It rises in the backbone of England, on the borders of Westmorland, in Yorkshire. We do not loiter in the long street of Kirkby Stephen, or dilate on the many antiquities of Appleby, though in its Westmorland course it flows by both places. On the Cumberland border it is joined by the Eamont, which rises nine miles off in romantic Ullswater—a lake renowned for the remarkable combination of savage and cultivated scenery on its borders. A mile or two further, and the Eden winds through a noble park, wherein stands Eden Hall. Here, since the time of Henry VI., have lived the “martial and warlike family of the Musgraves,” as Camden calls them. They acquired the estate by marriage from the heirs of one Robert Turpe, who had it under Henry III.; and how far back his ancestors go—why, ’twould gravel the College of Heralds themselves to tell! Thus Eden Hall has been held by the same race from time immemorial. Not this alone has made the family famous, but the possession of a famous goblet, called “The Luck of the Musgraves,” which they got, so the story goes, in this fashion. There stood in the garden St. Cuthbert’s Well, of the most exquisite spring water. Hither repaired the Seneschal (“butler” some prosaically dub him; but the other sounds much finer, and is at least as accurate) to replenish his vessels. ’Twas a fine summer evening, and he found the green crowded with fairies, dancing and flirting “and carrying on most outrageous,” quite forgetting they had left their magic glass on the brink of the well. The Seneschal promptly impounded it, as a waif and stray, for the benefit of the lord of the manor. The fairies implored and threatened in vain, and at length they vanished, uttering the prophecy—

Ten miles further down the stream we come to Armathwaite. The castle thereof is a plain old tower modernised. Its charm lies in the surroundings. There is a fine wooded walk by the river, which swirls round a huge crag. Above the weir the stream swells out into a lake. The weir itself is some four yards high and twenty long; its slope does not approach the perpendicular; and though the Eden must needs fall over it, it does so with a gentle grace quite in keeping with its character. The place has its musty records: William Rufus built a mill here. Here, too, the Benedictines had a religious house; but what pleasant spot in England is without its religious house? The ancient family of Skelton held the castle from the days of the second Richard; and here most probably John Skelton, the poet—the best known, if not most reputable, member of the race—was born about 1461. He took holy orders, and was rector of Diss, in Norfolk, but lost this and other appointments—from his improper conduct, said his superiors—rather you fancy from his mad wit, which lampooned everything and everybody. Three things he held in special horror: the mendicant friars, Lilly the grammarian, and Cardinal Wolsey. And he found vulnerable points in the red robe of the cardinal. “Why come ye not to Court?” is a bitter, brutal, yet brilliant invective against the great statesman. He taunts the English nobility that they dared not move—

No doubt Wolsey’s father was a butcher, but his Eminence scarce cared to have his memory jogged on the matter; no doubt the English nobles were afraid of the great prelate, but they would rather not be told so. Thus, when vengeance threatened, Skelton found none to take his part. With a mocking grin, you fancy, invoking the protection of the very Church he had disgraced, he took sanctuary at Westminster, whence not even Wolsey dared drag him forth. Here he is said to have amused himself in inditing certain “Merrie Tales,” accounts, it would seem, of his own adventures.

We must find room for one of these stories from his student days. He had made merry at Abingdon, near Oxford, where he had eaten “salte meates.” Returned to Oxford, he “dyd lye in an ine named the ‘Tabere.’” At midnight he awoke with a most consuming thirst; he called in succession on the “tappestere” (the quaint mediæval term for a barmaid), “hys oste, hys ostesse, and osteler,” but none would give him ear—possibly the poet lacked regularity in his payments. “‘Alacke,’ sayd Skelton, ‘I shall perysh for lacke of drynke: what remedye!’” He soon found one: he bellowed “fyer, fyer, fyer,” so long and so loud that presently the whole house was up and scurrying hither and thither in excitement and alarm. Finding nothing, they finally asked the poet where the fire was? The mad rogue, pointing to his open mouth and parched tongue, implored, “fetch me some drynke to quench the fyer and the heate and the driness in my mouthe.” Our forefathers dearly loved a joke even at their own expense. The honest folk of the “Tabere” were amused rather than enraged. Mine host produced him of his best, and at length even Skelton’s thirst was quenched. Yet this madcap was a man of genius. Erasmus spoke of him to Henry VIII. as “Britannicarum literarum decus et lumen”; and if you can endure the obsolete and (one must add) the coarse expressions, you will find in “The Tunnyng of Elynour Running” the most remarkable picture in existence of low life in late mediæval England.

But let us return to the Eden, which now enters the parish of Wetheral. Not far from Wetheral Bridge the riverside is precipitous. Here, cut in the face of the rock, forty feet above the water level, are three curious cells known as “Wetheral Safeguards.” Tradition affirms that St. Constantine, younger son of an early Scots king, having excavated them with his own hands, lived therein the pious life of a hermit. To him was dedicated Wetheral Priory, whereof a mouldering gateway alone survives the havoc of well-nigh a thousand years. The choicest of Eden scenery is in this parish. There is Cotehill, with its sweet pastoral aspect; Cotehill Island, fringed with trees, whose low-lying branches continually sway to and fro in the stream; and Brackenbank, wherefrom you best catch the prominent features of the surrounding country. We think the pencil gives the aspect of such places better than the pen, so we refer to our illustrations, and move on to Corby Castle in the same parish, which tops a precipitous cliff overhanging the river. From it you see far along the richly wooded banks. Do you wonder that it “has been a gentleman’s seat since the Conquest”? And yet, not to be disdained of the most fastidious modern, for “the front of Corby House is of considerable length and consists of a suite of genteel apartments.” And those delightful walks through the woods! There among the trees by the edge of the stream is the Long Walk, best of all. The reflection of the moon in the water on a calm summer evening is much admired by amorous couples, who cannot understand, however, why the Walk is called Long. If those same couples go up the winding stairway cut in the rock, they will be chagrined to find that, despite its wildly picturesque appearance, it leads to nothing more romantic than a boathouse! Years ago some ingenious wit carved choice quotations from the poets on the rocks and trees, and the name of the river suggested many passages from Milton’s account of Eden in “Paradise Lost”; but the quotations were not appreciated by the rustics, who joyed in defacing them. Edward II. gave the place to the Salkeld family, but it has long been in the possession of the Howards. In Wetheral Church, among many other monuments, is a touching one to the lady of the house, commemorated by Wordsworth in the perfect lines beginning—

We have now followed the Eden’s course to Carlisle; there it is joined by two tributaries, the Caldew and the Petteril, each of some importance. The CALDEW rises on the eastern slope of Skiddaw. Both it and its affluent, the Caldbeck, flow through the romantic scenery of the Fells, and dash at quite a headlong pace down steep declines, whereof Howk Fall is the most renowned. At Holt Close Bridge the Caldew deserts the light of day altogether, but after four miles of subterranean windings it “comes up smiling” (as one might say) at Spout’s Dub. The PETTERIL comes from two headstreams in Greystoke Park and by Penruddock, and has a course of some twenty miles through pleasant woodland and meadow scenery. Near the Westmorland border, on a steep eminence by its first headwater, stands Greystoke Castle. The old castle was, during the Civil Wars in 1648, taken by Lambert for the Parliament, and burned to the ground. The remains of the battery he threw up are still called “Cromwell’s Holes.” This place has long been in the possession of the Howards. The castle was widely famed for its collection of curiosities, more or less authentic. Thus, there were “a large white hat,” said to have covered no less a head than Thomas Becket’s; and a picture of silk embroidery representing the Crucifixion, worked by the royal hands of Mary Queen of Scots. A fire in 1868 played sad havoc among these oddities; but you may still admire the great park with its deer and its ponds, and the charming prospects of the Lake mountains which you have from the castle windows.

And now we are in Carlisle town—to-day a thriving, well-built, but, after all, not very remarkable place. Here as elsewhere, romance has fled, and prosaic comfort takes its place. “Merrie Carlisle” the ballads call it. Do you wonder why? It was in the very centre of border warfare; some eight miles north lay the Debatable Land—for centuries a bone of contention between Scots and English. In frequent incursions the Northman wasted the country far and near, and the warder, as he looked from the Scots Gate—so they termed the northern port of the citadel—could see robber bands moving here and there, and note the country round dotted with fire and smoke; but against the strong walls of Carlisle Castle they dashed themselves in vain. Here was a secure haven of refuge—here at least was peace and comfort, whatever red ruin wasted either border; nay, the town throve on the very disorder; and the bullocks and horses were cheap and good, what need to inquire too curiously whence they came? Far better to get and part with them quickly and quietly and profitably. Even if the seller was a Scot, come there in time of truce, so much more reason to make a profit out of him. And then the merchants had everything to sell, from strong waters to trinkets; so it was strange if the gentleman took much cash away with him. A “merrie” town, in truth! In flowing lines Lydia Sigourney has admirably touched off the place and its history:—

Some of these legends are but half told or half sung. One scarcely coherent, yet weird and powerful, ballad suggests an ancient, and but for it forgotten, tragedy:—

We turn to the authentic, but scarce less tragic or romantic, history to present three pictures from Carlisle’s past. Edward I. in his last Scots expedition halted here. The country on whose conquest he had lavished blood and treasure for twenty years, which he had ground under his heel again and again, had revolted yet again with a purpose as fell as his own. When knighting the Prince of Wales, he had given a great banquet, wherein two swans were introduced, “richly adorned with gold network.” On these he had made his son swear that fantastic yet terrible vow to God and the swans (in accordance with the etiquette of chivalry), that if he died leaving Scotland unconquered, his son would boil his flesh from his bones and carry these with him to war against the rebels. The king, though stricken with mortal sickness, was carried north as far as Carlisle in a horse-litter. Here he pretended himself recovered, hung his litter in the cathedral as an offering, and, with terrible resolve, mounting his horse, moved onwards for a few miles. Near where the Eden loses itself in the sands of the Solway, at the little village of Burgh-on-the Sands, his strength completely gave way. His dying eyes looked across the waters of the Solway on the land which he had conquered so often in vain, and here the fierce old man made his son renew his solemn oath, and soon all was over.

The new monarch was a man of softer mould. Turning with a shudder from the task, he hurried back to the pleasures of London. Go to-day to Westminster Abbey, and read the inscription on the old king’s tomb: “Eduardus Primus Scotorum malleus hic est 1308 pactum serva.” Dean Stanley thinks the last two words merely a moral maxim; others have more reasonably taken it as a reminder to the son to keep his promise. Moreover, it was provided that “once every two years the tomb was to be opened, and the wax of the king’s cerecloth renewed”; as if Edward even in death had some work to do. The son, no doubt, meant some day or other to fulfil his promise; but the day never dawned, and the voice from the grave spoke in vain.

Our next picture is from the days of Good Queen Bess. In the year 1596 there was peace between England and Scotland, but that did not prevent a little private marauding on the Borders. It was customary for the wardens on either side to hold courts, and there settle their differences. William Armstrong, of Kinmont—to be known to all time as “Kinmont Willie”—a famous Scots freebooter, was present at one of these courts. When it was over he rode away with some friends along the north bank of the Liddel, scornfully heedless of the angry looks of certain Englishmen, who had (you guess) lately suffered from his depredations. By Border law there was truce till the next sunrise; but the sight of Kinmont so slenderly guarded was too much for his southern foes. A troop of two hundred pursued and caught him after a long chase, and so our bold freebooter was laid safely by the heels in a strong dungeon in Carlisle Castle. The feelings with which Scott of Buccleuch, keeper of Liddesdale, received news of this are vigorously described in the old ballad:—

Buccleuch, having urged the release of Kinmont Willie in vain, determined to free him by force. At Morton Tower, in the Debatable Land, he collected one evening before sunset a chosen band of followers with scaling ladders and pickaxes. Through the darkness of a misty and stormy night they forded in succession the Esk and the Eden, and halted under the wall of Carlisle two hours before daybreak. Bursting in the postern, and overpowering the sentinels, they made such a ferocious din with tongue and trumpet that the garrison, thinking all the wild men of the Border had got into the town, prudently shut themselves up in the Keep, and then—

The prisoner was soon rescued; and there being no time to knock off his irons, he was mounted on the shoulders of “Red Rowan,” described as “the starkest man in Teviotdale.” Some attempt was made to prevent the escape; but the night continuing dark, the bold band got away, and a wild gallop brought them safe to the Scots border two hours after daybreak. Kinmont humorously complaining of his steed and his spurs, as he playfully termed his irons, the company halted at a smith’s cottage in their own country, and demanded his services. The smith seemed loth to rise so early, whereupon Buccleuch, playfully thrusting his lance through the window, speedily had him wide awake. This stroke of humour was highly appreciated on the Border—was considered quite side-splitting, in fact—but history has failed to record the smith’s observations on the incident. The “bauld Buccleuch” himself never did a bolder deed, but Elizabeth was furious. In October, 1597, he was sent to the English court to make what excuse he might to the Queen, who, in one of her Tudor tempers, angrily demanded “how he dared to undertake an enterprise so desperate and presumptuous.” “What is there that a man dares not do?” was the answer, surely in fit keeping with the tradition of boldness. Elizabeth turned to her courtiers: “With ten thousand such men our brother of Scotland might shake the firmest throne in Europe!” and so Buccleuch departed in peace.

Our last picture is from the days after the Jacobite rising of 1745. A great many of the trials of the Scots rebels took place at Carlisle, and, as one can understand, the accused had but short shrift. “We shall not be tried by a Cumberland jury in the next world!” was the comforting reflection of one of the prisoners. A long series of executions, with all the terrible rites practised on traitors, took place on Gallows Hill, and the heads of these poor Jacobites were planted over Carlisle gates as a warning. A ballad of deepest pathos tells the fate of one unfortunate:—

Not all merrie are the records of Carlisle! And to-day you will find the castle has suffered change. You enter through an ancient gateway, and there is still the portcullis adorned with a sadly battered piece of sculpture. Unsightly barracks, and so forth, cumber the outer ward. The half-moon battery is dismantled, and the great keep is now used as an armoury. You turn to the cathedral, and there, spite of many alterations and more or less judicious restoration, there is much to admire. We can but mention the splendid central window at the east end of the choir, the graceful arcades below the windows of the side aisles, and the carved oak work of the stalls.

At the head of the Solway Firth the SARK, a small river, or rather “burn,” which in a dry summer well-nigh vanishes, divides the two kingdoms. On the Scots side the first village on the road is Gretna Green, famed for just over a century because of its irregular marriages. Here we might take leave of England were it not that our next two rivers, the Esk and the Liddel, Scots for most of their course and rising at very different points, finally meet and pass into Cumberland, whence they flow into the Solway Firth; the Esk having made a complete circuit round the Sark. The Debatable Land already mentioned was the piece of ground between the Solway and the junction of the two streams, of each of which we must now speak.

The LIDDEL rises in a great morass in Roxburghshire called Deadwater. For some ten miles it is a wild mountain stream, flowing dark and sullen through a rocky glen, but as it reaches lower ground the glen widens and softens into a beautiful valley with trees and fine pasture land, whilst lower still are fertile fields. The Liddel has many tributaries, whereof we will only mention Hermitage Water, near the source. It is a wild mountain stream, and at its wildest part, amidst morasses and bare desolate mountains, stand the ruins of grim old Hermitage Castle, with its thick towers and walls and rare narrow windows. See it on some gloomy November day, when the storm spirit is abroad, and it stands the very abomination of desolation! Turn to its history, and the gloom grows ever darker; for ’tis little but a record of cruel deeds. This is one of the oldest baronial buildings in Scotland. Sir William Douglas, the “Knight of Liddesdale” and “Flower of Chivalry,” took the place in 1338 from the English. You wonder at his name! Four years later he wounded and seized at Hawick Sir Alexander Ramsay, Sheriff of Teviotdale, of whose appointment he was jealous, and, throwing him into a deep dungeon at Hermitage, left him to starve. A few chance droppings from the granary protracted his miserable existence through seventeen awful days. His captors, hearing his groans, at length took him out and gave him—not bread, but a priest, in whose arms Ramsay expired! The “Flower of Chivalry” was finally slain by the Earl of Douglas, head of his house, whilst hunting in Ettrick Forest. It was whispered the Earl had discovered that his Countess entertained a guilty passion for the murdered man. A rude old ballad represents her as coming out of her bower when she heard of the crime, and proclaiming her own shame—

In October, 1566, Bothwell had gone to the Borders as Warden of the Marshes, to prepare for a court which Mary Queen of Scots was about to hold at Jedburgh for the trial of freebooters. He was wounded by Elliott of the Park, known as “Little Jock Elliott,” and lay dangerously ill at Hermitage. The infatuated Mary, scantily attended, dashed over from Jedburgh through the wildest and most dangerous territory (what a prize for a freebooter!), spent two hours by Bothwell’s bedside “to his great pleasure and content,” and then dashed as madly back again. Who shall dare to guess the secret of that meeting? Seven months earlier was Rizzio’s murder, four months later was Darnley’s—the great tragedy of Mary’s life. The question of her guilt is still open, but no one doubts Bothwell’s. Some dark hint of his perhaps caused the torture of mind which men noted in her after the visit. She was immediately stricken down with a fever of ten days’ duration, and for some time her life was despaired of. But let us away from this sad old ruin among those far-off gloomy mountains.

The Liddel is, after all, but a tributary of the ESK. There are several rivers of that name in Britain, which fact will not surprise you when you remember that Esk is Celtic for “water.” Its scenery has the characteristic features of all these Border streams: wild hills, bare save for a fringe of heather at the source; then richly wooded meadows, with fertile fields in the lower reaches. The Esk and its tributaries are much praised of anglers; nowhere will you find better salmon-fishing. Three miles below Langholm, on the left bank, the Tarras falls into the Esk. Its narrow channel is broken by huge masses of rock over which the water foams and swirls in wild fury. A strange old rhyme ever rings in our ears when we think of its passionate rush—

which means that Tarras never drowned anybody who fell in, for the excellent reason that before his head touched the bottom, the current and the rocks, between them, knocked out his brains! Is there not a tragic power about this snarling couplet? Indeed, those pithy popular rhymes will well repay attention. Nowhere else is so much said in so few words; each is, in truth, the distilled essence of a poem.

The Tarras divides Langholm from Canonbie parish, wherein once stood, in a position of great natural strength, washed on three sides by the Esk, Gilnockie Tower. Johnnie Armstrong, the famous Border freebooter, took his title from this place, whereof not a stone remains. A little higher up the river is Hollows Tower, also a nest of this bird of prey. Johnnie was summoned to appear before James V. when that monarch made a Border tour in 1539 to administer justice. Getting himself up in the most magnificent apparel, and with an easy mind and a clear conscience, he, accompanied by many of his name, whereof “Ill Will Armstrong” is specially noted, set forth to meet the king. On Langholm Holm, according to the Chronicle, “they ran their horse and brak their spears when the ladies lookit frae their lofty windows, saying, ‘God send our men well back again.’” The fair dames’ anxieties were well founded, for Johnnie’s reception was scarce as cordial as he expected. “What wants yon knave that a king should have?” exclaimed James in angry amazement, as he ordered off Gilnockie and his companions to instant execution. The culprit’s petition for grace was sternly refused. “Had I known, I’d have lived upon the Borders in spite of King Harry and you both,” said Johnnie as they led him away. The trees whereon he and his followers were strung up are still shown at Carlenrig, and tradition still identifies their graves in that lonely churchyard. The ballads praise his honesty and lament the treachery which led to his end. James’s was the violent act of a weak man; it had an unroyal touch of trickery; and no good results followed.

Of another romantic character it is written that he “swam the Esk river where ford there was none”—that, of course, was young Lochinvar, who “came out of the west” to run off with a fair daughter of Netherby Hall. The “west” in this case is a lake in Dalry parish, in Kirkcudbrightshire, containing an island which still has remains of the castle of the Gordons, knights of Lochinvar, one of whom was the hero of Lady Heron’s song in “Marmion.” Netherby is away by the Debatable Land, and Canobie Lee (perhaps) in the Dumfriesshire parish of Canonbie; but how idle to localise the incidents of the splendid ballad! Scott himself never touched the romantic note with truer hand or to better purpose—

And then we know how the bride

And how they danced a measure, and how the charger stood near by the hall door, and ’twas but the work of an instant to swing the lady on its back, and so light to the saddle before her he sprung:—

And the delightful couple again fade away into the “rich heart of the west.”

There is no end to those ballads and traditions! The very streams in their flow seem to murmur of them. But few can find place here; yet how can we pass from Eskdale and leave untouched its sweetest spot, its most, tragic story, its most pathetic song? Kirtle Water, after a short course of a little over sixteen miles, runs into the Solway at Kirtle Foot, near the head of the Firth. In the parish of Kirkpatrick-Fleming it passes through “fair Kirkconnel Lee,” where, in the churchyard of Kirkconnel, sleep the ashes of Helen and her lover. According to the well-known tradition, she was loved by Fleming of Redhall and Bell of Blacket. The latter was not the favoured one, and basely tried to slay Fleming. Helen threw herself in the path of the murderer’s bullet, and perished to save her friend. Fleming did speedy justice on his cruel foe, wandered in far lands for many years, and returned to die and be buried in the same grave with the love of his youth. Of the ancestral tower of the Flemings not a fragment is left; and Dryasdust still dully debates the exact measure of historic truth in the story. Some great but unknown poet long ago moulded the passionate complaint of Fleming into imperishable verse, with its mournful refrain:—

Annandale is the second division of Dumfries. ANNAN means in Celtic “quiet water”; perhaps that river was called so in fear, to propitiate the water-sprite, as malignant fairies were dubbed “the good people” to ward off their anger. Allan Cunningham lauds it as the “Silver Annan,” but none the less he has some hard words for it:—

And the old ballad of “Annan Water” calls it a “drumlie river,” and tells a most melancholious tale of a lover and his steed drowned whilst attempting to cross it to keep tryst with his love, Annie, who, we are assured, was “wondrous bonny.” The last verse warns the river that a bridge will presently be thrown over, that “ye nae mair true love may sever”: the prosaic purposes of transit to kirk or market being, of course, quite unworthy of a minstrel’s mention. Well! Annan has its moods—quiet and gentle in the pleasant summer days, given to violent outbursts in time of spate.

Annandale was the home of Bruce, and the great Robert is supposed to have been born at Lochmaben, which, situated on seven lochs, is a sort of Caledonian Venice. Bruce, not unmindful of the place of his nativity, is famed to have created it a royal burgh soon after his sword won him the crown. This did not prevent the citizens from treating through many generations his ancestral castle as a common quarry, and nothing is now left but a shapeless mass of stones. According to old Bellenden, in his translation of Boace (1536), the people of former times were a terrible lot; the women worst of all! “The wyvis usit to slay thair husbandis, quhen they wer found cowartis, or discomfit be thair ennymes, to give occasion to otheris to be more bald and hardy quhen danger occurrit.” “To learn them for their tricks,” as Burns might have remarked. Annandale’s most famous modern son was Thomas Carlyle, who, as everybody knows, was born at Ecclefechan in 1795, and was buried there at the end of his long career on a “cloudy, sleety day” early in 1881. Ecclefechan is on the Main Water, a tributary of the Annan; you will find it described in “Sartor Resartus” as Entepfuhl. Many spots around are connected with his life or works. Hoddam Kirk, his parish church, he pointed out to Emerson in a remarkable talk as an illustration of the connection of historical events. His once bosom friend, Edward Irving, was born in the town of Annan, of which Carlyle had his own memories, for here he went to school, first to learn, afterwards to teach. Craigenputtock, where he lived for six years, is in Nithsdale, the third division of Dumfries, to which we now turn.

The NITH, its name-river, in its course of some seventy miles, rising in Ayrshire, passes through the Queen of the South, as its citizens proudly designate Dumfries, and, during the last ten miles of its existence, is rather an estuary than a river. It has many important tributaries—the Carron, with its almost Alpine gorge, known as the Wallpath; the Enterkin, with its famed Enterkin pass, of old time the bridle-path from Clydesdale to Nithsdale, noted for the famous rescue in 1684 of a band of Covenanting prisoners who were being conveyed to Edinburgh; the Minnick Water, with its many traditions of the Hill Folk; and “many mo’.”

Every variety of scenery diversifies the banks of those streams, and there is a great mass of legendary lore as to the famous men who dwelt by their waters; but one name swallows up all the rest. How to follow the windings of the Nith, or tread the High Street of Dumfries, without thinking of Robert Burns? He sang of the streams of Nith in his choicest verse. “Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes” is linked with one tributary, and the song he fitted to “Ca’ the yowes to the knowes”—most musical fragment of old Scots poetry—reminds of another. Among the beautiful ruins of Lincluden Abbey, surrounded by the defaced monuments of the great house of Douglas, he saw that “Vision” which he has commemorated in so remarkable a poem. Not far off is Friars’ Carse, where the bacchanalian contest related in “The Whistle” took place. In Dumfries, as an exciseman, he spent the last five years of his life. Let us find place for one incident of his closing days. He had gone to the little village of Brow, on the Solway, to try the effect of the seaside. During a visit to the manse, one of the family remarked the sun shining in his eyes and made some effort to adjust the blind. Burns noted it; “Thank you, my dear, for your kind attention—but ah, let him shine! He will not shine long for me.” This was the end of June, 1796; on the twenty-first of July he was dead. “Who will be our poet now?” was the quaint inquiry of an honest Dumfries burgher. Who, indeed! His remains were buried in the churchyard of St. Michael’s. “They were originally interred in the north corner, upon which spot a simple table-stone was raised to his memory; but in 1815 his ashes were removed to a vault beneath an elegant mausoleum, which was erected by subscription, as a tribute to his genius, at a cost of £1,450. This monument contains a handsome piece of marble sculpture, executed by Turnerelli, representing the genius of Scotland finding the poet at the plough, and throwing ‘her inspiring mantle’ over him.” Well meant, and yet—! We remember standing in the cemetery at Montmartre by the plain stone that bears the name, and nothing but the name, of Heine. It had a simple, a pathetic, dignity beyond the reach of the most cunningly carved monument. One thought of the “elegant mausoleum” at Dumfries, and sighed for the “simple table-stone” which humble but pious hands had placed as the first and, still after a century the best, monument to Robert Burns. Do you doubt which himself had chosen?

Of the antiquities of Dumfries we will only mention its famous mediæval bridge over the Nith, built by Devorgilla, mother of John Baliol. A remarkable old dame this Devorgilla! Balliol College, Oxford, was endowed by her liberality; and we shall come across another of her foundations presently. The Queen of the South has a long history; its most important event is connected with the house rival to Baliol. On the 4th of February, 1306, Robert the Bruce disputing with the Red Cumyn in the Greyfriars’ Monastery, struck and wounded him with his dagger. He burst out remorseful, exclaiming, “I fear I have slain the Red Cumyn.” “I mak siccar,” was the grimly pithful remark of Kirkpatrick of Closeburn as he rushed in, and—exit the Red Cumyn!

Even in Scotland this district is remarkable for old castles and abbeys. Of these one first notes Drumlanrig Castle, in Durisdeer parish, on a drum, or long ridge of hill, on the right bank of the Nith. It is a huge and splendid building, finished in 1689 after ten years’ labour, by the first Duke of Queensberry, who spent but one night within its walls. It had splendid woods, which old “Q,” that picturesque rascal of the Georgian period, shamelessly depleted, for which he was righteously castigated by Wordsworth; his descendants have repaired the damage, and poets and forest nymphs are at length appeased and consoled. The Highlanders, passing by here in the ’45, amused themselves by stabbing the portrait of William III. with their claymores. Again, there is Caerlaverock Castle, the Ellangowan of Scott’s “Guy Mannering,” situated on the left bank of the Nith, just where it becomes part of the Solway Firth. A wild romantic spot! The boiling tides of the Solway and the Nith approach its walls; and of old time it was so hemmed by lake and marsh as to deserve the name of the “Island of Caerlaverock.” It has a long romantic history, in keeping with its environment. It has been in possession of the Maxwells since the beginning of the thirteenth century, and you can still spell out their motto, “I bid ye fair,” on its mouldering walls. They took—as was but seemly in so ancient a family—the Stuart side in the rising of 1715; and the title of Baron Herries, held since 1489, was destroyed by attaint in 1716. It was revived, however, in favour of William Constable Maxwell by various Parliamentary proceedings ending in 1858; then high revel was held in the long deserted courts of Caerlaverock, and little imagination was needed to recall the incidents of a long-vanished feudal day.

It is hard to leave the Nith, so much is to be said on each of its tributaries. There is the Cairn, for instance, with its memories of the noble family of Glencairn. Also it flows by Maxwellton, still the seat of the Lauries, a fair scion of whose ancient house is celebrated in the pleasing old ditty known to everybody as “Annie Laurie,” though the song that rises in your mind when Glencairn is mentioned is Burns’s noble tribute to the memory of the fourteenth earl, ending—

Even when we leave Dumfries and pass into Galloway (which consists of the stewartry of Kirkendbright and shire of Wigtown) we are not quite away from the Nith. On the right bank, nearly opposite Caerlaverock, the small stream of New Abbey Pow runs into the estuary. Follow this a little way up, and you come on the scanty but beautiful ruins of Sweetheart Abbey. The origin was as romantic as the name: it was founded in memory of her husband by the Devorgilla already mentioned. He died in 1269 at Barnard Castle, and was buried there, all save his heart, which his spouse had enclosed in a “coffyne of evorie,” and ever at mealtimes the “coffyne” was carried in and placed beside her, and she “dyd reverens” to it as if it had been her living lord. Thus she existed for twenty years, and then was splendidly interred before the high altar of Dulee Cor, or Sweetheart Abbey, so called because the heart of her dead spouse was laid on hers. Verily, love is stronger than death!

The DEE, chief river of Kirkcudbrightshire, rises in desolate Loch Dee, among heather-clad hills with impressive names—Lamachen, Cairngarnock, Craiglee, and so forth. How those Celtic words suggest of themselves a remote and desolate wilderness! Dee means “dark river,” and in the early part of its flow so sullen is its appearance that, with impressive tautology, it is called the “black water of Dee.” Some twenty miles from its source its colour is lightened by its confluence with the Water of Ken, and, like other Border streams, the scenery on its banks gradually becomes softer and richer. We have selected for illustration (p. 326) a beautiful spot on the Dee at Douglas Tongueland, within two or three miles of the burgh of Kirkcudbright. Here the river still retains some of its early wildness, for it rushes foamin’ over masses of rock, but the scenery on its banks is sweetly rural rather than wild and mountainous.

The most famous place on the Dee is Threave Castle, standing on an islet formed by the river not far from Castle Douglas. It was built by Archibald, called the Grim, third Earl of Douglas, and was the scene of one of the terrible crimes which brought about the ruin of that proud house. William, the eighth earl, had imprisoned there Maclellan, tutor (or guardian) of Bombie, whose relative, Sir Patrick Grey, having procured an order for his release from James II., therewith repaired to the castle. Douglas, knowing very well what he came about, with pretended courtesy refused to receive any message till the guest had dined. Whilst Grey was eating with what appetite he might, the prisoner was led forth and beheaded in the courtyard. Dinner over, Grey produced the royal warrant, which Douglas read with mock respect and consternation. Taking his guest by the hand and leading him to the window overlooking the courtyard, he showed him the bleeding corpse. “There lies your sister’s son,” quoth he, “he lacks the head, but the body is at your service.” Grey dissembled his rage and grief till he was in the saddle, when, turning on the mocking earl, he solemnly vowed his heart’s blood should pay for that day’s work. “To horse! to horse!” cried the enraged tyrant. The pursuers followed Grey for many a long league, nor did they draw bridle till the Castle-Rock of Edinburgh loomed on the horizon. A few months after, the king stabbed Douglas at a conference at Stirling, and Grey avenged Maclellan by killing the wounded man with a pole-axe. In 1455 King James besieged Threave Castle, which held out under James, the brother of the murdered noble. It seemed impossible to batter down the stronghold till an ingenious blacksmith, M’Kim of Mollance, constructed the enormous gun which lies to-day on the Argyle battery at Edinburgh Castle, and is known far and wide as “Mons Meg”—the “Mons” being a corruption of Mollance, whilst Meg was M’Kim’s wife. He named the gun after her in ironical compliment, her voice being, he said, as the cannon’s, neither soft nor low. However, this piece was dragged with enormous labour to an eminence commanding Threave Castle. The charge, it is said, consisted of a peck of powder, and a granite ball the weight of a Carsphairn cow. The Countess of Douglas, the Fair Maid of Galloway, who had married in succession the two brothers, sat at table in the banqueting hall when the gun was shot off; the ball crashing into the room, carried away her right hand, wherewith she was in the act of raising a goblet of wine to her lips. The place at once surrendered. Roofless, but still grim and massive, the castle frowns amidst the peaceful surroundings of to-day. They “still show you the gallows knob,” “a large block of granite projecting from the front wall immediately over the main gateway; from here the meaner victims of the Earl’s vengeance were suspended.” Rarely did the knob want the ornament, of a “tassel,” as, with ghastly pleasantly, its human burden was termed—nay, it is said that the Douglas was so averse to see the “knob” out of use, and his power of life and death rusting unexercised, that, did the supply of malefactors run short, he would string up on any or no pretext some unoffending peasant—pour encourager les autres, no doubt!

We now pass to the CREE river, which forms the boundary between Kirkcudbright and Wigtown, the two divisions of Galloway. It is endeared to the poets, who name it “the crystal Cree”; either the alliterative effect fascinated the tuneful ear, or they contrasted it with the Dee, that other Galloway river whose dark waters have already been described. Burns also, whose verse is linked with so much of the scenery of his native land, has not forgotten this stream. In pleasing numbers he sings its beauties:—