To a shepherd in Canada Dr. Norman Macleod is said to have remarked, "What a glorious country this is!" "Ay," said the man, "it is a very good country." "And such majestic rivers!" "Oh, ay," was all the reply. "And such good forests!" "Ay, but there are nae linties in the woods, and nae braes like Yarrow!" Of course, the answer was from a purely exile point of view, but even to those of the Old Country the name of Yarrow wields the most wondrous fascination. Like Tweed, Yarrow is known everywhere, for who has not heard of its "Dowie Dens," or of its lovers' tragedies? Certainly no stream has been more besung. The name is redolent of all that is most pathetic in Border poetry. This is the centre of the Border ballad country—the birthplace, or, at all events, the nursing-ground of a romance than which there is none richer or more extensive on either side of the Border. The Yarrow is the Scottish Rhine-land on a small scale, even more so than the Tweed. Tweedside, indeed, has not a tithe of Yarrow's ballad wealth, and the Tweed ballads and folk-lore are absolutely different in respect both of subject-matter and of manner. The curious feature about Yarrow is the wonderful sameness which characterises the whole of its minstrelsy. For hundreds of years that has been so. Sadness is the uppermost note that is sounded. All through we are face to face with a feeling of dejection as remarkable as it is common. One could have understood a stray effusion or so couched in this strain, but for an entire minstrelsy to breathe such a spirit is extraordinary. Why should Yarrow be the personification, as it were, of a grief and a melancholy that nothing seems able to assuage? Is there anything in the scenery to account for it—anything in the physical conditions of the glen itself that solves the secret? There is, and there isn't. To a mere outsider—a mere summer tripper hurrying through—Yarrow is little different from others of the southland valleys. Its main features are identical with those of the Ettrick, and the Tweed uplands, or with the Ewes and the Teviot. All of them exhibit the same pastoral stillness. The same play of light and shade are on their hills. The same soothing spirit broods over them. But of Yarrow alone it is the element of sadness that prevails. To understand this, one has to live in Yarrow—to come under the influence of its environment. And whether it be fancy or not, whether it be the result of one's reading, and of one's pre-conceived notions of the place, the Yarrow landscape does lend itself to the realisation of that feeling which the ballads so well portray. The configuration of the glen as seen especially from a little above Yarrow Manse—the "Dowie Dens" of popular tradition—together with its climatic conditions, may very easily interpret for us the spirit of those old singers. Here, if anywhere in the valley, the answer to the Yarrow enigma will be found. Professor Veitch thinks that the whole district affords such an answer: "Nor will anyone," he says, "who is familiar with the Vale of Yarrow have had much difficulty in understanding how it is suited to pathetic verse. The rough and broken, yet clear, beautiful, and wide-spreading stream has no grand cliffs to show; and it is not surrounded by high and overshadowing hills. Here and there it flows placidly, reflectively, in large liquid lapses, through an open valley of the deepest summer green; still, let us be thankful, in its upper reaches at least, mantled by nature and untouched by plough and harrow. There is a placid monotone about its bare treeless scenery—an unbroken pastoral stillness on the sloping braes and hillsides, as they rise, fall, and bend in a uniformly deep colouring. The silence of the place is forced upon the attention, deepened even by the occasional break in the flow of the stream, or by the bleating of the sheep that, white and motionless amid the pasture, dot the knowes. We are attracted by the silence, and we are also depressed. There is the pleasure of hushed enjoyment. The spirit of the scene is in those immortal lines:—

Those deep green grassy knowes of the valley are peculiarly susceptible of change. In the morning with a blue sky, or with breaks of sunlight through the fleeting clouds, the green hillsides and the stream smile and gleam in sympathy with the cheerfulness of heaven. But under a grey sky, or at the gloaming, the Yarrow wears a peculiarly wan aspect—a look of sadness. And no valley I know is more susceptible of sudden change. The spirit of the air can speedily weave out of the mists that gather upon the massive hills at the heads of the Megget and the Talla, a wide-spreading web of greyish cloud—the 'skaum' of the sky—that casts a gloom over the under green of the hills; and dims the face of loch and stream in a pensive shadow. The saddened heart would readily find there fit analogue and nourishment for its sorrow. Which is all very true. But, as has been said, Tweed and Teviot show exactly these conditions, and what of their minstrelsy remains is not touched with this strangely morose sense. May not the solution lie in the very legend of the "Dowie Dens" itself, and in the remarkable cup-like configuration of the valley as seen from the point already indicated and under the wan aspects which are admittedly a distinctive feature of the Yarrow at all seasons of the year? Out of this have emerged very probably the spirit of the balladists and their ballads. One after another have simply followed suit, and the likelihood is that had gladness and not gloom been the burden of some far back strain, we should not have had the Yarrow we possess to-day. Men of the most diverse temperaments have come under the sad spell of the Yarrow. The most lighthearted sons of song have succumbed to the general feeling. Wordsworth himself would have preferred to strike another note, but the enchantment of the spot held him fast:

All the verse writers of the last century were mere continuators of their fellow-bards centuries before. There are, to be sure, some flippant spirits who would dare to alter the very atmosphere of Yarrow, but what a poor attempt at the impossible! Yarrow must ever abide the embodiment of the most heart-piercing, and at the same time, the most winsome melody the world has listened to.

Popularly speaking, the best of the Yarrow ballads concerns itself with the famous "Dowie Dens" tragedy, of which there seems to be some authentic reference in the Selkirk Presbytery Record for 1616. It is there narrated how Walter Scott of Tushielaw made "an informal and inordinate marriage with Grizell Scott of Thirlestane without consent of her father." Just three months later, the same Record contains entry of a summons to Simeon Scott, of Bonytoun, an adherent of Thirlestane, and three other Scotts "to compear at Melrose to hear themselves excommunicated for the horrible slaughter of Walter Scott." We have here probably the precise incident on which the unknown "makar" founded his crude but intensely picturesque and dramatic lay. How much of womanly winsomeness and heroism, of knightly dignity and daring, and the unconquerable strength of love are portrayed in the following stanzas! There are, indeed, few ballads in any language that match its strains:

A fragment of rare beauty, believed to be based on the same incident (unlikely however) was one of Scott's special favourites. Rather does it shrine a similar tragedy, one of many such which must have been common enough in those troubled and lawless times. How melting is the pathos of the following verses, for instance!

Somewhat akin is the "Lament of the Border Widow," located at Henderland, in Meggetdale, not far from St. Mary's Loch. In the preface to this ballad in the "Minstrelsy," Scott states that it was "obtained from recitation in the Forest of Ettrick, and is said to relate to the execution of Cockburn of Henderland, a Border freebooter, hanged over the gate of his own tower by James V. in the course of that memorable expedition in 1529 which was fatal to Johnie Armstrong, Adam Scott of Tushielaw, and many other marauders." The grave of "Perys of Cockburne and hys wyfe Marjory" on a wooded knoll at Henderland, is still pointed out. But the historicity of the ballad has been questioned from the statement (which seems to be correct) that Cockburn was actually executed at Edinburgh, instead of at his own home. There is no evidence, however, to assume that the ballad commemorates this particular occurrence or that it has any connection with the grave referred to. For genuine balladic merit it will be difficult to match:

PLATE 22

"HE PASS'D WHERE
NEWARK'S STATELY
TOWER LOOKS OUT
FROM YARROW'S
BIRCHEN BOWER"

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

(See pp. 116 )

One might speak, too, of the "Douglas Tragedy," the scene of which is laid in the Douglas Glen, in the heart of the quiet hills forming the watershed betwixt Tweed and Yarrow. Here lived the "Good Sir James"—Bruce's right-hand man, who strove to carry his heart to the Holy Land. It was from this Tower at Blackhouse that Margaret the Fair was carried off by her lover, and about a mile further up on the hillside the seven stones marking the spot where Lord William alighted and slew the Lady's seven brothers in full pursuit of the pair, are objects of curious interest. This ballad, it is interesting to note, is one widely diffused throughout Europe, being specially rich in Danish, Icelandic, Norse, and Swedish collections. Indeed, almost all the Yarrow ballads—and many others—are common to Continental volks-lieder, and are found in extraordinary profusion from Iceland to the Peloponesus. Here is evidence, by no means slight, of the theory that ballads originate from a common stock, and that in the course of ages they have simply become transplanted and localized. Then the Yarrow valley contains the scene of the "Song of the Outlaw Murray"—a distinctively Border production (74 verses in all) composed during the reign of James V. Murray divides with Johnie Armstrong the honour of being the Border Robin Hood, but to Murray a very different treatment was meted out. The Outlaw's lands at Hangingshaw and elsewhere were his own, though he held them minus a title. James fumed at this, and determined to bring the Forest chief to submission:

Upon which the King's Commissioner assures the Outlaw that it will be worse for him if he fails to give heed to the royal desire:

But Murray is defiant, and James is equally resolved to crush him. Friends are pressed into the Outlaw's service, and very soon he has a goodly number of troopers all ready to render service in the hour of their kinsman's need, well knowing that in aiding him they would be doing the best thing for themselves, as "landless men they a' wad be" if the King got his own way in Ettrick Forest. But, like all good ballads, this, too, ends happily. A compromise is effected, by which the Outlaw obtains the post he had long coveted—Sheriff of the Forest:

Of right "Tamlany"—by far the finest of the Border fairy ballads—belongs more to Ettrick than to Yarrow. The scene is laid in Carterhaugh, at the confluence of the two streams, two miles above Selkirk. The ballad (24 stanzas) is too long to quote, but may be read in all good collections. For the same reason also we must pass over the "Battle of Philiphaugh," commemorating Leslie's victory over Montrose in 1645; and the "Gay Goss-Hawk," the dramatic ending of which is laid at St. Mary's Kirk, high upon the hillside overlooking the waters of the Loch. Nothing is left now save the site, and a half-deserted burying-ground where "Covenanter and Catholic, Scotts, and Kers and Pringles—all sorts and conditions of men—sleep their long sleep at peace together." Among the shrines of Yarrowdale, this is not the least notable. Like the grave of Keats outside the walls of Rome, as some one has said, "it would almost make one in love with death to be buried in so sweet a spot among the heather and brackens, and the sighing of the solitary mountain ash." St. Mary's Loch lies shimmering at our feet. Scott's "Marmion" picture is still wonderfully correct:

All this delightsome countryside is Hogg-land too, let us remember, as well as Scott-land. For here, in ballad-haunted Yarrow, the immortal James spent the best years of his life, failing so tantalizingly as farmer, but as poet, "King of the Mountain and Fairy school," dreaming so well of that most bewitching of all his conceptions—"Bonnie Kilmeny." Yonder, overlooking Tibbie Shiel's "cosy beild"—a howff of the Noctes coterie—stands the solitary white figure of the beloved Shepherd as Christopher North's prophetic soul felt that it must be some day. Hogg was born in the neighbouring Ettrick valley—in 1770 presumably. His birth-cottage is extinct now, but a handsome memorial marks the spot. Most of his life, as has been said, was passed in the sister vale, first at Blackhouse, then at Mount Benger, and at Altrive (now Eldinhope), where he died three years after his truest of friends—Sir Walter. The Ettrick homeland guards his dust. Close by is the resting-place of Thomas Boston, that earlier "Ettrick Shepherd" whose "Fourfold State" and "Crook in the Lot" are not yet forgotten. In the sequestered Yarrow churchyard sleeps Scott's maternal great-grandfather, John Rutherford, who was minister of the parish from 1691 to 1710. Scott spoke of Yarrow as the "shrine of his ancestors," and himself, like Hogg, and Willie Laidlaw, frequently worshipped within its old grey walls. Further down the stream, the "shattered front of Newark's towers" reminds us that here Scott placed the recital of the "Lay." He would fain have fitted up the ancient fabric as a residence, had it been possible. Almost opposite, the birthplace of Mungo Park, the first of the knight-errantry of Africa, attracts attention, and a mile or two nearer Selkirk, are Philiphaugh, and "sweet Bowhill," the two finest domains in the Forest. The Covenanters' Monument within Philiphaugh grounds is worthy of notice, and on the Ettrick side, Kirkhope and Oakwood, both in fairly good repair, are excellent specimens of the peel period. At Selkirk, the capital of Ettrickdale, Scott's statue as "the Shirra"—a most admirable representation—looks out at scenes upon which his eyes in life must often have feasted. Here we read the lines that express his heart's deep love for a district interwoven so closely with all the years of his working life:

PLATE 23

"VIEW OF NEW ABBEY
AND CRIFFEL"

FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH

PAINTED BY

JAMES ORROCK, R.I.

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