She heard the bridles ring ; 
Ajid Janet was as glad o* that 

As any earthly thing ! 

Their oaten pipes blew wondrous shrill, 

The hemlock small blew clear ; 
And louder notes from hemlock large, 

And bog-reed struck the ear ; 
But solemn sounds or sober thoughts 

The Fairies cannot bear. 



^ Perhaps Mary's Cross. . 



. ... I i ■ ' i I- J 1 a L ^\ 1 u K J 1 1 1 ;j 1 1 ;_M 1 1 ; 

And so'.ii >][{' saw till- l''airy l-aiid 
All lidiiiu' in lit-r >iL'lit. 

Aii'l tir-t -;u/(l l>y tlu- 1.1, i.k M.bk 
And then gaed by the blown ; 

But fast she gript the milk-white 
And pu'd the rider down. 

She pu'd him frae the milk-white 
And loot the bridle fa' ; 

And up their raise an erlish ^ cry 
* He's won among us a' ! ' 

They shaped him in fair Janet's ai 
An esk,^ but and an adder ; 

She held him fast in every shape, 
To be her bairn's father. 

They shaped him in her arms at Is 
A mother-naked man : 

She wrapped him in her green mar 
And sae her true love wan ! " 

"A north wind tore the bent;" truer, fii 
than this was never written. It expres 
feeling which, in late autumn, the north-^ 
to the heart of one passing amid the tosj 
bent of the moorland. And at night tl 
resistless wind, doing its work with fell i 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 105 

and mysterious, out of the grey weather-gleam, and the 
palpitating sense that the fate of her lover was wholly in 
her hands, how great was the staunch will and the strong 
courage that were needed for the rescue ! 

Perhaps in this old tale there lurks a higher moral 
than we are ready to perceive. Possibly it may point to 
the struggle, often found so hard, with the repulsive 
shapes, by which the powers of evil are ever ready to in- 
terpose between us and wliat may be our highest, truest 
good. There is a fine lesson of courage and faith and 
self-sacrifice, even for us, in the old mythic fairy creed. 

The abstraction of mortals from their earthly home, 
especially of fair maidens, by fairy power, and, in some 
cases, their forcible rescue, were for long the current sub- 
jects of legend and traditional story in the Forest Down 
to the time of James Hogg, indeed, and perhaps later, 
they were even matters of cherished belief. Hogg lived 
in the transition period between the general acceptance 
of such a creed and its partial decay. No side of old 
legend stirred his untutored imagination more than this ; 
and no Scottish poet has dealt with the power and the 
realm of Fairy more vividly and impressively than the 
Bard of Ettrick. He caught up several of the floating 
traditions which actually localised the fairy doings, and 
this, as he haunted the hills and moors where they were 
said to have taken place, brought the old legend home to 
his everyday life and feeling. He was thus led to an 
accurate observation and description of the reputed scenes 
of the story, and of the haunts of the Fairies. These had 
received only bare mention in the tradition itself, and 
little more than this even when they had been put into 



106 BOEDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

verse in the older time. But all these spota he knew 
well ; many of them were the daily round of the Shepherd 
and his collie. The legends he had learned thus acquired 
something of the reality which he felt. Hence Hogg's 
poems of Fairy are remarkahle for the fulness, the richness, 
and the accuracy of the description of the country — of hill, 
glen, and moor. Tliis was the new or modern element in 
the poetry of the Borders. It had been but imperfectly 
represented in the older ballads. It was iirst distinctly 
brought before the world by Leyden in his Scenes of /ji- 
fancy; and with Hogg this new fresh element of Border 
literature came in at its best and purest through the 
localisation of fairy legends. 

The best proof and illustration of this appear in the 
ballad of Old David in the Wake. " Lochy-Law," Hogg 
tells us, " where the principal scene of this tale is laid, is 
a hill on the lands of Shorthope in the wilds of Ettrick. 
The Fairy Slack is up in the middle of the hill, a very 
curious ravine, and would be much more so when over- 
shadowed with wood. The Black-Burn, wliich joins the 
Ettrick immediately below this hill, has been haunted 
from time immemorial, both by the Fairies and the ghost 
of a wandering minstrel who was cruelly murdered there, 
and who sleeps in a lone grave a small distance from the 
ford."^ 

The burden of the ballad is the story of the rescue of 
a maiden from fairy power, founded on an old legend of 
the Forest The victim u represented as Anne of Itae- 
bum, and the rescuers are Old David Laidlaw of Garwell 
in Eskdalemuir and his seven sons. By one of these, 
^ The Wakt, Note ix. 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 107 

Owen, the maiden spirited away had been silently be- 
loved. But no one knew whither she had gone : and it 
was only after David and his sons had broken into the 
fairy caverns that she was discovered and rescued. The 
power of the story is, however, in this instance inferior 
to the pictures of scenery in the ballad. The old man 
first saw the fairy pageant at early mom pass o'er 
"Wonfell'a wizard brae" at the head of Eskdale. Then — 

" Fast spur tbej on tliroiitjli buah and brake ; 
To Ettrick'a woods their course they take. 
Old David followed still in view, 
Till near the Lochiluw tliey drew; 
There, in a, deep and wonJrouB dell, 
Where wandering aunbeam never fell, 
Where noontide breezes never blew, 
From flowers to drink the morning dew ; 
There, underneath the sylvan shade. 
The fairies' spacious bower was made ; 
Ita rampart was the tangling sloe. 
The bending brier and mistletoe ; 
And o'er its roof the crooked oak 
Waved wildly from the frowning rock. 
This w*on(lrouB bower, this haunted dell, 
The forest shepherd shunn'd as liell ! 
When sound of fairies' silver horn 
Came on the evening breezes home, 
Homeward he fled, nor made a stand. 
Thinking the spirits hard at hand. 
But when he heard the eldrich swell 
Of giggling laugh and bridle bell. 
Or saw the riUers troop along, 
Hia orisons were loud and strong. 
His household fare he yielded free 
To this mysterious company," 

David and his sons proceed at night to the supposed 
haunt of this aiiirial band, and we have the following 
picture ; — 



108 BOEDEB HISTORY AND POETRY. 

" That evening fell bo sweetly etill. 
So mild on lonely moor and hill, 
The little geuii of the fell 
Forsook the purple heather-bell, 
And all their dripping beds of dew, 
In wind-flower, thyme, and violet blue ; 
Aloft their viewless looms they heave. 
And dew-webs round the helmets weave. 
The waning moon her lustre threw. 
Pale round her throne of softened blue ; 
Her circuit round the southland aky 
Was languid, low, and quickly bye ; 
Leaiting on cloud so faint and fair, 
Ajid cradled on tiie golden air ; 
Modest and pale as maiden bride, 
She sank upon the trembling tide." 

After slaying the guardian of the cavern — 

" A sprite of dreadful form and air, 
His griiizly beard flowed round his throat 
Like shaggy hair of mountain goat " — 

the warriors succeeded id destroying the band, and in 
rescuii^ Anne of Kaebum and other captive maidens. 
And— 

" E'er since, in Ettrick's glens bo green, 
Spirits, though there, are seldom seen ; 
And fears of Elf and Faiiy raid 
Have, like a morning dream, decayed." 

In KUmeny, Hogg is at bis highest and best, and the 
inspiration there is the old fairy legend ; but it is its 
purer breath, carrying him into an ideal sphere whose 
rare and fanciful beauty is shadowed with a weird awe — 

" A land of love, and a land of lychte, 
Withoutten sonne, or mone, or nychte." 

Tet even here there is the same careful delineation of 
the aspects of the natural world out of which the fairy 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 109 

creation arose, and these are so linked with the main 
personage of the story as to fuse in one the material and 
the moral — the heart of natural beauty and the soul of 
purity : — 

" Bonnye Kilmeny gede ^ up the glen ; 
But it wasna to melt Duneira^s men, 
Nor the rosy munke of the isle to see, 
For Kilmeny was pure as pure culde be. 
It was only to heir the yorline ^ syng. 
And pu the blew kress flouir round the spring ; 
To pu the hyp and the hyndberrye,' 
And the nitt that hang fra the hesil tree ; 
For Kilmeny was pure as pure culde be. 
....... 

Quhan mony lang day had comit and fledde, 

Quhan grief grew calm, and hope was dede, 

Quhan mess for Kihneny's soul had beiiie sung, 

Quhan the bedis-man had prayit, and the deide-bell rung; 

Lete, lete in ane glomyn, quhan all was still, 

Quhan the freenge * was reid on the wastlin hill. 

The wud was sere, the moon i' the wene, 

The reike ^ o' the cot hung ouir the playne. 

Like ane little wee cludde in the world its lene ; 

Quhan the ingle lowit ^ with an eiry leme,'^ 

Lete, lete in the glomyn Kilmeny came heme ! 

Kilmeny, Kilmeny, quhair haif ye beine ? 

Long haif we socht baith holt ^ and deine ; ^ 

By lynn,^<* by furde,^^ and green wudde tree. 

Yet ye ir helsome and fayir to see. 

Quhair gat ye that joup ^^ of the lille scheine ? 

That bonny snoode ^' of the byrk sa greine ? 

And these roses, the fayrist that evir war seine ? 

Kilmeny, Kilmeny, quhair haif ye beine ? " 



* Went. * Yellowhammer. 

' Either raspberry or brambleberry. * Fringe. 

» Smoke. « Blazed. ^ Flame. ^ Wood. » HoUow. 

^^ Pool at the foot of a waterfall, sometimes waterfall itself. 
^* Ford. ^' Mantle, pelisse. 

^' A fiUet for the head, binding up a young woman's hair. 



110 BORDER HiaXORY AND POETRY. 

Then her return to earth is thus ushered in: — 

" With distant muBeke, soft and deipe, 
The}' lullit Kilmenj suude asleep ; 
And quban Bcho wekiuit, echo lay her tene, 
An bappit with 6owris in the greenwud wene. 
Quhan. Beveu lang yeiris hod cumit and fledde ; 
Quhan grief was calm, and hope mob dede ; 
Quhan scarce was rememberit Kilmeny's name, 
Lete, Icte in a glomyn Kilmeny cam heme ! " 

The association of the perfect purity of womanhood 
with the flowera and the music of the greenwood, with 
the sparkle of the stream, and with the pathos of the 
gloamin', is a conception as happy and as happily 
executed as any in simple and natural, that is, in the 
hest poetry. The Shepherd liad meditated the legends 
on the moorland, until they became a part of himself, 
and of the ground he trod ; he was thus able to picture 
the real features of the scene, and, inspired by the in- 
tensity of his feeling, to rise to the unique ideal which 
he more or less perfectly expressed, and which only one 
under the impulses of bis training and circumstances 
could even have conceived. This is the main reason 
why the Shepherd of the Forest escapes the inflated and 
the artistically unreal whenever he deals with fairy 
scenes. 

The fancy which evoked the fairy form from the 
spreading upland and moor lived on in Scottish poetry 
for many an age. Latterly it located the spirit of the 
moorland, when he came to live alone, in the grey stone- 
circles and in the rocking-stones which form picturesque 
and noticeable features on the Lowland hills — prehistoric 
remains, round which historic tradition and legend have 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. Ill 

grown. Seldom has the weird fancy been better put 
than by Leyden in the Cout of Keeldar. The knight, 
heedless of the warning dream of his wife, has ridden 
through the dawn up the southern slope of the Cheviots 
to the " Eedswire dun." There unawares he evokes by 
his bugle-blast the unearthly and irritated shape which 
presaged his fate ere the close of day : — 

" And when he reached the Redswire high, 
His bugle Keeldar blew ; 
And round did float, with clamorous note 
And scream, the hoarse curlew. 

The next blast that young Keeldar blew. 

The wind grew deadly still ; 
But the sleek ferns, with fingery leaves. 

Waved wildly o*er the hill. 

The third blast that young Keeldar blew, 

Still stood the limber fern ; 
And a Wee Man of swarthy hue, 

Upstarted by a cairn. 

His russet weeds were brow^n as heath, 

That clothes the upland fell ; 
And the hair of his head was frizzly red. 

As the purple heather-bell. 

An urchin ,1 clad in prickles red. 

Clung cowering to his arm ; 
The hounds they howled, and backward fled, 

As struck by Fairy charm. 

' Why rises high the stag-hound's cry. 

Where stag-hound ne'er should be ? 
Why wakes that horn the silent morn, 

Without the leave of me V 

* Brown Dwarf, that o'er the moorland strays, 

Thy name to Keeldar tell ! ' 

* The Brown Man of the muir who stays 

Beneath the heather-bell. 



^ Hedgehog. 



112 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

' *Tia sweet beneath the beather-bell, 

To live in Autumn brown ; 
And sweet to hear the luv'rocka Hwell, 

Far, far from tower and town. 

' But, woe betide the shrilling horn, 

The chase'B surly cheer ! 
And ever that hunter is forlorn. 

Whom first at morn I hear.' 

Says * Weal nor woe, nor friend nor foe. 

In thee we hope or dread.' 
But, ere the bugles green could blow, 

The Wee Brown Man had lied. 

And onward, onward, hound and horse. 

Young Keeldar's band have gone ; 
And soon they wheel, in rapid course, 

Around the Keeldar Btone. 

Green vervain round its base did creep, 

A powerful seed that bore ; 
And oft, of yore, its channels deep 

Were stained with human gore. 

And still, when blood-drops, clotted thin, 

Hang the gray moss upon. 
The spirit murmurs from within, 

And shakes the locking-stone. 

Around, around, young Eeeldar wound, 

And call'd in scornful tone. 
With him to pass the barrier ground, 

The Spirit of the Stone. 
The rude crag rock'd, ' I come for death, 

I come to work thy woe ! ' 
And 'twas the Brown iiaa of the Heath, 

That murmured from below," 

The spirit of solitude and silence on the uplands — the 
spirit that loves and guards the gentle creatures of the 
wilde — wroth at intrusion, at heedless sport, and thought- 
less slaughter, is felt to rise up here in rebuke and 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BOKDER. 113 

revenge. The Brown Man of the Heath has perhaps in 
him a more malignant nature than Pan of old, but he, 
too, would suddenly express his irritation at a break of 
the dreamful stillness of the noonday tide : — 

** I durst not, shepherd, I durst not pipe 
At noontide ; fearing Pan, who at that hour 
Rests from the toils of hunting. Harsh is he : 
Wrath at his nostrils aye sits sentinel." ^ 

Besides witchcraft there were two forms of supernatural 
power. The one was that of the " Magus," or Magician, 
who could command the spirits or fiends of the other 
world, and bend them to his purposes. The other was 
that of the Wizard, or necromancer, who was simply in 
league with those spirits, and from whom he could borrow 
assistance in his designs and purposes. To the Borderer, 
Michael Scott of Oakwood was the type of the one, and 
apparently Gifford of Yester the type of the other. The 
repute of the power of Michael Scott, or " auld Michael," 
as he was popularly called, hovered as a shadow over the 
Lowlands for more than five hundred years. His magical 
function was no mere phantom of the imagination. It 
was thoroughly believed in among the dwellers in the 
valeys of the Teviot, the Ettrick, and the Yarrow, down 
to very recent times. That he could and did control 
restless fiends was the faith of the Borderer for many a 
generation. That he spoke words which cleft the Eildons 
in three was a mythic exaggeration — hardly a popular 
belief. But when 

^ Theocritus, Idyll, i. (Calverley'a version). The last line is very fine : — 

imX 8i irucp6Sf 
Kal ol del 9pifiua x^^^ ""^orl Pifl Kd&rirat, 

VOL. II. . H 



114 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

" Master Michael Scott's man 
Sought bread and gat nane " 

from the churlish farmer's wife, and, through the magic 
rune, the wife, husband, and servants were all set dancing 
wildly round his enchanted bonnet — this was thoroughly 
accepted as genuine by the peasantry for many an ^e. 
The exploit was regarded by them as quite within the 
limits of warlock power, as the punishment for the 
inhospitality was held to be well deserved. 

The first and second cantos of The Lay of the Last 
Minstrel owe their singular impressiveness mainly to this 
old inspiration. The poet fuses together two classes of 
recognised supernatural powers — the personifications of 
nature, the spirits residing and moving in river and fell 
— and the " Magus," or controller of restless and tricky 
fiends, represented by Michael Scott and symbolised in 
his hidden " book of might." The Lady of Bnccleuch of 
the time, vulgarly reputed to be addicted to witchcraft, 
was a Bethune or Beaton of wizard ancestry ; and she 
was supposed mysteriously to commune with the unseen 
powers of nature and of the infemal world, who now 
and again would murmur dimly around the tower of 
Branksome. She was now the widow of Sir Walter 
Scott, whom his illustrious namesake has glorified, not 
very deservedly. For he was one who is found security 
for the perpetrators of more deeds of violence and coward- 
ly bloodshed than any other name in the criminal annals 
of the time. He met his death at the hands of the Kers on 
the High Street of Edinburgh in 1552 — in revenge for 
the slaughter, in 1526, of the Laird of Cessford at Haly- 
den, near Melrose, by an Elliot, retainer of Buccleuch. 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 115 

" AVhen Home and Douglas, in the van, 
Bore down Buccleuch's retiring clan, 
Till gallant Cessford's heart-blood dear, 
Reeked on dark Elliot's Border spear." 

His widow, the Lady Buccleuch, was popularly believed 
to have lent her influence to lead Mary to a part in 
the murder of Darnley. Men and women associated 
with such deeds must needs look for dark endings and 
times of sorrow. The truly heroic thing about them is 
when they bear their fates well. 

Scott thus powerfully puts the weird situation : — 

"Of noble race the Ladye came. 
Her father was a clerk of fame. 

Of Bethune's line of Picardie : 
He learned the art that none may name, 

In Padua, far beyond the sea. 
Men said he changed his mortal frame, 

By feat of magic mystery ; 
For when in studious mood he paced 

St Andrew's cloistered hall. 
His form no darkening shadow traced 

Upon the sunny wall. 

And of his skill, as bards avow. 

He taught that Ladye fair, 
Till to her bidding she could bow 

The viewless forms of air. 
And now she sits in secret bower. 
In old Lord David's western tower. 
And listens to a heavy sound. 
That moans the mossy turrets round. 
Is it the roar of Teviot's tide. 
That chafes against the scaur's red side ? 
Is it the wind that swings the oaks ? 
Is it the echo from the rocks ? 
What may it be, the heaving sound, 
That moans old Branksome's turrets round ? 



BOEDER HISTOHY AND POETRY. 

At the sullen, moaniiig Bound, 

The ban-dogs baj and howl ; 
And, from the turrets round, 

Loud whoops the startled owl. 
lu the hall, both Hquirc and knight 

Swore that a storm was near, 
And looked forth to view tlie night, 

But the night was etill and clear. 
From the sound of Teviot's tide. 
Chafing with the mountain's side, 
From the groan of the wind-swung onk, 
From the sullen echo of the rock, 
From the voice of the coming storm, 

The Ladye knew it well ! 
It was the Spirit of the Flood that spoke, 

And he c^ed on the Spirit of the Fell. 

River Spirit. 
' Sleep'st thou, brother ? ' 

Mountain SpiHl. 

' Brother, nay — 
On my hills the moonbeams play, 
From Craikcross to Skelfhill Pen, 
By every rill, in every glen, 
Merry elves their morria pacing. 

To aerial minstrelsy. 
Emerald rings on brown heath tracing, 

Trip it deft and merrily. 
Up, and mark their nimble feet 1 
Up, and list their music aweet ! ' 

River Spirit. 
' Tears of an imprisoned maiden 

Mil with my polluted stream ; 
Margaret of Branksorae, sorrow-laden, 

Mourns beneath the moon's pole beam. 
Tell me, thou, who view'st the stars. 
When shall cease these feudal jars ? 
What shall be the maiden's fate 3 
Wlio shall be the maiden's mate } ' 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 117 

Mountain Spirit, 

* Arthur's slow wain his course doth roll, 

In utter darkness, round the pole ; 

The Northern Bear lowers black and grim ; 

Orion's studded belt is dim ; 

Twinkling faint, and distant far, 

Shimmers through mist each planet star ; 

111 may I read their high decree ! 
But no kind influence deign they shower 
On Teviot's tide and Branksome's tower, 

Till pride be quell'd, and love be free.* " 

It will be admitted that the last word of the old 
mountain mythology was a noble lesson, well needed 
when supposed to be uttered, and true for all time. The 
other stanzas, in which the widowed Lady of Buccleuch is 
depicted as having recourse to the power and formulae of 
the dead magician of the name, are well known as among 
the grandest of Scott's delineations. 

Another form of supernatural power which affected 
the belief and actions of the Lowland Scot was Witch- 
craft This was as thoroughly believed for hundreds of 
years on the Borders, and indeed over Scotland gener- 
ally, as any form of the supernatural could possibly be. 
It was, of course, no new or special belief. It was 
known to Hebrew, Greek, and Roman. It was doubt- 
less an ancestral tradition which the Teuton inherited 
from his widespread Aryan forefathers. Not only the 
people, but the Church, the courts of law — all the cul- 
ture of the country — accepted witches and witchcraft as 
an unquestionable power. The trials for this crime, as 
given in Scottish records, show some most extraordinary 
features. Men and women who had to all appearance 
lived blamelessly, and observant of all the ordinary 



118 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

duties of life, are found suddenly to be struck, as it were, 
by a supernatural power, related, at least after Chris- 
tianity spread in the country, to a diabolic origin, wliich 
bound and constrained them to frequent nightly orgies, 
in which the awesome, the ludicrous, and the repulsive are 
mingled tt^ther in the most outrageous fashion. " Tlie 
Confessions," as they are called, of the parties to the 
devil's bond, given sometimes nuder torture, sometimes 
freely, contain dark and gruesome touches which it seems 
almost impossible for human imagination to conceive. 

But while the Border ballads contain numerous refer- 
ences to enchantments, and even sorcery, tlie witch or 
wizard is not directly portrayed. Nor is the wielder of 
this supernatural power a favourite with the older singers. 
The power itself was felt to be so painfully real for the 
time, so little matter of the past or of the ideal, that its 
repulsiveness alone was its prevailing feature. And the 
conception of a dread power of this sort, generally, nay 
wholly, malignant, as dwelling in a fellow-creature, and 
inspired in him or her by Satanic agency, was an obvious 
source of terror. It further appeared as such an absolute 
perversion and disfigurement of the image of God in man, 
that popular poetry shrunk from it as a subject even of 
delineation. It is introduced in a few of the ballads, but 
in such a way as to show that it was a thing to be loathed 
and got rid of, even by supposing the action of more 
beneficent supernatural powers of another type. In 
Willie's Lady, for example, tlie lady is witch-bound by 
his hellish mother, and the key to her power is got from 
her by a stratagem. In Alison Gross, a witch who turned 
a scornful lover into a worm or snake that crawled about 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 119 

a tree, the spell is broken on Halloween by a beneficent 
fairy. 

It was not until witchcraft had become, at least among 
the educated classes, a belief of the past, that it rose to 
the rank of a theme of poetic delineation. And then it 
was the quaint and picturesque, often awesome scenes of 
nightly revel, which attracted the poet. But when this 
was so — when memory came to mellow the past, and 
imagination raised the element of dread from the actual 
to the ideal — James Hogg was able, in his Witch of Fife, 
notwithstanding much that is rough and unartistic in de- 
tails, to sway the emotions by a series of pictures as eerie, 
wild, and fanciful as anything in modem literature : — 

" The first leet-night,^ whan the new moon set, 
Whan all was douffe 2 and mirk, 
We saddled our naigis wi the moon-fern leaf, 
And rode fra Kilmerrin Kirk. 

Some horses were of the brume-cow ^ framit, 

And some of the green bay-tree ; 
But mine was made of ane humloke * shaw, 

And a stout stallion was he ! 

AVe raid the tod ^ dounc on the hill, 

The martin • on the law, 
And we hunted the hoolet ' out of brethe, 

And forcit him doune to fa' ! 

And aye we raid, and sae merrily we raid, 
Throw the merkist® gloffis® of the night ; 

And we swam the floods, and we darnit ^^ the woods, 
Till we cam to the Lomond height. 

^ Allotted night. ^ Dull to the eye, thick. * Broom bush. 

* Hemlock. » Fox. « RingtaU kite. 

7 Owl. * Darkest. 

' A sudden change of temperature in the seuBations of the iudiTidual, 
generally of heat ; here, outwardly, spots of darkness denser to the eye 
than in other parts of the atmosphere. 

w Threaded. 



BOEDER HISTORY AND POETEY. 

And when we cam to the Lomond height, 

Sae blfthlje we lychtid doune ; 
And we drank fra the horns that never grew, 

The beer that was never browin.' 
Than up there rose ane wee wee man, 

Franethe' the moBs-grny etane ; 
His face was wan like the colitlowre, 

For he nouthir had bliide nor bnne. 
He set aae reed-pipe till his niuthe,' 

And he playit sae bonnily, 
Till the grey curlew, nnd the black cock flew 

To listen hie melody. 
It rang bo sweet through the green Lomond, 

That the nycht-winti lowner* blew ; 
And it Hoiipit ^ alang the Loch Leven, 

And wakiuit the white si 



It rang eae sweet through the green Lomond, 

Sae sweetly but and sae shil],» 
That the wezilis laup '' out of their mouldy ' holis. 

And danc'd on the midnight hill. 
The corby craw cam gledgin* near, 

The erne gaed veering bye ; 
And the trout laup out of the Leven Loch, 

Chormit with the melody. 
And aye we danctt on the green Lomond, 

Till the dawn on the ocean grew ; 
Nae wonder I was a weary wyclit 

When I cam hame to you." 

Still more impressive is the picture of the second night's 
work : — 

" The second night, when the new moon set. 
O'er the roaring sea we flew ; 
The cockle-shell our trusty bark. 
Our sails of the green sea-rue. 

' Brewed. = From beneatli. ' Mouth. 

< More stilly, ' Swept. ' Shrill. 

' Leapt. ' Earthy. ' Looking asquint or slily . 



THE BAIXADS AND SONGS OP THE BORDER. 121 

And the bauld winds blew, and the fire flauchts flew, 

And the sea ran to the sky, 
And the thunner it growlit, and the sea dogs howlit, 

And we gaed scouring bye. 

And aye we mountit the sea-green hills, 
Quhill we bruahit thro* the cluds of the hevin ; 

Than sousit downright like the stern-shot light, 
Fra the liftis blue casement driven. 

And when to the Norway shore we wan,^ 

We muntid our steeds of the wind, 
And we splashit the flood, and we damit the wood, 

And we left the shore behinde. 
• • • . ... 

And wlien we cam to the Lapland lone. 

The fairies war all in array. 
For all the genii of the north 

War keeping their holiday. 

The warlock men and tlie weird women. 

And the fays of the wood and the steep. 
And phantom hunters all were there, 

And the mermaids of the deep. 

And they washit us all with the witch-water, 

Distill'd fra the moorland dew, 
Quhill our beauty blumit like the Lapland rose, 

That wild in the forest grew." ' 

There is one other form of supernatural power which 
deeply influenced the life and feeling of the past in the 
Borders. This was the belief and expectancy on the 
part of the living of a return of the dead to earth. The 
Lowland Scot has always had a strong conviction that 
the grave formed no real break in the continuity of the 
essential life of man. He only passed from the visible 

^ Got to, or arrived at. 

^ The Queen*a Wake. While preserving all the Scottish words in these 
extracts, I have not adhered to Hogg's afifectation in the spelling, or rather 
misspelling, of modem words. 



122 BOBDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

to the invisible, and might naturally take an interest in 
the affairs and in the people of the world he had left. 
Hence the simple unastonished realism with which all 
the ballads referring to a return from the dead are 
strongly characterised. This is manifest in the ordinary 
treatment which the spirits receive, and the preparations 
made for them after their return, as if they were still 
mortals merely come back for a season to the scenes of 
their temporary earthly pilgrimage. The ballad of The 
Wife of Usher's Well brings out all these points with 
striking emphasis. It was a daring wish, that of the 
bereaved mother, but it had its weird power : — 

" ' I wish the wind may nevei cease, 
Not fishes > in the flood, 
Till my three sons come haiue to me, 
In eartblj flesh and blood.' 

It fell about the MartinmEiss, 

When nights are lang and mirk, 
The carlinc wife's three sona came hame, 

And their hats were o' the birk. 

It neither grew in sjke nor ditch, 

Nor yet in ony aheugh ; 
But at the gates of Paradise, 

That birk grew fair eneugh. 

'Blow up the fire, my maidens ! 

Bring water from the well I 
For a' my house shall feast this night, 

Since my three sons are well.' 

And she has made to them a bed, 

She's made it large and wide ; 
And she's ta'en her mantle her about, 

Sat down at the bedside. 



' Possibly faahea, or troubles. 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 123 

Up then crew the red, red cock, 

And up and crew the grey ; 
The eldest to the youngest said, 

* Tis time we were away.* 

The cock he hadna crawed but ance, 

And clapp'd his wings at a', 
When the youngest to the eldest said, 

* Brother, we must awa\ 

* The cock doth craw, the day doth daw, 

The channering * worm doth chide ; 
Gin we be mist out o* our place, 
A sair pain we maun bide. 

* Fare ye weel, my mother dear ! 

Fareweel to bam and byre ! 
And fare ye weel, the bonny lass, 
That kindles my mother's tire.* " 

There is a fine touch of human continuity in the nature 
of the spirits as conveyed in the last two lines. 

Scott caught up the conception of a return from the 
grave ; and just because it had been made so powerful 
before, he was enabled, according to the law of poetic 
progress, to add to its impressiveness. In the Eve of St 
John — that type and forecast of what was grandest in 
his imaginative genius — he introduces the spirit of the 
dead — of the slain knight who was lying in his bloody 
grave ; and with what terrible power ! It is a return 
from the grave, not merely for purposes of awe and 
eeriness, but to rebuke lawless love, to sanction moral 
order and purity, to brand with supernatural sign the 
guilty hand, to tell also of the sacredness of human life, 
with all the impressiveness of one who had been admitted 

^ Fretting. 



124 BOEDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

into the unseen world, and there learnt fully and in- 
timately the eternal order of right and wrong — the 
certainty of a Power of Righteousness which the per- 
plexing facts of this world tend, in some respects, to 
shroud in darkness and in douht. The iirst scene — the 
meeting on the Beacon Hill of the lady with the knight 
whom she still supposed to be in the flesh — is entirely 
within the limits of the older minstrelsy : — 

" My ladj, each niijlit, sought the lonely ligbt, 
That buniB on the wild Watchfold ; 
For, from height to height, the beacons bright 
Of the English foemen told. 

The bittern clamoured from the mosa, 

The wind blew loud and shrill ; 
Yet the eragsy pathway she did crosa 

To the eiry Beacon HilL 



The second night I kept her in sight 

Till to the fire she came, 
And, by Mary's might ] an Armed Knight 

Stood by the lonely Bame. 

And many a word that warlike lord, 

Did «peak to my lady there ; 
But the rain fell fast, and loud blew the blast, 

And I heard not what they were. 

The third night there tlie sky was tair, 

And the*mountain-bla«t was etill, 
As again I watch'd the secret pair, 

On the Ibnesoroe Beacon Hill." 

Then follows the passionate request of the lady for the 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 125 

midnight meeting in her bower with the seemingly living 
knight. This scene is a mere appeal to the pictorial 
imagination on its strongly emotional side, to the feeling 
that springs from the thought of contact with the ghostly 
form of one returned from the dead ; and the accessories 
of the situation are inexpressibly powerful. Except in 
artistic skill, Scott has not yet advanced beyond the 
sphere of the older minstrelsy. His picturing is more 
elaborate, but the older minstrels reached precisely the 
same effect by brief picturing and even single epithet. 
But the scene which follows, where the apparition 
appears in the lady's bower, and gradually reveals his 
true character, touches certain moral feelings which it 
was not within the sphere of the older writers to quicken 
in the heart, or at least embody in distinct expression. 
To a simple direct realism of treatment, which might 
suggest the moral feeling, but did not expressly convey 
it, Scott now adds a new element. He speaks out the 
lesson clearly and explicitly, and at the same time sacri- 
fices nothing of imaginative impressiveness : — 

" The lady looked through the chamber fair. 
By the light of a dying flame ; 
And she was aware of a knight stood there — 
Sir Richard of Coldinghame ! 

* Alas ! away, away ! ' she cried, 

* For the holy Virgin's sake ! * 

* Lady, I know who sleeps by thy side ; 

But, lady, he will not awake. 

' By Eildon Tree for long nights three, 

In bloody grave have I lain ; 
The mass and the death-prftyer are said for me. 

But, lady, they are said in vain; 



126 BOEDER HISTORY AKD POETRY. 

' By the Baroii'a brand, near Tweed's fair straml, 

Most foully elain, I fell ; 
And my reatless sprite on the Beacon's height 

For a space is doomed to dwell. 

' At our trystiug-place for a certain space, 

I inuat wander to and fro ; 
But I had not had power to come to thy bower, 

Had'flt thou not conjured me bo,' 

Love mastered fear — her brow she crosa'd ; 

' How, Richard, haat thou sped ) 
And art thou saved, or art thou lost ? ' — 

The vision shook his head. 

' Who spilleth life, shall forfeit life ; 

So bid thy lord believe : 
That luwlesg love is guilt above, 

This awful sign receive.' 

He laid his left palm on an oaken beam. 

His right upon her hand ; 
The lady shrunk, aud fainting aunk. 

For it scorch'd like fiery brand. 

The sable score, of fingers four. 

Remains on that board impress'd ; 
And for evermoie that lady wore 

A covering on her wrist." 

These stanzas point to a very different conclusion, and 
contain a much higher strain of poetry, than do the 
verses, eerie and touching as they are, of The Wife of 
Usher's Well. 

In The Gay Cfoss Hawk, a ballad of the Yarrow, we 
have the type of the romantic in both its forms. The 
gay gosshawk of the Scottish lord holds a colloquy with 
him, and carries a letter under its " pinion gray " to his 
sweetheart in the south. It does all for him that a 
creature endowed with supernatural power can do. And 



THE BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE BORDER. 127 

then there is the stratagem of the lady — she drinks the 
sleeping potion, and lies for dead, after having requested 
to be carried to Scotland, and to be allowed to lie a 
night before burial in St Mary's Kirk. The test to 
which she is subjected by the step-mother is as rigid as 
could be conceived : — 

" Then spak her cruel step-minni«, 
'Tak ye the burning leaJ, 
And (Irap a drap on her bosonie, 
To try if ahe be dead.' 

They took a drap o' boiling lead, 

And drapped it on her breast ; 
' Alas ! alfts ! ' her father cried, 

' She's dead without the priest.' 

She neither chattered with hei teeth, 

Nor shivered with her chin ; 
' Alas ! alas ! ' her father cried, 

' There is nae breath within.' " 

After this she is carried for dead by her seven brothers 
up far from the southern land, on the oaken bier lined 
with silver, and amid a sweet soft music of bells hang- 
ing from her kell or shroud. And, according to her last 
request, she is laid for a night in St Mary's Kirk. 
Church bells had tolled for her, and masses had been 
said and sung along the way by which the bier had been 
borne. And there in St Mary's Forest Kirk she lay all 
night, white-robed for burial ; but on the mom, when 
the dead-bell stirred the echoes of the hills, and when 
we can imagine sweet - faced maidens from the glens 
clustering round the bier of the marvellous lady from the 
south, touched with pity for one so young and fair, her 



128 



BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 



lover appeared to look upon the face of her who had 
died for him and would in death he carried to liia, the 
land of the north. Then, suddenly, at the touch of his 
hand — 

" She brightened like the lily flower, 
Till her pale colour was rods ; 
With rosy clieik and ruby lip. 
She smiled bcr love upon," 



129 



CHAPTER IV. 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 



Of the Historical Ballads, the two which refer to the 
oldest historical times and incidents are Auld Maitland 
and The Battle of Otterbourne. The Httnttis of Cheiiet 
may be taken in connection with the latter. The for- 
mer, which was taken down from the Recitation of the 
mother of James Hogg, expresses thoroughly the Lowland 
feeling of opposition and hatred to Edward I. of England. 
Notwithstanding the opinion of Aytoun and Maidment, 
that this ballad is a modern one, there seems to -me to 
be sufficient evidence of its being in the main an old 
composition. It consists of two parts, the one describing 
the siege of Auld Maitland's tower, the other detailing 
the chivalrous and romantic exploits of his three sons 
against Edward's army in France. There is no historical 
incident on record which corresponds to either of the 
parts. But Maitland himself — 

^ Maitland with his auld beard gray '' — 



is a quite definite historical character, and his exploits 
are known to have been the subject of popular romance 
VOL. n. I 



130 BORDER HISTORY AND POETrilY. 

long prior to the time of Gawain Douglas. He was 
laird of Thirlestane on the Leader in the thirteenth 
century, before and up to the period of the War of In- 
dependence. A Sir Bichard Maitland disponed certain 
lands to the Abbey of Bryburgh in 1249. And the 
defence of his house against a band of Southerners at 
that period is quite a probable occurrence. The narra- 
tive of the ballad has all the directness, sense of reality, 
and pictorial power characteristic in general of the old 
and genuine historical ballads. What a picture is given 
in the single stanza, which describes the descent of the 
English upon the country ; — 

" They lighted on the banks of Tweed, 
And blew their coals sue het, 
And fired the Metse and Teviotdole, 
All in an evening late." 

That word fired, not bnmed, speaks of the glow of the 
llame as present to the very eye of the minstrel And 
what an account of literalness and truth and of quiet 
heroism have we here : — 

" As they fared up o'er Lanimermore, 
They bnmed baith np and down. 
Until they came to a darksome house, 
Some call it Leader-Town. 

< Wlia hands this house 1 ' young Edward cried, 

' Or wha giea't ower to me I ' — 
A gray-hair'd knight »et np his bead, 

And cnickit richt crousely : 

' Of Scotland's King I hand my house, 

lie pays me meat and fee ; 
And I will keep my ^id anld hoiue. 

While my house will keep me.' ' 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 131 

Then comes the siege, but the result of it all is : — 

" Full fifteen days that braid host lay, 
Sieging Auld Maitland keen, 
Syne they have left him, hail and feir. 
Within his strength of stane." 

The exploits of the youths, though very bold, are of the 
usual sort in the days of romantic chivalry/ But the 
Lowland hate of the Southerner comes out in this verse. 
One of the young Maitlands has thrown young Edward 
to the ground, and he is offered three earldoms to let 
him free : — 

"It's ne'er be said in France, nor e'er 
In Scotland, when I'm hame. 
That Edward once lay under me. 
And e'er gat up again ! " 

The Hunttis of Cheuet, mentioned in jf%e Complaynt 
of Scotland'^ (1549), is the older version of what was 
subsequently known as Chevy Chace. It was originally 
published by Hearne in his Preface to the Histoi^y of 
Gulielmus Ncuhrigiensis^ {111^). It is to be found in 
the Reliques of Percy, and in Child's Ballads.^ We have, 
of course, reprints in the popular ballads of Scotland. 
Richard Sheale — ^^a ballad-singer and ballad-monger in 
Elizabeth's time — put his name to it in the older prints. 
This means nothing beyond that he copied it. Mr Furnival 
says, " The fight of which the ballad tells is not known to 
history, except in so far as it's mixt up with the battle of 
Otterbourne, fought in 1388." It possibly did refer also to 

^ See the Ballad^ in the Minstrelsy ^ i. 316. 
^ Murray's edition, 65. ' zxxii. 

* vL No. 162, 303. 



132 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRf. 

another skirmish. There is much similarity in tone and 
structure, and several of the expressions, even lines and 
stanzas, are the same in hoth ballads. They may have 
been written by the same person, or, more likely, they are 
varying subsequent versions of one original ballad ; but 
the incident of the hunting of the Cheviot is different 
from the story of Otterboume. It was the carrying out 
of a vow made by " the Percy out of Northumberland " 
that he would hunt in the mountains of Cheviot — 



This began on a Monday at morn, 

In Cheviot the hills so hee : 
The child may rue that is unborn. 

It was the more pitj*. 
The drivers thorowe the wood^a went, 

For to raise the deer ; 
Bowmen bickarte upon the bent 

With their broad arrows clear. 
Then the wild thorowe the wood^ went 

On every sidfe shear ; • 
Greyhounds thorowe the grovfes glent 

For to kill their deer. 
They began in Cheviot the hills above, 

Enrly on a Monnynday ;* 
By that it drew to the hour of noon, 

A hundred fat harts dead there lay. 
They blew a mort* upon the bent, 

They semhled on sydis shear ; 
To the quarry then the Percy went, 

To see the bry ttlynge * of the deer," 

' Clearly, entirely. ' Mondny. 

' Sound of the horn at de&th of the deer. 
* Catting up and division. 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 133 

But the joyous pastime was now to be interrupted, for 
the Douglas, Lord of Liddesdale and Warden of the 
Middle March, was descried not far off, and " with him a 
mighty meany " ^ : — 

" They were twenty hundred Bpearmen Rood, 
Withouten any fail ; 
They were bom a-long by the Water of Tweed, 
In the bounda of Teviotdale. 



Douglas, out of sympathy for the lives of his men, 
challenges Percy to settle the matter by single combat. 
Percy is willing, but their followers would not agree to 
this ; and then the terrible conflict began, — Scottish spear- 
men against English archers. The fight grew closcc : — 

"The Englishe men let their bowys be, 

And pulled out braitda that were bright ; 
It was a heavy sight to see 
Bright Bworda on baseneta light 

Tborowe rich mail, and mjne-ye-ple,' 
Miiny Sterne they stroke dowD straight ; 

Many a freyke * that was full free, 
There under foot did light. 

At last the Douglas and the Percy met, 
Like to captains of might and main ; 

They swapt ■ tt^ther, till they both sweat, 
With swords that were of fine Mil&n. 



' Meyni, company. ' A burning coal or brand. 

• Many plj or fold, * Man. 

* OaTe Btroke for itroke. Swip atiU meani to exchange. 



134 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

These worthy frejkts for to fight 

Thereto they were full fain. 
Till the blood out of their basenets sprent, 

Ab ever did bail or rain." 

The minstrel then goes on to narrate that Douglas was 
stricken mortally by an arrow. In Homer-like fashion he 
says : — 

" It hath stricken the Earl of Douglas . 
In at the breast-baae." 

Then the chivalry of the old times comes impressively 
out, showing the human heart under it all : — 

"The Percy lean^de on hie brand, 
Aud saw the Douglas de ; 
He took the dead man by the hand 
And said, 'Woe ia me for thee. 

'To have saved thy life I would have parted with 

My lond^ for years three ; 
For a better man of heart, uor of hand. 

Was not in all the north country,' " 

Sir Hugh Mongon-byrry (Montgomery) tlien, to revenge 
the tleath of Douglas, " spended ^ his spear of trusty 
tree," and set upon Percy, whom he slew. . Montgomery 
in his turn falls, pierced by an arrow. Still the battle 
raged: — 

" This battle began in Cheviot, 
Ad hour before the noon. 
And when even-song bell was rang, 
The battlewas not half done. 

They took on on either hand 

By the light of the moon ; 
Many had no etrencth for to etand, 

In Cheviot the hills aboon. 

' Qrwped iu the span of his hand. 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 135 

Of fifteen hundred archers of England, 

Went away but fifty -and-three ; ' 
Of twenty liundred Bpearmen' of Scotland, 

But even five and, lift>." 

The minstrel towards the close of the ballad lays the 
scene of the conflict at Otterbourne — in fact, identifies 
it with this historical struggle. He also introduces the 
names of several men of consequence, who are mentioned 
in the other ballad. Sir Hugh Montgomery is in both 
ballads ; he is killed in Chevy Chace, and made a prisoner 
in Otterbourne. Douglas is slain in both ; and Percy is 
slain in Chevy Chace, while he is taken prisoner in Otter- 
bourne. Lovel, Percy's standard-bearer, is slain in both. 
So is Sir John of Agerstone. The ballad which I have 
now quoted is the nearest approach we have to that 
which was known to Sir Philip Sydney, and to which 
his oft-cited words apply : " I never heard the Old Song 
of Piercy and Douglas, that I found not my Heart more 
moved than with a Trumpet ; and yet it is sung by some 
blind Crowder, with no regular Voice than rude Stile : 
which being so evil apparell'd in the Dust and Cobweb of 
that uncivil Age ; what would it work, trimm'd in the 
goi^eous Eloquence of Pindar ? " 

It seems to me that these two ballads, Chevy Chace 
and Otterbourne, are derived from one and the same 
source, — an original ballad of Otterbourne, which we 
have lost, and the fragments of which we retain in those 
two broken versions. I think the original was a northern 
ballad. Subsequently it found its way to the south, and 
in the ignorance there prevailing about northern facts 
and incidents, it came to be recited as Chevy Chace and 

' other reading, BeTenty-uid-three. 



136 BOEDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

as The Battle of Otterboume. The story of both would 
come under the head and name of Ckevackie, which is 
doubtless the origin of the ,phrase Chevy Chace. This 
was the common and characteristic name for a raid on 
or across the Borders from either side, in and before the 
time of Edward I. and onwards.' It did happen, as a 
role, that the Chevachde was on or through the Clieviots, 
but the word Cheviot has nothing to do with the origin 
of the phrase. 0/uvach^e is the word expressed in Chevy 
Chace, and this ballad is mixed up with the incidents in 
Otterboume. The ballad of Chevy Chace may indeed be 
taken as typical of a hundred Border raids ; and its in- 
terest and value lie in the description, vivid and pictur- 
esque, of what an ancient raid was, when the leaders on 
both sides were chivalric men, and thus gave intimation 
of their intentions, practically throwing out a challenge 
of prowess. But it seems to me that this ballad of Chevy 
Chace, while it is mixed with the story of the conflict of 
Otterboume, may possibly have referred to a not much 
known Border battle, which is mentioned by John Major 
under the name of Piperden, and which took place in 1436. 
Bedpath gives us the more modern form as " Pepperden 
on Brammish, not far from the mountains of Cheviot" ^ 
According to Major, the Scottish leader was William 
X>ouglas, Earl of Angus, and with him were Adam 
Hepburn of Hailes and Alexander Eamsay of Dalhousie, 
Knights.^ Bedpath adds Alexander Elphiuston of Elphin- 

■ See above, I SIS. 

' Redpath, Border HUtory, 277, ed. 1848. BrammUh U now the 
Breamieh Water, the ina.iii branch of the Tilt. Tbe left-hand grain rises 
in King's Seat of the Cheriota ; the right De*r Maiden'a Crou. 

• HiaUrry of Greater Britain, 36* [Constable's ed.). 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 137 

ston. *' King Jamy " is referred to in Chevy Chcuce, and 
" King Harry " as the English king. These were all long 
after Otterbourne of 1388, and the reference shows that 
Chtvy Chace was a late version of the story of Otterbourne, 
with a reference to the incidents connected with Piperden. 
The Battle of Otterbourne is the grandest of Scottish 
ballads, alike in chivalry of action and in power of im- 
pression, through the simplest means. The incident it 
records is quite historical, and the antiquity and genuine- 
ness of the ballad itself are above suspicion.^ In August 
1388, James second Earl of Douglas made a raid into 
Northumberland, laid waste a great part of the district, and 
finally confronted Henry Percy, well known as Hotspur, 
in the New Castle where he lay. It is said that there, 
in a hand-to-hand encounter before the castle, as was the 
fashion of the times, the Douglas won the pennon^ of 
Percy, and declared he would carry it as a trophy to 
his house of Dalkeith. Percy swore he should never 
accomplish that. The Scots under Douglas on their way 
northwards were overtaken by Percy, or, according to the 
account of the ballad, met by appointment, at Otterbourne. 
The field of Otterbourne lies well down in Northumber- 
land, in the valley of the Eeed Water, a tributary of the 
Tyne, about thirty-two miles north-west of Newcastle. 
It is about twelve miles south of the Carterfell and the 

^ See Percy's Notes to the older or English version of the poem in the 
Jieliques. For the Scottish ballad see Scott, MinstreUyt i. 345. 

^ The *' pennon " seems ou this occasion to have consisted of a pair of 
gauntlets fixed on the point of a lance. The gauntlets, which are grace- 
fuUy embroidered in seed pearls, are now in the possession of the family 
of Douglas of Cavers, descended from Archibald, a son of the Douglas. 
The flag which is said to have been borne at Otterbourne by the Douglas, 
or perhaps taken from Percy, is also preserved at Cavers House. 



138 BOEDER HISTOKY AND POETRY. 

Eeedswire, where the water has its source. It is a famous 
spot even ou those southern slopes and spurs of the 
Cheviots, which contain the scenes of more deeds of 
daring and personal prowess than any other locality in 
Britain. 

The quiet hamlet of Otterboume is the first the travel- 
ler meets with when, after crossing the Carterfell at the 
Eeedswire, he passes down Eeedsdale, which in all its 
features of hill and glen is another Yarrow. There is 
an English feeling about the small village as it lies 
sheltered and overshadowed by its stately trees, with the 
river passing behind it. No one would surmise that its 
summer peace bad ever been broken by the fierce cry of 
conflict. The brook of Ottetboutne crosses the road and 
passes through the village. Following the rivulet north- 
wards one comes to a stretch of benty upland that 
extends from the Fawdoun Hill for two miles westwards, 
to a ridge that runs down to the present public road 
through the valley of the Eeed. On that benty upland 
did the fight of Otterboume rage through tliat August 
n^bt tUl morning. The position of the combatants is 
distinct enough. Percy, after having lost his pennon 
before Newcastle, went straight to Alnwick, and there 
collected his men. He crossed Cocquet Dale and pushed 
onwards by the dark he^hts to the uorth-east of Otter- 
boume, intending to place himself between the Scots and 
the Border. And he succeeded in this. Descending 
from the Blake Law on the evening of the 15th of 
August, he found Douglas and his band on the slopes of 
Fawdoun HiU on the east side of the Otterboume. Percy 
was now between them and their line of retreat up 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 139 

through the Keed to the Eeedawire. This rather indi- 
cates that the Scots were surprised, as is said in one 
version of the ballad. Though it was nightfall when 
Percy readied the ground, he commenced the attack at 
once by a shower of arrows from the English crossbows. 
At first the Scots were driven back, suffering severely. 
But, as the night advanced, the crossbowmen could take 
no accurate aim, and the fight became a hand-to-hand 
encounter. It continued all through the moonlit night 
until dawn: — 

" And the calm moon from heavenly height 

Leant down with gentle face, 
Snw fierce Btrife rage beneath her light, 
Vet spread o'er helm of outstretched knight 

A weird unearthly grace." 

Gradually the Scots pressed their antagonists westwards 
in a line along the valley of the Reed. Fully a raile 
and a half from where the battle began, the Douglas fell. 
The spot is marked by what is inappropriately called 
" Percy's Cross," and it is now surrounded by a small 
plantation. But the real spot, and the one originally 
marked by the cross, was about seventy-three yards 
north-east of its present site. When Douglas fell, the 
Scots had driven their opponents on to, and nearly across, 
the western ridge of the moor, thus forcing their way 
onwards to the line of the Border. They finally suc- 
ceeded, carrying Percy and hia brother captive. The 
accounts as to the number of men engaged on both sides 
vary. But a recent discovery made at Elsdon Church, 
about three miles distant from the scene of conflict, may 
be regarded as throwing some light on the slaughter. 



140 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

There skulls to the amount of a thousand have beeu dis- 
iuterred, all lying together They are of lads in their 
teens, and of middle-aged men ; but there are no skulls 
of old men, or of women. Not improbably these are the 
dead of Otterboume 

The opening of the ballad is very picturesque, and 
the mode of marking the time of the year could have 
occurred only to a native minstrel : — 

" It fell about the Lammaa tide, 

When the mnir-men win their hay, 
The doughty Douglaa bown'J bim to ride, 
Into England to drive a prey. 

He ohoM the Qordons and the Qnetnes, 
With them the LindesayB, light and gay. 

But the Jardines wald not with him ride, 
And they rue it to thia day. 

And he haa bumed the dales of Tyne, 

And part of Bambrough shire, 
And three good towen on Reidswire fella. 

He left them all on fire.'' 

Then there is the hand-to-hand combat at Newcastle, and 
the appointment to meet at Otterboume : — 

"They lighted high on Otterboume, 
Upon th« bent aae brown ; 
They lighted high on Otterbonme, 
And threw their pallions down." 

The Douglas went into the light with tho memory of a 
dream of heavy omen, yet with undaunted heart : — 

" But I have dreamed a dreary dream, 
Beyond the IbIs of Skye ; 
I saw a dead man win a field. 
And I wot that man was I." 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 141 

The English ballad thus finely and naturally describes 
the meeting on the field of Percy and Douglas : — 

" The Percy and the Douglas niette, 
That ether of other was fayne ; 
They schapped together why 11 that they ewette, 
With swords of fine Collayne,^ 
Tyll the blood from their bassonets ran, 
As the brooke doth in the rayne." 

Just as day broke the Douglas received his death- 
wound ; then there occur the following stanzas, which 
for power and simple pathos are unsurpassed in ballad 
literature : — 

" * My nephew good,' the Douglas said, 
* What recks the death of ane ! 
Last night I dreamed a dreary dream. 
And I ken the day's thy ain. 

* My wound is deep, I fain would sleep ; 

Take thou the vanguard of the three, 
And hide me by the bracken bush. 
That grows on yonder lilye lee. 

* bury me by the bracken bush, 

Beneath the blooming brier. 
Let never living mortal ken, 
That e*er a kindly Scot lies here.* 

He lifted up that noble lord 

Wr the saut te^r in his ee, 
He hid him in the bracken bush. 

That his merrie-men might not see. 

The moon was clear, the day drew near. 

The spears in flinders ^ flew, 
But many a gallant Englishman 

Ere day the Scotsmen slew. 



^ Cologne steel ' Splinters. 



of the se([iiel <•[' the ti^lit, wliirli is t 
jiatlios : — 

" 'I'lu'ii oiu' tlu' iiioriii' llii'V luayd llici 
Of birch and haysell graye ; 
Mony a wydowe with wepyng teyrc' 
Their makes * they fetch awaye." 

Though the Douglas was " hid ** 'nej 
bush, he was finally carried to Mel 
buried beside the high altar, with tl 
had been unfurled in the stour of 
drooping mournfully over him : — 

" Full many a scutcheon and banner 
Shook to the cold night wind of he 

Around the screened altar's pale 
And there the dying lamps did bii: 
Before thy low and lonely urn, 
gallant chief of Otterbume ! 

And thine, dark knight of Lidde 
fading honours of the dead ! 
high ambition lowly laid ! " 

If anything could add to the touching 
lines of the old ballad, it is a memor 
the life of Sir Walter Scott himself. A 
was well broken, he. alonsr with Lc 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 143 

poised the crown." He wished to depict it in Castle 
Dangerous. There, looking on the grand old ruin, a 
thousand memories rushed on his brain, and in tears 
he broke forth in the words of the dying Douglas — 
feeling, perhaps, that the soldier's case was his own: — 

" My wound is deep, I fain would sleep ; 
Take thou the vanguard of the three, 
And hide me by the bracken bush, 
That grows on yonder lilye lee. 

bury me by the bracken bush, 

Beneath the blooming brier, 
Let never living mortal ken, 

That e*er a kindly Scot lies here." 

The other great historical ballad is The Raid of 
the Reidswirc. The occurrence which it celebrates was 
a sudden outbreak between the two companies which 
attended the English and Scottish Wardens of the 
Marches, Forster of Bamborough and Carmichael of 
Hyndford, at a meeting on the Borders for the ad- 
justment of claims. Forster and Carmichael came to 
high words regarding a bill which had been "fouled" 
or proved correct against an English freebooter. The 
fierce Borderers of Tynedale, noticing the altercation 
between the leaders, broke the truce by discharging 
a shower of arrows, when the combat became general. 
It ended in the retreat of the English party, Forster 
himself and others being taken prisoners. The date 
is June 7, 1575. The chief interest of the ballad 
lies in the curtness and picturesqueness of the story, 
and in the list of the names of the families engaged 
in it. 



ill time than the /^/v/// of i^cj/oz-f ca 
ccivcMl. k is ]tnl into tlio niontli 
IkmI Inst licr all. and it sceiiis as if ] 
so strong as to overleap all tranini 
few lines will suffice : — 

" But Peenye, my gude son, is out at the 
His een glittering for anger like a fiery 
Crying — * Mak sure the nooks 
Of Maky*8-rauir crooks ; 
For the wily Scot takes by nooks, hook 
Qin we meet a' together in a head the i 
We'll be merry men.* 

Fy, lads ! shout a' a' a' a* a', 
My gear's a' gane. 

Captain Musgrave and a' his band, 
Are coming down by the Siller-strand, 
And the muckle toun bell o' Carlisle is 
My gear was a' weel won. 
And before it's carried o'er the Border, 
Mony a man's gae down. 

Fy, lads ! shout a' a' a' a' a'. 

My gear's a' gane." 

Jamie Tdfer o' the Fair Dodhead te 
sense of realism so strong as to sugge 
composition of an eyewitness of th( 



HISTOBICAL BALLADS. 145 

"And when they came to the Fair Dodhead, 
Richt haatUy they clamb the Peel ; 
They loosed the kye out, sue and a'. 
And ranshackled ' the house richt weel. 

Now Jamie Telfer'a heart waa sair, 

The tear aye rowing in his ee ; 
He pled wi' the Captain to hae his gear, 

Or else revenged he would be. 

The Captain turned him round and leugh,* 
Said — ' Man, there's naething in thy house, 

But ae auld sword without a aheatb. 
That hardly now would fell a mouse.' 

The sun wasua up, but the moon was down, 
It was the grymiug' of a new fa'n enaw, 

Jamie Telfer has run ten miles afoot. 

Between the Dodhead and the Stob's Ha',* 

And when he cam to the fair tower gate, 

He shouted loud and cried weel hie, 
Till out spak auld Gibby Ellifrt, 

Wha's this that brings the fraye to me 1 " 

But Elliot would Bot respond to the call. The plundered 
man then turned to the Teviot side. There he found 
aympatby in "auld Buccleuch," who thus spoke: — 

" ' Alack for wae ! ' quoth the gude auld Lord, 
' And ever my heart is wae for thee ! 
But fye gar cry on Willie, my son. 
And see that he come to me speedilie ! 

' Oar warn the water, braid and wide. 

Oar warn it sune and haatilie ! 
They that winna ride for Jamie Telfer'a kye, 

Let them never look in the face o* me 1 



> Ransacked. ' Laughed. 

■ Spnnkling. * Stobs HaU OD the SUtterick or Slitrig. 

VOL. II. K 



iiiu'" i'\ I m- '_;.iLi- ill I 1 11 .^i ii.i ii^ii 

AihI warn tlit' ('inmrs <»' the L 
As vc (•(•iiic down llic l{triiiita;_r<- 
A\'.irn (l()U;_;litit' ^\'illi.■ ..' (i.»iii 

The Scotts they rode, tlie Scotts 
Sae starkly and sae steadily ! 

And aye the ower-word o' the th 
Was — 'Rise for Branksome res 

The Scots soon overtook Bewcastl 
deliver up "the kye." Then ther 
set in the simplest terms, which no 

« * Set on them, lads,' quo' Willie t 
* Fye, lads, set on them cruelli 
For ere they come to Ritterford, 
Many a toom^ saddle there sal 

Then til't they gaed, wi' heart an 
The blows fell thick as bickeri 

And mony a horse ran masteries 
And mony a comely cheek wai 

But Willie was stricken ower thi 
And thro' the knapscap' the s' 

And Harden grat for very rage, 
When Willie on the grund lay 

But he's taen aff his gude steel a 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 147 

* Revenge ! Revenge ! ' auld Wat *gan cry ; 

' Fye, lads, lay on them craellie, 
"WVll ne'er see Teviotside again, 

Or Willie's death revenged sail be.' 

mony a horse ran masterless, 

The splintei-'d lances flew on hie ; 
But or they won to the Kershope ford. 

The Scotts had gotten the victory." 

The whole spirit of the old Border life is there, in 
its fidelity to clanship, its ready daring, its fierceness 
of fight and fence, its delight in romantic deeds, and, 
withal, in its heart of pathos. The power and truth 
of individual manhood were never more thoroughly 
tested than in the wild grips of a Border raid. 

Objection has recently been made to the received view 
that the Dodhead of this ballad is on the Ettrick in Sel- 
kirkshire. The main ground is that Telfer, if living there, 
must have run thirty miles to reach Stobs.^ It has ac- 
cordingly been suggested that the reference is to a sup- 
posed Dodhead on the Dodbum, which runs down from 
between the Cauldcleugh Fell and Great Moor, and 
falls into the Allan Water, which joins the Teviot The 
distance from the head of the Dodburn to Stobs is said 
to be some seven miles only. But it is not correct to 
say that the Dodhead near the source of the Dodburn in 
Ettrick is thirty miles from Stobs. In a line across the 
hills, which a Borderer would certainly take — especially 
in such an emergency — the distance as measured on 
the map is not more than eleven miles at the utmost. 
Further, no place or house called Dodhead is or has been 
known at the head of the Dodbum in Teviotdale. On 

1 See Child, Baaadt, viii. 518. 



Uk* tnidilioiial place in Ktli'ickdale. 
for Slobs across the moors, followcil 
the retreating leixer baiiil, wlm wei'e 
at the head of the Teviut. Ha vim 
other places of his call came in quite 
cleugh and Branxholm. Catslockhil 
places, has evidently been confuse< 
Yarrow. There is a Catslack anc 
Yarrow — there was a Catslack Pee 
CatslackhilL The Catslockhill of tl 
sought in some locality between 
Branxholm, the name having now p 
other cases, disappeared. 

There are naturally ballads of 
taken prisoners, and lodged genera] 
what to them must have appeared ra 
" merrie Carlisle." These, curiously 
personages connected with the notori 
for centuries a thorn in the side of 
Scotland. The activity, the rough ( 
in this district, stirred the hearts oi 
largely to graphic ballad portraiture 



I* i» • i 1 r 1 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 149 

tlie indignation of his neighbours against Hector of 
Harelaw, who, contrary to the faith of a Borderer, yielded 
lip to the Regent the Earl of Northumberland after 
" Dacre's Eaid" in 1569. This district demands a 
word of notice. 

The Debateable Land extended from a line on the 
northern shore of the Solway to near the head of the 
Tarras Water, It was bounded on the east by the 
Esk n3 far as the Liddel Moat, and then by the Liddel on 
to near Greena Tower, It then ran nortli-west by the 
Tinnia HUl to the head of the Tarras Water. On the 
west it was hounded by the Water of Sark and the 
Pingle Burn. The boundary - line then ran eastward 
by the Irvine Burn until this joined the Tarras Water. 
Tlie Tarras formed the northward boundary to the Perter 
Bum, where the district terminated. It contained the 
old parish of Canonbie, half of the parish of Morton, 
and the parish of Kirk-Andrews on Eak. The canons- 
regular of St Augustine had a priorj' and extensive lands 
iu the parish of Canonbie, The Debateable Land was ten 
miles in length by four at its greatest breadth. The Esk 
ran right across it, and of old it was a district of wild 
bog and forest, with interspaces of bare or cleared land, so 
late as Sir Kobert Carey's time, " a lai^ and great forest 
on marshy ground," The Tarras Moss, with the barony 
of Harelaw, occupied the northern part; the towers of 
Gilnockie and Holehouse (Hollas, Hollows) were by the 
Esk ; Bamgleis, Tower of Sark or Morton, Kynmont, 
Woodhouse Lee, lay in the centre ; the Tower of Plomp 
and the Solway Moss, with the Eoman Boad running 
across it, the scene of the ignominious conflict of 1542, 



ot |irc'(Uil()rv iiahiis and (iciiancr oi i; 
tlie AVardcn (»!' tlu* ]\Iarcli ccasiMl \\ 
witliin tlu' clianiuMl ciivlc (jf tlu' Mo 
Debateable Land was for several lu: 
raiding refuge of Armstrong and Grj 
habitants. Once the former were assa 
stronghold, but the attack was a h 
Archibald, the ninth Earl of Dougla 
the king, made a raid on the Arms 
destroyed their houses and pursued tl: 
of Tarras. But the pursuit was wholl 
the earl had to follow the king, who 
back to civilisation, and leave the A 
bogs. In these days one of the finest 
the south country is by the rough hi 
across from Castleton by the moor ai 
to Langholm in the haugh of the E 
August day you pass amid the tall i 
heather on the slopes by the rocky 
the Tarras pours its dark and impeti 
green haughs and fertile corn-fields < 
Glenzin; and the eye follows througl 



^1-- /•-_ -_i : — -r^w^i^^ ^f i-'Ur, Q/^l 



xtrc 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 151 

the right which disclose to the view the statuesque out- 
lines and* the wondrous greenery of the hills that flank 
the dales of the Wauchope and the Ewes. 

There can be little question that the Debateable Land 
originally belonged to Scotland. Cumbria beyond it was 
long Scottish by right, and was not ceded to England 
until 1242. In the March Laws of 1249 the mid- 
stream of the Tweed and the Esk seems to be indicated 
as the frontier line, the Debateable Land lying on the 
Scottish side.^ In the time of Edward I., Sir Baldwin 
de Wake was found on inquest at Carlisle to be heir of 
the barony of Liddal, situated partly in Cumberland, on 
the east side of the Esk.^ De Wake had also the neigh- 
bouring barony of Kirk- Andrews within the Debateable 
Land. The barony of Liddal seems in De Wake's time to 
have included the parishes of Arthuret and Kirk- Andrews. 
The Scottish monarchs, however, both before and after 
this date, exercised rights of sovereignty over the pro- 
perty in the district. This was done by David I. and 
William the Lion. Eobert Bruce conferred the barony 
of Kirk- Andrews, which had been in possession of Wake, 
on John de Soulis. In 1504 the whole district was 
claimed by the Commissioners as belonging to Scotland. 
In 1449 (15th November) the term Batable or Debateable 
is referred to as applied to the district. It is then 
spoken of as " Batable Landez or Threpe Landez." ^ It is 
still called the Debateable Land in 1549.* It has with 

* Leges Afarehiarum, temp, Henry IIL, § 11. 

' Berkeley Peerage Case, cited by Mr T. J. Carlyle of Waterbeck in 
Dumfries Society Tranaaetions, DehateahU Land (1886), 19. 
^ See R. B. Armstrong, Liddetdale, L 170. 

* Leges Marehiurum, 80. 



152 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

probability been supposed that the recognition by the 
moaks of Canonbie of English supremacy in the form of 
a Writ of Protection from Edward III. in 1341, Wake's 
claim to Kirk-Andrews, and the disposal of the laud by 
Scottish charters, led to a certain confusion, and gave 
rise to the ambiguous position of the territory and the 
term Debateable Land.^ After various proposals for di- 
vision, the district was allocated between England and 
Scotland in 1552,' Canonbie being given to tlje latter 
and Eirk-Andrews to the former. An earthen bank of 
some four miles, stiU known as the " Scotch Dyke," and 
running from a point on the Sark to the Esk, marks the 
line of division. Lord Wharton, in an order r^arding 
the defence of the Marches, in the sixth year of Edward 
VL, 1553, refers to "the land layt called the Debate- 
able Land, and now the King's Majestie's inheritance, well 
planted with men and fortress." ' Yet after this, and so 
late as the time of Elizabeth in 1563, there ia a proposal 
to divide the Debateable Land.* 

The territorial lordship of the Debateable Land, at 
least of two out of its three baronies, Kirk-Andrews and 
Bryntallone, passed from the powerful family of Soulis 
.with Hermitage to the still more powerful house of 
Douglas. On the fall of the latter — the black line — at 
Arkinholm, near Langholm, where on the western border 
they made their last stand, their possessions in this district 
passed to the Hepbums — Patrick, and then Adam, first 
and second Earls of Bothwell. This family again gave 

' Cf. Carljle, loe. eit. 

' A Dote of eipcnseB id connection with the division kt this date is 
giveii in Ateounlt o/Lord High Trtaturcr, toI. 1GS0-S2. 

• Lrga Marchwrvm, 342. * Ibid., HE, 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 153 

place to the Maxwells, the powerful lords of Nithsdale. 
In the time of the Maxwells there rose up the Armstrongs, 
at first apparently independently, and then as vassals 
under bonds of man-rent The name first appears in 
the Debateable Land in 1517.^ By 1527-28 they had 
occupied, apparently at their own hand, large portions of 
the district, and they had built strong towers in face of 
the royal proclamation to the contrary (6th July 1528). 
They were a daring and powerful clan. We hear at this 
time and onwards of John the Laird, the famous Gil- 
nockie ; Thomas tlie Laird, John's elder brother, of 
Mangerton ; Simon the Laird, of Whithaugh ; Hector of 
the Harelaw ; Jock o* the Syde ; Geordie ; and Will's Jock 
o' the Gingles ; and Kinmont Willie. At the height of 
their power the Armstrongs could place 3000 horsemen 
in the field. Their last raid was into Cumberland on 
occasion of the death of Queen Elizabeth. Sir William 
Selby met and routed them. Immediately afterwards, 
numerous executions, the razing of their strongholds, 
and forfeiture of their lands, caused the extirpation of 
the clan. The Grahames shared with the Armstrongs 
the Debateable Land. Fergus Graham was laird of the 
Plomp, or Plump, south of the Armstrongs. His son 
Eichard acquired Kirk-Andrews. From him are de- 
scended the Grahames of Esk and Netherby. Whatever 
private rights of property there may have been in the 
Debateable Land, it was certainly regarded as a common 
between England and Scotland. A specification constantly 
occurring in Articles of " Trewes " is that " all the Debate- 
able Grounde should be used as common betwixt both the 

^ Dumfries Society Transactions, 36. 



154 BORDBB HISTORY AND POETRY. 

said realms, from the sod rysing unto the son setting, with 
bytte of mouthe only."' Faaturing at night was tiius 
prohibited. 

These clans of the Debateable Land were to be found 
not only raiding indiscriminately into England and Scot- 
land ; they were ready on persuasion, or for revenge, to 
espouse the English or Scottish side equally on occasion 
of national war. In 1535, Mangerton and Wliithaugh 
— both Armstrongs — were denounced as rebels for siding 
with the English. This was doubtless in revenge for the 
death of Gilnockie. Whithaugh was eventually caught 
and hung. In 1545, at Ancrum Moor, the Armstrongs, 
auxiliaries of the English, finding the tide of battle was 
against them, tore the emblem of the Eed Cross from 
their breasts, which betokened their being assured 
Englishmen, and turned their spears on the Southrons, 
for whom in their heart they had no real liking. Their 
loyalty to a pledge did not on this occasion extend to the 
Southrons.' In 1592, we have a curious picture of the 
state of the Borders — of the eager-eyed armed watching 
for each other on the part of English and Scottish. It is 
entitled " The division of the several! charge of the West 
Borders of England and Scotland." From Carlisle to 
Bewcastle the English lay armed to the teeth. In Car- 
lisle were the Warden, Lord Scroope, his Deputy, and 
Constable. Tlieir function was " defence of England or 
offence of Scotland." In defence of England against " any 
sudden Bade or secret thifte made by any Scottes or 

' Articles coDceming the MoDutery of CaDobjhoIm, 1531. 

' Buximt, Btttors of S<>aliaiid,aad Cai\y\e, Dumfria Soeitly TratiKKtiotu, 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 165 

English borderers, to be ready upon the first showte of 
fraye, with a score at the least of the Warden's men, to 
follow where the fraye is, or to ryde betwixt them and 
home as the service requires. In offence of Scotland, 
when the Warden dotli make any rade, to go with a 
competent number and take a boutie in Scotland. And 
that is called a Warden Eade." Tlien there are Stewards, 
Captains, anil Bayliffs, in baronies, castles, and houses of 
strength westward from Carlisle, along the Eden towards 
the Water of Leveu, and east and north-east to Spadeadam 
Waste and Bewcastle. Opposite the Leven, between the 
Esk and the Sark, lay the Debateable Land. This district, 
as we have seen, had been divided between Scotland and 
England in 1552; but tlie dwellers therein seemed even 
yet to acknowledge no allegiance either to England or 
Scotland. They " rode " impartially, as occasion prompted, 
into either countrj'. 

"They stole the beeves that made them broth 
From Scotland and from England both." 

The inhabitants of the Water of Leven appear to have 
been in the same condition. Further westwards "the 
best Grames " dwelt on both sides of the Esk, and owned 
no government except that of the English Warden, who 
had taken " band of four or more of the chief of them " 
to answer for the possible misdeeds of the clan. " This 
did make them alwaies fearefull to ryde into England. 
Now these Grames are not so dangerous to England as 
others are. But they ride still into Scotland. There is 
many of them." 

Scotland, too, was in defence and offence. " The 



La]>tjmi ot L;iii'4:iin [ Lan^lioiinJ, I he t 
This dali' is stroll;.; '^ in Lin-at and 

MaXAVclls, ddlllistnlis, Arill.-lr()ll!4S, 

Caiiells [Caiiyles]. Jkit " Lydde.sda: 
sive country against the West and J 
is governed by a Keeper, who lyeth i 
tage], the chief strength of Liddesda 
well [BothweU] hath most land thei 
this country consisteth in two surnai 
and Elwoodes [Elliots]. These pec 
Gillesland, Aston-More, and Northu 
dale," we are surprised to learn, " ne^ 
Border,** and "Ewsdale are a civi] 
ryde in England." The principal E 
the Grames of Eske and Leven, 
Stories, sore decayed." Then thei 
Hetheringtons, Cuzers [Cosars], and 
decayed.*' Bells are in Gilsland ; ir 
Glastes, Huntingtons, and Hodgso: 
Musgraves and Salkelds are the g 
gentlemen within the Wardenry. 
Then of the Borderers of Scotlan 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 157 

of Mylke, and three hundred sufficient men of his name/' 
Between the Annan and the Nith above Dumfries is 
" the Lord Maxwell and the Lord Harrys [Herries] and a 
thousand Maxwells under them. They have bin in feede 
[feud] with these Johnsons these many years, which is 
a weakening of Scotland and a strength to England." " In 
Lyddesdale the chief surnames are Armestrongs and 
El woods [Elliots]. The chief e Armstrong is of Mangerton, 
and the chiefe Elwoode at Cariston. These are two great 
surnames, and most offensive to England at this daie, for 
the Armestrongs, both of Annerdale and Lyddesdale, be 
ever ryding." ^ All this was only thirteen years before 
the Union of the Crowns. 

The chief of the ballads of rescue is Kinnwnt 
Willie^ relating to Armstrong of Kinmont, who resided 
in Morton Tower, and who is said by Satchells to have 
been a descendant of Gilnockie. His rescue during the 
night from Carlisle Castle took place on April 13, 1596. 
There are, besides, the ballads that narrate the deliverance 
of the famous Jock of the Syde, and that of Archie of 
Ca'field, the latter from the Tolbooth of Dumfries. Jock 
0* the Syde is mentioned by Sir Eichard Maitland in his 
invective.^ He lived and, no doubt, " flourished '' during 
the reign of Mary and part of that of James VI. He 
was an Armstrong, and nephew of the head of the name, 
the Laird of Mangerton. In 1569 he assisted the 
northern Lords — Northumberland and Westmoreland — 
to conceal themselves among the Border glens, after their 

^ Copy of a manuscript Tract addressed to Lord Burghley, a.d. 1590 
— with Piatt or Map of the Borders taken in the same year. H. Ellis to 
Society of Antiquaries, 1827. The Report is signed '' £dw. Aglionby." 

' See supraf iL 32. 



158 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

unfortunate rising. His 'rescue from Carlisle Castle took 
place after 1590, when Thomas Lord Scroope of Bolton 
became, in succession to his father. Warden of the West 
Marches of England. Jock o' the Syde had two worthy 
relatives, as remarkable as himself in his profession — viz., 
his cousin, the Laird's Jock, or the Laird's son Jock, this 
being the son of Mangerton, and Christie of the Syde, his 
brother. These names all appear as men of note ia the 
list of Border clans of 1597. The Syde was a tower in 
Liddesdale, a little way down from the junction of the 
Hermitage Water. 

The ballads of rescue have a marked family likeness 
in structure and incident, and are probably due to the 
same author, one who lived in the time of James VI., and 
who wrote before the Union of the Crowns. Tiie daring 
shown by Buccleuch in the rescue of Kinmont Willie 
spread his name over Britain and the Continent. It was 
held, besides, to be morally justifiable,_on the ground that 
Einmont had been seized on a day of Border truce, and 
was illegally detained. He was returning from a Warden 
Court held at the Dayholm of Kersopa It was pleaded 
by his captors that Kinmont interfered with a band of 
Englishmen who were pursuing some of his clan in Hot 
Trod, and that he thus deprived himself of the right of 
exemption from arrest on a day of truce. The Arm- 
strongs and Buccleuch, the Keeper of- Liddesdale, ap- 
parently thought differently. Buccleuch accordingly met 
the Armstrongs at Morton Tower, the residence of Kin- 
mont, and with seventy mounted followers — not two 
hundred as asserted by Tytler — determined on a rescue. 
The arrangement of the expedition, the meeting of the 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 159 

band at Woodhouaelee an hour before sunset, the march 
through the night, the quiet breaking of the castle, the 
alarm in the city of Carlisle, the tolling of the bells and 
the beating of the drums there, with the successful carry- 
ing away of the captive and the reerossing of the flooded 
Eden in the dawn of the misty morning — are graphically 
touched, and make a stirring epic picture. And the whole 
is relieved by a touch of humour thoroughly characteristic 
of the bold life which delighted in a deed of daring and 
of danger, and found relief from the strain of the effort 
in the readiest joke. Kinmont Willie, fettered as he 
was, was hoisted on Eed Rowan, " the starkest man " in 
Teviotdale ; and while the rescue was still incomplete, 
thus spake Willie : — 

"0 iDODy a time, quo' Kinmont Willie, 

I have ridden horse baith wild and wood, 
But a rougher beast than Bed Rowan, 
I ween my legs have ne'er bestrode. 

And mony a time, quo' Kinmont Willie, 
I've pricked a horse out ower the furs ; 

But since the day I backed a steed, 
I never wore sic cumbrous spurs." 

The closing stanzas afford as fine a subject for a picture 
as any I know ; — 

" We scarce had won the Staneshaw Bonk, 

When a' the Carlisle bells were rung. 

And a thousand men on horse and foot. 

Cam wi' the keen Lord Scroope aloi^ 

Bnccleuch has turned to Eden water. 
Even when it flowed frae bank to brim, 

And he has plunged in wi' a' his band, 
And safely swam them through the stream. 



160 BOEDER HISTORY AND POETRT. 

He tum'd him on the other aide, 
And at Lord Scroope hig glove flung he — 

' If ye like na mj visit in merrie England, 
In fair Scotland come visit lue !' 

All Bore astonished stood Lord Scroope, 

He stood as still as. rock of st&ne ; 
He scarcely dared to trew his eyes. 

When through the water they had gane : 

' He is either himsel' a deevil fra« hell. 

Or else his mother a witch maun be ; 
I wadna hae ridden that wan water 

For a' the gowd in Christentie.' " 

When delivered up by the weakest of Scottish kings to 
the Queen of England, for fear he himself should fall 
under the disfavour of the legal murderer of his mother, 
and his own prospects should thus suffer, Buccleucli made 
a speech worthy of hia line and his country. " How 
did you dare," said the imperious queeu, " to do such a 
thing 1 " " Dare, madam," said Buccleuch, " what would 
a man not dare to do ? " It is creditable to the English 
queen that she recognised the character of the man, and 
set him at liberty. Turning to those around her, she is 
reported to have said, " With ten thousand such men our 
brother of Scotland might shake the firmest throne in 
Europe." Buccleueh's speech, grand as it is, may be 
paralleled by that of another Borderer, who was told off 
for a daring and lawless deed. " But what dae ye think 
o't ? " was the query of the prompter. " Think o't," said 
the Borderer ; " it's no the thinking that's onything ; it 
ia the daeing o't and the deein' for't ! " 

We have seen the part which Robert Lord Maxwell 
took in the death of Armstrong of Gilnockia Always a 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 161 

powerful family, the Maxwells were never greater than 
under his chieftainship and that of his sod, Lord John 
Maxwell. Under the latter even tlie Johnstones — about 
the roughest riders on the Borders — the hereditary foea 
of the Maxwells, came under a bond of man-rent. But 
a raid of the Johnstones on the Crichtons of Nithsdale — 
the burden of the Zads of Wamphray, with its terrible 
doings and its lightsome turns, worthy of The Oay Galli- 
ard for whose deatli it records the revenge — broke up 
the alliance between the Johnstones and the Maxwells. 
The result was the conflict of Dryffe Sands (1593), in 
which Lord Maxwell fell — the hand of the wounded man 
being hewn off and borne as a trophy by Willie John- 
stone of Kirkhill. Out of this somewhat foul slaughter, 
and other gruesome deeds, tliere grew up in the breast of 
the son of bim who thus fell, also Lord John, a pur- 
pose of revenge as deep aa it was persistent, which ruled 
his whole life and actions. At length, at a meeting 
arranged, as if for an amicable purpose, between Maxwell 
and Johnstone, at Auchnambill near Artho'rstane, in Dum- 
friesshire, the former, in a cowardly manner, fatally shot 
Johnstone through the back with, it is said, a poisoned 
bullet Tliis was on the 6th April 1608. The assassin 
fled to France, and tlie ballad. Lord Maxwell's Goodnight, 
was written on occasion of his departure, or between 
that period and 1613. The sympathy of his clan was 
with him in his exile, as was obviously also that of the 
writer of the ballad. It illustrates the peculiar view of 
blood atonement already shown to have been for so many 
ages characteristic of the Borderer, as the following stanzas 
show : — 

VOL. II. L 



BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

" Adieu, madame, my mother dear, 
But and my sisters three ! 
Adieu, fair Robert of OrchardBtane ! 
My heart is wae for thee. 

Adieu, the lily and the rose, 

The primrose fair to see ; 
Adieu, my lady, and only joy ! 

For I may not etay with thee. 



My noble mind their wrath diedains— 
He waa my father's deid. 

Both night and day I labour'd oft 

Of him revenged to be ; 
But now I've got what lang I sought, 

And 1 may not stay witli thee. 

Adieu '. Dromlanrig, false wert aye, 

And Ctosebum in a band ! 
The Laird of Lag, tne my father that Sed, 

When the Johnstone struclc off his hand. 



Adieu ! Dumfries, my proper place, 

But and Caerlavrock fair! 
Adieu ! my castle of the Thrieve, 

Wi' a' my buildings there : 

Adieu! Xiochmaben'a gate sae fair, 
The Langholm-holm, where birke there be; 

Adieu '. my ladye, and only joy, 
For, trust me, I may not stay wi' thee." 

The exile returned to Scotland some years after this, but 
only to be taken and executed for his crime in 1613. 
But not quite for his crime, for the contemptible king 
had a favourite. Sir Gideon Murray, for whom he wished 
to provide. He had do estate ready ; therefore fire- 



BISTOKICAL BALLADS. 163 

raising was put in the dittay against Maxwell This 
implied forfeiture of estate. Maxwell was thua con- 
veniently disposed of, and part of his estate given to 
Murray, which, however, it is pleasant to record, he did 
not long hold. But for tlie Union of the Crowns, and 
the greater strength of the monarch which accrued from 
it, the head of the bouse of Maxwell would certainly 
have escaped the death penalty, as many an equally 
blood-stained Maxwell and Johnstone had done before him. 
We may look on the end of Lord Maxwell on the Castle- 
hiU of Edinburgh as the close of the old period of indi- 
vidualism and lawlessness, and tlie beginning of modem 
re^ectability and order, very good in the main, but yet 
opening a century and a half which afforded an excellent 
cloak for the advancement in Scotland of a great many 
grasping knaves who, while destitute of scrupulousness, 
knew how to keep within the limits of law. 

There are other two ballads of the historical type well 
worthy of being noted — Edom o' Gordon and Farcy Seed. 
Edom o' Gordon is one of those ballads the locality of 
which it is very difBeult to determine. There are ver- 
sions of it that refer to the nortli of Scotland — the house 
and the family of Forbes ; to Loudon in Ayrshire, and 
the Campbells of that branch. Then there is a version 
which locates the incident in the place or house of 
Rhodes. This is near Duns in Berwickshire, there being 
still remains of the old tower. The Gordons were of 
course originally from Berwickshire, whence they carried 
to the north the names of Gordon and Huntlie ; bat 
before the supposed date of this ballad they had been 
long settled in Aberdeenshire. There is mention of an 



164 BORDEa HISTORY AND POETRY. 

" Adame off Gordoune," along with Stewart of Bonkle, 
both belonging to the Merse, in Tke Bruce} and in all 
probability the same person appears on the Ragman Eoll 
(1296) as Dominus Adam Gurdon, miles. This was the 
founder or an early member of the noble house of Gordon. 
After their settlement on the Dee. the Gordons retained a 
sort of territorial connection with the Merse in the way of 
feudal superiorities. But the Edom o' Gordon of the ballad 
is supposed to have been a later personage — viz., Adam 
Gordon of Auchindown, brother of the Lord Huntly of the 
time. Auchindown figured after the assassination of the 
Regent Moray as the queen's deputy-lieutenant in the 
north. He was not quite the coarse savage pictured in 
the ballad of Edom o' Gordon, but in tlie circumstances 
and temper of the times we can quite well suppose him 
capable of the atrocity attributed to him. It is but fair 
to say that in some of the versions of the ballad be is 
not alleged to be present at the burning of the tower. 
This is said to have been done by his lieutenant, a Ker 
or Car, obviously a Borderer of the savage type. Tlie 
Lowland version of the ballad was printed by the brothers 
Foulia In 1755. It opens thus: — 

" It fell about the Martitunas, 

When the wind blew Khrill and cauld, 
Said Edom o' Gordon to his men, 
' We maun draw to a hauld, 

' And what an a hauld sail we draw to, 

Mj merry men and me ) 
We will gas to the house of the Rhodes, 

To see that fair lady." 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 165 

She had nae sooner buskit her eell, 

Nnr putten on her gown, 
Till Edom o' Gordon and bU men 

Were round about the toun." 

Be the locality of the story in the Merse, at Loudon, or 
at Towie, — it seems to me to be one of the most natural 
and Imman-liearted ballads possible in the circumstancfis 
of the old wild life. Suddenly Edom o' Gordon surrounds 
the old tower with his men. The lady is alone, practi- 
cally defenceless. She rushes to the tower-head, parleys 
with the assailant, and, like a noble-spirited woman, in- 
dignantly rejects his brutal terms. Then there is the 
threat of the assailant that he will burn the tower, 
herself, and her babies three. Tliere is the treachery of 
Jock, her man, who, now in the pay of Gordon, pulls up 
the " ground wa-stane." There is the fire and the choking 
smoke — the cry of the youngest child to be free from 
" the worrying reek." Then there comes the terribly 
pathetic incident of the young dochter, " baith jimp and 
sma'." She asks — 

" row nie in a pair of sheetB 
And tow me owr the wa'." 

Surely the innocent face and form will evoke mercy 
even from Edom o' Gordon ; but no — 

" They mw'd her in a pair of sheets 

Aad tow'd her owr the wa', 
But on the point of Edom's spear 

She gat a deadly fa'. 
bonny bonny was her month. 

And chirry were her cheiks, 
And clear, clear, was bir yellow hair. 

Whereon the red blnid dreepa ! 



166 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Then wi' bia ep«ir he turned her owr ; 

gin hir face was wan ! 

He said, < You are the ftrat that e'er 

1 wist olive again ! ' 

He turned her owr and owr again ; 

O gin her skin was whyte ! 
He said, ' I micht ha' spared thy life 

To been some man's delyte. 

Busk and boon, my merrye men all, 

For Ul dooms I do guess ; 
I canna luik on that bonny face, 

Aa it lyes on the grasa,' " 

These singularly fine atanzas, revealing as they do the 
cruelty and the revulsion from it, — the eminently human 
regret and contrition for the sudden impulse to evil deed, 
— are among the truest to human nature in the whole 
circle of our ballad poetry. What more natural, and 
what more touching in the midst of the terrible murderous 
burning, than that the instigator of it should, after a climax 
of savagery in the slaying of the innocent girl, feel his 
heart touched to the core by the sight of the sweet 
reproachful face, and even wish, though in vain, that his 
hand had not needlessly and wantonly stilled for ever the 
hope and blossom of the young and beautiful life. If 
ever the old minstrel was true to the human heart, it 
was in stanzas such as these.* 

It is possible that this ballad had originally some 
foundation in fact. Incidents of the kind rehited were 
unfortunately not uncommon. We have the burning of 

' Yet it ia o{ the«e verses that Mr Child writes m follows: "Then 
follow deplorable interpolatioDs, begioning with st. 19. Edom o' Qurdon 
having turned the girl over with hia apear and wished her alive, turns her 
' owr and owr t^ain.' "^Englith and SeoUith Popular BalUuU, i29. 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 167 

BroomhousG Tower in the Merse, with its inmate, the 
lady of the place. Bishop Lesley writes : " Upoun the 
eist and rayddill merchis. Sir Kauff Everis wee appointed 
livetennent lykwyae to invaid as he did crewellie be 
spulzeing and burning in divers places, not sparing to 
bume wyffis and baimes in thair housses, hot ony mercy ; 
as wes done at ane place in the Merse, callit the Brome- 
house, and in sinder other places at the same tyme,'" We 
have further the destruction by fire of the tower of 
Catslack in Yarrow, when the widowed lady of Buc- 
clench perished in the flames. There is also the well- 
known burning by Ai^yll of the house of Airlie, or 
rather of Forter Castle, up in Glenisla. The circumstance 
that the ballad is made in different popular versions to 
refer to various localities, may be accounted for by sup- 
posing that while it originally applied to one place, it 
was simply adapted in the course of recitation to the 
locality where it was sung or chanted, and where possibly 
an incident similar to what it records had taken place. 

The scene of tlie ballad of Farcy Heed lies on the 
English side of the Border, not far from the Reed Swire. 
It is a characteristic illustration of old life on both sides 
of the Cheviots, and has all the spirit of the best minstrel 
poetry. Parcy or Percival Eecd was laird of Troughhend. 
The tower in which he dwelt still stands in a ruinous 
state on the right bank of the Reed Water as you go 
down the valley to Otterbourne. He was apparently a 
man of consequence in his time, somewhere in the six- 
teenth century. In his official capacity he had dealt 
sharp justice on certain turbulent Crosiers, a clan in the 
t Hiilors of SwtfafKt, 187. Uoder the ;eM- 1G41. 



168 BORDER HiaTORY AND POETRY. 

valley, and allied with the Halls of Girsonfield — the 
remains ot whose melancholy and desolate homestead are 
still to be seen up on the moorland near the Ottetbourne. 
The Crosiers, particularly the old man of the sept, did 
nothing meanwhile, but he and they nursed the purpose 
of revenge, quietly biding their time. At length, after 
a period of apparently peaceful relations, Parcy Reed 
was induced to join the Halls in a hunting party up 
amid the grassy wilds of the head of Eeedsdale. His 
wife had had a prophetic dream of death and disaster to 
the family, but her husband would not be deterred by 
omens, so went to the hunting on the far-away moors. 
They had at first a joyous time, and all went well — ex- 
cept with the deer : — 

" ' To the hunting, ho ! ' cried Parcy Reed, 
' The morning aun is on the dew ; 
The caller breeze frae off the fells 
Will lead the dogs to the quarrj true. 

To the hunting, ho ! ' cried Parcy Beed, 

And to the hunting he bos gane ; 
And the three fause Ha'a o' Girsonfield 

Alang wi' him he has them taen. 

They hunted high, they hunted low, 

By heathery hill and hirken shaw ; 
Thef raised a buck on Rooken Edge, 

And blew the mort at fair Ealelawe. 

They hunted high, they hunted low, 

They made the echoes ring amain ; 
With muaic sweet o' horn and hound. 

They merry made fair Redesdale glen. 

They hunted high, they hunted low, 
They hunted up, they hunted doon, 

Until the day was past the prime, 
And it grew late in the afternoon. 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 169 

The; hunted high iu Batinghope, 
Wlien that the sun was sinking low ; 

Says Parcy then, — 'Ca' off the dogs. 

We'll bait our ateeda and homeward go.' 

They lighted high in Batinghope, 

Atween the brown and benty ground ; 

They hod hut rested a little while 
Till Parcy Reed was sleeping sound. 

There's nane may lean on a rotten staff, 

But him that risks to get a fa' ; 
There's nane may in a traitor trust, 

And traitors black were every Ha'. 

They've stown the bridle aff his steed. 
And they've put water in hia long gun ; 

They've fixed his sword within the sheath 
That out f^ain it canna win. 

' Awaken ye, waken ye. Farcy Keed, 

Or by your enemies be taen ; 
For yonder are the five Croaiera 

A-coming owre the Hingin-stttne,'" 

Parcy, finding himself thus treacherously used, calla 
upon the Halls to stand by him, but they excuse them- 
selves, and wUl not help him. Then Eeed upbraids them, 
as was their due : — 

"0 shame upon ye, traitors a' ! 

I wish your hames ye may nevec see ; 
Ye've stown the bridle off my naig, 
And I can neither fight nor flee, 

Ye've stown the bridle off my naig, 
And ye've put water i' my long gun ; 

Ye've fixed my sword within the sheath 
That out again it winna win." 

Then the Crosiers have him in their power i — 



170 BOEDER HISTOEY AND POETRY. 

" They fell upon him all at once, 

They mangled him most c rue Hie ; 
The slightest wound might caused his deid. 

And they hae gien him thirty-three ; 
They hacket off his hands and feet, 

And left him lying on the lee." 

Then comes one of the most pathetic passages in all 
Border poetry : — 

" It was the hour o' gloaming gray, 

When herds come in frae fauld and pen ; 
A herd he saw a huntsman lie. 
Says he— 'Can this be Laird Troughen' V 

' There's Bome will ca' me Parcy Reed, 

And some will ca' me Laird Troughen'; 
It's little matter what they ca' me, 

My foes hae made me ill to ken. 
There's some will ca' me Parcy Reed, 

And speak my praise in tower and town ; 
It's little matter what they do now, 

My life-blood rudds the heather brown. 

There's some will ca' me Parcy Reed, 

And a' my virtues say and sing : 
I would much rather have just now 

A draught o' water frae the spring.' 



He made his bonnet serve a cup, 
And wan the bleasing o' the dying nu 

' Now, honest herd, ye maun do mair, 
Ye maun do mair, as I you tell ; 

Ye maun bear tidings to Troughen', 
And bear likewise my last farewell. 

A farewell to my wedded wife, 
A farewell to my brother John, 

Who aits into the Troughen' tower, 
Wi' heart as black as any stone. 



HISTORICAL BALLADS. 171 

A farewell to my daughter Jean, 

A farewell to my ;oung boqs five ; 
Had they been at their father's band 

I bad thia nigbt been man alive. 

A farewell to my followers a', 

And a' my neighbours giiid at need ; 
Bid them think how the treacherous Ha's 

Betrayed the life o' Parcy Reed. 

The Laird o' Clennel beai's my how, 
The Laird o' Brandon bears my brand ; 

Whene'er they ride i' the Border side. 
They'll mind the fate o' the Laird Troughen'.' " 

These stanzas are taken from the version reported by 
Mr James Telfer, schoolmaster at Saughtree in Liddesdale, 
as from the recitation of Kitty Hall, an old woman of 
Northumberland. They are not to be found literatim 
in the older version, which is of course much simpler, — 
even bald in narrative.' Clearly the original version has 
been added to, but it does not follow that all the stanzas 
were due to Telfer, He was a man of some genius, and 
he was in thorough sympathy with the older minstrelsy. 
It is likely, indeed it is alleged, that he retouched the 
ballad after it was recited to him. But it is not un- 
common to find that lines and stanzas have been changed, 
even added, in the course of oral transmission. These 
reflected in a measure the spirit and feelings of succes- 
sive generations ; the ballads were thus frequently enriched 
by contributions from the hearts of the people themselves. 

The Batinghope, referred to in this ballad, is a glen, 
green and solitary, leading up to high moorlands, that 
sends its bum down to the Heed Water, on the right 

» See Child, SalUutt, viL 25. 



172 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

band, at the foot of the slope of the Reed Swire. The 
bum breaks and dashes here and there over craggy bits 
of crossing rock, and dips now and again beneath birks 
and fringing brackens, in shadow and sunshine. The 
monotone of the greenery of the hillsides and the wail- 
ing sough of the waters have a pathos that suits well 
with the memory of the fate of Parcy Reed ; and the 
picture of the pale and stricken face of old story fuses 
readily with the softening fall of the autumn afternoon. 



CHAPTER V. 



IIISTOBICAL BALLADS: THE YARROW. 



The ballads to which we have just referred have been 
found to relate to events of general historical interest, or 
to the details of Border raids and exploits. The interest 
of them lies mainly in action. But there is another class 
of ballads which, while they refer to incident more or 
less, yet derive their main interest and impressiveness 
from the trafpc or pathetic emotion excited by the stoiy. 
And, curiously enough, the ballads of this description 
which thrill us the most, and which have most widely 
and deeply stirred the souls of men in subsequent times, 
have their locality in one valley — that of the Yarrow — 
the stream of pathetic song. Eougli and rude was the 
life there for many generations ; but the blood-stains on 
its grassy holms have watered and nourished growths of 
sentiment so tender, so pure, so intense, as to be for ever 
a gain and a blessing to tlie human heart. 

How the Yarrow has been the scene and the source of 
so much that is grand and touching in the older poetry 
of the Borders, is a question of great interest That it 
has been so, not only through the accident of tragic and 



1'74 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

pathetic incident, but also through the peculiarities of its 
natural scenery, fusing with the moods of mind that sym- 
pathise with this kind of incident, I hope to be able to 
show. Meanwhile let us glance at its ballads and songs. 
Of the ballads and aongs of the Yarrow of a pathetic 
type, there are four principal ones. They all apparently 
refer to real incidents. The oldest, which was first printed 
in Ramsay's Tea-ToMe Miscellany in 1724, is Willie's 
Bare and Willie's Fair. Pinkerton refers it to the period 
between James IV. and the reign of Mary. Then there 
are The Douglas Tragedy, The Doviie Dens of Yarrow, and 
The Lament of the Border Widow. The note struck in 
the first of these is that regret for the promise of happi- 
ness and that monotone of sadness which runs through 
all the pathetic poetry of the Yarrow. The burden of 
the song is the old story of a lost lover — lost, not through 
the violence of men as in The Douglas Tragedy, but by 
drowning in the Yarrow. The depth of passion conveyed 
is as wonderful as the simplicity of the expression : — 

" Willie's rare, and Willie's fair, 
And Willie's wondrouB bonny, 
And Willie 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 live-lang winter night 

I'll lye twined o' my jnarrow, 

O came ye by yon water-side 1 

Pu'd you the rose or lily '( 
Or came ye by yon meadow green? 

Or saw ye my sweet Willie I 

1 Pronieed, or engaged. 



HISTOKICAL BALLADS : THE YARROW. 175 

She sought him east, she Bought hini west, 

She sought him braid bdcI nairon' ; 
Syne in the cleaving of a t^ntig, 

She found him drowned in Yarrow." > 

A ballad with a nortbern reference somewhat similar 
to this ia given by Buchan,* and has been repeated with 
variations since hia time. It ia entitled Willie's drowned 
in Gamery. It has much more narrative tlian the Yar- 
row ballad — haa in fact not much in common with it 
beyond a general scope, and aeema very like an adapta- 
tion of it to a more recent incident. The remain- 
ing three were first given by Scott in the Minstrelsy 
(1802-1803). The Douglas Tragedy and The Jhwie 
Dens both refer to the same kind of incident — the loss 
of lover or husband in mortal combat. The scene of 
the former is the glen of the Douglas Bum, which riaes 
in the dark heathery heights of Blackhonse, and joins 
the Yarrow at the Douglas Craig. The lovers were 
fleeing by night from the Tower of Blackhouse, situated 
in this glen, whose ruins stDl remain, though in a pain- 
fully uncared - for and gradually vanishing condition. 
Blackhouse was a very old possession of the great house 
of Douglas. One of the family is commonly said to have 
sat in a Parliament of Malcolm Canmore at Forfar, as 
baronial lord of Douglas Burn. This Parliament is re- 
garded as fabulous by Mr C. lunea.* But by charter of 
1321-22, the forests of Selkirk, Ettrick, and Traquair 

' Mr PftlgnTB prints a lereion with Mverel »dditioiikl stuucw. One of 
these, the fineat, belongs to The Dovie Dtru. The others, from their 
somewhat full references to the scenery, betrsy their comparatively modern 

> SaUaiU of the tforth qfSeoliand, i. 24G. ■ Sketehet, S28. 



176 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

were bestowed on the " good Sir James of Douglas." 
Whether or not the lady who fled from her father's 
tower wae a Douglas, it is now impossible to say. But, 
if she were, this would account for the disparity in 
social rank between herself and her lover, at which 
tradition hint£. The bridle-road across the hills, which 
the fleeing lovers are said to have followed, can still, to 
a certain extent, be easily traced It is one of the main 
old Border roads or riding-tracks between the Yarrow and 
the Tweed. From Blackhouse Tower a line of hill-road 
passes up the Douglas Burn, then turns to the right into 
Brakehope, and at the liisp Syke, where " the Douglas 
Stones " are, it passes up the hill nearing the stones ; 
then, keeping northwards, it follows the line of the 
Black Cleugh Bum, and parts into two on the east slope 
of Dunrig. One branch, though here much obliterated, 
passes along the south shoulder of the Dunrig (2435), 
and proceeding across the watershed of the Douglas, Glen- 
rath, and Glensax Burns, and the ridge of the Ta' Seat 
— the highest of the hills in that wild district — it leads 
along the broad hill-tops by way of Hundleshope, or by 
Crookstone, to the Tweed at Peebles. The other, and 
here more distinctly marked, branch goes to the north- 
westwards, and right by the slopes of the Stake Law, at 
an elevation of about 1784 feet; and at the watershed, 
between The Glen and Glensax, it divei^es into two 
lines — the one passing down " the Short Strands " to 
Glensax Burn, and thence down the valley to Peebles ; 
the other, known as " the Drove Boad," keeping along 
the Newbie heights till it, too, descends into the low 
ground and meets the Tweed at Peebles. From the 



HISTORICAL BALLADS : THE YARROW. 177 

Douglas Stones, after the conflict with the father and 
seven brothers, the knight and his lady were making 
their way for the home of the former, and their path 
might have been either along the high line of Dunrig, or 
the lower slopes of the Stake Law, to Glensax. From 
these main lines various branches of roads diverge, each 
traceable still to the site of some ancient peel, with 
which it afforded a ready connection to the mounted 
Borderer. 

The stones which are said to mtirk the scene of the 
fatal conflict are, however, obviously greatly older than 
any reasonable date which can be assigned to the story of 
the ballad ; and instead of there being only seven, there 
are at least thirteen distinctly visible. Tlie structure 
obviously belongs to the general class of stone-circles 
common on the Lowland hills, which might have been 
places of judicature, or worship, or burial, or all three. 
Still it is quite possible that in this, as in other instances, 
these ancient stones became the scene of a historical event. 

To reach " the Douglas Stones," one has to go up the 
Douglas Bum, pass Blackhouse Tower, then follow the 
Brakehope Burn to the right. Into this bum on the left 
falls the rivulet called the Eisp Syke. Ascend this to the 
top, and there, within about 400 yards from the sky-line of 
the bills, at an elevation of some 1180 feet, are situated the 
grey, weird stones. At flrst sight the appearance is that 
of a semicircle, with its convex facing you as you ascend 
the hill, and its base to the west towards the summit. 
In the Ime of the semicircle there are eleven atones, 
and within this line near Uie east side are two — 
making thirteen. Of these only four are now erect, the 

VOL. II. M 



178 BOEDER HISTOBY AND POETRY. 

others lying flat, but suggesting that they were originally 
upright. The height of the first or uppermost standing 
stone south is 2 feet 1 inch, of the one within the circle 
3 feet 3 inches, of that on the north side, corresponding 
to the uppermost on the south side, 2 feet 7 inches. The 
longest flat stone, on the east, is 3 feet 9 inches. The 
length of the outer line of the semicircle is about 8 7 feet. 
Four of the flat lying stones are together on the south- 
east, suggesting that they had formed a low entrance. 
This is in the line of approach to the standing stone 
within the semicircle. Recently a drain has been dug, 
unfortunately quite close to the north line of the stones, 
and putting them in great danger. But this opening has 
revealed two flat lying stones in the line, as it were, of a 
continuous circle stretching up the hill ; and there is 
another flat lying stone in the soft ground a little Iiigher 
up, at a point which seems to indicate that there had been 
originally a complete circle. The diameter from this 
highest stone on the west to the lowest stone of the 
circular line on the east is 45 feet; and the diameter 
right across from north to south is 48 feet. On the 
lai^est flat stone on the east or lower line, and on the up- 
right stone within the circle, there are six and four smalt 
hoUows respectively, which might pass for cup-markings. 
They are probably simply natural hollows, as may be 
seen in stones laid bare by the floods on the sides of the 
bums, one excellent specimen of which is to be found in 
the bum that comes down from the Short Strands in 
Glensax on the opposite aide of the hills. It should be 
mentioned that there is a circle of smaller -sized stones — 
amounting in all to eight — somewhat lower down the 



HISTORICAL BALLADS: THE YAHROW. 179 _ 

hollow in which the Eisp Syke flows ; but I cannot 
gather that these have any title to be regarded as the 
traditionary Douglas Stones. They might almost be 
regarded as the fouudation of a dwelling in the midst 
of soft ground. Excavation, a few years ago, showed 
nothing but natural soil below. 

In the Dmiglas Tragedy, whatever be its historical 
value, we have a perfect concentration of picturesque 
and striking incidents. The flight of the lovers by night 
up the heights of Black Cleugh ; the combat, in which the 
maiden's father and seven brothers are slain ; the maiden 
stooping to stanch her father's wounds ; the struggle 
between regard for her family and affection for her lover ; 
the contiuued flight from those dead faces pallid on the 
knowe, and sadly shadowed in the soft moonlight, — are 
crowded into a brief intensity of impression. And then 
there ia the still more tragic close of the whole : — 

" He'a lifted her on a milk-white steed. 
And himself on a dfipple grey. 
With a bugelet horn hung down by his aide. 
And slowly they boith rade away. 

Oh they rade on, and on they rade, 

And a' by the licht of the moon, 
Until they cam to yon wan water, 

And there they lichted down. 

They lichted down to tak a drink 

Of the Bpring that ran sae clear ; 
And down the atream ran his gude heart's binde. 

And sair ahe 'gau to fear. 



* Tia naething bat the shadow of my acailet cloak 
That ihines in the water sae plain.' 



180 BOEDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Oh they rade on, anil on they rade. 

And a' by the licht of the moon, 
Until they cam to hie mother's ha' door. 

And there they lichted down. 
Lord William was dead lang ere midnicht ; 

Lady Margaret long ere day ; 
And all true lovers that gang thegither, 

May they have mair luck than they." 

The Dowie Dens is supposed to refer to a duel fought 
at Deuchar Swire, near Yarrow Kirk, between John Scott 
of Tuflchielaw and his brother-in-law, Walter Scott, third 
eon of Bobert Scott of Thirlestane, in which the latter 
was slain.^ According, however, to the version in the 
Minstrelsy, it would seem rather to be founded on the 
fact or tradition of Walter Scott being surprised and 
surrounded by a band hired by his brother-in-law to 
assassinate him. For brevity, directness, and graphic turn 
of narrative, vivid picturing, and the image of passionate 
devotion to the dead, there are few ballads in any 
language that match its strains : — 

" Late at e'en, drinking the wine, 

And ere they paid the lawing,* 
They set a combat them between. 

To fecht it in the dawing.' 
' Oh, stay at hame, my noble lord, 

Oh, stay at hame, my uiarrow ; * 
My cruel brother will you betray 

On the dowie houms of Yarrow.' 
'Oh, tare ye weel, my ladie gay, 

Oh, fare ye wee], my Sarah ! 
For I maun gae, though I ne'er return 

From the dowie banks o' Yarrow.' 

> Mmtlr^, ii. 370. * ReckoDing, bilL 

* Downing. ' Hatch, mate. 



HISTORICAL BALLADS : THE YARROW. 

She kissed his cheek, she kainied his bttir, 

Aa oft she bad done before, ; 
She belted him with his noble brand, 

And he's away lo Yarrow. 

Ab he gaed up the Tinnies Bank, 

I wot he gaed wi' sorrow. 
Till, down in a den ' he spied nine armed men, 

On the dowie houma of Yarrow. 

' Oh, come ye here to part your land. 

The bonnie Forest thorough I 
Or come ye here to wield jour brand 

On the dowie houms of Yarrow!' 

' 1 come not here to part my land. 

And neither to beg nor borrow ; 
I come to wield my noble brand 

On the bonnie banks of Yarrow.' 

'Iflseeall.je'reninetoane, 

And thnt'a an unequal marrow ; 
Yet will I fight while lasts my brand. 

On the bonnie banks of Yarrow.' 

Four has he htirt, and five has skin, 

On the bludie braes of Yarrow ; 
Till that stubborn knight came him behind 

And ran his body thorough. 
' Oae haroe, gae hamc, gude-brothci ' John, 

And tell your aister Sarah 
To come and lift her leafn' lord ; 

He's sleepin sound on Yarrow.' 
' Yestreen I dreamed a <iolefu' dream, 

I fear ther« will bo sorrow; 
I dreamed I pu'd the heather green, 

Wi' my true love on Yarrow, 

gentle wind that bloweth south. 

From where my Love repaireth. 
Convey a kiss frae his dear mouth, 

And tell me how he faretb ! 

1 Hollotr. ' Brother-in-law. 



180 BORDER HI8T0RY AND POETRY. 

Oil the; rade on, and on they rade, 

And a.' bj the licht of the moon, 
Until they cam to hie raother'e ha' door, 

And there they licbted down. 
Lord William was dead lang ere midnicht ; 

Lady Margaret lang ere day ; 
And all true lovcM that gang thegither. 

May the; have mair luck than they." 

The Dowie Dene is supposed to refer to a duel fought 
at Deucbar Swire, near Yarrow Kirk, between John Scott 
of Tuschielaw and his brother-in-law, Walter Scott, third 
son of Hobert Scott of Thirlestane, in which the latter 
was slain.^ According, however, to the version in the 
Minstrelsi/, it would seem rather to be founded on the 
fact or tradition of Walter Scott being surprised and 
surrounded by a band hired by his brother-in-law to 
assassinate him. For brevity, directness, and graphic turn 
of narrative, vivid picturing, and the iaiage of passionate 
devotion to the dead, there are few ballads in any 
language that match its strains: — 

" Late at e'en, drinking the wine. 

And ere they paid the lawing,* 
They set a combat them between. 

To fecht it in the davring.' 
' Oh, atay at hame, my noble lord, 

Oh, stay at hame, my morrow ;* 
My cruel brother Vill you bettay 

On the dowie houms of Yarrow.' 
'Oh, fare ye weel, my ladie gay. 

Oh, fare ye weel, my Sarah ! 
For I maun gae, though I ne'er return 

From the duwie banks o' Yarrow.' 



> MimtrOtg, ii. 370. 
* Dawning. 



HISTORICAL BALLADS : THE YARROW. 

Sbe kiseed his cheek, she kaimed his hair. 

As o^ she bad done before, ; 
Sbe belted bim with his noble brand. 

And be'a away to Yarrow. 
As he gaed up the Tinntes Bank, 

I wot be gaed wi' sorrow. 
Till, down in a den > be spied nine armed men. 

On the dowie houma of Yarrow. 
' Oh, come j'e here to part your land, 

The bonnie Forest thorough ? 
Or come ye here to wield your brand 

On the dowie houms of Yarrow 1 ' 
' I come not here to part my land. 

And neither to beg nor borrow; 
I come to wield my noble brand 

On the bonnie banks of Yarrow.' 

' If I see all, ye'ro nine to aiie, 

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 bludie braea of Yarrow ; 
Till that stubborn knight came bim behind 

And ran his body thorough. 
' Qae hame, gae hamc, gude- brother ' John, 

And tell your sister Sarah 
To come and lift her leafu' lord ; 

He's sleep in sound on Yarrow.' 
' Yestreen I dreamed a dolefu' dream, 

I fear thei« will be sorrow ; 
I dreamed I pu'd the heather green, 

Wi' my true love on Yarrow. 

gentle wind that bloweth sonth, 

From where my Love repaireth. 
Convey a kiss frae bis dear mouth, 

And tell me how he fareth ! 



182 BORDEK HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Oh ! tell sweet WUlie to come down, 

And hear the mavis ainginf!. 
And Bee the biida on ilka bush. 

And leaves around them hinging. 

Bat in the glen strove armed men ; 

They've wrought me dule and sorrow ; 
They've slain— the comeliest knight they've slain— 

He bleeding lies on Harrow.' 

As she sped down yon high, high hill, 

She gaed wi' dule and sorrow, 
And in the den spied ten slain men. 

On the dowie banks of Yarraw. 
She kissed his cheek, she kaimed his hair. 

She searched his wounds all thorough ; 
She kissed them, till her lips grew red. 

On the dowie houms of Yarrow. 
' Now hand your tongue, my daughter dear ! 

For a' this breeds but sorrow ; 
I'll wed ye to a better lord. 

Than him ye lost on Yarrow.' 
* Oh, haud your tongue, my father dear ! 

Ye mind me but of sorrow ; 
A fairer rose did never bloom 

Than now lies cropp'd on Yarrow.' " 

So far as regards the version of The Bowie Dens of 
Yarrow given by Sir Walter Scott, and now quoted, there 
is really very little certainty either as to the original 
lines or as to the historical reference. Sir Walter tells 
ua that " this ballad, which is a very great favourite 
among the inhabitants of Ettrick Forest, is universally 
believed to be founded on fact I found it easy to col- 
lect a variety of copies ; but very difficult indeed to 
select from them such a collated edition as might, in any 
degree, suit the taste ' of these more light and giddy- 
paced times.' " We must therefore regard Scott's version 



HISTORICAL BALLADS : THE YARROW. 183 

as a " collated edition." The material he had to work 
on was probably the dififerent versions preserved at Ab- 
botsford, and recently printed by Mr Child.^ Certain it 
is, he did not succeed in giving a ballad with stanzas 
perfectly harmonious. It would have been better to 
have given even one purely untouched version, as it came 
from the mouth of an oral reciter. 

Sir Walters view as to the historical reference is 
obviously not well founded. His original opinion that 
the ballad referred to the slaughter of a Harden by the 
Scotts of Gilmanscleugh he afterwards abandoned as un- 
tenable. But there can hardly be anything worse than 
his references to what he calls " Annan's Treat," and the 
unhewn stones near Yarrow Kirk. These have nothing 
whatever to do with the incidents of any Yarrow ballad. 
The stones stood there long before a single deed in Scot- 
tish story had been done — were even then grey, weird, 
mysterious ; and " Annan's Treat " is a pure misnomer, a 
reading of Scott's own, which has no foundation either in 
tradition or fact. Nor can we say anything more favour- 
able of Sir Walter's final view regarding the historical 
personages of The Dowie Dens. This was that it indi- 
cated a duel fought at Deuchar Swire, near Yarrow Kirk, 
between John Scott of Tuschielaw and his brother-in-law, 
Walter Scott, whom he calls third son of Robert Scott of 
Thirlestane, in which the latter was slain.^ This Walter 
Scott was certainly brother of Sir Robert Scott of Thirle- 
stane of the time. 

Mr Craig Brown, in his History of SelJcirkshire, — most 
interesting and painstaking in its details, — disputes this 

1 Ballads, Part vii., No. 214. » Mimtrelty, ii. 370. 



184 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

reference. A duel certainly took place in 1609 between 
Walter Scott, brother of Sir Eobert Scott of Thirlestane, 
and John Scott, a member of the family of Tuschielaw, in 
which Walter Scott was slain. This John Scott was 
clearly not the laird of Tuschielaw at the time. He 
is described in the Presbytery Records as "son lawful 
to Walter Scott of Tushilaw." But he was not the 
eldest son, as Mr Craig Brown describes him. Tuschie- 
law had other two sons — Eobert and James — and 
Eobert is repeatedly ' referred to in the Privy Council 
Records as "eldest son and heir-apparent of Tushilaw," 
and mention is made of his son Walter.^ The duel is 
not specially indicated in the Privy Council Records, but 
there is reference to a "variance having lately fallen out" 
between the families of Thirlestane and Tuschielaw, and 
to the blood-feud in consequence of this (16th February 
1609). This would place the duel early in that year. 
We know nothing of John Scott beyond his part in the 
duel. The record of Walter Scott of the Thirlestane 
stock, who fell in the duel, shows him to have been 
of a turbulent type. He was implicated along with his 
brother Eobert of Thirlestane in an attack on the house 
of Adam Veitch in Fethan (called Fechene), near Tra- 
quair Church (6th June 1605), and he was one of a 
band who rescued a prisoner from the magistrates of 
Selkirk. But this John and Walter Scott do not 
seem to have been the personages referred to in the 
ballad. They were not brothers-in-law. The wife of 
Walter Scott of the Thirlestane stock was not a sister 

* See Privy Council Records under March and April 1610. 



HISTORICAL ballads: THE YAEROW. 185 

of Tohn Scott of the Tuschielaw family, but a daughter 
of Patrick Porteous of Hawkshaw. There was a son 
of this marriage — Patrick Scott of Tanlawhill — who be- 
came possessor of Thirlestane in 1641, whea the rep- 
resentative of the older line surrendered the property. 
Further, the duel of 1609 seems to have been fought 
quite fairly. At least there is no imputation in the 
Presbytery Eecords of inequality of numbers, unfairness, 
or treachery aa in the ballad. John Scott, the survivor 
of the duel, was summoned to compear before the Pres- 
bytery of Selkirk, February 7, 1609, to answer for the 
slaughter; but it was not until September 22, 1615, 
that he made public satisfaction in the church of Mel- 
rose for the deed. But clearly the duel and the circum- 
stances of the persons do not fit into the story of the 
ballad. Mr Craig Brown suggests that the reference in 
the ballad is to an incident that happened several years 
after the duel of 1609. It appears that a Walter Scott of 
Tuschielaw eloped with a Grisell Scott of Thirlestane, a 
daughter probably of Sir Robert Scott. The elopement 
and marriage took place in the early summer of 1616. 
"Walter Scott confessed it before the Presbytery, July 9 
of this year. He and his wife were ordered to compear 
in church, and acknowledge the irregularity of their con- 
duct. The blood-feud, originating in the duel of 1609, 
between Thirlestane and Tuschielaw was even yet un- 
stanched, notwithstanding all the efforts of the Privy 
Council from that year onwards. The Moderator of the 
Presbytery was ordered to write to " the gudeman of 
Thirlestane, to desyr him to absent himself that day of 



186 BORDEE HISTORY AND POETEY. 

the said Walter Scott of Tusliielaw his compearance, be- 
cause of the dreadful feud that is amongis them." ^ 

Walter and Grisell Scott had fled across the Border 
evidently, for they were married at Bellingham, in 
Northumberland. They had thus anticipated the ex- 
ploit of Jock o' Hazeldean, They had crossed the 
Carterhaugh and gone down the Heidswire, straight on 
to the nearest point of safe matrimony, — Belliugham on 
the Tyne, — where they were duly married. But now 
comes a most ominous notice in the Presbytery Records. 
It looks as if their happiness had not been long lived. 
On October 22d of the same year (1616), Scott of 
Boayntoim, his sons, and others of the name, — four in 
all, kinsmen and well-known aUies of Thirlestane in his 
violent deeds, — were " amnmoned at the Kirk of the 
Forest to hear themselves excommunicat for the horrible 
slaughter of Walter Scott. Compeared noL" ' 

Who was the Walter Scott thus horribly slaugh- 
tered ? There were two Walter Scotts of note at the 
time. There was old Walter of Tuschielaw, and there 
was his grandson Walter, son of his eldest son and 
heir-apparent, Eobert Scott. If of the Tuschielaw stock, 
he must have been one or other. I was fain to suppose 
at first that the youthful grandson had innocently eloped 
with Grisell of Thirlestane, gone across the hilk to Bell- 
ingham, and, in face of the difficulties of family blood- 
feud, there got married happily. But then facta are 
too strong for this hypothesis. For we find that Walter 
Scott was " retoured " as heir of his father Kobert in the 



HISTORICAL BALLADS : THE YARROW. 187 

lands of Tuschielaw and others in 1633; clearly not 
killed, therefore, in 1616. Could it, then, have been the 
hoary old reiver, the grandfather, laird of Tuschielaw, 
who so carried oflf Grisell of Thirlestane ? If so, we can 
understand how the aflfront implied in this would be 
intensified by the feeling arising from the blood-feud 
already existing between Thirlestane and Tuschielaw. 
Here we have the old enemy of the Thirlestanes carry- 
ing oflf a daughter, who could not have been even half 
his age, — for he had been reiving, fighting, shedding 
blood since at least the year 1565, and this was 1616. 
He had been, in fact, contemporary of Eobert Scott of 
Thirlestane, her father. This would strongly predispose 
the former family to resent the wrong implied in the 
carrying away of Grisell Scott by a Tuschielaw. It is 
curious that in Motherwell's version there is a reference 
to the reiving of the lady : — 

" Thou took our sister to be thy wife, 

And thou ne'er thocht her thv marrow ; 
Thou steal'd her frae her Dadd)r'8 back, 
When she was the Rose of Yarrow." 

An intelligible motive for the slaughter of Walter Scott 
is thus afforded, though it should be noted that a 
daughter of Thirlestane in Ettrick could not appro- 
priately be called " the Kose of Yarrow." There is here 
some confusion of the Thirlestane incident with the Dry- 
hope one. 

Professor Aytoun's supposition that "the dispute was 
regarding some lands which old Tuschielaw intended to 
convey, or perhaps had conveyed to his daughter," is 
untenable, seeing the bride was not the daughter of 



188 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Tuschielaw but of Thirlestane. Then there is the su- 
periority of numbers pitted against the victim — in the 
facts four, in the licence of the ballad, nine to one. 
There is the treachery implied in this, which is con- 
sistent with the idea of the lover or husband being run 
through from behind his back. There is, further, the 
circimistance of the husband going to Yarrow to meet his 
opponent, suggesting that he did not live there ; and 
Tuschielaw is in Ettrick. Again, Bonyntoun or Bonning- 
ton, the residence of Scott, the assailant, is in Peebles- 
shire, on the other side of the hills from Yarrow. The 
Yarrow, as an intermediate valley between the Tweed 
and the Ettrick, would naturally be selected as the place 
of hostile meeting, if indeed it was not a planned con- 
spiracy and surprise. Finally, there is the speech of the 
father of the bereaved wife, which distinctly suggests 
sympathy with the slaughter. These coincidences seem 
to outweigh the few minor discrepancies, as " Willie " for 
"Walter," and "Sarah" for "Grisell" — evidently an 
adaptation to the rhyme — though it is a mistake to 
suppose, as Professor Aytoun does, that Sarah was an 
exceptional name on the Borders. It is both ancient 
and common. Then Scott of Bennington, though a 
kinsman of Thirlestane — nephew, in fact — was not his 
son, and therefore not brother-in-law of the slain man. 
It is quite likely, however, that the turbulent Bennington 
was instigated to the slaughter by an incensed brother- 
in-law. He was the ready ally of Thirlestane in deeds 
of violence and bloodshed. 

The only real objection I see to this view of the 
reference of the ballad to old Tuschielaw is the passionate 



HISTORICAL BALLADS : THE YARROW. 189 

grief of the bereaved wife — the implication of the youth 
of the slain man : — 

** A fairer rose did never bloom 

Than now lies cropp'd on Yarrow." 

This is not natural in a young woman, even though 
bereaved of a septuagenarian, and the lines are utterly 
inapplicable to a hoary-headed old reiver. 

The lines in Scott*s version of The Dowie Dens, — 

** Gae liauie, gae hame, good brother John, 
And tell vour sister Sarah," — 

would no doubt fit exactly the circumstances of the 
ballad, if there had been any proof of this relationship. 
But the facts are on the other side. The conclusion I 
come to is that Sir Walter Scott's version of the ballad 
has in itself no certain historical ground, but that the 
incident of the early or original ballad has been mixed 
up with ballads referring to the duel of 1609, and the 
general blood-feud relations between Thirlestanes and 
Tuschielaws. 

It is just possible that the solution of this question 
may be found in the fact of another slaughter by a Scott 
of Tuschielaw — namely, John Scott, brother of Walter 
Scott, and uncle of John Scott the duellist of Deuchar 
Swire. This John Scott slew John (or James) Govan of 
Cardrona before 29th September 1601. He was de- 
nounced rebel, 29th January 1607, for not answering 
before the justice in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh for the 
cruel murder of John Govan of Cardrona, on letters of 
horning dated 29th September 1001. 

This John Scott was married and had a son William. 



190 BORDER HI3T0EY AND POETRY. 

We have iio record of the name of his wife. John 
Govan also was married and had a son William. Could 
the wife of the latter have been a sister of John Scott 
of Tuschielaw ! Accurate information on this point 
would probably settle the question of the main element 
of historical fact in the slaughter recorded in The Dowie 
Dens. It may be noted in this connection that in Prin- 
cipal Robertson's version the brother-in-law is John, and 
in the version of the ballad given from the recitation of 
Tibbie Shiel, the brother and the husband of the wife 
are both named John.' 

These two well-known ballads of the Yarrow — viz.. 
Bare Willies drovmed in Yarrow and The Dome Dens — 
have presented several difficulties to editors, not only in 
respect of historical reference but internal consistency. 
The incongruity in the stanzas has been sufficient 
to mar the complete unity of each, and suggests the 
need of revision and removal.* Perhaps some light may 
be thrown on both ballads by a reference to a version of 
The Dowie Dens, diflerent from that of Sir Walter Scott, 
which I was lately fortunate enough to recover. 

The former ballad — Bare Willy's drowned in Yarrow 
— was printed for the first time in Allan Kamsay's 
Tea-Table Miscellany (1724), where it consists of four 
stanzas. The first of these points distinctly to a maiden 
lover as the personage of the ballad, while the second 
stanza as clearly refers to a matron. They are as 
follows : — 



» Child, viii. 622. 

* This uid what follows on theae two ballada appeared u 
Biaekuood't Magtaint, Jane I8B0. 



HISTORICAL BALLADS : THE YARROW. 



" Willy's rare and Willy's fair, 
And Willy's wondrous bonny, 
And Willy 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 Uve-lang winter night 

I'll lie twin'd' o' my marrow." 

The other stanzas, three and four, carry out the 
idea of the ballad as referring to a betrothed maiden. 
The ballad is repeated, aa Ramsay gave it, by David 
Herd in his Scots So7tgs (1759 and 1776).' 

The first indication in print of the ballad afterwards 
named by Sir Walter Scott The Bowie Dctts of Yarrow, 
is found in Herd's Scots Songs.* This consists of four 
stanzas under the heading, " To the tune of Leaderhaugka 
and Yarrow" The lady who speaks throughout in those 
stanzas is obviously not a matron, bat simply a betrothed 
maiden. Yet certain of the stanzas occur in Scott's ballad, 
first given in the MiTistrdsy in 1802-3, and this ballad 
has clearly as its main import a reference to persons 
already married- In the tenth stanza, after the treacher- 
ous stroke, the dying man says : — 

" Oae home, gae home, guid-brother iTohn, 
And tell your sister Sarah 
To come and lift her leaf a' lord, — 
He's eleepin' sound on Yarrow," 



' Heeht is promisad. 

* Tmn'd ia, of courae, parted or sepan(«d from, 

" I. 82. * L 1*6. 



192 BOEDER HISTORY AMD POETBY. 

But the immediately following stanza suggests only a love 
relation between the two as betrothed persons : — 

" Yestreen I dream'd a dolefu' dream, 

I fear there will be sorrow ; 

I dr«ani'd I pu'd the heather gresD, 

Wi' my tnie love on Yarrow." 

(In Herd it is, " the birk sae green.") 

And with the same bearing comes next the stanza, al- 
most unequalled in love poetry : — 

" gentle wind that bloweth south 
From where my love repaireth, 
Convey a kiss from his dear moutli. 
And tell me how be faieth." 

(In Herd, " from " is " to,") 

These two stanzaa occur in the fragment printed by 
Herd, and also the next one : — 

" But in the glen Btrive armid men, 

They've wrought lue dule and sorrow ; 
They've slain, they've slain the comeliest Bwain, — 
He bleeding lies on Yarrow." 

Scott, we may note, has changed one line here, and 
greatly for the worse. He writes : — 

" They've alain— the conielieat knight they've slain." 

Possibly it may turn out that the slain man was not a 
knight at all, and that the word " swain " was the only 
appropriate one. Clearly, at least, we have here three 
stanzas which do not naturally refer to the relation of 
husband and wife, but to that of betrothed lovers. The 
ballad of The Dome Dens is thus, like that of Willi/a 



HISTORICAL BALLADS: THE YARROW. 193 

drowned in Yarrow, rendered inconsistent and incon- 
gruous. 

Several attempts liave been made to remove theee 
incongruities, but not witli complete success. Professor 
Aytoun has the merit of having seen the incongruity in 
Willy's drovfiied in Yarrow, and attempted to remedy 
it. He evidently holds that this ballad refers to a 
betrothed maiden, the death of whose lover was caused 
by drowning, not by violence; but he still retains in his 
reconstructed version the stanza beginning — 

" Yestreen I made my bed fu' braid," 

which obviously points to a matron as the speaker. And 
in his version of The Dowie Dms he retains two of Herd's 
stanzas, already quoted, which as clearly can refer only to 
one in the position of a maiden lover. 

It may be supposed that these two ballads refer to two 
different incidents, — the one, Willy's drovmed in Yarrow, 
to a maiden deprived of her betrothed lover by the 
accident of drowning ; the other to a wife whose husband 
was slain by her own kinsmen, and treacherously. But 
this difference of incident is far from conclusive. There 
is quite a possibility of uniting the two things, — death 
by violence, and the body being found ia the stream. 
And little or no stress should be laid on the rhythmi- 
cal ending of The Dowie Bens, in the repetition of the 
word Yarrow, as making it specifically different from 
the other ballad ; for versions, especially the earliest, 
whether fragmentary or complete, are not at all uniform 
in this particular. But there is another explanation, 
and one which helps to remove the incongruities in the 

VOL. II. N 



194 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

two ballads theoiselves. This is to be found in the fact 
that there was an earlier ballad of the Yarrow thau 
either that known as Willy's drovmed in Yarrow or 
The DovHe Dens; that the stanzas given by Bamsay 
under the former head, and those given by Herd " To 
the tune of Leadcrhaughs and Yarrmo," are simply por- 
tions, harmonious portions, of one, and this the earlier 
ballad ; and further, that The Dome Dens as given by 
Sir Walter Scott was a mixed, therefore incongruous, 
reference to the incident of the earlier ballad, and to 
a later incident in the relations of the families of Scott 
of Thirlestane and Scott of Tuschielaw. 

This older ballad, now that it has been discovered, 
explains nearly everything. The heroine was really 
a maiden lover ; her betrothed was slain directly by 
her brother in the course of an unequal combat ; his 
body was thrown into the Yarrow, and there found 
by her ; and any incongruity in representing her both 
as maiden and matron is explained by the mixing 
up of the later or Thirlestane incident with the earlier 
one. Here is the older ballad in full : — 



1. 



" At Dryhope lived a lady fair, 
The Eaireat flower in Yarrow; 
And she refused nine noble men 
For a Betvan' lad in Gala. 



Her father raid that he should fight 
The nine lorde all to-morrow ; 

And he that should the victor lie. 
Would get the Kose of Yarrow. 



HISTORICAL BALLADS : THE TAREOW. 



Quoth lie, ' You're nine an' I'm but a: 
And in that there's no much mano' 

Yet I shall fecht je man for man, 
In the (lowie dens o* Yarrow.' 



Sbe'B kisaed his lips and combed his hi 
As oft sbti'd done before, 0, 

An' set him on her milk-white eteed. 
Which bore him on lo Yarrow. 



When he got o'er jon high, high hill. 

An' down the dens o' Yarrow, 
There did he Bee the nine lords ell, 

But there was not one his marrow, 

6. 

' Sow here ye're nine, an' I'm but ane. 

But yet 1 am not sorrow; 
For here III fecht ye man fot man, 

For my true love in Yarrow,' 

7. 
Then he wheel'd round and fought so fierce, 

Till the seventh fell in Yarrow ; 
When her brother sprang from a bush behind. 

And ran his body thorough. 



He never spoke more words than these, 
An' they were words o' sorrow : 

' Ye may tell my true love, if ye please, 
That I'm sleepin' sound in Yarrow.' 



They've ta'en the young man by the heels. 
And trailed him like a harrow. 

And then diey flung the comely youth 
In a whirlpool o' Yarrow. 



BORDER HISTORY ASD POETEY. 

10. 

The lacly said, ' I dreamed yestreen, 

I fear it bodea Bome sorrow, 
That 1 was pu'in' the heather gieen 

On the Bcroggy hraea o' Yarrow.' 

11. 
Her brother said, ' I'll read your dream, 

But it should cause nae sotfow; 
Ye may go seek your lover hame. 

For he's aleepin' sound in Yarrow.' 

12. 
Then she tode o'er yon gloomy height, 

An' her heart was fu' o* sorrow, 
Eat only saw the clud o' night. 

Or heard the roar o' Yarrow. 

la 

But she wandered east, so did she wast, 
And searched the forest thorough. 

Until she spied her ain true love 
Lyin' deeply drowned in Yarrow. 

14. 
His hair it was five quarters lang, 

Its colour was the yellow ; 
She twined it round her lily hand. 

And drew him out o" Yarrow. 

15. 

She kissed his lips and combed his head, 

As oft she'd done before, ; 
She laid him o'er her milk-white steed. 

An' bore him home from Yarrow. 

16. 



And aye she sighed and said, < Alaa ! 
For my love I had him chosen.' 



HISTORICAL BALLADS : THE YARROW. 

17. 

'Go hold your tongue,' her father said, 
' There's little cause for sorrow ; 

I'll wed ye on a better lad 
Thau ye ha'e lost in Yarrow,' 



'Haud your ain tongue, my foither dear, 

I canna help my sorrow ; 
A fairer flower ne'er sprang in May 

Than I La'e lost in Yarrow. 



' I meant to make riiy bed fu' wide. 

But you may make it narrow. 
For now I've nane to be my guide, 

But a deid man drowned in Yarrow.' 

20. 
An' aye she screighed and cried, ' Alas ! ' 

Till her heart did break wi' sorrow. 
An' sank into lier faither's arms, 

'Mnng tlio dowie dens o' Yarrow." 

In thus producing for the first time an additional 
version of the ballad of the Yarrow, I may be properly 
asked to give my ground and authority. This I readily 
do. The version is due to the memory and the care of 
an old man in Peeblesshire, now deceased, who was a 
worthy type of what is beat in our fast-decaying old- 
world character — ita simplicity, liomelinesa, and steady 
uprightness. The late William Welsh, Peeblesshire cottar 
and poet, as he was wont to designate himself — being 
the author of a volume of poems and tales relating to 
local topics — gave me the poem, of which the above is 
an exact copy. I knew the old man well. He was. 



198 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

when I first became personally acquainted wiUi him, 
above seventy years of age, but hale, healthy, and in 
perfect possession of his faculties, shrewd, acute, and 
much above the common. For several years he paid me 
an annual visit I had great pleasure in his conversation 
— genial, humorous, pawky. He moralised as only a 
Scotsman can ; but his epigrammatic flashes kept his 
sententiousness from being prosy. He wrote out for me 
the version of the ballad as I have given it, stating very 
explicitly that it was from tlie recitation of his mother 
and grandmother. I questioned him closely on the point, 
but to this statement he steadily adhered I asked him 
to give me answers to certain questions in writing, which 
he did. The ballad, he said, was recited by his mother, 
— his grandmother had a copy of the same in her father's 
handwriting, and thus the poem came down to him. Aa 
dates are of importance in a case of this sort, I got from 
him a statement in writing in answer to questions on 
those points, and also other corroborative particulars. 
These are to the following effect: — 

Robert Welsh — great-great-grandfather of W. Welsh 
— was horn about 1686, died 1766. He farmed Fal- 
donside, near Abbotsford, well known as once the pro- 
perty of the Ker who held the pistol to Mary's bosom on 
the night of Eizzio's slaughter. His son married Janet 
Lees, from Galashieb, who was born 1726, died 1789. 
Their eon married Margaret Tule, wljo was born at 
Falahill, in Heriot, in 1761, and died in 1819. William 
Welsh himself was bom at Heriot Tower, 6th May 1799, 
and left it in 1819. " The grandmother," William 
Welsh writes, " liad a fine ear for music, and had a copy 



HISTORICAL BALLADS: THE YARBOW. 199 

of the song in her father's writing (queer crooked letters), 
which Mr Haig, the schoolmaster of Heriot, could read 
fluently, and called it the Queen Anne's hand. He 
transcribed it into the modem style, and gave a copy to 
my mother (who was also very musical) for the sake of 
[I suppose he means in place of] the old nianuacript. 
1 kept Haig's copy till it got into pieces, and was lately 
burnt when cleaning the house." — (Letter, 14th February 
1878.) Tliis would take the MS. of the ballad back 
at least to the early part of last century. William 
Welsh adds the following : " An old woman, a mantua- 
maker, whose name was Marion Tod, and whose house I 
frequented often when a boy of seven years, sung it 
exactly the same way ; and many youngsters came to 
hear auld GiETord, as they called her, because she came 
from thereabouts, sing the Bowie Dens o' Yarrow. Once, 
when I was a young man, I was singing it to a young 
lass and an old maid ; and when I had done, 1 turned 
up the young one's head, which was hanging very low, 
and saw the tears on her cheeks ; and the old one, 
looking serious, said, ' Poor man ! I could ha'e likit him 
mysel'.' "—(Letter, 14th February 1878.) If these 
statements are even generally correct — and I see no 
ground to doubt them, even as to details — this version 
of The Dovne Dens is older than the earliest printed 
fragment by Herd, and probably as early as Rare Wiily's 
drowned in Yarrow', first printed by Eamsay in 1724. 
Sir Walter Scott's version is confessedly a compilation ; 
Motherwell's, taken from the recitation of an old woman 
in Kilbarchan, is still later. All this points to the con- 
clusion that we have in the version now offered the 



200 BOEDEB HISTORY AND POETRY. 

oldest, probably the original, ballad of The Dowie Dens 
of Yarrow. 

This cOQcliision is strengthened, if we look to internal 
evidence. The whole tone and frame of this ballad are 
from beginning to end simple, uniform, consistent — a 
unity of narrative feeling. The stanzas which in the 
other two ballads are incongruous find here their natural 
place. There is ample, intelligible motive for the slaughter 
of the lover. He is no knight or noble lord, as in Scott's 
ballad, but an ignoble person — " a servan' lad in Gala." 
This base personage has dared to fall in love with a 
daughter of Scott of Dryhope, — one of the most ready 
freebooters on the Border, — the laird of those glens of 
Dryhope and Kirkstead that run up through varied 
heather and bracken sheen to the Elacklaw and the 
heights of Glenrath — Hopes which now we love and 
prize for matchless charm, for gleam and murmur of 
burn, for solitary birk that drapes the seldom-visited linn 
pool — Hopes which the reiver cared for, because tliey 
could conveniently conceal, say, four hundred kine taken 
from Bewcastle Waste on the English sida More than 
all, this love is reciprocated : the daughter of Dryhope 
finds some manliness, some nobility in the " servan' lad 
in Gala," who may possibly never have ridden in a reiver's 
hand. This surely was an out-of-the-way lass in those 
times, with some strange modem notions worthy of the 
evolution of the two hundred years that followed. But 
her brothers do not at all like this sort of arrangement 
— " a servan' lad in Gala " forsooth ! Here is a motive 
for his being put out of the way at once ere he marries 
their sister, — tenfold more powerful in those times than 



HI3T0BICAL BALLADS : THE YAREOW. 201 

any questioii about dower, or even hatred from blood- 
feud. For this latter motive did not prevent marriages 
between families, even while blood-feuds were unstanched. 
Witness Kers and Scotts, and Peeblesshire alliances 
many. In corroboration it may be noted tliat in two 
of the versions given by Mr Child since the above 
sentences were written, the hero is " a ser\-ant lad in 
Gala," and in one derived from Mrs Richardson (Tibbie 
Shiel), lie is " a ploughboy lad in Yarrow." ' These 
references are all from versions near the locality, — 
Melrose, Innerleithen, and Yarrow itself. This in- 
ef^uality of rank is pointed to in one at least of the 
versions : — 

" I'm wedileil to your sister dear. 



Then here comes the romance part of the affair — the 
fitting explanation of bow the incompatibility of circum- 
stances was to be dealt with. And this is how the 
minstrel pictures it. The father of the lady, hopeless of 
breaking down her love, proposes that the " servan' lad " 
should fight the nine lords — that is, lairds, for lord means 
no more than tliis, — simply, at the utmost, lord of a 
barony — who are suitors for his daughter's hand. She 
13 called " the Rose of Yarrow " ; and while this phrase 
does not occur in Scott's version, it is to be found in 
the West Country one — from Kilbarchan — given by 
Motherwell. 

" The Rose of Yarrow " was to fall to the victor, who 

' Child, TJi. 172, 173 ; riii. 622. * Ibid., vii 165. Muriaon MS. 



202 BORDEE HISTORY AND POETRY. 

in this case was not the least likely to be the " servan' 
lad," He, however, accepts the unequal conditions. 
Then he slays seven of his opponents ; and as the 
seventh fell he is treacherously run through " from a 
bush behind " by the brother of his love, who apparently 
was an interested spectator of the unequal contest. The 
lover sends a dying message to his lady-love. Tlien copies 
tt stanza, not in Scott's version, but happily congruous 
with the whole story. The man who is now down on 
the field is not a knight, only a servant — one of 
base degree ; hence he gets no knightly treatment, not 
even decent human regard ; his lot is only shameful 
indignity : — 



And then they dung the comely youth 
In a whirlpool o' Yarrow." 

Then the lady has the ominous dream about 

" Pu'jn' the heather green 
On the scroggy bmeB o' Yarrow." 

" ScK^gy braes "—quite true, not on the " dowie houms." 
There is no heather there, — only the waesome bent 
which, bowing to the autumn winds, makes them dowie ; 
but on the " scroggy braes " there it is now, as any one 
may see. But " scroggy " is better than all. This ex- 
presses exactly the look of the stunted trees and bushes 
on the braes of Yarrow — two and a half or three cen- 
turies ago, when the forest was decaying — such eis only 
a native minstrel could have seen or felt. " The scroggy 
braea," — this was never said before in Scottish ballad or 
minstrel song, — yet it ia bo true and so ancient ! 



HISTORICAL BALLADS : THE YARROW. 203 

Her brother reads her dream for her, — tells her bluntly 
eoough, not sympathising with her, or caring for her 
feelings, to 

" Go seek your lover hame, 
For lie's aleepin' Eound in Yarrow." 

There is surely a touch of the direst irony here, — 
the dead man, — beloved, — " aleepin' sound." She seta 
out in search of him, and then there comes a stanza 
which, supposing this ballad to have been known in the 
early part of last century, as it probably was, obviously 
suggested to Logan the verse in his ballad of Yarrow 
which Scott prized so highly, and which sets Logan 
higher than any other thing he is known to have written. 
The stanzas in the original, as now for the first time 
printed, are — 

" Then Bhe rode o'er yon gloomy height, 
An' her heart was fu' o' aorrow, 
But only saw the clud o' night. 
Or heard the roar ti' Yarrow. 
But she wandered east, so did she wast, 

And searched the foreat thorough. 
Until she spied her ain true love 
Lyin' deeply drowned in Yarrow." 

In Logan's poem, which appeared in 1770, we have 
these lines, which are simply those of the old ballad, and 
which must be regarded as a mere copy, supposii^ the 
ballad to have been tioatiug on the memories of people 
so early as I represent it : — 

"They sought him eaat, they sought him west, 
They sought him all the forest thorough ; 
They only saw the clouil of aight. 
They only heard the roar of Yarrow." 

Tliat Lt^an was a plagiarist there is, I fear, other proof. 



204 BORDEB HISTORY iSD POETRY. 

The maiden, searching, finds Iier dead lover in the 
water. He had been violently slain, and then brutally 
thrown into the stream. This is the reconciliation of the 
dinouement of the two ballads, Willy's drovmed in Yarrov! 
and the modern Dotpie Dens, The stricken man lay in 
the 

" Ckavia' o' the craig, 
She fend him drowned in Yarrow." 

Then there comes a stanza not found in Scott's version 
— picturesque, touching, complete in itself — such as 
painter might limn, and, doing it well, make himself im- 
mortal: — 

" His hair it was five quarters lang. 
Its colour was the yellow ; 
She twined it round her lily hand, 
And drew him out o' Yarrow." 

What a picture ' — the lass wading, it may be, into the 
■water, grasping the floating yellow hair, twining it round 
her lily hand, — how despairingly, yet how fervently, — 
clasping it, the last tie amid tlie moving stream, and draw- 
ing him tenderly out of the water flow to the river bank, 
where at least he would unmoved lie, — be, though dead, 
her own. 

Though there is nothing in Scott's version correspond- 
ing to this, there is a stanza in Motherwell's, but it is a 
bad version. It is not his but her own hair which is 
spoken of, and she manages to draw him out of the stream 
by this ! — 

" Her hair it was five quarters lang, 
'Twos like the gold for yellow ; 
She twisted it round hie milk-white hand, 
And she's drawn him hame free Yarrow." 



HISTORICAL ballads: THE YARROW. 205 

There can hardly be a question that the original version 
is much more natural and appropriate, as referring to the 
hair of the dead lover, lying in the water. " The milk- 
white hand " is certainly that of the lady, not the man. 
Then the simple drawing him out of the stream by the 
hair, the putting him on her mUk -white steed, and bear- 
ing him home from Yarrow, is a representation infinitely 
superior to the coarse idea of " drawing him hame frae 
Yarrow" by his locks, as pictured in Motherwell's 
version. 

Then there is the solution of another incongruity. 
Stanza 19 is obviously the original of the second stanza 
in WUly^s drowned in Yarrow, where as it stands it has 
no relevancy whatever. Here it is in a form that is 
perfectly natural and appropriate. " I meant," says the 
maiden lover, — 

** I meant to make my bed fu' wide, 
But you may make it narrow, 
For now I've nane to be my guide, 
But a deid man drowned in Yarrow." 

How thoroughly superior to the incongruous stanza of 
Willy's drowned in Yarrow ! Not — 



but — 



** Yestreen I made my bed fu* wide," 

'* I meant to make my bed fu' wide, 
And you may make it narrow." 



You, if not the slayer of my lover, yet the sympathiser 
with the assassins ! — do as you choose with me. The 
guide of my life is gone ; the light is cast out with the 
^ deid man drowned in Yarrow." 

The stanza (16) which contains a reference to the 



206 BORDEE HISTORY AKD POETRY. 

" well-strand " — the rivulet flowing from ' the spring — 
her washing his wounds therein, and drying them " wi' 
the hollan'," — is very true, natural, and touching. It is 
thoroughly Scottish in feeling, fact, and diction. Has 
one not heard of " tlje well-strand," — " the meadow well- 
strand,"— from one's boyhood ? And " the hollan' " we 
know well All through those old times, down to the 
middle of the eighteenth centurj', the brown linen made 
out of the flax in Scotland, and made largely, was sent 
across to Holland — Haarlem especially — to be bleached. 
There it was dipped in lye and buttermilk ; and after 
six months, from March to October, returned to this 
country, pure, clean, and white. The damsel wished to 
honour her dead lover, as best she might, with the purest 
in her gift. It was what she wore in her joy : — 

" Her kurchy was of Holland clear, 
Tyed on her bonny brow." 

With regard to the liistorical reference of the original 
ballad, I confess I can say very little. If it really con- 
cerns a daughter of the house of Dryhope, as it seems to 
do, this would bring the date not further back than the 
middle of the sixteenth century, when the forest-stead of 
Dryhope was given to a Scott. It is quite probable, of 
course, that the same family might have been there long 
before, simply as keepers for the Crown of the forest- 
stead. In the alleged residence of the lady at Dryhope, 
— in the phrases, " the fairest flower in Yarrow," " the 
Eose of Yarrow," — we have a distinct su^estion of " the 
Flower of Yarrow " — that is, Marj-, rather Marion Scott, 
daughter of John Scott of Dryhope, not Philip, as Sir 



HISTORICAL BALLADS : THE YARROW. 207 

Walter Scott puts it, who was married to Wat of Harden 
in 1576. It seems to me possible, even indeed probable, 
from those references — the first, the oldest yet ascertained 
— that the ballad may actually refer to Mary Scott, the 
" Flower of Yarrow," This incident may have been an 
episode in her life that took place previously to her 
marriage with Scott of Harden. Tliere must have been 
associations with this woman of quite a special kind, 
apart simply from the ordinary occurrence of her marriage 
witli a neighbouring Border kird and reiver, which led 
to the intense, widespread, and persistent memorj- of her 
that has come down to our own day. This of course 
would imply that the falling into the father's arms, which 
fitly concludes the ballad, did not mean the conclusion of 
her career. The terminations of ballads of this class are 
usually in the same conventional style. And probably 
" tlie Flower of Yarrow " was no exception to the run of 
her sex in having more than one love experience. 

The probability of the view now given seems to me to 
be strengthened by the unsatisfactory nature of the his- 
torical references adduced by Sir Walter Scott in illustra- 
tion of the ballad, and of other suggestions made since his 
time. The duel on Deuchar Swire must be set aside as hav- 
ing no direct bearing on the circumstances ; and certain 
important particulars of tlie narrative cannot be explained 
by supposing the ballad to refer to the " Walter Scott of 
Tuschielaw " who eloped with GriaeU Scott of Thirlestane 
in 1616, and who is assumed to be the Walter Scott 
slaughtered shortly afterwards by Scott of Bonnington 
and his accomplices. I think it probable, however, that 
these later incidents. may have come to be mixed up with 



208 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

the earlier in popular tradition and song, and thus with 
the story and the fate of the " servan' lad in Gala." 
Hence the double reference in Scott's ballad, confessedly 
a compilation from difTerent versions. 

The Lament of the Border Widow, and the circum- 
stances in which it originated, have already been noticed 
in connection with the social life of the district.^ There 
is no more touching wail of grief in all our Scottish 
poetry. Some doubt has been raised regarding its 
genuineness as an old ballad. Parallel lines, even 
similar stanzas of other songs, have been quoted, and it 
has been supposed by some to be a composite or cento 
of different ballads. On this I wish simply to say that 
we know so little of the way in which these old strains 
have been transmitted to us, and oral transmission is 
so peculiar, that not much importance is to be attached 
to coincidences in lines and stanzas. Although, moreover, 
those other ballads were even the first printed, it does 
not at all follow that they were the older or the sources 
of the borrowing. The story of Tke Lament is in itself 
a complete tiling, and quite difTerent from the story of 
those other ballads referred to. And this at least is true, 
that no paralleb can be found for the three most touch- 
ing stanzas — four, five, and six, or for the exquisite 
line — 

" And happ'd him wi' the Bod sae green." 

This certainly may be allowed, that the song does 
not refer t« the death of Piers Cockbum, whose tomb is 
by the bom that breaks down over the Dhu Linn, beside 

' See lupn, ii. IB, 20. 



HISTORICAL BALLADS ; THE YARKOW. 209 

the ruins of the old tower of Henderland. This tomb is 
as old as the early part of the fifteenth century. Possibly 
the song touches the fate of some later member of that 
family of Cockbum, once so powerful and so turbulent 
on the Borders. It may even refer to William, the fifth 
laird, who, however, was not executed at his own door, 
but beheaded in Edinbui^h (1530).' Cockbum is a name 
which, like so many others that dominated the Borders, 
has now disappeared from the roll of Border landed men, 
and is only to be met with, and that rarely, on solitary 
tombstones in deserted graveyards. The romantic ballad 
of the Yarrow, The Gay Goss Hawk^ and the very re- 
markable historical one. The Sang of the Outlaw Murray^ 
have also been noticed in their places. Some doubt has 
been sought to be thrown on the historical character 
and reference of the incidents in The Sang of the Outlaw 
Murray. It may, however, very fairly be taken as re- 
ferring to John Murray, eighth laird of Philiphaugh, 
who obtained a royal charter of the sherifi'ship of Sel- 
kirkshire in 1509 from James IV,, after having exer- 
cised the functions without royal mandate.* James 
Murray, tenth of Philiphaugh, was Keeper of the Forest, 
and resided at Newark, the custodier's castla It was 
this James, or his son Patrick, who fell at a later period 
under the hand of Buccleuch, or his henchman Scott 
of Haining. Buccleuch thus got possession of Newark 
and the Wardenship of the Forest, 

The power of these old strains lies mainly in this — 

' See lupra, ii. 19. ' See mpra, ii. 123. ' See nipro, ii. 11, 

' The other kltemktive i« WilUun d« MortvU, an earlier pereoiMge. 
See above, i. 296, 

VOL. II. 



210 BORDEB HISTOKY AKD POETfiy. 

that they indicate in the simplest, readiest words the 
realism, Che power, the pathos of our primary hiiman 
emotions, — deepest love, saddest sorrow, unfliDching 
courage, and noble self-sacrifice. This was what touched 
the heart of Scott, purified and inspired him, and made 
him ashamed of eighteenth-centurj- conventionalism. 

" And pity sanctifies the vene 

That paints by strength of eorrov. 
The uncoDqnerable strength of love. 
Beat witaesH, rueful Yanow." 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE POETHT OF THE BORDEB — INFLUENCE OF THE 
SCENERY — THE LOVE-SONGS AND GENERAL POKTBY. 



" The Scottish Ballad Minstrelsy," says Mr Hill Burton, 
" ranges over and engrosses every element of poetry 
except the religious or devout . . . The minstrelsy is 
rich in all that picturesquely associates itself with the 
shades as well as with the lights of the national life. 
We have the great crimes, with their harvest of remorse 
and retribution. War is there, with its patriotic de- 
votion, its heroism, and triumphs on the one side ; its 
calamities and desolation on the other. Love, of course, 
with all its romantic variations, is abundant. Super- 
stition enters with its horrors, but it is also sometimes 
borne on the wings of an exquisite fancy, yet so wild 
and wayward that one cannot see what lesthetic law or 
theory can justify it, and yet it pleases." 

This statement is fair enough, bat it is not suESciently 
qualified. "Every element of poetry" is certainly too 
wide an expression to be quit« applicable. We have but 
few traces in the older Border poetry, or ballad min- 
strelsy in general, of a direct feeling for nature in its 



212 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

softer or more beautiful side, and an exceedingly 
modified recognition, if any at all, of its grander or 
sterner aide. There was no tarr)'ing sympathy with, or 
full description of, the scenery of the district, whether 
dark-browed hill and unfathomed glen, or the soft pas- 
toral knowes and green haughs of the waters. The face of 
nature, be it mild or stem, as in itself an object of poetic 
interest, did not strike the older minstrels of the south 
of Scotland. And of nature as the symbolism of hu- 
man life and feeling we have no trace whatever. 

Neither side of nature was, however, unfelt. The in- 
fluence of the softer aide, at least, was strong but indirect 
It was somehow in the heart of the poet ; but it lacked 
full and definite expression. This is shown in frequently 
recurring stanza or epithet, that indicates a loving feeling 
for a place or a natural object. Tlie tower stands " quite 
pleasauutlie "; the outlaw's castle is "feir to see"; and, 
what it was impossible not to feel in the sternest time, 
the birk waa " bonnie," and the notes of birds pleasing. 

There is one feature in particular of the Border land- 
scape which, from the frequent notice of it in the ballads, 
appears to have been strongly impressed on the feeling 
of the time. This is conveyed in the expression which 
is commonly applied to a stream — the wan water. Th|it 
wan aa so employed is an adjective of colour tliere can be 
no doubt, though originally the verb vmn or wane, as 
applied to water, meant to ebb or decrease, aa in the 
expression Tha wwiera wanodon (the waters were waning). 
Wan in composition means defect, and as an adjective 
in Anglo-Saxon it means defect of strength, fetble, or 
deficiency in brightness, pale, livid, d^isky. Wan, thus 



THE SONGS OF THE BORDER. 213 

indicating colour, was an epithet applied to water in 
Anglo-Saxon poetry, and from it came down into the 
mediseval romances and the Scottish ballads. Thus Syr 
Bedevere saw 

" Nothyngo 
But watrea depe and waves wanne."i 

lu the Enjjiish version of the later Morte d'Arthure we 
have the following : " What saw thou tliere ? said the 
king. Sir, he said, I saw nothing but the waters wap 
and the waves wan." Here wap is obviously a verb 
meaning to strike against the shore, and wan is probably 
also the verb meaning to ebb or wane. There is thus 
evidence of a twofold application of the word. But in 
the Scottish ballads wan is constantly applied to a stream 
or running water in such a way as to exclude the idea of 
ebbing, and to imply the adjectival sense of pale or 
dusky colour. The pure running stream is, iu the poetry 
of most nations, an emblem of life, of brightness, and 
cheerfulness. And I rather think that the phrase — the 
ivan water — is peculiar to Saxon and to Scottish poetry. 
The question arises : What is the origin of tlie application 
of the epithet to the Border streams, and whence the 
frequency of its use ? Is it true to natural appear- 
ance ? We know well that those streams are as bright, 
pure, and sparkling as are to be found anywhere. 
They are, in fact, remarkable among streams for these 
qualities. There is hardly a glen in the Lowlands 
which ia without its burn or streamlet, and, be the sides 
of the glen rich in pastoral green or flushing foil in 
the purple beauty of the heather-bloom, the bum, by its 
' Le Morte Arthur. 



214 BORDER HISTORY AHD POETRY. 

bright links, now hurrying in stream, now resting in pool, 
gives light by its gleam and life by its music and motion 
to the pastoral solitude. Our later poets have universally 
felt and given expression to this pleasing aspect of our 
streams. But the feeling of the older minstrels, as con- 
veyed in the wan water, is not less true to nature and 
natural appearance than is the brighter aspect of the 
same object. Let any one walk across a Border moorland 
on one of those days not uncommon in the district, when, 
overhead and all around, the sky is shrouded by grey 
clouds, peaceable and motionless, piled in masses high 
and imposing. As this Is generally in late autumn, let 
him notice also that the bent is brown and the heather- 
bloom beginning to fade, and that the grey tint on the 
sky is helped by the same colour on rock and stone, and 
then let him watch the effect of this on pool and stream, 
and he will feel and understand the force, truthfulness, 
and beauty of the expression — the wan water. The 
stream, which was formerly bright and sparkling, has 
taken on the tint of the landscape around it, and we feel 
that it now touches the eye and heart with its wan look. 
The older minstrels noted aspects of the scener}' of this 
description ; and they did more, they instinctively fused 
these with the story in hand, or with some turn in it. 
This particular look, for example, of the stream is intro- 
duced with wonderful effect into several of the historical 
ballads. It occurs in The Douglas Tragedy, already 
quoted. And mark its peculiar appropriateness. The 
hero of the ballad has carried off his love after a deadly 
conflict, in which the father and brothers of the maiden 
tell. The hero and his love ride slowly across the bills 



THE SONGS OF THE BORDER. 215 

between the Yarrow and the Tweed, amid a quiet sheen 
of moonlight all over the vague weird-like moorland ; the 
father and brothers are lying dead in the deep glen of 
the mountain bum which the lovers have left behind 
them. The companion of the maiden begins to feel that 
he too has carried with him a wound — in fact, his death- 
wound — from the conflict. The dying man finds it 
necessary to rest, and the minstrel with a wonderful 
touch tells us : — 

" O they rade on, and on they rade, 
And a' by the licht of the moon, 
Until they cam to yon wan water, 
And there they lichted doun." 

Where more appropriately could a dying man, with 

fading hope and sense, have rested than by the " wan 

water " ? 

In the ballad of Lord WUliam we have the not im- 

common story of disappointed love and revenge, in this 

instance on the part of the lady. The body of the lover 

whom she had secretly and subtly slain was concealed 

for, as the ballad says, "three quarters of a year." It 

proceeds : — 

" Then she cried on her waiting maid, 
Aye ready at her ca', 
There i« a knight into my bower, 
'Tis time he were awa'. 

The ane has ta'en him by the head, 

The ither by the feet, 
And thrown him in the wan water. 

That ran baith wide and deep." * 

Every one must feel that there is a singular appropriate- 

^ MinttreUy, ii. 243. 



216 BORDER HISTORY AND POETKY. 

nesa betweeu the dread act here narrated and the scene 
suggested to the sense by the 

" Wan water. 
That ran baith wide and deep." 

The fixing on this feature of the surrounding circum- 
stMices, a feature that harmonises with the action, is 
poetic art in one of its simplest yet most powerful 
forms. 

There is one other reference of this sort, which is too 
striking to be passed over. A mournful summons has 
come to one who has been compelled to abandon for 
another the sweetheart he yet loves. And we are told : — 

" Sad Willie raise, drew to tiia daes, 

Put on him hote and ehoon, 

And he's away to Annie'a bower. 

By the lee licht of the moon." 

The writer of these lines certainly felt the power of the 
fusion of the lee or lonesome light of tlie moon with the 
feeling in the heart of the lover. 

The power of the flooded stream was a feature of the 
Lowland country not likely to pass unfelt by people and 
singer. It has been referred to occasionally with fine 
poetic effect. 

In the Mother's Malison or Clyde's Waier there ia the 
account of a young man who resolutely holds by his 
purpose of riding to see his sweetheart in the eventi^ or 
night Hia mother is opposed to it, and finding ex- 
postulation fruitless says : — 

" an ye gang to Mere's bower, 
Sae aair against my will, 
The deepest pot in Clyde's water. 
My malison ye's feel." 



THE SONGS OF THE BORDER. 217 

Then we have two stanzas of scenery and emotion on 
the way: — 

"As he rode ower yon high, high hill, 
And doiin you dowie glen. 
The noise that was in Clyde's water 
Would feared five hunder men. 

'0 roaring Clyde, ye roar ower loud, 
Four BtretunB seem wondrous Strang ; 

Make me your wreck ag I come back, 
But spare me as I gang.'" 

Those stanzas seem to me to be both truthful and 
touching. The power of the sound of water as it reached 
his ear on the hill, over the dowie glen, is an instance of 
impressive reproduction ; and the prayer in the second 
stanza is characteristic of true and intense passion. 

There is another phrase which is very common, and 
which strikes one as indicating truly an almost constant 
aspect of the landscape. This is " the bent sae brown." 
From the ballad of Thomas the Khymour onwards, all 
through the poetry of the Borders, this phrase occurs : — 

" But he waana on hia berry brown aleed. 
Nor twa miles from the town. 
Till up it slarta these three fierce uien. 
Among the bent sae brown." 

It is that aspect of the uplands with which men living 
there, and spending most of their life in the open air on 
the high stretches of the southern moorlands, were daily 
familiar. For, with the short exception of some weeks 
in July and August, when it is in delicate pearly flower, 
the bent or hair-grass of those Border hills is " brown," 
at first a deep, rich, golden brown, whicli, in the sunlight 
of a late autumn day, makes broad spaces of unspeakable 



.slioot.s ()[" anutliiT l)virf ])rri<)(l of ^rcMMi liiV. 

J*>iit tlu'sr arc wliolly incidental touelH^ 
ui\rn siin]»ly in ])assinLi. The minsticl ncv 
the features of the landscape as worthy of (lii( 
or as objects that call for description by 
This absence of direct poetic dealing with 
is not certainly peculiar to the Border niir 

• 

sympathy for it was through many centuri( 
sional, and very imperfectly developed in Sco 
If the softer side of nature was but incideni 
the sterner side fared still worse. All alor 
time of James I. of Scotland downwards, th' 
in the poetic south, or indeed anywhere else 
an imaginative sympathy for the wild an 
nature as it is presented, for example, at 1 
Talla, or Loch Skene, at the head of Ma 
Douglas Bum. This side of things seeme< 
repel than to attract even imaginative men ( 
years down to near our own time. There 
considerations which might be adduced to 
this; but at present^ it is sufficient to say th 
not got over the original feeling of fear or dre 



THE SONGS OF THE BORDER. 219 

utterly overcome, before we can realise the placid feeling 
of the beautiful or sublime. Hence men in Scotland for 
several hundreds of years turned away from the poetical 
aspect of the grander side of things. As a specimen 
of this kind of antagonism to wild nature, I may refer to 
Dr Alexander Pennycuik, author of The Description of 
Tweeddale, published in 1715: "Tliis country is almost 
everywhere swelled with hills, wliich are, for the most 
part, green, grassy, and plea-sant, except a ridge of bor- 
dering mountains, betwixt Minchmuir and Henderland, 
being black, craigie, and of a melancholy aspect, with 
deep and horrid precipices, a wearisome and comfortless 
piece of way for travellers." ' Why, this very ridge of 
mountains contains some of the most impressive scenery 
of the district, and is just the walk which a man would 
choose who has a soul in him that can be quickened by 
natural beauty and grandeur, or awed by solitude. 

Compare with this statement of Ur Pennycuik, the 
following, written only a few years after his was published, 
by a Borderer also: "I am just returned from a High- 
land expedition, and was much delighted with the mag- 
nificence of Nature in her awful simplicity. . . . Plain 
com countries look as if men had made them ; but I 
defy all mankind put together to make anything like the 
Pass of KiUiekrankie." * There was soul in this writer, 
but she was Mrs Cockbum, authoress of one of the 
versions of The Flowers of the Fared. 

Yet if we look at the whole course of Border poetry, 
we shall find that the scenery of the district in which it 
grew up has had a marked influence over it. There can 
^ DtKTvplion, 45— ed. 1815. ^ SongtlrtiKt of Scotland, i. 108. 



220 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

be no doubt that tlie wilder and grander scenes of the 
Border country helped very much to nourisli that stern, 
war-loving spirit wbich issued in the exploits celebrated 
in the ballads — a spirit shared in by people and by bard 
alika And the scenes of nearly all the most powerful 
and striking of the historical ballads are laid in the wilds 
around the beads of the Teviot and the Keed, and in the 
dark recesses of the mosses of the Tarras and the liddel. 
This might arise a good deal from situation, as being near 
the turbulent tribes of the Reed and the Tyne, on the 
south side of the Cheviots, and the places, therefore, 
peculiarly of strong and stirring incident. But it is also 
remarkable that the scenes of the most tragic and pathetic 
ballads and songs are to be found on the soft green braes 
of Yarrow, while the strains of the most tender of the 
love-songs first burst on the ear in the grassy and wooded 
haughs of the Tweed. When we come to speak of the 
poetry, in fact, the songs of the Tweed, which sprung up 
only about the middle of the seventeenth century, we 
shall find them marked almost exclusively by tender 
sentiment, dashed with a soft pathos. But, on the whole, 
the feeling is one of joy, chastened and subdued. Some- 
how, in the poetry of the Yarrow, be it ballad or song, there 
is a deeper tinge of sorrow, often a very dark colouring, 
an almost overpowering sadness. The emotion is that so 
finely expressed at a later period in The Flowers of the 
Forest. The feeling is as of a brief, bright morning, full 
of promise, making the hills splendid and the heart glad ; 
but ere noon we have cloud and rain and tears, and the 
evening closes around us with only the memory of the 
vanished joy. 



THE SONGS OF THE BORDER. 221 

No doubt a series of tragic incidents may give a pre- 
vailing tone to the feeling and the poetry of a district, 
apart in a great measure from the character of the 
scenery. But I cannot help thinking that in this case 
the nature of the scenery has had a great deal to do in 
predisposing the imagination to a melancholy cast, and 
thus fitting the mind for receiving and retaining, if not 
originating, the tragic or pathetic creation. This in- 
fluence, too, might be wholly an unconscious one for 
many generations. It would thus affect the singer with- 
out his knowing it distinctly, and it would not be marked 
in his ver8e, or, if indicated at all, only incidentally. 
And this is exactly what we find in those older ballads 
of the Yarrow. We have no direct description of the 
features of the vale, but we have now and again a 
wondrously impi-essive and characteristic epithet, which 
lets us into the secret of the minstrel's heart, and by 
none is his inner soul more fully revealed than by the 
inexpressibly patlietic yet tenderly beautiful phrase, " the 
dowie houms of Yarrow." 

Nor will any one who is familiar with the Vale of 
Yarrow find much difficulty in understanding how it is 
suited to pathetic verse. The rough and broken, yet 
clear, beautiful, and wide -spreading stream, has no grand 
cliffs to show, and it is not surrounded by high and 
overshadowing hills. Here and there it flows placidly, 
reflectively, in large liquid lapses through an open valley 
of the deepest summer green — still, let us be thankful, in 
it« upper reaches at least, mantled by nature, and un- 
touched by plough or harrow. There is a placid mon- 
otone about its bare, treeless scenery ; an unbroken 



222 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

pastoral stillness on the sloping braes and hillBides, as 
tliej rise, fall, and blend in a uniformly deep green 
colouring. The silence of the place is forced upon the 
attention, deepened even, by the occasional break in the 
flow of the stream, or by tlie bleating of the sheep that, 
white and motionless amid their pasture, dot the knowes. 
We are attracted by the silence, and we are also re- 
pressed. There is the pleasure of hushed enjoyment. 
The spirit of the scene is in these immortal lines : — 

" Meek loveliness is round thee spreail, 
A Boftnesa still and holy ; 
The grace of forest cbarma decayed, 
And pastoral melancholy." 

These deep green grassy knowes of the valley are 
peculiarly susceptible of atmospheric change — of light 
and shade. In a morning, with a blue sky, or with 
breaks of sunlight through the white fleeting clouds, the 
green hillsides and the stream smile and gleam in 
sympathy with the cheerfulness of heaven. It is then 
we hear of " the silver stream " and " the bonnie boums 
of Yarrow," and we exult in the fresh feeling which 
inspired the old lines : — 

" Pan, playing on hia aiten reed, 

And ahepherds him attending. 
Do here resort, their flocks to feed. 

The hills and haughs commending ; 
With cur and kent ' upon the bent, 

Sing to the sun, good-morrovi. 
And swear nae fields mair pleasure yields, 

Than Leader Uaughs and Yttirow." 

' Long staff with curved head used by shepherds. 



THE SONGS OF THE BORDEK. 223 

But under a grey sky, or at the gloamin', 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 tlie mists 
that gather high up on the massive hills at the heads of 
the Meggat and the Talla, a wide - spreading web of 
greyish cloud — the " skaum " of the sky — that casts a 
gloom over the tender green of the hills, and dims the 
face of loch and stream in a pensive shadow. Tlie 
saddened heart would readily find there fit analogue and 
nourishment for its sorrow. 

This character of changeableness has made the scenery 
peculiarly suitable for the nurture and expression of 
varying emotion — the notes of joy and grief. It lay at 
the heart of the earlier poetry of the Yarrow, inspiring 
it, without itself receiving definite utterance. In the 
refrain of The Dowie Deris, as it alternates between 
" bonnie banks " and " dowie houms," we see the mutual 
influence of scenery and feeling. Only in the more 
modem songs, however, has the connection between the 
mood of mind and the aspect of nature been expressly pro- 
claimed. A lover is in doubt as to the answer to his suit, 
and then he feels that nature is hushed in sympathy with 
the eager expectant state of his feelings .- — 

"The bills and <lalea no more resound 
The Iftmbkina' tender cry. 
Without one murmur Yarrow stole 
In dimpling silence bye." 

But the answer is favourable ; there is an outbreak of 
joyous feeling, and then the other aspect of the scenery 
strikes the mind : — 



224 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

" The hills and dales ag&in resound 
The lambkins' tender cry, 
With all bis murmurs Yarrow trill'd 
The song of triumph bye." ' 

But, doubtless, there has been an action and interaction 
between the scenery of the Yarrow and the poetic thought 
which has brooded over it. The result to us is some- 
thing altogether different from the bare actualities of the 
scene ; and, with all this older growth of poetry and 
tradition, it is not to be wondered at that tlie Yarrow we 
now feel ia not altogether the Yarrow we see. Story, 
legend, tradition, ballad and song, are now inseparably 
fused with the stream, the hills, and the glens. We 
know the Yarrow as identified with quiet pastoral life, 
and its peculiar seclusion ; but we feel it also to be 
associated with stories of love and hope, of sorrow and 
despair, deeds of blood, and old quaint romantic memories. 
The impress of these is on all the natural scenery ; and 
when we look at it or think of it, it is not the bare 
stream or glen which lies hefore us, but the Yarrow of 
the faded forest, of the Dowie Dens, of the Blackhouse 
Tragedy, of the wan maiden awaking to life in St Mary's 
Kirk at the touch of her lover's hand, of the sweet Flower 
of Dryhope wedded to the rough reiver, of the youth 
dead in his prime of love and promise in the cleaving of 
the crag. If the Yarrow gave help to its poetry by its 
peculiar scenery, that has been amply repaid. The 
actual scene has been enriched, glorified, and transfigm-ed 
by the return int^ its bosom of the wealth of im- 
aginative creation, realised as the very life of the vale. 

' Hamilton of B«Dgour, Poaat, 75— ed. 1760. 



THE SONGS OF THE BOEDER. 225 

Old-world thoughts — "the treasured dreams of times 

long past " — flow into the senses, mingle with what we 

see and feel, and make for us another than the actual 

Yarrow : — 

" I see, but not by sight alone, 

Loved Yarrow, have I won thee ; 
A ray of Fancy still survives — 
Her sunshine plays upon thee I " 

Or, as Hogg puts it more sternly — 

" While o*er thy green and lowly graves, 
The moorcocks bay and plovers wail : 
The mountain spirits on the gale 

Oft o'er thee sound the requiem dread ; 
And warrior shades and spectres pale, 

Still linger by the quiet dead." 

The Love Songs of the Tweed contain the most 
explicit references to the scenery, and show an in- 
creasing appreciation of that softer side of nature which 
appears in the valley of the river. For, while the 
wildest, grandest, and most secluded of the scenery 
is to be found among the great hills, and in the glens 
of the waters and the burns, the softest, the most 
cultured and beautiful, lies in the vaUey of the Tweed. 
You may see there, in the summer time, the gleaming 
flow, and hear the music, by day and night, of a river 
clear as the light of heaven. Its motion is poetry 
itself, as it now st^ys calm in pool, and then rushes 
bright and joyous in stream. There are green haughs, 
soft meadows, and corn-fields, and gently sloping hill- 
sides, in many parts well and picturesquely wooded 
— all looking as if the human life there were pleasant 
and comfortable. It is in this region that we find 

VOL. IL P 



226 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

the source of the Border love-songs in the seventeenth 
century ; and they grow increasingly in sympathy with 
the green haughs, the sunny gleam, and the gentle 
murmur of the river, the notes of early birds, the 
bleating of lambs, and the melancholy music of the 
sequestered cushat of the woods in the vale of the 
Tweed. In the earlier songs this influence is to a 
great extent an unconscious one. The singer felt, 
but did not dwell on the aspects of the scenery, which 
yet coincided with the passion he sought to express. 
The sympathy he had for the nature around him was 
subordinate to and illustrative of that primal emotion — 
human love. We yet see that the sense of the gentle 
beauty in things lay deep down in his heart, and, like 
the burn that flows hidden under the grassy fringe and 
nourishes the verdure of the glen, helped to sustain the 
lightsome life of many a song. And we have only to 
come down to the more modern period of Eobert Craw- 
ford, to find how profuse was the feeling for nature that 
was mingled with the expression of passion, and to the 
later times of Leyden, Hogg, Scott, and others, to observe 
the depth and directness of sympathy for the hills, glens, 
and streams of the Border land. This was the new 
element in the poetry of the Borders ; and it was from 
its rise and spread in the district that the fresh breath of 
nature passed into the Scottish, and, we may add, the 
English, poetry of this century. 

The songs of Tweedside have a character wholly their 
own. They breathe a sweet pastoral melody. There 
is a passionate fondness dashed with sadness and re- 
gret — a mingling of love and sorrow, of hopefulness 



THE SONGS OF THE BOEDEE. 227 

and despair. This curious blendiug of opposite feelings 
flows all through these songs, and seems to reflect the 
familiar contrast in the scenery — the sparkling gleam 
of the morning and noon gradually passing into the 
pathetic shade of the gloamin' on the river itself. This 
key-note of Tweedside song was first struck in the 
middle of the seventeenth century by a lord of Neid- 
path, in a fine lyric. It is entitled Tweedside. Its 
author was John Hay, tenth Lord Yester, third Earl and 
second Marquis of Tweeddale — a direct descendant of 
Hay of Lochquharret and Mary the elder daughter of 
the famous Sir Simon Fraser of Oliver, the hero of 
Boslin. Lord Tweeddale, bom 1645, took a very 
prominent part in the public events of the times of the 
Restoration, the Revolution, and the Uuion. He died 
in 1713. The Tweeddale family had still at that period 
(at least as late as 1686) their ancient Peeblesshire estate, 
inherited from the lord of Oliver and Neidpath. The 
tenth lord of Yester lived in his youth at Neidpath Castle, 
and obviously had a warm love for the banks of the 
Tweed, which helped to inspire his song : — 

" When Maggie and me were acquaint, 
I carried my noddle fu' hie, 
Nae lintwhite in a' the gay plain, 
Nae gowdgpink ' sae bonnie aa she. 

I whistled, I piped, and I sang ; 

I woo'd, but I cam nae great speed ; 
Therefore I maun wander abroad, 

And lay my banes far fiae the Tweed. 



228 BOEDBB HISTORY AND POETEY. 

To M^gie my love I did tell ; 

M; tears did my passion express : 
Alas ! for 1 lo'ed her ower weel, 

And the women lo'e sic a man less. 

Her heart it was frozen and cauld ; 

Her pride had my ruin decreed ; 
Therefore I maQU wander abroad, 

And lay my banee far frae the Tweed." 

In this there is true, simple feeling, simply expressed, 
wanned and coloured by a sense of nature around the 
poet — the purity of the liutwliite, the unobtrusive beauty 
of the goldfinch, the quiet Sow of the river, happiness 
within reach, yet, when sought for, eluding the grasp and 
lost for ever. It is interesting to note that the natural 
olyecta which attracted poetic sympathy in this the earliest 
remaining Tweeddale song are the birds of the district and 
the quiet of the river, unexpressed in the song, yet ob- 
viously consciously felt all through it. There is no refer- 
ence to the wild flowers of the plains or hills, unless 
indeed generally in the somewhat conventional phrase, 
" the gay plain." It is curious to find in the song of 
Leader Haugha and Yarrow of the wandering minstrel, 
Nicol Bume, who was contemporaneous with Lord Yeater, 
that the main thing he notices in the description of the 
Yarrow is precisely the notes of the birds : — 

" A mile below who lists to ride 

Will hear the mavis, singing. 
Into Saint Leonard's banks she bides, 

Sweet birks her head owerhinging. 
The lint-white loud, and progne proud, 

With tuneful throats and narrow, 
Into Saint Leonard's banks they sing. 

As sweetly as in Yarrow. 



THE 80NO3 OF THE BOBDER. 229 

By break of daj the lark can saj, 

I'll bid you n good-morrow ; 
111 stretch, my wing, and mounting Bisg, 

O'er Leader Haughs and Yairow." 

This appreciation of the notes of birds, rather than of the 
colours and forms of the flowers of the field, was, I think, 
quite natural in the circumstances of the time. Men 
had been educated to a sense of sweet sounds ; they had 
no training in painting, or any art that fitted them for 
the appreciation of colour or form. 

There is another Tweedside song, entitled John Hay's 
Bonnie Lassie, which is supposed to have been written 
about leVO; and, curiously enough, in honour of Lady 
Mai^aret Hay, the eldest daughter of the first Marquis of 
Tweeddale. The tradition is that it was the composition 
of a working joiner, who had ventured to cherish secretly 
in his heart a fruitless passion for the high-bom Lady 
Margaret, She aftenvards became the wife of the third 
Earl of Eoxburghe, and died near Kelso in 1753, at the 
age of ninety-six. There are two verses in it worth 
quoting : — 

" She's fresh as the spring, and sweet as Aurora, 
When birds mount and sing, bidding day n good-morrow; 
The award of the mead, enamell'd with daiaies. 
Looks wither'd and dead, when twined of her graces. 

But if she appear where verdures invite her. 

The fountains ruu clear, and the flowers smell the sweeter. 

Tia heaven to be by, when her wit is a-fiowing ; 

Her smiles and bright eyes set my spirits a-glowing." 

Here at length the daisy and the greensward, and the 
wild flowers of the haugh, have become objects of the 



230 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

poet's cherished love, whose attractiveness is enhanced 
by the presence of the object of his passion. The 
Tweedside joiner lad, humbly bom as he might have been, 
was yet a noble man by nature ; and he, in the seven- 
teenth century, on the banks of the Tweed, struck the 
key-note of that strain which the Ayrshire ploughman 
caught up and beautified in the eighteenth century, and 
left as an imperishable melody for all time ; for he, too, 
mingled in his song love and flowers and birds : — 

"I Bee her in the dewj flowers, 

I see her eweet and fair ; 
I hear her in the tnnefu' birds, 

I hear her charm the oir : 
There's not a bonnie flower that Bprings 

By fountain, ehaw, or green, 
There's not a bonnie bird that sings. 

But minds me o' raj Jean." 

The song of Ettrick Banks is an old one. It first 
appeared in print in Thomson's Orpheus Caledonius in 
1725; but it may be regarded as considerably older 
than this both in air and words. Fiukerton is inclined 
to refer it to the period between the time of Mary and 
the BestoratioQ. This song has some exquisite references 
to local scenery and traits of the older shepherd life. 
These could have been noted only by a native of the 
district, or one resident there, and thoroughly familiar 
with the people and the scenes : — 

" On Ettrick banks, ae simmer night, 

At gloamin', when the sheep drave hame, 
I met my lassie, braw and tight, 
Come wading barefoot a' her lane. 



THE SONGS OP THE BORDER. 231 

A' day, when we hae wrocht eneuch, 

When winter frosts and snaw begin, 
Soon as the sun gaes west the loch. 

At night when ye sit down to spin, 
111 screw my pipes and play a spring ; 

And thus the weary night will end. 
Till the tender kid and lamb time bring 

Our pleasant simmer back again. 

Syne, when the trees are in their bloom, 

And gowans glent o'er ilka fiel*, 
I'll meet my lass amang the broom. 

And lead you to my simmer shiel. 
There, far frae a* their scornfu* din, 

That mak' the kindly heart their sport, 
We'll laugh, and kiss, and dance and sing, 

And gar the langest day seem short.*' 

In the latter part of the seventeenth century we meet 
with the contributions to the literature of the Tweed of 
the noble and heroic Lady Grisell Baillie, a name that is 
synonymous with filial and wifely devotion, with courage, 
prudence, and sublime endurance. Born in 1665, she 
was the eldest daughter of Sir Patrick Home, afterwards 
the first Earl of Marchmont ; and she became the wife, 
in 1692, of George Baillie, the eldest son of Eobert 
Baillie of Jerviswood — a man who gave his life for civil 
and religious liberty in a cruel and tyrannical time. Her 
life is a romance of noble feeling and varying fortune. 
Her father, who was the friend of Eobert Baillie, sent 
her when a very young girl to visit Baillie in the prison 
of Edinburgh, with a secret but important letter which 
she was to contrive to deliver. She succeeded, and 
brought back certain needed intelligence. The yoimg 
lass riding from the Merse through the night passed the 
city gate early in the morning, and above her was the 



232 BOBDES HISTOBY AND POETBY. 

ghastly spectacle of the heads of the men who had 
suffered for the cause for which her father's friend was 
about to die. Every one knows how, when her own 
father was driven to hiding in the underground burial- 
vault of Polwarth Church, she sought the place at mid- 
night, stumbling alone in the darknesa over the grave- 
mounds, and yet courf^eous, fearing not the dead, but 
ready to be scared by any s^ of the living. Then 
there was the exile in Holland, — the return to England 
with the happier days of the Revolution, When her 
father shared the fortune of the Prince of Orange, and 
hia estate was restored to him, his daughter was pressed 
by the Princess to remain in London as one of her maids 
of honour. But the simple and single-hearted Grisell 
characteristically declined, preferring the banks of the 
Tweed and the haughs of the Merse — the scenes of her 
childhood — to the glitter of court life and the attractions 
of courtiers. A few years after this she was married to 
Kobert Baillie, whom she had met on that long-ago visit 
to the prison of Edinburgh, the man who had been the 
object of her constant lifelong love. 

Id a most interesting Memoir, her daughter. Lady 
Murray of Stanhope, in Peeblesshire, has pictured her as 
"middle-sized, well-made, clever in her person, very 
handsome, with a life and sweetness in her eyes very 
uncommon, and great delicacy in all her features ; her 
hair was chestnut, and to her last she had the finest 
complexion, with the clearest red in her cheeks and lips, 
that could be seen in one of fifteen."^ Add to these 

'^ Memoirt of Oeorge BaiRU of Jervitaood, and of Lady Oritrtl BaUlie. 
B; thur daughter. Lady Mumt; of Stanhope. P. S4. Edinburgh : 1821, 



THE SONGS OF THE BOBDEB. 233 

personal lineaments her tenderness, her sympathy, her 
unfailing spirit id misfortune, — having no notion, as she 
used to say, of any other cause of sorrow but the death 
and affliction of those she loved, — and you have a most 
attractive specimen of the Scottish gentlewoman of the 
seventeenth century. She died in 1V46, at the great age 
of eighty -one. She lies buried appropriately in the 
churchyard of Mellerstain, beside her husband, and 
within hearing of the rush of the Tweed, which she 
loved so well. Her elder daughter was married to a 
Peeblesshire laird, Sir Alexander Jlurray of Stanhope, 
a man of eccentric character and jealous temper, but 
of accomplished tastes. We have still traces of hia 
handiwork in the rich English landscape of hedgerows 
and stately trees which are to be found in the pleasant 
Jiaugh of the Tweed, from the Crown Ford to Stobo 
Burn-foot, the Polternam of the Cymri, Lady Murray 
of Stanhope was well known in Loudon in the middle 
and latter part of the eighteenth century as the most 
accomplished singer of Scottish melodies in her day. 
The estates of Stanhope and Hillhouse passed, in 1769, 
from the Mnrrays, owing to their participation in the 
Eebellion. 

Lady Grisell BaiUie's most important song is entitled, 
Were na my Heart licht I wad Dee. It was apparently 
printed for the tirst time in the Tea-Tahlc Miscellany. 
The burden of it is that a lass engaged to be married is 
prevented by the relations of the youth from completing 
the engagement. It is a fine specimen of the pure Boric 
Scots of the time, and has wonderfully beautiful touches 
of natural feeling, pathos, and humour ; — 



234 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

"When bonnie young Johnie cam ower the Bea, 
He said he saw naething aae lovely as me ; 
He hecht me baitb rings and monie braw things ; 
And were na my heart licht I wad dee. 
Hia wee wilfu' tittie ' she looed na me 
(1 was taller and twice as bonnie as she); 
Slie raised sic a pother 'twixt him and his mother, 
That were na my heart licht I wad dee. 
Eis kin was for ane of a higher degree, 
Said — Would he wed ane was landless like me ? 
Albeit I was bonnie, I was na for Johnie, 
And were na my heart licht 1 wad dee. 

His tittie she w 

She spied me ai 

And then she ran in and mode aic a din, — 

Believe your aiu een an' ye trow na me. 

His bonnet stood aye fa' round on his broo ; 

His BUld ane look'd aye as weel aa aome'a new ; 

But noo be lets't wear ony gait it will hing. 

And casts himself dowie upon the com-bing. 

And now he gaes danndrin' ahoot the dykes, 

And a' he dow do is to hund the tykes ; 

The live-lang nicht he ne'er ateeka his e'e ; 

And were na my heart licht 1 wad dee. 

Were I but young for thee as I hae been. 

We should hae been gallopin' down on yon green, 

And linkin' it on yon lily-white lea ; 

And wow ! gin I were but young for thee ! " 

The same true and tender hand has left ua two stanzas of 
great simplicity and beauty, entitled 0, the Ewe Buchtin's 
Bonnie, which seem to be the echo of her own grief at 
one time of her life : — 

" 0, the ewe buchtin's bonnie, baith e'ening and morn. 
When oui blithe shepherds play on the b<^-reed and horn ; 



THE SONGS OF THE BORDER. 235 

While we're milkin', they're liltin*, baith pleasant and clear, 
But my heart's like to break when I think on my dear. 

0, the shepherds take pleasure to blow on the horn, 
To raise up their flocks o' sheep soon i* the mom ; 
On the bonnie green banks they feed pleasant and free, 
But, alas, my dear heart, all my sighing's for thee ! " 

These lines still survived in 1819, in Grisell Home's 
girlish handwriting, after more than two hundred years.^ 
They were enclosed in a letter to her brother Patrick, 
who was then living with his friend, and her lover, 
George Baillie, both exiles in Holland in the cruel time 
preceding the Eevolution of 1688. Whether they are 
now to be found I do not know. Further, she must have 
written or preserved more song and ballad than has been 
printed in her name ; for Lady Murray, in the Memoir 
of her mother, tells us, " I have now a book of songs of 
her writing when there [in Holland], many of them 
interrupted, half-writ, some broke off in the middle of a 
sentence," ^ — interrupted, we may well suppose, by the 
call to family service cheerfully obeyed. Is it vain now 
to inquire as to what has become of this MS. book ? Its 
recovery, if that were possible, might be an unspeakable 
gain to Border and Scottish song. The MS., if it still 
exists, must surely be with the Earl of Haddington or 
some collateral descendant of Lady Murray of Stanhope. 

A song known as The Fwe-Buchts, Marion, appeared in 
Eamsay's Tea- Table Miscellany in 1724. It opens thus: — 

" Will ye go to the ewe-buchts, Marion, 
And wear in the sheep wi' me ? 
The Sim shines sweet, my Marion, 
But nae half sae sweet as thee. 



^ See Thomas Pringle, Poems, Appendix. ^ MemoirSf 49. 



236 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Marion's a bonny lass, 

And blithe's the blink o' her ee ; 
And fain would I marry Marion, 

Gin Marion would marry me." 

A personage known as Daft Jock Gray of Gilmans- 
cleuch, referred to in Dr Russell's Reminiscences, used to 
sing a version of this song with a peculiar refrain : — 

" And it*8 round about the merry knowes, Marion, 
Round about the merry knowes wi* me ; 
Round about the merry knowes, Marion, 
For Whitslade's lying lea." 

Nicol Burne refers to this place : — 

" In Burn Mill bog and Whitslaid Shaws, 
The fearful hare she panteth," 

Whitslade is on the Ale Water in Selkirkshire. It was 
for many centuries the seat of a powerful branch of the 
Scotts — " chief of the Aill Water." The proprietorship 
of it was disputed in the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, and during the litigation it lay uncultivated.^ This 
enables us to approximate to the date of the composition. 
Certain unconnected stanzas of an old ballad referring 
to an heiress of Mossfennan, with which the estate of 
Logan, or the Logan Lee, was then as now conjoined, 
have floated for long in the memory of old people about 
Broughton and Tweedsmuir. Some of these were known 
to Miss Jeanie M. Watson, who was born and lived near 
Broughton, and who was well accomplished in the old 
lore and story of the district. She has printed those 
stanzas in her interesting book. Life in our Village, but 
no complete or consistent version of the ballad has as 
yet been given. I have been able to recover several 

^ Lecture on Hogg, by Dr Marshall, printed in the SaUcoaU Herald, 



THE SONGS OF THE BORDER. i237 

stanzas from oral recitation, which, compared and taken 
along with Miss Watson's verses, seem to make up the 
ballad. The stanzas now printed for the first time were 
obtained from William Welsh, the Peeblesshire cottar 
and poet, to whom I am also indebted for the new 
version of The Dowie Dens. His statement was that 
he had heard it recited by an old woman named Jenny 
Moffat, who died at Eomanno Bridge in 1874, in her 
ninety-ninth year. Certain stanzas of it, including the 
last, were also sung by his mother. 

Stanzas 1, 2, 3, 10, or stanzas corresponding to them, 
were known to Miss Watson ; the others, seven in all, are 
due to W. Welsh. The arrangement of them is chiefly mine. 

The Ballad of Mossfennan ; or, The Loqan Lee. 

1. 

" There cam three wooers out o' the west, 
Booted and spurred as ye weel micht see, 
And they lichted a* at Mossfennan Yett, 
A little below the Logan Lee. 

2. 

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. 

3. 

* Is the mistress o' this house within. 

The bonnie lass we've come to see ? * 

* I'm the leddy o' this place, 

And Tnadam when ye speak to me.' 

4. 

* If ye be the leddy o* this house, 

That we hae come sae far to see, 
There's many a servant lass in our country side, 
That far excels the Leddy o' the Logan Lee.' 



238 



BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 



5. 

* Then it*8 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. 

6. 

But be I black or be I fair, 

Be I comely for to see, 
It mak's nae matter what I be. 

While I*ve mony a bonny yowe on the Logan Lee, 

7. 

I have seven yowe-milkers a' in a bught, 
Wr their coaties kilted abune their knee, 

And ye may seek a wife amang them. 

But ye'll ne'er get the Leddy o* the Logan Lee.' * 

8. 

' 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.' 

9. 

' Some says I loe young Powmood, 

Other some says he loes na' me ; 
But I weel may compare wi' his bastard blood, 

Though I hadna a yowe on the Logan Lee.' * 



I Akin to trundle, referring perhaps to the ascent and descent of the 

ewes in line over the rounded knowes. 

' Other version : — 

" I have thre« ewe-milkers, 

As fine women as ye may see ; 
Ye may get your choice o' ane and a', 
Bat ye'll ne'er wed the Leddy o' the Logan Lee." 

3 Two pennies Scots, or third of an English halfpenny. 

* Third of an English penny. 

' Miss Watson's version is : — 

'* Borne say 1 loe young Powmood, 
And some say that he loes na' me ; 
But I think Fm a match for the liest o' his bloid, 
Though I hadna a yowe on the Logan Lee." 



THE SONGS OF THE BORDER. 239 

10. 

Graham o' Slipperfield ' and his grey mere, 
Young Powmood wi' his greyhounds three, 

Charlie and his pistols clear — 
Ye'll ne*er hae a yowe on the Logan Lee. 

11. 

But young John Graham is a weel-faured man. 

And a cunning ^ man he seems to be ; 
But a better lad, wi' less parade,^ 

And he'll be the Laird o' the Logan Lee." 

We can form some opinion of the approximate date 
of the incident of this ballad. The estate of Moss- 
fennan, after being in early times the property of the 
family of Purveys (Purves), passed into the hands of 
the Flemings of Biggar. One of them, Malcolm, third 
Lord Fleming, son of the Lord John murdered by the 
Tweedies on the heights of Kingledoors, got the lands 
erected into a free barony in 1538. After the Flem- 
ings, the batony passed to a family of the name of 
Scott, who held it until about the middle of last cen- 
tury, when it was acquired by the Welshes (1759). The 
reference to Powmood or Polmood as being of " bastard 
blood," fixes the date as after the year 1689; for in 
that year died Kobert Hunter of Polmood, the last of 
the legitimate line of the Hunters of Polmood. Through 
some arrangement on the part of this Eobert Hunter, 
the estate of Polmood passed to descendants of George 
Hunter, his illegitimate son. Thomas Hunter, the last 

^ Slipperfield is the name of an estate in the north of* Peeblesshire. It 
consisted originally of three separate properties, each bearing the name. 
One of these — Slipperfield Loch-Third — was in the possession of Robert 
Graham as late as 1715. ^ Capable, skilful 

3 Other version : — 

" For he earn' doun by the Long Cleugh Fit." 



240 BOEDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

descendant of this George Hunter, died a young man, 
and unmarried, in 1765. This sickly youth on his 
death-bed made a will assigning the estate to a person 
of the name of Alexander Hunter, with whom he had 
resided in Edinburgh, but who was no relation whatever 
to the family of Polmood. A daughter of this Alex- 
ander Hunter became Baroness Forbes, and carried the 
estate into that family,* The incident of the ballad is 
thus restricted to the period between 1689 and 1765 ; 
and we may take it as having occurred about the first 
quarter of last century. We find, indeed, from the book 
of Setours, under January 9, 1685, two ladies, Janneta 
and Grizalda Scott, returned as heirs-portioners of their 
brother-german, "William Scott of Mossfennan, in this 
estate, and also in half of the quarter of Logan, called 
also the quarter of Mossfennan. The heiress was thus in 
all probability either Janet or Grisell Scott. According 
to the statement made to me by William Welsh, the date 
would quite tally with that which I have inferred. He 
said that Jenny Moffat got the ballad from a neighbour 
— that is, a fellow-servant — who as a young woman weis 
in the house of Mossfennan when the incident occurred, 
— was, in fact, serving with tlie heiress. The lady of the 
honse, she said, composed it herself, and used to repeat the 

' Ttiii incident of illegitimacy in the Polmood (amily, and the alieDatioD 
of the e>tat« to Alexander HuDt«r, gave rise to the fsmoua and long-con- 
tinued Ikw pics for its restoration to the alleged lawful heir of line — ^AduQ 
Uunt«r, tenant in Alterstane. Adam vas aervod heir od three lines of 
propinquity b; a jury at Peebles in 1802. But the matter was carried 
to the Court of Session, and after long years of pleaing and counter-plea- 
ing, Adam, wearied and worn out, was laid to bis rest in DrummeMer 
churchyard, without having succeeded in obtaining t^a est&(«. See the 
bulky "Record of the Proceedings" in the case, from I7SD onwards into 
the present century. 



THE SOKOS OF THE BORDER. 241 

stanzas to this confidential waiting-woman, whose memory 
fully retained them. This is quite compatible with the 
dates. Jenny Moffat died in 1874, at the ^e of ninety- 
nina This takes her hirth back to 1775. She might 
quite well have known a. fellow -servant who was in 
Mossfeunan in the first quarter or half of the eighteenth 
century, and who knew the story and the ballad itself. 

A contemporary name of note associated with the 
history and poetry of Tweeddale is that of Dr Alexander 
Peonycuik of Newhall. He was not a song-writer, hut 
he has left a number of pieces in verse of considerable 
general and local interest His father, also Dr Alexander 
Pennycuik of Newhall, and the representative of the old 
family of Pennycuik of Pennycuik — i.e., the Gowk's 
Hill — was sui^eon to General John Bannier in the 
Swedish wars under the great Gustavus Adolphus, and 
surgeon also to the auxiliary Scots army in England 
during the troubled period that preceded the Restoration. 
The father married Janet Murray, the heiress of Romanno, 
leaving a son, the poet, and died after the Revolution of 
1688. This son, the author of the Description of 
Tweeddale (1715), was born in 1652, and died in 1722. 
He was buried in the churchyard of Newlands by the 
side of his father. Dr Pennycuik was assisted in his 
Description of Tweeddale by John Forbes, who succeeded 
him in the estate of Newhall Pennycuik was a friend 
of Allan Ramsay ; and it has been said that it was to 
Pennycuik that Ramsay owed the plot of The Gentle 
Shepherd. Dr Pennycuik'a poems, and their general 
characteristics, are well known. They are not without 
a certain amount of humour, and they are often very 

VOL. II. Q 



242 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

coarse in portraiture and suggestion — the taint of the 
times ; yet they give a true, curious, often pointed 
description of the rural life and manners of the period 
of the Restoration and the Eevolution. They contain 
also many interesting references to names and families 
in Tweeddale, which now, alas ! have ceased to be 
represented in the district; for, with one or two ex- 
ceptions, the really old families of Tweeddale do not 
now hold the lands of the county : their memory has, 
in a great measure, perished ; and with their names have 
passed away many ennobling historical associations. 

But in Dr Pennycuik's poems, though he was in the 
habit of traversing Tweeddale as a practising surgeon, we 
look in vain for any trace of feeling suggested by the 
scenery of the district in which he lived. There is not a 
single characteristic natural feature of Tweeddale in all 
his poems. In his lines entitled To my Frieind inviting 
him to the Country , where we might expect some local 
description, all we get is this : — 

" Sir, fly the smoke and clamour of the town, 
Breathe country air, and see the farms cut down ; 
Revel on nature's sweets, and dine upon the chief, 
Praising the granter of the plenteous sheaf ; 
Free from all care, we'll range through various fields, 
Study those plants which mother nature yields : 
On Lyne's meand'ring brooks sometimes we'll fish, 
The trout's a brave, but no expensive dish ; 
When limbs are wearied, and our sport is done, 
We'll trudge to Cant's Walls ^ by the setting sun^" * 

Dr Pennycuik obviously represented that style of Scot- 
tish poetry which contented itself with noting the 

^ A small inn that stood near Newlands Kirk, not far from Romauno, 
the residence of Dr Pennycuik. The house of Callanda ia on or dose to 
the site of it. * PoemSf 414. 



THE SONGS OF THE BORDER. 24i 

manners of the time, mixing observation with shrewd 
judgment and sense ; but feeling nothing of nature, and 
quite incapable of touching the heart by pathos, or filling 
the soul with imagery. 

Towards the close of the seventeenth and the begin- 
ning of the eighteenth century there was a scholarly 
band of men in Edinburgh, the centre of whom was Dr 
Archibald Pitcairo. They were accomplished Latin 
versifiers, on the model chiefly of Horace. One of the 
most distinguished of them was Sir William Scott of 
Thirlestane (bom about 1670, died 1725). Twenty- 
four of his poems appear in Selecta Poemata (Edin., 
1727). It is difficult to determine how far the scenery 
of the Border, familiar to his ancestors and himself, 
affected the poetry of this descendant of an old and 
storied line ; but in the poems which he has addressed 
to his friend Sir William Bennet of Grubbet, an estate 
up near the Cheviots, Scott shows marked feeling for 
rural objects, aspects of nature, and country life. 
Thus : — 

" NuiKiuam carebunt fnictibus arbocea ; 

Fcecundet imber Jretiticans ferena 

Messes, et hortonira colores 

Viviftcans virideaque silvus." 

One likes also his fine penetrative and pithy tribute to 
Allan Eamsay : — 



" Qui Scotis numeroB auos, novoque 
Priacam Teatituit vigore linguam." 

Sir William Scott married in 1699 the Mistress of Napier, 
heiress of the Napier peerage, and from this marriage ia 
descended the present Lord Napier and Ettrick. 



CHAPTER VII. 



BORDER POKTRT— EIGHTEENTH CENTOHT. 



The Earl of Stirling, Drummond of Hawthoraden, 
Aytoun of Einaldie, died before the middle of the 
seventeenth centuTy. From that date down to the 
first quarter of the eighteeoth there appeared no Scottish 
poet of any public note. In the Lowland valleys and 
glens there had been heard during that period, and even 
long before it, scattered strains of ballad and song, many 
of them full of fine, simple, and truthful feeling. These 
were caught up and sung in the home circles and at the 
firesides of the Lowland farmhouses and shepherds' cota 
But there was, as yet, no attempt at any single great 
poem. The spirit that was in the older ballads and 
songs had not yet been concentrated and distilled into 
one pure continuous melody. 

James Watson, in his Collection of Scots Poems Ancient 
artd Modem, published in three parts from 1706 to 
1711, had drawn attention to some of those floating 
songs and ballads. And the Evergreen and Tea-TaUe 
Miscellany of Allan Ramsay — both published in 1724 — 
further enhanced the interest in this line of literature. 



BORDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 245 

It was diligently cultivated by subsequent collectors. 
Percy's Ikliques, which referred to both sides of the 
Border, in 1765 opened up the widest field of ballad 
literature as yet disclosed. Percy was followed by 
David Herd, with his Ancient and Modem Scottish Songs, 
in 1769. Then there came Evans' Old Ballads, 1777; 
Pinkerton's Scottish Tragic Ballads, 1781, and his Select 
Scottish Ballads, 1783. Eitson began to publish books 
of songs in 1783, and continued down to 1795. James 
Johnson, in The Scots' Mttsical Museum, 1787, greatly 
aided the work; Bums contributing new songs. J. G. 
Dalzell, in 1801, gave Scottish Poems of th^ Sixteenth Cen- 
tury. Walter Scott, in 1802, gave the first two volumes 
of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. The third 
volume appeared in 1803. This was a work second in 
importance and immediate influence only to that of 
Percy himself. In 1806, Eobert Jamieson gave to the 
world his Popular Ballads and Songs, and pointed to the 
large Scandinavian element in our ballad literature. 
Since then we find on the roll of distinguished collectors 
and editors, Finlay, David Laing, C. K. Sharpe, Maid- 
ment, Utterson, Buchan, Allan Cunningham, Kinloch, 
Motherwell, E. Chambers, Peter Cunningham, Aytoun, 
Chappell, Child, &c. 

Dr Samuel Johnson, the best representative of the 
stilted artificialism of his time, sneered, as was to be 
expected, at the labours of Percy. But the resuscitated 
ballads and songs were true to natural feeling and to 
the primary and permanent human emotions; and, 
though they were but the material of a literature, they 
formed the well-spring of a new and free literary de- 



246 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

velopment, which, while it yields nothing in the power 
of imaginative creation to the old, and nothing really 
in point of true artistic perfection, far surpasses it in the 
freshness and the living power which truthful delineation 
of the facts of man's spiritual nature, and of the aspects 
of the world around him, alone can inspire. 

But it was an original work which, in the early part 
of last century, first disclosed to the world the wealth of 
beauty in Scottish scenery, and the naturalness, simplicity, 
and pathos that lay close at hand in Scottish rural life. 
This was The Gentle Shepherd, published in 1725. The 
feeling for the natural scenery of Scotland had been 
growing in susceptible hearts in this first quarter of the 
century. James Thomson, the son of the minister of 
Ednam, whose boyhood had been passed at Southdean, 
high up among the wild and striking hills which slope 
down to the picturesque and beautifully wooded valley 
of the Jed, carried with him to England haunting im- 
pressions of winter storms which had swept the Carter 
Fell and passed over rugged Euberslaw. And, a year 
after 7%e Gentle Shepherd, there appeared WitUer, a poem, 
followed in 1727 by Summer. Thomson dared to be 
true to the face of nature, and to make the delineation 
of it the all-sufficient object of poetry. And it enhances 
the merit of the poet that in this, a new Form of poetic 
art, he was thoroughly successful, and influenced the 
eighteenth- century literature of Britain, indeed all British 
literature since his time. But The Gentle Shepherd was 
more immediately powerful in Scotland. Kamsay's poem 
drew attention to the Lowland and pastoral scenery of 
Scotland, and hence naturally to the vales of the Tweed, 



BORDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 247 

the Teviot, and the Yarrow. It thus became the fashion 
of the versifiers of the time to choose for the scenery and 
the subjects of their songs the pastoral localities and 
legendaiy incidents of those streams. This tendency has 
continued down to our own time ; and, looking back over 
the hundred and sixty-eight years that have elapsed since 
Bamsay evoked the full power of Scottish song, and gave 
it its pastoral impulse, we find a series of poets more or 
less inspired by the Tweed, the Yarrow, the Ettrick, and 
the Teviot, such as no other locality of Scotland can 
parallel in numbers or surpass in pathos, tenderness, and 
truthfulness. Besides Ramsay himself, we have his 
friend Hamilton of Bangour, Eobert Crawford, Logan, 
Leyden, Hogg, and Scott ; and, if not in the same rank 
with these, yet we have true singers in James Nicol, 
Thomas Smibert, Henry Scott Biddell, and several others. 
The power, too, of the scenery, and the poetic strains 
which it has inspired, are seen in men who were neither 
natives of nor resident in the district, as Eobert Fei-gusson, 
Langhorne, and Wordsworth. Besides all these, there 
has been in the district itself many a local poet, unknown 
to public fame, who nevertheless felt the power of the 
scenery and the charm and humour of the simple manners 
of the people, and who was a source of pleasure, cheer- 
fulness, and refinement in his own small circle. Alas, 
that so few of these singers have left behind them even 
the memory of their names ! But, looking at the whole, 
we may well ask, Did ever single Scottish or other 
stream quicken in the hearts of men such a flow of song 
as that which has been inspired by the Tweed and its 
tributary waters ? 



248 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

It is true, as Mr Euskin has remarked, true however 
we may explain it, that the scenery most fruitful of 
literary intellect is not the absolutely mountainous nor 
the perfectly flat; it is the mixture of hill and vale. 
Neither Switzerland nor Holland has been most prolific 
in poetry or high literature. In the ancient world, the 
human intellect rose to its greatest fulness, and acquired 
its highest finish amid the hills, the valleys, and the 
gleaming waters of Attica — a varied land of mountain 
and of glen. So we find one of the largest, richest crops, 
both of intellect and imagination, in that limited district 
-which stretches from the Pentlands to the Cheviots and 
the Solway — the Border land of Scotland. With the 
mountain there is constant struggle, with the pastoral 
plain there is easy repose ; the mountain and the plain 
together call forth human energy and give human con- 
tentment ; and on the life of energy and repose bloom 
the sweet flowers of song, and rise to maturity the 
growths of intellect. 

Of Allan Eamsay's special contributions to the poetry 
of the Tweed and Yarrow, I am afraid I cannot speak 
highly. His Mary Scott, the Flower of Yarrow, is indeed 
in the poorest conventional taste of last century — arti- 
ficial, rhetorical, afiected. His set of verses to the tune 
of Busk ye. Busk ye, my Bonny Bride ^ is better, and in 
it there is one fine natural touch : — 

" To western breezes Flora yields, 

And when the beams are kmdly warmmg, 
Blythness appears o'er all the fields, 
And nature looks mair fresh and charming. 



Miscellany, i. 139. 



BORDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 249 

Learn frae the bums that trace the mead, 
Tho' on their banks the roses blossom, 

Yet hastilie they flow to Tweed, 
And pour their sweetness in his bosom.'' 

But on the whole James Hogg was not far wrong when 
he sang : — 

** Redoubted Ramsay's peasant skill 
Flung some strained notes along the hill ; 
HIb was some lyre from lady's hall, 
And not the mountain harp at all." 

The next name of note in connection with the poetry 
of Tweedside is that of Eobert Crawford, a cadet of the 
family of Drumsoy in Eenfrewshire, and a friend of 
Hamilton of Bangour, the author of Busk ye, Bvsk ye, 
my Bonny, Bonny Bride. Crawford was bom about 1695, 
and he died in 1732, at the age of thirty-seven. He 
is said to have been drowned on a return voyage from 
France. Crawford, though not a native of the district, 
seems to have been enamoured of Tweedside. He is 
the author of the songs entitled Tweedside, Bush dboon 
Traguair, Leader Haughs and Yarrow, and several other 
kindred strains contributed to Allan Eamsay's Tea-Table 
Miscellany, Tlie finest of Crawford's songs is, no doubt, 
Tweedside, His general style partakes a good deal of the 
affectation and artificial mannerism of the time ; but in 
Tweedside he has deeply felt and yielded to the freshness 
and truth of the nature which he seeks to describe. We 
feel that he has caught the characteristic features of the 
valley of the Tweed, and pictured for us a glorious spring 
day, in which birds sing, and the river glides brightly and 
gently, and the primroses spring in the woods, and the 



250 BORDEH HISTORY AND POETRY. 

lambs bleat pathetically on the hills, and the whole air h 
filled with peace and love and gladoess : — 

" What beauties does Flora disclose '. 

How sweet are her smiles upon Tweed ! 
Yet Maij's, still sweeter than those, 
Both nature and fancy exceed. 

No daisy, nor sweet blushing rose. 

Not all the gaj flowers of the field, 
Not Tweed, gliding gently through those. 

Such beauty and pleasure does yield. 

The warblers are heard in the grove, " 
The linnet, the lark, and the thrush ; 

The blackbird and sweet cooing dove, 
With music enchant every bush. 

Come, let us go forth to the mead, 
Let us see how the primroses spring ; 

We'll lodge in some village on Tweed, 
And love while the feather'd folk sing. 



Say, charmer, where do thy flocks stray 1 
Oh, tell me at mom where they feed ? 

Shall I seek them on sweet winding Tay 1 
Or the pleasantei banks of the Tweed 1 " 

The tradition ia that this song of Crawford's was written 
in honour of Mary Lilias Scott, a very beautiful woman, 
known as " the Second Flower of Yarrow." Crawford 
has contributed another song to the minstrelsy of the 
Tweed. This is a new set of verses to the old air of Cow- 
deitr-knowcs} It ia one of his finest ; simple and natural 
in feeling and associations, and free, in a great measure, 
from the mannerism of the time ; — 



BORDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 251 

" When summer comes, the swains on Tweed 
Sing their successful loves ; 
Around, the ewes and lambkins feed, 
And music fills the groves. 

But my loved song is then the broom 

So fair on Cowden-knowes ; 
For sure so sweet, so soft a bloom 

Elsewhere there never grows. 



Not Teviot braes, so green and gay, 

May with this broom compare ; 
Not Yarrow banks in flowery May, 

Nor the bush aboon Traquair. 

More pleasing far are Cowden-knowes, 

My peaceful happy home, 
Where I was wont to milk my ewes, 

At eve among the broom." 

" The original ballad of The Broom of Cowden-knowes " is 
given by Scott in the Minstrelsy} Both tune and words 
are old. The Tea- Table Miscellany has a set of words 
with the initials R S., but it is inferior to Crawford's ver- 
sion. And it should be added that Crawford has entirely 
purified the coarseness of the old ballad. In this he 
follows quite the spirit of the older songs of Tweedside, 
which, with the somewhat qualified exception of the 
original version of TJie Broom of the Cowden-knowes, are 
lyrics of exceeding purity. 

Among those who contributed to Ramsay's Tea- Table 
Miscellany (1724) was a youth of twenty, of great and 
early promise, and of Jacobite leanings — the son of an 
Ayrshire laird, William Hamilton of Bangour (bom 1704, 
died 1754). His Poems on Several Occasions were first 

1 iii. 37, ed. 1868. 



252 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

published in Glasgow, without the author's knowledge, 
iu 1748, aud were printed at the famous Foulis press. 
Hamilton was a man of taste and feeling ; but he was 
deeply imbued with the artificial spirit of the time, 
which, instead of looking at nature directly .iind with 
fresh eye, made a point of describing it in traditional, 
unreal, and generally inappropriate language. This sort 
of diction vaa equally applicable or equally inapplicable 
to the aspects of nature, whether these belonged to a 
southern or a northern clime, to the wooded banks of 
the soft gliding Thames, or the bare haughs and hills of 
the speeding and sparkling Tweed. 

There are, however, here and there in his writings 
descriptive pieces which rise above this level. One of 
these, curiously enough, is a picture of winter on Tweed- 
side and on "the tops of Yair," which unquestionably 
suggested to Scott the very fine description of the same 
which he has given us in the Introduction to canto i. of 
Marmion. Here are Hamilton's lines ; these, it will be 
observed, are in the octavo syllabic metre adopted by 
Scott:— 

" For Bee the Summer poaU away, 
Sod emblem of out own decay. 
Now Winter from the frozen nortli. 
Drives Ilia BtiiF ir6ii chariot forth ; 
HiB grisly hand in icy cliainB 
Fair Tueda'a silver flood conBtrainB : 
Cast up tliy eyes, how bleak and bare 
He wanders on the tops of Fair; 
Behold, his footsteps dire are seen 
Confeis'd on ev'ry withering green ! 
Griev'd at the eight, when thou shalt see 
A snowy wreath to clothe each tree." ' 



BORDEK POETRY — EIQHTEEHTH CENTDEY. 253 

Now let US hear what Sir Walter made of this hint 
(The lines are well known, but I quote them for the 
sake of compariaon) : — 

" No longer Autumn's glowing red 
Upon our Forest hilla ia shed ; 
No more, beneath the evening heam. 
Fair Tweed reflects their purple gleam ; 
Away hath poaaed the heather-bell 
That bloomed bo rich on Needpath Fell j 
Sallow his brow, and russet hare 
Are now the sister heights of Yair. 
The sheep before the pinching heaven 
To ahelter'd dale and down ore driven. 
Where yet «ome faded herbage pines, 
And yet a watery sunbeam shines ; 
In meek despondency they eye 
The wither'd sward and wintry sky, 
And, far beneath their summer hill. 
Stray sadly by Qlenkinnon'e rill : 
The shepherd shifts his mantle's fold, 
And wraps him closer from the cold ; 
His clogs no merry circles wheel, 
But, shivering, follow at his heel ; 
A cowering glance they often cast. 
As deeper moans the gathering blast." 

It will, I think, be allowed that the latter minstrel baa, in 
richness and miQuteoess of pictorial power, far outstripped 
the earlier poet, Scott shows a courage and freedom in 
dealing with the familiar objects around him, and intro- 
ducing them into his picture, which the earlier poet, bound 
as he was to abstract and conventional representation, 
would hardly have dreamed of. 

There is one occasion on which Hamilton rises to a 
true and powerful grasp of the scene, in a description of 
the Bbone and the Aar : — 



Mill liuriics Ih.'.kIIoii;^ on ;i <lu 

TliriH' is a vciy strong and triulifu 
in [\\{'>(t lini's, and llif How of the 
the rhythm of the verse. 

But, amid the generally vague v 
tions, one effort of his genius stan 
human colouring, in depth and sim 
even to some extent in powerful and 
of scenery. This is a poem which c 
the Yarrow. In fact it was suggest 
of The Dovne Dens, It breathes th 
and it is so permeated by the spii 
traditions that, when all the other \i 
shall have fallen into oblivion, there 
in memory and a place in men's hea 
Yarrow, The burden of the ballad 
dent, and it touches deeply our prim 
It is the story of a maiden on the "I 
youth ; but he fell in single fight, by 1 
side laird, who would fain gain the 
whose betrothed he had slain. T 
Douglds Tragedy and of The Dovmp l 



BOEDER POETTRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 255 

soul of Scott when he conceived the heart-stirring tragedy 
of The Bride of Lammermoor; and not less in the heart 
of Wordsworth, both when he imaged and when he saw 
the Yarrow, 

In " the Ancient Scottish Manner " ' Hamilton carries 
on the story by alternate dialogue, the most picturesque 
form of narrative poetry. In the opening stanzas the 
Tweedside wooer, the slayer of him whom the maiden 
"loved, thus addresses her: — 

A. " ' Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny bride, 

Biisk ye, buak ye, my winsome marrow ! 
Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny bride, 
And think nae mnir on the braes of Yaxrow.' 

B. ' Wbere gat ye that bonny, bonny bride ? 

Where gat ye that winsome marrow r 

A. 'I gat her where I dauma weit be seen, 

Pu'ing the birke on the braea of Yarrow. 

B. ' Why does she weep, thy bonny, bonny bride, 

Why does she weep, thy winsome iueutow 1 
And why dare ye nae mair well be seen 
Pu'ing the birks on the braes of Yarrow ) ' 

A. ' Lang maun she weep, lang maun she, maun she weep, 

Lang maun she weep with dule and sorrow, 
And lang maun I nae mair weil be Been 

Pu'ing the birks on the braes of Yarrow. 
For she has tint her luver, luver dear, 

Her luver dear, the cause of sorrow. 
And I bae slain the comeliest swain 

That e'er pu'd birks on the braes o' Yarrow.' 

C. ' Sweet smells the birk, green grows, green grows the graas, 

Yellow on Yarrow's braes the gowan, 
Fair hangs the apple frae the rock, 
Sweet the wave of Yarrow flowan.' 

■ " The Braa of Tarrow, to Lady Juie Home, in imitation of the tacient 
Scottish manner." — Hamilton of BaDgour'a Poant, fl7. 



256 BOEDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

A. ' FlowB Yarrow sweet 1 ee Bweet, as sweet flows Tweed, 
As green its grass, its gowan as yellow ; 
As sweet smells on its braes the biik. 
The apple frae the lock as mellow. 

Fair was thy luve, fair, fair indeed thy luve, 

In flowery bands thou him did'st fetter, 
Tho' he was fair and weil beluv'd again. 

Than me, he never lu'ed thee better. 

Busk ye, then busk, my bonny, bonny bride, 

Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome marrow. 
Busk ye, and lu'e me on the banks of Tweed, 

And diink nae mair on the braes of Yarrow,'" 

She answers : — 

C. " ' How can I busk a bonny, bonny bride. 
How can I busk a winsome marrow, 
How lu'e him on the hanks of Tweed, 
That slew my luve on the braes of Yarrow ? 

Yarrow fields, may never, never rain. 

No dew thy tender blossoms cover, 
For there was basely slain my luve, 

Uy luve, as he had not been a luver. 

The boy put on his robes, his robes of green, 

His purple vest, 'twas my ain sewing. 
Ah ! wretched me ! I little, little ken'd 

He was in these to meet bis ruin. 

The boy took out his milk-white, milk-white steed, 

Unheedful of my dule and sorrow. 
But e'er the to-fall of the night 

He lay a corpse on the Braes of Yarrow.' " 

Then again, as if in a wild burst of despair she had 
consented to accept the murderer of her youthful lover, 
she says: — 



BORDEK POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTDEY. 257 

G. " ' Yes, yea, prepare the bed, the l«d of lave, 
With bridal sheets my body cover ; 
Unbar, ye bridal maida, the door, 
Let in the expected huaband lover. 

But who the expected huaband, huabaud is! 

His hands, methinks, are bathed in slaughter. 
Ah, me ! what ghastly spectre's yon. 

Come, in his pale sbrond, bleeding after) 

Pale as he is, here lay him, lay him down, 

lay his cold head on my pillow ; 
Take aff, Uke a£f these bridal weids, 

And crown my careful head with willow ! 

Pale tho' thou art, yet best, yet best belov'd, 
could my warmth to life restore thee, 

Ye'd lie all night between my briests, — ■ 
No youth lay ever there before thee. 

Pale, pale indeed ! lovely, lovely yonth, 

Forgive, foi^ive so foul a slaughter ; 
And lie all night between my briests, — 

Ko youth shall ever lie there after.'" 

In a piece so exquisite as this, it seems almost profanity 
to bint a blot. But there can be no doubt that the fine 
line — 

" Fair hangs the apple frae the rock" — 

is marred by conventionalism. " The apple " here is 
simply " the rowan," but the prevailing taste of the time 
did not allow the poet to express directly and truthfully 
the real object ; yet would the line have been better, 
even in rhythm, had the author been true to fact, and 
aung : — 

" Fair hangs the rowan hae the rock," 

Scott evidently caught Hamilton's suggestion here ; for, 

VOL. IL K 



258 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

in reference to the same locality, he says with simple, 
truthful literalness: — 

" Yon lonely Thorn — would he could tell 
The changes of hie parent dell- 
How broad the shadows of the otik, 
How clung the rowan to the rock. 
And through the foliage show'd hia head, 
With narrow leaves and herries red." 

H(^ says of Hamilton : — 

" Bangour the daring task essay'd, 
Not half the chotds his fingers play'd ; 
Yet even then some thrilling lays 
Bespoke the Harp of ancient days." 



Kobert Fergusson, who was bom in 1751, and died 
in 1774, at the early t^a of twenty-tour, sang of the 
Tweed in his poem The Eivers of Scotland. Fine genius 
as he was, he has but caught some echoes of the theme, 
and his whole description is vague and characterless. 
But in Hame Content, a satire, be has touched the true 
soul of Scottish scenery and music, and done much 
greater justice to Bangour than Hogg did. There is a 
strong outburst of the perfervidwm ingmium Scotorwrn, 
excusable in a poet: — 

"The Amo and the Tiber lang 
Hae run full clear in Roman sang ; 
But, save the reverence o' the schools, 
They're baith but hfeleas, dowie pools, 
Bought they compaje wi' bonny Tweed, 
As clear as ony lunmer i bead 1 
Or are their shores mair sweet and gay 
Than Fortha's haughs, or banks of Tay I 



BORDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 259 

Though there the herds can jink the showen, 
'Manf! thriving vines and myrtle bowers, 
And bkw the reed t<D kittle strains, 
While echo's tongue commends their pains ; 
Like ours, they canna warm the heart 
Wi' simple, aaft, bewitching art. 
On Leader Haughs and Yarrow Braes, 
Arcadian herds wad tyne their lays, 
To hear the mair melodious sounds 
Tliat live on onr poetic grounds. 

Come, Fancy ! come, and let us tread 
The simmer's flowery velvet bed, 
And a' your springs delightful Iowbc 
On Tweda's Wnk or Cowden-knowes. 
That, ta'en wi' thy enchanting sang. 
Our Soottish lads may round thee thrang, 
Sae pleased they'll nevei' fash again 
To conrt you on Italian plain ; 
Soon will they guess ye only wear 
The simple garb o' nature here. 

O Bangour I now the hills and dales. 
Nae mair gie back thy tender tales ! 
The birks on Yarrow now deplore 
Thy moumfu' muse has left the shore. 
Near what bright bum or crystal spring 
Did you your winsome whistle hingi 
The Muse shall there, wi' watery e'e, 
Gie the dunk swaird a tear for thee ; 
And Yarrow's genius, dowie dame ! 
Shall then forget her bin id- stained stream. 
On thy sad grave to seek repose, 
Who mourned her fat«, condoled her woes." 



We now come to a very remarkable family group, 
who have contributed to the minstrelsy of the Borders, 
During the early part of the sixteenth century, the 
EUiots appeared in Liddesdale, probably as retainers of 
the Douglases. They had their principal seats at 



260 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Lariston, beoeatb the high and wide-spreading fells of 
that wild and fascinating region, and at Redheugh on 
the Hermitage Water. Other places in Liddesdale were 
held by dependants of their name, as Park, and Copshaw. 
They were amoi^ the most noted of the Borderers for 
rude energy, rapine, and deadly feud. On the decay of 
the Douglases, the Elliots sided with the Scotts against 
the Kerrs, besides, doubtless, doing a good deal of 
business for their own hand. There was the light near 
Melrose, in July 1526, for the rescue of the person of 
James V. from Angus, in which the Elliots are found 
allied with the Scotts : — 

" Wben Home and Douglas in the van 
Bore down Buccleuch'e retiring clan. 
Till gallant Cessford'a heart-blood dear 
Reek'd on dark Elliot's Border spear." 

The Elliots were more fortunate than their Liddesdale 
compeers, the Armstrongs ; for while the latter have 
quite disappeared as landed men, the former passed over 
into Teviotdale, and succeeded in obtaining a hold of 
lands there. They now occupy the ancient possessions 
mainly of the Turnbulla and the Kutherforda, names once 
of the greatest territorial importance. For, while Minto 
and Bedrule were originally the property of the Turn- 
bulls, Wells was not less the territory of the Eutherfords. 
The Elliot stock of Lariston and Redheugh was repre- 
sented by the family of Stobs, and a cadet of Stobs, one 
Gavin Elliot, was laird and miller of Midlem Mill, on 
the water of Ale, in the seventeenth century. Towards 
the end of that century, Gilbert Elliot, younger son of 
Gavin of Midlem Mill, became a writer in Edinbui^h, 



BORDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 261 



afterwards passed at the Scottish Bar, rose to be a Lord 
of Session, and purchased the estate of Minto ; was 
finally made a Baronet in 1700. Since then the vitality 
of the family has found outlet in law, statesmanship, &a 
well as in arms, and hardly less in culture and in song. 
Sir Gilbert Elliot, the second baronet of Minto, born in 
1693, followed hia father's profession, and became Lord 
Justice - Clerk of Scotland. He was an accomplished 
Italian scholar, and was the author of the following 
pleasing veraes in that language, written to the old 
Scottish tune of The Yellow Hair'd Laddie, itself sup- 
posed to be a production of Eizzio. There is a decided 
flavour of the Forest about them : — 



" Veiluto in prato 
II mio pastor, 
II crin corona to, 
D'uD aerto di fior. 

II Pole aegli occhi. 
La Fide nel sen'. 
Ah \ dove b' aaconde ? 



Al boBco, al monte. 



Ah ! cane Fedele 

Deh ! dimmi perche, 
II mio crudele 

S' aNonde di me I " 



"In the meadow I saw him, 
My shepherd, my own. 
He wore on his forehead 
Of aweet flowera a crown. 

In his eyes was the sunshine, 
Faith's home was his hreast. 

Ah I where is he hiding? 
Mj loved one, my best ! 

By stream, grove, and mountain, 
I sought him in vain ; 

I found his d<^ Fido ! 
I found not my swain. 

Ah ! Fido ! dear Fido ! 

Come tell me, I pray, 
Why my cruel one shuns me, 

What keeps him away ) " > 



The talents of the second baronet were transmitted to 
lis eldest son, while his genius and taste shone even more 

' See Border Mmarif, 1G4, by W. Kddell Cure, Eaq. 



262 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

brightly in his third daughter, Jean. The former, also 
Sir Gilbert, passed advocate in 1743, but devoted him- 
self mainly to political life. He was for long member of 
Parliament for Eoxburghshire, and Treasurer of the Navy, 
a man expert and sagacious in affairs, and distinguished 
by literary taste. He was the author of the well-known 
pastoral lyric in the manner of Shenstone : — 

" My sheep I neglected, I lost my sheep-hook, 
And all the gay haunto of my youth I forsook ; 
No more for Amynta fresh garlands I wove ; 
For ambition, I said, would soon cure me of love. 

Oh ! what had my youth with ambition to do ? 
Why left I Amynta ? Why broke I my vow ? 
Oh, give me my sheep, and my sheep-hook restore, 
And I'll wander from love and Amynta no more. 

Through regions remote in vain do I rove. 
And bid the wide ocean secure me from love ! 
Oh, fool ! to imagine that aught could subdue 
A love so well founded, a passion so true ! 

Alas ! 'tis too late at thy fate to repine ; 
Poor shepherd, Amynta can never be thine : 
Thy tears are all fruitless, thy wishes are vain, 
The moments neglected return not again." 

This is the song to which Scott has referred yi The Lay 

of the Last Minstrel, when, speaking of Minto Crags, he 

says : — 

" CliflPs which for many a later year 
The warbling Doric reed shall hear. 
When some sad swain shall teach the grove, 
Ambition is no cure for love." 

The third baronet died in 1777, and his son, the distin- 
guished Governor-General of India, was created first Baron 
of Minto in 1797, and first Earl in 1814. 



BORDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 263 

But it is to Jean Elliot, the sister of the author of this 
lyric, and third daughter of Sir Gilbert,^ the writer of the 
Italian song, that we owe something which we can never 
repay, and for which countless generations will bless her 
— one, and that the most delightful, version of The Flowers 
of the Forest : — 

" I've heard them liltin', at the ewe-milkin', 
Lasses a-liltin' before the dawn of day ; 
But now they are moaniu* on ilka green loanin' ;3 
The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away. 

At bughts, in the momin', nae blythe lads are scomin', 
The lasses are lonely and dowie and wae ; 
Xae daffin', nae gabbin', but sighin' and sabbin', 
Ilk ane lifts her leglin,^ and hies her away. 

In ha'rst, at the shearin', nae youths now are jeerin* ; 
The handsters are lyart, and runkled, and gray ; 
At fair, or at preachin', nae wooin', nae fleechin',* 
The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away. 

At e'en in the gloamin', nae younkers are roamin* 
'Bout stacks wi' the lasses at bogle to play ; 
But ilk maid sits drearie, lamentin' her dearie — 
The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away. 

Dule and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border ! 
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. 

We'll hear nae mair liltin' at the ewe-milkin', 
Women and bairns are heartless and wae ; 
Sighin' and moanin' on ilka green loanin' — 
The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away." 



^ While the brothers and Bbters of Jean Elliot are carefully mentioned 
iu Burke's Peerage (ed. 1893), Jean herself is ignored. Who is responsible 
for this omission ? 

^ The green x>ath to the out-field pasture, hence the pasture-field itself. 

^ Milk-jMiil. * Flattering. 



a ni;in fXii-n and .-au^^i'-r^^ in ;i 

}'a-L'>i'al lyric in ihr nianut-r iA S] 

'* My sheep I neglected, I lost ni} 
And all the gay haunts of my y 
No more for Amynta fresh gark 
For ambition, I said, would sooi 

Oh ! what had my youth with a 
Why left I Amynta ? Why bro 
Oh, give me my sheep, and my t 
And I'll wander from love and I 

Through regions remote in vain • 
And bid the wide ocean secure m 
Oh, fool ! to imagine that aught < 
A love so well founded, a passioi 

Alas ! 'tis too late at thy fate to i 
Poor shepherd, Amynta can neve 
Thy tears are all fruitless, thy wi 
The moments neglected return no 

This is the song to which Scott hen 

of the Last Minstrel, when, speakin 

says : — 

" Cliffs which for many a later 
The warbling Doric reed shal 



BOBDKIi VOKTHW KriiUTKKK'lll CKN'tKIiV. Uli.'t 

But it is to Ji-:iii Klli'.l, tin; niHlfr i>t' llio imrli'ir nf lltJn 
lyric, and tljir<l iUniyUl-r iA Sir OiilHii,' tli.. wiii... ..I tln^ 
Italian sou;.', tliut wi; nwi; noiiu-tliJii^; Hlii< li vn- <-iiii iiuvnt 
rejiay, ami for wlii'rli <:iiuiil\r»» yi^in-.f.iUnin: wjII l/li-nn Itui 
— OQf;, iiti'J lliJit l)j<: U.'y>.l <Ii-li;.;lil.fijI, V.ii:i.,]i ;1 7'/: t'luuna 
■■f 'h' yunhi :— 



fi.r tlii^ :!L.Mj%. 



* Vilfc.jMl 




one lived and died Tiimiarried, .L;r 
father. Slie is (Ieseril>ed as posse> 
a sleiuler, W('ll-slia|KMl li^ure. In i 
served to strangers. In her convc 
attempts at wit, and, though poss 
she never allowed it to entice her fi 
of veracity. She had high aristoc 
she took no pains to conceal." T 
one intimately acquainted with M 
dently led a simple and uneventfu 
chiefly in Brown Square, Edinburg 
town residence of her family, Minto 
Sir Walter Scott from his boyhood, i 
friend to her death. She had an € 
genius, and anticipated his fame, i 
publication of The Eve of St John a 
which Scott gave a place to her s( 
the Forest. As a girl she doubtl 
Shepherd, and The Lay of the Last 
few months before her death. Her 
gether the two characteristic epoch 
and Walter Scott 



BOEDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 265 

turned on Flodden, that disaster which left a sadness on 
the hearts of Scotsmen and Scotswomen for three hun- 
dred years. The brother suggested to the sister, not per- 
haps believing much in her capacity for it, that this was 
a fitting subject for a song. She leant backwards in the 
carriage, and there, under the shadow of the nightfall, 
with the old refrain, " The Flowers of the Forest are a" 
wede away," sounding in her ear, as a stray echo from 
the past, and mingling in fancy with the scenery of her 
life and love, and under the kindling of her true human 
heart, she framed The Flowers of the Forest ; that immor- 
tal lyric, in which simple natural pictures of joy and 
sadness are bo exquisitely blended and contrasted — in 
which pathos of heart - and patriotism of spirit, and a 
music that echoes the plaintive sough of the Border 
waters, passed, as it were spontaneously, into one con- 
summate outburst of song. 

The other version of Tke Flowers of the Forest is due 
to Alison Eutherford, daughter of Bobert Kutherford of 
Femilee, the scion of an old Border house, Butherford 
of Hundalee. The Rutherfords now are mainly decayed, 
but tliey are still represented by Faimington and Edger- 
stone. Miss Butherford became the wife of Patrick 
Cockbum, advocate, youngest son of Adam Cockbiim, the 
Lord Justice-Clerk of Scotland, and brother of John Cock- 
burn of Ormiston. She was born at Femilee House, by 
the Tweed, in Selkirkshire, in 1.712, and she died in 1794, 
at the age of eighty-two. Her song is probably a little 
older than that of Miss Elliot. It appears to have been 
printed in 1765, but probably it was written at a con- 
siderably earlier period, some twelve years before we 



'• I'w si't-n ill.' siiiiliiiL,^ 
( )!' InrliiiM- l"'_:iii]iiiL:', 

I've icit ;ill ils lavuurs, ;unl 
8\veet Wtos its blessing, 
Kind its caressing, 

But now it is fled — fled far 
IVe seen the Forest 
Adorned the foremost, 

With flowers of the fairest, n 
Sae bonny was their bio 
Their scents the air peri 

But now they are withered, a: 

IVe seen the morning, 
With gold the hills adori 

In loud tempest storming, bei 
I*ve seen Tweed's silver i 
Shining in the sunny be( 

Grow dnimly and dark, as it 
O fickle Fortune ! 
Why this cruel sporting 1 

Oh, why thus torment us, poo 
Nae mair your smiles cac 
Nae mair your frowns ca; 

For the Flowers of the Forest 

There is a copy of The Floxc 
Cockburn's handwriting?. The li 



BORDER POETEY — EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 267 



"Flowers of the FoRREei, 
for Lady Helen Hall. 

I. 
I've seen the sniileing of Fortune beguileing 
I've felt nil its faTours and found its decay 
Sweet was ita bleaaing kind ita cairesaing 
But now it is fled fled far far away, 
I've seen the Forrest adorned the fonnoat 
With flowers of the fairest most pleasant and gay 
Sac bonny was their blooming their scents the air perfuming 
But now they are withered and wade all away. 

2. 

I've seen the morning with gold the hills adorning 

In loud Tempest storming befor midle day 

I've seen Tweeds silver stream shining in the sunny beam 

Grow dnimly and dark as it rolld on its way. 

fickle Fortune why this cruel sporting 

Why thus torujent ub poor sons of a day 

Kae mair your smiles can cheer me nae mair your frowas can 

For the Flowers of the Forrest are a wade away. 
A real picture of the Authors feelings." • 

This last line is very significant : it rather points to the 
view that the song was written from a feeling of financial 
catastrophe, and has reference to a pecuniary disaster 
which overtook the Forest lairds and farmers in last 
century. But that of Mias Elliot, both from the circum- 
stance of its composition and its special allusion, was 
certainly composed as a memory of Flodden. If a cora- 

* Copied frum photograph in posBeosion of MUa Russell of ABhieatoel, 
kindl; allowed hj her to be printed in this volume. 



268 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

parison might be made between the two songs — both 
exquisite in themselves — ^it might be said that Miss 
Elliot's song has far more of local allusion, and contains 
many brief and touching pictures of the simple manners 
of the country-side ; whereas Mrs Cockbum's song, beauti- 
fully finished as it is, and notwithstanding its thoroughly 
truthful allusion to the change from gay to grave, as 
often symbolised in the daily flow of the Tweed, has, 
except in spirit, less of the character of a native pro- 
duction. 

Both these songs owed part of their inspiration to the 
old tune of The Flowers of the Forest, which is to be 
found in the collection of John Skene of Hallyards, writ- 
ten between 1615 and 1620. To this tune there was a 
soxig as old as about the date of the battle of Flodden. 
The writers of both the modern versions must have 
known the ancient tune, and fragments of the earlier 
song. The line, 

" I have heard them liltin' at the ewes milkin*," 

and the refrain, 

" The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away," 

are ancient. There is also a picturesque and touching 
line of the old song, which brings back past manners in 
a most pathetic image : — 

" I ride single on my saddle, 
For the Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away." 

John Armstrong, M.D., son of the minister of Castle- 
ton, in Liddesdale, was bom in 1709, and died in 1779. 



BORDER POETKY — EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 269 

A physician by profession, he embarked on a literary 
life in London, was the friend of Thomson and of Mallet, 
and wrote, among other poems. The Art of Preserving 
Health (1744). In his description of angling in this 
poem, he recurs with great fondneaa and feeling to the 
scenes of his youthful days on the banks of the Liddel: — 

" The crystal rivulet, that o'er 
A Btonjr channel rolls its rapid maze. 
Swarms with the silver fry. Such, through the bounds 
or pastoral Stafford, runs the brawling Trent ; 
Such Eden, sprung from Cumbrian mountains ; such 
The Esk, o'erhung with woods ; and such the stwam 
On whose Arcadian banks I first drew air, 
Liddel ; till now except in Doric lays 
Tuned to her murmurs hy her love-sick swains, 
Unknown in song, though not a purer etream, 
Through meads wore dowery, more romantic groves, 
Rolls towards the west«rft main. Hail, sacred flood ! 
May still thy hospitable swains be blessed 
In rural innocence ; thy mountains still 
Teem with the fleecy race ; thy tuneful woods 
For ever flourish ; and thy vales look gay 
With painted meadows and the golden grain ! 
Oft, with thy blooming sons, when life was new, 
Sportive and petidant, and charmed with toys, 
In thy transparent eddies have 1 laved : 
Oft traced with patient steps thy fairy banks, 
With the well-imitated fly to hook 
The eager trout, and with the slender line 
And yielding rod solicit to the shore 
The struggling panting prey ; while vernal clouds 
And tepid gales obscured the ruffled pool. 
And from the depths called forth the wanton swarms." 



William Julius Mickle, born 1743, died 1788, was 
the son of the minister of Langholm. There he spent 
the first twelve years of his life. It is interesting to 



260 BOEDBE HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Lariston, beneath tlie high and wide-spreading fells of 
that wild and fascinating region, and at Redheugh on 
the Hermitage Water. Other places in Liddesdale were 
held by dependants of their name, as Park, and Copshaw. 
They were among the moat noted of the Borderers for 
rude enei^, rapine, and deadly feud. On the decay of 
the Douglases, the Elliots sided with the Scotts against 
the Kerrs, besides, doubtless, doing a good deal of 
business for their own hand. There was the fight near 
Melrose, in July 1526, for the rescue of the person of 
James V, from Augus, in which the Elliots are found 
allied with the Scotts : — 

" When Home and Douglas in the van 
Bore down Buccleuch's retiring clan. 
Till gallant CeBaford's heart-blood dear 
Beek'd on dark Elliot's Border spear." 

The Elliots were more fortunate than their Liddesdale 
compeers, the Armstrongs ; for while the latter have 
quite disappeared as landed men, the former passed over 
into Teviotdale, and succeeded in obtaining a hold of 
lands there. They now occupy the ancient possessions 
mainly of the TurnbuUs and the Kutherfords, names once 
of the greatest territorial importance. For, while Minto 
and Bedrule were originally the property of the Turn- 
bulls, Wells was not less the territory of the Eutherfords, 
The Elliot stock of Lariston and Kedheugh was repre- 
sented by the family of Stobs, and a cadet of Stobs, one 
Gavin Elliot, was laird and miller of Hidlem Mill, on 
the water of Ale, in the seventeenth century. Towards 
the end of that centuiy, Gilbert Elliot, younger son of 
Glavin of Midlem Mill, became a writer in Edinbuigh, 



POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 261 



afterwards passed at the Scottish Bar, rose to be a Lord 
of Session, and purchased the estate of Minto ; was 
finally made a Baronet in 1700. Since then the vitality 
of the family has found outlet in law, statesmanship, as 
well as in arms, and hardly less in culture and in song. 
Sir Gilbert Elliot, the seoond baronet of Minto, born in 
1693, followed his father's profession, and became Lord 
Justice - Clerk of Scotland. He was an accomplished 
Italian scholar, and was the author of the following 
pleasing vei-ses in that language, written to the old 
Scottish tune of The Yellow Hair'd Laddie, itself sup- 
posed to be a production of Eizzio. There is a decided 
flavour of the Forest about them : — 



" Veduto in prato 
II mio pastor, 
II crin coronato, 
D'un serto di fior. 

II sole negli occhi, 
La Fide Del een'. 
Ah ! dove s' asoonJe J 



Al bo9co, al monte, 



Ah ! cone Fedele 

Deh ! dimmi percbe, 
[1 mio crudele 

S' asconde di me 1 " 



" In the meadow I eaw him, 
My ehepheid, my own. 
He wore on his forehead 
Of sweet flowers a crown. 

In bia eyes was the sunshine, 
Faith's home was hie breast. 

Ah ! where is be hiding ? 
My loved one, my best ! 

By stream, grove, and mountain, 
I sought him in vain ; 

I found his dog Fido '. 
I found not my swain. 

Ah ! Fido I dear Fido ! 

Come tell me, I pray. 
Why my cruel one shuns me, 

What keeps him away 1 " ' 



The talents of the second baronet were transmitted to 
his eldest son, while his genius and taste shone even more 

' See Border Memoria, 1G4, b; W. Riddell Cure, Eaq. 



262 BORDER BISTORT AXD POETRY. 

brightly in bia tbird daughter, Jean. The former, also 
Sir Gilbert, passed advocate in 1743, but devoted him- 
self mainly to political life. He was for long member of 
Parliament for Koxburghshire, and Treasurer of the Navy, 
a man expert and sagacious in affairs, and distinguished 
by literary taste. He was the author of the well-known 
pastoral lyric in the manner of Shenstone : — 

" My ahecp I neglected, I lost my eheep-hook, 
And all the gaj htkunU of mj youth I fonook ; 
No more for Ajnynta fresh garlands I wove ; 
For atiibitioD, I aaid, would soon cure uie of love. 

Oh ! what had my youth with ambition to do? 
WhyleftI Amyntat Why broke I my vow? 
Ob, ^ivo 1110 my sbeep, and my sheep-hook restore, 
And I'll wander from love and Amynta no more. 

Through rujjionB remote in vain do I rove, 
And bill tlie nide oce«n secure rae from love ! 
Uh, fool J to inin},'ine that aught could subdue 
A love BO well founded, a passion so true t 

Alas ! 'tis too late at thy fate to repine ; 
I'oor shepherd, Amynta can never be thine : 
Thy tuura are all fruitless, thy wishes are vain, 
The nimneiits neglected return not again." 

Tliis ix the song to which Scott has referred yi The Lay 
ii/ tin: Lant M\n»inl, when, speaking of Minto Crags, he 
miys ; — 

" ClilTii which for many a later year 
Tbt' wurblint! Doric reed shall hear, 
When some sod swain shall teach the grove, 
Aiiihilion is no i-ure for love." 

Thi' lliinl Imnnu't died in 17T7, and bis son, the distin- 
tHiiMhwl liovornor-Ut'nenil of India, was created first Baroo 
tif M)ul» in I7!)7, and first Earl in 1814. 



BORDER POETRY — EIGHTEEKTH CENTURY. 263 

But it is to Jean Elliot, the sister of the author of this 
lyric, and third daughter of Sir Gilbert,^ the writer of the 
Italian song, that we owe something which we can never 
repay, and for which countless generations will bless her 
— one, and that the most delightful, version of The Flowers 
of the Forest : — 

" I've heard them liltin', at the ewe-initkin', 
Liuses u-liltin' before the dawn of day ; 
But now they are moanin' on ilka green loanin' ; ' 
The Flowera of the Forest are a' wede away. 

At bughtB, in the momin', nae blythe lads are Bconiin', 
The la^Ees are lonely and dowie and wae ; 
Nae daffin', nae gabbin', but nighiu' and aahbin', 
Ilk ane liltB her leglin,' and hies her away. 

In ha'ret, at the Bbearin', nae youths now are jeerin' ; 
The l>andsterB ore lyart, and runkled, and gray ; 
At fair, or at preachin', nae wooin', nae fleechin',' 
The Flowers of the Forest are a' weUe away. 

At e'en in the gloamin', nae younkerB are roamiu' 
'Bout stacks wi' the lasses at bogle to play ; 
But ilk maid sils drearie, lamentin' her dearie — 
The Flowen of the ForeM are a' wede away. 

Dule and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border ! 
The English, for anee, by guile wan the day ; 
T)ie Flowers of the Forest, that foucht aye the foremost, 
The prime o' our land, are cauld in the clay. 

We'll hear nae mair liltin' at the ewe-milkin', 
Women and halms are heartless and wae ; 
Sighin' and moanin' on ilka green loanin'— 
The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away." 



' While the brothers and aintcn of Jean Elliot are carefully mentioned 
u Burke's Peerage (ed. 1S93), Jean beneU is ignored. Who ia reiponuble 

' The green path to the out'fietd pasture, hence the pasture-field itself. 
' Milk-paiL * Flattering. 



she lived iiiid died uiniiarried, lii 
father. She is desrrihed as posse 
a slender, well-sha[)ed ligure. In 
served to strangers. In her convt 
attempts at wit, and, though poss 
she never allowed it to entice her ft 
of veracity. She had high aristo. 
she took no pains to conceal." T 
one intimately acquainted with M 
dently led a simple and uneventfu 
chiefly in Brown Square, Edinburg 
town residence of her family, Minto 
Sir Walter Scott from his boyhood, j 
friend to her death. She had an e 
genius, and anticipated his fame, i 
publication of The Eve of St John ai 
which Scott gave a place to her se 
the Forest. As a girl she doubth 
Shepherd, and The Lay of the Last 
few months before her death. Her 
gether the two charaicteristic epoch 
and Walter Scott 



BORDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 265 

turned on Flodden, that disaster which left a sadness on 
the hearts of Scotsmen and Scotswomen for three hun- 
dred years. The brother suggested to the sister, not per- 
haps believing much in her capacity for it, that this was 
a fitting subject for a song. She leant backwards in the 
carriage, and there, under the shadow of the nightfall, 
with the old refrain, " The Flowers of the Forest are a' 
wede away," sounding in her ear, as a stray echo from 
the past, and mingling in fancy with the scenery of her 
life and love, and under the kindling of her true human 
heart, she framed T?ie Mowers of the Fortit ; that immor- 
tal lyric, in which simple natural pictures of joy and 
sadness are so exquisitely blended and contrasted — in 
which pathos of heart - and patriotism of spirit, and a 
music that echoes the plaintive sough of the Border 
waters, passed, as it were spontaneously, into one con- 
summate outburst of song. 

The other version of The Flmoers of the Forest is due 
to Alison Rutherford, daughter of Robert Rutherford of 
Femilee, the scion of an old Border house, Rutherford 
of Hundalee. The Rutherfords now are mainly decayed, 
but they are still represented by Faimington and Edger- 
stone. Miss Rutherford became the wife of Patrick 
Cockbum, advocate, youngest son of Adam Cockburn, the 
Lord Justice-Clerk of Scotland, and brother of John Cock- 
burn of Ormiston, She was bom at Femilee House, by 
the Tweed, in Selkirkshire, in 1,'712, and she died in 1794, 
at the age of eighty-two. Her song is probably a little 
older than that of Miss Elliot, It appears to have been 
printed in 1766, but probably it was written at a con- 
siderably earlier period, some twelve years before we 



" l"\i' st'cii till' siiiiliiiL; 
( )t" t^trtuiic lM'_;niliii;_j, 

I've It'lt all its favours, ami f<»u 
Sweet was its blessing, 
Kind its caressing, 

But now it is fled — fled far far 
I've seen the Forest 
Adorned the foremost, 

With flowers of the fairest, mos 
Sae bonny was their bloom 
Their scents the air perfum 

But now they are wither'd, and 

I've seen the morning, 
With gold the hills adornini 

In loud tempest storming, before 
I've seen Tweed's silver stre 
Shining in the sunny beam, 

Qrow drumly and dark, as it roll 
O fickle Fortune ! 
Why this cruel sporting ? 

Oh, why thus torment us, poor 8« 
Nae mair your smiles can ch 
Nae mair your frowns can f< 

For the Flowers of the Forest are 

There is a copy of The Flowei^i 
Cockburn's handwriting. The linp 



BOEDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 267 

The following is a copy : — 

"Flowers of the Forheht, 
for Lady Helen Hftll. 

1. 
I've seen the smileing of Fortune beguileing 
I've felt all ita favours and found iu decay 
Sweet was its blessing kind ita carressing 
But now it is fled fled for far away. 
I've seen the Forrest adorned the formost 
With flowers of the fairest most pleasant and gay 
Sae bonny was their blooming their scents the air perfuming 
But now they ore withered and wade all away. 



I've seen the morning with gold the hills adorning 

In loud Tempest storming befor midle day 

I've seen Tweeds silver stream shining in the sunny beam 

Grow dnindy and dark as it rolld on its way. 

fickle Fortune why this cruel sporting 

Why thus torment us poor sons of a. day 

Nae mair your smiles can cheer me nae mair your frowns can 

For the Flowers of the Forrest are o wade away. 
A real picture of the Authors feelings." ' 

This last line is very significant : it rather points to the 
view that the song was written from a feeling of financial 
catastrophe, and has reference to a pecuniary disaster 
which overtook the Forest lairds and fanners in last 
century. But that of Miss Elliot, hoth from the circum- 
stance of its composition and its special allusion, was 
certainly composed as a memory of Flodden. If a com- 

* Copied from pbotogr*pb in poesesaion of Hies Ruaiell of AabiwtMl, 
kindly allowed by her to be printed in this volume. 



of tlu^ coiuili'v-side ; whereas ^rr> 
fullv liiiislied a^ it is, and nolwit 
Irutliful allusii)ii to tlie chaiiLie 
often symbolised in the daily 1 
except in spirit, less of the ch{ 
duction. 

Both these songs owed part of 
old tune of The Flowers of the 
found in the collection of John S 
ten between 1615 and 1620. I 
sopg as old as about the date of 
The writers of both the moder 
known the ancient tune, and fn 
song. The line, 

" I have heard them liltin' at tl 

and the refrain, 

" The Flowers of the Forest ar 

are ancient. There is also a pic 
line of the old song, which brings 
a most pathetic image : — 



BORDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTPEY. 269 

A physician by profession, he embarked on a literary 
life in London, was the friend of Thomson and of Mallet, 
and wrote, among other poems. The Art of Preserving 
Htalth (1744). In his description of angling in this 
poem, he recurs with great fondness and feeling to the 
scenes of his youthful days on the banks of the Liddel: — 

" The cryBtal rivulet, that o'er 
A stony channel rolU its rapid maze, 
SffamiB with the silver fry. Such, through the bounds 
Of pastoral Stafford, runs the brawling Trent j 
Such Edeu, sprung from Cumbrian mountains ; such 
The Esk, o'erhung with woods ^ and such the stKam 
On whose Arcadian banks I first drew air, 
Liddel ; till now except in Doric lays 
Tuned to her munnure by her love-sick swains, 
Unknown in song, though not a purer stream. 
Through meads more flowery, more romantic groves, 
Rolb towards the western main. Hail, sacred flood ! 
May still thy hospitable swains be blessed 
In rural innocence ; thy mountains Bt.il 1 
Teem with the fleecy race ; thy tuneful woods 
For ever flourish ; and thy vales look gay 
With painted meadows and the golden grain ! 
Oft, with thy blooming sons, when life was new, 
Sportive and petulant, and charmed with toys. 
In thy transparent eddies have I laved : 
Oft traced with patient steps thy fairy banks. 
With the well-imitated fly to hook 
The eager trout, and with the slender line 
And yielding rod solicit to the shore 
The struggling panting prey ; whUe vernal clouds 
And tepid gales obscured the ruffled pool, 
And from the depths called forth the wanton swarms." 



William Julius Mickle, born 1743, died 1788, was 
the son of the minister of Langholm. There he apeot 
the first twelve years of hia life. It ia interesting to 



Liiv: wiiLi'i's nt till* Ksk and tl 
(liK'tion of liis muse was EsIj 

ioY tlic Sci'lli'l'V of tlicx,' (laK'S 

Ill this respect the poem is s 
rank as a very close precursor o 
Borders : — 

" By the banks of the crystal-sti 

Where the Wauchope her yt 

Where the lambkins on sunny 

And wild woodbine the shej 

Maria, disconsolate maid ! 

Oft sighed the still noontide 
Or by moonlight all desolate st: 

While woeful she tuned her ] 

Ah, no more from the banks of 
My shepherd comes cheer'ly £ 

Broomholm and the Deansbank 
To echo the plaints of his son 

No more from the echoes of Ew 
His dog fondly barking I hea 

No more the tired lark he pursi 
And tells me his master draw 

Ah, woe to the wars and the pri 
Thy heroes, Esk, could dis] 
When witli io»^— 1- *^ 



BORDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CBSTURY. 271 

Ah, methinks bis pale corse Hoating by, 

I bebold on the rude billows tost ; 
Unburied bis scattered bones lie, 

Lie bleaching on aome desert coast. 

By this stream of the May-blossonted thorn. 
That first beard bis love-tale and hia vows, 

My pale ghost shall wander forlorn, 
And the willow shall weep o'er my brows. 

With the ghosts of the Woas will I wail, 

In Warblaw woods join the sad throng. 
To Hallow E'en's blast tell my tale. 
As the spectres, ungraved, glide along. 

Still the Ewes rolls her paly blue stream, 

Old Esk still his crystal tide pours, 
Still golden the Wauchope waves gleam. 

And still green, O Broomholm, are thj bowen. 

No ; blasted they eeem to my view, 

The rivers in red flooda combine ; 
The turtles their widow'd notes coo, 

And mix their sad ditties with mine. 

Discolour'd in sorrow's dim shade, 

All nature seems with me to raoum^ 
Straight tbe village-bells merrily play'd, 

And announced her dear Jamie's return. 



The woodlands all May-bl 


own appear, 


The sih 


■er streams muni 


Qur new charms 


As, smilin 


K, her Jamie dre 


wnear. 


And all 


eager sprung in 


to her arms." 



This song is somewhat laboured, aad deficient in ease of 
turn ; but the fusion of the love emotion with the aspects 
of nature, their mutual colouring and transfiguration, 
strongly forecast the peculiar character of the nineteenth- 
century love-lyrics of Scotland. It ia, in a word, the 
spirit of Tannahill, without the perfection of his art 



272 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

The natural spirit comes first ; and expression has to 
grow to finish through the years. 

The Kev. John Logan was a contemporary of Mickle. 
He was born at Soutra, in the parish of Fala, on the 
southern extremity of Mid-Lotbian, in 1748. He was 
one of the ministers of Leith from 1773 to 1786, when 
he resigned his chaise, and settled in London. He died 
in 1788. In 1770 appeared Poems on Several Oecasians 
by Michael Sruce, under the editorship of Logan, though 
his name was not given. Of the poems in this volume, 
Logan ultimately claimed as his own the story of Levinia, 
the Ode to Paoli, and the Cuckoo. The authorship of the 
last — one of the most exquisite poems in the langu^e — 
is still a matter of controversy between the friends of 
Bruce and Logan. 

Logan, like Hamilton of Bangour, caught inspiration 
from the Yarrow. It is the same strain of disappointed 
love. The loss of the lover in Logan's Braes of Yarrow, 
as in Willie's Hare and Willie's Fair, is due to the 
accident of drowning in the troubled and flooded stream. 
We have here also an illustration of how the Yarrow 
may appear joyous to the gladsome heart, and sad to the 
saddened spirit : — 

" Thy braea were bonny. Yarrow stream ! 

When first oa them I met my lover ; 

Thy braes, how dreary. Yarrow atream ! 

When now thy waves his body cover .' 

For ever now, O Yarrow stream ! 

Thou art to me a stream of sorrow ; 
For never on thy banks shall I 

Behold my love, the flower of Yarrow," 



BORDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 273 

■ Then comes a stanza which, for directness and vividness 
of suggestion — not speaking to the ear, but telling the 
incident to the imagination — is one of the most finished 
and impressive in poetry : — 

" HiB mother from the window looked, 
With all the longing of a mother ; 
His little sister weeping walk'd 
The green-wood path to meet her brother ; 

They sought him east, they sought him west, 
They sought him all the forest thorough ; 

They only saw the cloud of night, 
They only heard the roar of Yarrow ! " ' 



There were two men in last century who, though not 
natives of the Border land, have yet referred to it in 
poetry. The first name is that of an English clergyman, 
who has taken a place among the classical poets of 
Britain — at least his works are published in the series 
of one hundred volumes of the British poets. I refer 
to the Eev. John Langhome. He was born at Kirby 
Stephen in 1735, and died at Blagdon in Somersetshire, 
of which he was rector, in 1779. 

Churchill had attacked Lord Bute and Scotland in his 
Propiucy of Famine. To counteract, if possible, the sar- 
casm of the Prophecy, Langhome published, in 1763, 
Genius and Valour, a Scottish Pastoral, which he inscribed 
to Lord Bute, " as a tribute of respect from an impartial 
Englishman," Principal Bobertson, three years after the 
publication, sent to Langhome a complimentary letter, 

■ But it aeemi probable that this Uit ttann is from an old ballad. See 



274 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

with a diploma of the degree of Doctor of Divinity from 
the University of Edinburgh.' 

Genius and Valour haa the usual defects of the time ; 
it abounds in vague epithets and generalised phraseology 
that have no special application to the natural scenes 
described. Still, the poet has caught something of the 
echo of the places referred to, and their traditions. One 
or two lines will suffice as specimens : — 

" Where Tweed's fair streams in Liberal beauty lie, 
And Flora laughs beneath a lucid sky ; 
Lon^ winding valee where crystal wat«rs lave. 
Where blithe birds warble and where green woods wave, 
A bright-hair'd shepherd in young beauty's bloom, 
Tuned his sweet pipe behind the yellow broom." 

These lines sound well ; but that is all that is meritorious 
about them. There is in such lines aa these really not 
one characteristic epithet of the Tweed. They are an 
example simply of a mixture or make-up of certain 
approved ingredients for river scenery. 

Laughorne does much better when he refers with 
manly indignation to the atrocities of the days of the 
Eestoration — that cruellest, basest, and foulest time of 
English history : — 

" When through thy fields destructive rapine spread, 
Nor sparing infanl's tears, nor hoary head ; 
In those dread days the unprotected awoin 
Mourned on the mountains o'er his wasted plain ; 
Nor longer vocal with the shepherd's lay 
Were Yarrow banks or groves of Endermay," 

His reference to Thomson — the author of The Seasons 
— who was brought up on the banks of the Tweed and 

■ Brituh Poeti, Lanshorru, Ut. 12. 



BOEDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 275 

the Jed, and imbibed hia love of nature there, and on 

the slopes of the Cheviots, is well turned: — 

" Soon wandering fearless many a muse was seen 
On the dun mountain and the wild wood green ; 
Soon, to the warblingB of the pastoral reed. 
Started sweet echoes from the ahores of Tweed. 
favoured Rtream, where thy fair current flows. 
The child of nature, fientle Thomson, rose ! 
Young aa he wauder'd on thy flowery aide, 
\ytth simple joy to see thy bright waves glide. 
Thither in nil thy native charms array'd 
From climes remote the sister Seasons stray'd." 

With all Langhorue's sweetness of versification, the 
Ettrick Shepherd formed a very fair estimate of him 
when he said : — 

" Langhorne arriv'd from southern dale. 
And chimed his notes on Yarrow vale ; 
They would not, could not touch the heart — 
His WHS the modish lyre of art." 



Alexander Geddes, LL.D., the son of a small farmer 
in BanfTshire, was born in 1737, and he died in 1802, 
He was educated for the Eoman Catholic priesthood, and 
in 1765 became chaplain in the family of the sixth Earl 
of Traquair. The tradition is that a romantic attachment 
sprang up between the chaplain and one of the daughters 
of the house. But the lover sacrificed himself for the 
priest, and he left Traquair for France, where he prose- 
cuted for a time his linguistic and critical studies. Geddes 
was a man of remarkable scholarly accomplishments, and 
greatly too liberal in his theological opinions for the 
authorities of his Church. Among other writings, he 



268 BOEDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

patison might be made between the two songs — both 
exquisite in themselves — it might be said that Miss 
Elliot's song has far more of local allusion, and contains 
many brief and touching pictures of the simple manners 
of the country-aide ; whereas Mrs Cockburn's soug, beauti- 
fully finished as it is, and notwithstanding its thoroughly 
truthful allusion to the change from gay to grave, as 
often symbolised in the daily flow of the Tweed, has, 
except in spirit, less of the character of a native pro- 
duction. 

Both these songs owed part of their inspiration to the 
old tune of The Flowers of the Forest, which is to be 
found in the collection of John Skene of Hallyards, writ- 
ten between 1615 and 1620. To this tune there was a 
sopg as old as about the date of the battle of Flodden. 
The writers of both the modern versions must have 
known the ancient tune, and fragments of the earlier 
song. The line, 

" I have heard them liltia' at the ewee milkin'," 
and the refrain, 

" The Flowern of the Forest ore a' wede away," 

are ancient. There is also a picturesque and touching 
line of the old song, which brings back past manners in 
a most pathetic image : — 

" I ride single on my saddle, 
For the Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away." 

John Armstrong, M.D., son of the minister of Castle- 
ton, in Liddesdale, was bom in 1709, and died in 1779. 



BORDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTDRY. 269 

A physician by profession, he embarked on a literary 
life in London, was the friend of Thomson and of Mallet, 
and wrote, among other poems. The Art of Preserving 
Health (1744). In his description of angling in this 
poem, he recurs with great fondness and feeling to the 
scenes of his youthful days on the banks of the Liddel: — 

" The crystal rivulet, that o'er 
A stony channel rolls its rapid maze, 
Swarms with the silver fry. Such, through the bounds 
Of pastoral Stafford, runs the brawling Trent ; 
Such Eden, sprung from Cumbrian mountains ; such 
The Esk, o'erhung with woods ; and such the stneam 
On whose Arcadian banks I first drew air, 
Liddel ; till now except in Doric lays 
Tuned to her murmurs by her love-sick swains, 
Unknown in song, though not a purer stream, 
Through meads more flowery, more romantic groves, 
Rolls towards the western main. Hail, sacred flood ! 
May still thy hospitable swains be blessed 
In rural innocence ; thy mountains still 
Teem with the fleecy race ; thy tuneful woods 
For ever flourish ; and thy vales look gay 
With painted meadows and the golden grain ! 
Oft, with thy blooming sons, when life was new. 
Sportive and petulant, and charmed with toys. 
In thy transparent eddies have I laved : 
Oft traced with patient steps thy fairy banks. 
With the well-imitated fly to hook 
The eager trout, and with the slender line 
And yielding rod solicit to the shore 
The struggling panting prey ; while vernal clouds 
And tepid gales obscured the ruffled pool, 
And from the depths called forth the wanton swarms." 



William Julius Mickle, born 1743, died 1788, was 
the son of the minister of Langholm. There he spent 
the first twelve years of his life. It is interesting to 



270 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

find that, after a checkered career in England and 
abroad, the translator of The Idcsiad, and the author 
of Gumnor Hall, fondly returned in imagination, towards 
the close of his life, to the haunts of his boyhood by 
the waters of the Esk and the Ewes. The last pro- 
duction of his muse was Eskdode Braes. The feeling 
for the scenery of these dales is true, tender, and full. 
In this respect the poem is so modem in tone as to 
rank as a very close precursor of the latest lyrics of the 
Borders : — 

" By *he banks of the crystal-stream'd Esk, 

Where the Wauchope her yellow wave joins, 
Where the lambkins on sunny braes bask, 
And wild woodbine the shepherd's bower twines, 

Maria, disconsolate maid ! 

Oft sighed the still noontide away, 
Or by moonlight all desolate strayed, 

While woeful she tuned her love lay : 

Ah, no more from the banks of the Ewes, 

My shepherd comes cheer'ly along, 
Broomholm and the Deansbanks refuse 

To echo the plaints of his song. 

No more from the echoes of Ewes, 

His dog fondly barking I hear ; 
No more the tired lark he pursues, 

And tells me his master draws near. 

Ah, woe to the wars and the pride. 

Thy heroes, Esk, could display. 
When with laurels they planted thy side, 

From France and from Spain borne away. 

Oh, why did their honours decoy 

My poor shepherd lad from the shore ; 
Ambition bewitch'd the vain boy. 

And oceans between us now roar. 



BORDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CESTORY. 271 

Ah, methinks his pale corae floatiiig hy, 

I behold on the rude billows tost ; 
Unboned his scattered bones lie. 

Lie bleaching on some desert coaat. 

By this stream of the May-blosBomcd thorn, 
That first heard his love-tale and his vows. 

My pale ghost shall wander forlorn. 
And the willow shall weep o'er my brows. 

With the ghosts of the Waas will I wail. 

In Warblaw woods join the sad throng, 
To Hallow E'en'B blast telt my tale. 

As the spectres, iingraved, glide along. 

Still the Ewes rolls her poly blue stream, 

Old Esk still his crystal tide pours, 
Still golden the Wauchope waves gleam, 

And still green, Broomholm, ore thy bowers. 

No ; blasted they seem to my view, 

The rivers in red floods combine ; 
The turtles their widowed notes coo, 

And mix their sad ditties with mine. 

Discolour'd in sorrow's dim shade. 

All nature seems with me to mourn — 
l^traight the villi^e-belts merrily play'd. 

And announced her dear Jamie's return. 

The woodlands all May-blown appear, 
The silver streams murmur new charms, 

As, smiling, her Jamie drew near, 
And all eager sprung in to her arms." 

This song is somewhat laboured, and deficient in ease of 
turn ; but the fusion of the love emotion with the aspects 
of nature, their mutual colouring and transfiguration, 
strongly forecast the peculiar character of the nineteenth- 
century love-lyrics of Scotland. It is, in a word, the 
spirit of Tannabill, without the perfection of his art. 



272 BORDEK HISTORY AND POETRY. 

The natural spirit comes first; and expression has to 
grow to finish through the years. 

The Rev. John Logan was a contemporary of Mickle. 
He was born at Soutra, in the parish of Fala, on the 
southern extremity of Mid-Lotbian, in 1748. He was 
one of the ministers of Leith from 1773 to 1786, when 
he resigned his charge, and settled in London. He died 
in 1788. In 1770 appeared Poems on Several Occasions 
hy Michael Bmce, under the editorship of Logan, though 
his name was not given. Of the poema in this volume, 
Logan ultimately claimed as his own the story of Levinia, 
the Ode to Paoli, and the Cuckoo. The authorship of the 
last — one of the most exquisite poems in the language — 
is still a matter of controversy between the friends of 
Bruce and Logan. 

Logan, like Hamilton of Bangour, caught inspiration 
from the Yarrow. It is the same strain of disappointed 
love. The loss of the lover in Logan's Sraes of Yarrtyu}, 
as in IViliie's Bare and Willie's Fair, is due to the 
accident of drowning in the troubled and flooded stream. 
We have here also an illustration of how the Yarrow 
may appear joyous to the gladsome heart, and sad to the 
saddened spirit : — 

" Thy brasH were bonny, Yarrow stream ! 

When firat on them I met my lover ; 

Thy braes, how dreary. Yarrow stream ! 

When now thy wavea his body cover ! 

For ever now, Yarrow Htream ! 

Thou art to me a stream of sorrow ; 
For iteTei on thy banks shall I 

Behold my love, the flower of Yarrow." 



BOfiDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTUfiY. 273 

Then comes a stanza which, for directness and vividness 
of suggestion — not speaking to the ear, but telling the 
incident to the imagination — is one of the most finished 
and impressive in poetry : — 

" His mother from the window looked, 
With all the longing of a mother ; 
His little eiater weeping walk'd 
The green-wood path to meet her brother ; 

They sought hira east, they sought him west. 
They sought him all the forest thorough; 

They only saw the cloud of night, 
They only heard the roar of Yarrow ! " ' 



There were two men in last century who, though not 
natives of the Border land, have yet referred to it in 
poetry. The first name ia that of an English clergyman, 
who has taken a place among the classical poets of 
Britain — at least his works are published in the series 
of one hundred volumes of the British poets. I refer 
to the Rev, John LangUome. He was born at Kirby 
Stephen in 1735, and died at Blagdon in Somersetshire, 
of which he was rector, in 1779. 

Churchill had attacked Lord Bute and Scotland in his 
Prophecy of Famine. To counteract, if possible, the sar- 
casm of the Prophecy, Langhome published, in 1763, 
Genius and Valour, a Scottish Pastoral, which he inscribed 
to Lord Bute, " as a tribute of respect from an impartial 
Englishman." Principal Bobertson, three years after the 
publication, sent to Langhome a complimentary letter, 

' But it aeemi probable that this lut ataiiza ij> from an old btllad. &e« 
above, ii. 20S. 

VOL. II S 



274 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

with a diploma of the degree of Doctor of Divinity from 
the University of Edinburgh.^ 

Genius and Valour has the usual defects of the time ; 
it abounds in vague epithets and generalised phraseology 
that have no special application to the natural scenes 
described. Still, the poet has caught something of the 
echo of the places referred to, and their traditions. One 
or two lines will suf&ce as specimens : — 

" Where Tweed's fair streams in liberal lieanty lie. 
And Flora laughs beneath a lucid eky ; 
Long winding voles where crjBtal waters lave, 
Where blithe birds warble and where green woods wave, 
A bright-liair'd shepherd in young beauty's bloom. 
Tuned hie sweet pipe behind the yellow broom," 

These lines sound well ; but that is all that is meritorious 
about them. There is in such lines as these really not 
one characteriatic epithet of the Tweed. They are an 
example simply of a. mixture or make-up of certain 
approved ingredients for river scenery. 

Langhorne does much better when he refers with 
manly indignation to the atrocities of the days of the 
Bestoration — that cruellest, basest, and foulest time of 
English history : — 

" When through thy fields destructive rapine spread, 
Nor sparing infant's tears, nor hoary head ; 
In those dread days the unprotected swain 
Mourned on the mountains o'er hia wasted plain ; 
Nor longer vocal with the shepherd's lay 
Were Yarrow banks or groves of Endermay." 

His reference to Thomson — the author of The Seasons 
— who was brought up on the banks of the Tweed and 

' BritUk Poeti, Langlume, Ixt, 12. 



BOEDER POETRY — EIGHTEENTH CENTCRY. 275 

the Jed, and imbibed his love of nature there, and on 
the slopea of the Cheviots, is well turned: — 

" Soon wandering fearless maiij a rouse was Bccn 
On the dun mountain and the wild wood green ; 
Soon, to the warblinHS of the pastoral reed, 
Slarted sweet echoes from the ahoreB of Tweed. 
O favoured streaiii, where thy fair current flows, 
The child of nature, genite Thomson, rose ! 
Young as he wander'd on thy flowery side. 
With simple joy to see thy bright waves glide, 
Thither in all thy native charms array'd 
From climea remote the eister Seasons stray'd." 

With all Langhorne's sweetness of versification, the 
Ettrick Shepherd formed a very fair estimate of him 
when he said : — 

" Lnnghnrne arriv'd from southem dale. 
And chimed his notes on Yarrow vale ; 
They would not, could not touch the heart — 
His was the modish lyre of art." 



Alexander Geddes, LL.D., the son of a small farmer 
in Banffshire, was bom in 1737, and he died in 1802. 
He was educated for the Boman Catholic priesthood, and 
in 1765 became chaplain in the family of the sixth Earl 
of Traquair. The tradition is that a romantic attachment 
sprang up between the chaplain and one of the daughters 
of the house. But the lover sacrificed himself for the 
priest, and he left Traquair for France, where he prose- 
cuted for a time his linguistic and critical studies. Geddes 
was a man of remarkable scholarly accomplishments, and 
greatly too liberal in his theological opinions for the 
authorities of his Church. Among other writings, he 



276 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

published two volumes of a translation of the Bible in 
1792 and 1797. The family of Traquair continued to 
befriend him during a somewhat checkered career. In 
1781 he paid a visit to Charles, the seventh earl, at 
Traquair House, and there wrote a poem entitled Livion, 
a Tweeddale Pastoral, in honour of the birth of a son and 
heir to the noble bouse. This son — Gharies, Lord 
LintoD — succeeded his father as eighth earl in 1827, 
and died in 1861, when the earldom and barony became 
dormant. 

Dr Geddes is the author of the popular song The Wee 
Wijukie, and the fine Jacobite lyric Lewie Gordon. But 
neither Langhome nor Geddes can be said to have added 
anything to the development of Tweedaide poetry and 
song. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



MODERN PERIOD — LEYDEN, EOGG, AND SCOTT. 



When, about the beginning of the century, Walter Scott 
was busy collecting the materials of the Minstrel^, he 
made the acquaintance of a youth of kindred spirit with 
his own — John Leyden. Leyden entered into the work 
with characteristic enthusiasm, and contributed more 
perhaps than any other assistant of Scott to form the 
first two volumes of 1802. Leyden was a typical 
Scotsman — we may say a typical Borderer. His career 
from his birth in 1775, in the lowly cottt^e at Denholm, 
under the slopes of the rugged Ruberslaw, then darkly 
clothed with heather, to his death, in 1811, in Java, at 
the early age of thirty-six, is one of the most self-depen- 
dent, manly, and energetic on record. His was one of 
those " broken lives " with lofty promise and purpose 
unfulfilled, which add to the mysteries and unavailing 
regrets incidental to our present state. The muse of 
Scottish poetry and the muse, of Eastern learning might 
equally mourn his untimely fate. 

" His bright and brief career ia o'er, 
And mute his tanefal Htrains ; 



278 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Quenched ia his lamp of varied lore, 
That loved the light of Bong to pour ; 
A diatant and a deadly shore 
Haa Leyden'a cold remains." 

Or, as Hogg has finely said of him : — 

" Sweet mug the harp to Logan's hand ; 
Then Lejden came from Border Land, 
With dauntless heart and ardour high. 
And vrild impatience in his eye. 
Though false his tones at times might be, 
Though wild notes marr'd the symphony 
Between, the flowing measure stole 
That spoke the Bard'a inspired bouI. 
Sad were those strains, when hymn'd afar, 
On the green vales of Malabar : 
O'er seas beneath the golden mom, 
They travell'd, on the monsoon borne, 
Thrilling the heart of Indian maid. 
Beneath the wild banana's shade. 
Leyden, a shepherd wails thy fete. 
And Scotland knows her lou too late ! " 

Leyden made two contributions of Border ballads to 
the Miiiatrdsy — Lord Soulis and The Coxit of Keeldar} 
These were of the romantic type, and a true outcome of 
the old spirit They were, besides, among the first of 
the modem Border ballads which showed that loving 
sympathy with the aspects of hill, stream, and glen, as 
objects of poetic interest, which has since become an 
independent element in the poetry of the district : — 

" Bat onward, onward Keeldar past, 
Swift as the winter wind, 
When, hovering on the driving blast, 
The snow flakes tall behind. 



LEYDEN, HOGO, AND SCOTT. 279 

They pass'd the miiir of benieB blae, 

The Btone cross on the lee ; 
They reach'd the green, the bonny brae. 

Beneath the birchen tree. 

This in the bonny brae, the green, 

Yet gaored to the brave, 
Where still, of ancient aize, is aeen, 

Gigantic Keeldai'e grave. 

The lonely Bhepherd loves to mark 

The daisy springing fuir, 
Where weeps the birch of silver bark, 

With long diahevell'd hair. 

The grave is green, and round is spread 

The curling lady-fern ; 
That fatal day the mould was red. 

No moss was on the Cairo." 

Leyden'a chief poem is The Scenes of It^ancy, laid 
mainly in Teviotdale, his native valley. Its references 
and descriptions are not, however, confined to the vale 
of the Teviot itself — some thirty miles of varied and 
picturesque country. These extend to the whole district 
anciently known as Teviotdale, the tract of country be- 
tween the north-western watershed of the Teviot and the 
ridge of the Cheviots. The poem was finally revised for 
publication on the eve of his departure for India. It is 
deficient in connection and unity, but is, at the same 
time, of remarkable merit. The feelings and impressions 
of early boyhood, the stories and traditions he had learnt 
in youth, are fused with passages of local description of 
great vividness and power. He has an intensity of feel- 
ing which reminds one of Bums, and we see in him 
those influences of story and locality at work which sub- 
sequently nourished and developed to greater perfection 



280 BORDER HISTORY AHD POETRY. 

the geniua of his more Fortunate compeer and friend, 
Walter Scott. 

The Fourth Part o£ the Scenes contains a passage too 
characteristic of the poet and the man to be passed over. 
On a morning in November 1790, when a lad of fifteen, 
he set out from his father's cottage at Denholm on a 
long day's journey to Edinburgh, to commence attend- 
ance on the classes of the University there, with a view 
to study for the Church. His father, a worthy farm- 
grieve, accompanied him half-way with a horse, which 
father and son rode alternately. Then the youth was 
left to finish the journey by himself on foot He pur- 
sued his way alone, unaccompanied save by what only 
the future poet would have noticed — his own shadow. 
And thus, years afterwards, when the whole scene had 
become a pleasant memory, he beautifully alludes to the 
incident : — 



Pause when I atop, and when I careless bend 

M7 atepe, obsequiously their course attend ; 

So faitlileBS friends, tKat leave the wretch to tnouni. 

Still with the sunshine of his days return ; 

Yet oft, since first I left these valleys green, 

I, but for thee, componiontess had been. 

To thee I talk'd, nor felt myself alone. 

While summer suns and living moonbeams shone. 

Oft, while an infant, playful in the sua, 

I hoped thy silent gambols to outrun, 

And, as I viewed thee ever at my side. 

To overleap thy hastening figure tried. 

Oft, when with flaky snow the fields were white, 

Beneath the moon I started at thy sight, 

Ey'd thy huge stature with suspicioits mien. 

And thought I had my evil genius seen. 



LEYDEN, HOGG, AKD SCOTT. 281 

But when I left my father's old abode. 

And thou the Bole companion of my road, 
As sad I paiieed, and fondly looked behind. 
And almost deemed each face I met unkind, . 
While kindling hopes to boding fears gave place, 
Thou Beem'dst the ancient spirit of my race. 
In startled Fancy's ear I heard thee say : 
' Ha ! I will meet thee after many a day, 
When youth's impatient joys, too fierce to last, 
And fancy's wild illusions, all are past ; 
Yes ! I will come when scenes of youth depart. 
To ask thee for thy innocence of heart.' " ' 

Among his numerous local allusions, Leyden has noted a 
fact which is of the greatest interest to the student of the 
jesthetic feeling for nature, whether in Border or in British 
poetry. The eighteenth-century heartlessneaa and con- 
ventionalism, so far as any feeling for nature and truth- 
fulness of description are concerned, are well known. 
One of the men who broke through the hollow style, and 
brought men face to face with the real outward world of 
sight and sound, and touched, too, not unfrequently on 
some of its finest lessons, was James Thomson, a son of 
the Scottish manse. His father, at first minister of 
Ednam on the Eden, in the Merse, was translated, while 
his son was still a boy, to Southdean, high up on the Jed, 
in the folds of the Cheviots, There the poet of The 
Seasons learned his love of free nature, saw the grandest 
things he has pictured, saw especially that winter storm 
which haunted his memory, until imagination idealised it 
years afterwards when he wrote on the banks of the 
Thames. It was thus that the life-blood of the Border 
country and the spirit of its scenery were poured into 

> Setna of Infamy, Part W. 



282 BORDER HISTORY AKD POETRY. 

the sickly heart of the British poetry of nature. Leyden 
has sketched the rise of Thomson's genius in nervous 
verse, which shows tlie spirit of observation and fidelity 
to the outward aspect of things, characteristic of himself, 
as well as of the man whom he depicts : — 

" To thee, fair Jed ! a holier WTeath ie due, 
Who gav'et thy ThomBon all thy Bcenes to view, 
Bad'st forma of heautj on his viaioii roll, 
And mould to harmony his ductile bouI ; 
Till Fancy's pictures rose, as nature bright, 
And bis warm hosom glowed with heavenly light 

In March, when first elate on tender wing, 

Cer frozen heaths the iarlc essays to sing ; 

In March, when first, before the lengthening days, 

The snowy mantle of the earth decays. 

The wreaths of crunted snows are painted blue, 

And yellowy moss BBSumee a greener hue — 

How amil'd the bard, from winter's funeral um 

To see more fair the youthful earth return ! 

When morn's wan rays with clearer crimson blend. 

And first the gilded mists of spring ascend. 

The sun-beams swim through April's silver showers, 

The daffodils expand their yellow flowers, 

The lusty stalk with sap luxuriant awells, 

And, curling round it, smile the bursting bells. 

The blowing kiug'Cup hank and valley stud^ 

And on the rosiers nod the folded buds ; 

Warm beats hia heart to view the mead's array. 

When flowers of summer hear the steps of May. 

But, when the wintry hiast the forest heaves, 
And shakes the harvest of the ripen'd leaves ; 
When brighter scenes the painted woods display 
Than fancy's fairy pencil can portray, 
He pensive strays, the sadden'd groves amon);. 
To hear the twittering swallows' farewell song. 
The finch no more on pointed thistle feeds, 
Pecks the red leaves, or crops the swelling seeds ; 



LEYDEN, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 283 

But water-crowB by cold brook-marginB play, 
Lave their dork plumage in the freezing Bpray, 
AdcI, -waoton, a» from stone to Btone they glide, 
Dive at their beckoning forms beneath tlie tide. 
He heara at eve the fetter'd bittern's ecream. 
Ice-bound in sedgy manth, or mountain stream, 
Or sees, with strange delight, the snow cloiida form 
Wlien Ruberslaw conceives the mountain atonn ; 
Dark Euherelaw ! that lifts his head sublime. 
Ragged and hoary with the wrecks of time ! 
On his broad misty front the ginnt wears 
The horrid furrows often thousand years ; 
His aged brows are crown'd with curling fern, 
Where perches, grave and lone, the hooded Erne, 
Majestic bird I by ancient shepherds styled 
The lonely hermit of the russet wild, 
That loves amid the stormy blast to soar, 
When through disjointed cliffs the tempests roar, 
Climbs on strong wing the storm, and, screaming high. 
Rides the dim rack that sweeps the darken'd sky. 

Such were the scenes hia fancy first refin'd, 
And breathed enchantment o'er his plastic mind, 
Bade every feeling flow, to virtue dear. 
And formed the poet of the varied year." ' 

Of the three greatest names in modem Border poetry 
— Leyden, Hogg, and Scott — Leyden is the earliest of 
the three ; and he has made to it an important and 
characteristic contribution. He was the first fuUy to feel 
and to depict the power of the scenery of the Borders, 
whether the soft and tender, or the wild and grand, such 
as he found it in the haughs and hills, in the summer 
gleams, and the winter stormB of his native Teviotdale. 
He was faithful to what he saw around him ; he was 
bold enough to treat it aa a self-sufficient object of poetic 
art. If the Semes of Infwnxy be not a very finished or 
■ Scoiw of Infancy, Part iii. 



« 



284 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

consecutive poem — rather a series of pictures and allu- 
sions, art working, too, upon a certain tumultuous feeling, 
of which it did not quite obtain the mastery — the poem 
is at least the courageous expression of a pure heart, a 
faithful observation, and a fine fancy revelling in a new 
&ad freah field, which was rich in wealth and blessing for 
the future. 

In the spring of 1813 there appeared a poem with the 
following dedication : — 

"TO 

HER ROYAL HianNESS 

PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF WALES, 

A SHEPHERD 

AMONQ THE ^OVNTAIXS OF SCOTLAND 

DEDICATES THIS POEM." 

The shepherd in this act, somewhat boldly but not inap- 
propriately, laid at the feet of high rank the offering of 
high genius ; for the " poem " was none other than The 
Queen's Wake. 

Although its author never acquired much art in con- 
structing a story, or skill in depicting character, and his 
composition both in prose and verse is frequently dis- 
figured by mean and coarse expressions, the Ettrick 
Shepherd yet stands out in this century as one of the 
Scotsmen of truest, finest native genius — filling a place 
in Scottish poetry which is unique, having done certain 
things which no other Scottish poet has done so well. 
Bom in a cottage near Ettrick Kirk as early as 1770 
— though he himself gives the year as 1772 — the 



LEYDEN, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 285 

Shepherd, at the date of the dedication of The Wake, 
was forty -three; and it was not till now that his genius 
blossomed and fruited, never again in his life with such 
a wealth of poesy. Every Borderer ought to have a 
kindly word and a comer of admiration in his heart for 
James Hogg — man and poet. For when shall we see 
such another shepherd ? There is not in all Border his- 
tory a more complete type of a man of power nourished 
by the Border glens and streams, haughs and hiUa, story, 
ballad, and tradition, than he. There is no more com- 
plete example anywhere of the rise to intellectual emi- 
nence of a nearly entirely self-taught man. In this respect 
even Bums had advantages superior to his. Sent to 
herd ewes when he was but seven years old, he suETered 
all the hardships of orra farm - work till he was six- 
teen, when, with great pride, he attained to the dignity 
of a shepherd with a kirsel, and in this capacity he re- 
mained until he was thirty. Tn all that time he had 
but half a year's schooling, at desultory intervals — from 
which he carried away a little reading and a penmanship 
that could hardly be called penmanship. Hogg in fact 
taught himself to read, he taught himself to write, and 
he taught himself to rhyme ; for, though the soul of 
poetry was in him from the beginning, he had at first a 
very imperfect sense of rhyme, and it was only after 
many trials and long and patient labour that he attained 
to " the accomplishment of verse " — strange as this may 
seem to those who know and feel the exquisite melody of 
many of his lines. 

But, imperfect as his school instruction was, he had a 
source of education, and to him inspiration, which, to a 



286 BOBDEE HISTORY AND POETBY. 

man of deep and impassioned soul, is the best of all. He 
had a noble mother — a good, true, and tender woman, 
assiduous in daily duty, with a freshness of heart and a 
quickness of head that brightened toil, — Mai^aret Laid- 
law, let us record her name. From her he learned, and 
learned to feel, the legendary lore, story, tradition, song, 
and ballad of the district. This was the seed out of 
which his genius was ultimately, though slowly, devel- 
oped. Hogg was potentially a poet from his mother's 
knee ; the efforts of his Kfe were simply a struggle for 
expression — a struggle hindered of earlier success owing 
to his imperfect schooling. Let us hear from himself 
what nourished his genius, and note its beauty, its truth, 
and its power : — 

" list the mystic lore sublime. 
Of fairy tales of ancient time ! 
I learned them in the lonely glen, 
The last abodes of living men. 
Where never stranger came onr way, 
By summer night, or winter day ; 
Where neighbouring hind or cot was none — 
Our converse was with heaven alone — 
With voices through the clouds that sung, 
And brooding storms that round us bung. 
Oh, lady ! judge, if judge ye may, 
How stern and ample was the sway 
Of themes like tbcae when darkness fell, 
And grey-baired sires tbe tale would tell ! 
When doors were barred, and elder dame 
Plied at her task beside Ibe flame 
That through the smoke and gloom alone 
On dim and umber'd faces shone — 
The bleat of mountain goat on high 
That from the clilT came quavering by; 
The echoing rock, the rushing flood. 
The cataract's swell, the moaning wood; 



LEYDEN, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 28 ( 

The mide fined and mingled hum, 
Voice of the deaert, never dumb ! 
All these have left within this heart 
A feeling tongue can ne'er impart; 
A wiltlered and unearthly flame, 
A something that's witliout a name." 

The spring-time of his genius was the ten years from 
1790 to 1800, when he herded at Blackhouse in the 
Douglas Burn, and had the advantage of the kindly 
sympathy, aid, and advice of his master's son — William 
Laidlaw — one who has left all too little for the lovers of 
simple pathos and the well-wishers of the Scottish muse. 
I like to picture Hogg at this period as he herded on the 
Hawkshaw Rig up the Douglas Burn — a dark heathery 
slope of the Blackhouse Heights, which divides the Black- 
hope Burn from the other main feeders of the Douglas. 
There, on a summer day, during these ten years, you 
would find on the hill a ruddy-faced youth, of middle 
height, of finely symmetrical and agile form, with beam- 
ing light-blue eyes and a profusion of light-brown hair 
that fell over his shoulders, long, fair, and lissome as a 
woman's. The time is between the middle of July and 
the middle of September, when his duty is to " summer 
the lambs." These had simply to be moved from place 
to place ; and this was done by " Hector " or his suc- 
cessor — the Shepherd's collie and friend. Now was the 
opportunity of the shepherd-student. With the lambs 
quietly pasturing, he sets to work, produces a sheet or 
two of paper folded and stitched, has an inkhom stuck 
in a hole of his waistcoat with a cork and a bit of twine, 
and a stump of a pen, and there he thinks out his verses, 
— writes them, in fact, all through on the tablet of memory. 



288 BORDEB HISTOBT AKD POBtAY. 

and thee commits the production which he has already 
fiuished and polished in his mind to paper. Is not thus 
the stanza Which he addressed to trusty Hector in his 
old age most appropriate ? — 

"When ga/ing o'er the Lowland dales. 
Despondence on the breeze shall flee ; 
And muses leave their native vales 
To scale the clouds wi' you an' me." 

What kind of poetic impulse and cast of genias was 
likely to come out of this ? Let us look at the sur- 
roundings. It is a lone wild scene this Hawkshaw Eig. 
The grains of the bum spread out on each side, like 
arms stretched upwards, to the dark overhanging and 
environing heights of Blackhouse, scored deep with peat- 
b<^, and su^estive of wild work of the winter wind 
and the winter night. These heights shut him in ou 
the north and west, while on the east the benty moor- 
land opens and widens to the head of the watershed of 
the Quair. There, on this moorland at the head of 
the Itisp Syke, are the grey weird stones which mark 
the scene of the Douglas Trt^edy. Below, in the 
valley of the Burn, as it sweeps to the Yarrow, is 
Blackhouse Tower, carrying the thought back along the 
checkered flow of Scottish story to the early kings, 
when, from that tower, or one on its site, the lord 
of the Douglas Burn rode to a Parliament of Malcolm 
Canmore. Awe and solitude, legendary tale, and the 
shadows of old memories, are all round about him. But 
there is also a sweet strange beauty, for the heather is 
in bloom, and there are numberless gentle birks down in 
the cleughs, and green spots of rare grassy beauty by the 



LEYDEN, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 289 

burn-sides ; and the many-branched feeders of the bum 
themselves make a soft, pulsing, intermittent sough and 
hum, that charms'the ear and inclines the soul to tender- 
ness and pathos and all gentle thoughts and feelings. 
It is as if soft beaiity of sight and sound lay quiet at the 
heart of solitude and fear. 

Now it was here, in these long summer days that 
extend from mom to gloamin', and amid similar scenes 
in Ettrick and in Yarrow, that this simple, untaught, yet 
impassioned shepherd lad, with his heart full of the lore 
his mother and grey-haired men had taught him, de- 
veloped the peculiar cast of his poetic genius. It was 
thus he learned to love simple, free, solitary nature so 
intensely ; it was thus that his heart soared with, and 
yearned after, the Skylark of a morning, and swelled into 
lyric passion of an evening "■when the kye comes hame"; 
it was thus he learned to conceive those exquisite visions 
of Fairy and Fairyland which he has embodied in Kil- 
meny, to feel and express the power of the awful and 
weird in a way such as almost no modern poet has 
expressed them, as in The Fate of MacGregor, The Abbot 
MacKinnon, TJie Witch of Fife, and others — to revel, in 
a word, in a remote, ideal, supersensible, yet most 
ethereal beauty and grandeur, which has a spell we do 
not seek to analyse. Away in the Blackhouse glen, 
remote from man and human life, along with his bleating 
lambs and his dog, it is not wonderful that the Shepherd 
passed into and soared so high in the world of vision. 
May we not pardon the vaunting stanza of his old age : — 

" I am a king I luj regal Bway 
Stretches o'er Scotland's mountains high, 



290 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

And o'er the fairy vales that lie 
Beneath the glimpBes of the moon, 
Or round the ledges of the sk;. 
In twilight's everlasting noon." ' 

I have spoken of Ho^'a intense feeling for simple 
nature, and of ita power over him as a means of culture. 
Let ua hear what he himself says on this point, and with 
what pictorial power the man who had only half a year's 
Bchooling wrote of acenes which hundreds of men had 
lived among, and felt, it may be, in their hearts, but 
coald not embody in woi-ds :— 

"The Bard on Ettrick's mountains gtueii 
In Nature's bosom nuTsed had been, 
And oft had marked Id forest tone 
Her beauties on her mountain throne ; 
Had seen her deck the wild wood tree, 
And star with snowy gems the lea ; 
In loveliest colours paint the plain, 
And sow the moor with purple grain ; 
By golden mead and mountain sheer, 
Had viewed the Et trick waving clear, 
Where shadowy flocks of purest snow 
Seemed grazing in a world below. 

Oft had he viewed, as morning rose, 
The bosom of the lonely Lowes, 
Ploughed far by many a downy keel, 
Of wild-duck and of vagrant teal. 
Oft thrilled the heart at close of even, 
To see the dappled vales of Heaven, 
With many a mountain, moor, and tree, 
Asleep upon the St Mary; 
The pilot awau majestic wind. 
With all his cygnet fleet beliind. 
So softly sail and swiftly row. 
With sable oar and silken prow. 

' J/oniton, 399, 



LBYDEN, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 291 

Instead of war'a unhallowed form, 
His eye had seen the thunderstorm 
Descend within the mountain's brim, 
And shroud him in its chambers grim ; 
Then from its howels burst amain 
The sheeted flume and sounding rain, 
And by the bolts in thunder borne, 
The Iieaven's own breast and mountain torn ; 
The wild roe from the forest driven i 
The oaks of oges peeled and riven ; 
Impending oceans whirl and boil, 
Convulsed by nature's grand turmoil." ' 

What exquisite sweetness, melody, and truthfulness to 
nature have we here ! It is the lyric at the close of 
The Wake:— 

"The wreath lies on St Mary's shore ; 

The mountain sounds are harsh and lond ; 
The lofty brows of stem Clockmore 
Are visored with the moving cloud. 

But winter's deadly hues shall fade 

On moorland bald and mountain shaw. 

And soon the rainbow's lovely shade, 
Sleep on the breast of Bowerhope Law ; 

Then will tlie glowing suns of spring. 
The genial s]iower and stealing dew, 

Wake every forest bird to sing. 
And every mountain flower renew. 

But not the rainbow's ample ring. 
That spans the glen and monntaia gray. 

Though fanned by western breezes' wing. 
And sunned by summer's glowing ray, 

To man decayed, can evermore 

Kenew the age of love and glee ! 
Can ever second spring restore 

To my old mountain harp and me ! 

1 The Wake—TmA Bard. 



292 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

But when the hue of softened green 

Spreads over hill and lonelj lea, 
And lowly primroBe opea unseen 
Her virgin boBOm to the bee ; 

When liawthomB breathe their odours far. 

And Carols hail the year's return ; 
And daisy spreads her eUver star, 

Unheeded, by the mountain bum ; 

Then will I seek the aged thorn, 

The haunted wild and fairy ring, 
Where oft thy erring numbers home 

Have taught the wandering winds to sing." 

ThB following stanzas, from the Shepherd's Address to his 
Auld Dog Hector, show the tender inner spirit of the 
man, and are not unworthy of Burns : — 

" Come, my aald, towzy, trusty friend. 
What gars yc look sae dung * 



ael 



What gars yc look sae dung wi' wae 
D'ye think my favour'a at an end. 
Because thy head is tumin' gray ) 

Although thy strength begins to fail. 
Its best was spent in servin' me ; 

An' can I grudge thy wee bit raeal. 
Some comfort in thy age to gie ? 



Then, sharin' a' my grief and pain. 
My puir auld friend came siioovin' near. 

For ft' the days we've sojourned here. 
And they've been neither fine nor few, 

That thought possesst thee year to year, 
That a' my griefs arose frae you. 

Wi' waesome face and bingin' head, 
Thou wadflt hae pressed thee to my knee ; 

While I thy looks as well could read, 
Aa thou hadst said in words to me : — 



LEYDEN, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 

' Oh, my dear master, dinna greet ; 

What hae I ever done to vex thee I 
See, here I'm cowrin' at thy feet. 

Just take my life, if I perplex thee. 

' Whatever wayward course ye eteer ; 

Whatever sad mischance o'ertake ye ; 
Man, here is ane will hold ye dear ! 

^lan, here is ane vill ne'er forsake ye 



When my last bannock'g on the hearth, 
Of that thou sanna want thy share ; 

While t hae house or bauld on earth. 
My Hector shall hae shelter there. 

And should grim death Ihy noddle save, 

Till he has made an end o' me ; 
Ye'll lie a wee while on the grave 

ane wha aye was kind to thee." 

That IB true, simple, pathetia It is exactly what a good- 
hearted shepherd would say to his dc^, if he had the 
power of putting his feelings in words ; and poetry can- 
DOt go deeper than the feelings of the heart 

Hogg was not less inspired than Ley den hy the 
scenery of the Border land, and he waa, on the whole, 
very faithful to his impressions ; but his special con- 
tribution to Border poetry arose from his wondrous sense 
of the weird and awesome — of the supersensible world 
of spirit which haunted the older imagination of men in 
the district — and from a most delicate perception of that 
ideal of Fairy which, too, had hung on the fancies of 
men for hundreds of years, but had never been so con- 
ceived and so expressed before. Both those feelings had 
their germ in local legend and tradition ; but the sense 
of the awesome was nursed to maturity in the shepherd 



294 BORDER HISTORY AXD POETRY. 

boy 83 he lay under the shadows of the Blackhouse 
Heights ; and the dream of fairyland was borne in upon 
him by the beauty of the lonely green nooks of the 
bams, and the fairy knowes up the glens, and the 
inysterious silvery sounds that stray of a moonlit night 
on the sheeny moorlands of Ettrick. 

On the genius of Walter Scott, — unquestionably the 
greatest poet of the Borders — in imaginative literature 
the unapproached name in Scotland itself, — I can touch 
in but a limited way. That genius is so full of wealth 
that it is hardly to be measured. Analysis and criticism 
readily give place to sympathy and admiration. I pro- 
pose at present to look at Scott mainly as a poet, who 
drew hia inspiration from the Border land — in fact, from 
the Tweed, the Yarrow, and the Teviot. The Border 
country, if not the place of his birth, was the land of his 
forefathers, with whom he connected himself by a vivid 
imagination ; it was the land of his upbringing and cul- 
ture, the land of his affections, and his home, and it is 
now sacred to us as the place of his grava As far as 
locality can influence and modify genius, the Border 
country made Walter Scott. From his childhood his 
senses and imagination were nourished by the scenery, 
the ballads, the stories, and legends of the district. It 
was at Sandyknowe and Smailholm that hia genius felt 
its first dim promptings : — 

" There was poetic impulae giren 
By the green hill and clear blue heaven. 
It was a barren scene, and wild, 
Where naked cliffs were rudely piled ; 



LEYDEX, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 295 

But ever and anon between 
Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green ; 
And well the lonely infant knew 
Recesses where the wall-flower grew. 
And honeysnckle loved to crawl 
Up the low crag and mined wall." 

There his intense feeling for nature had its birth ; and 
there, too, his imaginative love of legend and story and 
old feudal life was inspired and nourished : — 

"And still I thought that shattered tower 
The mightieat work of human power ; 
And marveird as the aged hind 
With some strange tale Iwwitched my mind. 
Of forayera, who, with headlong force, 
Down from that strength had spurred their horse. 
Their southern rapine to renew, 
Far in the distant Cheviots blue. 
And, home returning, fill'd the hall 
With revel, wassail- rout, and brawl. 
Methought that still with tramp and clang, 
The gateway's broken arches rang ; 
Methought grim features, seam'd with scars. 
Glared through the window's rusty bars." 

There is a characteristic anecdote of him, relating to 
this early period of his life at Sandyknowe. It is told 
of him that in a thunderstorm, as a child, he was found 
lying on the green sward on his back, watching every 
flash of lightning, and shouting out, " Bonny ! bonny ! " 
There was in this the forecast of his peculiar genius. 
He found in what to others had seemed simply terrible 
or awful, the grand and the sublime ; a scene of fear 
passing through the alchemy of hia imagination was 
transformed into a thing of beauty and delight. 

Nothing seems to have impressed the young mind 



296 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

of Scott more deeply — nothing certainly was the source 
of a finer inspiration — than this old Tower of Smailholm 
— "situated on the northern boundary of Eoxburghshire, 
among a cluster of wild rocks, called Sandyknowe 
Crags " — where his grandfather's farmhouse lay, and 
where he spent a great part of his infanq^. The old 
tower perched on its rocky eminence, surrounded by 
cra^y and grassy knowes, still untouched by the hand 
of man, and dotted by the unheeding sheep, stands toler- 
ably perfect, as it has done, in spite of Border ravage, 
since 1535 — twenty -two years after Flodden. It is 
square and massive, of grey whtostone, with door-sides 
and lintels of a bright almost blood - red sandstone, 
native to the district. The barmkyn or outward court- 
yard wall is now nearly all gone, the rock on which the 
tower stands dips down deep and steep all around, and 
there is no approach save by what was the western 
gateway. To the east, almost under the shadow of the 
tower, is the locban of The Abbot. West and east on 
the top are bartisans, whence there is a wide-spreading 
outlook. To the west and north are the Eildons and 
the dim Lammermoors, to the south and west the 
Cheviots and Teviotdale, with Euberslaw, the Dunyon, 
Feniel Heugh, and Lilliards Edge ; and away to the 
east is the open-spreading cultivated and fertile valley 
of the Tweed, adorned with wood, and diversified by 
endless rising eminences scattered over a seemingly 
boundless plain. Smailholm is the outstanding sentinel 
of all the lower valley of the Tweed. The old warden 
from the bartisan could eye the moon rise from the 
eastern sea over Berwick, and gradually watch the 



LEYDEN, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 297 

long reaches of the river as they bared themselves 
through the far-stretching haughs to its gleam.' " This 
ancient fortress and its vicinity," he tells us, " formed 
the scene of the Editor's infancy, and seemed to claim 
from him this attempt to celebrate them in a Border 
tale." And fortunate for the world it was that they 
did so ; for out of this feeling sprung the ballad of 
The Eve of St John, which was a type and a forecast 
of the very highest things which Scott did, even in his 
mature prime. For the spirit of tlie olden days, for the 
impression of the feelings and cast of thought of medi- 
leval times, for weird power, Scott has written nothing 
superior to that grand yet simple rhyme. 

The gathering together of the Border ballads in the 
Minstrelsy, in the beginning of the century, was the 
discipline and preparation for his life-work. It was 
during hia raids into Liddesdale, in quest of song and 
legend, with his friend Shortreed, that his genius had 
its bent fixed irrevocably ; it was then it acquired the 
complete spontaneity which afterwards distinguished it, 
" He was niakin' bimsel," as Shortreed pithily observed, 
" and he didna ken o't" Those ballads which he found 
had been long working in quiet localities on the minds 
of the people. The romantic muse had visited with fine 
visions of the past many a peasant borne, and cheered 
and thrilled the breast of many a solitary shepherd on 
the green hillside. The ballads had been chanted by 
mothers in shepherds' shielings, which Destled, far away 
from towns, down by the bum-sides in the solitary glens ; 
chanted chiefly of a winter evening, at the fore-supper 

' See The Rivtr Tmtd, 16. 



298 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

time, when the glow of the peat - fire cast flickering 
shadowB on the walls of the quiet room. But these 
strains were as yet unknown to the world ; the muse of 
the Borders kept court only amid the wild recesses of 
Liddesdale, the green holms of Yarrow, and the pathetic 
solitudes of Ettrick. In their native shape, as oral 
traditions, many of those ballads influenced the sym- 
pathetic youth of Leyden and Hogg. But it was re- 
served for Seott to gather them together, to make them 
known to the world, to have the spirit of them thoroughly 
infused into his own being ; and, catching up the old 
refrain, to make it far more glorious than it was before, 
pouring the fresh spirit of old romance into modern 
British poetry and fiction. Well might the Mountain 
Spirit of his native land thus address him : — 

" Decay'd out old traditionary lore, 
Save where the lingering fays renew their ring, 
Bj milk-maid seen beneath the hawthorn boar. 
Or ronnd the marge of Mincbmorc's haunted spring ; 
Save where their legends grey-liair'd shepherds sing. 
That now scarce win a listening ear but thine. 
Of feuds obscure, and Border ravaging. 
And ru^ed deeds recount in nigged line. 
Of moonlit foray made on Teviot, Tweed, or Tyne." 

The traditions connected with Thomas the Ehymour, 
his weird communings with Fairy and Fairyland, and 
his mysterious fate, seem to have been among the flrst 
to fire the fancy of Scott, and we have accordingly in the 
Minstrelsy two new ballads on the prophet of Erceldoune. 
It was indeed the dim figure of the Ehymour, seen 
through the mists of five hundred years, which quick- 
ened Scott's deepest interest in the romantic poetry of 



LEYDEN, HOGG, AKD SCOTT. 299 

tliRt early time, and led him to vivify and continue it in 
the nineteenth century. 

There is something very picturesque in the quaint 
forms of mist that pass up the Border glena and wreathe 
the wavy hill-tops — something fine and mysterioua in 
their delicate cloudy folds. But let the sun strike even 
dimly through them, and they become glorious with a 
new splendour. Scott found the dim floating picturesque 
legends and songs of the Border land as mists retreating 
from the glens and hilla The power of his genius 
penetrated and transfigured them with a sun-like radi- 
ancy, and displayed them to the gaze of the world an 
imperishable object of delight 

These ballads of action — their motion, vividness, in- 
tensity of realism — nourished what was strongest in 
Scott, the historical imagination, — that power by which a 
man can put himself back into the past, live in it, repro- 
duce it with all the power of real presence ; and further, 
raise out of this past ideal creations in harmony with it, 
at once symmetrical, characteristic, and complete. Few 
men have possessed this power in a degree equal to 
Scott, and fewer still have possessed it as he did, so as 
to be able to fuse the real and the ideal with so much 
truthfulness to the life of the time. And what has the 
historical imagination of Scott not done for us ? At 
first locally fired, it soon became national, imperial : — 

" For thou upon.B hundred streams, 
By tales of love and sorrow. 
Of faithful love, undannted truth, 
Host shed the power of Yarrow." 

What interesting portion of Scottish history has this 



V.J VH ' I 1 l( I 1 I 1 



from till* aslit'S of foruoltcii i^ravos, 
scidii.s of tlio ])ast — ronscioiis, in a \V( 
liei-ila-'c alike of ijlory and of .shame. 
What, it may be asked, did Scot 
strains of Border life out of which his 
first characteristic difference, as appe 
the older minstrel and the modern, 
arises from the circumstance of distan 
events narrated. The older minstrel 
events or near the time of them, tre; 
ties; Scott, living in a subsequent a 
passed away, was at liberty to treat 
the memory and imagination. Now 
mote, and the personal interest of the 
dinate to his artistic interest. The ( 
no time or liking for rhetoric — he was 
est; the modem poet can note all tb 
scenery, the equipment of knight, in coa 
plume, and lance, a living and moving 
obviously has not lived in the scene he j 
actually fired his blood. If it makes 1 
is only the imaginative emotion whiVli 



LEYDEN, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 301 

latter spoke of what had occurred, or of what he believed 
had occurred, at a definite time, often in his own day, or 
83 a part of a life of which his own day might readily 
furnish an example. There was a conscientious truthful- 
ness of adherence to the single action or incident, swayed 
only now and again by a patriotic desire to make the 
best of the story for his own clan or nationality. Com- 
plexity of action or converging lines of narrative were 
wholly unknown to his art 

Hence, too, we have in Scott the scenery of the inci- 
dent — whether soft, gentle, and beautiful nature, or 
grand, terrible, and sublime nature — freely, purely, 
unconventionally pictured. We have the time of the 
day — the very hour, be it mom, or noon, or night — dis- 
tinctively painted. Nothing is wanting to complete the 
feeling of realism. We have colour, form, aspect of the 
object, as the actor might have seen tbem, and as we are 
permitted leisurely to contemplate tliem. 

Along with the historical imagination, we find Scott 
characterised by an intense love of free nature — un- 
touched, uncultured nature — the heathery hill and the 
bracken glen, fair as these have come from the hand of 
God. In fact, the modern feeling for nature first realised 
its fullest development in Walter Scott And the element 
of description of natural features, which in the older 
minstrels was a subordinate one, became with Scott a 
principal part of poetic art This love was with him a 
passion — one of the deepest in his heart. He rejoiced 
in boon nature, that 

" Scattered, free and wDd, 
Each plant and flower the mountain child." 



l^^arlv ill (Ill's reiilury Wasliin^toi 

< > < 

tlic Atlantic to set", anioii-^ otlicr ] 
77/' L'l ij of tiic J.'isf Mliistni. Scot 
the top of the hills above Abbotsfor 
out to Irving the statuesque hill - 
Border land. Irving, familiar with tl 
the great woods of America, showed 
scene. Scott indeed thought him du 
and was a little hurt through the 
sjonpathy. At length, in answer to a 
the poet said to him : " I like the vei 
land ; it has something bold, and sterr 
it When I have been for some time 
about Edinburgh, which is like ornan 
I begin to wish myself back amon 
grey hills ; and if I did not see the 1 
I think I should die." In these ^ 
emotion, Scott revealed his soul, the r 
to nature. And the words meant tl 
the trammels of conventional order an 
ing with outward nature, which had ] 
on British poetry, ever since it hnH Ko- 



LETDEN, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 303 

to raise to universal poetry. This love was vfide as it 
was intense. It embraced nature both in its gentler and 
in its grander aspects. The feeling for free, pure, gentle 
nature was quickened and daily nourished in him by the 
scenery around him — by the green haughs, the soft hill- 
sides, the snnny gleam, and the picturesque flow of 
waters in the vales of Tweed and Yarrow, The solitudes 
of Liddesdale, the wild uplands of Teviot, and dark 
Loch Skene, helped to nourish the sterner love ; and we 
must add to these the grander scenes of his wanderings 
in the Highlands of Scotland. 

" StranRcr ! if e'er thine ardent step hath traced 
The northern realms of ancient Caledon, 
Where the proud Queen of Wildemesa hath placed 
By Lake and Oatarnct lier lonely throne ; 
Sublime but sad delight thy soul hath known. 
Gazing on pathleea ^'leu and mountain high. 
Listing where from the cliffs the torrents thrown 
Mingle their echoes with the eagle's cry, 
And with the sounding lake, and with the moaning sky. 

Such are the scenes, where savage grandeur wakes 
An awful thrill that softene into sighs ; 
Such feelings rouse thein by dim Rannoch's lakes. 
In (lark Glencoe such gloomy raptures rise : 
Or, farther, where, beneath the northern skies, 
Chides wild Loch.Eribol his caverns hoar — 
But, be the minstrel judge, they yield the prize 
Of desert dignity to that dread shore, 
That sees grim Coolin rise, and hears Coriskin roar." 

The root-feeling in Scott's relation to outward nature 
is one of complete realism. He looks upon it as a thing 
wholly independent of himself and his passing moods of 
mind — it is, for him, absolutely impersonal As such, 
it is an abiding transcendent power — stronger, greater. 



side jilmost a I't'iiiiiiiiio love. 

dosL'lv coiiiiL'cttnl willi the feeliii-^ 
Seolt is his Wonderful sense ot local 
imbuing places with the magic power 
this he dififers mainly from Wordswoi 
Milton. Wordsworth's love of the oi 
enhanced and nourished by the subtle i 
symbolisni which his soul found there ; 
this love the history of the past, story 
places and natural objects thrill the h( 
new power. Out of the wealth of as 
his capacious memory, he has in8tincti\ 
or allusion with singular fitness, and tl 
tower, muir, hill, vale, or stream, into a: 
so vividly that it is more real to the in 
the senses. Scott has read the langua; 
was never read before ; he has translat( 
the past, so that the past lives in it wii 
us than any experience we can have 
counterbalance. This element is one co 
in his narrative and descriptive passaj 
separated from them in an estimate of 



LEYDEN, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 305 

regular, and was entirely deficient in sympathy with 

ruin and decay, Scott delighted in the broken, the 

irregular, the ruined. The very stones of a mouldering 

tower were dear to his heart, for with them were fused 

the picturesqueness of the present and the spirit of the 

old; and the green mound or shapeless cairn was his 

pathetic joy, because it held the buried past. 

There is one point worthy of note in this connection, 

not perhaps at first readily discernible. When the 

wondrous picturing of localities is presented to us by 

Scott, we have nearly universally the contrast of rapid 

movement. Place after place comes up before the eye 

of the mind in quiet succession, yet never so as to 

bewilder, and each is pictured as it appears to a rider 

as he sweeps across country, or perhaps to one in a 

passing ship as it 

" skirts the strand 
Of mountainous Northumberland." 

In this there is a subtle suggestion of the contrast 
between rest and motion, between the dead history of 
the past — dead only to the sense, living and quickening 
in the soul — and the life of the present. William of 
Deloraine rode from Branksome to Melrose, and the 
soul of the poet himself was looking from under the 
barred visor of the moss-trooper. The memories and 
the awe of the past overshadowed the horseman all 
through that night ride till dawn. The repose of the 
places around him, with their silent memories, stirred 
and quickened the rider on his way : — 

" Soon in his saddle sat he fast, 
And soon the steep descent he passed, 

VOL. II. U 



'1LAI**1' 1\ 



l)iiuly ln' vifWiMl tlir Moat-liill .- 
Wlinc Dnii.l ^lia-lcs .Mill llittcl 
In llawii k Iwiiiklfd many ;i lii: 
Jicliind liiiii .soon tlicv .^I'l in ni- 
And soon he spurred his courstT 
Beneath the tower of Hazeldeau. 

A moment now he slack'd his sp 
A moment breathed his panting 
Drew saddle-girth and corslet ba 
And loosened in the sheath his bi 
On Minto crags the moonbeams f 
Where Barnhill hewed his bed oi 
Who flung his outlawed limbs to 
Where falcons hang their giddy i 

Unchallenged, thence pass'd Delo 
To ancient Riddel's fair domain, 

Where Aill, from mountains fi 
Down from the lakes did raving < 
Each wave was crested with tawr 

Like the mane of a chestnut st< 
In vain •! no torrent, deep or broa 
Might bar the bold moss-trooper^i 

Of Scott's pictorial power as appli< 
scenes of the Border district, we have 
in the Introductions to the Cantos of 



LEYDEN, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 307 

a picture of Ettrick Forest as it was ; a description of 
St Mary's Loch in calm, and then in storm from the 
Wizard's Grave. "Dark Loch Skene" is sketched in 
the same Introduction, In that to canto iii we have a 
picture of Sandyknowe and Smailholm Tower, of his 
early life there, and the educating influences of the time 
and scene. A sketch of the Border shepherd's life in 
winter, and of a snowstorm on the hill, is given in the 
Introduction to canto iv. In that to canto v. we have 
a picture of December on the Tweed. These sketches 
are too familiar to need quotation. But one may be 
given, which is the most perfect of the whole, the 
description of St Mary's Loch in calm: — 

" Oft in my mind such thoughts awake, 
By lone St 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 scattered pine. 
Yet even this nakedness has power, 
And aids the feeling of the hour : 
Nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy 
Where living thing concealed might lie ; 
Nor point, retiring, hides a dell 
Where swain, or woodman lone, might dwell ; 
There's nothing left to fancy's guess. 
You see that all is loneliness : 
And silence aids — though the steep hills 
Send to the lake a thousand rills ; 



])iire reproduction of tlie feeling wl 
[i'cnders. It is the eve speakiiiL^- t 
L'XpressioiJ, too, is faultless. Thcr^' 
phrase in the lines which is incon.' 
yet perfect art. I do not think the 
his description of Loch Skene, in whi 
lines, there crops up an occasional exj 
The winter scenes are the least go( 
fixes on the harsh features and the in 
winter day, its chill and its " weary \ 

" When dark December glooms t 
And takes our autumn joys aw 
When short and scant the sunb 
Upon the weary waste of snowj 
A cold and profitless regard, 
Like patron on a needy bard. 



When from our snow-encircled 
Scarce cares the hardiest step t 
Since path is none, save that t< 
The needful water from the spi 

And answering housewife sore 
Of carriers' snow-impeded waii 



LEYDEN, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 309 

ing feeling for winter familiar to Scottish poetry all 
through the previous centuries. Sensation dominates 
over sentiment in Scott, as it did in Gawain Douglas 
in the picture of winter. Scott here manifests a limit 
to his sympathy, usually very strong, for power and 
grandeur. He shows no true feeling either for the 
power of winter storm, the beauty of its snowfall, the 
pure glory of the white spreading landscape, or the 
purple gleam on the snow-capped hill — aspects of nature 
with which he must have been familiar, even in early 
winter, on Tweedside. 

Notwithstanding this limitation to the range of his 
sympathy, Scott stands out a master of pictorial and de- 
scriptive art, as applied to the outward world. His 
scenes have a unity of character, and they succeed in 
making a single grand impression. For sense of stillness, 
about to be broken, what, for example, can be finer than 
this of Loch Achray ? — 

" Where shall he find in foreign land 
So lone a lake, bo sweet a strand ! 
There is no breeze upon the fern, 

No ripple on the lake, 
Upon her eyry nods the erne, 

The deer has sought the brake ; 
The small birds will not sing aloud, 

The springing trout lie stUl, 
So darkly glooms yon thundercloud 
That swathes as with a purple shroud 

Ben-Ledi's distant hill." 

His pictures are, as a consequence or condition of their 
unity, free from the admixture of incongruous or jarring 
features ; they are thoroughly true to what eye and ear 
see and hear in the special circumstances ; and they are 



Sc'Ottisli pocl ln't'oiv. 

Srott's marvellous (Icsc'riptivi' [xr 
tliat al>l)('V liv tln' TwoL'tl wliicli lie 
Melrose — not as it now is in its brc 
as a ruin, but as it was ere a brutal { 
when it stood in the beauty of its va 
the consenting symmetry of its pa 
picture in stone in the haugh of the 
as a whole which eye can conceit 
towards. Enter it and your admirati 
the perfection and minuteness of in 
' — by the truth, naturalness, and fre 
heath, of leaf and flower, portrayed o 
So it is with each of Scott's grander { 
of Loch Katrine, of St Mary's Loch 
burgh, of Flodden Field. You feel 
as a noble whole, as you would have 
the exterior of that abbey — that poe 
Tweed. Analyse each, enter into it, ] 
you might do of the tracings on arch 
will be not less charmed by the d 
weird touch, the lifelike look of minu 



LEYDEN, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 311 

the moving river, and taught ns, what we are very slow 
in learning, that truthfulness in art is itself reverence 
for the divine, and our means of approach to the con- 
sciousness of the thoughts of God embodied in the things 
around us. 

It is a matter of interest for us to inquire how the 
genius of Scott, in relation to the feeling for nature, 
acquired its peculiar bent. His historical imagination 
was clearly stimulated and nourished by the old ballads 
of action, by legend, and story. But the Minstrelsy does 
not afford quite the same amount of stimulus to the 
feeling for nature. As we have seen, the references to 
aspects of the outward world are chiefly indirect, and 
they are limited in range. But not the less was Scott 
indebted to local and ancestral conditions for the growth 
and nourishment of his strong and peculiar feeling for 
the scenes around him. That certain qualities of char- 
acter are hereditary, that they may be transmitted from 
sire to son through a series of generations, and that they 
may acquire volume and intensity with the descent, will 
hardly be disputed. Scott's feeling for the aspects of 
Border scenery may be taken as an instance of a quality 
of mind transmitted from foregoing times, the residuary 
result of the experience of his forefathers. His father, 
indeed, was one of the least romantic and most prosaic 
of men. As a factor on estates, his pleasure was to pull 
down old towers and ancient kirks to build farm-stead- 
ings and cow-byres. But the circumstances of life may 
hinder the proper outgoing of latent sensibility, or quali- 
ties may overleap a generation. And Scott's mother was 
of finer mould — a Eutherford and a Borderer. She was 



^>l jxtrdc'i" slu'cp-tai'inci's, i"('iiii»ti'ly sin 
lo slice]* wlicn Hot ('n;j;a'_^M'(l in rcivinu' 
lioili sides liad live(| a lonely lil'e anmn 
generations. By their very lonelincs 
ments of their shepherd life, engend( 
and force of character, they were led 
ing aspects of outward nature and to 
Who notes the face of heaven so car 
much interest as the shepherd up in 
and who knows its varying aspects 
men were daily familiar with the look 
and sky ; with the first green shoots c 
heather-bloom on the moors, with the 
brown," with the wild and " waesome ' 
They had noted these varying aspec 
they embodied their experience in es 
characteristic, truthful, and full of poet 
phrases were abstractions, they were hi 
tionally, but daily experience of the fe 
them living for each successive gene 
morn they were familiar with what t 
or breaking light which heralds the i 



LEYDEN, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 313 

expression to denote a day of an unusually fine character, 
interposed, as out of season, amid other darker days. 
When the clouds rose high before the wind and swept 
across the heavens, they spoke of the carry of the clouds 
and the rack of the sky. When the vapour showed thin 
before the sun and over the face of the lifty they recog- 
nised the skaum or darkening of the sky. Then, again, 
when the sun struck through the mist that rose from the 
earth, and made it glorious, they spoke of ' the dry ure. 
And towards evening, when the westering sun shoots 
slantingly down the glens, and the broad-browed, deep- 
bosomed forest hills lie grandly self -shadowed — for 
objects in general cast their shadows on other objects, 
the hills on themselves — they knew the scarrow of the 
MIL When the long twilight of an evening came, they 
rejoiced in that sweetest of poetic times and words, the 
gloamin* — with all its myriad associations of rest, and 
soothing, and peace — when the face of nature becomes 
gentle, and the old man of toil has his quiet hour, and 
in the hearts of the younger people there arise musings, 
perhaps, of a tender feeling, and dreams of peace in " a 
biggin' of their ain " at some not remote future. And 
then, when the gloamin' was nearly over, and the mirk 
was coming rapidly on, they noted the clear yet mysteri- 
ous belt of light tliat runs along the flowing lines of the 
tops of our wavy hills, with the dark cloud . of heaven 
above, and the dark mass of earth below, and this they 
named the weather-gleam — that umbered light in which 
day and night seem to meet and to be reconciled in one. 
All these aspects of nature they knew, felt, and noted, 
and embodied in characteristic phrases. Many of these 



Liic iremiiloiis slnulows wliicli in a 
lilt' ]»;i8t()r;il ^ret'ii : in tliu soiiLili 
Imrns : in the wide >(»lilu(lL! of tin 
only by the pleading voices of the 
plaintive note of the whaup, or the 
of the peesweep's cry. Walter Sco 
too, both came from a sheep-farming 
claim to gentle blood, and prided h 
than he needed to do. And I am 
James Hogg had, in point of fact, as 
though his immediate ancestors had 
than those of Scott. I say socially, f 
who does not fall below right-doing, 
stances of their forefathers in view, 
Scott and Hogg as examples and pro( 
cal and psychological law, not as y« 
lated, and subject to many conditions 
virtue of which qualities grow throuj 
experience of successive generations, 
root in the earth after a long winter 
a large complex growth, apparently 
beautiful as the crowning and con 



LEYDEN, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 315 

genius that loved and sung Scottish nature as it never 
had been loved or sung before. 



Yarrmv Uhvisited, 1803 ; Yan^oio Visited, 1814 ; Tar- 
row Revisited, 1831, — these are unspeakably precious 
possessions. The first of them means the power of the 
ideal over the human heart, the power of the past and 
the distant gathered into a unity of present impression. 
The ideal unvisited Yarrow of Wordsworth was one of 
the truest realities of his life, his life of thought and his 
life of action. Such was his reverence for the unseen 
river that he feared to see it, because 

" UnwiUing to surrender 
Dreams treasured up from early days, 
The holy and the tender." 

He feared lest the actual might dissolve the glorious 
thrall of the lifelong vision which held him : — 

" Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown, 
It must, or we shall rue it ; 
We have a vision of our own, 
Ah ! why should we undo it ? 

The treasured dreams of times long past 
We'll keep them, winsome Marrow ; 

For when we're there, although 'tis fair, 
Twill be another Yarrow." 

We know this feeling well. There is no greater risk 
in all our experience than that of confronting our ideal 
with the real, and no more trying experience than feel- 
ing the crash of the ideal vision through contact with 
the unfeeling reality. 

But at length the poet saw the stream. Eleven years 



tiiroiiLxii tiio hroftiim^ nNcr me sinin 
liviiii; comiinnii(»ii witli tlic licni't of ll 

•' All. I is lliis— Variuw i Tlii> tli- 
Of which my fancy cherishM 
So faithfully a waking dream, 
An image that hath perished 

that some minstrers harp wei 
To utter notes of gladness, 

And chase this silence from the 
That fills my heart with sadn 

Yet why ? a silvery current floi? 

With uncontroll'd meanderin] 
Nor have these eyes by greener 

Been soothed in all my wand 

And, through her depths, Saint 
Is visibly delighted ; 

For not a feature of those hills 
Is in the mirror slighted. 

A blue sky bends o'er Yarrow > 
Save where that pearly white 

Is round the rising sun diffused 
A tender, hazy brightness ; 

Mild dawn of promise I that ex 

All profitless dejection ; 
Thoui?h not unwillini? here to £ 



LEYDEN, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 317 

And haply from this crystal pool, 

Now peaceful as the morning, 
The water-wraith ascended thrice, 

And gave his doleful warning. 

Delicious is the lay that sings 

The haunts of happy lovers, 
The path that leads them to the grove, 

The leafy grove that covers : 

And pity sanctifies the verse 

That paints, by strength of sorrow, 
The unconquerable strength of love ; 

Bear witness, rueful Yarrow ! 

But thou that didst appear so fair. 

To fond imagination, 
Dost rival in the light of day 

Her delicate creation : 

Meek loveliness is round thee spread, 

A softness still and holy ; 
The grace of forest charms decayed, 

And pastoral melancholy. 

That region left, the vale unfolds 

Rich groves of lofty stature, 
With Yarrow winding through the pomp 

Of cultivated Nature ; 

And, rising from those lofty groves. 

Behold a ruin hoary. 
The shattered front of Newark's Towers, 

Renowned in Border story. 

Fair scenes for childhood's opening bloom. 

For sportive youth to stray in ; 
For manhood to enjoy his strength, 

And age to wear away in ! 

Yon cottage seems a bower of bliss, 

A covert for protection 
Of studious ease and generous cares. 

And every chaste affection ! 



BORDEE HISTORY AND POETRY. 

How eweet on tbia autumnal day 

The wild-wood friiitB to gather. 
And on my true-love's forehead plant 
A crest of blooming heather t 

And what if I enwreathed my own ? 

'Twere no offence to reaeon ] 
The sober hiUa thus deck their brows 

To meet the wintry season. 

Is. 



A ray of Fancy still bi 

Her Bunahiae plays upon thee ! 

Thy ever-youthful waters keep 

A course of lively pleasure ; 
And gladsome notes my lips can breathe 

Accordant to 



The vapours linger round the heights, 

They melt, and soon must vanish ; 
One hour ia theirs, nor more is mine — 

Sad thought J which I would banish ; 

But that I know, where'er I go. 

Thy genuine image. Yarrow I 
Will dwell with me to heighten joy. 

And cheer my mind is sorrow." 

Eighteen years afterwards the writer of these lines re- 
visited the vale of Yarrow with Walter Scott — immediately 
before his departure from Abbotsford to Naples, that last 
hopeless journey — as the trouble came, — 

" A trouble not of clouds, or weeping rain. 
Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light. 
Engendered, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height ; 
Spirits of Power, assembled there, complain 
For kindred Power departing from their sight" 



LEYDEN, HOGG, AND SCOTT. 319 

The autumn leaves were iSttingly sear on the birches, or 
they were falling : — 

" But breezes played, and sunshine gleamed — 
The forest to embolden ; 
Eeddened the fiery hues, and shot 
Transparence through the golden." 

Thoughts of the past naturally arose, mixed with fore- 
bodings about the future — " the morn of youth," " life's 
temperate noon," " her sober eve," " her night not melan- 
choly ; " and, amid it all — 

" Yarrow, through the woods, 
And down the meadows ranging, 
Did meet us with unaltered face, 
Though we were changed and changing." 

In 1803, the year of Yarrov) Unvisited, Wordsworth 
passed by Neidpath Castle on the Tweed. The sur- 
roundings of the ancient and massive keep had then 
quite recently been the scene of a piece of pitiful havoc, 
on the part of its worthless owner, seldom matched for 
evil motive and unsparing destruction. To spite his heir 
chiefly, the last Douglas of Queensberry of his line or- 
dered the cutting down of the old forest-trees that had 
grown up through the centuries, and long before he or 
his two predecessors owned an acre of the property. 
This was carried out, and the steep sides of the pic- 
turesque gorge of the Tweed, through which the river 
in the far past had worked its way against opposing rock, 
were left defaced and bare, and the whole demesne 
"beggar'd and outraged." This fired the heart of the 
poet, and he has given expression to his feelings in 
these lines: — 



320 



BOBDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 



** Degenerate Douglas ! the unworthy lord ! 
Whom mere despite of heart could so far please 
And love of havoc (for with such disease 
Fame taxes him) that he could send forth word 
To level with the dust a noble horde, 
A brotherhood of venerable trees, 
Leaving an ancient dome, and towers like these 
Beggar'd and outraged ! Many hearts deplored 
The fate of those old trees ; and oft with pain 
The traveller at this day will stop and gaze 
On wrongs, which Nature scarcely seems to heed ; 
For shelter'd places, bosoms, nooks, and bays. 
And the pure mountains, and the gentle Tweed, 
And the green silent pastures, yet remain." 



321 



CHAPTER IX. 



RECENT POETS. 



There are still a few Dames in recent times of men 
in whom the spirit of Border song issued in utterances 
which may well be cherished by us. I may mention 
especially William Laidlaw, Thomas Pringle, James Nicol, 
Thomas Smibert, Andrew Scott, Allan Cunningham, 
Henry Scott Riddell, and, but lately taken from us, the 
youthful preachel: and poet, Thomas Davidson. 

Lucys FlUiirC is the lyric of the Borders which ranks 
next to The Flowers of the Forest. It was the production 
of William Laidlaw, the son of the farmer of Blackhouse 
on the Douglas Burn, the early friend of Hogg, and the 
lifelong friend and amanuensis of Walter Scott. He 
was bom in 1780, and he died in 1845. Lacy^s Flittin* 
could have been written only by one who had been 
brought up among the south country glens ; who knew 
and felt the simplicity of rural life and manners there, 
and who, as a man of true lyrical soul, could for the 
time entirely forget himself, realise the feelings and 

VOL. II. X 



322 BORDEE HISTORY AND POETRY. 

speak the language of the breaking - hearted country 
lassie : — ■ 

"'Twas when the wan leaf frae the biik-tree waa fa'in'. 
And Martinmas dowie had wound up the year, 
That Lucj low'd up her wee kist wi' her a' in, 
And left her auld rasister and neebours eae dear ; 



n the pea, 
An orphan was she, and they had been kind till her, 

Sure that was the thing brocht the tear to her e'e. 

She gaed hy the stable where Jamie was etanin' ; 

Richt sair was hia kind heart the flittin' to see ; 
' Fare ye weel, Lucy,' quo' Jamie, and ran in ; 

The gatherin' teals trickled fast frae his e'e. 

As down the bum-side she gaed slow wi' the flittin', 
' Fare ye weel, Lucy ! ' was ilka bird's sang ; 

She heard the crow sayin't high on the tree sittin', 
And robin waa chirpin't the brown leaves amang. 

Oh, what is't that pits my puir heart in a flutter I 
And what gars the tears come sae fast to my e'e 1 

If I wasna ettled to be ony better, 
Then what gara me wish ony better to be ? 

I'm just like a lammie that loses its mither ; 

Nae mither or friend the puir lammie can see ; 
I fear I hae tint roy puir heart a' thegither, 

Nae wonder the tears fa' sa fast fra my e'e. 

Wi' the rest of my claes I hoe row'd up the ribbon, 
The bonuie blue ribbon that Jamie ga'e me ; 

Yestreen, when he ga'e me't, and saw I was sabbin', 
I'll never forget the wae blink o' his e'e. 

Though now he said naething bnt ' Fare ye weel, Lucy ! ' 
It made me I neither could speak, hear, nor see ; 

He could na say mair butjnat, 'Fare ye weel, Lucy!' 
Yet that I will mind till the day that I dee. 



RECENT POETS. 323 

[The lamb likes the gowan wi* dew when it's droukit ; 

The hare likes the brake and the braird on the lea ; 
But Lucy likes Jamie — she turned and she lookit, — 

She thocht the dear place she wad never mair see. 

Ah, weel may young Jamie gang dowie and cheerless ! 

And weel may he greet on the bank of the bum ! 
For bonnie sweet Lucy, sae gentle and peerless, 

Lies cauld in her grave, and will never return ! '*] ^ 

This, like Miss Elliot's version of The Flowers of the Forest^ 
is a true inspiration of the locality. Its images are 
drawn from the familiar features of the place, and they 
express a form of feeling as intense as it is real and 
natural in the homely life of the persons concerned. 
Both lyrics may also be said to be the single flowering 
of the genius of the writers. Laidlaw's other songs. 
On the Banks of the Burn, and Alake for the Lassie^ are 
inferior to the one by which he made his name. Simply 
and naturally as Lucy's Flittin' flows, it was, as I have 
good reason to know, the result of elaborate effort on the 
part of the writer. 

Thomas Pringle was bom at Blacklaw, in the parish 
of Linton, Eoxburghshire, in 1789. The Cale or Kale 
Water, rising in the Cheviots, flows through the parish : 
its charming hilly and pastoral scenery touched the 
young poet to fine issues, while its ruined towers and 
traditional deeds of prowess and raid contributed to 
nourish the intense patriotism of his heart. Few men 
have loved Scotland, especially the Border land, with a 
keener love than Thomas Pringle. He has depicted the 
scenery of his boyish days in the poem entitled Autumnal 

^ These last eight lines are by Hogg. 



324 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Excursion, written in 1811.^ It contains some fine pieces 
of descriptive poetry. He is out among his father's 
sheep on the heights : — 

" When far remote I loved to lie 
And gaze upon the flecker'd sky, 
Amid the mountain thyme's perfume, 
Where boundless heaths of purple bloom, 
Heard but the zephyr's rustling wing. 
And wild bee's ceaseless murmuring : 
'Twas Nature free, benignant, fair. 
That then I watched and worshipped there." 

Again : — 

" Still, there, where'er my footsteps roam. 
My heart untravell'd finds a home : 
For 'midst these Border mountains blue, 
And vales receding from the view. 
And lonely lakes and misty fells. 
Some nameless charm for ever dwells ; 
Some spirit that again can raise 
The Visions of departed days, 
And thoughts unuttered, undefined, 
That gleamed across my infant mind ! 

lovely was the blest control 
Which came like music o'er my soul. 
While there, a rude untutor'd boy — 
With heart tuned high to nature's joy — 
Subdued by beauty's winning form. 

Or kindling 'midst the mountain storm, 

1 dreamt not of the workings deep. 
Of wilder passions yet asleep." 

Pringle emigrated to South Africa in 1820. There he 
wrote several poems, chiefly descriptive. Among these is 
one — Afar in the Desert — showing power and intensity 
of feeling. After some time spent as a settler near the 

^ To be found in EpJietnerides ; <yr, Occasional Poems written in Scotland 
and South Africa. By Thomas Pringle. London, 1828. 



RECENT POETS. 325 

Kaffir border, he returned home, and died in 1834. A 
strong spirit of moral indignation at the vile treatment 
of the natives, under both Dutch and English, runs 
through his African poems. When leaving the shores 
of Scotland, and the vales of the Teviot and the Tweed, 
his heart-feeling found utterance thus : — 

" Our native land — our native vale — 
A long and last adieu ! 
Farewell to bonny Teviotdale, 
And Cheviot's mountains blue. 

Farewell, ye bills of glorious deeds, 

And streams renown'd in song — 
Farewell ye braes and blossomed meads, 

Our hearts have loved so long. 

Farewell, ye blythesome broomy knowes, 
Where thyme and harebells grow — 

Farewell, ye hoary, haunted howee, 
O'erhung with birk and sloe. 

The battle-mound, the Border tower, 

That Scotland's annals tell — 
The martyr's grave, the lover's bower. 

To each — to all — farewell ! 

Home of our hearts I our fathers' home ! 

Land of the brave and free 1 
The keel is flashing through the foam 

That bears us far from thee 1 

We seek a wild and distant shore. 

Beyond the western main ; 
We leave thee to return no more, 

Nor view thy cliffs again ! 

But may dishonour blight our fame, 

And blast our household fires. 
If we, or ours, forget thy name. 

Green Island of our sires ! 



326 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Our native land — our native vale — 

A long, a last adieu ! 
Farewell to bonny Teviotdale, 

And Cheviot's mountains blue ! " 

Pringle caught up the two stanzas which Lady Grisell 
Baillie left,^ and thus completed The Ev)e Buchtin's 
Bonnie : — 

" the ewe-bughtin*s bonnie, baith e'enin' and mom, 
When our blythe shepherds play on the bog-reed and horn ; 
While we'^e milkin*, they're liltin' baith pleasant and clear ; 
But my heart's like to break when I think on my dear. 

the shepherds take pleasure to blow on the horn, 
To raise up their flock o' sheep soon i' the morn ; 
On the bonnie green banks they feed pleasant and free, 
But alas ! my dear heart, all my sighin's for thee ! 

the sheep-herdin's lightsome amang the green braes. 
Where Kale wimples clear 'neath the white-blossomed slaes, 
Where the wild-thyme and meadow-queen scent the soft gale. 
And the cushat croods luesomely down in the dale. 

There the lintwhite and mavis sing sweet frae the thorn, 
And blythe lilts the laverock aboon the green com, 
And a' things rejoice in the simmer's glad prime — 
But my heart's wi' my love in the far foreign clime ! 

the hay-makin's pleasant in bright sunny June — 
The hay-time is cheery when hearts are in tune ; 
But while others are jokin' and laugh in' sae free, 
There's a pang at my heart and a tear in my e'e. 

At e'en i' the gloamin' adown by the bum, 
Fu' dowie and wae, oft I daunder and mourn ; 
Amang the lang broom I sit greetin' alane, 
And sigh for my dear and the days that are gane. 



^ See suprttf ii. 234. 



RECENT POETS. 327 

the days o* our youth-heid were heartsome and gay, 
When we herded thegither by sweet Qaitshaw brae, 
When we plaited the rushes and pu*d the witch-bells 
By the Kale's ferny houms and on Hownam's green fells. 

But young Sandy bood ^ gang to the wars wi* the laird. 
To win honour and gowd (gif his life it be spared), 
Ah ! little care I for wealth, favour or fame. 
Gin I had my dear shepherd but safely at hame ! 

Then round our wee cot though gruff winter should roar. 
And poortith glower in like a wolf at the door : 
Though our toom purse had barely twa boddles to clink. 
And a barley-meal scone were the best on our bink ; 

Yet he wi' his hirsel, and I wi* my wheel, 
Through the howe o' the year we wad fen* unco weel ; 
Till the lintwhite and laverock and lambs bleatin' fain. 
Brought back the blythe time o' ewe-bughtin' again." 



The Eev. James Nicol, minister of Traquair, born at 
Innerleithen, 30th September 1769, died 5th November 
1819, is the author of several songs, distinguished some 
by humour — not over-refined — and others by pathos. 
Haluchet Meg belongs to the former class ; Where Quair 
rina sweet amang the Flowers to the latter. The song has 
some fine stanzas. Thus : — 

" 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. 

I'll watch ye wi' a lover's care. 

And YiV a lover's e*e, lassie ; 
I'll weary heaven wi' mony a prayer. 

And ilka prayer for thee, lassie. 



Felt bound. 



328 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Tis true J hae na mickle gear ; 

My stock is unco sma', lassie ; 
Nae fine-spun foreign claes I wear, 

Nor servants tend my ca', lassie. 

But 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. 

I blame the blast blaws on thy cheek ; 

The flower that decks thy hair, lassie ; 
The gales that steal thy breath sae sweet, 

My love and envy share, lassie. 



Where Quair rins sweet aniang the flowers, 
Down by yon woody glen, lassie, 

I have a cot — it shall be yours. 
Gin you will be my ain, lassie." 



Thomas Smibert was born in Peebles in 1810. He 
studied medicine, was a surgeon by profession, but be- 
took himself early in life to literature. He lived chiefly 
in Edinburgh, and he died there in 1854. Some years 
before his death he published a volume of poems entitled 
lo Anche ! Poems chiefiy Lyrical — ( 1851). Smibert rises 
to fine and true inspiration wherever he touches his own 
life-experience and the scenes of his early days. Those 
who know the circumstances of his early life, when he 
was assistant to a surgeon in the country, will recognise 
the allusion in the following verses, and even the road 
which he was in the habit of travelling of a night, with 
the dark shadows of the hills on the one side, and on the 
other the gleam of the Tweed, along his way : — 



RECENT POETS. 329 

" I love the sacred, silent hours. 

That link the palms of Night and Day, 
Wedding the coy reluctant powers 
In bands of silver grey. 

I love them, though too oft they shake 

Oblivion from its proper throne, 
And bid the restless soul awake, 

And the dear sleep begone. 

Still this grey season hath for me 

A charm of deeper feelings bom ; 
With bright peculiar thoughts I see 

The rising star of mom. 

The draught of bliss that morning sips 

Is vast as ocean in its pool ; 
The cup ordained for mortal lips. 

Though small, may be as full. 

And of the joys for man designed, 

A bounteous store fell then on me ; 
And, far as suiteth with our kind, 

I shared the day-dawn glee. 

And why was thus my bosom light ? 

And wherefore were my spirits gay, 
As on I roamed alone by night, 

Upon a lonely way ? 

Love was the power that led me on — 

Love was the lamp that lit my path ; 
Love made long miles seem light as none. 

By mount, and moor, and strath. 

! fair was she to whom I gave 

The first love of my fervent years — 
A love not springing from a grave — 

No growth of widowed tears ! 

I she was fair ! Those dark bright eyes, 

The veined marble of that brow. 
That cheek of rarely blended dyes — 

Methinks I view them now ! 



330 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Still fondly doth Remembrance hold 
By those dear times which saw me rove 

By night across the lonesome wold 
To taste one hour of Love 1 

The closing eve beheld me go ; 

The dawn saluted my return ; 
But why begin these tears to flow ! 

Poor heart, why idly mourn ? 

If she be happy, be thou glad, 
Nor vainly what is past deplore ; 

And yet, how may I be but sad, 
Since I can love no more 1 

! rightly have the poets sung. 
That when Love's vernal bloom hath flown, 

No more, where once it freshly sprung, 
Can the fair flower be known 1 



It is not that my hair is grey. 
Nor that my blood is thin and cold ; 

Few seasons, since young Passion's day. 
Above my head have rolled. 

The cup was full, brimful of bliss. 
Which it was mine erewhile to drain ; 

I loved — was loved ; the end is this — 
I cannot love again ! " 

But the best poem which Smibert has written is a lyric 
entitled The Scottish Widow's Lament It is one of the 
truest and most pathetic pictures of that simple life of 
joy and sorrow with which we may meet any day in 
the Tweedside glens. How sweetly does quiet domestic 
happiness nestle in those shepherd cottages that are 
hidden in the recesses of the hills far up among the 
burns ! And how peculiarly heavy and sharp is the 
stroke of sudden bereavement when there, away from 



RECENT POETS. 331 

human haunts, it falls on the wife and mother, and 
leaves her a solitary widow in the solitary glen ! This 
touching theme is the subject of the following lyric, and 
it is as true and deep in feeling as it is fine in local 
allusion : — 

*' Afore the Lammas tide 

Had dun'd the birken-tree, 
In a* our water-side 

Xae wife was blest like me ; 
A kind gudeman, and twa 

Sweet bairns were round me here, 
But they're a' ta'en awa* 

Sin' the fa* o' the year. 

Sair trouble cam our gate, 

And made me, when it cam, 
A bird without a mate, 

A ewe without a lamb. 
Our hay was yet to maw, 

And our com was to shear. 
When they a' d wined awa' 

In the fa' o' the vear. 

I downa look a-field, 

For aye 1 trow I see 
Tlie form that was a bield 

To my wee bairns and me ; 
But wind, and weet, and snaw, 

They never mair can fear, 
Sin* they a' got the ca* 

In the fa* o' the year. 

Aft on the hill at e'ens 

I see him mang the ferns, 
The lover o' my teens, 

The father o' my bairns : 
For there his plaid I saw 

As gloamin' aye drew near — 
But my a's now awa' 

Sin' the fa* o' the year. 



332 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Our bonnie rigs theirser, 

Reca* my waes to mind, 
Our puir dumb beasties tell 

0* a' that I have tined ; 
For wha our wheat will saw, 

And wha our sheep will shear. 
Sin' my a' gaed awa' 

In the fa' o* the year ] 

My hearth is growing cauld. 

And will be caulder still ; 
And sair, sair in the fauld 

Will be the winter's chill ; 
For peats were yet to ca', 

Our sheep they were to smear, 
When my a' passed awa* 

In the fa' o' the year. 

I ettle whiles to spin, 

But wee, wee patterin' feet 
Come rinnin' out and in. 

And then I just maun greet : 
I ken it's fancy a', 

And faster rows the tear, 
That my a' dwined awa' 

In the fa' o' the year. 

Be kind, Heaven abune ! 

To anc sae wae and lane. 
An' tak' her hamewards sune. 

In pity o' her maen ; 
Lang ere the March winds blaw. 

May she, far far frae here. 
Meet them a' that's awa' 

Sin' the fa' o' the year." 



Andrew Scott V7as bom at Bowden, close to the 
Eildons, as far back as 1757. He died in 1839 at 
the age of eighty-two, and is buried in Bowden church- 
yard. He was of peasant extraction, and served as a 



RECENT POETS. 333 

soldier in the American war, after which he returned 
to spend the remainder of his days in his native district. 
His poetic inspiration was due mainly to the reading 
of Allan Eamsay. His verses have a genuine flavour 
of the moorland, and they are simple as the rural life 
he portrays. Any time during the last fifty years we 
might have found on the Border uplands the prototype 
of the small farmer depicted in Rural Content The 
class is not so numerous nowadays, but fortunately we 
have still a few who exemplify the integrity and the 
homely virtues of the race : — 

" I'm now a gude farmer, IVe acres o' land, 

An' my heart aye loups licht when I'm viewin* o\ 
An' I hae servants at my command. 
An' twa daintie cowts for the plowin' o't. 

My farm is a snug anc, lies high on a muir, 
The muir-cocks and plivers aft skirl at my door, 

An* when the sky lowers, I'm sure o' a shower, 
To moisten my land for the plowin' o't. 

Leeze me on the mailin that's fa'n to my share, 
It takes sax muckle bowes for the sawin' o't : 

I've sax braid acres for pasture, an' mair. 
An* a dainty bit bog for the mawin' o't. 

A spence and a kitchen my mansion-house gies, 
I've a cantie wee wifie to daut whan I please ; 

Twa bairnies, twa callans, that skelp ower the leas, 
An' they'll soon can assist at the plowin' o't. 

My biggin' stands sweet on this south-slopin' hill. 
An' the sun shines sae bonnily beamin' on't ; 

An' past my door trots a clear prattlin' rill 
Frae the loch, where the wild ducks are swimmin' on't. 

An' on its green banks, on the gay simmer days. 
My wifie trips barefit, a bleachin' her claes, 

An' on the dear creature wi' rapture I gaze. 
While I whistle and sing at the plowin' o't 



334 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

To rank among farmers I hae muckle pride, 
But I maunna speak high when I'm tellin' o't, 

How brawly I strut on my shelty to ride, 
Wr a sample to show for the sellin' o't. 

In blue worset boots that my auld mither span 
I've aft been fu' vantie sin' I was a man, 

But now they're flung by, and I've bought cordovan. 
And my wifie ne'er grudged me a shillin' o't. 

Now hairst-time is o'er, an' a fig for the laird, 
My rent's now secure for the toilin' o't ; 

My fields are a' bare, and my crap's in th' yard, 
And I'm nae mair in doubts o' the spoilin' o't. 

Now welcome gude weather, or wind, or come weet, 
Or bauld ragin' winter, wi' hail, snaw, or sleet, 

Nae mair can he draigle my crap 'mang his feet. 
Nor wraik his mischief, and be spoilin' o't. 

An' on the douf days, when loud hurricanes blaw, 
Fu' snug i' the spence I'll be viewin' o't, 

And jink the rude blast in my rush-theikit ha', 
When fields are sealed up frae the plowin' o't. 

My bonnie wee wifie, the baimies, and me. 
The peat-stack and turf-stack our Phoebus shall be, 

Till day close the scoul o' its angry .e'e, 
And we'll rest in good hopes o' the plowin' o't. 



SEQUEL TO THE FOREGOING. 

An' when the year smiles, and the laverocks sing. 
My man Jock and me shall be doin' o't ; 

He'll thrash, and I'll toil on the fields in the spring, 
An' turn up the soil at the plowin' o't. 

An' whan the wee flowerets begin there to blaw, 
The laverock, the peasweep, and skirlin' pick-maw, 

Shall hiss the bleak winter to Lapland awa', 
Then we'll ply the blythe hours at the sawin' o't. 



RECENT POETS. 335 

An* when the birds sing on the sweet simmer morn. 

My new crap I'll keek at the growin' o't ; 
When hares nifFer love 'mang the green brairdit corn, 

An* dew-drops the tender blade showin' o't. 

On my brick o' fallow my labours I'll ply, 
An' view on their pasture my twa bonny kye, 

Till hairst-time again circle round us wi' joy, 
Wi' the fruits o' the sawin' and plowin' o't." ^ 



Allan Cunningham, born in 1785 at Blackwood in 
Dumfriesshire, died in London, 1842, has given us, 
in his Songs of Scotland (1825), several lyrics due to 
Border inspiration. Our only regret is that he did not 
accurately distinguish the outllowings of his own wealth 
of genius from the older fragments of poetry which he 
found, and which he incorporated or transfused with his 
own. In the following instance we have a song of 
his own composition, founded certainly on stanzas and 
incidents previously known, the subject being the 
fate of a brother minstrel of the olden time, no less 
a personage than "Rattlin' Willie." In The Lay of 
the Zast Minstrel,^ the old harper makes allusion to 
him as a minstrel still older than himself. Cunning- 
ham says of him that "he was a noted ballad-maker 
and brawler, and his sword-hand was dreaded as much 
as his bow-hand was admired."^ He killed a brother 
minstrel, Eobin of Rule "Water, in a quarrel about 

* From PoetM chiefly in the Scottish DiaUct, by Andrew Scott, Camies- 
toun, near Bowden, 179 (1821). See also The Book of Scottish SongSf Port 
z. 626. J. R., Edinburgh. A most interesting and weU-edited coUection 
of Scottish poetry. 

' Canto iv., zxxiv. xxzv. 

^ Allan Cunningham's Songs of Scotland, ii. 337. 



336 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

the merits of their playing. The reference in the Lay 
is as follows : — 

^^ He knew each. ordinance and clause 
Of Black Lord Archibald's battle laws, 

In the old Douglas' day. 
He brook'd not, he, that scoffing tongue 
Should tax his minstrelsy with wrong, 

Or call his song untrue : 
For this, when they the goblet plied, 
And such rude taunt had chafed his pride. 

The bard of Reull he slew. 
On Teviot's side, in fight they stood. 
And tuneful hands were stained with blood ; 
Where still the thorn's white branches wave. 
Memorial o'er his rival's grave. 

Why should I tell the rigid doom. 
That dragg'd my master to his tomb ; 

How Ousenam's maidens tore their hair. 
Wept till their eyes were dead and dim. 
And wrung their hands for love of him. 

Who died at Jed wood Air ? " 



Scott quoted, in the third edition of the Lay in 1806, 
certain stanzas of an old ballad referring to "Eattlin' 
Willie." He was evidently a minstrel of the sprightly 
order, and a great favourite in the district. From other 
fragmentary stanzas Willie was obviously also the hero of 
some love exploit, common enough in the times. He had 
the misfortune to fall out with a contemporary bard about 
the merits of their songs or playing. The quarrel grew 
hot, and the two, Willie and Hobin, retired and fought 
it out in a duel. Eobin, his adversary, was killed. In 
ordinary circumstances in those times this was the usual 
way of settling a quarrel, and counted for little or nothing. 



RECENT POETS. 337 

But unfortunately for Willie, Robin, the man he slew, 
had powerful partisans in certain Elliots, especially 
those of Stobs and Falnash; and they were determined 
on vengeance for this Eobin of Rule Water. Willie, a 
poor man, without friends or a clan, went in hiding, 
but unluckily gave a clue to his whereabouts by ap- 
pearing at Jedburgh on the day of the Rude or Cross 
Fair. Stobs and Falnash pursued him, and caught him 
on the Ousenam Water, got him taken to Jedburgh and 
executed. All this does not appear in Scott, or in the 
Maidment version of the ballad. But it seems to be 
the truth. Allan Cunningham, knowing Scott's stanzas, 
and the tradition as well, made the incident the subject 
of a ballad. 

The merit of identifying " Rattlin' Roarin' Willie " 
with a historical personage is due to the late Sir Walter 
Elliot of Wolflee. In a paper contributed by him to the 
Transactions of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club in 
1886, he showed that the Willie of tradition and the 
ballad was William Henderson of Priesthaugh, near 
Skelfhill in Teviotdale, and that the combat in which 
Willie slew his compeer piper took place in 1627. 

Allan Cunningham's ballad, an exceedingly fine one, 
is as follows: — 

" Our Willie's away 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 Rool had handled rude, 
And Willie left New Mill banks 

Red-wat wi' |lobin's blude. 

VOL. II. Y 



338 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Our Willie's away 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 of Ousenam Water 

They found him sleeping soun'. 

Now may the name of Elliot 

Be cursed frae firth to firth ! 
He has fettered the gude right hand 

That keepit the land in mirth ; 
That keepit the land in mirth, 

And charm'd maids' hearts frae dool ; 
And sair will they want him, Willie, 

When birks are bare at Yule. 

The lasses of Ousenam Water 

Are rugging and riving their hair, 
And a' for the sake of Willie — 

They'll hear his sangs nae mair. 
Nae mair to his merrie fiddle 

Dance Teviot's maidens free : 
My curses on their cunning, 

Wha gaured sweet Willie dee." 

The Raitlin* Boarin* Willie which Bums sent to John- 
son's Mvsical Museum, with an added stanza, apparently 
refers to the same personage, but it has in it nothing 
of the traditional or historic, an element with which the 
Ayrshire bard had very little sympathy. There is also 
in Herd's Collection^ a love-song entitled Banting Boaring 
Willie, 

Henry Scott Eiddell is the author of several well- 
known lyrics of a pastoral and strongly patriotic cast. 

* L 285. 



RECENT POETS. 339 

He was born in 1798 at Sorbie in Dumfriesshire, the 
son of a shepherd, and himself a shepherd in his earlier 
years. He studied for the Church of Scotland, and was 
licensed as a preacher. The latter part of his life was 
spent at Teviothead, where he died in 1870. His songs 
breathe the inspiration of Lowland Scotland; and his 
Donne Dens of Yarrow has caught a good deal of the 
older spirit of the place. The lyric is, on the whole, a 
fine one : — 

** Oh, sisters, there are midnight dreams 

That pass not with the morning, 
Then ask not why my reason swims 

In a brain so wildly burning. 
And ask not why I fancy how 

Yon wee bird sings wi' sorrow, 
That bluid lies mingled with the dew. 

In the dowie dens o' Yarrow. 

My dream's wild light was not of night. 

Nor of the dolefu' morning ; 
Thrice on the stream was seen the gleam 

That seem'd his sprite returning : 
For sword-girt men came down the glen 

An hour before the morrow. 
And pierced the heart aye true to mine, 

In the dowie dens o' Yarrow. 

Oh, there are red red drops of dew 

Upon the wild flower's blossom, 
But they couldna cool my burning brow. 

And shall not stain my bosom. 
But from the clouds o' yon dark sky 

A cold cold shroud I'll borrow. 
And long and deep shall be my sleep 

In the dowie dens o' Yarrow. 

Let my form the bluid-dyed floweret press 

By the heart o' him that lo'ed me. 
And I'll steal frae his lips a long long kiss 

In the bower where aft he wooed me. 



340 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

For my arms shall fold and my tresses shield 
The form of my death-cold marrow, 

When the breeze shall bring the raven's wing 
O'er the dowie dens o' Yarrow." 



The same influences of song and scenery worked in 
the breast of one who was taken away from us too early 
for the maturing of his powers — I mean Thomas David- 
son, preacher and poet, born 1838, died 1870. At the 
close of the summer of 1862, Davidson visited the 
Cheviots, where he had spent a portion of his early 
youth, and thus he wrote of them: — 

" Once more, once more upon the hills I 

No more the splendour quivering bright, 

Which finger laid at summer height 
Upon the lips of half the rills, 

Pours on them, but the year's most mellow light. 

Far through yon opening of the vale, 

Upon the slopes of Teviotdale, 
The green has ta'en a fainter tinge ; 

It is the time when flowers grow old, 
And summer trims her mantle fringe 

With stray threads of autumnal gold. 

The west wind blows from Liddesdale ; 

And as I sit — between the springs 
Of Bowmont and of Cayle — 

To my half-listening ear it brings 
All 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 babblings of the restless rill 

That hastes to leave its lone hillside, 
And hurries on to sleep in Till, 

Or join the tremulous flow of Teviot's sunny tide. 



RECENT POETS. 341 

Oh, 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 caim, 
Thy thousand bugles take, and blow 

A wilder music up the fells I 

Thy whispered spells — 
About my heart I feel them twined ; 

And all the landscape far around 

'Neath their still strength lies thrall'd and bound ; 
The sluggard clouds, the loitering streams. 
And all the hilb are dreaming dreams. 

And I, too, dream with them, western wind ! 

This mom I thought to linger here 

Till fall of evening and the dew — 
To think some fresher thought perchance, or rear 

Old hopes in forms and colours new ; 
Then homeward by the bum-side wend. 

When over Cheviot, keen and clear. 
The moon look'd down upon the land. 

But sad sweet spots hath each lost year — 
As ruins have their crevice-flowers 

That sprinkle beauty o'er decay ; 
And I've been sitting hours on hours. 

While those old seasons hovering near 
Beguiled me of to-day ! 

I said that they were faded out. 

The lines that years in me have wrought. 

Alas ! there is no hand to smooth 
Life's graven record from our brows ; 

Fate drives us from the fields of youth. 
And no returning step allows. 
Let me no more, then, with reverted eyes — 
Let me no more with covetous sighs. 
Gaze at the light which on them lies. 

But come, assail me without ruth. 

Pains of the life that's still my own ! 

Crowd out of sight the time that's gone. 
Come, living cares ; and come, the hour's anxieties ! " ^ 



^ See The Life of a ScoUUh Probationer^ by James Brown, 77. 



342 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

His touching lines, And there mil I be bu/ried, speak the 
inner feeling of his heart, and show how deeply he was 
moved by the scenery of his youth : — 

" Tell me not the good and wise 

Care not where their dust reposes — 
That to him in death who lies 
Rocky beds are even as roses. 

Vve been happy above ground ; 

I can never be happy under 
Out of gentle Teviot's sounds — 

Part us not, then, far asunder. 

Lay me here where I may see 
Teviot round his meadows flowing, 

And around and over me 
Winds and clouds for ever going." ^ 

The far-borae notes of Border song, like wandering 
echoes from the past, and the aspects of Border scenery, 
still touch the ear and the heart of men in our own time 
with a genuine inspiration. Thomas Tod Stoddart has 
shown how the enthusiasm of the angler can be fitly 
interwoven with the ardour of the poetic lover of Border 
hillside, stream, and glen. In his Musings on the Banks 
of Teviot there are some good stanzas.: — 

" With thy windings, gentle Teviot ! 

Through life's summer I have travelled — 
Shared in all thy merry gambols, 
All thy mazy course unravelled. 

Every pool I know and shallow. 

Every circumstance of channel, 
Every incident historic 

Blent with old or modem annal. 



^ See The Life of a Scottish Probationer, by James Brown, 264. 



RECENT POETS. 343 

Which, within thy famous valley, 

Dealt a mercy or a sorrow — 
Every song and every legend 

Which has passed into its morrow. 



Still with glowing virtues, Teviot ! . 

Graces, joys, and forms of beauty, 
Fill the valley of thy holding — 

Roll in dignity of duty ! 

Forward roll and link thy fortunes 
With fair Tweed — thine elder sister ! 
. Lyne and Leithen, Ettrick, Leader, 
In their earlier turns have kissed her. 

Welcome, more than all the others. 

Thou, whose fulness of perfection 
Finds a grateful recognition 

In this symbol of affection ! . 

So entwined, Tweed glides exultant 

As a joyful burden bearing 
All thy passionate confidings — 

The rich lore of love and daring, 

Which to ballad and romances 

Oft uncouthly bard committed. 
Guided by thy chime or plaining, 

To the rhythm which best befitted." 

Mr Stoddart has given us a spirited lyric entitled Tweed 
and its Prospects : — 

" River of all rivers dearest 

To the Scottish heart — to ours ! 
River without shade of rival. 
Rolling crystals, nursing flowers. 

Stirring up the soul of music. 
Chanting, warbling, beating, chiming. 

To the poet's ardent fancy. 
Adept in the art of rhyming ; 



344 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Marching onward through thy valley 
With the bearing of a king, 

From the hundred hills surrounding 
All thy vassals summoning ! 



Of our Rivers still the glory ! 

God defend it I there is need, 
For the demon of pollution 

Campeth on the banks of Tweed. 

Where were fought the fights of freedom, 
And the stirring songs were sung, 

Which the heart and arm of Scotland 
Moved as with a trumpet tongue. 

Count the forces of the upstart. 
Smoke-begrimed and dimly seen. 

On and under the horizon. 
Blackening the blue and green. 

Idle task ! they multiply 
Faster than the pen can score. 

Legion crowding upon legion, 
Like the waves that scourge the shore. 

Read the motto on their banner : 
Self and Pelf ! so apt the scroll ; 

Nor an apter on the headstone. 
Nor on knightly bannerol. 

Pelf and Self ! the double demon ! 

From its clutch, good God, deliver ! 
Save from taint of the defiler. 

Saviour I save our dearest River ! 

For the life-blood of our valleys 
We entreat on bended knee I 

For the Queen of nursing mothers, 
God ! defend her chastity ! " ^ 



^ Songi of the Seasons, and other Poems, By Thomas Tod Stoddart. 
1873. 



RECENT POETS. 345 

There are one or two stanzas in this which might fairly 
enough be modified. The manufacturers are probably 
not more bent on pelf and self than other classes of the 
community. Yet Tweed and Us Prospects indicates a dire 
foreboding ; while nothing since it was written tends to 
show that the forecast on the whole was too gloomy. 
Surely we may yet find some means of reconciling indus- 
trial development, on the banks of the Tweed and its 
tributaries, with public health and comfort, and with 
natural beauty. Light, air, and water are among the 
elementary needs of man. God has provided them 
bountifully enough. It is surely the part of public 
legislation to preserve these intact against any private 
interest, however pressing and powerful. 

Mr Stoddart has left us some excellent fishing songs.^ 
Among these is the following : — 

" Let ither anglers choose their ain, 

An' ither waters tak' the lead, 
0' Hielan' streams we covet nane, 

But gi'e to us the bonnie Tweed ! 
An' gi'e to us the cheerfu' burn 

That steals into its valley fair — 
The streamlets that at ilka turn 

Sae saftly meet an' mingle there. 

The lanesome Tala and the Lyne, 

An' Manor wi' its mountain-rills, 
An' Etterick whose waters twine : 

Wi' Yarrow frae the Forest hills ; 
An' Gala too, and Teviot bright, 

An' mony a stream o' playfu' speed ; 
Their kindred valleys a' unite 

Amang the braes o' bonnie Tweed. 



^ See An Awjler*8 Rambles and Angling Songs, 1866. 



346 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Frae Holylee to Clovenford, 

A chancier bit ye canna ha'e ; 
Sae gin ye tak* an angler's word, 

Ye'll through the whuna an' ower the brae, 
An' work awa wi' cunnin' hand 

Yer birzy heckles, black and reid ; 
The saft sough o' a slender wand 

Is meetest music for the Tweed ! " 



The volume of Ballads arid Lyrics of Old FrancCy with 
other Poems, by A. Lang (1872), contains elegant trans- 
lations of some very beautiful pieces of the older poets 
of France. Mr Lang has, besides, given us some poems 
of his own, and among these are two lyrics at once sweet 
and true, entitled Twilight on Tweed, and Sunset on Yar- 
row, I give the former : — 

** Three crests against the 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, come 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 of long ago. 

Old songs that sung themselves to me. 

Sweet through a boy's day-dream. 
While trout below the blossom'd tree 

Plashed in the golden stream. 



RECENT POETS. 347 

Twilight, and Tweed, and Eildon Hill, 

Fair and thrice fair you be ; 
You tell me that the voice is still 

That should have welcomed me." 



In 1869 appeared a volume of poems by "J. B. 
Selkirk," " J. B." is a Borderer by birth and upbring- 
ing ; and though in his volume there is not much local 
allusion, we can detect the breath of the forest hills in 
Setreat, and the power of the forest legends in T?ie 
Yerle's Vow. But I am happy to be able to give A 
Song of Yarrow by this author, which shows how deeply 
and purely that stream of song can even now, in this 
materialistic age, touch the heart of one of its sons, who 
is not less distinguished by practical ability in industrial 
pursuits than by a tender imaginative susceptibility : — 

A Song op Yarrow. 

" September, and the sun was low, 

The tender greens were flecked with yellow. 
And autumn's ardent after-glow. 
Made Yarrow's uplands rich and mellow. 

Between me and the sunken sun, 
Where gloaming gathered in the meadows. 

Contented cattle, red and dun. 
Were slowly browsing in the shadows. 

And out beyond them, Newark reared 

Its quiet tower against the sky. 
As if its walls had never heard 

Of wassail-rout or battle-cry. 

O'er moss-grown roofs that once had rung 

To reivers' riot. Border brawl, 
The slumberous shadows mutely hung. 

And silence deepened over all. 



348 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Above the high horizon bar 
A cloud of golden mist was lying, 

And over it a single star 
Soared heavenward, as the day was dying. 

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. 

In silent fascination bound. 
As if some mighty spell obeying. 

The hills seemed listening to the sound, 
And wondering what the stream was saying. 

What secret to the inner ear. 
What happier message was it bringing. 

What more of hope and less of fear. 
Than man dare mix with earthly singing ? 

Earth's song it was, yet heavenly growth — 
It was not joy, it was not sorrow, — 

A strange heart-fulness of them both 
The wandering singer seemed to borrow. 

Like one that sings and does not know. 
But in a dream hears voices calling. 

Of those that died long years ago, 
AJid sings although the tears be falling. 

Oh Yarrow ! garlanded with rhyme' ! 

That clothes thee in a mournful glory. 
Though sunsets of an elder time 

Had never crowned thee with a story, 

Still would I wander by thy stream. 
Still listen to the 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. 



RECENT POETS. 349 

Ah I 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 tbe burden of its sorrow. 

And 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." ^ 

The old note of that 

" pleasing song 
Of him who sad beneath the wither'd branch 
Sat of Traquair, complaining of his lass," * 

has quickened the creative feeling of one who could 
render in musical verse both Highland grandeur and 
Lowland pathos. It is thus Principal Shairp sings of 
The Bush aboon Traquair, as freshly as it were for the 
jBrst time: — 

" Will ye gang wi* me and fare 

To the bush aboon Traquair ] 
Ower the high Minchmuir we'll up and awa', 

This bonny summer noon. 

While the sun shines fair aboon. 
And the licht sklents gently doon on holm and ha'. 



^ This has been since published by the author, along with other inter- 
esting poems. 
* Hamilton of Bangour. 



350 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY, 

And what would ye do there, 

At the bush aboon Traquair 1 
A lang dreich road, ye had better let it be ; 

Save some auld skrunts o' birk 

I' the hiUside Hrk 
There's nocht T the warld for man to see. 

But the blythe lilt o' that air, 

* The Bush aboon Traquair,' 
I need nae mair, it's eneuch for me ; 

Ower my cradle its sweet chime 

Cam' soughin' frae auld time, 
Sae tide what may, I'll awa' and see. 

And what saw ye there 

At the bush aboon Traquair 1 
Or what did you hear that was worth your heed 1 

I heard the cushies croon 

Through the gowden afternoon, 
And the Quair bum singing doon to the Vale o' the Tweed. 

And birks, saw I three or four, 

Wi* grey moss bearded ower. 
The last that are left o' the birken shaw, 

Whar mony a simmer een 

Fond lovers did convene, 
Thae bonny bonny gloamins that are lang awa'. 

Frae mony a but and ben. 

By muirland, holm, and glen. 
They c«mi yin hour to spen' on the greenwood sward ; 

But lang hae lad and lass 

Been lying 'neath the grass, 
The green green grass o' Traquair kirkyard. 

They were blest beyond compare, 

When they held their trysting' there, 
Amang thae greenest hills shone on by the sun ; 

And then they wan a rest, 

The lownest and the best, 
I' Traquair kirkyard when a' was dune. 

Now the birks to dust may rot, 
Names o' luvers be forgot, 



RECENT POETS. 351 

Nae lads and lasses there ony mair convene ; 

But the blithe lilt o' yon air, 

Keeps the bush aboon Traquair, 
And the luve that ance was there, aye fresh and green." 

In the year 1867 Principal (then Professor) Shairp 
resided for some months in the valley of Manor. While 
there he wrote the following lines on Manor Water, 
then known to him for almost the first time, for I do 
not think he had come across it in his earlier Border 
wanderings. It was while living with me for a week at 
The Loaning, in the early part of the summer of this 
year, that he for the first time went with me into Manor. 
I well remember the emotion of surprise and admiration 
which he manifested, and the expression of the words, 
"We shall have a house here this summer"; and a 
house accordingly was found in the modem farm-dwelling 
of Castlehill, beneath the shadow of its mouldering tower, 
within hearing of the Manor, and immediately in sight 
of the Screes — now grey, now deep purple after rain — 
that rise with a weird charm from the haugh on the 
opposite side of the stream. 

Manor Water. 

1. 

" Doth Yarrow flow endeared by dream 
And chaunt of Bard and Poet ? 
As fair to sight flows Manor's stream, 
And only shepherds know it : — 

2. 

In autumn-time when thistle-down 

Upon the breeze is sailing, 
And from higli clouds the shadows brown 

Go o'er the mountains trailing. 



352 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

3. 

The streams of Yarrow do not range 
By greener holm or meadow, 

Nor win a sweeter interchange 
Of sunshine and of shadow. 

4. 

And when along these heights serene, 
Go days of autumn weather. 

How splendid then the grassy sheen 
With bracken blent and heather ! 

5. 

When from yon hill across the glen 
The Harvest moon doth wander. 

She lingers o'er no strath or ben. 
With sweeter looks and fonder. 

6. 

Then wh^t hath Yarrow, that famed stream 

By hundred poets chanted, 
To win the glory and the dream, 

This dale hath wholly wanted ? 

7. 

It is not beauty, nor rich store 
Of braver deeds and older : 
• Down all this water Peel towers hoar 
Of stem old warriors moulder. 

• a 

O'er these hills rode beneath the moon. 
With his bride. Lord William flying ; 

At this wan water they lighted down, 
The stream his life-blood dyeing. 

9. 

Whence then did Yarrow Jwin her claim 

To such poetic favour ? 
She kept the old melodious name, 

The old Celtic people gave her. 



RECENT POETS. 353 



10. 



And when upon her banks befell 

Some love-pain, or deep sorrow, 
Some Bard was nigh to sing it well 

To the magic chime of Yarrow." 

Eleven years after this, in 1878, my friends Mr 
Lushington and Mr Shairp were for a few days with 
me at The Loaning. On a fine sunny and crisp Sep- 
tember morning we drove down the Twe^d, and up by 
the hill-pass of Newhall to the Yarrow. We went by 
Cardrona and. old charming Traquair, with its haunting 
memories of Scottish and Border story. Going up, of 
course, by the Newhall Bum, we ascended the Pad o' 
Slack (vulgarly Paddie Slacks), and passed by Glenlude 
on the right, — the most charming and appropriate of all 
the approaches to Yarrow. There was a soft silence in 
the air as of a surrounding sympathy ; a quiet brown of 
ferns on the hillsides and in the hopes, a fading greenery 
of those greenest of braes, and a lingering passing of 
the ruddy grace on the heather. And here a/id there 
a grouse-cock by the side of the hill-road rose, flapped, 
and crowed — for then the wild birds there had a natural 
freedom, ere there was the letting of the shooting, the 
driving, and thus the desolation of death which one now 
finds. The Newhall Burn, most of the way upwards, made 
a quiet music for us, as only a Border burn in a still 
dreamy autumn day, when it meqts a loving ear, can do. 
We got to the Mount Benger ridge, and there paused for 
a little, that we might take in the place of outlook 
whence Wordsworth, with Hogg and Laidlaw, first saw 
the Yarrow. The Gordon Arms — that spot of old 

VOL. u. z 



354 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

» 

memories and ever -living charms to me — was soon 
reached ; and we eyed curiously the prospect by Al- 
trive, up Eldinhope to the head of the Tuschielaw 
Burn, and the hills of Ettrick. But these were not to 
be touched this day. They only served to impress us 
with the wealth of the suggestions of the laiid around 
us. Up the Yarrow we went — that calm, soothing, 
delightful stretch between the Gordon Arms and Kirk- 
stead — the heart of the solitude of the enchanted stream. 
A little above Kirkstead, where the Loch opens fully 
to the view, we left the carriage, sending it on to Tibbie's. 
Everybody knows where that is, who knows anything of 
the Border land. We then took the ascent of the hill 
to the right, passed ** The Cross," on one of the most 
fitting spots where cross could have stood, with outlook 
of hill, gleam of water, and circle of sky, — sufiScient 
of themselves to make a man feel the power of holiness 

and self-sacrifice. Then we touched Binram's grave,— 

» 

" The Wizard-Priest, whose bones are thrust 
From company of holy dust." 

Within the ancient graveyard of St Mary's of the Lowes 
are the simple tombstones and mounds of many of the 
old shepherd and farmer names of the Border — Brydon, 
Laidlaw, Scott, and Grieve — 

" The peasant rests him from his toil, 
And, dying, bids his bones be laid, 
Where erst his simple fathers prayed." 

Here is the tomb of that Edinburgh John Grieve, who 
was generous and held out a helping hand to James 
Hogg in his early struggles, and who, wfeen KUmeny 



RECENT POETS. 355 

appeared, meeting the Shepherd on the street, seized his 
hand, and said exultingly, " Man, Jamie, I never thocht 
ye could have written that ! " 

Then we made for Meggat and Henderland — that 
charming valley that opens the vision to the grand 
summits of Cramalt and Meggat Head. We saw Piers 
Cockbum's tomb, the ruined mounds of the chapel around 
it ; and on the other side of the burn the green knowes 
that mark the site of the tower whence the Cockburns 
ruled the lands around, long ere Scott or other modem 
names had more than a yeoman footing in the district. 
Both Shairp and Lushington stood by the burn that 
divides the featureless ruins of castle and chapel, deeply 
moved. I saw it in their faces. The place and its story 
were working in their hearts. They said little or nothing. 

We then went on to Tibbie's, and drove back in the 
peace of the evening, the shadows falling from the 
west on the Yarrow hills. I had first met Shairp at 
Tibbie's, in Yarrow, much more than a quarter of a 
century before ; — and this was the last time he and I 
were in Yarrow. I was not at all surprised when, 
shortly after this, he called me aside one day and said, 
" I wish to read to you a poem — ^you will know what it 
means," and he read the following stanzas : — 

Three Friends in Yarrow. 
Addressed to E, L, Luskirigion^ September 1878, 

1. 

" many a year is gone, since in life's fresh dawn, 
The bonny forest over, 
Mom to eve I wandered wide, as blithe as ever bride 
To meet her faithful lover. 



356 



BORDER. HISTORY AND POETRY. 



2. 

From Newark's birchen bower to Dryhope*8 hoary Tower, 

Peel and Keep I traced and numbered ; 
And sought o*er muir and brae, by cairn and cromlech grey, 

The graves where old warriors slumbered. 

3. 

Where e'er on Hope or Dale has lingered some faint trail 

Of song or minstrel glory. 
There I drank deep draughts at will, but could never drink my fill 

Of the ancient Border story. 

4. 

fond and foolish time when to ballad and old rhyme 

Every throb of my pulse was beating ! 
As if old-world things like these could minister heart-ease, 

Or the souPs deep want be meeting ! 

5. 

Now when gone is summer prime, and the mellow autumn time 

Of the year and of life has found us, 
With Thee, gentle Friend, how sweet one hour to spend, 

With the beauty of Yarrow all around us. . 

6. 

With him, too, for a guide, the Poet of Tweedside, 

Our steps 'mong the braes to order. 
Who still doth prolong the fervour, torrent-strong. 

The old spirit of the Border. 



7. 

Heaven's calm autumnal grey on holm and hillside lay, 

With here and there a gleaming ; 
As the glints of sunny sheen, down Herman's ^ slopes of green. 

O'er St Mary's Lake came dreaming. 



^ Herman Law, a hill on the watershed between Yarrow and Mo£Bikt 
Waters. 



RECENT POETS. 357 

8. 

There on Dryhope's Tower forlorn we marked the rowan, bom 

From the rents of roofless ruin ; 
And heard the [bridal] tale of the Flower of Yarrow Yale, 

And her old romantic wooing^ 

9. 

And then we wandered higher, where once St Mary's quire, 

O'er the still lake watch was keeping : 
But nothing now is seen save the lonely hillocks green. 

Where the shepherds of Yarrow are sleeping. 

10. 

And we stood by the stone where Piers Cokbume rests alone 

With his bride in their dwelling narrow ; 
And thou heard'st their tale of dool, and the wail of sorrow full, 

The saddest ever wailed on Yarrow. 

11. 

Thou didst listen while thine eye all lovingly did lie 

On the green braes spread around thee ; 
But I knew by the deep rapt quiet thou didst keep. 

That the power of Yarrow had bound thee. 

12. 

well that Yarrow should put on her sweetest mood, 

To meet thy gentle being, 
For of both the native mien, and the fortunes ye have seen. 

Respond with a strange agreeing. 

13. 

There was beauty here before sorrow swept the Forest o'er. 

Its beauty more meek to render : — 
Thou wert gentle from thy birth, and the toils and cares of earth 

Have but made thee more wisely tender. 

14. 

High souls have come and gone, and on these braes have thrown 

The light of their glorious fancies. 
And left their words to dwell and mingle with the spell 

Of a thousand old romances. 



35 S BORDER HISTORY AKD POETRY. 

15. 

And who more fit to find, than thou, in soul and mind 

All akin to great bards departed, — 
The high thoughtshere they breathed, the boon they have bequeathed 

To all the tender-hearted. 

16. 

And we who did partake, by still St Mary's Lake, 

Those hours of renewed communion. 
Shall feel when far apart the remembrance at our heart 

Keeps alive our foregone soul-union. 

17. 
From this world of eye and ear soon we must disappear ; 

But our after-life may borrow, 
From these scenes some tone and hue, when all things are made new 

In a fairer land than Yarrow." ^ 



There is one writer who, though he has not expressed 
himself in verse, has yet so clearly entered into the soul 
of the Border scenery, that his prose is instinct with the 
power of its peculiar poetry. Tlie author of Rob and his 
Friends — as genuine a piece of Scottish life and character 
as is to be found in our literature, and full of the artless- 
ness of art — has limned the scenery of the Border land 
with exquisite touch and felicity of phrase in his Minch- 
muir and Entcrkin — pictures that bespeak alike power of 
eye and pathos of heart. 

I cannot omit notice of a touching ballad by a lady 
born in Peeblesshire, and belonging to one of the older 
families of the district. Sarah Lawson, afterwards Mrs 

^ This poem and that on Manor Water were published for the first 
time in Principal Shairp's Olen Desserayy and other Poems (1888), edited 
by his friend, Mr F. T. Palgrave. The publishers — Messrs Macmillan ft 
Co. — have kindly allowed me to reproduce them here. 



RECENT POETS. 359 

Gordon of Campbelton, was the daughter of John Law- 
son, the last laird of Cairnmuir, an 'estate lying near the 
source of the Lyne Water, and on the wild and lonely 
muirs that slope down from the Eastern Cairn Hill, one of 
the highest of the Pentlands. The Lawsons held Cairn- 
muir from the time of Sir Eichard Lawson, who took a 
prominent part in public affairs, and who was made 
"Justice-Clerk" about 1488. He was of the family of 
Lawson of Humbie, and acquired Cairnmuir in 1500. 
His direct descendant parted with this and other Peebles- 
shire estates in 1834-36. Miss Lawson married in 1833 
Alexander Gordon of Campbelton, in the Stewartry of 
Kirkcudbright. Mrs Gordon died in 1890. She was 
a woman evidently of tender sensibility and much ac- 
complishment. The poem that follows shows true poetic 
feeling, though it has certain defects in rhythm. Now 
and again one comes across solitary tombstones of this 
kind in moorland graveyards on the Border; but very 
seldom has the quickening suggestion of them been 
more truly or finely expressed. 

M'Clellan 8 Tomb. 



ttri 



These lines were suggested to the author by the sight of a 
tombstone in the little solitary churchyard of Kirkcormack, 
which lies close by the river Dee, on the opposite side of the 
water to Argreenan House. This churchyard, like many others 
in Galloway, is still occasionally used as a place of interment 
by a few families amongst the farmers and peasantry ; although 
no trace is left of the place of worship to which it was once 
attached, save a grassy niound which apparently marks the site 
of the foundation. The tomb in question is in the interior of 
this mound ; a fiat stone engraven in characters nearly illegible 
with the name of * The Honourable Patrick M^Clellan, aged 18.* 



360 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Some armorial bearings can still be traced upon the stone, and 
likewise the date, 1535. The occupant of the tomb was prob- 
ably one of the M'Lellans of Auchlane." ^ 

" Young sleeper by the waters ! 
How many a year hath fled 
Since thy house's mournful daughters 
Here wept their early dead ! 

Since thy stately kinsmen slowly 

Laid the funeral stone o'er thee, 
Within the chapel holy 

Close by the rushing Dee I 

That funeral stone's cold barrier 

When it hid thy faded bloom ; — 
Did e'en the stalwart warrior 

Drop a tear on thy tomb ? 

Did thy mother, anguish-laden, 

There vent her soul's despair ? 
Did perchance some sorrowing maiden 

Pour her heart's warm tear-drops there 1 

When the weary pUgrhn roaming 

Through fair Galloway, 
To the river chapel coming, 

There knelt him down to pray, — 

Did thy sculptured name remind him 

Of mortal life's brief span — 
Till he cast earth's cares behind him 

And went forth a holier man 1 

« 

Yea ! doubtless many wept thee 

In thy cold winding-sheet ; 
And many a fond heart kept thee 

Unforgotten while it beat. 



^ Hittorieal and Traditional Tales connected vnth the South of Scotland* 
Kirkcudbright^ 1843. 



RECENT POETS. 361 

And many a Mass rose piously 

For thy repose to pray, 
But time hath dealt with these as thee, 

And all are passed away. 

Nor love, nor prayer, young sleeper ! 

Thy memory hath kept : 
In death's cold realm the weeper 

Hath lain down by the wept. 

Could thy long rest be broken, 

Of thy lofty race thou'dst see 
Scarce one surviving token. 

Save the stone that covers thee. 

Thy proud forefather's dwelling 

The land knows no more ; 
No trace remaineth telling 

Where they held their state of yore ; 

Here where they wont to bend them 

And breathe the holy vow, 
The chapel- walls would lend them 

But little shelter now. 

The chapel-walls lie level 

With the earth o'er thy breast ; 
On their base the wild flowers revel 

And the lark makes her nest ; 

But the river where it floweth. 

And the hills that skirt the shore. 
And the breeze that o*er them bloweth, 

They are ever as of yore. 

Man's work no more retaineth 

A place above the sod ; 
But thy last long home remaineth 

*Mid the changeless works of God. 

Each trace of all that knew it 

For ages hath been flown ; 
But heaven's sweet showers still dew it, 

And sunbeams kiss the stone. 



362 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

Nor boots it now, young sleeper ! 

If thou wend'st at night or mom, 
If green or ripe the reaper 

Laid low the stately com ; — 

Alike to thee thy waking 
When the trump shall summon thee, 

Thy sleep of ages breaking — 
Beside the rushing Dee." 

"We have seen that the principal of the older songs 
of the Borders are due to gentlewomen of the ancient 
families of the district. We have Miss Elliot, Mrs 
Cockbum, Lady Grisdl Baillie. To these we have to 
add in our own time the name of a lady whose original 
songs, considerable in number, are known only in a 
limited circle, — unfortunately for those interested in 
poetry infused with the spirit of the past They are, 
besides, set by herself to music charmingly befitting. 
I refer to Lady John Scott of Spottiswood. I am 
happy to be permitted to print for the first time two 
of her poems, both having a peculiarly characteristic 
Border interest, and instinct with the feeling and genius 
of Border song.^ Whether or not one sets store by heredity, 
it is worth noting that Lady John Scott is the represen- 
tative of a family which held the ancestral lands as early 
at least as the time of Edward L, and has thus known 
and lived through all the changes and moods of Scottish 
and Border story. Besides, this family has been quite re- 
markable for the large proportion of its representatives 

^ These poems were first brought to my notice by Lord Napier and 
Ettrick, and it is through his kind ofiices that I am now privileged to 
publish them. 



RECENT POETS. 363 

and members who have taken part in national action 
and added to the intellectual wealth of the country. 
William, sixth of the line, fell at Flodden. John was 
for long the minister of Calder, and the able adminis- 
trator of the Eefonned Church. His eldest son, John, 
bom 1565, was the Archbishop of St Andrews and Lord 
Chancellor of Scotland, the well-known Church historian. 
Sir Eobert, his second son, a distinguished lawyer, author 
of The Practicks of the. Zaivs of Scotland, became Lord 
President of the College of Justice and Secretary for 
Scotland. He suffered for his loyalty and anti-Covenant- 
ing principles at St Andrews in 1646. Then we have 
Governor Spotswood of Virginia ; then John Spotswood, 
another famous lawyer, who "reduced Scots law to a 
science." He bought back the family estate after an 
alienation of eighty years. The representative of this 
ancient and honourable line, in whom the spirit of the 
old Border song has found expression, is now Alicia 
Anne, who married Lord John Scott, second surviving 
son of the fourth Duke of Buccleuch. He died in 1860. 
The two songs, rather ballads, which follow have 
a true naturalness and simplicity, and a wonderful, 
almost weird, touch of pathos. Only one who has lived 
on the Borders, known familiarly the scenery, felt too 
its power as a soul impression, sympathised with the 
heart attachment which the men and women of the 
district have for the places — the hills, glens, streams 
of the land — could have written those stanzas. They 
produce the effect of poetry, as the oldest ballads do, 
by the very simplest means. 



■ •> 



364 



BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 



The Bounds o* Cheviot. 



1. 



^' Shall I never see the bonnie banks o' Kale again, 
Nor the dark craigs o' Hownam Law, 
Nor the green dens o' Chatto, nor Twaeford's mossy stane, 
Nor the birks upon Philogar Shaw ? 
Nae mair, nae mair, I shall never see the bounds o' Cheviot mair ! 

2. 

Shall I never watch the breakin' o' the simmer day 

Ower the shouther o* the Deer Buss height, 
When the Stainchel, and the Mote, and the flowery Buchtrigg 
brae 
Redden slowly wi* the momin' light 7 
Nae mair, nae mair, I shall never see the bounds o' Cheviot mair ! 

3. 

Shall I never wander lanely when the gloamin' fa's, 

And the wild birds flutter to their rest, 
Ower the lang heathery muir, to the bonnie Brunden Laws 

Standin' dark against the glitter o' the west ? 
Nae mair, nae mair, I shall never see the bounds o' Cheviot mair ! 

4. 

Shall I never ride the mossy braes o' Heatherhope mair, 

Shall I never see the Fairlone bum, 
Nor the wild heights o' Hindhope, wi' its corries green and fair, 
And the waters trinklin' doon amang the fern ? 
Nae mair, nae mair, I shall never see the bounds o' Cheviot mair ! 



5. 

Shall I never win the marches at Coquet Head 

Through the mists and the driftin' snaw, 
Nor the dark moors o' Cottenshope, nor the quiet springs o' 
Rede, 
Qlintin' bright across the Border far awa ? 
Nae mair, nae mair, I shall never see the bounds o' Cheviot mair I " 



RECENT POETS. 365 

The other by the same writer is entitled — 

The Lammermoor Lilt. 

Lady John Scott writes : " I used to hear an old 
Lammermoor woman repeat the first four lines of these 
words. The rest of the words and the tune are by 



me. 



" Happy's the craw that builds 
Its nest on Trotten Shaw, 
An' drinks o' the waters o' Dye, 
For nae mair may I. 

Blythe may the muircock craw 
On the heights abune Scaurlaw ; 
'Mang the heather-blooms he'll flee, 
Bat there never mair will I be. 

It's weel for the plovers that bigg 
On the bonnie leas o' Whinrigg, 
An' whistle on the Rawbum Stane, 
But I'll never be there again. 

Blest are the trouts whase doom 
Is i' the water o' Watch to soom, 
An' in the Tw inlaw ford to play, 
But far frae it I maun gae. 

The hare may rin merry enouch 
On the braes o' Horseupcleuch, 
Where the broom grows lang an' fair, 
But I'll never see it mair. 

The tod may be happier still 
On the back o' the Twinlaw hill, 
'Mang the bonnie moss-hags to hide. 
But there I maunna bide." 



1 Letter to Lord Napier and Ettrick. 



366 BORDER HISTORY AND POETRY. 

It would not be easy to estimate or express the degree 
of refined and elevated feeling in many minds, of which 
the Ballads and Songs now passed in review have been 
the source. Some men have felt their power so strongly 
that we cannot look for an increase in the intensity of 
the gratification, or a greater quickening of the poetic 
faculty than they have already caused. But we may 
hope that the purifying and refining power of Border 
song may be greatly extended, especially among those 
born in the district, to whom it comes as a natural 
heritage. The degree in which a Borderer appreciates 
the poetry of his native hills and vales may be taken 
as the measure of his culture. The Borderer who is 
entirely impervious to its influence, if there be any such, 
may fairly be given up as incapable of education in any 
true sense of that word. 

As a distinctive form of poetry. Border song has a 
permanent place in our national literature It is simple, 
outward, direct, not without art, especially in its later 
forms, yet powerful mainly because it is true to feelings 
of the human heart, which are as universal and per- 
manent as they are pure ; and because it is fresh as the 
sights and sounds of the varied land of hill and dale, of 
pui-ple moorland and clear sparkling streams, which it 
loves so well. It is a form of poetry with which we 
can at no time dispense, if we are to keep our literature 
healthy; and it is especially needed in these times. 
For we have abounding morbid introspection and self- 
analysis ; we have greatly too much of the close hot 
atmosphere of our own fancies and feelings. We depend 
for our interest in literature too much on the trick of 



RECENT POETS. 367 

incident or story, too little on character which embodies 
primary human emotion. We need, as people did at the 
commencement of the century, some reminder of the 
grandeur of a simple life, of the instinctive character of 
high motives and noble deeds, of the self-satisfying sense 
of duty done ; and the close workshops of our literary 
manufactures would be all the better for a good fresh 
breeze from the hills and the holms of the Teviot and 
the Yarrow. 



INDEX. 



Abbeys, the rise of, on the lower 
reaches of the Tweed, i. 267 — 
grandeur and beauty of their ruins, 
i6.— damage sustained by, during 
the War of Independence, 283 — 
their subsequent destruction by the 
English under Lord Hertford, 16. 
et seq. — their ruins now very much 
as Hertford left them, 289— the old, 
useful as schools of a higher tvpe, 
836. 

Aethelfrith or Ethelfred, sumained 
the Wild, character of, i. 158 — 
battle between « and Ai<lan, king of 
the Scots of Dalriada, 159, 160— 
slain in battle in 617, 160. 

Aidan, king of the Scots of Dalriada, 
battle between, and Aethelfrith, 
sumamed the Wild, i. 159, 160. 

Alcfrith, deputy king of Deira, quaint 
memorial over the tomb of, i. 162. 

Alclyde. See Strathclyde. 

Alexander III., second marriage of, 
at Jedburgh, i. 296 — mysterious 
apparition in the evening at a ball 
in the abbey in honour of his 
nuptials, 297 — his death and its 
results, 299. 

Angle language, sj^read of the, over 
Scotland, i. 172, 173. 

Angles of Bemicia, the, i. 241— their 
civilising influence over other races 
in Scotland, 242. 

Anglo-Saxon, application of the term 
to a portion of the Teutonic speech 
and people, i. 65 — the names very 
realistic in meaning^ and unmusical 
in sound, i. 110. 



Anglo-Saxons, the, in Scotland, i. 
56 et passim — their hatred of Nor- 
man rule, 242, 243. 

Angus, Archibald, seventh Earl of, 
slaughters the English army at 
Peniel Heugh, i. 287. 

Ardderyd, the great battle of, i. 152, 
153 — death of Gwenddoleu the 
leader of the Pagan confederacy at, 
153. 

Armstrong, John, laird of Gilnockie, 
the treacherous seizure and exe- 
cution of, by James V., iL 24, 25 

— ballad commemorative of his 
fate, 26, 28— his tower of Gilnockie 
destroyed, 28 — ^and his residence of 
Holehouse burnt, 29 — his son, 
Christie, gets back the mails and 
dues of the escheated lands, 30. 

Armstrong, John, M.D., his poem. 
The Art of Preserving Health, ii. 
269. 

Arthur, the British Guledig, question 
as to the historic reality of, involved 
in great difficulty, L 115— authori- 
ties regarding, examined, t&. et seq, 

— the historic epoch of, 117 — 
Nennius quoted regarding, 120 — 
the twelve battles of, 122 et seq, — 
his death, 129 — the historical, 
afterwards passes into the mythical. 
lb,, 130. 

Artlmrian legends, the, ^adual for- 
mation of tne cycle of, 1. 134 et seq, 
—influence of, on the poetry of 
England, 138 — Sir Thomas Ma- 
lory's famous collection of, 139. 

Arthurian names in Scotland, i. 131. 



INDEX. 



369 



Aidd Maiilandy the historical ballad 
of. ii. 129-131. 

Baillie, Lady Grisell, biographical 
notice of, ii. 231 e^ aeq. — her most 
important song, Were na my Heart 
licht I toad />««, 233 — remarks on 
her song, 0, the Ewe Buchtin's 
Bonnie, 234, 235. 

Bale or need-tire, the, ii. 8 and note 
— regulation regarding, 9, 10 — use- 
fulness of. 11. 

Ballad of Mosafennan, The ; or. The 
Logan Lee, ii. 237-239— attempt to 
fix the date of, 239 ei seq. 

Ballads, historical, ii. 73, 74 — re- 
lating to the world of Fairyland, 
74 — tragic or pathetic, ib. — those 
classed as "romantic" by Sir 
Walter Scott, 75 — classification of 
songs and, 77 et seq, 

Barbour's Bruce, our first great na- 
tional epic, i. 243. 

Barrow, the, a sepulchral mouument, 
various kinds of, i. 47. 

Beltane, the etymology of the word, 
i. 211 — the festival of, ib., ii. 
53. 

**Bent sae brown," the, a phrase of 
frequent occurrence in Border 
poetry, ii, 217. 

Beowulf, the epic of, ii. 92 et seq. 

Bemicia, the Angle kingdom of, its 
extent, i. 150— the Angles of, at 
war with the Oymri for nearly four 
hundred years. 162. 

Berwick, the Friars of, ii. 69. 

Bonier character, features of, iL 34 e^ 
seq. 

Border poetry, described and criti- 
cised, ii. 2il et seq. — of the eigh- 
teenth centurj', enumeration of the 
various publications relating there- 
to, and the collectors and editors 
of, the, 244 et seq. 

Border romances and poems, L 358 et 
seq. 

Borderers, the, spirit of clanship 
amon^, ii. 17 — clamant outrages 
committed by, put down by the 
king in person, io. 

Border-land of Scotland, the. geo- 
graphically described, i. 2 — its 
division into three districts, 8— 
intense pathos of the old songs and 
ballads of, 180 -the nursery of a 
brave and warlike people, ii. 71 — 
rise and character of the ballads 
and songs of, 72 et seq. 

VOL. IL 



Border tower, the, description of, ii. 
4 et seq. 

Borders, conditions of life on the, 
brought out individualism of char- 
acter, ii. 49, 50— poetry of the, 52 
et seq. 

Britain, arrival of Julius Agricola in, 
and additions made by him to the 
Roman province, i. 113— departure 
of the Romans from the north of, 
114. 

Britons, the various tribes of, and 
their territories, in a.d. 43, i. 106 
et seq. 

Broad Law, picture of Tweeddale 
from the summit of, i. 19 et seq. — 
extensive view of the Border-land 
from, 22 H seq. 

Broch, the, its locality, i. 51 — de- 
finition of, ib.— the Torwoodlee, in 
Selkirkshire, described, 52. 

Broom of the Covxlen-knowes, T/te, ii. 
251. 

Bruce, Robert, his slaughter of 
Comyn, i. 328 — his defeat at Meth- 
ven, ib. — saved by Sir Simon Fraser 
from being taken prisoner there, 
329. 

Buccleuch, family of, history of the, 
i. 258 et seq. 

Buccleuch and his retainers at the 
battle of Peniel Heugh, i. 287. 

Buccleuch, spirited reply of, to Queen 
Elizabeth, ii. 160. 

Buchau, Earl of, and others, head a 
rising in Scotland, i. 318, 319, 321. 

Burgesses, obligations imposed on, in 
olden times, i. 264— Selkirk and 
Hawick, at Flodden, ib. — those of 
Glasgow at Langside, ib. 

Bunie, Nicol, author of Leader 
Uaugha and Yarrow, ii. 88 — the 
song quoted, 228. 

Burton, Mr Hill, on Scottish ballad 
minstrelsy, ii. 211. 

Caerlaverock Castle, the siege of, L 

319, 320. 
Cairn burial, noted examples of, L 

46. 
Caledon, the ancient forest of, L 14 — 

battle in the Wood of, 123— extent 

of, 124. 
Caledonians, the, north of the Forth, 

sun-worship universal among, i. 

214. 
Caledonii, the, i. 113. 
Carham, battle of, i. 174. 
Catrail, the, description of, 1. 183 et 

2 A 



370 



INDEX. 



seq.—'iU chief features, 186 — mea- 
surements of, 187, 188 — its cou- 
tiuuity questioned, 188 et seq. — 
etymology of the tenn discussed, 
192 et seq, — design of, 195 et seq. — 
date and construction of, 200 et seq. 
— its jirobable j>urpose, 208, 209. 

Oave-4lwellings, remains of, in Rox- 
burghshire, i. 29. 

Celtic language, the, some local names 
and generic appellations belong to 
different branches of, i. 89 — dilti- 
ciJtv of classification, 90 — root- 
words and forms belonging to, 91, 
109. 

Chambers, Dr Robert, his doubts 
regarding the authenticity of. cer- 
tain Scottish ballads, ii. 81 — his 
view not accepteil, 82 note. 

Chevi/ Chace and Otterhoiwrief the 
two ballads derive<l from the same 
source, ii. 135-137. 

Christianity, introduction of, on 
Tweedside, i. 21(5 el seq. 

Cist burial, cases of, i. 45. 

Clyde* 8 Wat^r, or The Mother's Mali- 
son, reference to the ballad of, ii. 
216, 217. 

Cockburn, Mrs, notice of, ii. 265— 
her version of the Floioern of the 
Forest, 266, 267 — comparison of 
her version with Miss Elliot's, 268. 

Cokbunie, William, of Henderland, 
a Border reiver, seized and exe- 
cuted, ii. 18— pathetic ballad refer- 
ring tliereto, 19, 20. 

CorjK)ration8, burghal and nmnicipal, 
the rise of, in the reign of David 
and his successors, i, 263 — advan- 
tages derived from, 265 — Cosmo 
Innes quoted thereanent, ih. 

Corse Head, the, fortifications on the 
summit of, i. 44. 

Cospatrick, the family of, i. 249. 

Crawford, Robert, notice of, ii. 249 — 
songs by, ib. — his song of Tioeed- 
side, 250— his new set of verses to 
the old air of Comden-kiimces, 251. 

Crondech, the, description of, i. 49. 

Cumbria, the kingdom of, i. 168, 169 
— ravaged by Edmund of Wessex, 
and given to Malcolm I., King of 
Scots, 170 — united under one gov- 
ernment to Scotland in 1124, 1/6 — 
the part of, south of the Solway, 
annexed to England in 1237, 177— 
the principality of, in the twelfth 
century, 246 et seq. 

Cunningham, Allan, ii. 335 — events 



related on which his ballad of Rat- 
ilin* Willie is founded, ib. et seq, — 
the ballad (quoted, 337, 338. 

Cuthbert of Lmdisfarne, his vision on 
the day of the battle of Necbtau's 
Mere, *i. 163 — early history of, 220 
— becomes Prior of Melrose, ib. — 
and Bishop of Lindisfarne, 221— his 
resting-place changed three times, 
221, ^22 — finally buried in Durham 
Cathedral, 222 — his tomb opened in 
1827, ih. 

Cyniri and Scot, harmony of co- 
operation l>etween, interrupted in 
642, i. 161 — their stru^le for 
supremacy in Scotland, ib. 

Cymri, the, in the Lowlands, i. 30 — 
possessed of a fine musical sense, 
110 e^ seq. — position of, in ourna- 
tional history, 141 et seq. — religi- 
ous worship of, 210, 212 et seq, 

Cymric. See Celtic language. 

Danes, the, landing of, in Britain, i. 
166 — succeed in obtaining posses- 
sion of Northumbria, 167— -driven 
out of Strathclyde and Northum- 
bria, 168. 

Davidson, Tliomas, preacher and poet, 
ii. 340— quotations from his poems, 
340342. 

Dawyck, house of, rich variety of 
trees surrounding the, i. 18. 

Debateable Land, the, i. 4 — its situa- 
tion, ii. 39 note — account of, 149 
et seq. — the clans of the, 152 et seq. 

Dodhead, the, attempt to fix its 
locality, ii. 147, 148. 

Dolmen. See Cromlech. 

Doinjlas Tragedy, The, a sketch of 
its locality, ii. 175 et seq. — the bal- 
lad of, 179, 214, 215. 

JJawie Dens of Yarrmo, The, Sir 
Walter Scott's version of the bal- 
lad quoted, ii. 180-182— the his- 
torical references therein examined, 
183 et seq. — old version of, pro- 
duced for the first time, 194 et seq. 
— its history, 197 et seq. — its inter- 
nal evidence examined, 200 et seq, — 
Henry Scott Riddell's l>Tic of, 339. 

Dryburgh Abbey, account of, i. 278 U 
seq. 

Drycthelm, a monk of Old Melrose, 
notice of, i. 273 et seq, 

Dryffe Sands, the conflict of, between 
the Maxwells and the Johnstoues, 
ii. 161. 

Dunbar, the battle of, I 812. 



INDEX. 



371 



Dunbar, William, his Lament for the 
MakarSj ii. 82 et seq. 

Eailgar, king of Wessex, cedes north- 
em North iimbria to Kenneth Hi., 
king of Scotfl, i. 171. 

Edgar, king, territory l)equeathe<l hy 
him to his })rother David, i. 17ii, 
176. 

JEdom 0* Gordon^ a historical ballad, 
account of, ii. 163 et seq, 

Edwartl I., and the Scottish nobles, 
i. 307 — violates the treaty of Birg- 
ham, 311 — invites the Scottisu 
nobles to accompany him to Flan- 
ders, 314 — defeats the Scots at 
Falkirk, 316— receives a Papal bull 
denying his right of suj^eriority 
over the kingdom of Scotland, 322 
— his disingenuous j>erversion of 
facts in reply thereto, ih. — his char- 
acter and motives reviewed, 329 et 
8eq. — his death, 332. 

Edwin, king of Northumbria, slain in 
battle, i. 160— left his name in 
Edwinsburgh or Edinburgh, ib. — 
his character, i/;., 161. 

Elf, the Scottish, the original of, ii. 
96— what it w«s, 98. 

Elfin belief, the prevalence of, in 
ancient times, ii. 89— Danish bal- 
lads relating to, 90 et seq. 

Elliot, Jean, her version of The 
Flowers of the Forest, ii. 263 — 
biographical notice of, 264 — occa- 
sion of the composition of the lyric, 
264, 265 — comparison of her version 
with Mrs Cockburn's, 268. 

Elliot, Sir Gill>ert, second baronet of 
Minto, his Italian verses to the 
tune of The Yellow Ifair'd Laddie, 
ii.261. 

Elliot, Sir Gilbert, third baronet of 
Minto, his pastoral lyric, ii. 262 — 
reference thereto in the JAiy of the 
Last Minstrel, ib. 

Elliots, the, family history of, ii. 259 
et seq. 

Enclosures, ringed, wliat? i. 37 etseq. 

Ettrick Banks, an old song, notice of, 
iL 230— quoteil, if)., 231. 

Ettrick Forest, annexation of, to the 
Crown, i. 261 — present annual rental 
of, 262. 

Ettrick Shepherd. See Hogg, James. 

Eugenius the Bald, i. 174. 

Evers, Lord, and Latoun, their de- 
structive raid in Scotland, i. 285, 

- 286 — both slain, and their army 



mercilessly slaughtered at Peniel 
Heugh, 287 — Leydeu's lines on the 
event, i*., 288. 

F^ce Buchtin*s Bonnie, The, by Tho- 
mas Pringle, ii. 326, 327. 

Ewe-Buchts, Marion, The, remarks on 
the song of, ii. 235, 236. 

Fairy. See Elf. 

Fergusson, Robert, his Uame Content ^ 
ii. 258, 259. 

Flemings of Biggar, their descent from 
Sir Simon Fraser, i. 335. 

Flodden, the burghers of Selkirk and 
Hawick at, i. 264. 

Flowers of tht F<*rest, The, Miss 
Elliot's version of, ii. 263 — Mrs 
Cockburn's version of, 266, 267— 
the two compared, 268 — both owe 
part of their inspiration to the old 
tune of, ih. 

Forest-lands of the Lowlands, notice 
of, i. 290. 

Forests, the old, of the Border countrj', 
i. 13 et seq. — abundance of game in, 
16, 17. 

Forman, Andrew, his connection with 
Dryburgh, i. 281. 

''Forts," remains of, in the Border- 
land, i. 25 — no claim to be called 
Roman, ih. — various examples of, 
26 et seq. — great number of, in 
Peeblesshire, 28 note — their con- 
struction referre<l to the Cymri, 30 
— the names of the, jmint to the 
Cymric iwojde, 31— their jiurpose, 
ib. et seq. — curious reference to one, 
in the time of William the Lion, 
35. 

Fraser, Sir Simon (father), attorney 
in a lawsuit with Edward I., i. 305 
— one of the Barons of the Scottish 
Parliament, 1289-90, 306 — swears 
fealty to the English king, ib., 307 
— his death, 307. 

Fraser, Sir Simon (son), character- 
sketch of, i. 308 et seq. — takes the 
oatli of allegiance to Etlward, 310 
— taken prisoner at Dunbar, i. 
312 — joinsi the English forces in 
their expedition to Flanders, 314 
— his forfeiteil lands restored to 
him, 315— made warden of the For- 
est in the English interest, 317 — 
suspected of secret complicity with 
the Scottish party, 318, 323— but 
still trusted by the king, ib,, 319 — 
with the English army at the siege 
of Caerlaverock, 319 — casts in his 



372 



INDEX. 



fortunes with the national cause, 321 
— circumstances which led him to 
do so, ib, et seq. — joins the Scottish 
rising under the Earl of Buchan and 
others, 325 — along with Sir John 
Comyn routs the English forces at 
Roslin, 326 — declared an outlaw 
along with Sir William Wallace, 
327— exiled for four years, 328— 
valuable aid rendered by, to Bruce 
at Methven, 329 — taken by the 
English and executed, ib. — reflec- 
tions on the event, 332, 333— his 
descendants, 334, 335. 

Frasers, the, history of, i. 300 et seq. 

Fray o/Supart, The, ii. 144. 

Gaelic. See Celtic language. 

Geddes, Alexander, LL.D., chaplain 
in the Traquair family, ii. 275— 
author of Linton, a Tweeddale Pas- 
toral, The Wee Wifukie, and Lewie 
Gordon, 276. 

Glasgow, the diocese of, its extent in 
the sixth centurj', i. 151— the church 
of, lands belonging of old to, 248 — 
the university of, by whom found- 
ed, 283 — the city of, its first begin- 
ning, 296. 

Oo88 Hawk, The Oay, a romantic 
ballad, ii. 126-128. 

Hamilton, William, of Bangour, ii. 
251 — a picture of winter by, com- 
pared with some lines on the same 
subject in Mannion, 252, 253 — his 
exquisite poem. The Braes qf Yar- 
row, 254 et seq. — Hogg quoted re- 
garding, 258. 

Hay, John (tenth Lord Yester), his 
fine song, Tioeedside, quoted, ii. 
227,228. 

Hertford, Lord, his ravaging expedi- 
tion into Scotland, i. 284, 288, 289. 

Highlands and Borders, the, state of, 
after the accession of James VI., ii. 
38-— Acts passed for the repression 
of disorders in, 39. 

Hogg, James (the Ettrick Shepherd), 
the fairy poems of, ii. 105 et seq. — 
his poem, the U'itch of Fife, 119 et 
seq. — the dedication of his poem, 
The Queen's Wake, 284— biographi- 
cal sketch of, ib. et seq, — example 
of his pictorial power from The 
Wake, 290, 291 — and of exquisite 
sweetness in the lyric at its close, 
291 — stanzas from his Address to his 
Auld Dog Hector, 292, 293. 



Holyrood, abbey and palace of, burnt 
by Hertford, i. 284. 

Horsbroke, Simon de, a companion in 
arms of Sir Simon Eraser, i. 816. 

Hunttis of Cheuet, The^ an older ver- 
sion of Chevy Chace, li. 131 et seq. 

Inglis, Sir James, of Cambuskenneth, 
the supposed author of the Coin- 
playni of Scotland, iL 85, 86. 

Irving, Washington, his visit to Sir 
Walter Scott, ii. 302. 

James V., his raid on Border reivers, 
ii. 18 et seq. — his punishment of 
certain Bordfer noblemen and lairds, 
22 — his treacherous seizure and 
execution of Armstrong of Gil- 
nockie, 24, 25. 

Jamieson's Popular BaUa4s and 
Songs, ii. 245. 

Jedbui^jh Abbey, notice of^ L 270 — 
burnt by the English, 285. 

John Hay*s Bonnie Lassie^ tradition 
regarding the authorship of the 
song, ii. 229 — Quotation from, id. 

Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, u, 
245. 

Kelpie, or Wteter-Elf, the, ii. 97. 
Kelso Abbey, account of, i. 268, 269 

—wrecked by Hertford, 288. 
Kentigern (St Mungo), his missionary 

work on the Borders, i 217 ^ 

seq. 
Ker, family name of, its meaning, L 

178. 
Kers, or Cars, the, i. 262. 
Kingston, Sir John de, his suspicions 

regarding Sir Simon Eraser, 1. 318, 

323. 
Kinmont Willie, notice of the ballad 

of, ii. 157 et seq. 

Laidlaw. William, the friend of Scott, 
ii. 321— his h-ric, Lucy's FUUin\ 
quoted, 322— his other songs, 823. 

Lament of the Border Widiow, The, 
the pathetic ballad of, ii. 20-— con- 
jectures as to its age, 208, 209. 

Lang, A., ii. 346— his lyric, Twilight 
on Tweed, quoted, ib. 

Laughome, Kev. John, his poems 
noticed, ii. 273-275 — the Ettrick 
Shepherd's estimate of him, 275. 

Langside, battle of, burgesses of Glas- 
gow at, i. 264. 

Lawson, Sarah (Mrs Gordon of Camp- 
belton), notice of, ii. 858, 359 — 



INDEX. 



373 



M*Cldlan'8 Tomb, a poem by, 869 
et seq. 

Lay of the Last Minstrel^ The, our 
last and greatest national epic, i. 
243. 

Leader Ilavghs and Y arrow y main 
feature of the song, ii. 228. 

Leyden, John, his Cout of Keeldar, 
a fairv poem, ii. Ill, 112, 277— his 
contrioutions to Scott's Minstrelsi/, 
278 — his chief poem, The Scenes of 
Infancy y criticised, 279 et seq. 

Liddel, the mote of, described, i. 43. 

Liddisdailf Aganis the Theivis of, a 
Border ballad, ii. 31 et seq. 

Lindesai, Alexander de, a companion 
in arms of Sir Simon Fraser, i. 328. 

Logan, Rev. John, suspected of pla- 
giarism, ii. 203 — notice of, 272 — his 
Braes of Varroio, ib., 273. 

Lord William, notice of the ballad 
of, ii. 215, 216. 

Lowlands of Scotland, the, definition 
and extent of, i. 1 — great propor- 
tion of Teutonic names in, 54 — 
view regarding the Low German 
origin of the present language of, 
66— proportion of Norse or Scandi- 
navian words in, 57 — Danish speech 
introiluced to, ib. — Mr Worsaae 
quoted with regard to Scandinavian 
names in, 84 — also regarding traces 
of Scandinavian descent in the phy- 
sical appearance of the inhabitants 
of, 85 et seq. — documents throwing 
light on the fusion of races which 
was going on in the twelfth century 
in, 246 et seq. — main bo<ly of the 
population of, in the present day, 
of Teutonic descent, 253— Act anent 
removing and extinguishing the 
deadly feuds of, ii. 41. 

Lucy's FlUtin\ a fine lyric by William 
Laidlaw, ii. 322. 

Malcolm II., first king of " Scotia," i. 

174. 
Malcolm III. (Canmore), does homage 

to William the Conqueror, i. 175— 

slain at Alnwick, ib. 
Marches of Stobbo^ The, translation 

of a curious document called, i. 

253, 254 — names of witnesses there- 
to, 254 et seq. 
Marches, the East, Middle, and West, 

i. 3. 
Maxwell's, Lord, Goodnight, ii. 161, 

162. 
Melrose, the great charter of, i. 251. 



Melrose Abbey, account of, 1. 270 et 
seq. — desecration of, by the English, 
286. 

Merlin (the bard), tradition regard- 
ing, i. 224 — two men of the name, 
iff. — notice of the earlier, 225 — ^his- 
torical view of the later, of Upper 
Tweeddale, 226 et «tf^.— present at 
the l>attle of Ardderyd, 230— two 
existing poems of, relating to the 
battle, 232, 233 — in popular repute 
as prophet and bard in the time of 
James V., 234 — haunted in his 
wanderings by a female form, 235, 
236 — appears in poetic form in 
Tennyson's "Vivien," 237, 238— 
tradition of Tweedside regarding 
his fate, 239 — quotation regarding, 
from Leyden's Scenes of Infancy, 
ib. , 240— never-failing fulfilment of 
a prophecv attributed to, 240. 

Mickle, William Julius, his poem of 
ICskdale Braes, ii. 270, 271. 

Moat. See Mote. 

Moot, or moot-hill, the, meaning of, 
i. 40 — excellent specimens of, at 
Hawick and elsewhere, ib, 

Morvilla, Hugo de, High Constable 
of Scotland, i. 249. 

Mote, mot, or moat, the, meaning of, 
i. 40 — peculiarity of, as compared 
with the ordinary ring-fort, ib, — 
localities where situated, 41 — to 
what i>eriod the motes may be 
assigned, ib. — difference between 
the fort proper and, 42 — of Liddel, 
descri lotion of, 43 — a work of the 
nature of a, opposite Makerston, 
described, 44. 

Mother's Malison, or Clyde's Water, 
reference to the ballad of the, ii. 
216, 217. 

Murray, Lady, of Stanhope, descrip- 
tion by, of her mother, Lady Grisell 
Baaiie, ii. 232. 

Murray, Sang of the Outlaw, The, 
some of its main features noticed, 
ii. 14 <•/ seq. — inference as to whom 
it refers, 209. 

Names, of dwelling-places, generic 
affixes of, i. 62 et seq, — of streams, 
68 et seq.— for steep breaks in the 
sides of hills, and formed by water- 
courses, 70— for a plain, 71 — for 
hills, 72— for wood, 73— for a val- 
ley, ib. et «<?^.— Scandinavian, 75 et 
seq. — Celtic, 89 et seq, 

Neidpath Castle, account .of, i. 298 — 



374 



INDEX. 



havoc committed by the last Douglas 
of Queensberry on the surroumlings 
of, ii. 319— Wordsworth's denuncia- 
tion thereof, 320. 

Nicol, Rev. James, ii. 327 — his pa- 
thetic song. Where Qitair riiis s^ceet 
avKing the Flowers^ quoted, ib. , 328. 

Ninian, St, among the 2)agan Cymri 
of Tweeddale, i. 217. 

Norman rule, si)irit engendered 
against, in the Anglo-Saxons, i. 
242— and the effects thereof, 243. 

Norse terms relating to pastoral life, 
i. 82. 

Northumbria, invasion of, by Malcolm 
II.. i. 174 — afterwards known as 
Lodonia, Laodonia, or Lothian, ib, 

Oswald, king of Northumbria, i. 162. 
Otterboume, the battle of, narrative 

of, ii. 137 et seq. — ballad relating 

to, 142 et seq. 

Para/ Eeed, account of the ballad of, 
ii. 167 et seq, 

Peblis to the Play^ account of the 
poem, ii. 53 — its date and author- 
ship discussed, 54 et seq. — compared 
with The Kingis (Jiuiir, 54, o7, 58 
— quotations from, 60-62. 

Peebles, the castle of, its history, i. 
291 et seq. 

Peebles^ The Thrie Tailes of the Thrie 
Priests off description of the poem, 
ii. 63 et seq. 

Peuiel Heugh, the English army under 
Lord Evers and Latoun wholly de- 
feated at, i. 287. 

Pennycuik, Dr Alexander, his De- 
scriptioH of Tioeetldale quoted from, 
ii. 219— his family histor>', 241— 
characteristics of his poems, i6., 
242. 

Percy's ReUques^ value of, ii. 245. 

Picts, the, famous in Scottish history, 
i. 114 ct passim — of what race were 
they? i. 143 — ethnological argu- 
ment regarding, 144 et seq. 

Picts Work DiUh. See Catrail. 

Pope John XXII., spirited letter from 
Scottish nobles to, ii. 12. 

Pringle, Thomas, ii. 323 — his poem en- 
titled Autumnal Excursion quoted, 
324— his poem on leaving his native 
land for South Africa quoted, 325 
— The Ewe Buchtin*s Bonnie^ of 
which Lady Grisell Baillie had left 
two stanzas, completed by him, 
326, 327. 



Raid of the Reidsioire^ The, a his- 
torical ballad, ii. 143. 

Ramsay, Allan, his Evergreen and 
Tea-Table Miscellany , ii, 244— his 
Gentle Shepherd, 246 — his special 
contributions to the poetry of the 
Tweed and Yarrow, 248 — Hogg 
quoted regarding, 249. 

Rare Willy's droxoned in Yarrow, ii. 
190, 191 — Professor Aytoun's view 
of the ballad, 193. 

Reformation, the, part played by the 
feudal aristocracy at, i. 263. 

Riddell, Henry Scott, iL 338 — his 
Dowie Dens of Yarrow quoted, 
339. 

Romance, definition of, ii. 75, 76. 

Rome, efforts of certain Scotsmen liv- 
ing at, to influence the Papal Court 
in favour of their countrj-, i. 322 — 
bull sent to Edward by the Court 
of, ib. 

Roslin, the battle of, i. 826. 

Roxburgh Castle, notice of, i. 290, 
291. 

Rural Content, by Andrew Scott, ii. 
333-335. 

Rutherford, Alison. See Cockbum, 
Mrs. 

Rydderch Hael, leader of the Chris- 
tian party at the great battle of 
Ardderyd. i. 153— afterwards king 
of Strathclyde, ib. — his death, 155. 

Scandinavian population, evidence of 
a large, on Tweedside in old times, 
i. 82 et seq. — impress left by the, 
on the literature of our time, 
84. 

Scenes of Infancy, The, by Leyden, 
the i>oem described and criticised, 
ii. 279 et seq. 

Schiltroun, the, its value in warfare, 
i. 316. 

Scot, Michael, the reputed wizard, 
biographical sketch of, i. 337 el seq. 
— belief in his supernatural powers, 
ii. 113. 

Scots, the, i. 141 et passim. 

Scots Wha TIae, our greatest national 
lyric, i. 243. 

Scott, Adam, of Tuschielaw (the 
"King of Theivis"), seized by 
James V., ii. 18 — tried and exe- 
cuted, 21. 

Scott, Andrew, iL 332 — his poem of 
Rural Content quoted, 333-335. 

Scott, Lady John, of Spottiswood, 
family notice of, ii. 862, 363— two 



INDEX, 



375 



ballads by, The Bounds o' Clieviot, 
364 — aud The Lanimerinoor Lilt, 
365. 

Scott, Sir Walter, his resting-place in 
Drybiirgli AbWy, i. 279— views of, 
regarding some of the Border 
romances an(k poems, 3f)l et seq.— 
his fusion of two classes of super- 
natural powers in tlie first and 
second cantos of The Lay of the 
Liist Minstrel, ii. 114 et seq.— his 
Eve of St John, 123 et seq. — touch- 
ing iuciilent in the life of, 142, 143 
— his Minstrel»y of the Scottish 
Bonier^ ii. 245— as a Border i)Oet, 
294 — anecdote of, when a cuild, 
295— impresse<l and inspireil by 
the scenerv, 295-297 — his gathering 
of the ballads in the Minstrelsy, 
297 et seq. — characteristics of his 
poetry, 300 et seq. — examples of 
nis pictorial power, 306 et seq. — 
how his genius acquired its peculiar 
bent, 311 et Sf-q. 

Scott, Sir William, of Thirlestane. a 
distinguishetl Latin versiHer, ii. 
243. 

Scottish nation, origin of, i. 245. 

Sc^^ttish Widov^s Lfivient, The, by 
Thomas Smibert, ii. 331, 332. 

Segrave, Sir John de, defeated at 
Roslin. i. 326. 

Selkirk, tlie Forest of, Engli.sh rai<l 
into, i. 324 — assembly of Scotti.sli 
nobles at, ami savage encounter 
among them, ih. 

Shairp, Principal, The Bush ahmm 
Traouair, by, ii. 349-351 — his lines 
on Manor U'ater, 351-353 excur- 
sion witli Mr Lusliingtou and him to 
the Yarrow, 353 et seq. — j»oem by, 
on the event, 355 et seq. 

Siward, Sir Richard, cai»tured at 
Dunbar, i. 313 note. 

Smil)ert, Thomas, ii. 328— /o Anche! 
Poems chiejiy Lyrical, published 
by, quotation from, 329, 330— his 
Ijest i)oem, Tlie Sc^Atish Widow's 
Lament, fjuoted, 331, 332. 

Song uf Yarrow, A, by *'J. B. 
Selkirk," ii. 317-349. 

Songs and ballads, classilication of, 
ii. 77 et seq. — autliors of the older, 
comparatively unknown, 78, 79 — 
list of, in the CovijAaynt of Sf.-nt- 
land, 80 — in some cases the old 
airs of the, have survived the loss 
of the original words, d). — Dr K. 
Chambers's <loubts regarding the 



genuineness of some of the ballads, 
81— age of the, 89. 

Songs, love, ii. 75. 

Standard, Battle of the, the various 
races engaged at the. i. 244. 

Standing-stone, description of a re- 
markable, on the farm of Bellanrig 
or Bellanridge, i. 49, 50. 

Standing - stones, or ** stanin*- 
stanes," puri>oses of, i. 48, 49 — 
examples of, 48— cup-markings on 
some, 49, 5u. 

Stoddart, Thomas Tod, his Musinys 
on the Banks of Teviot quoted, ii. 
342, 343— his lyric, Tiveed and its 
Prospects, (juoted, 343, 344 — also, 
one of his tishing songs, 345, 
346. 

Strathclyde, occujiied by tribes of 
a common race, i. 147 — various 
names of, 153 — territory comj)re- 
hended in the kingdom of, ib., 154 
— history of, how arrived at, 149 — 
preser\'ed an inde]>endent existence 
for upwanls of three hundred and 
fifty years. 155 — subjugation of the 
Britons of, for nearly a hundred 
years, 164 — memorial of Cu, king 
of, 165. 

Strode, Ralph, the friend of Chaucer, 
his connection with Dryburgh, i. 
281. 

Tamlaney The Young, a fairy poem, 
ii. 99 et seq. 

Telfer^ Jamie, o* Ute Fair Dodhead, 
ii. 144 et seq. 

Telfer, Mr James, and the ballad of 
Parcy Heed, ii. 171. 

Teutonic names, difficulty in dividing 
the, between the Anglo-Saxon and 
the Scandinavian, i. 61. 

"Thieves' Road, the," an old Border 
road, i. 195. 

Tliomas the Rhymour fof Erceldoune), 
historical sketch of, i. 341 et seq. — 
character of his projihecies, 345 — 
references to them by old WTiters, 
346 — his reputed communings with 
the Queen of Faerie, 347— speci- 
mens of his verse, 348 et passim — 
supposed autljor of the romance of 
Sir Tristrem, 351— evidence there- 
for examined, ib. et seq. — not to 
Ik? confoun«le<l with Thomas of 
Brittany, 354. 

Thomson, James, a i)oet true to 
nature, ii. 246 — author of The 
Seasons, 281 — rise of his genius 



376 



INDEX. 



sketched by Leyden in The Scenes 
of Infancy, 2:^2, 283. 

Traquair, the castle of, sketch of, i. 
294, 296 — WiUiam the Lion at, 
296. 

Tweed, the, for a considerable way 
the boandarv-line between Scotland 
and England, i. 2— its valley, and 
those of the Liddel and the Esk, 
form the Border-land of Scotland, 
ib. — natural features of the district 
of, 4 el seq, 

Tweeddale, an English visitor's la- 
conic description of, i. 18 — picture 
of, from the summit of Broad Law, 
19 et seq. — list of words from the 
vernacular of, with their Scandi- 
navian etymology, 79-82. 

Tweeddale family, the, their descent 
traced to Sir Simon Eraser, i. 334. 

Tweedies, the, and the Veitches, nar- 
rative of a bloody feud which 
subsisted between, li. 42 et seq. — 
proclamation by James VI. with 
a view to end the feud, 48. 

TweedsidCy author of the tine lyric en- 
titled, ii. 227 — the song quoted, f7>., 
228— Crawford s song entitled, 250. 

Tweedside, traces of ruined towers 
and castles on, ii. 1 et seq. 

Uplands, the Southern, description 
of, i. 2. 

Veitches, the, and the Tweedies, 
narrative of a bloody feud between, 
ii. 42 et seq, 

WctUr-Elf or KdpU, the, ii. 97. 

Wallace, Sir William, his victory of 
Stirling Bridge, i. 315 — defeated 
at Falkirk, 316— outlawed, 327— 
taken and executed, ib. 

Waltheof or Waldevus, second abbot 



of Melrose, sketch of, i. 277, 
278. 

" Wan water," the, meaning of the 
phrase, and its frequent application 
to the Border streams, iL 212 «/ seq. 

War of Independence, families that 
ruled on Tweedside before and 
after the, i. 257, 258. 

Wardlaw, Lady, of Pitreavie, Scottish 
ballads attributed to, ii. 81. 

Watson, James, his CoUcction of Scots 
Poems J Ancient and Modem, iL 
244. 

Watson, Miss Jeanie M., and The 
Ballad of Mossfennan, ii. 236. 

Welsh, family name of, its meaning, 
i. 178. 

Welsh, William, his connection with 
the old version of The Dateie Dens 
of YarroWy ii. 197 etseq. — and with 
The Ballad of Mossfennan, 237. 

^Vhere Quair rins sweet anuing the 
Flowers, by the Rev. James Kicol, 
ii 327 328 

Wife o/Ushir's WeU, The, the ballad 
of, u. 122, 123. 

William the Conqueror and his treat- 
ment of the Saxons, i. 58. 

WiUie's Bare and Willie's Fair, a 
^)athetic ballad, iL 174. 

Witchcraft, firm belief in, for cen- 
turies, in Scotland, ii. 117 — ^not a 
favourite subject with the older 
singers, 118. 

Wordsworth, his three poems relating 
to Yarrow, ii. 315 ^ seq. — his de- 
nunciation of the last iJouglas of 
Queensberry for cutting down the 
trees around Neidpath Castle, 820. 

Yarrow, the Dowie Dens of, i. 181. 
Yarrow, the, tragic and pathetic 

nature of the songs and ballads of, 

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SIM. Margaret Sim*s Cookery. With an Introduction by L. B. 

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Maitland of Lethington ; and the Scotland of Mary Stuart. 

A History. By John Skelton, C.B., LL.D., Author of 'The Essays of Shirley.' 
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SKRINE. Columba : A Drama. By John Huntley Skrine, 

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30 List of Books Publislud by 



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THOLUCK. Hours of Christian Devotion. Translated from 

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William Blackwood and Sons, 31 



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32 Books Published by William Blackwood and Sons. 



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ll/i»2. 



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RECORDS OF THE TERCENTENARY FESTIVAL OF THE 

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RUSSELL. The Haigs of Bemersyde. A Family History. By 

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IVilliam Blackwood and Sons, 27 



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SKRINE. Columba : A Di-ama. By John Huntley Skrine, 

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SMITH. For God and Humanity. A Romance of Mount Carmel. 

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25«. 0<l. 



28 List of Books Published by 



SMITH. 

Thorndale ; or, The Conflict of Opinions. By Wiluam Smith, 

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SMITH. Greek Testament Lessons for Colleges, Schools, and 

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SMITH. Writings by the Way. By Jonx Campbell Smith, 

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SMITH. The Secretary for Scotland. Being a Statement of the 

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"SON OF THE MARSHES, A." 

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SPEEDY. Sport in the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland 

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SPROTT. The Worship and Offices of the Church of Scotland. 

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Williain Blackwood and Sons. 29 



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TAYLOR. The Story of my Life. By the late Colonel 

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THOLUCK. Hours of Christian Devotion. Translated from 

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