In the Border Country Part 4

PLATE 13

VIEW OF LANERCOST PRIORY

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(_See pp. 36 and 74_)

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The Irthing valley is replete with historical remains and literary a.s.sociations. 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 c.u.mberland until it meets the Eden. Gilsland Spa has long been noted for the excellence of its waters and the remarkable salubrity of the district. Scott stayed at the old Shaw's Hotel in July, 1797, not the present palatial Convalescent Home (as it now is) which was rebuilt after a fire about fifty years since. Charlotte Carpenter was a guest at Wardrew House, directly opposite. They met often, and the result was love and marriage. On a huge boulder by the banks of the Irthing, where the glen comes to its steepest and wears its most enchanting aspect, Scott is said to have "popped the question," and the "Kissing Bush"

where the compact was sealed is also pointed out close by. At Gilsland it is interesting to recall that one is to some extent in "Guy Mannering Land." A small private dwelling adjoining the Methodist Chapel claims to stand on the site of the notorious Mumps Ha', "a hedge ale-house, where the Border farmers of either country often stopped to refresh themselves and their nags on their way to and from the fairs and trysts in c.u.mberland." It was there that young Harry Bertram first met Dandie Dinmont and the weird figure of Meg Merrilies, who, by the way, was not buried at Upper Denton, as the guide-books say. It was the treacherous landlady, Meg Mumps or Margaret Carrick, who is there interred. The more important Meg--the real heroine of the story--was drowned in the Eden at Carlisle. Gilsland is a centre for some delightful excursions. Much of the Roman Wall may be visited from this centre, its two chief stations Borcovicus (Housesteads) and Burdoswald being within easy distances. The little Northumberland lakes, and the prettiest of them all, Crag Loch, the Nine Nicks of Thirlwall, seen from the Shaws with fine effect, Thirlwall and Blenkinsop Castles, Haltwhistle Church, all to the east, are objects of deep and abiding interest. Westward are Burdoswald--the Roman Amboglanna--covering an area of 5-1/2 acres, and overlooking a singularly graceful bend of the Irthing (not unlike that on the Tweed at Bemersyde); Lanercost Priory[A], founded by Robert de Vaux about 1166, frequently plundered by the Scots, and used now partly as the parish church and burial-place of the Carlisle family; Naworth,[B] the historic seat of the Earl of Carlisle, whose ancestor, Lord William Howard, was the famous "Belted Will" of Border story, who died in 1640:--

"His Bilboa blade, by marchmen felt, Hung in a broad and studded belt; Hence, in rude phrase, the Borderers still Call n.o.ble Howard, 'Belted Will,'"--

and Triermain Castle, all but vanished, whence Scott's "Bridal of Triermain"--

"Where is the Maiden of mortal strain, That may match with the Baron of Triermain?

She must be lovely, and constant and kind, Holy and pure, and humble of mind, Blithe of cheer, and gentle of mood, Courteous, and generous, and n.o.ble of blood-- Lovely as the sun's first ray, When it breaks the clouds of an April day, Constant and true as the widow'd dove, Kind as a minstrel that sings of love."

[A] Lanercost is a fine example of Early English. The church consists of a nave with north aisle, a transept with aisles on the east side used as monumental chapels and choir, a chancel, and a low square tower. The nave is used as the Parish Church. The crypt contains several Roman altars from Burdoswald, etc. Some of the inscriptions are of great interest.

[B] Naworth is said to be one of the oldest and best specimens existing of a baronial residence. It is a.s.sociated largely with the turbulent times of Border warfare. "Belted Will," a terror to all marauders, is its best-known name, "a singular lover of venerable antiquities, and learned withal," as Camden describes him. The British Museum contains some of his letters, and his library is still preserved at Naworth.

"Belted Will's" Tower, to the north-east of the Castle, is the most notable feature at Naworth.

III. THE TWEED AND ITS a.s.sOCIATIONS.

"Both are good, the streams of north and south, but he who has given his heart to the Tweed as did Tyro in Homer to the Enipeus, will never change his love." So does Mr. Andrew Lang remind us of his affection for Tweedside and the Border. Elsewhere he speaks of Tweed shrining the music of his cradle song, and the requiem he would most prefer--may that day be long in coming!

"No other hymn I'd choose, nor gentler requiem dear Than Tweed's, that through death's twilight dim, Mourned in the latest Minstrel's ear."

Lockhart's description of Sir Walter's death-scene, so touching in its very simplicity, has never been matched in literary biography. From the first years of his life, Scott was wedded to the Tweed. It was his ancestral stream. And it stood for all that was best and fairest in Border story. It was by the Tweed that he won his greatest triumphs, and faced his greatest defeats, where he spent the happiest as well as the most strenuous period of his career. So that, to breathe his last breath by its pleasant banks--a desire oft repeated--was as natural as it was keen and eager. We know how at length he was borne back to Abbotsford, the house of his dreams, and how on one of those ideal days during the early autumn that crowning wish was realised; "It was a beautiful day, so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly still that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear--the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles--was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes."

Of course, it is owing, in great measure, to Scott that the Tweed has so exalted a place in literature. To speak of the Tweed at once recalls Scott and all that the Tweed meant to him. Both in a sense are names inseparable and synonymous. It is almost entirely for Scott's sake that Tweedside has become one of the world-Meccas. What Scott did for the Tweed--the Border--renders it (to speak reverently) holy ground for ever. Hence the affection with which the world looks on Scott--as a patriot,--as one who has helped to create his country, and as a great literary magnet attracting thousands to it, and as the medium of some of the most pleasurable of mental experiences. Of the great names on Scotland's roll of honour, Scott, even more than all of them (even more than Burns), has wedded his country to the very best of humankind everywhere. But do not let us forget that Tweed had its lovers many before Scott's day. Burns's pilgrimage to the Border was a picturesque episode in his poetic history. "Yarrow and Tweed to monie a tune owre Scotland rings," he wrote, and other lines represent a warm admiration for the district. Tweed was a "wimpling stately" stream, and there were "Eden scenes on crystal Jed" scarcely less fascinating. James Thomson, the poet of the "Seasons," a Tweedsider, though the fact is often forgotten, pays grateful homage to the Tweed as the "pure parent-stream, whose pastoral banks first heard my Doric reed." Allan Ramsay and Robert Crawford, West-country men both, came early under the spell of the fair river. Crawford's lines are painted with the usual exaggeration of the period:

"What beauties does Flora disclose!

How sweet are her smiles upon Tweed!

Yet Mary's, still sweeter than those, Both nature and fancy exceed.

No daisy, nor sweet blus.h.i.+ng rose, Not all the gay flowers of the field, Not Tweed, gliding gently through those, Such beauty and pleasure does yield."

Hamilton of Bangour, best known for his "Braes of Yarrow," has an autumn and winter description of Tweedside which naturally suggests the like picture by Scott in the Introduction to Canto I. of "Marmion," and it is more than probable that Sir Walter had this in his mind when penning his own more perfect lines.

PLATE 14

VIEW OF BEWCASTLE

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(_See pp. 44, 67, 72_)

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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:

"The Arno and the Tiber lang Hae run full clear in Roman sang; But, save the reverence o' schools!

They're baith but lifeless dowy pools, Dought they compare wi' bonny Tweed, As clear as ony lammer-bead?"

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 tolerably at ease within him, could fail to be happy, hearing as we do now the voice of the Tweed, singing his pensive twilight song to the few faint stars that have become visible in heaven?" says John Wilson in his rollicking "Streams" essay (no "crusty Christopher" there, at any rate). Thomas Tod Stoddart, king of angling rhymers,

"Angled far and angled wide, On Fannich drear, by Luichart's side; Across dark Conan's current,"

and all over Scotland, but found not another stream to match with the Tweed:

"Dearer than all these to me Is sylvan Tweed; each tower and tree That in its vale rejoices; Dearer the streamlets one and all That blend with its Eolian brawl Their own enamouring voices!"

Remember, too, Dr. John Brown's exquisite Tweed's Well meditation, a prose sermon to ponder over any Sabbath, and Ruskin's homely reverie--"I can never hear the whispering and sighing of the Tweed among his pebbles, but it brings back to me the song of my nurse as we used to cross by Coldstream Bridge, from the south, in our happy days--

"For Scotland, my darling, lies full in my view, With her barefooted la.s.ses, and mountains so blue."

One thinks also of George Borrow's fascination for the Scottish Border, when he asks ("Lavengro") "Which of the world's streams can Tweed envy, with its beauty and renown?" and of Thomas Aird's pathetic retrospect--"the ever-dear Tweed, whose waters flow continually through my heart, and make me often greet in my lonely evenings." Nor do we forget John Veitch, that truest Tweedsman of his time, always musing on the Tweed, never at home but beside it, and of whose Romance and History there has been no abler exponent.

Of the name Tweed itself, the meaning and origin are uncertain, and it is hopeless to dogmatize on the subject except to say that there is an apparent connection with the Cymric Tay, Taff, Teith, and Teviot--more properly "Teiott," the common p.r.o.nunciation above Hawick. Mr. Johnston ("Place-Names of Scotland") traces it to the Celtic _twyad_--"a hemming in"--from "_twy_ to check or bind," which is a not unlikely derivation.

As to the source of the Tweed there is the curious paradox that what pa.s.ses for its source is not the real _fons et origo_ of the stream.

Poetically, the Tweed is said to take its rise in the tiny Tweed's Well among the Southern Highlands, 1250 feet above sea level, and close to where the marches of Peebless.h.i.+re, Lanarks.h.i.+re, and Dumfriess.h.i.+re meet.

But strictly speaking, the correct source is the Cor or Corse Burn, a little higher up, which, dancing its way to the glen beneath, receives the outflow of the Well as a sort of first tributary. For purposes of romance, however, Tweed's Well will always be reckoned as the source, as indeed it must have been so regarded ages ago. The likelihood is that Tweed's Well was one of the ancient holy wells common to many parts of Scotland. And since tradition speaks of a Mungo's Well somewhere in these solitudes, the probability is that we have it here in the heart of these silent lonely hills. There is the tradition of a cross, too, at or near Tweed's Well, borne out in the place-name Corse, which, we know, is good Scots for Cross. That such a symbol of the ancient faith stood here long since "to remind travellers of their Redeemer and to guide them withal across these desolate moors," is more than a mere picturesque legend. It is a prolific watershed this from which Tweed starts its seaward race. South and west, Annan and Clyde bend their way to the Solway and the Atlantic, as the quaint quatrain has it:

"Annan, Tweed, and Clyde Rise a' oot o' ae hillside, Tweed ran, Annan wan, Clyde brak his neck owre Corra Linn."

Tweed turns its face to the north, and running for the most part, as old Pennecuik puts it, "with a soft yet trotting stream," it pursues a course of slightly over a hundred miles, and drains a basin of no less than 1870 square miles, a larger area than any other Scottish river except the Tay.

PLATE 15

VIEW OF MELROSE

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY