Lost Leaders | Page 2

every stone you tread on a
history, so on Tweedside by every nook and valley you find the place
of a ballad, a story, or a legend. From Tweed's source, near the grave of
the Wizard Merlin, down to Berwick and the sea, the Border "keeps"
and towers are as frequent as castles on the Rhine. Each has its tradition,
its memory of lawless times, which have become beautiful in the magic
of poetry and the mist of the past. First comes Neidpath Castle, with its

vaulted "hanging chamber" in the roof, and the rafter, with the iron ring
to which prisoners were hanged, still remaining to testify to the lawless
power of Border lords. Neidpath has a softer legend of the death of the
lady of the house, when her lover failed to recognize the features that
had wasted with sorrow for his absence. Lower down the river comes
Clovenfords, with its memories of Christopher North, and Peebles,
where King James sings that there was "dancing and derray" in his time;
and still lower Ashiesteel, where Scott was young and happy, and
Abbotsford, where his fame and his misfortunes found him out. It was
on a bright afternoon in late September that he died there, and the
mourners by his bed heard through the silence the murmuring of Tweed
How many other associations there are by the tributary rivers! what a
breath of "pastoral melancholy"! There is Ettrick, where the cautious
lover in the old song of Ettrick banks found "a canny place of meeting."
Oakwood Tower, where Michael Scott, the wizard, wove his spells, is a
farm building--the haunted magician's room is a granary, Earlstone,
where Thomas the Rhymer dwelt, and whence the two white deer
recalled him to Elfland and to the arms of the fairy queen, is noted "for
its shawl manufactory." Only Yarrow still keeps its ancient quiet, and
the burn that was tinged by the blood of Douglas is unstained by more
commonplace dyes.
All these changes make the "Rivers of Scotland" rather melancholy
reading. Thirty years have not passed since Lauder died, and how much
he would miss if he could revisit his beloved water! Spearing salmon
by torchlight is a forbidden thing. The rocks are no longer lit up with
the red glow; they resound no longer with the shouts and splashing of
the yeomen. You might almost as readily find a hart on Harthope, or a
wild cat at Catslack, or a wolf at Wolf-Cleugh, as catch three
stone-weight of trout in Meggat-water. {6} The days of guileless fish
and fabulous draughts of trout are over. No sportsman need take three
large baskets to the Gala now, as Lauder did, and actually filled them
with thirty-six dozen of trout. The modern angler must not allow his
expectations to be raised too highly by these stories. Sport has become
much more difficult in these times of rapidly growing population. It is a
pleasant sight to see the weavers spending their afternoons beside the
Tweed; it is such a sight as could not be witnessed by the closely

preserved rivers of England. But the weavers have taught the trout
caution, and the dyes and various pollutions of trade have thinned their
numbers. Mr. Ruskin sees no hope in this state of things; he preaches,
in the spirit of old Hesiod, that there is no piety in a race which defiles
the "holy waters." But surely civilization, even if it spoil sport and
degrade scenery, is better than a state of things in which the laird would
hang up his foes to an iron ring in the roof. The hill of Cowden Knowes
may be a less eligible place for lovers' meetings than it was of old. But
in those times the lord of Cowden Knowes is said by tradition to have
had a way of putting his prisoners in barrels studded with iron nails,
and rolling them down a brae. This is the side of the good old times
which should not be overlooked. It may not be pleasant to find blue dye
and wool yarn in Teviot, but it is more endurable than to have to
encounter the bandit Barnskill, who hewed his bed of flint, Scott says,
in Minto Crags. Still, the reading of the "Rivers of Scotland" leaves
rather a sad impression on the reader, and makes him ask once more if
there is no way of reconciling the beauty of rude ages with the comforts
and culture of civilization. This is a question that really demands an
answer, though it is often put in a mistaken way. The teachings of Mr.
Ruskin and of his followers would bring us back to a time when
printing was not, and an engineer would have been burned for a wizard.
{8} But there is