PORTOBELLO.PORTOBELLO.
PORTOBELLO.
Beyond Pettycur, and the high ground of Grange, once the home of that famous champion, Kirkcaldy of Grange, the wide curve of Kirkcaldy Bay opens up. The old burgh of Kinghorn is at one extremity, and the still more ancient town of Dysart at the other; and the middle foreground is largely occupied by the houses and shipping of the “Lang Toun.” The very names of Kirkcaldy (“Kirk of the Culdees”) and of Dysart (“Desertum”) point to the antiquity and the sanctity of the origin of places that to this day are strongly “Churchy.” The grotesque folk-tale relates that the devil was “buried in Kirkcaldy,” and that his complaint that “his taes were cauld” led the good-natured inhabitants to build house to house, until now the town, with the villages connected, stretches some four miles in a straight line. The story may have had its origin in some of the apostolic doings of St. Serf, who had for a time his “desert” in one of the caves in the red cliffs at Dysart; or else in some magic feat of the wizard Michael Scott—the friend of Dante and Boccaccio—whose weird tower of Balwearie is an uncanny neighbour of the “Lang Toun.” The ruins, close by the shore, of Seafield Tower and of Ravenscraig Castle—the latter the home of the line of “high St. Clair,” and of the “lovely Rosabelle”—are now strangely backed by floor-cloth factories.
KIRKCALDY, FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.KIRKCALDY, FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.
KIRKCALDY, FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.
Kirkcaldy has, however, other and even better things to be proud of; for here Adam Smith was born; here Edward Irving taught and preached, with Thomas Carlyle, the dominie of a competing school, as his friend and companion on excursions to Inchkeith, and to quaint nooks of the Fife coast. The author of “Sartor Resartus” had kindly recollections of the folks of the “Kingdom”—“good old Scotch in all their works and ways;” and with strong unerring touches brings before us their “ancient little burghs and sea villages, with their poor little havens, salt-pans, and weather-beaten bits of Cyclopean breakwaters, and rude innocent machineries.”
Portentous for length is the mere list of these surf-washed Fife towns—beloved of wandering artists and haunted by memories and traditions of the olden time—that are sprinkled along the coast eastward. Mention cannot be avoided of Wemyss, Easter and Wester, with their caves and coal-pits rendering upon the sea, and their castles, old and new; of tumbledown Methil and the “ancient and fish-like flavour” of Buckhaven; of Leven and Lundin, their Druidical stones and stretches of breezy links, the delight of golfers; of Largo, where the Law looks down upon “Largo Bay” and its brown-sailed fishing boats, upon the cottage of “Auld Robin Gray,” and upon the birthplace of the famous Scottish admiral, Sir Andrew Wood, and of Alexander Selkirk, the “original” Robinson Crusoe; of Elie, most delightful of East Coast watering-places; of St. Monance and its picturesque old church and harbour and ruined tower; of Pittenweem and the remains of its priory, on the site of St. Fillan’s cell; of Anstruther, Easter and Wester, the scene of “Anster Fair,” and the home of Maggie Lauder; of Cellardyke, Kilrenny, and, quietest and remotest of them all, “the weel-aired ancient toun o’ Crail,” where Knox preached and Archbishop Sharp was “placed,” situated close by Fife Ness, with its wind-twisted bents, its caves, and traces of Danish camps and forgotten fights.
The smell and the sound of the sea are about all these Fife burghs and fishing villages, and not less saturated with romance and history are the old-fashioned mansion-houses of the lairds of the East Neuk, that seek shelter in every fold of the land. For Fife was the true soil of the “cock” or “bonnet” laird, whose proverbial heritage was “a wee pickle land, a good pickle debt, and a doo-cot.” Little better than a ruined dove-cote—or “a corbie’s nest,” as the Merry Monarch called Dreel Castle, the old tower of the Anstruthers—shows many a crumbled seat of the long-pedigreed Fife gentry. But they were the nurseries of famous men—witness the Leslies, Alexander and David, and a host besides—who found not only their native shire but their native country too narrow a field for their talents and their ambition. In this, as in other respects, the shores of Fife offer an epitome of Scottish history, and the quintessence of Scottish character.
Turn now towards the Southern shore. The spell even of the coasts of Fife cannot long detain us, when Edinburgh, seated on her hills, and queening it over the waters, with the couchant lion of Arthur’s Seat beside her, is in view. As Stirling presides over the “Links of Forth,” and the upper courses of the river, Edinburgh Rock with its Castle appears the Guardian Genius of the Firth. Round the base of this “Bass Rock upon land,” the masses of buildings seem to swirl and surge like a tide-race of human life, and to climb, in broken wave upon wave, crested by the spires and roofs of the Old Town, and overhung by the murky spray of its proverbial “reek,” all up the steep slope to the battlements of the Castle. Stirling itself is scarcely its peer for dignity of situation or for renown. From the highest platform of the Rock, where hooped and battered Mons Meg guards the old chapel of Canmore and Margaret, to the profoundestdepths of the shadows cast by the tall and beetling houses of the Grassmarket, the West Port, and the Cowgate, it is haunted by traditions; and its history, like its aspect, is most sombre and most striking.
Looking from the windows of the rooms which Mary occupied, and whence the infant James was let down in a basket to the bottom of the rock, one glances across the “plainstanes” of the Grassmarket, the scene of Jock Porteous’s slaughter, to the Old Greyfriars Churchyard and its graves of martyrs and of persecutors, to the dome and towers of the old and new University buildings, and to the piled and crowded buildings, thinning out and becoming newer as they descend the warm slopes of Morningside and Newington towards the bluffs of Craiglockhart, the whinny slopes of the Braids, and Craigmillar Castle, behind which are the finely pencilled lines of the Pentlands, the Moorfoots, and the Lammermoors. Or the eye can follow the impending walls of the many-storeyed houses of the Lawnmarket and the High Street, as far as the “Crown” of St. Giles and the Parliament House—each of them part and parcel of the national life—and so on by the Canongate and its memorable old “lands” and closes, towards the spot where the Palace and the ruined Abbey of Holyrood, shouldered by breweries and canopied by the smoke of gasworks, shelter under the Salisbury Crags. Or looking away from the grim Old Town, one may travel far before seeing anything to compare with the stately front of Prince’s Street, facing its gardens and the sun, and turned away from the cold blasts of the north; the Calton Hill and its monuments; the serried lines of the New Town streets and squares, broken by frequent spires and towers, and sweeping away in one direction towards the wooded sides of Corstorphine, and in the other joining Leith and its shipping; while beyond, if the day be fine, the glorious view is bounded by the Firth and its islands and the hills of Fife, melting in a distance where land, sea, and sky are indistinguishable.
Too often, viewing it from the “clouded Forth,” the grey city, its castle, and its subject hills are swallowed up in the “gloom that saddens heaven and earth” during the dismal Edinburgh winter and spring, and the uncertain summer and autumn. Sometimes they show huge and imposing, like ghosts in the mist, or rise like islands over the strata of smoke and haze in which Leith lies buried. But there are gloriously fine days at all seasons of the year, even in this much-abused climate, and then the long pier, the shipping in the roadstead, the tangle of masts and rigging in the spacious docks, and the warehouses, churches, and close-built houses of the port of Leith make a brave show in the low foreground of a lovely picture. To the west, the wide arms of the Granton breakwaters enclose a harbour, built at the cost of the Duke of Buccleuch. Nearer to Leith is the white pier-head of Newhaven, with stalwart fishermen, and comely fishwives in white “mutches” and short petticoats, grouped about its quays. Leith itself is an old as well as a brisk seat of trade and shipping. The large business it continues to conduct with the ports of the Baltic and the North Sea it has carried on for many centuries, and in these days it has extended its commercialrelations to nearly all parts of the world. Many of the most famous episodes in the national annals began and ended in Leith. But royal embassies no longer land or embark there; it is happily exempt from hostile invasions and bloody civil and religious feuds.
THE BASS ROCK, FROM NORTH BERWICK.THE BASS ROCK, FROM NORTH BERWICK.
THE BASS ROCK, FROM NORTH BERWICK.
Eastward from Leith, sewage meadows and brick-and tile-works suddenly give place to the mile-long front of the Portobello Esplanade, with its pier and bathing coaches and strip of sand, dear to Edinburgh holiday-makers, and with the outline of Arthur’s Seat as a noble background to the masses of handsome villas and lodging-houses. Beyond comes a string of little seaside watering-places, fishing and shipping ports—Fisherrow, Musselburgh, Morrisonhaven, Prestonpans, Cockenzie—which, with the country behind them, vie in picturesqueness of aspect with the Fife towns opposite. A high ridge, the last heave of the Lammermoors, marks the limits of this belt of coast country—the old approach of hostile armies from the South—which might dispute with the district around Stirling the title of the “Battlefield of Scotland.” Carberry Hill, where Mary fell into the hands of the Lords of the Covenant, overlooks the woods of Dalkeith Palace and the Esk,not far above where, between Fisherrow harbour and Musselburgh, that classic stream enters the sea. A continuation of Carberry are the Fawside braes, and right underneath the ruined castle on the sky-line, and between it and Inveresk Church, was fought the battle of Pinkie, so disastrous for the Scots, when the little burn trickling through Pinkie Woods “ran red with blood.” It was on this ground, too, that Cromwell was out-manœuvred by Leslie, and compelled to fall back, “to make the better spring” upon Dunbar; and by the venerable bridge across the Esk, the Young Pretender led his troops from Edinburgh, on hearing that the Royalist forces were advancing by the coast upon the capital. The site of the battle of Prestonpans is in the fields beyond the tumbledown old town of that name, which boasts—and looks as if it boasted truly—of being the first place in Scotland where coal was worked and salt manufactured from sea-water. In the more thriving looking village of Cockenzie, they point out the house in which “Johnnie Cope” was soundly sleeping when the Highlanders, making a circuit of the high ground behind Tranent, and crossing the marsh at Seton, “sprang upon him out of the mist” of a September morning.
TANTALLON CASTLE, LOOKING EAST.TANTALLON CASTLE, LOOKING EAST.
TANTALLON CASTLE, LOOKING EAST.
Seton, with its woods and wild-flowers, its lovely sweep of sands, the remains of its ancient church, and the Castle standing on the site of the Palace of theEarls of Winton, is redolent of memories of the “high jinks” of Queen Mary and of other members of the unfortunate House of Stuart, in whose mischances the loyal Setons faithfully shared. The parks of Gosford, their trees strangely bent and twisted by the east wind, line the coast for miles, and the great white front of Lord Wemyss’s mansion is a shining landmark. Then comes Aberlady Bay, an expanse of sand and mud at low water, but at high tide a broad arm of the Firth, running up close under the walls of the venerable Parish Church and pretty village of Aberlady, and skirting the favourite golfing links of Luffness and Gullane.
From here all the way round to North Berwick, the sea-margin, with its long stretches of grassy turf, interspersed with bent hillocks, whins, sand “bunkers,” and other hazards dear to the devotees of cleek and driving-club, may be said to be sacred to the Royal Game of Golf. Four or five spacious golfing courses interpose between; and ardent pursuers of the flying gutta ball have been known to play across the whole distance of seven or eight miles. Numbers of them take up their quarters at Aberlady or at Gullane, placed idyllically upon the edge of the common and the ploughed land, with views extending across the green links and the sea to Fife, and landward over the rich fields of East Lothian to the Lammermoors, with the nearer Garleton Hills, Traprain, and North Berwick Law; a few also at the beautiful old village of Dirleton, beside the ivied ruins of its Castle.
North Berwick, however, is the golfer’s Mecca on this side of the Firth; and bathers, artists, and other seekers after the pleasures of the sea-shore succumb to its attractions in increasing numbers every season. The sands and the links, the sea lapping upon the beach, or chafing round Craigleith and the other rocky islets and points, exercise a potent spell. But North Berwick’s great lion, and a conspicuous landmark over sea and country for a score of miles around, is the natural pyramid of the “Law.” It rises immediately behind the town, in lines as steep and symmetrical as if built by art, and from its summit, nearly 1,000 feet high, an almost unrivalled view is obtained over the Forth and the Lothians. Though one would hardly guess it, looking at the clean streets and handsome hotels and villas that line the shore, North Berwick is a burgh and port of great antiquity.
That it never throve to any remarkable extent in its earlier history may possibly be in part due to its dangerous proximity to Tantallon Castle, the hold of the Douglases, Earls of Angus. Every visitor to North Berwick, after he has surmounted the Law and wandered his fill by the beach, makes an excursion to Tantallon Castle. The coast eastward is bold and precipitous, and fretted by the waters of the North Sea, for we are now at the very lip of the Firth of Forth; and the Bass Rock, lying opposite the beautiful curve of Canty Bay, looks like a mass of the shore-cliffs washed bodily out to sea. Just where the coast is wildest and least accessible one sees—
“Tantallon’s dizzy steepHang o’er the margin of the deep.”
“Tantallon’s dizzy steepHang o’er the margin of the deep.”
“Tantallon’s dizzy steep
Hang o’er the margin of the deep.”
The eyrie of the Douglas is now a mere shell; but the extent and immense thickness of the walls still proclaim its strength in the days when it was a proverb to “ding doon Tantallon and make a bridge to the Bass.” On three sides it was protected by the sea, and
“Above the booming ocean leantThe far-projecting battlement.”
“Above the booming ocean leantThe far-projecting battlement.”
“Above the booming ocean leant
The far-projecting battlement.”
On the land side were those gate-works and walls which Marmion cleared, after bidding bold defiance to the “Douglas in his hall,” and behind which the turbulent Earls of Angus, for their part, so often bade defiance to their Sovereigns. James V. once brought up against it “Thrawn-mu’d Meg and her Marrow,” and other great pieces of mediæval ordnance from Dunbar, where three lords were placed in pawn for their safe return. But he failed to “ding doon Tantallon”; that feat was reserved for the Covenanters.
Now the spirit of Walter Scott seems to haunt the ruins, in company with the ghosts of “Bell-the-Cat,” and the other dead Douglases who built or strengthened these storm-battered walls. The Magician of the North has waved his wand over the Forth from Ben Lomond to Tantallon and the Bass!
John Geddie.
NORTH BERWICK, FROM THE HARBOUR.NORTH BERWICK, FROM THE HARBOUR.
NORTH BERWICK, FROM THE HARBOUR.
BERWICK-ON-TWEED.BERWICK-ON-TWEED.
BERWICK-ON-TWEED.
Leading Characteristics—The View from Berwick—Lindisfarne—The History and Present State of Berwick—Norham Castle and Marmion—Ladykirk—Tillmouth—Twisell Castle and Bridge—Ford Castle and Flodden—Coldstream—Wark Castle—Hadden Rig.
A
“A bonny water”was the phrase used of the Tweed by a peasant-woman whom Dorothy Wordsworth met when she came to spy out the Border river. Homely as the expression is, it would not be easy to find another quite so meet. To grandeur, to magnificence, the stream can make no claim, either in itself or in its surroundings. Of screaming eagles, of awful cliffs, of leaping linns, of foaming waves, it knows nothing. No more horrid sound is heard in its neighbourhood than the cry of the pale sea-maw; its banks are rarely precipitous, never frightful; it has not a single waterfall to its name; and, save where its surface is gently ruffled by glistening pebbles, it flows smooth as (pacethe poet) the course of true love usually is. Yet of charms more gracious how profuse it is! In its careless windings, its silvery clearness, its sweet haughs and holms, its affluence of leaf and blade, its frequent breadth of valley, it is dowered with all the amenities of a large and generouslandscape, distributed into combinations of incessant variety. Nor does it owe much less to art and association than to Nature. It glides or ripples by some of the most impressive ruins, ecclesiastical and secular, in all Scotland. At point after point it shines, for the inner eye, with “the light that never was on sea or land.” If over other Scottish streams as well the magician’s wand has waved, the Tweed is twice blessed, since it can speak not only of “Norham’s castled steep” and “St. David’s ruined pile,” but of Ashestiel, and Smailholm, and Abbotsford. And then its course takes it through the very heart of the Debateable Land—birthplace of myth and legend, of fairy tale and folk-song—battlefield where hostile races and envious factions and rival clans have met in mortal strife. For centuries it was the wont of its waters to reflect the fire-bale’s ruddy glare, of its banks to resound with the strident Border-slogan; and until long after the coalition of the Crowns its fords continued to be crossed by reiving marchmen in jack and helmet, driving before them their “prey,” or scurrying before the avenging “hot trod,” led on by blaring bugle-horn and mouthing bloodhound.
HIGH STREET, BERWICK, WITH THE TOWN HALL.HIGH STREET, BERWICK, WITH THE TOWN HALL.
HIGH STREET, BERWICK, WITH THE TOWN HALL.
THE ROYAL BORDER BRIDGE, BERWICK.THE ROYAL BORDER BRIDGE, BERWICK.
THE ROYAL BORDER BRIDGE, BERWICK.
A bonny water it truly is, but not a brisk. Except in time of spate, it pursues its way, not wearily, it may be, but certainly lazily, and even wantonly, often wimpling into curves and loops which half suggest that, forgetful of its destiny, it is about basely to wind back to whence it came, and calling to mind Mr. Swinburne’sriver, of which all that can be said is that it creeps “somewhere safe to sea.” When in the chiming humour, which is not seldom, it sings sweetly enough, but crooningly rather than liltingly—less to you than to itself, or in accompaniment to the birds that pour out their lavish strains along its banks. Not that there is any particular reason why it should take life more seriously. To things commercial it does not condescend. It is tidal only to Norham, and none but mere cockle-shells can get even so far. And if it has a drainage basin second only to that of the Tay among Scottish streams, it has never been alleged that in this respect there is any failure of duty. Let it be said, too, that while it rarely hastes, on the other hand it seldom rests. The “mazes” to which it is addicted are not usually “sluggish;” to the spiky rush or the cool shiny discs of the water-lily it shows no special favour; while dark pools “where alders moist and willows weep” are only to be found by those who seek. Exciting the influences of the stream are not; but they are at any rate cheerful.
THE COURSE OF THE TWEED.THE COURSE OF THE TWEED.
THE COURSE OF THE TWEED.
One whose only knowledge of the Tweed is gained from what can be seen of it at Berwick, and when the tide is out, would not be likely to think of it more highly than he ought to think. For even at its “latter end” it seems to haveno great sense of the dignity of life; it rolls neither broad nor deep, and does little more than trickle into the larger life to which it has all along so indolently tended. Nor is it here altogether happy in the surroundings which it owes to art and man’s device. Berwick itself, rising from the water’s edge to the top of Halidon Hill, and partly girdled by its fine wall, used as a promenade in these piping times of peace, looks quaint, and comely as well, seen from the opposite or southern bank. But when one has crossed the stream by the old bridge—Berwick Bridge, which has stood here since the time of James I.—and looks across at Tweedmouth, exactly opposite, and at Spittal, which has thought fit to spring up a little farther east and just at the river’s mouth, the impression is less pleasing. Neither of these places is pretty in itself, while for their size they make an amazing amount of black smoke. Then there is Robert Stephenson’s great railway viaduct, the Royal Border Bridge, which it is the fashion to praise up to the skies, as it well-nigh reaches them. As a successful bit of engineering, it is no doubt all very well; but an addition to the beauties of the scene it is not, whatever guide-books and gazetteers may say. In other directions, however, and farther afield, the outlook is more satisfactory. Away to the south the grey and rugged Cheviots make a glorious horizon-line; while out at sea are the Farne Islands, with their memories of St. Cuthbert, most austere of Western ascetics, and of Grace Darling, whose heroism puts so strange a gloss upon the holy man’s abhorrence of womankind. The remnants of the ancient Abbey of Lindisfarne are among the very few examples of Saxon architecture which the destructiveness of the Danes has left to us; and that even these ruins remain, is due to no negligence of theirs. When they descended upon the island in the seventh century, not for the first time, they made a brave attempt to leave a desert behind them; but the massive strength which the builders of the church had intended to oppose to “tempestuous seas” was able insome degree to withstand their “impious rage.” The abbey no longer shelters St. Cuthbert’s remains, which must be sought in the Cathedral that looks down upon the Wear. But the old Saxon arches and columns have a stronger interest than this could have invested them with; for was it not here, in Sexhelm’s Vault of Penitence, dimly lighted by the pale cresset’s ray, that the hapless Constance de Beverley, after solemn inquisition, was doomed to her terrible death, the while her betrayer was listening to the song which so melodiously contrasts the traitor’s fate with the destiny of the true lover?
VIEW FROM THE RAMPARTS, BERWICK.VIEW FROM THE RAMPARTS, BERWICK.
VIEW FROM THE RAMPARTS, BERWICK.
Berwick-on-Tweed is certainly not happy in having no history. Its beginnings are not clearly ascertainable; but it was for long a Saxon settlement, until the Danes, attracted by the rich merse-lands through which the Tweed flows, helped themselves to it. Then came the turn of the Scots, who held it off and on from about the time of Alfred the Great until John Balliol renounced the authority of his liege lord, to whom he had sworn fealty at Norham. When an English army approached, the citizens were by no means alarmed, although it was led by Edward himself. “Kynge Edward,” they cried from behind their wooden stockade, “waune thou havest Berwick, pike thee; waune thou havest geten, dike thee.” But they were better at flouting than at fighting; and they soon had bitter reason for lamenting that they had not kept their mocks to themselves. The place was stormed with the most trivial loss, and nearly eight thousand of the citizens were massacred. Some brave Flemings who held the Red Hall were burnt to cinders in it; and the carnage only ceased when the sad and solemn priests bore the Host into Edward’s presence and implored his mercy. Then the impetuous monarch, who in his old age was able to say that no man had ever asked mercy of him and been refused, burst into tears, and ordered the butchery to stop. But the lion’s paw had fallen, and Berwick was crushed. When Edward sat down before it, it was not only the great Merchant City of the North, but ranked second to London among English towns; he left it little more than a ruin, and it has never since been anything but “a petty seaport.” Through its gates the king went forth to play therôleof the conquering hero in Scotland; and when his over-lordship had been effectually vindicated, the Scottish barons and gentry met here to sulkily do him reverence.
Two-and-twenty years later there came another turn of the wheel. When Robert Bruce wrested his native land from the feeble hands of the second Edward, Berwick shared in the emancipation. Its capture was held to be an achievement of the first order, and after it, as Leland tells us, “the Scottes became so proud ... that they nothing esteemed the Englishmen.” But presently a weaker Bruce reigned in the North and a stronger Edward in the South. In due course the town was again beleaguered by an English force. A Scottish army under the Regent, Archibald Douglas, came to its relief; but the English held a strong position on Halidon Hill, and, met by their terrible showers of clothyard shafts, the Scots turned and fled, leaving Berwick to its fate. Thus it oncemore became English, and never again did it change masters, though it was allowed to retain many of its privileges. In these later days, however, it has had to part with one after another of its peculiarities, and now it is substantially a part of the county of Northumberland.
NORHAM CASTLE.NORHAM CASTLE.
NORHAM CASTLE.
That a place which has received so many rude buffets should have few very ancient remains is not to be wondered at. The present walls, which stand almost intact, and in excellent preservation, though the town in its recent prosperity has straggled outside their line, have a very respectable antiquity, dating as they do from the closing years of the sixteenth century; but of the older fortifications, which embraced a much more considerable space, scarcely a vestige is left, except an octagonal tower; while of the castle, which frowned over the stream where the north bank is steepest, little beyond the foundations has survived. A part of the site has been appropriated to the uses of a railway station, which by a well-meant but unhappy thought has been made to take a castellated form. The fortifications were dismantled some forty or fifty years ago, but there is still much to recall the ancient importance of the town as a place of arms. Nor have the citizens lost the military spirit which was bred into their forbears. They are proud to tell the stranger within their gates that there is almost as large a garrison here as at Edinburgh; and even the tavern-signs bear witness to a traditional love of arms.
The parish church dates only from the Puritan period. It is said to be“quaint” when it is only ugly; and to be a plain specimen of the Gothic when it is not Gothic at all, except in the opprobrious sense in which the term was first applied to mediæval architecture by the superior persons of the Restoration. There being no tower—the Puritans had no taste for “steeple-houses”—the parishioners are summoned to service by the bells of the Town Hall, in the High Street, where also the curfew is still rung at eight of the clock every evening. Although the Anglican is here the Established Church, the prevalent form is the Presbyterian, which has many places of worship, while various other communions are also well represented. But there seems to be some want of resource in finding distinguishing names for the various churches and chapels, for there is a Church Street Church, and hard by a Chapel Street Church, while several places of worship are nameless. Among these latter is one which bears on its front the legend “Audi, Vide, Tace”—intended, presumably, for a concise exposition of the whole duty of the pew in relation to the pulpit.
JUNCTION OF THE TILL AND THE TWEED.JUNCTION OF THE TILL AND THE TWEED.
JUNCTION OF THE TILL AND THE TWEED.
Not a great way from the first of the bends in which the stream indulges, and within sight of the towers of Longridge, the Whiteadder from the Lammermoors, reinforced by the Blackadder, renders up its tribute. Two miles above this point the river is crossed by the Union Suspension Bridge, which, built by Sir S. Brown in 1820, is said to have been the first structure of the kind erected in these islands, while as bridges go along the Tweed it is also quite an antiquity; for, until the beginning of the century, there was only one between Peebles and Berwick, a space of more than sixty miles. Now they are many, yet there has been little sacrifice of beauty to utility, for, as a rule, when not picturesque,they are at least neat and modest. Hereabouts the valley is fairly broad, the banks rising on either hand into a long succession of rolling meadows green with herbage, or of furrowed fields red with tilth, in the prime of summer smothered with tender shoots of corn all aglow with the bright yellow blooms of the runch—to the wayfarer a flower, to the husbandman a weed. So curve to curve succeeds until Norham Castle comes in sight, standing on a lofty cliff of red freestone which rises almost sheer from the water on the southern bank, and disdainfully rearing itself high above the trees that have presumed to grow up around it.
TILLMOUTH HOUSE, FROM THE BANKS OF THE TILL.TILLMOUTH HOUSE, FROM THE BANKS OF THE TILL.
TILLMOUTH HOUSE, FROM THE BANKS OF THE TILL.
When this ancient little village first had a stronghold no one seems to know. As early as 1121 a fortress was built here by Bishop Flambard, of Durham; but it was not the first to occupy the site. After the death of “this plunderer of the rich, this exterminator of the poor,” the castle was so roughly handled by David I. that in 1164 we find another Bishop of Durham, Hugh Pudsey, virtually rebuilding it, and adding a massive keep. But warrior-priests were not much to the mind of the king who suggested the assassination of Thomas à Becket, and so, someten years after he had rebuilt it, the bishop was prevailed upon to pass it on to William de Neville; and from this time onwards it appears to have been treated as a royal fortress. Thus it came about that more than once it was the scene of conference between William the Lion and the English King whose only association with the noble beast was through his brother. And here also came Edward I., to decide between the thirteen claimants to the crown of Alexander III., and to do a little business on his own account as well. A memoir of the Dacres on its condition early in the sixteenth century speaks of the keep as impregnable; but it was nothing of the kind. Like all these Border strengths, it was always being taken and retaken; and only a few years before this memoir was written, James IV., then on his way to Flodden, had brought up Mons Meg against it, and with the “auld murderess’s” help had possessed himself of it. Pudsey’s massive keep still remains, though in a greatly shattered state, and shorn of its mighty proportions; there are also bits of other parts of the castle, the whole enclosed within a wall of ample circuit.
FORD CASTLE.FORD CASTLE.
FORD CASTLE.
FLODDEN FIELD.FLODDEN FIELD.
FLODDEN FIELD.
In the days when it held a royal garrison, Norham had various castellans, some of them men of distinction in their day; but the most famous of them since the “tale of Flodden Field” was told, has been “Sir Hugh the Heron bold.” This “Baron of Twisell and of Ford” passed among men as William Heron; but Hugh was more poetical, and so his baptismal name was changed. Nor, at the time selected for the Lord of Fontenaye’s visit, was he here to be twitted with his witching lady’s gallantries. Two years before this his bastard brother had taken part in theslaughter of the Scottish Warden of the Middle Marches, Sir Robert Ker of Cessford; and as Sir William himself had been in some sort accessory to the crime, Henry had thought it well to deliver him and one of the actual murderers up to justice, so that at this time he was lying in durance at Fastcastle. This, of course, is the fault of the facts, not of the poetry. Nor need it be disappointing to find Sir Walter himself saying that the Marmion of the romance is “entirely a fictitious personage.” When, indeed, it is remembered that one of the Marmions did verily come here, though long years before—in the reign which witnessed the triumph at Bannockburn, instead of the overthrow at Flodden—the poet might very well have been astonished at his own moderation. The errand of the real Marmion was a good deal more romantic than that of his imaginary descendant. At a great feast in Lincolnshire he had been endued with a gold-crested helmet by a lady who had nothing better to do than to drive a brave man into mortal peril. Her charge to him was to “go into the daungerest place in England, and ther to let the healme be seene and known as famous.” So he sped him here to Norham, and within four days of his coming, Philip of Mowbray, the guardian of Berwick—nowin the hands of the elated Scots—appeared before the walls “with the very flour of the men of the Scottish marches.” The castellan at this time was a Grey of Chillingham, who drew out his men before the barriers, and then bade the knight-errant, “al glittering in gold, and wearing the healme,” to ride like a valiant man among his foes, adding, “and I forsake God if I rescue not thy body, dead or alyve, or I myself wyl dye for it.” Thereupon the knight mounted and rode into the midst of the enemy, “the which layed sore stripes on him, and pulled hym at the last out of his sadel to the ground.” But now Grey and his men “lette prick yn among the Scottes” and put them to rout; and he of the “healme,” though “sore beten,” was horsed again and took part in the chase. As it must have been this visit which made the poet bring his Marmion to Norham, so no doubt it was the deed itself, coupled with an event which actually happened at Tantallon, which suggested the knight’s precipitate retreat when he had bearded the Douglas in his halls.
TWISELL BRIDGE.TWISELL BRIDGE.
TWISELL BRIDGE.
Just above the castle is the village of Norham, with its pretty little church—all but the eastern end, where there is a poor Decorated window, in the Norman style, and still interesting, in spite of the drastic restoration it has endured. It stands in a churchyard which well repays the careful tendance it receives, for it is of exceptionally choice situation, separated by a row of limes from the cosiest of rectories, and by little more than another fringe of foliage from the Tweed, whose waves babble of rest and peace as they ripple by the cells where lie the simple village folk who ended their toilsome lives in their beds, and the warriors who came to a ruder end before or behind the castle walls. Here the northern bank is lofty and pleasantly wooded, as, a little below, is the southern bank. In its approach to the castle the stream bends round to the south, and its waters move less leisurely, as though, fresh from contact with a scene consecrated to peace on the earth and goodwill among men, they cannot abide these grim stark ruins, with their memories of weeping captives andcruel deeds. If the keep yet looks down with something of insolence upon its lowly neighbour on the strath far beneath, it is, for all that, a parable against itself, testifying that it is not to “men of might” but to “men of mean” that the inheritance has been decreed. For while its strength and splendour have for ever fled, the humble sanctuary has renewed its youth; and, though the forms of faith suffer change, it has a good hope that in the far summers which we shall not see it will still be fulfilling its gracious and hallowed offices.
JUNCTION OF THE TILL AND THE GLEN.JUNCTION OF THE TILL AND THE GLEN.
JUNCTION OF THE TILL AND THE GLEN.
Within sight of Norham, on the opposite bank, amidst a delightful bit of woodland scenery, is the tiny village of Ladykirk, named, by a reversal of the usual order, from its church, dedicated to the Virgin, and built about the year 1500 by James IV. as a votive gift for his preservation from drowning while crossing a ford at this spot. Thus says tradition, which has so much to answer for. But the story is not improbable. There certainly was a ford here, which was more than usually dangerous when freshets were running; and James, though not a serious-minded or scrupulous man—being, indeed, one of those who prefer to indulge and repent rather than abstain—was not without an easy kind of piety. From Ladykirk onwards to Tillmouth, walking along the banks, there is a rapid succession of varied delights. On one side or the other, when not on both, thestream is edged with lovely copses; and the path, breast-high with tufted grass and tangled briar, runs past many a thicket beloved of the yellow linnet and the spotted thrush, and athwart many a glen where in simpler days fairies held their dainty revels and laid their sprightly plots.
THE GLEN AT COUPLAND.THE GLEN AT COUPLAND.
THE GLEN AT COUPLAND.
The Till not only augments the waters, but adds to the beauties, of the Tweed. “The sullen Till,” Scott calls it in his poetry; but here he is tuning his harp to a minor key to sing the disaster at Flodden; and he can mean no more by the uncomplimentary expression than when in his prose he speaks of it as deep and slow. A very leisurely water it certainly is, and the country through which it flows—past Ewart Newtown, where it is joined by the Glen, which rises on the slopes of the Cheviots as Bowmont Water, and passes through scenery of which that at Coupland may be taken as typical—is not on the whole interesting. But the epithet is less than just if applied to its mouth and the reaches immediately below, for here it flows through a deep, winding, and gloriously wooded glen. On the peninsula where the streams meet and blend, stands a fragment of what was once “a chapel fair,” dedicated to St. Cuthbert; for when the roving saint had tired of Melrose and induced his custodians to launch him upon the Tweed in a stone coffin, this “ponderous bark for river-tides” glided “light as gossamer” until itlanded here. The coffin used to be shown in two pieces beside the ruin (it was broken by the saint’s guardian spirits, to save it from being degraded to an ignoble use); and Sir Walter, who would appear to have seen it, says that it was finely shaped, and of such proportions that with very little assistance it might have floated. To “Tillmouth cell” it was that Clare was conveyed by the pious monk when some “base marauder’s lance” had at once rid her of her persecutor and avenged the betrayal of Constance; and here she spent the night in prayer. And to Tillmouth also it was that Friar John was attached, that “blithesome brother at the can” who in evil hour “crossed the Tweed to teach Dame Alison her creed,” and being interrupted in the exposition by her churl of a husband, and being on principle an enemy to strife, incontinently fled “sans frock and hood.” A boon companion the worthy John must have been, but not a safe guide for Marmion or another, since—
“When our John hath quaffed his ale,As little as the wind that blowsAnd warms itself against his nose,Kens he, or cares, which way he goes.”
“When our John hath quaffed his ale,As little as the wind that blowsAnd warms itself against his nose,Kens he, or cares, which way he goes.”
“When our John hath quaffed his ale,
As little as the wind that blows
And warms itself against his nose,
Kens he, or cares, which way he goes.”
The mere fragment which is all that is left of Twisell Castle stands high above the Till, near its mouth, overlooking Tillmouth House, embosomed in trees a little farther up the Till, and Twisell’s “Gothic arch,” the picturesque single-span bridge which the foolhardiness of James allowed the van of the English army to cross on the morning of Flodden. Begun in 1770 by Sir Francis Blake, the castle was in the builder’s hands off and on for the space of forty years; but it was never completed, and never occupied, although Sir Walter, whose conscience failed him in the matter of castle-building, was pleased to praise it as “a splendid pile of Gothic architecture.” William Heron, the castellan of Norham, was, as we have seen, “Baron of Twisell,” but his chief seat was Ford Castle, farther up the Till, on the eastern bank; and it was here, and not at Holyrood, that, according to the original legend, which did not quite suit the poet’s purpose, the Scottish king fell victim to Lady Heron’s charms. The story goes that, having taken Norham and Wark, he had stormed Ford, and was only deterred from demolishing it by its fair castellan’s blandishments; and the Scottish chroniclers represent Lady Heron as preening her feathers expressly that the susceptible monarch might lose his chance of striking an effective blow. The whole story is now known to be devoid of truth. The unromantic fact is that Lady Heron deceived neither her husband nor his captor. When the battle of Flodden was fought she was far enough away from Ford Castle, imploring Surrey to make terms with the King of Scotland for the safety of her husband. That James took the castle by storm is no doubt true, but when he departed for Flodden he set it on fire, which was about the worst he could do under the circumstances.
Although the castle which Lady Heron’s husband extended and strengthened was sorely knocked about by the Scots in 1549, portions of it remain to thisday. From the windows a clump of firs which crowns the Hill of Flodden, known as the “King’s Chair,” on the west bank of the Till, is clearly visible, as it is from the Tweed, from which it is only about three miles distant, to the south; and the present proprietress of the castle, the Marchioness of Waterford, has had a ride cut through the woods straight up the famous height. The chamber occupied by the king may still be seen, and through its large window he must on the fateful morning have looked across the Till upon the gleaming tents of his forces. The position was one of considerable strength; but James recklessly threw away this and every other advantage. Against the remonstrances and appeals of his wisest counsellors he refused to permit Borthwick to open fire upon the English van as it was crossing Twisell Bridge, and so allowed the enemy to cut off his base. And now that the time was come for holding his hand, he resolved to strike; so, firing his tents, he amid profound silence marched down, and the fight began. When night came to enforce a truce, Surrey was in doubt whether the battle was at an end. But the Scots had lost their king, and with him his natural son the boy-Archbishop of St. Andrews, and the flower, and much more than the flower, of their nobility and gentry, and even of the clergy, and there was nothing for them but to draw off under cover of the darkness and carry to their homes the news of the most disastrous blow their nation had ever suffered. Many long refused to believe that their beloved king had fallen, and stories got abroad of his having gone on pilgrimage to win forgiveness for his sin against his father on the inglorious field of Sauchie, but they vainly waited for his reappearance, and there is no reason to doubt that the “King’s Stone” pretty accurately marks the spot where he fighting fell. When Sir Walter exclaims—