The Rivers of Great Britain, Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial: Rivers of the East Coast
by Various · English · Gutenberg #47726 · 924,007 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Rivers of Great Britain, Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial: Rivers of the East Coast
Author: Various
Release date: December 20, 2014 [eBook #47726]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIVERS OF GREAT BRITAIN, DESCRIPTIVE, HISTORICAL, PICTORIAL: RIVERS OF THE EAST COAST ***
[Illustration:
ON THE WHARFE--BOLTON ABBEY.
W.H.J. BOOT R.B.A. DELT C.O. MURRAY SCULPT]
_THE WHARFE, FROM BOLTON ABBEY.--A few signed Artist's Proofs of
this Etching on India paper can be obtained, price £1 1s. each, on
application to the Publishers_,
CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, Ludgate Hill, London.
THE
RIVERS OF GREAT BRITAIN
DESCRIPTIVE HISTORICAL PICTORIAL
_RIVERS OF THE EAST COAST_
[Illustration]
CASSELL & COMPANY LIMITED
_LONDON PARIS NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_
1889
[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
THE HIGHLAND DEE.--_By FRANCIS WATT._
PAGE
The Source: Larig and Garchary Burns--In the Heart of the
Cairngorm Mountains--Ben Macdhui and Braeriach--"A Fery Fulgar
Place"--A Highland Legend--The Linn of Dee--Byron's Narrow
Escape--The Floods of 1829--Lochnagar and Mary Duff--Influence
of the Dee on Byron--Braemar and the Rising of '15--Corriemulzie
and its Linn--Balmoral--The "Birks" of Abergeldie--Their
Transplantation by Burns--What is Collimankie?--Ballater: the
Slaying of "Brave Brackley"--Craigendarroch--The Reel of Tullich
and the Origin Thereof--The Legend of St. Nathdan--Mythological
Parallels--The Muich--Morven: the Centre of Highland Song and
Legend--Birse--Lunphanan Wood--The Battle of Corrichie--Queen Mary
and Sir John Gordon--At Aberdeen 1
THE TAY.--_By JOHN GEDDIE._
The Tiber and the Tay--History and Legend--Perthshire and the
Tay--The Moor of Rannoch--Blair--Pitlochrie--Killin--Kenmore--The
Lyon--The "Rock of Weem"--The "Birks" of Aberfeldy--Dunkeld
and Birnam--Invertuthil--The Loch of Clunie--The
Isla--Strathmore--Dunsinane Hill--Scone and the
Ruthvens--Perth--The Views from Moncrieffe and Kinnoull--Strathearn
and the Carse of Gowrie--Dundee--The Tay Bridge, New and Old--View
from the "Law"--"Men of Blood" and Men of Business 17
THE FORTH.--_By JOHN GEDDIE._
Comparative--Poetry, Romance, and History--Loch Ard
and Flora McIvor--The "Clachan of Aberfoyle"--Lake of
Menteith--The Trossachs and Loch Katrine--Ellen and
Helen--Loch Achray--Ben Ledi--The View from Stirling
Castle--Stirling Town--Bannockburn--The Ochils and the Devon
Valley--Alloa--Clackmannan--Kincardine-on-Forth--Tulliallan
Castle--Culross: Abbey and Burgh--The "Standard
Stone"--Torryburn--Rosyth Castle--"St. Margaret's
Hope"--Dunfermline: Tower, Palace, and Abbey--The New Forth
Bridge--Inch Garvie and its Castle--Inverkeithing Bay--Donibristle
House--Aberdour--Inchcolm, Cramond, Inchkeith, and May Islands--The
Bass Rock--Kirkcaldy Bay--Edinburgh--Leith--Seton--Aberlady--Round
to North Berwick--Tantallon Castle 41
THE TWEED.--_By W. W. HUTCHINGS._
CHAPTER I.--FROM BERWICK TO KELSO.--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 72
CHAPTER II.--FROM KELSO TO TWEEDSWELL.--Kelso and
its Abbey--Roxburghe Castle--Floors Castle--The
Teviot--Ancrum--Carlenrig--The Ale--The Jed and
Jedburgh--Mertoun--Smailholm Tower and Sandyknowe--Eildon
and Sir Michael Scott--Dryburgh--The Leader and Thomas
the Rhymer--Melrose--Skirmish Hill--Abbotsford--The
Ettrick and the Yarrow--Ashestiel--Innerleithen--Horsburgh
Castle--Peebles--Neidpath--Manor--Drummelzier--The Crook
Inn--Tweedswell 90
THE COQUET.--_By AARON WATSON._
The Fisherman's River--"Awa' to the
Border"--Peat-Hags--Eel-Fishing--Alwinton and Harbottle--The
Village of Rothbury--Brinkburn Priory--Weldon Bridge and
Felton--Warkworth Hermitage and Castle--The Town of Amble--Coquet
Isle 113
THE TYNE.--_By AARON WATSON._
CHAPTER I.--THE NORTH TYNE.--Peel Fell--Deadwater Bog--Keilder
Castle and the Keilder Moors--The Border Peel--Border Feuds and
Friendships--The Charltons--Bellingham--The Reed--Tyne Salmon--The
Village of Wark--Chipchase Castle--Haughton Castle and the
Swinburnes--Chollerford and the Roman Wall--The Meeting of the
Waters 129
CHAPTER II.--THE SOUTH TYNE.--On the "Fiend's Fell"--Tyne
Springs--Garrigill--Alston and the Moors--Knaresdale Hall--The
Ridleys--Haltwhistle--Allendale--Haydon Bridge and John Martin--The
Arthurian Legends 143
CHAPTER III.--FROM HEXHAM TO NEWCASTLE.--Hexham and the Abbey
Church--Dilston Hall--The Derwentwater Rising--Corbridge--Bywell
Woods--Prudhoe and Ovingham--Stephenson's Birthplace--Ryton and
Newburn--The Approach to Newcastle 150
CHAPTER IV.--FROM NEWCASTLE TO THE SEA.--The Growth of
Tyneside--"The Coaly Tyne"--Newcastle Bridges--Local
Industries--Poetical Eulogies--Tyneside Landscapes--Sandgate
and the Keelmen--Wallsend--Jarrow and the Venerable Bede--The
Docks--Shields Harbour--North and South Shields--The Tyne
Commission--Tynemouth Priory--The Open Sea 157
THE WEAR.--_By JOHN GEDDIE._
William of Malmesbury on the Wear--Its Associations--Upper
Weardale and its Inhabitants--Stanhope--Hunting the
Scots--Wolsingham--Bollihope Fell and the "Lang
Man's Grave"--Hamsterley--Witton-le-Wear--Bishop
Auckland--Binchester--Brancepeth Castle--The View from
Merrington Church Tower--Wardenlaw--Durham--St. Cuthbert--His
Movements during Life and Afterwards--The Growth of his
Patrimony--Bishop Carilepho and his Successors--The Battle of
Neville's Cross--The Bishopric in Later Times--The Cathedral,
Without and Within--The Conventual Buildings--The Castle--Bear
Park--Ushaw--Finchale--Chester-le-Street--Lumley and Lambton
Castles--Biddick--Hylton--Sunderland and the Wearmouths--The North
Sea 173
THE TEES.--_By AARON WATSON._
Among the Fells--The Weel--Caldron Snout--High Force--Gibson's
Cave--Bow Leys--Middleton-in-Teesdale--The Lune and the
Balder--Scandinavian Names--Cotherstone Cheese--History
in Teesdale--Scott's Description of the Tees--Egliston
Abbey--Greta Bridge--Dickens and Mr. Squeers--Brignal Banks and
Rokeby--The Village of Ovington--Gainford--Pierce Bridge--High
and Low Coniscliffe--Croft--Yarm--The Industries of the
Tees--Stockton--Middlesbrough--The Sea 197
THE HUMBER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.
_By the REV. CANON BONNEY, D.Sc., F.R.S._
CHAPTER I.--THE TRENT, FROM THE SOURCE TO NEWTON SOLNEY.--The
Course of the Trent--A Lowland Stream--Etymological--A
Fish-Stream--The Source--The Potteries--Burslem,
Etruria, and Josiah Wedgwood--Stoke-upon-Trent--Trentham
Hall--Stone--Sandon--Chartley Castle--Ingestre and its
Owners--The Sow--Tixall--Essex Bridge--Shugborough--Cannock
Chase--Rugeley--Beaudesert--Armitage--The Blyth--Alrewas--The
Tame--Burton-upon-Trent--Newton Solney 221
_By EDWARD BRADBURY._
CHAPTER II.--THE DOVE.--What's in the Name--Axe Edge and
Dove Head--The Monogram--Glutton Mill--Hartington--Beresford
Dale--Pike Pool--Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton--Beresford
Hall--Dove Dale--Its Associations--Ilam--The
Manifold--Ashbourne--Doveridge--Uttoxeter--Sudbury--Tutbury--The
Confluence 240
_By CANON BONNEY._
CHAPTER III.--THE TRENT, FROM NEWTON SOLNEY TO THE DERWENT.--Newton
Solney--Repton: the School and the Church--Swarkestone: its
Bridge and its Church--Chellaston--Donington Park and Castle
Donington--Cavendish Bridge 251
_By EDWARD BRADBURY._
CHAPTER IV.--THE DERWENT.--The Derwent in its Infancy--Derwent
Chapel and Hall--Hathersage--Eyam--Grindleford
Bridge--Chatsworth--The "Peacock" at Rowsley--Haddon Hall--The
Wye and the Lathkill--Darley Dale and its Yew-tree--The Sycamores
of Oker Hill--The Matlocks and High Tor--Cromford and Willersley
Castle--Ambergate--Belper--Derby--Elvaston 257
_By CANON BONNEY._
CHAPTER V.--THE TRENT, FROM THE DERWENT TO THE HUMBER.--The
Soar--Trent Junction--The Erewash--Gotham and its Wise Men--Clifton
Hall and Grove--Nottingham and its History--Colwich Hall and Mary
Chaworth--Sherwood Forest--Newark--Gainsborough--Axholme--The
Confluence with the Humber 277
_By W. S. CAMERON._
CHAPTER VI.--THE WHARFE.--General Characteristics--The
Skirfare--Langstrothdale--Kettlewell--Dowkabottom
Cave--Coniston and its Neighbourhood--Rylstone and the
Nortons--Burnsall--Appletreewick: an Eccentric Parson--Simon's
Seat--Barden Tower and the Cliffords--The "Strid"--Bolton Abbey and
Bolton Hall--The Bridge--Ilkley--Denton and the Fairfaxes--Farnley
Hall and Turner--Otley--Harewood--Towton Field--Kirkby
Wharfe--Bolton Percy 292
_By W. S. CAMERON._
CHAPTER VII.--THE OUSE.--The Ure and the Swale--Myton and
the "White Battle"--Nun Monckton, Overton, and Skelton--The
Nidd--York--Bishopthorpe--Selby--The Derwent--The
Aire--Howden--Goole--The Don 310
_By W. S. CAMERON._
CHAPTER VIII.--THE ESTUARY.--Drainage and Navigation--Dimensions
of the Humber--The Ferribys--Barton-upon-Humber--Hull--Paull--Sunk
Island--Spurn Point--Great Grimsby--Places of Call 320
THE RIVERS OF THE WASH.--_By CANON BONNEY._
THE WITHAM: Grantham--Lincoln--Boston.
THE NEN: Naseby--Northampton--Earls
Barton--Castle Ashby--Wellingborough--Higham
Ferrers--Thrapston--Oundle--Castor--Peterborough. THE WELLAND:
Market Harborough--Rockingham--Stamford. THE OUSE: Bedford--St.
Neots--Huntingdon--St. Ives. THE CAM: Cambridge--"Five Miles from
Anywhere"--Ely. FENS AND FENLAND TOWNS: Wisbeach--Spalding--King's
Lynn--Crowland 326
THE RIVERS OF EAST ANGLIA.--_By W. SENIOR._
THE CROUCH: Foulness--Little Barsted and
Langdon--Canewdon--Rayleigh--Hockley Spa. THE
BLACKWATER: Saffron Walden--Radwinter--Cadham Hall
and Butler--Bocking--Braintree--Felix Hall--Braxted
Lodge--Tiptree--Maldon. THE CHELMER: Thaxted--The Dunmows--Great
Waltham--Springfield--Chelmsford--Mersea Island. THE COLNE:
Great Yeldham--Castle Hedingham--Halstead--Colchester.
THE STOUR: Kedington--Sudbury--Flatford and John
Constable--Harwich. THE ORWELL: Stowmarket--Barham--Ipswich.
THE DEBEN: Debenham--Woodbridge--Felixstowe. THE
ALDE: Aldborough--Southwold--Halesworth. THE WAVENEY:
Diss--Bungay--Mettingham--Beccles--Breydon Water--Horsey Mere. THE
BURE: Hickling Broads--St. Benet's Abbey--Salhouse and Wroxham
Broads--Hoverton Great Broad--Horning Ferry--Fishing in the Broads.
THE YARE: Norwich--Yarmouth 350
[Illustration]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
ON THE WHARFE--BOLTON ABBEY _Frontispiece._
_THE HIGHLAND DEE_:--
PAGES
Ben Macdhui--The Highland Dee (_Map_)--Linn of Dee--Linn of
Corriemulzie--Lochnagar--Braemar--View from the Old Bridge,
Invercauld, Braemar--Balmoral--The Castle--Abergeldie
Castle--Ballater--Aberdeen 1-16
_THE TAY_:--
Bridge of Tay, Kenmore--The Tay (_Map_)--"Birks" of
Aberfeldy--Aberfeldy, from the West--Bridge of Garry--Birnam, from
Birnam Hill--Dunsinane Hill--Scone Palace, Perth--Perth, from the
West--Tay Street, Perth--On the Firth of Tay--The New Tay Viaduct,
from the South--Dundee, from Broughty Ferry--Dundee--Broughty Ferry
Castle 17-40
_THE FORTH_:--
Ben and Loch Lomond--The Forth (_Map_)--"Ellen's Isle"--The
Trossachs and Ben Venue--Old Bridge of Forth, Stirling--Stirling,
from Abbey Craig--Alloa Pier--Salmon Fishing near
Stirling--Culross, from the Pier--Culross Abbey--Dunfermline--Forth
Bridge, from the South-West--Shore Street, Leith--Edinburgh, from
the Fife Shore--Portobello--Kirkcaldy, from the South-East--The
Bass Rock, from North Berwick--Tantallon Castle, looking
East--North Berwick, from the Harbour 41-71
_THE TWEED_:--
Berwick-on-Tweed--High Street, Berwick, with the Town Hall--The
Royal Border Bridge, Berwick--The Course of the Tweed (_Map_)--View
from the Ramparts, Berwick--Norham Castle--Junction of the
Till and the Tweed--Tillmouth House, from the Banks of the
Till--Ford Castle--Flodden Field--Twisell Bridge--Junction of
the Till and the Glen--The Glen at Coupland--Coldstream Bridge,
from up-stream--Ruins of Wark Castle--Kelso, with Rennie's
Bridge--Dryburgh Abbey, from the East--Ruins of Roxburghe
Castle--Melrose Abbey, from the South-East--Melrose Abbey: the
East Window--Abbotsford--Galashiels--Peebles, from a little below
Neidpath--Neidpath Castle--Hart Fell 72-112
_THE COQUET_:--
Among the Fells--The Course of the Coquet
(_Map_)--Harbottle--Alwinton Bridge--The Coquet at Farnham--On the
Coquet, Brinkburn--At Felton--Morwick Mill, Acklington--Warkworth
Castle--The Village of Warkworth--Hunting on Coquetside 113-128
_THE TYNE_:--
Keilder Moors (with Peel Fell to the Right)--The Course of the Tyne
(_Map_)--Keilder Castle--Greystead Bridge--Dally Castle--Bellingham
Church--Chipchase Castle--Haughton Castle--At Warden--Alston
Moor--Featherstone Castle--Featherstone Bridge--Haltwhistle--Haydon
Bridge--Hexham Abbey--Prudhoe Castle--Corbridge--Bywell
Castle--Newburn--Ovingham--The High-level Bridge at Gateshead--Coal
Trimmers--A Coal Staithe--Newcastle-on-Tyne--Quay at
Newcastle--Shields Harbour: the High Lights--The River at Tynemouth
Castle--Jarrow Church: the Saxon Tower--Tynemouth, from the
Sea--Tynemouth, from Cullercoats 129-172
_THE WEAR_:--
In Weardale--The Course of the Wear (_Map_)--Stanhope
Bridge--Rogerley--Wolsingham--Harperley--Witton-le-Wear--Bishop
Auckland Palace and Park--Willington--Brancepeth
Castle--Distant View of Durham--Durham Cathedral and
Castle--Chester-le-Street--Distant View of Lambton
Castle--Monkwearmouth Church--Looking up the River, Sunderland 173-193
_THE TEES_:--
Cross Fell--The Course of the Tees (_Map_)--High Force--From York
Side--Barnard Castle--Barnard Castle: the Town--On the Greta at
Rokeby--Junction of the Greta and the Tees--Wycliffe--Gainford
Croft--Blackwell Bridge--Yarm--Stockton--High Street,
Stockton--Ferryboat Landing, Middlesbrough--Blast Furnaces, from
the River, Middlesbrough 197-220
_THE HUMBER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES_:--
THE TRENT, FROM THE SOURCE TO NEWTON SOLNEY.--In the
Potteries--The Trent, from the Source to Newton Solney
(_Map_)--Etruria--Josiah Wedgwood--Trentham--Ingestre
Hall--Wolseley Bridge--Shugborough--Rugeley, from the Stone
Quarry--Cannock Chase, from the Trent--From the Meadows near
Alrewas--Armitage--Burton-upon-Trent 221-237
THE DOVE.--Dove Head--Map of the Dove--The Monogram at Dove
Head--The Banks of the Dove--Ilam Hall--Ashbourne Church--The
Straits, Dovedale--John of Gaunt's Gateway, Tutbury Castle 240-250
THE TRENT, FROM NEWTON SOLNEY TO THE DERWENT.--Junction of the
Trent and the Dove--Repton--The "Crow Trees," Barrow-on-Trent--The
Trent, from Newton Solney to the Derwent (_Map_)--Trent Locks 251-256
THE DERWENT.--Junction of the Derwent and the Trent--The Course
of the Derwent (_Map_)--At Ashopton, Derwentdale--Chatsworth--The
"Peacock," Rowsley--The Terrace, Haddon Hall--Haddon Hall, from
the Wye--Derwent Terrace, Matlock--The High Tor, Matlock--Matlock
Bath--Markeaton Bridge--Allestree--Derby, from the Long
Bridge--Derby, from St. Mary's Bridge--In the South Gardens,
Elvaston 257-276
THE TRENT, FROM THE DERWENT TO THE HUMBER.--Trent Bridge,
Nottingham--The Trent, from the Derwent to the Humber
(_Map_)--Nottingham, from the Castle--Newark Castle--Carlton--On
the Trent at Gainsborough--Old Sluice Gate at Axholme--Meadow Land
at Axholme 277-290
THE WHARFE.--Bolton Bridge--The Course of the Wharfe
(_Map_)--Skipton Castle, from one of the Towers--Ilkley Bridge--The
Bridge, Otley--Farnley Hall--Ruins of Harewood Castle--At
Tadcaster--Kirkby Wharfe 292-309
THE OUSE.--The Ouse at York--The Course of the Ouse
(_Map_)--Bishopthorpe--Cawood--Selby 310-317
THE ESTUARY.--Barton-upon-Humber--The Course of the Humber--Queen's
Dock, Hull--Distant View of Great Grimsby 320-325
_THE RIVERS OF THE WASH_:--
A Bit of Fen--On the Fens in Winter--Map of the
Rivers of the Wash--Lincoln, from Canwick--Lincoln
Cathedral from the South-West--Boston Church: the
Tower--Northampton--Peterborough--Rockingham Village and
Castle--Gateway of the Castle--Stamford--Bedford Bridge--Huntingdon
Bridge--Old Bridge, St. Ives--Junction of the Cam and the
Ouse--Queen's Bridge, Cambridge--Ely Cathedral, from the
River--Among the Fens 326-349
_THE RIVERS OF EAST ANGLIA_:--
A Norfolk Broad--Cadham Hall--Portrait of Samuel
Butler--Maldon--Map of the East Anglian Rivers--The Shire Hall,
Chelmsford--Mill on the Colne--High Street, Colchester--On the
Orwell at Ipswich--Harwich: The Quay--The Beach, Yarmouth--Outward
Bound 350-370
_We are indebted for the use of Photographs on pages 1, 4, 8, 9,
12, 15, 17, 21, 24, 25, 29, 32, 33, 40, 45, 48, 57, 65, 71, 76, 77,
100, 108, and 109, to Messrs. J. Valentine and Sons, Dundee; on
pages 12, 13, 16, 20, 28, 44, 60, 69, 93, 125, 245, 329, and 334, to
Messrs. G. W. Wilson and Co., Aberdeen; on pages 53, 73, 74, 92, 96,
105, 193, 205, 217, 250, 300, 316, 317, and 324, to Messrs. Poulton
and Son, Lee; on pages 80 and 89, to Mr. T. Scott, Birmingham; on
pages 79 and 88, to Mr. T. Foster, Coldstream; on page 85, to Mr. W.
Green, Berwick-on-Tweed; on pages 82, 137, and 189, to Mr. H. Piper,
Gateshead; on pages 116, 140, 141, 145, 148, 152, 153, and 204, to
Mr. J. P. Gibson, Hexham; on pages 120 and 124, to Mr. J. Worsnop,
Rothbury; on page 121, to Rev. G. Smith, Bedlington; on pages 145, 200,
208, 209, 211, 213, and 308, to Mr. E. Yeoman, Barnard Castle; on page
150, to Mr. C. C. Hodges, Hexham; on pages 154 and 155, to Messrs. O.
M. Lairs and Son, Newcastle-on-Tyne; on pages 181, 184, 189, 265, 269,
277, and 296, to Messrs. Frith and Co., Reigate; on page 212, to Mr.
J. W. Cooper, Darlington; on page 224, to Mr. F. Pearson, Basford; on
pages 228, 248, 252, 253, 262, 272, 273, 276, 284, and 292, to Mr. R.
Keene, Derby; on pages 263 and 264, to Mr. J. W. Hilder, Matlock Bath;
on page 288, to Messrs. Allen and Sons, Nottingham; on page 304, to Mr.
M. Shuttleworth, Ilkley; on page 336, to Mr. G. A. Nicholls, Stamford;
on pages 340 and 341, to Mr. A. Hendrey, Godmanchester; on page 345,
to Messrs. Hills and Saunders, Cambridge; on page 353, to Mr. W. W.
Gladwin, Maldon; on page 360, to Mr. Gill, Colchester; on pages 350,
357, 360, 361, 364, and 370, to Mr. Payne Jennings, Ashtead._
RIVERS OF GREAT BRITAIN.
[Illustration: BEN MACDHUI.]
THE HIGHLAND DEE.
The Source: Larig and Garchary Burns--In the Heart of the
Cairngorm Mountains--Ben Macdhui and Braeriach--"A Fery Falgar
Place"--A Highland Legend--The Linn of Dee--Byron's Narrow
Escape--The Floods of 1829--Lochnagar and Mary Duff--Influence
of the Dee on Byron--Braemar and the Rising of '15--Corriemulzie
and its Linn--Balmoral--The "Birks" of Abergeldie--Their
Transplantation by Burns--What is Collimankie?--Ballater: The
Slaying of "Brave Brackley"--Craigendarroch--The Reel of Tullich
and the Origin Thereof--The Legend of St. Nathdan--Mythological
Parallels--The Muich--Morven: The Centre of Highland Song and
Legend--Birse--Lunphanan Wood--The Battle of Corrichie--Queen Mary
and Sir John Gordon--At Aberdeen.
Among the streams that meet together in the wild south-west of
Aberdeenshire to form the Dee, it is not easy to decide which is chief,
or where is the fountain, far up the dark mountain-side, where this
parent rill has birth. Dismissing minor pretenders, we can at once
state that the original is either the Larig or the Garchary Burn. The
first is more in the main line of the river, whilst it has also more
water; the second rises higher up, and has a longer course before it
reaches the meeting-place. Popularly, the source of the stream is a
place about the beginning of the Larig, called the Wells of Dee. Here
Nature has built a reservoir perfect in every part. The water escapes
from this fountain-head in considerable volume, so that it forms a
quite satisfactory source, which we may well adopt. Here, then, our
journey commences among
"The grizzly cliffs that guard
The infant rills of Highland Dee."
We are in the very heart of the Cairngorm Mountains, confronted on
every side by all that is most savage and grand in nature--frowning
precipices, mist-covered heights, sullen black lochs, an almost total
absence of vegetation, an almost unbroken solitude. Here rise Ben
Macdhui, Braeriach, and Cairntoul, whose streams, running down--often
hurled down--their weather-beaten sides, rapidly increase the volume
of our river. Braeriach fronts Ben Macdhui on the other side of the
infant Dee. It presents to the view a huge line of precipices, dark and
sombre, save when the hand of Winter, powdering them with snow, changes
them to masses of glittering white. Even at a good distance away you
hear the splash and dash of innumerable waterfalls, caused by the burns
leaping the cliffs. If you venture to wander among those wilds you must
know your ground well, for however bright the day may be one hour, the
next you may be shrouded in mist, or drenched with rain, or battered by
hail. The mist, indeed, is rarely absent. You see it clinging round the
heights and moving restlessly up and down the hillside like some uneasy
and malignant spirit. As you walk you are startled at a huge figure
striding along. It requires an effort to recognise a mist-picture of
yourself--a sort of Scotch Spectre of the Brocken.
It was of these wild regions that an old Highlander once remarked to
Hill Burton that it was "a fery fulgar place, and not fit for a young
shentleman to go to at all." Let us not scorn the ingenuous native;
Virgil has said, in the Eclogues (much more elegantly, 'tis true), very
much the same thing about very much the same kind of scenery. All our
way by Dee will not be among views like this. Indeed, at the mouth are
scenes of rich fertility. It is on the fat meadows near Aberdeen that
a portion of those innumerable flocks and droves are raised which have
so great a reputation in the London market. These are the two extremes,
but between them there is every variety of Highland scenery. He who has
seen the banks of Dee has seen, as in an epitome or abridgment, all
that the north of Scotland has to show. In the midst of variety one
thing is constant, whatever landscape you may be passing through: you
always have the great hill masses on the horizon. Thus the Dee is a
typical Highland river. Even with the sternest parts soft touches are
interwoven. Thus take the Lui, which, rising in Ben Macdhui, falls into
the Dee at an early point of its course. The lower part of Glen Lui is
remarkable for its gentle beauty. The grass is smooth as a lawn, the
water of the burn which moves gently along is transparently clear, the
regular slope is covered with weeping birches. The perfect solitude
of this sweet valley has its own charm, though it be the charm of
melancholy. Higher up, nearer Ben Macdhui, in Glen Lui Beg, the scenery
is wilder, and the water dashes down more swiftly, as if it longed to
be away from its wild source. We must go with it, and bid farewell
to Ben Macdhui and the sources of Dee. And for farewell, here is a
mountain legend.
[Illustration: THE HIGHLAND DEE.]
At some time or other a band of robbers who infested this region
had acquired a great store of gold. One of their number, named
Mackenzie, proved that there is not honour among thieves. He robbed
his companions and then hid the twice-cursed pelf in a remote and
well-nigh inaccessible spot far up the slope of Ben Macdhui. The work
of concealment took him the best part of a short summer night, for
the sun rose precisely as he finished. He noticed that as its first
beam fell over the ridge to the east, it marked a long burnished line
of light over the ground where the treasure lay. This seemed to him
to distinguish the spot beyond the possibility of error. Before his
death he confided to his sons the secret of his hidden treasure. They
were poor and greedy. The rest of their lives was devoted summer after
summer to the hunt; but the grim mountain kept its secret well. Often
the morning mist mocked their efforts, yet they succeeded no better
when, on the anniversary of the burial, the sun rose in a sky of
unclouded blue. One by one, prematurely aged, they passed away, till
the last died a madman, revealing in his ravings the secret and the
ruin of their lives. And still, somewhere on that mountain-side, the
gold hoard lies concealed.
For some time after we leave the Wells of Dee, we are still in the
midst of gloom. Dark black rocks rising on either side to a great
height still shut us in, whilst the stillness is only broken by the
roar of the wind, the rush of the water, or the (occasional) scream of
the eagle; but when we get to the Linn of Dee, near Inverary, we may
fairly consider ourselves back among our kind; nay, we are within the
very uncharmed circle of the tourist, whereat we may rejoice or grieve
as is our liking. This linn is caused by the river rushing through a
narrow channel in the rocks over into a pool very deep, and (according
to local tradition) unfathomable. Some hardy spirits have jumped across
the channel, but if you try, and miss, you will never come out alive.
Then your epitaph will be written in a guide-book paragraph, somewhat
after the fashion of the lines in Baedeker telling the horrible end
of that unfortunate officer who fell into the bear-pit at Berne. Lord
Byron, when a boy, had a narrow escape here. "Some heather caught in
his lame foot, and he fell. Already he was rolling downwards, when the
attendant luckily caught hold of him, and was but just in time to save
him from being killed."
[Illustration: LINN OF DEE.]
[Illustration: LINN OF CORRIEMULZIE.]
The great floods of 1829--those floods of which Sir Thomas Dick Lauder
is the chronicler--wrought sad havoc here. A bridge spanned the stream
at a height of thirty feet. The river, rising three feet higher, swept
it away. We must turn to the annals of Strathspey to test the full
havoc of the flood fiend, yet it wrought no mean ruin here. I pick out
one or two cases. Near Inverey the rising water attacked six houses,
destroying each in turn until all the inhabitants were huddled round
the hearthstone of the last. Here the water burst in, forcing the poor
people to take refuge on a knoll, where, without shelter, and in mortal
terror for their lives, they crouched shivering through the night.
There is a waterfall on the Quoich, near where it joins the larger
river. This was spanned by a bridge so firmly bound to the rocks as
to be (it was hoped) immovable. The flood struck it, and it was torn
away, with tons of the adjacent rocks. It seemed, indeed, to those
who lived through that terrible time, as if the very structure of the
earth was breaking in pieces. The days were black with the ever-falling
sheets of heavy rain; the nights were vivid with the ever-flashing
lightning; whilst day and night alike the wind roared with demoniacal
fury. The waters hidden in the bowels of hills and rocks burst forth,
leaving great fissures and scars, which remain as a monument of the
Titanic forces at work. Shocks of earthquake happened again and again.
"I felt the earth hobblin' under me," said a peasant graphically.
Many thought the end of all things was at hand. Yet it was in less
sensational ravages that the flood wrought its most cruel havoc. The
poor man's cottage left a hopeless ruin, the fertile field left a sandy
waste--such were the most lamentable signs of its power. Human effort
was powerless against it. What could be done with a flood which rose,
as was noted at Ballater, not less than one foot in ten minutes? The
ravages made have long ago been repaired. At Linn of Dee there is now
a handsome white granite bridge, which was opened by the Queen as long
ago as the year 1857.
[Illustration: LOCHNAGAR.]
It is odd that the poet of this essentially Highland river should
be an English bard; for if we turn to see what our literature has to
say of the Dee, we must turn to Byron. Yet Byron was, as he says,
"half a Scot by birth, and bred a whole one." If his ancestors on
the father's side "came over" (as he delighted to recall) with the
Conqueror, he was not less proud to remember that his mother was of
one of the best families of the "Gay Gordons," and that for over three
centuries her people had possessed Gight. He went to Aberdeen in 1790,
when but two years old; here he stayed till 1798, and during that
time he visited again and again most of the finest spots on the Dee.
Those mighty hills, those clear, flowing streams, were the earliest
things he remembered, and he never failed to acknowledge how deep was
the impression they made on him. "From this period I date my love of
mountainous countries." Near the end of his life he sings, in "The
Island"--
"The infant rapture still survived the boy,
And Lochnagar with Ida look'd o'er Troy."
His mention of Lochnagar--"dark Lochnagar"--reminds us how peculiarly
his name is connected with that Deeside mountain of which he is the
laureate. Here, too, sprang the strange child-love of the precocious
boy for Mary Duff, with whose beauty the beauty of the country where
he came to know her was indissolubly linked in his mind. The scenes in
Greece, he says, carried him back to Morven (his own "Morven of snow"),
and many a dark hill in that classic land made him "think of the rocks
that o'ershadow Colbeen;" whilst the very mention of "Auld Lang Syne"
brings to his mind the river Dee and
"Scotland one and all,
Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills and clear streams."
In Moore's biography there are needlessly ingenious arguments to prove
that it was not the Dee scenery that made Byron a poet. Of course
not. _Poeta nascitur non fit_, to quote the old Latin saying, which
puts the matter much more pithily than Moore. But scenery and early
impressions determine the course of a poet's genius as surely as the
nature of the ground determines the course of the stream. How much
Celtic magic there is in all Byron's verses--the love of the wild and
terrible and impressive in scenery, as in life! Byron's poetry is
before all romantic, and so is Deeside scenery. In his revolt against
conventionalities, and even (it must be said) against the proprieties
and decencies, we can clearly trace a true Celtic revolt against the
dull, hard, prosaic facts of life. Can it be said that if Byron had
passed his early years among the Lincolnshire fens or the muddy flats
of Essex, "Don Juan" or "Childe Harold" would have been what they
are--if, indeed, they had ever existed?
Moore under-estimated the influence of such scenes on Byron because
he under-estimated the scenes themselves. "A small bleak valley, not
at all worthy of being associated with the memory of a poet," says
he. At this the local historian, good Mr. James Brown, who, having
first driven a coach till he knew every inch of a large stretch of
the country, then wrote an excellent Deeside guide, waxes very wroth.
"It is really to be wished that Mr. Thomas Moore would not write upon
subjects which he knows nothing about. Deeside a small bleak valley!
Who ever heard tell of such nonsense!" Moore, however, did after his
kind. He who sang the "sweet vale of Avoca" cared little for "dark
Lochnagar." Indeed, there are some northern folk very much of Moore's
opinion. Does not the old proverb tell us that
"A mile of Don's worth two of Dee,
Except for salmon, stone, and tree"?
But it is for those who love the stone and tree, the wild forests, the
wilder hills, that Dee has its surpassing attraction. It adds a fine
charm to the enthusiast's enjoyment of such scenery to know it is not
everyone who can appreciate it.
But we turn now to interest of another kind, for at Castleton of
Braemar we touch successive strata of historical events. There is
Craig-Koynoch, where Kenneth II., too old for hunting himself, used
to watch his dogs as they chased some noble stag, whilst his ears
drank in the music of horn and hound. Here, too, in the old castle of
Braemar, of which but a few remains are left, Malcolm Canmore, last of
Scotland's Celtic kings, had a hunting seat in the midst of the mighty
forest of which we still see the remains. There are still great herds
of deer to be hunted, though the wolves and wild boars have long since
vanished. Here, too, were the great possessions of the Mar family. It
was to this place that John Erskine, thirty-ninth Earl of Mar, summoned
the Highland clans under pretence of a great hunting party in Braemar
forest, and began the rebellion of 1715. The standard was formally set
up on the 6th of September, when the gilt ball which ornamented the top
fell down, much to the consternation of the superstitious Celts.
A famous Jacobite song gives us the names of the leaders and the
clans:--
"I saw our chief come up the glen
Wi' Drummond and Glengarry,
Macgregor, Murray, Rollo, Keith,
Panmure and gallant Harry;
Macdonald's men, Clan Ronald's men,
Mackenzie's men, Macgillivray's men,
Strathallan's men, the Lowlan' men,
O'Callander and Airly."
The hunting party, it should be noted, was not all a pretence. It took
place on a magnificent scale, as Taylor the Water Poet, who was there
(how or why it would take too long to explain), tells us. After he
lost sight of the old castle, he was twelve days before he saw either
house, or cornfield, or habitation for any creature but deer, wild
horses, wolves, and such-like creatures. Taylor goes on to describe how
a great body of beaters, setting out at early morning, drove the deer,
"their heads making a show like a wood," to the place where the hunters
shot them down. As we all know, the '15 was a disastrous failure--less
terrible, it is true, but less glorious, than the '45. Mar turned out
to be neither statesman nor soldier ("Oh for one hour of Dundee!" said
the old officer at Sheriffmuir). He escaped with the Pretender to
France, his vast estates were forfeited, and for a time there was no
Earldom of Mar. His poor followers suffered more than their lord. All
the houses in Braemar were burnt, save one at Corriemulzie. It was only
the seclusion of that narrow glen, so beautiful with its birch-trees
and its linn, that saved the lonely habitation. There are memories of
the '45 about the district too. For instance, a little way down the
river from Castleton is Craig Clunie, where Farquharson of Invercauld
lay hid for ten months after Culloden, safe in the devotion of his
clan, though his enemies were hunting for him far and near.
[Illustration: BRAEMAR.]
Ten miles or so below Castleton, we come upon another royal residence,
which we all know as Balmoral, the Highland home of Queen Victoria.
This place is now one of the most famous spots in Britain, and though
its celebrity is of recent date, yet it has an old history of its own.
As far back as 1451 it was royal property. In 1592 James V. gave it to
the then Earl of Huntly. In 1652, on the downfall of the family, it
came into the possession of the Earl of Moray. Enough of these dull
details, which are best left in the congenial seclusion of the charter
chest. In 1852 the Crown again--and let us hope finally--acquired
Balmoral.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE OLD BRIDGE, INVERCAULD, BRAEMAR.]
If anyone wonders why the Queen is so fond of her Highland home, it
must be because the questioner has never seen it, since of all the
dwelling-places of men it is surely the most desirable. It stands on
a slight eminence near the Dee, which winds round it in a great bend.
Swiftly the beautifully clear water rolls past. The low ground, richly
fertile, is green in summer-time with various leafage. Behind the
castle rises the graceful height of Craig-na-gow-an, clothed with the
slender birch-tree. The cairn on the top, to the memory of Albert the
Good, reminds us of the great sorrow of Victoria's life. The castle
lies at the foot of the hill, protected from the wild winter winds. In
both near and remote distance we have the ever-beautiful background
of the everlasting hills, immovable, and yet ever changing in place
and appearance with each change of light and shade. Ben Macdhui in one
direction is most prominent, dark Lochnagar in another. The scenery is
"wild, and yet not desolate," as the Queen simply, yet truly, puts it.
Its varied aspects give, from one point of view or another, examples
of all Deeside views. The castle itself is built of very fine granite.
It has a noble appearance, yet the architecture is of the simplest
baronial Scotch style. It has all the traditional comfort of our island
dwellings. It is, in a word, a genuine English home amidst the finest
Highland scenery. What combination could be more attractive?
Two miles farther down is Abergeldie, of which the castle is occupied
by the Prince of Wales when in these parts. Between the two is Crathie
Kirk, where the royal household and their visitors worship in simple
Presbyterian fashion in the autumn months. Abergeldie has an old
reputation for its birks. There used to be a quaint old song in two
verses which told their praise. In the first verse an ardent wooer
entreats one of those innumerable "bonnie lassies" of Scotch popular
poetry to hie thither under his escort. She is to have all sorts of
fine things--
"Ye sall get a gown o' silk
And coat o' collimankie."
What on earth is collimankie? asks the reader. In truth I cannot tell,
and I fear to look up the word in Jamieson lest it turn out to be
something commonplace. The second verse is the young lady's reply. It
is deliciously arch and simple:--
"Na, kind sir, I dare nae gang,
My minny will be angry.
Sair, sair wad she flyte,
Wad she flyte, wad she flyte,
Sair, sair, wad she flyte,
And sair wad she ban me!"
"Methinks the lady doth protest too much," and the probability is that
she went after all. At any rate, the picture is perfect. You almost see
the peasant girl mincing her words, biting her finger, with a blush
on her young face. And what has become of this song, then? Why, Burns
laid violent hands on the birks, and transferred them to Aberfeldy;
which, thenceforth, was glorified with a most shady grove; in poetry,
that is, for in fact there was not a single birk in the place for
long afterwards, if, indeed, there is one even now; and, as far as my
recollection goes, there is not. But we have still something to relate
regarding those famous birks. It seems that the juice of the trees is
carefully extracted, and the skilled natives, "by a curious process,
ferment the same and make wine of it--which wine is very pleasant
to taste, and thought by some to be little inferior to the wine of
Champagne and other outlandish countries." So far the local chronicler.
We can only toss off a goblet (in imagination) of this extraordinary
_vin du pays_ to the prosperity of the birks ere the bend of the Dee
hides them from our view.
Ballater is the next important place we come to. It is the terminus
of the Deeside Extension Railway, and what is for us at present much
more important, the centre of the most interesting part of Deeside. One
mile south of it is an almost vanished ruin, the scene of a terrible
tragedy, the memory of which--though it happened three centuries
ago--is still preserved by a poem of a very different sort from the
simple peasant idyll just quoted. One of the old tragic ballads which
with such profound yet unconscious insight deal with the stormier
human passions, tells the story of how Farquharson of Inverey slew, in
shameful fashion, Gordon, Baron of Brackley. With what pithy expression
the first two lines place you in the very heart of the subject!
"Inverey came down Deeside whistlin' and playin',
He was at brave Brackley's yetts ere it was dawin'."
And then comes the proud, insolent challenge of the murderer--
"Are ye sleepin', Baronne, or are ye waukin'?
There's sharp swords at your yett will gar your blood spin."
Gordon is brave, but he will not go forth almost alone against so many
to meet certain death till his fair, but false, young wife taunts him
bitterly with his cowardice. Then he gets ready, though he knows how
certain is his doom.
"An' he stooped low, and said, as he kissed his proud dame,
'There's a Gordon rides out that will never ride hame.'"
There is a narrow glen near by which popular tradition still points out
as the spot where they "pierced bonny Brackley wi' mony a woun'." The
ballad closes in darkness and sadness, but one is glad to learn from
contemporary history that the Earl of Huntly made a foray and avenged
the death of his kinsman.
Hereby is the hill of Craigendarroch, which we cannot pause to climb,
though from it we have a grand view a long way down the Dee Valley.
Tullich I can only mention. Have you ever seen, by-the-bye, that
extraordinary Highland tarantula called the reel of Tullich? It is
perhaps the wildest, maddest dance ever invented. The legend of its
origin is this:--One tempestuous Sabbath, about a century and a half
ago, the congregation at the parish kirk there were without a minister.
The manse was some way off, the roads were rough, and the parson got it
into his head that nobody would be at church that day, so _he_ need not
go either. The people got tired of waiting; they began to stamp with
their feet, then hidden bottles were produced, and then they danced and
shouted till at last the whole thing degenerated into a wild orgie,
during which the wind roared round the kirk and the sleet beat on the
windows in vain. Then they invented and danced the reel of Tullich.
Before the year was out all were dead, and by the dance alone are they
now remembered. It is worth while quoting this strange story, for it
is an example of the rare Presbyterian legend. A place on the river
called the King's Pool reminds one of a Catholic myth. St. Nathdan,
who once lived here, did penance for some sin by locking a heavy iron
chain round his waist. He then threw the key into this pool, saying he
should know he was forgiven when he found it again. Long afterwards he
went a pilgrimage to Rome, and on the Italian coast some fishermen, in
return for his blessing, gave him a fish. Need I add that in the belly
he found the key?
[Illustration: BALMORAL.]
[Illustration: THE CASTLE.]
The legends which hang like the mist round every rock and ruin have
a weird fascination, but I must stop repeating them, or there will be
room for nothing else. I cannot help noting, however, that there is a
Deeside version of nearly every ancient myth. Thus one story tells how
a Macdonald was suckled by a wolf quite after the fashion of Romulus.
Another is of a giant injured by an individual calling himself Mysel,
so that when the stupid monster was asked who hurt him, he could only
say "Mysel" (myself). This is almost exactly the tale of the giant
in the "Odyssey." But more curious than all is a reproduction of the
famous apple legend, with Malcolm Canmore for Geisler and one called
Hardy for William Tell. The resemblance is exact even down to the two
additional arrows; but I can scarcely go so far as the old Deeside
lady, who affirmed that since Malcolm Canmore flourished about the time
of the Norman Conquest, and William Tell was contemporary with Robert
Bruce, the Swiss legend was borrowed from the Scotch!
[Illustration: ABERGELDIE CASTLE.]
It is difficult to get away from a neighbourhood like Ballater, where
there is so much worth seeing. The Muich here, running from the south,
falls into the Dee. About five miles up is the Linn of Muich--linns
and waterfalls are the peculiar glory of Deeside, I need scarcely say.
A great mass of water finds here but one narrow outlet, over which it
foams and struggles, and then falls fifty feet with a great splash
into a deep pool. The heights of the precipice are clothed with old
fir-trees, which also stick out of the crevasses of the rocks. The
Muich rises away up at the foot of Lochnagar in Loch Muich, which
means, they say, the Lake of Sorrow--so gloomy and sombre is that
far-off recess in the hill. To the west of Lochnagar are the Loch
and Glen of Callater--wild enough, too; and beyond is the Breakneck
Waterfall, which is positively the last fall I shall mention. A stream
makes a bold dart over a precipice. It seems like a thread of silver
in the sunlight. Down it falls, with a thundering sound on the rock,
scattering its spray around in a perpetual shower. A British admiral,
some few years ago, slipped over a precipice near here. His hammer (he
was specimen hunting) stuck in a crack, and there he held on for two
awful days, and still more awful nights. The whole neighbourhood hunted
for him, and at last, the black speck being seen on the cliff, he was
rescued. Not a man of the rescuers would accept a farthing for what he
had done. The Highlander has his faults, but there is always something
of the gentleman about him.
[Illustration: BALLATER.]
Nearly due north of Ballater is Morven--the Morven of Byron, and
(perhaps) of Ossian, though there are other places and districts in
Scotland bearing the name. Morven is the centre of Highland song and
legend. But if it is enchanted, it is also uncertain, ground, and must
here be left untraced. We are still forty-three miles from Aberdeen;
so we glide through Aboyne and Glentanner, leaving the beautiful
castle of the one, and the equally, though differently, beautiful
valley of the other, unvisited. Then in many a devious turn we wind
round the northern boundary of the parish of Birse. "As auld as the
hills o' Birse," says a local proverb, which shows that even in this
land of hills the district is considered hilly. Here are some of their
names: Torquhandallachy, Lamawhillis, Carmaferg, Lamahip, Duchery,
Craigmahandle, Gannoch, Creaganducy. Grand words those, if you can give
them their proper sound. Otherwise leave them "unhonoured and unsung,"
and unpronounced. The local chronicler is much perplexed by another
somewhat inelegant Aberdeenshire witticism--"Gang to Birse and bottle
skate." With absolute logical correctness he proves that in that inland
and hilly parish there are no skate; and that, if there were, to bottle
them would be contrary to the principles and practice of any recorded
system of fish-curing. We shall not discuss with him this dark saying.
On the other side of the Dee is Lunphanan parish, in the "wood"
of which Macbeth--according to Wyntoun, though not according to
Shakespeare--met his death. His "cairn" is still to be seen on a bare
hill in this district, though another tradition tells us that his
dust mingles with the dust of "gracious Duncan" in the sacred soil of
Iona. The Dee, now leaving its native county, flows for a few miles
through the Mearns or Kincardineshire. It returns to Aberdeenshire in
the parish of Drumoak, forming for the remaining fourteen miles of its
course the boundary between the two counties.
[Illustration: ABERDEEN.]
It is here we come across the most interesting historical memory
connected with Deeside, for it is a memory of Queen Mary. On the
south side of the Hill of Fare there is a hollow, where the battle of
Corrichie was fought in 1562. I do not wish to enter into the history
of that troubled time. Suffice it to say that the Earl of Huntly, chief
of the Gordons, and head of the Catholics, was intriguing to secure
the power which Murray was determined he should not have. The Queen
was with Murray, though her heart, they said, was with the Gordons.
Anyhow, she dashed northward gaily enough on a horse that would have
thrown an ordinary rider. Murray's diplomacy forced the Gordons into
a position of open hostility, and his superior generalship easily
secured him the victory at Corrichie. The old Earl of Huntly was taken,
it seemed, unhurt, but he suddenly fell down dead--heart-broken at
the ruin of himself and his house, said some; crushed by the weight
of his armour, said others. They took the body to the Tolbooth in
Aberdeen. Knox tells us that the Countess had consulted a witch before
the fight, and was comforted by the assurance that her husband would
lie _unwounded_ that night in the Tolbooth. The remains, embalmed in
some rude fashion, were carried to Edinburgh; for a strange ceremony
yet remained ere the Gordon lands were divided among the victors. A
Parliament in due time met in Holyrood, and the dead man was brought
before his peers to answer for his treasons. A mere formality, perhaps,
but an awfully gruesome one. His attainder, and that of his family,
together with the forfeiture of his lands, was then pronounced. The
battle was a great triumph for the Protestant lords; even the sneering,
sceptical Maitland, says Knox, with one of those direct, forcible
touches of his, "remembered that there was a God in heaven." There
was one who looked on the matter with other eyes. "The Queen took no
pleasure in the victory, and gloomed at the messenger who told of it."
Indeed, there was a tragedy within this tragedy. Among the prisoners
taken at Corrichie was Sir John Gordon, Huntly's second son, "a comely
young gentleman," wild and daring, and, though then an outlaw, one
who had ventured to hope for the Queen's hand. It was whispered that
she was not unfavourable to him; some ventured to say "she loved him
entirely." For such a man there was but one fate possible, and that
was death. He was executed in the market-place of Aberdeen. Murray
looked on at the death of his foe with that inscrutable calm which
he preserved in victory and defeat--at his own death, as well as at
the death of others. The Queen, too, was forced to be there. Before
the axe fell, Gordon professed his unalterable devotion to her. Her
presence, he said, was a solace to him, though she had brought him
to destruction. The sight was too fearful for Mary, who, in a deadly
swoon, was carried to her chamber. Even in her strange life-story
there is nothing more terrible. Fotheringay itself is not so tragic.
The last four miles of our well-nigh eighty miles' journey are, as
noted, on the border of Aberdeen and Kincardine. Here the river enjoys
a peaceful old age, after the wild turmoil of its youth. The water,
still beautifully clear, moves placidly along amidst rich meadows; the
near hills are low, with soft rounded summits. The dwellings of men
give a cheerfulness to the scene. It is the very perfection of pastoral
landscape. And then, at last, we come to Aberdeen and the sea. But on
the wonders of that famous town I cannot here enter. Suffice it to say
that our record of the Highland Dee is finished.
FRANCIS WATT.
[Illustration: BRIDGE OF TAY, KENMORE.]
THE TAY.
The Tiber and the Tay--History and Legend--Perthshire and the
Tay--The Moor of Rannoch--Blair--Pitlochrie--Killin--Kenmore--The
Lyon--The "Rock of Weem"--The "Birks" of Aberfeldy--Dunkeld
and Birnam--Invertuthil--The Loch of Clunie--The
Isla--Strathmore--Dunsinane Hill--Scone and the
Ruthvens--Perth--The Views from Moncrieffe and Kinnoull--Strathearn
and the Carse of Gowrie--Dundee--The Tay Bridge, New and Old--View
from the "Law"--"Men of Blood" and Men of Business.
"Behold the Tiber!" said the conquering Roman, when from one of the
many 'vantage-grounds commanding the noble stream that sweeps past
Perth, the Imperial eagles first saw as fair a scene as they had yet
reached in their flight. The ardent lovers of the river--meaning
all who know its banks well--have ever since felt, with Scott,
half flattered by the traditional compliment, half scornful of the
comparison of the puny and "drumlie" Roman stream with the broad,
clear, and brimming Tay--the dusty Campus Martius with the green
"Inches" of Perth--the featureless and desolate Campagna with the
glorious stretch of hill and plain, water and woodland, overlooked from
Kinnoull Hill or the "Wicks of Baiglie."
It is true that when this pioneer of countless hosts of Southern
invaders and sightseers came hither, to admire and covet, the Tay
flowed through a savage and shaggy land. There might have been a
handful of the skin or wicker-work wigwams of the "dwellers in the
forest" on the site of Perth, or at Forteviot or Abernethy, afterwards
the capitals of the Picts, and a sprinkling of Caledonian coracles on
the neighbouring waters. But if Perthshire and the Tay had a history
before the coming of Agricola and the building of the lines of Roman
roads and stations that converged upon their great camp, dedicated to
Mars, near the meeting-place of this prince of Scottish streams with
the tributary waters of the Almond and the Earn, it is utterly lost in
the mists of antiquity.
History of the most stirring kind the Tay has known enough of since.
Every glen and hillside is thronged with memories and legends of the
days of romance, which, in Perthshire and on the banks of the Tay, came
to an end only about a century ago, when some of the Jacobite lairds
were still in exile for being "out" in the '45, and had not utterly
given up hope of the "lost cause." Every old castle and little township
has played its part in the strange, eventful drama of the national
history; and by their record, not less than by its position, Perthshire
can lay claim to be the heart, and the Tay to be the heart's blood, of
the northern kingdom.
Perthshire is the Tay, almost as truly as Egypt is the Nile. It is the
case that some of the head-waters of this many-fountained stream rise
in other counties--that its furthest, if not its most important, source
is in the desolate Moor of Rannoch--"a world before chaos," crudely
compounded of bog and rock, where Loch Lydoch trails its black and
sinuous length out of Argyllshire into Perth; that, further north, Loch
Ericht, straight as a sword-blade, thrusts its sharper end miles deep
into the mountains of Laggan, in Inverness-shire, hiding, as tradition
tells us, the ruins of submerged fields and houses under its gleaming
surface; and that the Isla draws from Forfarshire that portion of its
waters which murmurs under the haunted old walls of Airlie and Glamis.
True, also, a choice and lovely portion of Perthshire--many deem it
the choicest and loveliest of all--drains through the Trossachs to the
Forth; and that the Tay itself, after it has ceased to be a river, and
has become an arm of the sea, overpasses the bounds of the "central
county," and meets the ocean between the Braes of Angus and the hills
of Fife--between the clustering spires and chimneys of busy Dundee
and the crumbling towers that watch over the secluded dignity of St.
Andrews.
All this notwithstanding, the periphery of Perthshire may roughly be
said to embrace all the wealth of beauty reflected in the Tay, and
all the wealth of memories that mingles with its flowing current. And
richly endowed is this prince of highland and lowland streams, both
with beauty and associations.
The centre of the basin of the Tay is somewhere in Glenalmond, between
the sweet woodland shades of the "burn-brae" of Lynedoch, under which
"Bessie Bell and Mary Gray" rest, with their lover at their feet, and
the bare and stilly place where "sleeps Ossian in the Narrow Glen," and
where murmurs along
"But one meek streamlet, only one,
The Song of Battles, and the breath
Of stormy war and violent death;"
while above, on the summits of the hills, the grey stones and cairns
still keep watch, and, interpreted by tradition, point out to us the
place where Fingal once held sway in the very heart of Perthshire and
of the Caledonian Forest.
[Illustration:
_Walker & Boutall sc._
THE TAY.]
Of the ancient woods that are supposed once to have clothed the
country, remains may yet, perhaps, be seen in those glorious sylvan
demesnes that surround Taymouth in Breadalbane and Blair in Athole;
Dupplin, and Drummond Castle, in Strathearn, and Rossie Priory in the
Carse of Gowrie; Scone Palace and Dunkeld, Moncrieffe and Kinnoull,
overlooking the central and lower reaches of the Tay. Traces of them
may also be found in the Woods of Methven, that once gave friendly
shelter to Wallace, and in those ragged and giant pines that thinly dot
the hillsides in Rannoch and Glenlyon, over which Bruce was once chased
by the Lord of the Isles and the English invaders.
But a new forest has grown up within a century, to shade once more
the waters of the Tay. Whatever may have been the case in Macbeth's
or Shakespeare's time, "great Birnam Wood" can no longer be seen from
"high Dunsinane Hill" for the growth of trees--the "moving grove"--that
has risen up between. The Bruar Water and its falls are now shaded from
the sun and the northern blasts, as Burns longed to see them, by "lofty
firs and fragrant birks," as well as by their craggy cliffs; and not
content with thus fulfilling the poet's wish, the Lords of Athole, from
the "Planting Duke" downward, have been nobly ambitious of clothing
their once bare hills with forest to the summits. Beside the pillars of
ruined Dunkeld Cathedral--almost as worthy of reverence as they--stand
the two "Parent Larches," the first trees of their kind introduced into
Scotland. Planted only a century and a half ago, millions of their
seed and kin have now overrun Perthshire and the Highlands, proving
themselves thoroughly at home in the soil and air of the Tay.
[Illustration: "BIRKS" OF ABERFELDY.]
[Illustration: ABERFELDY, FROM THE WEST.]
In the bleak Moor of Rannoch--the "furthest Thule" of Perthshire
and of the more northern Tay sources--there are great blank spaces
where the heather itself will scarce grow. There are only grey rock
and black marsh--"bogs of Styx and waters of Cocytus," with scarce a
sign of human habitation or even of animal life. But the logs of oak
found embedded in the peat, and the hoary fir trunks that still keep a
stubborn stand by Loch Lydoch and the banks of the Guar and the Ericht,
show that even in this dreary region a great forest once waved. The
"Black Wood of Rannoch" still clothes the southern side of the fine
loch of the name; and here, indeed, the Scots fir is to be seen in all
its pride and strength, rising above the beautiful growth of oak and
birch coppice, and of heather of almost arboreal proportions. Escaping
from Loch Rannoch, the Tummel roars down its rocky bed under the piny
slopes and crags of Dunalastair, with a halt by the way in Loch Tummel,
where, from the "Queen's View," looking back, a magnificent prospect
is had of the lovely lake embosomed in woods and hills, dominated by
the lofty shape of Schiehallion, with the lonely Black Mount and the
more distant Grampians closing the background. Further down, opposite
Faskally, the Garry joins it, mingling the streams of Athole with the
waters of Rannoch. Before the meeting, the Garry, leaving its parent
lake high up near the borders of Inverness, has tumbled in white foam
through leagues of the "Struan country," between banks thinly sprinkled
with birchwood and edging great tracts of moorland. Then the Erichdie,
the Bruar, and the Tilt bring down their contributions from remote
mountain corries visited only by the deer-stalker, through deep wild
glens, gloriously wooded at their lower extremity. Where the Tilt runs
into the Garry stands Blair, the Highland seat of the ducal family of
Athole.
[Illustration: BRIDGE OF GARRY.]
The date when "Blair in Athole" was first occupied as a stronghold of
a powerful Highland chieftain is not told in the eventful annals of the
Castle. Strategic considerations, from the points of view of war and of
the chase, no doubt determined the selection of the site, inside the
rugged jaws of the Pass of Killiecrankie, and on a shelf commanding the
routes leading across the Grampians from the basin of the Tay to the
valleys of the Spey and the Dee. The choice thus made in ruder days is
thoroughly pleasing in these "piping times of peace," when the line of
the Highland Railway threads its way through the narrow defile, and
keeping the main valley of the Garry, skirts the miles of woodland,
opening at intervals to afford peeps of the plain, massive white front
of the Castle and the broad spaces of its surrounding parks. The way
through Glentilt, traversed by the clans to join the Stuart standard
at Blair or on the Braes of Mar, is free now only to the deer and the
gillies.
Without going back to the Athole lines of the Comyns and the Stewarts,
or to the joyous hunting scenes in which Queen Mary and other of the
old line of Scottish Sovereigns bore a part, Blair has been a centre of
historical and social interest ever since it became the chief seat of
the Murrays. Montrose assembled the Royalist clans here, and set out
upon the campaign which began with the defeat of the Covenanters at
Tibbermore and the capture of Perth, and ended at Philiphaugh, where,
in one day, the fruits of six brilliant victories were lost. Another
darling of cavalier legend, Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee,
lies buried in the old church near by. In the year of the Revolution
he had relieved Blair Castle, where the clansmen of Athole had held
out for the Jacobite cause against their titular chief, and having
enticed General Mackay through the Pass, he rushed down upon him with
all his force from the slopes of the Hill of Urrard, utterly routing
and sweeping back the enemy through the narrow gorge of the Garry, and
himself falling, shot through the heart, at the moment the Sassenachs
turned to run.
Notable events happened here also in the "'15" and in the "'45;"
and, to come to the recent memories which are cherished with pride
in Blair-Athole, Queen Victoria has paid repeated visits to the
locality, and was entranced by the magnificent prospects of wood and
stream, rugged mountain and fertile strath, that are unfolded from
the top of the Hill of Tulloch, and from other points of view in this
beautiful district. It is a kind of "holy ground" to fervid Jacobites,
one or two of whom are supposed still to linger in Perthshire, if
extinct elsewhere. It is also a favourite resort of the increasing
host of pilgrims in search of Highland sport and scenery, who invade
Athole through the Pass of Killiecrankie, and gaze, with a delight in
which there is no longer any tempering of fear of consequences, upon
the lofty and impending banks, pine-clad to their summits, and the
wilderness of rock and boulder below, through which the Garry glooms
and flashes in alternate pool and fall.
Pitlochrie is a charming place to halt at before, or after, clearing
this "gateway of the Highlands." The Tummel has now joined the Garry,
and under the latter name the united streams have but a short way to
go before they fall, at Ballinluig, into the stream which, from the
place where it issues from Loch Tay, takes the name of the Tay. Were
we to seek it still nearer to its sources, we should find ourselves in
a district which, before the railway came to disturb its solitude, was
as lone and wild as the lochans of the Black Mount or those corries of
Ben Alder and Ben-y-Gloe whence the Tummel, the Ericht, and Tilt draw
their springs. The line from Oban breaks into Perthshire and the basin
of the Tay at Tyndrum, near the head of Strathfillan, not far from the
scene of Bruce's defeat at the hands of the Lord of Lorn. Following,
from near the base of Ben Lui, the infant Tay--here, however, bearing
the names successively of the Fillan and the Dochart--the way leads
past the sites of ruined castles and chapels, by cairns yet haunted by
memories of the bloody feuds of former days, and wells to which legend
still assigns wonderful healing virtues. On the left are bare mountain
sides stretching away northward towards the hills that enclose the head
of Glen Lochay and Glen Lyon; and to the right the range of alpine
heights that culminate in Ben More and impend over Loch Dochart, its
old castle, and its "floating island." St. Fillan lived and laboured in
Strathfillan; Fingal is said to be buried in Glen Dochart; a hundred
traditions cling to the rocks and waters here, and in Glen Ogle, and in
the Glen of the Lochay, which, pouring over its pretty "linn," joins
the Dochart just before the united stream falls into the head of Loch
Tay.
Where the waters meet at Killin, a rich feast is spread for the eye of
the lover of Highland scenery. Killin, with its wonderful mingling of
wild mountain outlines, and the gentle, infinitely varied charms of the
lake and running streams and wooded shores, is a painter's paradise.
Fifteen miles of the finest salmon-angling water in Scotland, overhung
on the north by the vast bulk of Ben Lawers, and bountifully fringed
by birch and other wood, separates Killin from Kenmore, at the lower
end of the great Loch, whence issues, under its proper name, the Tay.
The ruins on the little island near the outlet are those of the Priory
erected by King Alexander I. beside the remains of his Queen, Sibylla,
daughter of Henry I. of England--a quiet retreat for centuries of the
company of nuns from whom the Fair at the neighbouring Kenmore takes
the name of the "Holy Women's Market." Kenmore is as lovely in its own
way as Killin; but here it is no longer wild Highland landscape, but
Nature half-submissive to the embellishing hand of man. It is
"A piece of England ramparted around
With strength of Highland Ben and heather brae;"
and in the centre of the scene, set among ample lawns and magnificent
walks and avenues, backed by the high, dark curtain of Drummond Hill,
and looking towards the pine-clad heights opposite, stands Taymouth
Castle, the princely seat of the Breadalbane family. Famous even
among their sept for their politic ability and acquisitiveness, the
Campbells, Lords of Glenorchy, who became Lords of Breadalbane, are
said to have chosen this site, at the eastern limit of their vast
possessions, with the hope of "birzing yont" into richer lands further
down the Tay. To this day, the Breadalbane estates extend for a hundred
miles westward of Taymouth, to the Atlantic Ocean.
Behind Drummond Hill is Glen Lyon, and a vista of its
mountains--Schiehallion lording it over the minor heights--opens up at
the Vale of Appin, where the Lyon falls into the Tay. A long journey
this tributary makes, among savage and solitary hills, and past haunts
of Ossian's heroes and of the "Wolf of Badenoch," before it reaches the
sylvan beauties assembled round Glenlyon House and Sir Donald Currie's
Castle of Garth. But the most venerable of all the objects on the banks
of the Lyon--not excluding the reputed birthplace of Pontius Pilate--is
the "Old Yew of Fortingal," perhaps "the oldest authentic specimen of
vegetation in Europe."
[Illustration: BIRNAM, FROM BIRNAM HILL.]
[Illustration: DUNSINANE HILL.]
On nothing quite so venerable as this does the next outstanding
eminence by the Tay--the "Rock of Weem"--look down. But Castle Menzies,
for four centuries the home of the Menzies of that ilk, lies surrounded
by fine woods at its base; further off is the site of the old Abbey
of Dull; and beyond the Bridge of Tay--first place of assembly of the
gallant "Black Watch," or 42nd Highlanders--are the Falls of Moness and
the "Birks" of Aberfeldy. Mountain ash and pine have to some extent
replaced the hazels and birches about which Burns so sweetly sings; but
tourists come in larger flocks every season to Urlar Burn and to the
pretty village near by. Grandtully Woods, and the old Castle of the
Stewarts, which has been said to resemble more closely than any other
baronial seat the picture drawn by Scott of Tully-veolan, attract many
admiring eyes. Balleichan recalls memories of "Sir James the Rose;" and
all down Strathtay, before and after the junction with the Tummel--at
Logierait and Kinnaird, Dowally and Dalguise--the enchantments of a
romantic past and of superb scenery combine to induce the traveller to
linger over every mile of the valley.
Dunkeld and Birnam are ahead, however, and the temptations to delay
must be foregone. There is no nook of Scotland more gloriously
apparelled and richly endowed. Grand forests stretch for miles around,
clothing the river-banks, filling the glens, and crowning to their
crests Birnam Hill, Newtyle, Craig Vinean, Craig-y-Barns, and other
heights that gather round the old cathedral town. Through the centre
of the scene the Tay sweeps in smooth and spacious curves and long,
bright-rippled reaches. All this loveliness is concentrated around the
Palace and Cathedral of Dunkeld. Opposite is Birnam, and, a little
above the line of arches of the fine bridge, the "mossy Braan," coming
from Loch Freuchie and "lone Amulree," tumbles through the romantic
dell of the Rumbling Bridge and the "Hermitage," and over its upper and
lower Falls, before entering the Tay.
[Illustration: SCONE PALACE, PERTH.]
A single gnarled and wide-branched oak represents all that remains of
the original Birnam Wood. The glory of the ancient Cathedral has also
departed, or undergone a change. For some fifteen hundred years, it
is reckoned, there has been a Christian house on this spot; and at as
early a date Dunkeld ("Dun-Caledon") had a royal residence, probably
on the site of the "dun" or fort on the "King's Seat." St. Columba is
thought to have founded the church, and to have preached here to the
natives of "Atholl, Caledon, and Angus;" and he is said to have found
burial at Dunkeld. Adamnan and Crinan were among its Culdee abbots;
and in the long line of its Roman Catholic bishops, whose diocese
extended over the greater part of the basin of the Tay, Gawin Douglas,
the poet and translator of the "Æneid," is not the only eminent
name. Very stately without and beautiful within, the edifice of the
Cathedral Church must have looked in its prime, before the Lords of
the Congregation sent word to "purge the kyrk of all kynd of monuments
of idolatrye," but to "tak guid heid that neither the windocks nor
dooris be onywise hurt or broken"--a saving clause to which the zealous
Reforming mob paid scant attention.
The main portion of the Cathedral--the nave--has long been roofless,
but the tower, in which the "Cameronian Regiment" of 1689 offered their
brilliant and successful resistance to the victors of Killiecrankie,
and stemmed the Highland tide rushing down on the Lowlands, still
stands, and the choir has been restored and is used as the parish
church. Within the walls, the "Wolf of Badenoch," Alexander Stewart,
Earl of Buchan--that type of a savage and ruthless Highland
chieftain--is buried; here also are the vaults of the Athole family,
and a monument recording the deeds of the "Black Watch." Without, the
beautiful lawns, gardens, and woods of Dunkeld Palace, one of the seats
of the Duke of Athole, surround the Cathedral ruins, and come down to
the river's edge. Fine villa residences are ranged along the hillside,
and the town of Dunkeld offers every evidence of prosperity.
At Dunkeld, the Tay takes a long sweep eastward, until at the meeting
with the Isla at Meikleour it forms a great elbow and resumes its
southward flow. The Murthly estate, which belongs to the owner of
Grandtully, occupies the south bank of the river along this portion of
its course. From the earliest times royalty, like romance and poetry,
has had the good taste to frequent these scenes. The wraiths of Neil
Gow, the famous fiddler, and of the Highland caterans hanged in the
"eerie hollow" of the Stare Dam, dispute with the ghost of Macbeth
the honour of being the familiar spirits of Birnam Hill, once again
magnificently clothed with wood. In Auchtergaven is the birthplace of
Robert Nicol, the "Peasant Poet;" and here also stood the "Auld House
of Nairne," which recalls the name of Caroline Oliphant, Baroness
Nairne, the laureate of Jacobite song, and which, like her ancestral
home in Strathearn--the "Auld House of Gask"--gave shelter to Prince
Charlie. At the Royal Castle of Kinclaven, now a neglected ruin, many
a Scottish Sovereign, from the time of Malcolm Ceanmohr and Queen
Margaret, had solaced themselves after the chase or battle, before it
was captured and recaptured, rebuilt and demolished, in the days of
Wallace and Bruce.
The northern bank of the Tay is equally rich in scenic beauty and
historical associations. Between the grounds of Delvine and Meikleour,
and opposite the "Bloody Inches"--believed to preserve the memory
of the spot where Redner Lodbrog, the Norse viking and skald, was
beaten back to his ships--the important Roman station of Tulina, now
Invertuthil, is supposed to have stood. Meikleour the Marchioness of
Lansdowne has inherited from her ancestors the Mercers, descendants of
a warlike Provost of Perth in the fourteenth century. The village is
one of the quaintest and most charming of Scottish hamlets; and the
great "beech hedge," ninety feet high, is among the many arboricultural
marvels in the valley of the Tay. Hidden from sight among hills and
woods, like many other lakes and famous sites of this district, is
the Loch of Clunie, with its island castle, the hunting seat of kings
and place of rest and retirement of bishops in the old days. The
Lunan drains from it into the Isla; but to trace the Isla would be
to write pages of description and history concerning Glenardle and
Glenshee, Stormont and Strathmore, the slopes of the Sidlaws and the
passes through the Grampians into Braemar. We should have to give some
idea of the beauties collected about Bridge of Cally, Craighall, and
Blairgowrie on the Ericht; to visit the "Reekie Linn," the "Slugs of
Auchrannie," and Lintrathen on the Isla; to seek the sites, mythical or
otherwise, of Agricola's victory over Galgacus and of Macbeth's defeat
by Macduff near Dunsinane Hill; and to speak of what makes Glamis and
Airlie and Inverqueich, Alyth and Meigle and Coupar, and the rest of
the country lying along the borders of Perth and Angus, memorable and
attractive. It would even lead us as far as Forfar and its loch and
castles, and the rival little burgh of Kirriemuir--the "Thrums" of
recent delightful sketches of old-world Scottish "wabster" and kirk
life in Angus--and detain us to the end of the chapter.
We resume, instead, the line of the Tay below Meikleour and Kinclaven,
and beyond the "Coble o' Cargill," replaced by the more prosaic bridge
carrying the railway line from Perth to Aberdeen. This is the heart
of Strathmore--the "great valley." Ballathy, Stobhall, Muckersy, and
Stanley maintain the repute of the Tay for noble prospects of hill,
wood, and stream. Stobhall was the seat of the Drummond family--still
a power in Perthshire--before they removed to Drummond Castle on the
Earn; and near by, at the Campsie Linn, beside an ancient cell of the
monks of Coupar-Angus Abbey, is the waterfall over which--_teste_ the
author of the "Fair Maid of Perth"--Conacher, the refugee from the
battle on the North Inch, flung himself to hide his shame. Macbeth's
Castle, on Dunsinane Hill, and the field of Luncarty--where, nine
centuries ago, the peasant ancestor of the Hays of Tweeddale, Errol,
and Kinnoull is said to have turned the battle for the Scots against
the Danes with his plough-yoke--might detain us. But now, close ahead,
the explorer of Tayside views, fringing the right bank of the river for
miles opposite the mouth of the Almond, and extending to the environs
of the Royal City of Perth, the woods of Scone--
"Towers and battlements he sees,
Bosomed high on tufted trees."
This is Scone Palace, the magnificent mansion of the Earls of
Mansfield, standing almost on the site of the ancient Abbey and royal
residence of Scone. Modern Scone and all its surroundings are stately
and spacious, but the relics of its early grandeur have disappeared
from the landscape, and almost the only memorials of the days when it
was the meeting-place of parliaments and councils, the crowning-place
of kings, "the Windsor of Scotland," are the mound of the "Motehill,"
the sycamore tree planted by Queen Mary, and the cross which marks
the place where stood the old "City of Scone." In its neighbourhood
was fought the last battle that decided the supremacy of the Scots
over the Picts and the amalgamation of the two nations in one. On the
Motehill, Kenneth Macalpine proclaimed the "Macalpine Laws." Hither,
according to tradition, the "Stone of Destiny" was brought, more than a
thousand years ago, from the old capital of the Dalriadic Scots in the
west--from Dunstaffnage or Beregonium--and the Sovereigns of Scotland
continued to be crowned on it until it was carried off to England, as
the trophy of conquest, by Edward I. It forms part of the Coronation
Chair at Westminster; and patriotic Scots declare that the prophecy
bound up in the fateful stone is still being fulfilled, and that where
it is, the Sovereigns of a Scottish house rule the land. Though the
Coronation Stone was taken away, kings continued to be crowned here.
Robert the Bruce was enthroned, and received the homage of his vassals,
at Scone; and--to make a wide leap in history--Charles II. was crowned
King of Scotland at the spot where his ancestors had been anointed and
installed, before he set out on the unlucky expedition which ended
at Worcester. Similar preparations were made for the coronation of
the Old Pretender; but on the very eve of the event dissensions among
his followers, and the approach of Argyll's army, caused him to take
flight back to the Continent, leaving his adherents to their fate--an
inglorious end to "an auld sang!"
[Illustration: PERTH, FROM THE WEST.]
Before Kenneth Macalpine's day, Scone was a place where councils of
the Early Church met; and nearly eight centuries ago a monastery was
founded there, and richly endowed by Alexander I., in gratitude for his
escape from an attempt made by insurgent "men of Moray and the Mearns"
to capture him at Invergowrie Castle, or "Hurley Hawkin," where two
burns meet near the Church of Liff. The Abbots and the Abbey of Scone
played a prominent part in the civil and ecclesiastical affairs of
Scotland; and we find the patronage and lands of the High Church of
St. Giles, in Edinburgh, bestowed upon it, on account of the expenses
incurred by the monks at the funeral of Robert II. and coronation
of Robert III., when the prelates and nobles encamped on the fields
between the Abbey and the Tay trampled down the standing corn, besides
eating and drinking their victuals, and also, as the deed of gift
runs, "because, at similar times of unction and coronation, through
the many and frequent great gatherings of the people, the monastery
has sustained great damage in their buildings, and been burdened with
heavy expenses." All cares and burdens came to an end in 1559, when the
Reforming mob, having destroyed the Blackfriars' and other religious
houses in the "City of St. Johnstoun," stormed out of Perth, and burned
the Abbey of Scone. Its lands, after remaining a brief time in the
hands of the unfortunate House of Gowrie, fell to the branch of the
Murrays that became illustrious in law, statecraft, and literature,
in the person of William, first Earl of Mansfield. The Abbey site is
a clump of trees; and the "Royal City of Scone," expelled outside the
park gates, has nothing to represent it but the prosaic village of New
Scone.
[Illustration: TAY STREET, PERTH.]
The Ruthvens have no longer part or lot in this district, where they
once lorded it over the stout citizens of Perth, and dared to put
their Sovereigns in thrall. Their old home of Ruthven, or Huntingtower
Castle, is opposite Scone, and not far from the junction of the Almond
with the Tay, where, if we could believe tradition, stood the original
Perth--Rath-Inveralmon--until it was visited by one of the many floods
that have vexed its burghers, and was removed a mile or two downward
to its present site, more close to the shelter of Moncrieffe and
Kinnoull Hills and the tide-water of the Tay. All around are historical
scenes--among them Methven and Tibbermore, made memorable by stirring
passages in the careers of Wallace, Bruce, and Montrose. But at few
spots has more history been made, or contrived, than at the Castle of
the Ruthvens. Four or five generations of its lords made themselves
illustrious or notorious in the annals of the "troublous times" that
preceded the Union of the Crowns. Above all, they were zealous, not
to say unscrupulous, partisans of the Reformation. It was the third
lord who rose from a sick-bed, and, clad in armour, and "haggard and
terrific" in visage, took a foremost share in the murder of David
Rizzio. His son, the fourth Lord Ruthven, grandfather of the "great
Marquis" of Montrose, had a hand in the same bloody business, and he
it was who conducted Mary to Lochleven, and extorted from her the
renouncement of her right to rule.
The year after this same fourth lord had been made first Earl of Gowrie
was enacted the "Raid of Ruthven." The young King James was invited to
visit Huntingtower Castle, on his way from Athole to Edinburgh, and
was there detained by force by the Gowrie faction, whose professed
object was to preserve him from evil counsel and wicked favourites.
Here, when he wept, he was bluntly told, "Better bairns greet than
bearded men." He never forgave the affront, and as soon as he got the
power in his hands the ruin of the Ruthvens was decreed. Lingering at
Dundee to plot, Gowrie was captured and beheaded, and this event, in
the time of the second and last earl, led to the still more mysterious
and tragic episode of the "Gowrie Conspiracy," which gave the Stuarts
the desired opportunity to "root out the whole name and race." Every
reader of Scottish history remembers the strange story--how, in the
autumn of 1600, the King was summoned by the Master of Ruthven, at
early morning, while buckhunting at Falkland, to ride to Perth to see a
"pot of gold" discovered there; how, by his own tale, he found in the
turret chamber to which he was led, not a treasure but an armed man,
and a portrait on the wall, covered by a curtain, which, being drawn
aside, revealed the features of the slain earl; how James shrieked for
help, and his attendants, bursting in from the courtyard, found him
struggling in the hands of Gowrie and his brother, both of whom were
instantly despatched. But the scene of this was not Ruthven Castle, but
old Gowrie House, the town residence of the doomed family, which stood
on the site of the present County Buildings of Perth, close by the
Tay; and the episode belongs to the annals of the "good city of Sanct
Johnstoun."
Thanks to the civil and religious broils of former days, and to the
spirit of modern improvement, nearly all the antiquities of Perth--the
relics of days when it was the seat of the Court, the centre of trade
and religious life, and the great "objective" of warlike operations and
political intrigue--have disappeared from the face of the earth. Of its
Castle, which stood near the north end of what is now the Skinnergate,
not a trace now remains; of its ancient walls, besieged and breached
so often in the wars between Scots and English, scarcely a vestige.
Four monasteries, and numerous other religious houses, once existed
here; and according to information that reached Erasmus, their inmates
led a specially delicate and lazy life. All disappeared--monks and
monasteries together--at the Reformation, and the "rascall multitude,"
who had perhaps seen too much of their cowled and cloistered neighbours
to cherish a deep respect for them, showed little scruple in spoiling
"the monuments of idolatry," and in making free with the meat and drink
with which buttery and cellar were found well stored, and bore in
triumph through the streets the great dinner-pot of the Blackfriars,
thus spreading abroad the last savour of the mediæval religious life
of Perth. Blackfriars Wynd and Street indicate the position of this
Dominican convent, and King James VI.'s Hospital serves to mark the
site of the only Carthusian foundation that existed in Scotland. In
the former, James I. was done to death, and in the latter, richly
endowed by him, the murdered poet-king was buried. The dark tale--the
portents and warnings vouchsafed to the victim, the midnight clash of
arms and flare of torches in the Monastery gardens, while James was
gaily chatting with the Queen and her ladies before retiring to rest;
the heroism of Catherine Douglas, who thrust her arm through the staple
of the door as a bar against the traitors; the temporary escape of the
king into the vault below the floor; his discovery, the savage struggle
before he was despatched, and the terrible revenge that was wreaked by
the widowed Joanna--is as familiar as the Gowrie tragedy itself.
The Church of St. John is still a venerable and venerated object
in Perth; although it also has suffered from the hard usage of time
and the Reformers, and its roof now covers, in place of the numerous
shrines and chapels of Roman Catholic days, three Presbyterian places
of worship. It was in St. John's that Knox preached his iconoclastic
sermon; and many other conspicuous events in the civil and religious
history of Scotland--and more particularly during the long struggle
between Protestantism and Papacy, and between Episcopacy and the
Covenant--were transacted within a stone-throw of its time-worn walls.
Fourteen Scottish Parliaments, and a still larger number of Councils
of Churchmen, are reckoned to have met in Perth previous to the
Reformation. Here schism and martyrdom had begun a century and a half
before Knox. Girdings and gibings at priestly ways crept even into
the "Miracle Plays" annually performed on Corpus Christi Day; and the
town and country around were "more infested with heresy than any other
part of the nation." Cardinal Beaton watched from the Spey Tower while
example was made of heretics by hanging and drowning them "for the
encouragement of others:" to such good effect that in a few years the
monasteries were in ashes, and the Lords of the Congregation, assembled
at Perth, had proclaimed their resolution to spend goods and lives
in the cause of the "true worship of God, the public welfare of the
nation, and the common liberty," in token whereof the burghers set out
on their southward march with ropes--"St. Johnston's ribands"--about
their necks. Mary Queen of Scots and her son had small reason to
remember with pleasure their visits to Perth; and after the Gowrie
incident King James did all in his power to humiliate the town. It was
here that the Assemblies of the Kirk and Parliaments, or Conventions
of Estates, alternately proclaimed and disowned the authority of the
bishops; the town was the centre of fighting in the long battle between
Prelacy and Presbytery. Perth loyally entertained Charles I., and
thirteen brethren of the Craft of Glovers--fateful number!--danced the
sword-dance before him; and soon after, these selfsame swords were
girded to oppose the King at Duns. Montrose captured and pillaged the
town, after defeating the Covenanting troops outside at Tibbermore;
the young Charles II. lodged in the Gowrie House, and after vainly
attempting to run away from the ministers and their long prayers and
exhortations, signed the Solemn League and Covenant, and professed,
as King of Scots, penitence for the sins and follies of himself and
his House. Then came Cromwell and his Ironsides, and built a citadel
on the South Inch and a pier on the Tay with the stones of the ruined
convents; and Claverhouse, Mar, and Prince Charlie have helped since
then to "make history" at Perth and in its neighbourhood.
[Illustration: ON THE FIRTH OF TAY.]
For nearly a century and a half the annals have been comparatively
peaceful and prosaic; even inundation and plague do not trouble
the townsmen as of yore. The Tay no longer makes trysts with its
tributaries to meet "at the bonny cross of St. Johnstoun." Except in
rare times of spate, it sweeps smoothly and sedately under the arches
of the bridge, and past the green "Inches," with their spreading trees
and spacious walks--the fields of pastime and of strife since long
before the memorable battle of the North Inch, when the blade of Hal o'
the Wynd, fighting "for his own hand," turned the scale in favour of
the champions of Clan Chattan--to meet tide-water and commerce below
the town. It is the benefactor and the crowning ornament of Perth,
which has considerably grown and beautified itself of recent years, not
the least of its sources of wealth being the amenities and romantic
associations of the ancient city, and the glorious scenery of the Tay,
of which it may be described as at once the gateway and the centre.
[Illustration: THE NEW TAY VIADUCT, FROM THE SOUTH.]
Within short walking distance of Perth are the Hills of Kinnoull and
Moncrieffe. Tay, after leaving the town, turns sharply to the left
between these two grand wooded heights--each of them rising over 700
feet above the river--and pursues its way, widening as it goes, between
the rich low expanse of the Carse of Gowrie and the opposing shores of
Fife. It were hard to decide which of these sentinel hills commands
the more magnificent prospect. Each view might challenge comparison
with any scene outside of the basin of the Tay for extent and for the
mingling of all the elements of beauty in Highland and Lowland scenery.
Yet, close as they stand to each other and to Perth, distinctly
different panoramas, in foreground and in perspective, are unfolded
from the summits of the two heights. They offer companion pictures, and
not merely landscapes in duplicate, of the Tay from its sources in the
distant blue ranges of the Grampians to the sea.
The top of Moncrieffe--or Moredun--beside the foundations of the old
Pict fort or _dun_, is the right station whence to survey Strathearn--a
valley that rivals that of the Tay itself in the place it holds in the
national history and in the affections of the lovers of scenic beauty.
Directly below the steep pine-covered crest of Moredun runs the winding
Earn, separating the park and woods of Moncrieffe from the pleasant
watering-place of Bridge of Earn. Near the confluence with the Tay is
Abernethy, its "Round Tower" coeval, perhaps, with the introduction
of Christianity to this part of the Tay, and its Castle Law on which,
says tradition, Nechtan and other Pictish kings held their state during
the two centuries and a half when this decayed little burgh was the
capital of the land. Beyond, in the same direction, are the waters of
the Firth; Mugdrum Island, long and low; Newburgh, and Norman Law,
the Norsemen's look-out, rising on one side above old Ballenbriech
Castle and the Fife shores, and on the other commanding the "Howe o'
Fife" and the Loch of Lindores. Beside the venerable ruins of Lindores
Abbey, close to Newburgh and the Firth, are buried the murdered "heir
of Scotland," David, Duke of Rothesay, and James of Douglas--the
"grey monk of Lindores"--the last of the ambitious race of the Black
Douglases. In the same vicinity, in a glen or pass of the Ochils, stood
another grim memorial of feudal or pre-feudal times, "Cross Macduff,"
now represented only by its pedestal, where the taker of life, if he
could "count kin," within nine degrees, with the Thane of Fife, the
head of Clan Macduff, could find refuge, and proffer the "blood-penny"
in atonement.
Over against Moredun are the crests of the Lomonds and the green,
smooth, wavy lines of the Ochils; and through Glenfarg to its foot
comes the new main line of railway to the North by the Forth Bridge.
Right opposite, behind Pitkeathly Wells, Kilgraston, the old kirk and
"rocking stone" of Dron, and the ruins of Balmanno Castle, are the
"Wicks of Baiglie," whence Scott asserted that the Romans and he could
descry the site of Perth. But the eye is carried irresistibly westward
along the skirts of the hills and the broad and teeming valley below,
towards the Highland mountains that surround the sources of the Earn.
Near at hand are Forteviot and its Holyhill--a Scoto-Pictish capital
before Perth; Dunning and other villages and hamlets lying along the
hill-foots, proud to this day of the memories of the martyrs for "Crown
and Covenant," their sufferings at the hands of Montrose and Mar, and
the former prosperity of their weaving crafts; and standing on rich
flats by the waterside, or in picturesque glens running up into the
Ochils, many a mansion and castle of the fighting and grasping Jacobite
lairds of Strathearn, ill neighbours of yore to the Whiggish villagers.
Over against the "Birks o' Invermay" lies Dupplin Castle (now the seat
of Lord Kinnoull), with its loch, its grand woods, and the site of its
battlefield, so disastrous to the Scots; and opposite Lord Rollo's
park of Duncrub is Gask, still a home of the Oliphants, though the
"Auld House" has disappeared. Further west, the Ruthven water comes
down through Gleneagles and the lovely wooded "Den" of Kincardine,
past the old castle and the single long street of Auchterarder,
famous in ecclesiastical history. The Machany flows by Culdees and
Strathallan Castles, and not far from Tullibardine, cradle of the noble
House of Athole, and burying-place of the great race of Montrose. At
Innerpeffray, where the old line of Roman roads and stations crossed
the Earn, comes in the Pow, flowing by the ruins of Inchaffray Abbey
and the woods of Balgowan and Abercairney; and further on, around
Crieff, and thence upwards by Comrie and St. Fillan's, to Loch Earn,
lies one of the most glorious districts, not alone of Earnside, but of
Scotland. Drummond and Monzie Castles, Ochtertyre and Dunira, Lawers
and Aberuchil, are among its grandly wooded demesnes; Glenturret, Glen
Lednoch, and Glen Artney contribute each their charms of crag and
waterfall, bosky dell and lone hillside, and there are innumerable
remains of former days in the form of standing or ruined chapel and
castle, and the sites of ancient feud and battle. Little of all this
can, of course, be descried from the top of Moncrieffe Hill; but Ben
Chonzie, and the Braes of Doune, and the Forest of Glen Artney, and
behind them the shapely head of Ben Voirlich and other mountains that
mirror themselves in Loch Earn or guard Glen Ogle and Lochearnhead, are
full in view.
The abrupt front of Kinnoull Hill, on the other hand, commands more
directly the lower course of the Tay and its estuary, widening out
between the level expanse of the Carse of Gowrie, thickly sprinkled
with farms and mansions, and the opposing shores of Fife, onward
to where it is closed by the smoke of Dundee and the line of the
Tay Bridge. From the pathway below the tower crowning the hill, one
looks down--one almost fancies he might leap down--upon the woods
and sward surrounding Kinfauns Castle, the residence of the family
of Gray. Visible, too, from Kinnoull, or sheltering under the folds
of the "Braes o' the Carse," which rise from the flat champaign to
the heights of the Sidlaws, are innumerable sites and scenes, equally
rich in beauty and in memories of days when Gowrie was busier making
history than in raising grain. Among them are St. Madoes' Church and
its sculptured Runic stones; Errol and Megginch, ancient heritages
of the Hays; Kilspindie, where Wallace spent his schooldays, when he
"in Gowrie dwelt, and had gude living there," and the seat, later, of
Archibald of Douglas--"Auld Graysteel;" Fingask, the home of the stout
old Jacobite family of Murray Thriepland and of the "Lass o' Gowrie"
of Scottish song; Kinnaird and Rossie Priory, the earlier and later
possessions of the noble House of Kinnaird, champions in these parts,
for generations, of the cause of Reform.
[Illustration: DUNDEE, FROM BROUGHTY FERRY.]
From Rossie Hill, or from the battlements of the fine old baronial
tower of Castle Huntly, a nearer view can be had of the beautiful
cultivated Carse and its surroundings of firth and hills; or from near
the remains of the ancient Church of Invergowrie and the boundary line
of the shires of Perth and Stirling you can look across the widest part
of the great tidal stream--three miles of shining water or sandbank--to
another famous old ivy-clad ruin, Balmerino Abbey, on the opposite and
bolder shore of Fife. But as Kinnoull commands the grandest view of the
upper part of the Firth of Tay, so Balgay Hill and Dundee Law are the
stations to take up for a survey of its lower reaches and its meeting
with the North Sea. Round the bases of these eminences the northern
coast of the estuary curves outward, leaving a comparatively narrow
platform on which, for a space of three miles or more, are grouped
the forest of chimneys, spires, and masts of the city and harbour of
Dundee. The passage between the sea front of esplanade and docks, and
Newport and the line of handsome villas surmounting the rocky bank on
the other side, is reduced to less than two miles; and still bending
and narrowing, as the Fife shore, in turn, approaches, as if to meet
Angus and seal the mouth of the Tay, the waters of the Firth measure
only a mile across from Broughty Castle to Ferryport-on-Craig, where,
skirted on either hand by broad stretches of sand and "links," they
finally open, trumpet-shaped, to meet the German Ocean. Directly under
the Law, from Magdalen Point to St. Fort, where begin the narrows and
the busier part of Dundee, the line of arches of the new Tay Bridge
spans the Firth. The width from bank to bank is 3,440 yards--a little
under two miles--including the curve which the long double file of
piers makes in approaching the Dundee side. Slight as the structure
looks, when first seen from the Law or the river, and compared with the
wide expanse of water over which it is carried, it conveys, on more
attentive view, an impression of security as well as gracefulness; it
is not only a triumph of engineering skill, but a beautiful object in a
striking and noble picture.
[Illustration: DUNDEE.]
Far other are the impressions produced by the appearance, above the
water level, and running for part of the way alongside its successor,
of the foundations of the first Tay Bridge. This ill-fated undertaking
had only been eighteen months open for traffic, when, on a wild night
at the close of 1879, the whole of the central portion collapsed and
fell into the raging Firth, carrying along with it a train, with
its freight of seventy or eighty passengers, which was crossing
at the time. Not a soul survived to tell the circumstances of the
catastrophe--the most dramatic and one of the most disastrous in the
annals of railway accidents in this country. But subsequent inquiry
left no doubt that, in the original scheme of the structure, sufficient
allowance had not been made for the tremendous pressure put upon it
by the currents of air scouring through this funnel of the Firth;
and that much of the work, both in the brick foundations and steel
superstructure, had been "scamped" and left without proper inspection,
so that the first occasion of maximum strain--a passing train, while a
tempest was at its height--brought the inevitable result.
Dundonians love to survey their city and its surroundings from the
"Law." The spectacle is one they may well be proud of. Marvellous has
been the change here since Dundee consisted of only four straggling
streets, meeting at the central "place" of the "Market Gait," and a
congeries of narrow lanes running from these down to the harbour,
consisting, as the local historian tells us, of rude jetties added to
the natural haven opening between the headlands of the Chapel Craig and
the Castle Rock. Even then, however--four centuries ago and more--it
had an interesting history; even then the energy of its burgesses and
its favourable position at the mouth of the Tay enabled it to carry
on a brisk trade with the ports of Holland and the Baltic. Already
its Castle, near the head of the Seagate, had suffered sieges; its
Constables, the Scrymgeours, were the standard-bearers of Scotland in
the national war, and the town disputed with Perth which was the more
ancient and honourable. Its situation at the foot and on the slope of
the fine acclivity facing the sun and the Tay, got for it from its
Lowland and Highland neighbours its name of "Bonny Dundee" and the
"pleasant town." It has vastly increased its trade and importance
since; but it has also increased its amenities; and even the casual
eye overlooking it can see, by the handsome spires and towers rising
beside the forest of masts and factory stalks that stretch along the
shore, and by the open spaces--Albert Square, and the Baxter and Balgay
Parks--that the town is mindful of art and air and beauty, as well as
of business. The castles--the early building on the Castle Hill, and
the later fortalice of the Constables at Dudhope--have disappeared to
the foundations. But the fine old square tower of St. Mary's, in the
Nethergate, is still a handsome and conspicuous landmark of Dundee,
spite of all the competition of its modern buildings. Although it can
hardly be part of the original structure erected by David, Earl of
Huntingdon--the hero of the "Talisman"--in gratitude for his escape
from manifold perils while serving under Richard Coeur-de-Lion in
Palestine, it is a venerable and stately object, and the Dundonians
have had this their chief antiquity carefully restored.
That Dundee has not more remnants left of its early consequence is due
to the march of modern improvement, and to the hard knocks it suffered
in times of civil war and invasion. After Pinkie, the English troops
seized upon the Castle of Broughty Craig--which, like the Tower of St.
Mary's, has been restored, and now guards the entrance to the Firth,
with the pleasant backing of marine villa residences and stretches of
links and sands much frequented by the good folks of the burgh--and
Broughty besieged Dundee, and Dundee Broughty, for two or three years
before the intruders were expelled. A hundred years later Montrose
and his Irish and Highland kernes swooped suddenly down upon it from
the upper valley of the Tay, and plundered and sacked the Covenanting
place, the leader looking on from the "Corbie Hill," while the
followers burned, slew, and wasted in the streets below. The townsmen
magnanimously forgot this when, a few years later, the "Great Marquis"
was brought into it, a captive in the hands of his enemies; and "though
Dundee," says Wishart, "had suffered more by his army than any other
within the kingdom, yet were they so far from insulting him, that
the whole town testified very great sorrow for his woful condition."
Next year--1651--Dundee had again to endure sack and capture, at the
hands of General Monk, when the garrison was put to the sword, the
town burned, and, as Carlyle says, "there was once more a grim scene
of flames, blood, and rage and despair transacted upon this earth."
Claverhouse is close by the town, and John Graham--that other "evil
genius of the Covenant"--was Constable of Dudhope, and took his title
from "Bonny Dundee."
The "bloody Mackenzie" was another of its sons or neighbours;
Camperdown House, the home of the valiant Admiral Duncan, is behind
Balgay and the busy suburb of Lochee. But, if it has reared many "men
of blood," Dundee has been still more prolific in historians and poets,
reformers and inventors, of whom Boece and Wedderburn, Halyburton and
Carmichael, are representative names. Yet longer is the list of its
merchant princes, and its munificent patrons of art and benefactors of
the town, of whom the Baxter family are types. They have made of Dundee
a great and busy centre of maritime commerce, and placed it first among
the trading places of the kingdom in the importation and manufacture
of jute; and they have not forgotten generous aid in endowing the town
with public parks, museums, libraries, educational institutions, and
other resources of civilisation, such as few seats of industry of its
size can boast.
Dundee has spread over the green slopes and orchard grounds below
the Law; but it has only increased the circumference of its fine
environment of land and sea. Westward, the view extends over the
fertile Carse, and range on range of the Grampians, amid which may be
descried Ben Lomond and Schiehallion, and many a Highland peak besides.
Behind the Law, the eye rises from the rich valley of the Dichty,
flowing by Strathmartine and Claverhouse towards the sea at Monifieth
Sands, to the Hill of Auchterhouse, Craig Owl, and other extensions
of the Sidlaws, with glimpses of the heads of the loftier hills of
Strathmore peeping over their shoulders; and, ridge behind ridge,
these uplands subside as they stretch eastward, past many a storied
and beautiful scene, towards Arbroath and the sea. Southward, beyond
the Firth and the bridge, the rocky northern shores and hilly backbone
of Fife are spread out like a map; and behind Newport and Tayport and
the waste expanse of Tents Moor shimmer the waters of St. Andrew's Bay
and the Eden Estuary, and rise the grey, weather-beaten towers of St.
Rule's Cathedral and of Cardinal Beaton's Castle, beside the green
links and white sand of St. Andrews.
JOHN GEDDIE.
[Illustration: BROUGHTY FERRY CASTLE.]
[Illustration: BEN AND LOCH LOMOND.]
THE FORTH.
Comparative--Poetry, Romance, and History--Loch Ard
and Flora McIvor--The "Clachan of Aberfoyle"--Lake of
Menteith--The Trossachs and Loch Katrine--Ellen and
Helen--Loch Achray--Ben Ledi--The View from Stirling
Castle--Stirling Town--Bannockburn--The Ochils and the Devon
Valley--Alloa--Clackmannan--Kincardine-on-Forth--Tulliallan
Castle--Culross: Abbey and Burgh--The "Standard
Stone"--Torryburn--Rosyth Castle--"St. Margaret's
Hope"--Dunfermline: Tower, Palace, and Abbey--The New Forth
Bridge--Inch Garvie and its Castle--Inverkeithing Bay--Donibristle
House--Aberdour--Inchcolm, Cramond, Inchkeith, and May Islands--The
Bass Rock--Kirkcaldy Bay--Edinburgh--Leith--Seton--Aberlady--Round
to North Berwick--Tantallon Castle.
Other Scottish streams may dispute with the Forth the prize of beauty,
and excel it in length of course and in wealth of commerce. There
is none that can contend with it for the palm of historic interest.
Nature herself has marked out its valley as the scene of the strife
and of the reconciliation of races and creeds. Half the important
events in Scottish annals have taken place on or near the banks of the
river, and of the Firth--around Doune, and Stirling, and Edinburgh,
and Dunfermline; under the shadow of the Campsie and the Ochil Hills;
along the margins of the Teith and Allan, Devon and Esk; by the folds
of the Forth, or by the shores of Fife and the Lothians. Its course
forms no inapt emblem and epitome of the fortunes of Scotland and of
the Scottish nation. Drawn from the strength of the hills, and cradled
amid scenes of wild and solitary beauty, its deep, dark, winding waters
flow through the "Debatable Land" of Roman and Caledonian, of Pict and
Scot, of Saxon and Gael. The fords and bridges which Highlander and
Lowlander, Whig and Jacobite, have crossed so often on raid or for
reprisal, have become bonds of union. The fertile carse-lands wave
with the richer harvests for the blood shed in the battles of national
independence, and in many a feud now ended and forgotten. The Forth,
that "bridled the wild Highlandman," has become the symbol of peace and
the highway of intercourse between South and North.
Poetry and Romance, as well as History, have made the Forth their
favourite haunt. The genius of Scottish Romance, or of Scottish
History, could nowhere find a prouder seat than Ben Lomond. At its feet
are the waters of Loch Lomond, losing themselves to the north among the
enclosing folds of the hills, and broadening out southwards to embrace
their beautiful islands; while beyond, like a map, lie the mountains of
the West, from Skye to Kintyre, touched here and there with gleams of
loch and sea, and with blurs of smoke from factory stalk or steamer.
From the other flank of the mountain issues the infant Forth. Ben
Lomond presides over all its devious wanderings, from the source to
the sea. It looks directly down upon "Rob Roy's country;" and close
at hand, and within the basin of the Forth, are Loch Katrine and the
Trossachs. The towers of Stirling, and even the "reek" of Edinburgh,
may be descried on a clear day. Following the broad valley of the
Forth, the eye can take in the sites to which cling most closely the
heroic or pathetic memories of "the days of other years;" and over the
whole glorious landscape Walter Scott has thrown the glamour of his
genius.
Romance works with a charm more powerful than that of History itself in
attracting visitors to the head-waters of the Forth and Teith, and in
enhancing the marvellous natural beauties of their lake and mountain
scenery. True, few except stout pedestrians and ardent anglers follow
up the Duchray Water, past ivied Duchray Castle, to the corries that
seam the base of Ben Lomond. But the path from Inversnaid, that skirts
Loch Chon and the more famous and more beautiful northern head-stream
of the Forth that issues from it, is not so unfrequented. Further
down, Loch Ard opens again, and yet again, a lovely mirror in which
are reflected the changeful outlines and rich colours of its girdling
hills and woods. Oak coppice, interspersed with the shining trunks of
the birch and the dark green of the pines, climbs over every knoll, and
clings to every crag, and even covers the little island on the lake,
where Duke Robert of Albany hoped to find a refuge from his enemies.
Above copse-wood and lake rise the brown slopes and grey precipices of
Ben Vogrieh and of Craigmore; while the conical head and broad flanks
of Ben Lomond shoulder themselves into view, and close the top of the
glen.
But the enchantment of Loch Ard would not be complete did not the
form of Flora McIvor yet haunt the Linn of Ledeart, in the guise of
the Highland Muse, as when first she startled and threw a spell over
Edward Waverley; and did not her voice--wild and plaintive as the
legends of the land and the genius of its race--mingle, as of yore,
with the murmur of the stream. The pass by the lake-side still seems
to have the commanding figure of Helen MacGregor presiding over it,
and eyeing menacingly Saxon intrusion into this refuge of a proscribed
clan. The "Clachan of Aberfoyle," now unexceptionable as a place
of travellers' entertainment, can never be disassociated from the
memorable experiences of a night's quarters at "Jeanie MacAlpine's." At
the "Fords of Frew," we think, more than of anything else, of Rob Roy
slipping the belt-buckle in midstream, and of the moving and mysterious
night interview on the neighbouring moor between Francis Osbaldistone
and Di Vernon.
[Illustration:
_Walker & Boutall sc._
THE FORTH.]
The "Clachan" is now all spick and span; but its surroundings are
the same. The brawling waters tumble in white foam from Loch Ard,
and, mixing with the Duchray, pour their deep sombre current--the
Avondhu, or "Black River"--on past Gartmore to wind in labyrinthine
folds through the level mosslands towards Stirling. And the natives
of the Upper Forth, while they have forgotten the real history of
their district, will show you, chained to the tree in front of the inn
windows, the veritable "coulter" with which Bailie Nicol Jarvie did
such credit to his Highland blood, and the selfsame oak-stump from
which he hung suspended over the lake; nor have they wholly lost faith
in the Fairy People--the _Daoine Shi_, or "Men of Peace"--with whom
these hills and valleys have from time immemorial been favoured haunts.
From Aberfoyle, the direct road to Stirling, leaving the Forth, winds
round the margin of the Lake of Menteith, overlooked by the outposts
of the Grampians, and overlooking the rich beauty of a plain which
rises on its southern side behind Bucklyvie and Kippen, to the lower
heights and smoother outlines of the Campsie and Fintry Hills. Here,
in the heart of Menteith, we are in the country of "the Graemes,"
and many legends of the great House of Montrose linger about this,
as about other spots in the basin of the Forth. But the Lake of
Menteith has still earlier and prouder memories. The Comyns and the
Stewarts--the old lords of Menteith--wielded almost regal power from
their island-castle of Talla; and within bowshot is the larger isle
of Inchmahone, where part of the ancient Priory still stands in the
shadow of its planes and orchard trees. Mary Stuart spent part of her
childhood in the "Isle of Rest"--perhaps the quietest and sweetest
period of her troubled life--when it was thought wise, after the battle
of Pinkie, to remove the young Queen of Scots to a place of safety.
[Illustration: "ELLEN'S ISLE."]
The Trossachs and Loch Katrine can be reached in a couple of hours, on
foot, from Aberfoyle. More even than the Upper Forth and the banks of
Lochs Ard and Menteith, these scenes at the head-waters of the Teith,
immortalised in "The Lady of the Lake," are the abodes of the spirit
of Highland romance and the shrines of tourist pilgrimage. Once this
"fastness of the North" was the impregnable retreat of the proscribed
clan of the MacGregors, whence they issued to harry the shores of Loch
Lomond with fire and sword, and levy black-mail and empty byres in
the Lennox. A century and a half ago it was still thought unsafe for
peaceably disposed folk to approach the district, and in the memory of
men still alive it had hardly acquired more than local fame for its
beauty.
Walter Scott and his metrical and prose romances have changed all
that. A stream of tourists flows steadily through the passes all the
summer and autumn, and more fitfully at other seasons; and steamers,
stage-coaches, and hotels have strangely altered the aspect of this
"Scottish Lake Country." But the "everlasting hills" look down on it
unchanged. The crest of Ben Lomond still dominates the western end of
Loch Katrine, girt in by hillsides, or opening into glens as stern and
almost as solitary as when they echoed back the slogan of Roderick Dhu.
Round the lower extremity of the lake the mountains take closer rank
and more varied forms; and the broken and impending precipices, the
winding and opening waters, the wooded shores and islands, fringed with
grey rock or "silver strand," seem, as when Fitz-James first set his
foot here, an "enchanted land" over which Ben Venue and Ben An stand
sentinels:--
"High on the south huge Ben Venue
Down on the lake in masses threw
Crags, knolls, and mounds confusedly hurled,
The fragments of an earlier world;
A wildering forest feathered o'er
His ruined sides and summit hoar;
While on the north through middle air
Ben An lifts up his forehead bare."
[Illustration: THE TROSSACHS AND BEN VENUE.]
On the cloven side of Ben Venue is the "Coir-nan-Uriskin"--the
Goblin's Cave or Hollow--deserted of its unearthly denizens since it
has become an object of interest to the tourist. "Ellen's Isle," clad
with wood to the water's edge, seems to shelter in the shadow of the
northern shore. Cromwell's men, clambering up the pass, found that the
women and children of the clan had sought refuge here; and one bold
soldier swam out to the island to bring away a boat. Hardly had he
touched ground when a woman--Helen Stuart--drew a dagger from below
her apron and slew him. A minstrel's music has slightly changed the
name and wholly changed the associations, and the spot is dedicated to
another Ellen and to the gentler fancies, not the rude facts, of the
days of old.
From the "Silver Strand" opposite Ellen's Isle you wind for a couple
of miles through the "bristled territory" of the Trossachs before you
reach Loch Achray, and "the copse-wood grey that waves and weeps" above
the second of the chain of lakes. Ben An and Ben Venue hold the place
of sentries to left and to right, and seem to have tumbled down into
the narrow pass huge fragments from their splintered sides, to block
the way against intruders into this old sanctuary of the Gael. In vain;
their very efforts have but added to the wild impressiveness of the
scene, and to the crowds that come to wonder and admire. It would be
"to gild refinèd gold" to describe the beauties of the Trossachs--the
scene where Nature seems to have tried to produce, within the narrowest
compass, the most bewildering effects by mingling her materials of rock
and foliage and falling waters. Their praises have been sung in words
that linger in every memory.
Toilsome indeed must the path have been to trace when the wandering
James V. came hither in pursuit of game. But a fine road now threads
the depths of the ravine, and skirting Loch Achray, and passing the
Trossachs Hotel and Church, brings us to Brig of Turk and the opening
of "lone Glenfinlas," the haunt of Highland deer and of Highland
legend. Every green nook and cranny, every glimpse of copse-wood and
tumbling water, moss-grown hut and lichened rock, is a temptation to
linger by the way. But Duncraggan must be passed; then Lanrick Mead, at
the west end of Loch Vennachar, the meeting-place of the Clan Alpine,
summoned by the "Fiery Cross;" and by-and-bye the sounding torrent of
Carchonzie, where the Vennachar "breaks in silver" from its lake, and
near it Coilantogle Ford, the scene of the deadly strife between James
Fitz-James and Roderick Dhu. By this time the form of Ben Ledi--the
"Hill of God," the high altar of the old Druidical worship--has lifted
itself up mightily upon the left, and, furthest outpost in this
direction of the higher Grampians, keeps watch over the "mouldering
lines" of the Roman encampment on Bochastle, the Pass of Leny, and the
modern village of Callander. It looks across to Ben Voirlich and the
heathy solitudes of Uam-Var, where the "noble stag" was first started
upon the eventful Chase, and abroad on a prospect which may compare,
for richness, variety, and extent, with that from Ben Lomond.
Not less magnificent in its own way, and far more accessible, is
the view from the bridge of Callander, where the most impressive
features of the scene are Ben Ledi itself, the high crag that forms
the background of the village, and the deeply wooded flanks of the
pass, down which foam the waters of the Leny, coming from the "Braes
of Balquhidder" and Loch Lubnaig, to hold romantic tryst here with the
stream from Loch Vennachar, and between them to form the Teith. But
we must downward with the Teith towards Stirling, only glancing at
a few of the scenes on its banks--at the wooded glen of the Keltie,
embosoming the far-famed Falls of Bracklinn; at Cambusmore, where Scott
began his "Lady of the Lake;" and above all at the "bannered towers of
Doune," its huge feudal walls rising above the Teith--walls saturated
from dungeon to turret with memories of grim or pathetic events in
the histories of the Stewarts of Menteith and Moray, and in the lives
of Mary Stuart of Montrose, and of Charles Edward. Murdoch, Duke of
Albany, is thought to have built Doune, and may have planted its "Dool
Tree." When Murdoch was executed, along with his sons and adherents, on
the "Heading Hill" at Stirling, it was on a spot where his eyes might
fall upon the strong new castle upon which he had built his hopes of
safety.
At Stirling Castle it will be convenient to take our next stand, and
see "the mazy Forth unravelled." No baronial castle on the Rhine or
Danube is more romantically and commandingly placed than these "towers
of Snowdoun," or surveys a fairer scene. One can imagine the time--but
yesterday in the geologist's record--when the broad valley of the
river was filled with the sea, back to the roots of the Grampians, and
when Stirling Rock, with its neighbour bluffs, the Abbey Craig and
Craigforth, rose as islands or peninsulas over the waters, each with
its slope towards the east and its front to the west. The sea has long
receded, and Stirling now dominates the green and level floor of its
fertile carse. Through the middle of the landscape meanders the Forth,
in immense loops and folds--"a foiled circuitous wanderer"--
"Forgetting the bright speed he had
In his high mountain cradle,"
and using, as it would seem, every circumvolution and chance of
tarrying or turning back, to avoid meeting with the Teith, the Allan,
and the Bannock, at the base of Stirling Rock. From where the stream
debouches from the hills into Flanders Moss, to where it meets the
tide-water at Stirling Bridge, there is said to be a fall of only
eighteen feet in some eighteen miles, measured "as the crow flies"--a
distance increased fourfold by following the intricate gyres of the
dark still waters. Below the Bridge, to which vessels are able to come
up from the sea, the river still continues to double and turn as far as
Alloa, in those "links o' Forth," each of which, according to the old
rhyme, is "worth an Earldom in the North."
Flat and tame as are the immediate banks of the river, draining
through ancient mosses, now turned for the most part into rich
corn-bearing land, goodly sites are close at hand in the plain, on
the slopes of the enclosing hills, or in the tributary valleys--among
them Cardross, and Blair-Drummond, and Keir, all famous in the annals
of Scottish law, agriculture, and literature; and Airth and Airthrey
Castles, which carry the mind from the doughty deeds of Sir John the
Graeme to those of Sir Ralph Abercromby. Of what lies within the
valley of the Teith we have seen something. But the banks of Allan
Water, behind the favourite Spa of Bridge of Allan and its embosoming
woods and hills, are almost as well worth exploring; for they lead, to
mention but a few of their attractions, to Dunblane and its beautiful
old Cathedral, to Sheriffmuir, and to the Roman Camp at Ardoch.
The tide of Scottish history long flowed towards and around Stirling
Castle. The time when it was not a place of strength and of strife
is lost in the mists of antiquity. Early, too, it became the seat of
kings; and the Castle, and the little burgh upon the slope behind, have
witnessed many a stirring sight. Scottish Parliaments were held here,
or in the Abbey of Cambuskenneth, whose ruined tower rises, on a "link
of Forth," opposite what is now the railway station. Sovereigns were
born and baptised, were wedded and buried, held joyous jousts, and
committed foul deeds of blood and shame, on Stirling Rock or under its
shadow.
[Illustration: OLD BRIDGE OF FORTH, STIRLING.]
The buildings on the highest platform of the Rock--still a fortified
and garrisoned place--surround the "Upper Square." What is the Armoury
was the Chapel, erected on the site of an older Chapel Royal, by the
"Scottish Solomon," to celebrate, with pomp till then unheard of, the
baptism of Prince Henry. Opposite is the Palace of James V., its front
still embossed with the remains of rich carvings and uncouth sculpture.
The Parliament House, built by James III. (now put to barrack
purposes), and the building within which James II. stained his name and
race with blood, by stabbing to the heart the Earl of Douglas, complete
a group of buildings upon which have been indelibly impressed the
character and the fate of the Sovereigns of the House of Stuart. The
visitor to Stirling Castle can view Highlands and Lowlands from "Queen
Mary's Lookout;" and then, for change of sympathy and impression,
inspect the pulpit and communion-table of John Knox; or, if his faith
be great, the dungeon where Roderick Dhu drew his latest breath. The
windy hollow between the Castle and the "Gowling Hills," he is told,
is Ballengeich, of which that hero of ballad adventure, James V., was
"Gudeman." The most distant of these braes was the "Mote" or "Heading
Hill," the old place of execution, where many a noble and guilty head
has fallen--the Albany faction and the murderers of James I. among the
number. Below the Castle, on the other side, are the King's Garden and
King's Park, the scenes of the sports and diversions in the olden time,
where James II. held tournaments, and James IV. delighted in his "Table
Round."
[Illustration: STIRLING, FROM ABBEY CRAIG.]
Nor are the history and aspect of the town of Stirling unworthy of its
noble station. It, also, is crammed with memories and antiquities--from
the square tower of the West Church, grouping so well with the
buildings on the Castle, and surmounting the hall where Knox preached
and the infant James VI. was crowned, down to the burial-place of the
murdered James III., under the tower of Cambuskenneth and close by the
winding Forth.
But the historical fame and interest of Stirling rest perhaps more
upon the bloody and decisive battles fought in its neighbourhood,
than upon anything else. From the Castle ramparts one can look down
upon Stirling Bridge, Bannockburn, and Sauchie; and Falkirk, Kilsyth,
Sheriffmuir, and other stricken fields, reaching from the '45 back to
Pictish and Roman times, are not far off. In memory of the Struggle
for Independence, but especially of William Wallace, the presentment
of a feudal tower, surmounted by a mural crown, rises to a height of
over 200 feet on the summit of the Abbey Craig, the most commanding
site, next to Stirling Rock itself, in the valley. The Bridges--the old
and the new--lie midway between these two bold bluffs. But the former
venerable edifice, though it could also tell its strange stories of
civil broil, and, among others, of how an Archbishop was hung on its
parapet three centuries ago, is by no means the structure where the
"Protector of Scotland," watching the passage of the Forth (probably
from the slopes of the Abbey Craig), taught so terrible a lesson to
Cressingham and the English invaders. This, by all accounts, was a
wooden structure placed half a mile above the moss-grown buttresses of
the present Old Bridge of Stirling.
The fame of the battle fought at Stirling Bridge in 1297, and of the
other fight, so disastrous to the Scottish cause, that took place
a year later at Falkirk, has been quite obscured by the Bruce's
great victory at Bannockburn. One never thinks of Stirling without
remembering that near by is the field where was decided, for three
centuries, and indeed for all time, the history and fortunes of
Scotland. The banks of the Bannock are now peaceful enough, and the
people of the village of that name, and of the neighbouring hamlet of
St. Ninians, lying still nearer Stirling and the battle-ground, are
occupied with nothing more warlike than the weaving of tartans. The
slough in which the English chivalry sank, and were overpowered, is now
drained and cultivated land. But a fragment of the "Bore Stone," where
Bruce set up his standard, is still preserved; and the "Gillies' Hill,"
behind, commemorates the opportune appearance of the camp-followers of
the Scottish army, when they hoisted their blankets on their tent-poles,
"And like a bannered host afar
Bore down on England's wearied war,"
putting a finish to the rout of Edward II.'s troops.
Leaving Stirling and Bannockburn and all their memories behind us, we
can now embark upon the Forth, and follow its broadening stream towards
the open sea. The fat carse-lands are still on either hand, rimmed
in on one side by the furrowed flanks of Dunmyatt and the Ochils,
and bounded on the other by the Campsie Fells, crowned, far off, by
Earl's Seat; while beyond, on a clear day such as we have bespoken
for our readers, the Bens grouped around the sources of the Forth and
Teith lift themselves into view, fronted effectively by the towers of
Stirling and the Abbey Craig. As we face now east, now west, now north,
now south, on our devious way, these objects shift place bewilderingly,
and more and more the "foot-hills" of the Ochils come down to take
their place and give a bolder character to the foreground scenery of
the Forth.
[Illustration: ALLOA PIER.]
Very beautiful, at all seasons and in all lights, is this historic
range, with its wonderful variety of form and play of shadows. As tales
of wild Highland foray and _stieve_ Lowland endurance are mingled
in its annals, so the pastoral and mountainous combine in this its
southern aspect; and the result is harmony. From the summit of Ben
Clench, the highest of the Ochils, and from other coigns of 'vantage,
you can gaze down into peaceful, secluded glens, familiar only to the
sheep and the curlew, or into busy valleys lined by thriving villages
and factory stalks, from which arises the smoke of the bleaching,
spinning, and other manufacturing industries that have long had a home
in the heart of these hills. Or you can look abroad and take in at
one sweeping glance the whole breadth of the country from Glasgow to
Dundee--from the Lammermoors and the North Sea to Ben Nevis and the
hills of Arran.
But the greatest of the glens of the Ochils is that followed by the
"clear-winding Devon," over many a rocky scaur and past many a busy
mill-wheel, on its way to join the Forth at Cambus. It would take a
volume to do justice to the beauties, wild and soft, of the Devon
Valley, and to the associations, warlike and peaceful, that have
gathered around its noted places; to attempt to describe Crook o'
Devon and Rumbling Bridge, the "Devil's Mill" and the "Cauldron Linn,"
and Dollar and Alva Glens; to collect the memories that cluster about
Tillycoultry and Alva, and Menstry and Tullibody; to dwell upon the
attractions of its excellent trouting streams; or to peer among the
shadows that appropriately shroud the ruins of Castle Campbell--the
"Castle of Gloom"--overlooking the "Burn of Sorrow," harried in revenge
against Argyll for the burning of the "Bonnie House o' Airlie."
[Illustration: SALMON-FISHING NEAR STIRLING.]
Unless one has a few days to spare that cannot well be better spent
than in exploring Glen Devon and the nooks of the Ochils, he can only
glance at the charming wooded valley and blue inviting heights as he
follows the windings of the Forth, past the flat green "inches" of
Tullibody and Alloa, under the North British Railway Bridge crossing
the river between these two islands, to the busy town of Alloa.
[Illustration: CULROSS, FROM THE PIER.]
More than Alloa itself, with its fame for the brewing of ale, and signs
of active shipping and manufacturing trade, the eye will be attracted
by Alloa Tower and Park, now the seat of the Earl of Mar and Kellie;
for here once ruled the old line of the Erskines, Earls of Mar; here
Queen Mary paid repeated visits, sailing up the Forth to meet Darnley,
under the conduct of Bothwell as High Admiral; and here her son, King
James, spent part of his boyhood, under the eye of the Regent Mar and
the strict disciplinary rod of George Buchanan.
[Illustration: CULROSS ABBEY.]
Below Alloa the river straightens and widens, taking more and more
the character of an estuary. One should not miss noting the scattered
houses of the old town of Clackmannan, scrambling up the slope to its
church and the ancient tower of the Bruces. Clackmannan is the place
which Aytoun's recluse thought of selecting for rural retirement,
because, "though he had often heard of it, he had never heard of
anybody who had been there." It is more out of the world than ever, now
that county business has flitted to Alloa. Its visage is not, however,
so forlorn as that of Kincardine-on-Forth, the pier of which we now
approach; for Kincardine has plainly seen better days, and has little
expectation of seeing their return. It was once a busy shipbuilding
and shipowning port; and close by was distilled the famous Kilbagie
whisky, by which the tinkler in the "Jolly Beggars" swore. Now there is
no Kilbagie, and no shipping business to speak of; and Kincardine is a
"dead-and-alive" place, and more dead than alive. There are many places
like it all along the shores of the Forth--places favoured by special
times and special circumstances of trade, which has since drifted or
been drawn elsewhere.
The massive grey ruins of Tulliallan Castle are in the woods close
behind Kincardine. This also was once a stronghold of the Bruces--in
fact, it is "Bruce Country" all the way along this northern shore of
the Forth, until we come to the last constriction of the estuary, over
which the great railway bridge is being thrown at Queensferry. The
spidery red limbs of this new giant bestriding the sea begin to come in
sight after passing Kincardine Ferry and rounding Longannet Point. For
now, especially when the broad mudbanks of the foreshore are covered at
high water, the river takes a truly spacious expansion; the salt water
begins to assert dominion over the fresh, and the line of the southern
bank retires to the distance of three or four miles. It is no great
loss; for Grangemouth and Bo'ness are little other than ports for the
shipment of coal and pig-iron. The Carron Works show like pillars of
fire by night and pillars of smoke by day, hiding Falkirk and Camelon
and other spots of historic note. Further east the low shore-line is
backed by a monotonous ridge that shuts us out from sight of the valley
of which Linlithgow, with its loch and royal palace, is the centre; and
even the woods of Kinneil, and the knowledge that along this crest,
starting on the shore near the old Roman station of Carriden, run the
remains of "Grime's Dyke"--the Wall of Antonine--fail to make the
southern side a joy to the eye. There is metal more attractive near at
hand, within the sweep of the Bay of Culross.
Culross--Koo'ross, as the name sounds familiarly to the ears of those
who know it--cherishes a fond tradition that Turner the painter,
who visited Sir Robert Preston at the Abbey in the beginning of
the century, compared its bay with that of Naples, rather to the
disadvantage of the latter. Local partiality is doubtless the father
of the legend. Yet there are wonderful charms embraced by the curve
of coast facing the south and the Firth, betwixt "Dunimarle and
Duniquarle," with Preston Island and its ruined buildings in the string
of the arc; the grey and white walls and red roofs of the little
royal burgh, following the sinuosity of the shore, or struggling up
the wooded slopes; the "corniced" roads and "hanging gardens" behind;
crowning the near foreground, the Norman tower of the Abbey Church,
the ruins of the ancient monastery, and the stately façade of the
mansion of Culross Abbey (the design, it is said, of Inigo Jones); and
behind, the forest, moorland, and cultivated tracts, rising towards
the wavy green lines, fading into blue in the distance, of the Ochils
and of the Cleish and Saline Hills. With the fresh light of morning
or the soft colours of evening upon the waters and upon the hills,
the scene may well be deemed lovely. Circumscribed as is the space,
and few and insignificant as are the remaining actors, Culross and
its vicinity have been the theatre of famous events, and have reared
many men prominent in the civil and religious history of the country.
Here St. Serf, the Apostle of Fife, is supposed to have been born,
and to have died. Here St. Thenew, daughter of "King Lot of Lothian,"
landed from the rotten shallop in which she had been cast adrift at
Aberlady, far down the coast, and gave birth to the more famous St.
Kentigern, or Mungo, patron saint of Glasgow. From Culross downward,
both shores of the Firth, and the islands in its midst, are strewn
with the memorials and traditions of the early Culdee missionaries,
whose humble cells later became the sites of the wealthier and more
imposing religious houses of Catholic times. Besides St. Serf and St.
Mungo, Fillan, Palladius, Adamnan, Adrian, Monans, and Columba himself,
set their imprint upon these curving coasts and solitary islets; and
Inverkeithing, Dysart, and Pittenweem; Abercorn, Inchcolm, Inchkeith,
the May, and the Bass, are among the places sanctified by memories of
the Early Church.
It was not till 1217 that the Monastery of Culross, of which only
some fragments remain, was founded by Malcolm, Earl of Fife. At
the Reformation the Abbey lands passed chiefly into the hands of
the Colvilles of Culross, and this family, with the Erskines, the
Cochranes, the Prestons, and the Bruces, have since successively had
"the guidin' o't" in the burgh and the surrounding district. So far
from the ecclesiastical eminence of Culross terminating with St. Serf,
it has continued almost down to our own day; for the town, and the
district back from it--at Carnock, and eastward along the hill-skirts
to Hill of Beath and beyond--have witnessed the keenest struggles
between Conformity and Schism--have been special scenes of the labours
of Bishop Blackadder and Bishop Leighton the "Saintly;" of John Row,
and of John Blackadder the Covenanter, who held his Conventicles under
the wakeful and vengeful eye of Dalzell of Binns--him with the "vowed
beard," whose hill-top for "glowering owre" Fife is on the opposite
side of the Firth; and in later times, of Boston, of Ralph and Ebenezer
Erskine, of Gillespie, and of other founders of the "Relief Church."
Culrossians might adopt the Bruce motto, "Fuimus," to describe
their industrial as well as their religious past. More than once the
burgh has been a spot favoured by trade, as well as by history. The
celebrated Sir George Bruce, of Carnock, made its fortunes, as well
as his own, by coal-mining and salt-making in the days of James I.
of England. Remains, in the shape of a heap of stones, uncovered at
low water, are seen of the "Moat"--an "unfellowed and unmatchable
work; a darke, light, pleasant, profitable hell," as John Taylor,
the "Water Poet" described it in the early years of the seventeenth
century--constructed to work the minerals lying under the bed of
the sea. But Culross's prosperity did not come to an end with them.
Throughout Scotland its "girdles"--iron plates for baking the oaten
bread of the "Land o' Cakes"--were also "unfellowed and unmatchable"
for many a day. The first of note among the ancestors of the Earl of
Rosebery was of the honest guild of the girdlesmiths of the burgh. A
"Cu'ross girdle" will soon only be found in an archæological museum;
their glory is departing, their use will soon be forgotten.
[Illustration: DUNFERMLINE.]
A lingering look may be cast in the direction of the "Standard Stone,"
at Bordie, where Duncan and Macbeth withstood the Danes; and of the
Castlehill, or Dunimarle, near by, which lays claim to be the scene of
the murder of Lady Macduff and her "pretty chickens" by the Usurper--a
claim, however, disputed by the "Thane's Castle," near East Wemyss, by
Rhives, and by other sites in the East of Fife. To this famous Whig
shire we eventually come at Torryburn, for thus far, since leaving
Stirling, we have been skirting on the left the shores of Clackmannan
and of a sporadic fragment of Perthshire projected upon the Forth. In
its scenic, social, and historic characteristics, however, the whole
ground, from where the river begins to broaden, is "Fifish," and, from
Dunmyatt to the "East Neuk," bears the traces, in place-names, legends,
and ancient remains, of old Pictish possession, and of Norse, Saxon,
and Highland incursions; of Culdee settlement and of Roman intrusion;
and of all the later strife, in Kirk and State, in which Fife has
"borne the gree." Neighbours have been ready to observe that the joint
effects of geographical isolation and outside pressure are quite as
deeply marked in the character, habits, and ways of the inhabitants;
and that, besides occupying a separate "Kingdom," they are in many
respects a "peculiar people."
[Illustration: FORTH BRIDGE, FROM THE SOUTH-WEST.]
Charlestown and Limekilns, after Culross, are but upstart villages,
built by the Earls of Elgin as shipping-places for the coal, lime,
and ironstone upon their Broomhall Estate. Before us, a prominent
object by the shore, is the stark grey keep of Rosyth Castle. And now
we are fairly in "St. Margaret's Hope," and under the shelter of the
high ground projecting from the Fife shore, which narrows, by a full
half, the width of the Firth, and forms, with Inch Garvie island as a
stepping-stone in mid-channel, the natural abutment whence the Forth
Bridge makes its flying leap to the southern bank. From the lee of this
rocky ridge Queen Mary, having rested at Rosyth, set sail for the other
shore, after her escape from Loch Leven Castle. On the beach here Sir
Patrick Spens may have paced when the "braid letter" was put into his
hands, sending him on the luckless voyage to bring back the "Maiden of
Norway," while not far off
"The King sat in Dunfermline tower,
Drinking the blood-red wine."
But most famous of the events in the annals of the "Hope"--and one of
the epoch-making accidents in the history of Scotland--was the landing,
in 1069, of Edgar Atheling and his sisters in this safe harbourage,
after grievous tossings by storms and ill-fortune. The then royal
residence of Dunfermline is four miles distant, the road leading past
Pitreavie, where, six centuries later, Cromwell, descending from the
Ferry Hill, so terribly mauled the Scottish army. Tradition points out
a stone where the weary Saxon Princess Margaret rested, on a way which
became so familiar to her. For she found favour in the sight of King
Malcolm Canmore, and made many journeys, by the haven and the ferry
that bear her name, to Edinburgh, and to pilgrim shrines in the south.
It might almost be said that civilisation, and the English speech, and
the Roman hierarchy and influence, landed on the Scottish shores with
Saint Margaret; and the whole district around the "Queen's Ferry" is
redolent with memories of her to this day.
"Dunfermline Tower," or rather the foundations of what is considered
the first royal seat there, are within the grounds of Pittencrieff, on
the high bank overlooking the Lyne burn. Farther up, and more adjacent
to the modern town, is the Palace, built in later times, and still
showing a stately front, sixty feet in height, rising above the ancient
trees and overlooking the beautiful Glen. Beyond these walls, and the
crypt-like chambers which served as kitchen and other offices, little
of the Palace remains. The mullioned windows are pointed out of the
rooms in which Charles I. and his sister Elizabeth, the "Winter Queen"
of Bohemia, were born, and where Charles II. signed the "Solemn League
and Covenant;" but within, as without, they only look into "empty air."
The Palace communicated by underground passages with the Abbey,
founded and dedicated to the Holy Trinity by Malcolm Canmore and
Margaret in 1072, and enlarged and beautified by the munificence and
piety of their successors. Beyond fragments of the walls, nearly
all that remains of the monastic buildings is the Frater Hall, with
the delicate Gothic tracery of its west window. But close behind is
the Abbey Church, surrounded by its graves, its rookery, and the
old houses of the town; and it still ranks as one of the proudest
and best-preserved specimens of Anglo-Norman church architecture in
Scotland. Rich and quaint are the carvings on its doorways, and dim
and mysterious is the light that falls through its illuminated windows
as you tread your way between the massive old pillars, and literally
over the dust of kings and princes, to the spacious and lightsome New
Abbey Church. This portion of the Abbey structure was rebuilt seventy
years ago, and in the course of the operations the workmen came upon
the tomb and remains of Robert the Bruce--recognisable, among other
evidences, by the gigantic stature and by the breast-bone, from which
a piece had been sawn to reach the heart that Douglas sought to carry
to the Holy Land. The tomb of Malcolm and Margaret is at the east end,
and without the present limits of the church; and within, besides "The
Bruce," there are buried a score of Scottish Sovereigns and princes,
including David I., the builder of monasteries, and the "Sair Saunt for
the Crown," and Alexander III., whose fatal mischance near Kinghorn was
the beginning of the national troubles.
One may range far before finding a group of buildings so intrinsically
beautiful, so historically interesting, and so fitly set amid their
surroundings. For Dunfermline has many things else, old and new, to
attract the visitor--from the "Oratory Cave" of Queen Margaret, to its
handsome municipal buildings and Free Library and Baths, the gifts
of Mr. Andrew Carnegie. It is a "live place," and not one existing
merely on the memories of its past; for it has extensive and growing
industries in coal and linen. But it will always be more the "City of
Kings" than the seat of trade.
From the old Bartizan Tower of the Abbey Church, one can survey a
dozen shires, and--contrast as strange as the light and shadow in the
churches below--a glimpse is caught, beyond North Queensferry Point,
of the limbs of the New Forth Bridge. This gigantic work represents
the second undertaking adopted by the North British Railway and the
supporting companies for shortening the journey to the North by
throwing a bridge over the narrows at Queensferry. The first plan of
a suspension bridge was abandoned, after the catastrophe that befell
the structure on the Tay; and the design (by Sir John Fowler and
Mr. Baker) now on the point of completion is that of a cantilever
bridge, founded on three sets of piers--at the edge of the deep-water
channels on the north and south sides, and on Inch Garvie island in the
middle--united, over the fairways of navigation, by central girders.
The whole space spanned is over a mile and a half, but fully a third
of this distance is occupied by the viaduct approaches to what may be
termed the bridge proper, supported at a height of 165 feet above mean
sea-level upon a series of stone piers. At this elevation the line is
carried across the Firth, which reaches from 30 to 35 fathoms in depth
in the channels between Inch Garvie and the north and south shores.
Except the supporting bases of stone, the whole central structure is of
steel, wrought and fitted in the works on the southern side; and it is
estimated that not less than 50,000 tons of metal have been used in the
work.
From the three main piers, columned "towers of steel" rise to a height
of 630 feet above high-water mark, that on Inch Garvie being wider than
the two others. They are formed of tubes of ¾-inch steel, 12 feet in
diameter at the base, inclining inwards and towards each other, and
united by cross members, in the shape of the letter "X," for purposes
of strength; and from these the intricate bracket-work of upper and
lower members, with their connecting struts and ties, stretch out over
the Firth, and approach each other near enough to be united by the
two 350-feet lattice girders over the fairways. The two great centre
spans are each 1,700 feet in width, and the half-spans that join them
to the great north and south viaduct piers are 680 feet each. All the
strains are concentrated upon the bases of the cantilever piers, and
the whole structure gives a remarkable impression of combined lightness
and strength, as well as of colossal size. From 3,000 to 4,500 men
have been employed for several years upon the Bridge, of which it may
almost be said that half of the work is under water and out of sight.
Its estimated cost is between two and three millions sterling, and,
connected with it, new lines are being constructed, by which passengers
and goods will henceforth be carried by the shortest available route
from south to north, in despite of the obstacles interposed by the
Forth, the Ochils, and the Tay.
[Illustration: SHORE STREET, LEITH.]
Of all the objects dwarfed and changed by the Bridge, Inch Garvie and
its Castle have perhaps suffered most. Built long ago to protect the
upper waters against the pirates that infested the Outer Firth, it
has often since played a part in schemes of national defence. "Roy of
Aldivalloch" held Inch Garvie with twenty musketeers against Monk's
troops, at the time of Cromwell's invasion; and it was afterwards
manned to repel Paul Jones. Now, looking down upon it from the summit
of the great pier, it seems as if a good-sized stone would crush, like
a toy, the queer admixture of old and new buildings huddled upon it.
From this great height, both expanses of the Firth, with their bounding
shores, lie spread below like a map.
The southern shore, now become once more rich in interest and beauty,
has complacently drawn nearer hand. Looking westward, and withdrawing
the eyes from the fine amphitheatre of hills that enclose the upper
course of the Forth, Blackness Castle--one of the four royal fortalices
specially mentioned in the Treaty of Union, and the scene of many
stirring events in the national annals: Edinburgh, Stirling, and
Dumbarton being the others--is full in sight, upon its peninsula.
Nearer are the woods of Abercorn, whose history goes back to Roman
times, and earlier; closer still, the magnificent colonnaded front,
the sea-terraces, the deer-parks, and the stately lime avenues of
Hopetoun House, the seat of the Earl of Hopetoun; and almost below, and
on the hither side of Port Edgar Harbour, the ancient town of South
Queensferry. The last few years have made "a mighty difference" in many
ways to the little burgh, but have not materially altered the somewhat
grimy features of its main street, which runs eastward, at the base of
the hill, towards the Bridge, the "Hawes Brae," and the "Hawes Inn,"
where, it will be remembered, Jonathan Oldbuck and his young friend
Lovel descended from the Edinburgh Diligence, and cemented acquaintance
over a magnum of port, and where, also, adventures first began to
overtake the hero of "Kidnapped."
[Illustration: EDINBURGH, FROM THE FIFE SHORE.]
Turning eastward, this southern shore is prolonged in the wooded
knolls of the Dalmeny estate, and round the projecting point, and
on the very sea-marge, is the old, but now renovated, Castle of
Barnbougle, once the seat of the Mowbrays. Behind it is Dalmeny House,
with beautiful sward and woodland extending as far as Cramond, where
Lord Rosebery keeps a boat to ferry the public across the Almond water
into Midlothian.
These latter objects, as has been said, are out of sight from the
Bridge, but on the northern side one sees well into the deep inlet
of Inverkeithing Bay, where the old royal burgh, dating from before
William the Lion's time, lies stranded in mud. It is still proud of
having witnessed the last assembly of the Culdees, and the first
movement of Scottish "Voluntaryism," and boasts also of containing the
"palace" of Queen Annabella Drummond, and the birthplace of Admiral
Greig, of the Russian service. For miles the domain of Donibristle
follows the advancing and retiring points of the Fife shore, which,
now that the outer Firth opens up, recedes away northward as well
as eastward. Within the half-circle of Dalgety Bay are the ruins
of old Dalgety Church, and what remains of Donibristle House. The
estate belongs to the Earl of Moray, the owner of Doune and of many
broad lands in the north. The mansion was accidentally burned thirty
years ago; but destined for longer remembrance is its burning, not
accidental, three centuries since, when took place the tragedy of "the
Bonnie Earl o' Moray." The "Bonnie Earl"--son-in-law of the famous
Regent Moray--was in 1591 slain, as he was escaping from the blazing
building, by Gordon of Buckie and other retainers of Lord Huntly, with
the connivance, as was suspected, of James VI. The ballad-writers have
their explanation, for
"The Bonnie Earl o' Moray,
He was the Queen's love."
An Earl and Regent Moray of an earlier stem--Randolph, the companion of
the Bruce and of the Black Douglas--had his home at Aberdour, the next
indentation in this singularly beautiful coast. The line had soon to
give place to the Douglases, Earls of Morton, who have ruled here for
some five centuries, though their old castle, overlooking the lovely
bay, with its projecting bluffs and shining sands, now a favourite
resort for bathers and summer visitors, has been long untenanted. The
wily and unscrupulous Regent Morton came hither to amuse himself with
gardening, in the intervals when, from choice or compulsion, he was not
in the thick of political intrigue. Edinburgh was always in view from
Aberdour, and nature and simple country pursuits could not hold him
long. Through the high beech groves and hanging woods, one of the most
charming of walks leads for three miles to Burntisland. But the charm
is no longer what it was, for the new railway line running athwart the
slope has played havoc with the trees.
Outside Aberdour, and partly shielding the bay, is Inchcolm Island.
It would need a volume to do justice to the islands of the Forth. Some
we have already glanced at. "St. Colme's Inch," where, as Shakespeare
tells us, the routed Norsemen were fain to crave permission of the
Thane of Cawdor to bury their dead, is the most famous of them
all--except perhaps the Bass. The square tower and mouldering walls
of its Abbey, rising close to the narrow isthmus where the isle is
almost cut in two by the sea, are still prominent objects in the view.
The Monastery was founded in 1123, by King Alexander I., in gratitude
for his miraculous rescue from shipwreck, and entertainment here by
a hermit who followed the rule of St. Columba. It once owned rich
possessions in half a dozen shires, granted in part by a Lord Alan
Mortimer of Aberdour, whose body the monks flung overboard in a storm
while crossing to the island, thus giving a name to the inner channel
of "Mortimer's Deep." Invaders, pirates, and rebels, as well as the
hand of time, have since sorely visited the island, but still portions
of the old buildings stand, and are even habitable.
Cramond Island, almost opposite Inchcolm, hugs the other shore, and
there is a road across the sands to its little farmhouse at low tide;
while in the mid-channel there are many rocky islets, some of them
the chosen resorts of cormorants and other sea birds. Further down,
half-way between Leith Pier and Kirkcaldy Bay, Inchkeith stretches
its length for nearly a mile across the Firth. Inchkeith, also, has
harboured anchorites and stood sieges; and there are many curious
legends connected with its coves and caves. But its most prominent
feature is now the white lighthouse perched upon its highest crest;
and barely visible to the eye are the powerful batteries that sweep,
on the one side, Leith Roads, and on the other side the North Channel,
between the island and Pettycur Point, where also great guns are
mounted for the defence of the Forth. Then a long way farther out, at
the very entrance to the Firth, and visible only in clear weather and
easterly wind, runs the long rock wall of the May Island. In other
days the May was a great resort of pilgrims, who held it a merit to
reach a place so difficult of access, and barren women especially found
a blessing in drinking from the well that had refreshed St. Fillan
and St. Adrian. There was a religious house here connected with the
Priory of Pittenweem on the adjacent Fife coast, but the monks found
it by-and-bye most convenient to reside on shore. Though the light of
faith has gone out, another light--a guide to the commerce entering the
Firth--has been kept burning upon the May for two centuries and a half.
Now its only residents are the lighthouse-men and their families, and
its only regular visitors are myriads of sea-fowl.
The Carr Rock and Fidra Island lights mark, with the May, the entrance
to the Firth; and scattered along the East Lothian coast, from Fidra
eastwards, are numerous little islands, "salt and bare." But none of
them have the fame or the aspect of the "Bass." This huge mass of rock,
heaved up by some convulsion of nature, like North Berwick Law and
other great bluffs on shore, presents seawards its precipitous cliff,
rising sheer to a height of 400 feet, while towards the land it shows
a green slope descending steeply to the landing-place and the remains
of its old prison castle. The crevices of the rocks are filled with
the nests of the solan-goose and other sea-fowl, and the air around
is alive with their cries and the sweep of their wings. But otherwise
it is impossible to imagine a spot with the aspect of grim isolation
more thoroughly impressed upon it. St. Baldred is said to have lived
and died on the Bass Rock; but it came most conspicuously forward in
history when it was made the prison of the Covenanters, charged with no
other offence than that of following their consciences against the will
of the King; and afterwards, when its Jacobite garrison held out for
years after every other place in the kingdom had submitted to William
of Orange.
But on the way from Inchcolm to the Bass, what a marvellous series
of noble land and sea pieces, of famous or hallowed sites, we have
passed! It were hard to say whether scenic beauty and historical
associations cluster more closely upon the shores of the Firth, or upon
the surrounding amphitheatre of hills. In the profile of the hills of
Fife, the broad-shouldered Lomonds, with their double or triple heads,
overtop all--the East Lomond looking down upon the ruins of the old
royal hunting seat of Falkland, the scene of Rothesay's cruel pangs,
and the western heights upon Loch Leven and the Island Castle, whence
Mary made her romantic escape. More in the foreground are Dunearn,
crowded by the remains of a Pictish fort, and the steep, rugged front
of the Binn of Burntisland, overhanging the town of that name. Rossend
Castle--a favourite residence of the Queen of Scots, where took place
the incident that cost the enamoured French poet Chastelard his
life--fronts the sea at the west end of Burntisland harbour; and to the
east, behind a beautiful sweep of sand and "links," rises the cliff at
which an evil fate overtook Alexander III. and Scotland.
[Illustration: PORTOBELLO.]
[Illustration: KIRKCALDY, FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.]
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 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 profoundest depths 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 commercial relations 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.
[Illustration: 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-manoeuvred 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.
[Illustration: 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 the Earls 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 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 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.
[Illustration: NORTH BERWICK, FROM THE HARBOUR.]
[Illustration: BERWICK-ON-TWEED.]
THE TWEED.
CHAPTER I.
FROM BERWICK TO KELSO.
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 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 (_pace_ the 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
generous landscape, 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.
[Illustration: HIGH STREET, BERWICK, WITH THE TOWN HALL.]
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's river, 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.
[Illustration: THE ROYAL BORDER BRIDGE, BERWICK.]
[Illustration:
_Walker & Boutall sc._
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 have no 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
in some 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?
[Illustration: 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 the
_rôle_ of 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 once more 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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, some ten 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.
[Illustration: FORD CASTLE.]
[Illustration: 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 the slaughter 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--now in 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.
[Illustration: 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 and cruel
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.
[Illustration: 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, the stream 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.
[Illustration: 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
it landed 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
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