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IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
Edited by W. Shaw Sparrow THE ART AND LIFE LIBRARY. 1. " The British Home of To-Day " ( out of print ). 2. " The Gospels in Art. " 3. " Women Painters of the World. " 4. " The Old Testament in Art ," Vol. I. 5. " The Modern Home " ( out of print ). 6. " The Old Testament in Art ," Vol. II. 7. " The Apostles in Art. " HISTORY, TRAVEL, RUSTIC LIFE. 1. " Mary Queen of Scots ," with 26 Pictures in Colour by Sir James Linton, R.I., and James Orrock, R.I.; the text by Walter Wood. 2. " In The Border C
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PREFACE
PREFACE
Most of us prefer to spend our holiday tours away from our own country. There is a feeling of mild adventure when the land we behold is unknown to us, and when the language we hear filters into our questioning minds through an interpreter's suavity and chatter. And if we go to Switzerland we may earn even a reputation for intrepid pluck among the friends who listen to us on our return home, while the unlucky guides, who found for our trembling feet a pathway around each danger, will amuse their
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PLATES IN COLOUR BY JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
PLATES IN COLOUR BY JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
From Berwick to the Solway as the crow flies is little more than seventy miles. Between these two points lies the line that divides England from Scotland. But to follow this line literally along its every little in and out means a distance of no fewer than forty good miles more. Stretching diagonally across the country—north-east or south-west—we have the river Tweed as eastmost boundary for a considerable space—close on twenty miles; then comes the lofty barrier of the Cheviots extending to thi
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 24 , 44 , 45 , 71 , 73 )...
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THE MAKING OF THE BORDER
THE MAKING OF THE BORDER
It is from the Roman historian Tacitus that the light of history falls for the first time on the Border Country. It is a mere glimpse, however. But it is enough to show us the calibre of the men who held its forests and fastnesses at that remote period. They were the Brigantes, a branch probably of the Celts, who were the first to reach Britain, coming from the common home-land of the Ayrian race somewhere in Central Asia. Their kingdom, Brigantia, embraced all the country between the Mersey and
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THE CHRISTIANIZING OF THE BORDER
THE CHRISTIANIZING OF THE BORDER
It would be interesting to know precisely when and how the light of the Christian faith first penetrated the Border Country, but neither the time nor the manner can be ascertained with certainty. Indeed, it is impossible to say who were the real pioneers of the Gospel within the realm itself. The probability is that in the first instance it was the beneficent work of the Romans in whose legions were to be found many sincere Christians, many faithful soldiers of the Cross. From the "saints of Cæs
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 25 , 58 , 59 ) But it is ever the darkest hour that precedes the dawn. It was impossible that England should lose her faith and fall back under the rule of a mere heathen conqueror. After the "thoughtful Edwin, mightiest of all the kings of the isle of Britain," as he has been called (he was, by the way, the founder of Edinburgh), there arose another champion of the new light in the person of Oswald, Edwin's nephew. Oswald's history connects him with Columba the Irishman, and "Apostle
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 32 , 33 , 36 )...
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BORDER WARFARE
BORDER WARFARE
Of Border warfare it were impossible to treat within the limits of a library. In no part of the kingdom was the fighting and raiding spirit more rampant. The Border clans were constantly at war with one another, the slightest excuse provoking an attack, and not unfrequently was there no raison d'être whatever for the accompanying ruin and desolation. It ran apparently in the blood of those old Borderers to live on unfriendly terms with their neighbours, and to seize every possible opportunity ag
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 39 , 60 , 93 ) Two great incidents of Border warfare stand out before all others—Otterburn and Flodden. Old Froissart has told the story of Otterburn. The Scottish barons, tired of the fickleness and inactivity of their king, determined to invade England, met at Aberdeen, and arranged the preliminaries for a great gathering at Southdean, beyond Jedburgh. On the day appointed the best blood in Scotland was assembled. "There had not been for sixty years so numerous an assembly—they amoun
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( Famous in connection with Flodden Field )...
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NORTHUMBERLAND
NORTHUMBERLAND
A line drawn from Berwick to Carlisle, and across England to the Coquet, thence north again, coast-wise, to the old Tweedside borough will give us, for all practical purposes, the English Border Country. Only a part of the Roman Wall, as far as Crag Loch and Borcovicus (Housesteads), will come within the present purview, which excludes Newcastle itself and the "coaly Tyne." We are to deal with rural Northumberland rather, and with a little corner of Cumberland, the immediate and true Border. Eve
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 40 , 48 , 99 , 103 , 121 ) Of the river valleys running south of the Border line, the chief are the Breamish, or the Till, as it is termed from Bewick Brig—the "sullen Till" of "Marmion"; the Aln, from Alnham Kirk to the sand-banks of Alnmouth, a glen emphatically rich in legendary lore; the Coquet, the most picturesque and most popular trouting-stream in the North of England; and Redesdale, redolent of "Chevy Chase," rising out of Carter Fell, and joining the North Tyne at Redesmouth,
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 39 , 51 , 52 , 56 ) The Coquet bears the palm for picturesqueness amongst Northumbrian valleys, and is about forty miles in length. From Alwinton, the first village after crossing the Cheviots, where the Alwine joins the Coquet—"a place of slumber and of dreams remote among the hills"—to Warkworth Castle, the stream carries history and romance in every league of its course. Here are such names as Biddlestone, the "Osbaldistone," of "Rob Roy" (there are other claimants such as Chillingh
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 38 , 49 , and 53 to 58 ) The first Earl was slain at Bramham Moor (1408). The second Earl fell fighting for Henry VI. at St. Albans in 1455. The third at Towton (1461), and it was his brother the fourth Earl who comforted himself as he lay bleeding to death on Hedgley Moor (1464) that he had "saved the bird in his bosom." The fifth Earl was murdered in 1489. The sixth Earl was the lover of Anne Boleyn, maid of honour to Queen Catherine, and had King Henry VIII. for his rival, who in gr
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"MERRIE CARLISLE"
"MERRIE CARLISLE"
A glance at the outskirts of Carlisle suggests at once the fact that its founders had considered the strategic value of the site. The old Brigantes never planted their towns without due examination of the whole lie of the land, and especially with a view to its defencibleness. The river-junctions were often their favourite settling places. Hence the origin of Carlisle, and many others of the Border towns—Hawick, Selkirk, Kelso, etc. With its three encompassing streams—the Eden, the Caldew, and t
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 39 and 56 ) There are few fairer or wider panoramas in Britain, and none more permeated with the very spirit of romance. What Lockhart said of Sandyknowe is equally true of this singularly fascinating view-point. To whichever hand we turn we may be sure there is "not a field but has its battle, and not a rivulet without its song." Unlike Melrose, which may claim to be the literary capital of the Border Country, Carlisle is the fighting capital. Its most stirring memories are of raiders
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 44 , and 60 to 70 ) Briefly, the headlines of Carlisle's history are these. Founded originally by the Britons, it was held by the Romans for close on four centuries. Many Roman remains (coins, medals, altars, etc.) have been unearthed, and Hadrian's big Wall (murus and vallum) is still traceable in several quarters. A sad spoliation by Pict and Scot followed the Roman withdrawal. They scarcely left one stone on another. Then came the Saxon supremacy under the good King Egfrith, with th
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 39 and 74 ) In this state the cathedral appears to have remained till 1392, when another fire occurred, which destroyed the north transept. A lack of funds was again felt, and it was not till the lapse of nine or ten years that the restoration was completed. Only about a century later, however, Carlisle shared the fate of the monastic institutions, and was suppressed, and the church shorn of many of its enrichments. The Civil Wars witnessed the worst acts of spoliation, when nearly the
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 36 and 74 ) The Irthing valley is replete with historical remains and literary associations. Over there, to the north of Bewcastle (Beuth's Castle), there is a celebrated Runic Cross nearly fifteen feet high, of the Caedmon order, similar to that at Ruthwell. The Irthing flows through the wide moorish wilderness known as Spade-Adam, or the Waste, crosses the Roman Wall at Gilsland, thence courses amongst some of the richest scenery in Cumberland until it meets the Eden. Gilsland Spa ha
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 44 , 67 , 72 ) Robert Fergusson—Burns's "elder brother in the Muses," had his imagination fired by the memories of the Border, and was one of the first to celebrate that land over which lies the light of so much poetic fancy: Wordsworth, too, sang of the "gentle Tweed, and the green silent pastures," though his winsome Three Yarrows is the tie that most endears him to the Lowland hearts. Since Scott's day the voices in praise of Tweed have been legion. "Who, with a heart and a soul tol
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 23 , 35 , 39 , 60 , 61 , 89 , 90 , 91 , 123 ) Tweed's Well lies in the bosom of solemn, bare hills. There is nothing attractive about the spot. Grey moorlands, riddled with innumerable inky peat-bogs, the whaups crying as Stevenson heard them in his dreams, and the bleat of an occasional sheep are the chief characteristics. There is little heather, and the hills are hardly so shapely as their neighbours further down the valley. A first glance is disappointing, but the memories of the p
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 89 and 123 ) Both Scott and Campbell have sung of the unhappy Maid of Neidpath spent with grief and disease, waiting her lover on the Castle walls, and beholding him ride past all unconscious of her identity. The literary associations of Peebles—a charming township—are outstanding. William and Robert Chambers (founders of Chambers's Journal ) were natives. So were Thomas Smibert and John Veitch, poets and essayists both. Mungo Park (a Gideon Gray prototype) was the town's surgeon for a
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 35 , 39 , 91 , 92 , 103 ) Traquair House—possibly Scott's Tully-Veolan, "pallid, forlorn, stricken all o'er with eld," claims to be the oldest inhabited house in Scotland. It certainly looks it. The great gate, flanked with the huge Bradwardine Bears, has not been opened since the '45. There seems no reason to question the legend. It is not so "foolish" as Mr. Lang supposes. Innerleithen, Scott's "St. Ronan's," is near at hand, and the peel of Elibank—a mere shell. Harden's marriage to
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 39 and 92 ) Ettrick and Yarrow between them comprise most of Selkirkshire. The Teviot and Jed are the main arteries running through Roxburghshire, or Teviotdale, as was the ancient designation, colloquially Tividale and Tibbiedale. On the source-to-mouth principle—the most natural and the most instructive—the best approach into Teviotdale is by way of Langholm, locally the Langholm, pleasantly situated on the Dumfriesshire Esk, at the junction of the Ewes and Wauchope Waters. In the fi
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 43 , 49 , 63 , 93 ) At Teviothead we touch the Teviot proper. The upper basin of the Teviot is mainly a barren vale, flanked by lofty rounded hills. For a greater distance it is a strip of alluvial plain, screened by terraced banks clad with the rankest vegetation, and with long stretches of undulating dale-land, and overhung at from three to eight miles by terminating heights, and in its lower reaches it is a richly variegated champaign country, possessing all the luxuriance without a
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 72 and 96 ) The Jed, joining the Teviot close to Jedfoot Station, reminds us that the county town of Rox burgh—Jedburgh—is within easy access, and the fascinating valley of the Jed which Burns so vigorously extolled. The Jed takes its rise between Needslaw and Carlintooth on the Liddesdale Border. Its general course is east and north, and its length about seventeen miles. The places of chief interest on its banks are Southdean, where the Scottish chiefs assembled previous to Otterburn,
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 98 , 99 ) To a shepherd in Canada Dr. Norman Macleod is said to have remarked, "What a glorious country this is!" "Ay," said the man, "it is a very good country." "And such majestic rivers!" "Oh, ay," was all the reply. "And such good forests!" "Ay, but there are nae linties in the woods, and nae braes like Yarrow!" Of course, the answer was from a purely exile point of view, but even to those of the Old Country the name of Yarrow wields the most wondrous fascination. Like Tweed, Yarro
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
( See pp. 116 ) One might speak, too, of the "Douglas Tragedy," the scene of which is laid in the Douglas Glen, in the heart of the quiet hills forming the watershed betwixt Tweed and Yarrow. Here lived the "Good Sir James"—Bruce's right-hand man, who strove to carry his heart to the Holy Land. It was from this Tower at Blackhouse that Margaret the Fair was carried off by her lover, and about a mile further up on the hillside the seven stones marking the spot where Lord William alighted and slew
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
To the present writer, the valley of the Leader, or Lauderdale, has attractions and memories that are second to none in the Border. "Here, first,"—to use Hogg's lines— Lauderdale constitutes one of the "three parts" into which Berwickshire, like Ancient Gaul, is divided. The others are the Merse, ( i.e. , March-Land)—often a distinctive designation for the entire county, but applicable especially to the low-lying lands beside the Tweed; Lammermoor, so named from the Lammermoor Hills ranging acro
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
Earlston, the Ercildoune of olden time—name much better suited to the quiet beauty of its charming situation—has no unimportant place both in Scottish history and romance. It has been honoured by many royal visits. Here David the Sair Sanct subscribed the Foundation Charter of Melrose Abbey in 1136, and his son the Confirmatory Charter in 1143. Other royal visitors followed; there James IV. encamped for a night on his way from Edinburgh to Flodden; Queen Mary made a brief stay at Cowdenknowes as
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JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
If now-a-days one may roam through Liddesdale with some degree of comfort, it was a very different matter for Scott and Shortreed little more than a hundred years since. They knew scarcely anything of the district, which lay to them, as was said, "like some unkenned-of isle ayont New Holland." But Scott was bent on his Minstrelsy ballad-huntings. And it was the very inaccessibility of the Liddel glens which inspired him with the hope of treasure. For seven autumns in succession they "raided" Lid
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