82 Roxburghshire. Sweet Teviot! on thy silver tide As if thy waves, since time was born, SCOTT. The ROXBURGHSHIRE, a county remarkable for the production of men of genius, resolves itself into two tracts, that which is watered by the Tweed, and that which is traversed by the Teviot and the Liddel. former is entered by the road from Berwick to Kelso, near the village of Ednam, which usually commands some respectful interest from the passing traveller, as the birth-place of Thomson, and which presents a scene as lovely and luxuriant as any ever drawn by that immortal poet. Little more than two miles to the southward lies Kelso, a town noted for its neatness, and for the beau, ty of its environs. It is situated upon the Tweed, near the junction of the Teviot, and, though not the county town, is the largest in the county. Over the river there is a fine stone-bridge, the view from which, looking westwards, and taking in Fleurs House, is exquisitely beautiful. Kelso is a thriving town, and is the resort of a great number of idle and affluent people, whose suburban villas stuck closely around, give it an air of peculiar comfort and refinement. Towering above the town, the remains of Kelso Abbey are to be seen in every direction around. This rich ecclesiastical establish ROXBURGH CASTLE. 83 ment, which formed one of a chain of abbeys planted in early times for the protection of the Border, was founded by David I, in 1128, and still, though much dilapidated, exhibits the Saxon architecture which had not then altogether given place to the Gothic. The town possesses a manufacture of stockings and of leather, but seems to subsist chiefly upon the money spent in it by its genteel inhabitants. It is often the seat of the Caledonian Hunt, and has well-attended races, which are run upon a course called the Burymoss, a mile to the northward of the town. As the illustration of popular antiquities is one of the objects of this work, it may be allowable to mention, that "a Kelso Convoy" is a common phrase used from time immemorial in the Lowlands of Scotland, to signify the circumstance of being accompanied by one's host no further than the threshold, or rather, as it is commonly phrased, a step and a half owre the doorstane. The origin of this stigma upon the hospitality of Kelso is unknown; but, that the reader may the better understand the extent of satire which it implies, it is necessary to inform him, that at all old Scottish mansion houses, there was a tree at some distance from the door, called the Coglin Tree, where the landlord met his guests, and to which he always accompanied them, uncovered, when they took their departure. In old society, accustomed to such punctilio, and with whom any neglect of the laws of hospitality was held more heinous than at least two of the pleas of the crown, it is easy to conceive how the coldness of a Kelso convoy would be appreciated.* The ruins of Roxburgh Castle, so celebrated in Border history, are situated about a mile above Kelso, on an eminence now partially covered with wood. The Tweed and Teviot, which join about half a mile below, here approach each other so as to form a narrow isthmus; and part of the defences of the castle consisted * A former town-piper of Kelso is said to have been the original John Anderson of the song and air known by that name. in two ditches, by which the waters of these rivers were made to surround the edifice. It was formerly one of the few extensive and important fortresses which_the policy of Scotland would permit to exist upon the Border; but, having been dismantled 400 years ago, very little now remains to give an idea of its original strength. In 1460, when in possession of the English, it was besieged by James If, and, after his death, taken by his army under the direction of his widow. James was killed by the bursting of a cannon, which he had approached too nearly, says Pitscottie, from a curiosity inconsistent with his dignity as a king; and the spot where he fell, is marked by a holly tree which grows upon the opposite bank of the Tweed, within the policy of Fleurs Castle. Fleurs Castle, the seat of the Duke of Roxburgh, and one of the mansions planned by Sir John Vanbrugh, stands upon the left bank of the Tweed, nearly opposite to the ruins of the castle. It is a large and imposing edifice, commanding a fine view of the surrounding country. Its beautiful park, it is much to be regretted, has lately been sadly disfigured by a large garden which has been made to come 66 cranking in" upon it.* The town of Yetholm is the cynosure of the eastern district of Roxburghshire, which may be said to comprehend the parishes of Yetholm, Hownam, Morebattle, and Linton. Yetholm is divided into two parts; the largest called Town-Yetholm lies on the west bank of the Bowmont Water, and the other designated KirkYetholm, is situated about half a mile distant on the other side of the stream and of the haugh which it traverses. Both are but humble in appearance, especially the last, which is chiefly inhabited by gypsies, a race formerly remarkable for their disorderly and idle lives, but who are not now greatly distinguished by peculiarity of habits or character from their fellow-townsmen ; * Further information regarding the objects which adorn this beautiful part of the country, may be obtained in "the History of Kelso and Roxburgh," by Mr James Haig of Edinburgh. CHERRYTREES.-WORMISTON HILL. 85 with whom, however, they seldom intermarry. idea may be formed of the humility of Yetholm from the fact, that the church is not slated, but, according to a primitive fashion, covered with thatch. Yetholm lies in a valley, which, being surrounded on all sides by lofty mountains, seems completely sequestered from the rest of the world-alike inaccessible from without, and not to be left from within-in fact, a sunny little world in itself. To such a retreat would the pensive and pious hermit have resorted, in order to spend his long life of living death. The bare silent hills, rising around like the walls of a hermitage, would have left only the possibility of communing with heaven; and the waters which traverse the quiet vale, would have reminded him, in their constancy and purity, of the stream of devout thought that ought never to fail in his own torpid breast. The valley of Yetholm has, however, more than one outlet. The road to Kelso leaves it on the north side by a circuitous opening in the hills. Hard by the right hand side of this path is the mansion of Cherry-trees, remarkable on account of the celebrated adventure which procured for David Williamson, a persecuted presbyterian clergyman, afterwards minister of St Cuthbert's at Edinburgh, the nick-name of Cherrytrees Davie. A Ecoffing popular song upon this subject informs us that Mr Williamson, having taken refuge here from the pursuit of a party of dragoons, was put by the Lady of Cherrytrees into the same bed with her daughter, boots and all; by which means he was saved, but at the expense of the young lady; who, however, afterwards became the first of Mr Williamson's seven successive wives. About two miles from Yetholm in this direction, in the north-east side of Wormiston Hill, is a dean or little glen, called the Worm's Glen, said to have been, in the twelfth century, the haunt of an enormous serpent or wild beast, which was killed by the ancestor of the noble family of Somerville, a foreign adventurer, who, on that account, obtained large possessions in this country. 86 LEGEND OF LINTON CHURCH-CESSFORD CASTLE. This spot will not be easily found without a guide; but it may perhaps be reached by any traveller who observes that two places called Falside and Gradin lie on the north, one called Lochtower on the east, and another denominated Glenlees on the west. In the south wall of the parish-church of Linton, which is little more than two miles to the west, there is a semicircular stone, bearing a sculpture commemorative of this daring exploit; perhaps one of the oldest things of the kind in Scotland. Linton Church is itself one of the most ancient places of worship in existence; though as much modified, perhaps, by repairs, as ever Sir John Cutler's stockings were by darning. It stands upon a little knoll which forms its church-yard, in the centre of a fertile and comfortable valley, and is almost completely embowered among fine trees. The knoll has a curious legendary history. A border gentleman having been condemned for some offence, his sisters, two beautiful women, undertook to expiate his crime by raising this eminence with riddled earth, and that within a certain time. They succeeded in their singular task, though it is said not without great difficulty, for so much were they pressed as to time, that, by reason of their haste at the conclusion of the task, one of them broke her arm. This tradition, improbable as it may seem, derives countenance from the fact that the knoll is composed of fine light sand, without a stone so large as a pigeon's egg, while the soil around and close up to the very walls of the churchyard, is a stiff black clay full of stones. Another version of the story represents the two fair damsels as having performed their task as a penance appointed by the Pope for the slaughter which their charms, like those of Marcella in Don Quixote, had occasioned among the youth of the district; and this seems to obtain credit on account of a grave having recently been found in the church-yard, containing about fifty skulls, most of which seemed to have been cleft by violence. Cessford Castle, the original seat of the Roxburgh family, is situated in the neighbourhood of Linton. It |