The pedigree traces the descent of Angus de Perci up to Manfred, and that of Josceline de Louvain up from Gerberga, daughter and heiress of Charles, Duke of Lorraine, to Charlemagne, and in the male line to the ancient Dukes of Hainault. This same Josceline, who was brother-in-law to King Henry I., married in 1168, Agnes, the great Percy heiress, and assumed the name of his wife:
Their youngest son, Richard de Percy, then head of the family, was one of the chief barons who extorted Magna Charta from King John, and the ninth Lord, Henry, gave much aid to Edward I. in the subjugation of Scotland. It was he who purchased Alnwick. His son—another Henry—defeated David II. at Neville's Cross (1346); his grandson fought at Crécy; his great-grandson, the fourth Lord Percy of Alnwick, was marshal of England at the coronation of Richard II., and was created the same day Earl of Northumberland. By far the greater part of the romance of the Percys has centred round Harry Hotspur (eldest son of the preceding), whom the dead Douglas defeated at Otterburn, and who fell himself at Shrewsbury (1403) fighting against Henry IV. The soubriquet of Hotspur was given him because "in the silence of the night, when others were quietly sleeping, he laboured unwearied, as though his spur were hot."
(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 great wrath commanded Cardinal Wolsey to break off the engagement between them. The seventh Earl for espousing the cause of Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded in 1572. The eighth Earl in 1585 was found dead in bed with three pistol shots through his breast, whether by suicide or murder. The ninth Earl was imprisoned for fifteen years in the Tower on a baseless suspicion of being privy to the Gunpowder Plot. The tenth Earl fought on the Parliamentary side in the Civil War, and with the death of Josceline, the eleventh Earl, in 1670, the male line of the family came to an end. The eleventh Earl's only child—an heiress—married the Duke of Somerset, who was created in 1749 Baron Warkworth, and Earl of Northumberland, with remainder (having no male issue) to his son-in-law Sir Hugh Smithson, of Stanwick, a Yorkshire knight who in his youth had been an apothecary in Hatton Gardens. Sir Hugh succeeded to the Earldom in 1750, and was created in 1766 Earl Percy and Duke of Northumberland. The seventh Duke succeeded in 1899.
From Alnwick it is fourteen miles to Bamborough, "King Ida's castle, huge and square." No traveller along the great north road between Alnwick and Berwick can fail to be struck with an object so boldly prominent as Bamborough. Far and wide it meets the vision, and is the more conspicuous from the flat character of its surroundings and the very open coast. Its base is an almost perpendicular mass of basaltic rock overlooking the sea, at a height of 150 feet. Founded in 547, it suffered many a siege, most of all at the hands of the Danes in 933. In the years that followed it was being constantly rebuilt, and as constantly stormed and broken again. As the great bombards left it in the fourth Edward's reign, so it lay dismantled for centuries. In 1720, Lord Crewe, the philanthropic Bishop of Durham, purchased the Castle and bequeathed it for charitable purposes—the reception and care of the poor, etc. In 1894 it was acquired by the late Lord Armstrong, at a cost of a quarter of a million, and fitted up as a convalescent home. The charming village of Bamborough, nestling within easy distance, has some celebrity as a health resort. The church in which St. Aidan died is one of the oldest in the country, and the churchyard contains Grace Darling's tomb. The Farne Islands, the scene of her brave exploit, are easily visible from the shore. There are seventeen in all, forming three distinct groups, Longstone, the heroine's home, lying farthest out. It was from the lighthouse on this latter island that the noble maiden of barely twenty-two descried the wreck of the Forfarshire, the 7th September, 1838, and formed her resolve at rescue. "He that goes out and sees the savage and iron nature of the rocks will not avoid wondering at the desperate nature of the attempt," crowned by an almost superhuman triumph. On the great Farne, or House Island, his favourite place of retirement, St. Cuthbert died in 687. How his followers bore, from shrine to shrine, the uncorrupted body of their Bishop is a tradition well-known. "For the space of seven years," says Reginald of Durham, "Saint Cuthbert was carried to and fro on the shoulders of pious men through trackless and waterless places; when no house afforded him a hospitable roof, he remained under covering of tents." Further, we are told how the monks first carried their precious burden to the stone church at Norham; thence towed it up the river to Tillmouth; on to Melrose, the Saint's home-sanctuary by the Tweed; thence through the Lowland glens towards the English Border where, descending the head-waters of the Tyne, they came to Hexham; passing westward to Carlisle in Cumberland, and Dufton Fells in Westmoreland, and over into Lancashire; then once more eastward to the monastery at York; and finally northward again to a last resting place in Durham, when
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 the Petteril, which still enclose the Castle and Cathedral hills in a sort of quasi-island, Carlisle has been aptly called "the city of the waters." Its situation certainly is all but perfect, whilst the picturesqueness and the extensiveness of its surrounding scenery are the admiration of all who see it. Built upon a hill which its walls once enclosed but which would now shut out its most populous suburbs, Carlisle commands a prospect only limited by the lofty mountain chain that encircles the great basin in which Cumberland lies. From the summit of the Cathedral or from the Keep of the Castle, the eye sweeps without interruption a vast prepossessing landscape, rich in wood and water and fertile valleys, over which the light and shade are ever gambolling, and the seasons spreading their variegated hues. Southward, across this fair expanse, the majestic Skiddaw rears his noble crest, and Helvellyn his wedge-like peak, radiant with the first and last rays of the sun. Saddleback, and the lesser hills, link the apparently unbroken chain with Crossfell and the eastern range; while further to the left the Northumberland fells bound the horizon. Then come the uplands by Bewcastle and the Border and the pastoral Cheviots. Away round to the west, the magnificent belt is terminated by "huge Criffel's hoary top" standing in solemn grandeur above the Solway.
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 and rescues, and its very air is
Despite its Cathedral, Carlisle is really more Scottish than English. A town which proclaimed the Pretender must be Scottish enough. No other English town fills so large a place in Scottish history. And even its present manners and customs, and no little part of its dialect, are coloured with Scottish sentiment and tradition. For which it cannot be a whit the worse! Walk about Carlisle, and one is charmed with the exquisite pleasantness of the place, the sense of comfort and prosperity that reigns in its streets and suburbs, the steady flow of traffic running through it, and the welcome geniality of its inhabitants. What a delightful spot is Stanwix yonder, for instance! And the banks of the Eden have something of those "Eden scenes" about them which Burns claimed for the Jed. That Bridge is not unlike Rennie's at Kelso. The public buildings are worth a more minute examination than the passing stranger usually gives. An atmosphere of delicious semi-antiquity is the crowning feature of "Merrie Carlisle," and one feels instinctively that under the inevitable modernity of the place there is an older story written on its stones—
It is so old a town that one cannot be certain of its origin. The name is apparently British, derived probably from Caer Lywelydd, or simply Caer Lywel, "the town or fort of Lywel," but whether this was a tribal, or local, or personal name it would be hazardous to say. By the Romans it was known as Luguvallium or Luguballia, possibly "the town or fort by the Wall." This the Saxons abbreviated and altered to Luel, the original name, with the prefix Caer, hence Caer-Luel, Caerleil, Carleol, Karluil, Karliol, Carliol, Carlile, and Carlisle.
"No English city," says Bishop Creighton, "has a more distinctive character than Carlisle, and none can claim to have borne its character so continuously through the course of English history. Carlisle is still known as 'the Border city,' and though the term 'the Border' has no longer any historical significance, it still denotes a district which has strongly marked peculiarities and retains a vigorous provincial life. There was a time when the western Border was equally important with the Border on the north, when the fortress on the Dee had to be stoutly held against the foe, and when the town which rose among the scrub by the upper Severn was a place of conflict between contending races. But this struggle was not of long duration, and Chester and Shrewsbury ceased to be distinctly Border towns. On the north, however, the contest continued to be stubbornly waged, till it raised up a population inured to warfare, who carried the habits of a predatory life into a time when they were mere survivals of a well-nigh forgotten past. Of this period of conflict Carlisle is the monument, and of this lawless life it was long the capital. Berwick-upon-Tweed alone could venture to share its glory or dispute its supremacy; but Berwick was scarcely a town; it was rather a military outpost, changing hands from time to time between the combatants; it was neither Scottish nor English, more than a castle, but less than a town, an accidental growth of circumstances, scarcely to be classed as an element of popular life. Carlisle, on the other hand, traces its origin to times of venerable antiquity, and can claim through all its changes to have carried on in unbroken succession the traditions of an historic life. It was the necessary centre of a large tract of country, and whether its inhabitants were British or English its importance remained the same. It was not merely a military position, but a place of habitation, the habitation of a people who had to trust much to themselves, and who amidst all vicissitudes retained a sturdy spirit of independence. This is the distinguishing feature of Carlisle; it is 'the Border city.' But though this is its leading characteristic which runs through all its history, it has two other marks of distinction, when compared with other English towns. It is the only town on British soil which bears a purely British name; and it is the only town which has been added to England since the Norman Conquest."
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 the spiritual oversight under Saint Cuthbert, to whom and his successors at Lindisfarne were bestowed in perpetuity the city with fifteen miles around it. But for Egfrith's death fighting the Picts on the far-off moorland of Nechtansmere (Dunnichen in Forfarshire) Carlisle might have risen early and rapidly to a sure place as one of the leading cities in the land. From 685, however, to the Conquest (1066) the place was virtually extinct. It was only then that a new epoch arose for the broken city as for the whole of England. The Conqueror himself is said to have commenced the rebuilding of Carlisle, but the town owes its restoration rather to his son William the Red, who, on his return from Alnwick, after concluding a peace treaty with the King of Scotland in 1092, "observed the pleasantness of its situation, and resolved to raise it from its ruins." The Castle, the Priory, the once massive city walls, were all the work of the Rufus regime, completed by Henry I., who gave cathedral dignity to the church at Carlisle. David I., the "Sair Sanct," raided Carlisle in 1136, and kept court for a time within its walls, which he heightened. It was at Carlisle that his death took place in 1153. From that date to the 'Forty-five, Carlisle's history is mainly that of a kind of "buffer-state" between the two kingdoms. Few cities recall so many martial memories. It was Edward's base of operations in his Scottish wars. It was besieged by Wallace in 1298, by Bruce in 1315—the year after Bannockburn, and again in 1322. Queen Mary's captivity at Carlisle in 1568; Buccleuch's daring and gallant rescue of Kinmont Willie in 1596, immortalised in the best of the Border ballads; the protracted siege by General Leslie in 1644 during the Parliamentary War; and the Pretender's short-lived triumph—these are the rest of its leading events.
Of the historic Carlisle little is left, the Castle, the Cathedral, and the Guildhall being almost the sole relics of a long and notable past. Yet how vastly changed the place is from the quiet little Border town of a century ago even! Then it had barely ten thousand inhabitants, now there are over forty thousand. As the county town of Cumberland, and next to Newcastle the greatest railway centre in the north of England, its prosperity has grown by leaps and bounds. It is the terminus of no fewer than eight different lines, and its busy, never-at-rest Citadel Station is known all the world over. Gates and walls have long since vanished from "Merrie Carlisle." The streets are wide and airy, and altogether it presents a most comfortable and thriving appearance. At 40, English Street, the chief thoroughfare, Prince Charlie slept for four nights during the '45. And from 79 to 83, Castle Street, the corner building (now a solicitor's office), between Castle Street and the Green-market, Scott led Miss Carpenter to the altar. Carlisle Castle, a huge, irregular reddish-brown stone structure, grim and defiant, with its almost perfect specimen of a Norman Keep, and battlements frowning towards the north, is still a place to see.
But it is the Cathedral which is Carlisle's chief glory. Rising in the centre of the city, high above all other buildings except the factory chimneys, there is an air of importance about it not altogether justifiable. The building is small and not of very great account, the reason being that Carlisle was only erected into a See in 1133, and then out of Durham. The result was that the parish church was promoted to the dignity of a cathedral. Nevertheless, it has several striking features—a delightful Early English choir and magnificent east window, reputed to be unsurpassed by any other in the kingdom, if indeed in the world. From 1092, the date of the original building, to 1400-19, in Bishop Strickland's time, when the north transept was restored and the central tower rebuilt, and down to the present day, the edifice contains every variety of style, from Norman to Perpendicular, with admirable specimens of nineteenth century work. Of the original Norman minster the only parts remaining are two bays of the nave, the south transept, and the piers of the tower. How long the church remained in its pristine state it is impossible to say. The first alteration was probably the enlargement of the choir, towards the middle and close of the thirteenth century, immediately before the great fire of 1292, the worst the cathedral has experienced in its four burnings. The work of reconstruction after 1292 appears to have been somewhat slow, so slow that little was done till the year 1352, when Bishop Welton and his successor set themselves in earnest to the task. "The king, the city treasury, and the leading families of the neighbourhood contributed towards the restoration, in response to the urgent appeals of the bishops and to the indulgences issued for the remission of forty days' penance to such laity as should by money, materials, or labour, contribute to the pious work." Towards the close of the reign of Edward III. the renovated pile rose from it ruins. To this period belongs the entire east end, with its grand window, the triforium, the carved capitals of the arches, and the Decorated windows of the clerestory. The ceiling was painted and gilded and panelled, the intersections glowing with the armorial bearings of the rich donors by whose liberality the work had been carried to completion. The windows were filled with stained glass, and the nine lights of the east window with figures.
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 whole of the nave, the chapter-house and cloisters were destroyed, the materials being used for guard-house purposes in the city. The reign of the "Puritan patchwork" may then be said to have begun, with plaster partitions here and there in horrifying evidence, the niches emptied of their treasures, and the fine old stained glass removed from the windows—and all, as was declared, in the spirit of "repairing and beautifying." "A great, wild country church," is its description about this time, "and as it appeared outwardly, so it was inwardly, ne'er beautify'd, nor adorn'd one whit." Not till 1853-57 was a general restoration, costing £15,000, inaugurated. Both internally and externally the edifice underwent a total renovation. Old and crumbled portions were pulled down and rebuilt; other parts were fronted anew; missing ornaments were supplied; ugly doorways were blocked up, and one grand entrance made befitting the church. The renaissance was complete as it was judicious. There was just sufficient of the old left to show the original structure, and sufficient of the new imparted to save the venerable fane from crumbling to pieces. Externally, the east is certainly the finest part of the building, with its unrivalled window—58 feet high and 32½ feet wide, of nine lights, gracefully proportioned, the head filled with the most exquisite tracery-work, comprising no fewer than 263 circles. A uniquely ornamented gable, with a row of crosses on either shoulder, and a large cross at the apex, completes a highly finished centre. On either side stands out, in massive relief, a majestic buttress, containing full length statues of St. Peter, St. Paul, St James, and St. John, above which are light and elegant pinnacles. These great buttresses are flanked by the lesser ones of the aisles, tapering upwards with chastely carved spires—the whole forming an eastern front of great beauty and richness. The main entrance by a new doorway in the south transept is a triumph of the sculptor's skill. The great tower, 112 feet high, has been thoroughly renovated, and much of its former ornamentation restored. Of the interior, the nave is in length 39 feet, and in width about 60 feet. The Scots are said to have destroyed 100 feet of it in 1645, but that is quite uncertain. It has never been rebuilt, and has a serious effect on the general proportions, inducing a feeling of want of balance. Up to 1870 the nave was used as the parish church of St. Mary, and it was here—close by the great Norman columns—that Sir Walter Scott was married to Charlotte Carpenter, on December 24th, 1797. The spot might well be indicated by a small memorial brass. The richly-decorated choir, in no respect inferior to that of any other English cathedral, is 134 feet long, 71 feet broad, and 75 feet high. The warm red of the sandstone, the blue roof powdered with golden stars, the great east window filled with stained glass, and the dark oak of the stalls, make up a picture that enforces attention before the architectural details can receive their due admiration.
The Cathedral contains several interesting monuments. Here is the tomb of Archdeacon Paley (1805), author of the "Evidences of Christianity" and "Horæ Paulinæ," both written at Carlisle, and the richly-carved pulpit inscribed to his memory. There are tablets to Robert Anderson (1833), the "Cumberland Bard;" to John Heysham, M.D. (1834), the statistician, and compiler of the "Carlisle Tables of Mortality;" George Moore (1876), the philanthropist; M. L. Watson (1847), the sculptor; Dean Cranmer (1848), Canon Harcourt (1870), and Dean Close (1882). Several military monuments are in evidence. One of the windows commemorates the five children of Archbishop Tait (then Dean), who died between March 6th and April 9th, 1856. Recumbent figures of Bishop Waldegrave (1869), Bishop Harvey Goodwin (1891) and Dean Close are by Acton Adams, Hamo Thorneycroft, R.A., and H. H. Armistead, R.A., respectively. The older altar-tombs and brasses to Bishop Bell, Bishop Everdon, and Prior Stenhouse, should not be overlooked, and attention may be drawn also to the quaint series of fifth-century paintings from the monkish legends of St. Augustine, St. Anthony, and St. Cuthbert, and to the misereres of the stalls.
Scarcely less interesting than Carlisle itself is the immediate neighbourhood of the Border city. And with what sterling picturesqueness does it appeal to us! One does not wonder that Turner and others found some of their masterpieces here. A wondrously historic countryside, too, is all this pleasantly-rolling tableland, mile upon mile to the Liddesdale and Eskdale heights with the Langholm Monument fairly visible as a rule, and sometimes even the famous Repentance Tower opposite Hoddom Kirk. Within twenty miles or so of Carlisle, up through the old Waste and Debateable Lands, or over into the romantic Vale of the Irthing, the dividing-point betwixt Cumberland and Northumberland, the district is full of the most fascinating material for the geographer and the historian. It is impossible to do more than mention a few of its memory-moving names. At Burghby-Sands, Edward I., "the Hammer of the Scots," having offered up his litter before the high altar at Carlisle, vowing to reduce Scotland to the condition of a mere English province, was forced to succumb to a grimmer adversary than lay anywhere beyond the Solway. Bowness-by-the-Sea was the western terminus of the Roman Wall. Arthuret has its name from the "Flower of Kings," one of whose twelve battles is said to have been fought there. Archie Armstrong, jester to King James VI., lies buried in its churchyard. At Longtown, on the Esk, the Jacobite troops forded the river "shouther to shouther," as Lady Nairne's lyric has it, dancing reels on the bank till they had dried themselves. Netherby, the locale of "Young Lochinvar," Lady Heron's song in "Marmion," is in the near neighbourhood. So are Gilnockie or the Hollows, Johnie Armstrong's home, and Gretna Green, that once so popular but now defunct shrine of Venus. All this once bleak and barren bog-land is under generous cultivation now to a large extent, stretching from the Sark to the Esk, and eastward to Canonbie Lea; it was the treacherously Debateable, or No Man's Land of moss-trooping times, the most troubled and unsafe period of Border history. Solway Moss, some seven miles in circumference, is not likely to be forgotten—by Scotsmen, at any rate. It was the disastrous Rout of the Solway which hastened James V.'s death from a broken heart.
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 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 Cumberland." 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 5½ 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:—
and Triermain Castle, all but vanished, whence Scott's "Bridal of Triermain"—
[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 associated 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.
"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!
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:
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.
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 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,
and all over Scotland, but found not another stream to match with the Tweed:
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—
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 pronunciation 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 passes 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 Peeblesshire, Lanarkshire, and Dumfriesshire 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: