ings, merry-makings, feuds, and fights, which | however, cannot boast of many trees during the

must have taken place amongst such a population, and we shall find that it would produce a stock of materials for the poet or the artist, that would be perfectly exhaustless.

first twenty miles of its course, but its hills are greener, and its valleys are wider and fitter for cultivation than those of the Yarrow. A little way above its junction with the latter stream, its sides are skirted with natural wood, its plains become more extensive and fertile, and the adjoining hills are covered with planted wood. On the side of the Ettrick, opposite to Thirlstane, are the remains of the tower of Gamescleuch. A genealogy of the Scotts, in the possession of Lord Napier, tells us that "John Scott, of Thirlstane, married a daughter of Scott of Allanhaugh, by

But to come down to the plain matter of fact as it now stands. Instead of the endless woodland which once covered the country, Dr. Douglas, in his view of Selkirkshire, published in 1798, says "In stating the number of acres in wood at 2,000, I have followed Mr. Johnston. The best information which I could collect from the conversation of gentlemen and farmers, in different corners, made it rather less." The general appear-whom he had four sons, Robert, his heir, and ance of the country is a succession of green and bare hills, gradually rising one above another in height. Dr. Douglas says " Their naked and bleak aspect, when seen at a distance in cloudy weather, is lost upon riding among them, and beholding the rich sward with which they are covered, the clear streams which issue from their sides, the fleecy flocks browsing on their green pastures, and their lambs frisking around. The animation of the scene is heightened by patches of brushwood and small clumps of trees, with which, in a few places, the hills are adorned-the fertility of the vales, by which they are separated from each other—and the romantic banks of the

waters which wash their bases."

But now let us, in the first place, give our attention to the Ettrick, and in so doing let us not forget that it gives origin to the old Scottish

song,

"Ettrick Banks"

"On Ettrick's banks, ae simmer night,
At gloaming when the sheep cam' hame,
I met my lassie, braw and tight,

While wand'ring through the mist her lane.
My heart grew light, I wanted lang
To tell my lassie a' my mind,
And never till this happy hour,
A canny meeting could I find." &c.

The Ettrick rises, as we are told, from among a
few rushes, between Loch-fell and Capel-fell, on
the south side of a range of hills, which may be
called “the back-bone of the country," at a point
two miles above Potburn, which is said to be the
highest situated farm-house above the sea in the
south of Scotland. Mr. Stoddart tells us that
“Ettrick abounds in nice trout, weighing, on the
average, a quarter of a pound, but I have killed
them occasionally, below Thirlestane, upwards of
a pound, and recollect seeing one taken there
nearly three times that weight. From the burns
which empty themselves in the upper districts, I
have known my friend John Wilson, Jun., of
Elhray, to capture, with the worm, twelve dozen
in the course of a forenoon. Sea-trout, both the
whitling and the bull species, ascend the Ettrick
in November, sometimes in great numbers-as
many as three score have been slaughtered, by
means of the leister, in one night, out of a single
pool. The true salmon killed on an occasion of
this sort are comparatively few."

Lord Napier's ancient residence of Thirlstane tower, with its few venerable ash trees and its extensive plantations, give an immediate interest to this highly elevated part of its banks. Ettrick,

Simon, called Long-spear, who was tutor of Thirlstane, and built the tower of Gamescleuch." It soon afterwards receives two tributaries from the right, a small rivulet called Timah, and the Rankle-burn, which is not only celebrated by the song of the "Maid of Rankle-burn,” but which is likewise rendered remarkable by its being the place where the progenitors of the Buccleuch family first took up their residence-when

old Buccleuch the name did gain, When in the cleuch the buck was ta'en."

The legend, as told in the notes to the "Lay of
the Last Minstrel," simply states that, "Two
brethren, natives of Galloway, having been
banished from that country, for a riot or insur-
rection, came to Rankle-burn, in Ettrick forest,
where the keeper, whose name was Brydone,
received them joyfully, on account of their skill
in winding the horn, and in the other mysteries
of the chase. Kenneth Mac Alpin, then king of
Scotland, came soon after to hunt in the Royal
forest, and pursued a buck from Ettrick-heuch
to the glen now called Buck-cleuch, about two
miles above the junction of the Rankle-burn with
the river Ettrick. Here the stag stood at bay ;
and the king and his attendants, who followed on
horseback, were thrown out by the steepness of
the hill and the morass. John, one of the bre-
thren from Galloway, had followed the chase on
foot, and now coming in, seized the buck by the
horns, and, being a man of great strength and
activity, threw him on his back, and ran with his
burden about a mile up the steep hill, to a place
called Cracra-cross, where Kenneth had halted,
and laid the buck at the sovereign's feet."-

"The deer being cureéd in that place,
At his majesty's demand,
Then John of Galloway ran apace,
And fetched water in his hand.
The king did wash into a dish,
And Galloway John he wot;
He said, thy name now after this
Shall ever be called John Scott.
The forest and the deer therein,
We commit to thy hand;

For thou shalt sure the ranger be,
If thou obey command.

And for the buck thou stoutly brought
To us up that steep heuch,

Thy designation ever shall

Be John Scott in Buccleuch.

In Scotland no Buccleuch was then,
Before the buck in the cleuch was slain;

Night's men at first they did appear,

Because moon and stars in their arms they bear.
Their crest, supporters, and hunting horn,
Show their beginning from hunting came;
Their name, and style, and book doth say,
John gained them both into one day."

by all the savage accessories of Alpine scenery, peaked mountains, precipitous cliffs, valleys encumbered by gigantic fragments of rock, and altogether devoid of verdure, roaring cataracts and thundering streams, and dark and hardly fathomable lakes, that silently reflected the beetling cliffs and the shred of sky that hung over them; but never before, at so high an elevation, did we meet with so perfect an emblem of simple and unadorned beauty, silently sleeping in the lap of Nature. A crystalline sheet of water poured out to so great an extent, amidst pastoral and comparatively green hills, and not the trace of a dwelling to remind us that there might be other human beings there as well as ourselves.

How

Immediately opposite to the junction of the Rankle-burn with the Ettrick, appear the grey ruins of the old tower of Tushielaw. They stand on the side of a hill, near the road that runs up the Ettrick. It was long the stronghold of a powerful family of the name of Scott, who were famous free-booters, or border-riders, or moss-troopers, which epithets, we beg our readers to believe, are meant by us to convey the highest compliments we can pay them. We have already had occasion to notice the romantic legend, regarding the daugh-perfectly descriptive of the peacefulness of this ter of the Earl of March, who met with the son lovely scene are these two simple lines of Wordsof the Laird of Tushielaw in Ettrick forest-of the worth :"The swan on sweet St. Mary's Lake love that arose between them-of the manner in Floats double, swan and shadow." which it was crossed-and the sad fate of the The river itself rises from the hills which form lady, who died of a broken heart just as her fondest wishes appeared to be about to be realised. the boundary of Dumfries-shire; and finding its We earnestly hope that Adam Scott, son of David way into the upper and smaller lake called the Scott, of Tushielaw, was not the young knight of Loch of the Lowes, it speedily passes from it into the legend, for he (Adam) bore the very distin- the upper part of St. Mary's Loch, which is seven guished name of "King of the Thieves." His and a half miles in circumference, its greatest The Meggat fate too was somewhat summary, and rather unro-depth being about thirty fathoms. mantic, for, in the famous excursion which King James V. made through the Border-with the intention of ridding himself and his country of some of the great characters who were most remarkable for keeping up its predatory fame-he came suddenly to Tushielaw one morning before breakfast, and hanged King Adam over the horizontal bough of an old ash tree that grew over his own gate, all along the bark of which were to be felt and seen various nicks and hollows, formed by the ropes on which many an unhappy wretch had been hanged by the remorseless Tushielaw himself.

We must not forget to record that, in an old house not far from Ettrick Church, we are informed by James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, himself, that he first drew the breath of life :

"Here first I saw the rising morn;
Here first my infant mind unfurled,
To judge this spot, where I was born,
The very centre of the world."

At Newhouse, the Ettrick has worn its way through a deep ravine, where the rocks rise al- | most perpendicularly, covered with furze, and overhung with copsewood, presenting rather a wild scene; but, otherwise, there is little interesting in this river, until after it has received the Yarrow.

For our parts, never shall we forget the day when we made our happy excursion, from Selkirk, to trace this classical and musical stream to its source. We shall not stop at present to notice the delight we enjoyed in our drive up the vale of the Yarrow, for, as our custom is, in following out our present plan, to trace those tributary and other streams downwards, we shall begin by noting our sensations on reaching the lone St. Mary's Loch and the Loch of the Lowes. We have been great wanderers in our day, and we have looked upon scenes as lonely, accompanied

water, which comes in from the left as a tributary
to St. Mary's Lake, is a stream of considerable
importance. We may as well proceed at once to
notice the angling which is afforded by this
We find that Mr. Stoddart
neighbourhood.
says that the Yarrow, "as an angling stream,
is of good repute, and contains nice trout, weigh-
ing from one and a half pound downwards. Near
the loch the average is about half a pound, and I
have frequently taken two or three dozen of that
weight.

The woodcock wing and mouse fur
body form a favourite fly. Minnow, also, during
summer is highly attractive in some of the streams.
In Douglass burn are numbers of small trout.
St. Mary's Loch is well stocked with trout ave-
raging half a pound. I have often, however,
killed them a great deal heavier, and recollect,
on the Bourhope side, encrecling a yellow trout
that measured nearly twenty inches in length.
Such an occurrence, however, is extremely rare.
Besides trout, St. Mary's Loch contains pike and
perch; the former, of late years, are much on the
increase, whereas in the Loch of the Lowes, which
is connected with it by a stream not fifty yards
in length, they are manifestly falling off in num-
About sixteen years ago, when I first
bers.
angled in these lochs, the upper one contained no
trout whatsoever, and the under one, if any, few
pike. Now, the upper one, on the south side, has
abundance of trout, and these better in quality
than what are met with in the Lower Lake. In
an edible point of view, the pike of the above
lochs are very superior to the fish of this descrip-
tion generally met with, and attain to a great
size. I recollect killing one that weighed nine-
teen pounds. My implement was a small trout-
ing-rod, and when I brought the fish to bank,
there was only a strand composed of three horse
hairs left near the hook to support him, the other

་་

For though, in feudal strife, a foe
Hath laid Our Lady's Chapel low,
Yet still beneath the hallowed soil,
The peasant rests him from his toil,
And dying bids his bones be laid

Where erst his simple fathers pray'd."

Again, to indulge our fancy in recalling that which we consider to be the wild and romantie state of this country, let us imagine the forest stretching itself over every part of this scene—let us have the wild swans sweeping in graceful evolutions over the surface of the lake, and occasionally drooping in their flight, in order to skim more closely over its transparent bosom-let us have the much venerated Chapel of St. Mary, which stood on its eastern side, as entire as it was previous to its destruction by the Clan Scott, in their feud with the Cranstons-let us have in it its holy clerks and their assistants, the ruins of whose dwellings are still discernible-let us have the restoration of those Peel Towers of which the vestiges of one or two of some importance still remain, especially that of Dryhope, near the

two strands of the winch line having given way. Discharging themselves into these lochs, are several streams, the largest of which is the Meggat water an excellent summer trouting river, where I have caught fish upwards of two pounds in weight. At the foot of the Meggat, close to where it enters St. Mary's Loch, I recollect, on the occasion of a flood, killing with the fly three panniers full of trout, each containing a stone weight and upwards, in the course of a day. These were all taken out of a spare of water not exceeding half a mile. Another large capture made by me on this stream took place while in company with the Ettrick Shepherd, and the ereelfuls we respectively emptied out on arriving at Henderland (we had fished down during a small flood from the head of Winterhope burn, a course of four or five miles), would have astonished even a Tweedside adept. The Chapelhope burns and Corsecleugh, which enter the Loch of the Lowes, also con numerous trout. There are plenty of perch in the upper lake, and the lower one is occasionally visited by salmon and bull-lower extremity of the lake-and let us have their trout. I have caught both of these fish with loch flics from the margin, but never met with one in an edible condition." We carried fishing-rods and tackle with us, and had determined to devote at least an hour or two to serious angling, but the beauty and novelty of the scenery made us quite unfit to do anything of the sort, or, in short, to do anything but enjoy Nature. We must mention, however, that, notwithstanding appearances, there is ene soiltary house, which stands between the two lakes, where a brother of the angle may find comfortable quarters. It is not an inn, but a cottage, inhabited by Mrs. Richardson, who is always willing to extend her hospitality to anglers, and to do all in her power to make them comfortable. And, O! what a place to spend some quiet days, in the fall enjoyment of solitary thought; and with what feeling does Sir Walter Scott allude to this:

"Oft in my mind such thoughts awake,
By lone Saint Mary's silent lak;
Thou know'st it well--nor fen, nor sedge
Pollute the pure lake's crystal edge;
Abrupt and heer the mountains sink
At once upon the level brink;
And just a trace of silver sand
Marks where the water meets the land.
Far in the zirror bright and blue,
Euch h.ll's huge outline you may view;
Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare,
Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake is there,
Save where, of land, you slender line
Bears thwart the lake the scattered pine.
Yet even this nakedness has power,
And aids the feeling of the hour;
Nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy,
Where living thing concealed might lie;
Nor point, retiring, hides a dell,
Where swain or woodman lone might dwell.
There's nothing left to Fancy's guess,
You see that all is loneliness;

And silence aids-though the steep hills
Send to the lake a thousand rills;
In summer tide, so soft they weep,
The sound but lulls the ear asleep;
Your horse's hoof-tread sound's too rude,
So stilly is the solitude.
Nought living meets the eye or ear,
But well I ween the dead are near;

inmates produced before us as they were, and full of strange and strongly-agitating passions—let us have the urus, the great palmated stag, and the red deer restored-and let us, for a spice of terror, have the wolf, the mountain boar, and other such animals, added to our objects of interest-and then let us set poets, artists, and fiction-mongers to work upon the bill of fare we have provided for them, to write or paint as they best can. The names of Ox-cleuch, Deer-law, Hart-leap, Hyndhope, Fawn-burn, Wolf-cleuch, Brock-hill, Swinebrae, Cat-slack, &c., which still exist, many of them belonging to different places, are sufficient to prove how universally these animals inhabited the forest.

We have already noticed that the Meggat Water, coming in from the left, yields a large contribution to St. Mary's Lake. On its banks are the vestiges of the castle of Henderland, which, with the surrounding estate, is the property of our much valued friend, William Murray, Esq., of Henderland. A mountain torrent, called Henderland Burn, rushes impetuously from the hills, through a rocky chasm called the Dow-glen, and passes near the site of the tower. This tower was once the stronghold of a famous freebooter called Cockburne of Henderland, and the position, besides being apparently unapproachable by the strong hand of legal power, must have been peculiarly favourable for making inroads into the cultivated districts, both to the south and the north. We have recently had occasion to notice the summary manner in which James V., in his progress through the Borders, dealt with Adam Scott of Tushiclaw. The king remained only to satisfy himself that he had seen the last dying struggle of that worthy, when he took a path over the mountains which separate the vale of Ettrick from the head of Yarrow, which has ever since borne the name of the "King's Road." The monarch arrived so suddenly at Henderland, that he surprised Cockburne sitting at dinner, and without one moment's delay, he ordered him to be

music.

taken out and hanged before his own door. Filled | which possesses the true character of border with horror, his wife fled to a place still called the Lady's Seat, where the roar of the foaming cataract might drown the tumultuous noise, which attended the execution of her beloved husband. The following old ballad given in the Border minstrelsy, is said to be her "Lament :"

"My love he built me a bonny bower,
And clad it a' wi' lylie flower,
A brawer bower ye ne'er did see,
Than my true love he built for me.
"There came a man, by middle day,

He spied his sport, and went away;
And brought the king that very night,
Who brake my bower, and slew my knight.
"He slew my knight, to me so dear;

He slew my knight, and poined his gear;
My servants all for life did flee,
And left me in extremitie.

"I sewed his sheet, making my mane;
I watched the corpse, myself alane;
I watched his body, night and day;
No living creature came that way.
"I took his body on my back,

And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sat;
I digged a grave and laid him in,
And happed him with the sod sae green.
"But think na' ye my heart was sair,

When I laid the moul' on his yellow hair;
O think na' ye my heart was wae,
When I turued about, awa' to gae?

"Nae living man I'll love again,

Since that my lovely knight is slain;
Wi' ae lock of his yellow bair

I'll chain my heart for ever mair."

The monument of this unfortunate knight and his lady, consisting of a large stone broken into three parts, still lies in the deserted burial-place that surrounded the chapel of the castle, with this inscription on it-" Here lyes Perys of Cokburne and his Wyfe Marjory."

Near to the point where the Kirkstead Burn joins the lower end of the lake are the ruins of Dryhope Tower, celebrated as the birth-place of Mary Scott, daughter of Philip Scott, of Dryhope. She was rendered famous by the traditional name of the Flower of Yarrow. She was married to Walter Scott of Harden, who was as renowned for his exploits as a bold Border-rider, as she was for her beauty. We know not whether the wellknown ballad should be considered as dedicated to her, or to some subsequent Flower of Yarrow, for we believe that there were others, after her time. We certainly can hardly conceive the rough, moss-trooping Harden dissolving into such verses as these :

"Happy's the love which meets return,
When in soft flame souls equal burn,
But words are wanting to discover,

The torments of a hopeless lover.

Ye registers of Heaven relate,
Whilst noting o'er the rolis of fate,
Did you there see me marked to marrow
Mary Scott the Flower of Yarrow ?"

And believing, as we do, that the verses are the
production of a more modern and less romantic
age, we shall spare our readers from the inflic-
tion of any more of them; whilst, at the same
time, we give them the assurance, from our
own experience, that they pass very well when
sung to the simple melody to which they belong,

Douglass, or the Dhu Glass, the black and grey water, is the next tributary of consequence. It descends from the left, from the Blackhouse Heights, which rise 2,370 feet above the sea, and it joins the Yarrow immediately after passing a craggy rock, called the Douglass Craig. The remains of the ancient tower of Blackhouse, stand in this wild and solitary glen. The building appears to have been square, with a circular turret at one angle for carrying up the staircase, and flanking the entrance. From this ancient tower, Lady Margaret Douglass was carried off by her lover, which gave rise to that sad, but wellauthenticated, legend which is told in the ballad called, "The Douglas Tragedy."

"Rise up, rise up, now Lord Douglas,' she says,
And put on your armour so bright,
Let it never be said that a daughter of thine
Was married to a Lord under night.

"Rise up, rise up, my seven bold sons,

And put on your armour so bright,
And take better care of your younger sister,
For your eldest's awa' the last night.'

"He's mounted her on a milk.white steed,
And himself on a dapple grey,

With a bugelet horn hung down by his side,
And lightly they rode away.

"Lord William looket o'er his left shoulder,
To see what he could see,

And there he spyed her seven brethren bold,
Come riding o'er the lee.

"Light down, light down, Lady Margret,' he said,
Aud hold my steed in your hand,
Until that against your seven brethren bold,
Aud your Father, I make a stand.'

"She held his steed in her milk-white hand,
And never shed one tear,

Until that she saw her seven brethern fa',

And her father hard fighting, who loved her so dear.
"Oh, hold your hand, Lord William!' she said,
For your strokes they are wondrous sair;
True lovers I can get mony a ane,

But a father I can never get mair.'

"O, she's ta'en out her handkerchief,

It was o' the Holland sae fine,
And aye she dighted her father's bloody wounds,
That were redder than the wine.

"O chuse, O chuse, Lady Margret,' he said,
'O whether will ye gang or bide?'
'I'll gang,

I'll gang, Lord William,' she said,
For you have left me no other guide.'
"He's lifted her on a milk-white steed,
And himself on a dapple grey,
With a bugelet-horn hung down by his side,
And slowly they baith rode away.

"O they rade on, and on they rade,
And a' by the light of the moon,
Until they came to yon wan water,
And there they lighted down.
"They lighted down to tak' a drink

Of the spring that ran sae clear;
And down the stream ran his gude heart's blood,
And sair she 'gan to fear.

"Hold up, hold up, Lord William,' she says,

For I fear that you are slain!'

"Tis naething but shadow of my scarlet cloak,
That shines in the water sae plain.'

"O they rode on, and on they rode,
And a' by the light of the moon,
Until they cam' to his mother's ha' door,
And there they lighted down.