now that everybody is out of town, and every place in the guide-books is as well known as princes street or pall-mall, it is something to discover a hill everybody has not been to the top of, and which is not in black. such a hill is minchmoor, nearly three times as high as arthur's seat, and lying between tweed and yarrow.
the best way to ascend it is from traquair. you go up the wild old selkirk road, which passes almost right over the summit, and by which montrose and his cavaliers fled from philiphaugh, where sir walter's mother remembered crossing, when a girl, in a coach-and-six, on her way to a ball at peebles, several footmen marching on either side of the carriage to prop it up or drag it out of the moss haggs; and where, to our amazement, we learned that the duchess of buccleuch had lately driven her ponies. before this we had passed the grey, old-world entrance to traquair house, and looked down its grassy and untrod avenue to the pallid, forlorn mansion, stricken all o'er with eld, and noticed the wrought-iron[pg 176] gate embedded in a foot deep and more of soil, never having opened since the '45. there are the huge bradwardine bears on each side—most grotesque supporters—with a superfluity of ferocity and canine teeth. the whole place, like the family whose it has been, seems dying out—everything subdued to settled desolation. the old race, the old religion, the gaunt old house, with its small, deep, comfortless windows, the decaying trees, the stillness about the doors, the grass overrunning everything, nature reinstating herself in her quiet way—all this makes the place look as strange and pitiful among its fellows in the vale as would the earl who built it three hundred years ago if we met him tottering along our way in the faded dress of his youth; but it looks the earl's house still, and has a dignity of its own.
we soon found the minchmoor road, and took at once to the hill, the ascent being, as often is with other ascents in this world, steepest at first. nothing could be more beautiful than the view as we ascended, and got a look of the "eye-sweet" tweed hills, and their "silver stream." it was one of the five or six good days of this summer—in early morning, "soft" and doubtful; but the mists drawing up, and now the noble, tawny hills were dappled with gleams and shadows—
"sunbeams upon distant hills gliding apace"—
[pg 177]
the best sort of day for mountain scenery—that ripple of light and shadow brings out the forms and the depths of the hills far better than a cloudless sky; and the horizon is generally wider.
before us and far away was the round flat head of minchmoor, with a dark, rich bloom on it from the thick, short heather—the hills around being green. near the top, on the tweed side, its waters trotting away cheerily to the glen at bold, is the famous cheese well—always full, never overflowing. here every traveler—duchess, shepherd, or houseless mugger—stops, rests, and is thankful; doubtless so did montrose, poor fellow, and his young nobles and their jaded steeds, on their scurry from lesly and his dragoons. it is called the cheese well from those who rest there dropping in bits of their provisions, as votive offerings to the fairies whose especial haunt this mountain was. after our rest and drink, we left the road and made for the top. when there we were well rewarded. the great round-backed, kindly, solemn hills of tweed, yarrow, and ettrick lay all about like sleeping mastiffs—too plain to be grand, too ample and beautiful to be commonplace.
there, to the north-east, is the place—williamhope ridge—where sir walter scott bade farewell to his heroic friend mungo park.[pg 178] they had come up from ashestiel, where scott then lived, and where marmion was written and its delightful epistles inspired—where he passed the happiest part of his life—leaving it, as hogg said, "for gude an' a'"; for his fatal "dreams about his cottage" were now begun. he was to have "a hundred acres, two spare bed-rooms, with dressing rooms, each of which will on a pinch have a couch-bed." we all know what the dream, and the cottage, and the hundred acres came to—the ugly abbotsford; the over-burdened, shattered brain driven wild, and the end, death, and madness. well, it was on the ridge that the two friends—each romantic, but in such different ways—parted never to meet again. there is the ditch park's horse stumbled over and all but fell. "i am afraid, mungo, that's a bad omen," said the sheriff; to which he answered, with a bright smile on his handsome, fearless face—"freits (omens) follow those who look to them." with this expression, he struck the spurs into his horse, and scott never saw him again. he had not long been married to a lovely and much-loved woman, and had been speaking to scott about his new african scheme, and how he meant to tell his family he had some business in edinburgh—send them his blessing, and be off—alas! never to return! scott used to say, when speaking[pg 179] of this parting, "i stood and looked back, but he did not." a more memorable place for two such men to part in would not easily be found.
where we are standing is the spot scott speaks of when writing to joanna baillie about her new tragedies—"were it possible for me to hasten the treat i expect in such a composition with you, i would promise to read the volume at the silence of noonday upon the top of minchmoor. the hour is allowed, by those skilful in demonology, to be as full of witching as midnight itself; and i assure you i have felt really oppressed with a sort of fearful loneliness when looking around the naked towering ridges of desolate barrenness, which is all the eye takes in from the top of such a mountain, the patches of cultivation being hidden in the little glens, or only appearing to make one feel how feeble and ineffectual man has been to contend with the genius of the soil. it is in such a scene that the unknown and gifted author of albania places the superstition which consists in hearing the noise of a chase, the baying of the hounds, the throttling sobs of the deer, the wild hollos of the huntsmen, and the 'hoof thick beating on the hollow hill.' i have often repeated his verses with some sensations of awe, in this place." the lines—and they are noble, and must have sounded wonderful with his voice and look—are as[pg 180] follows. can no one tell us anything more of their author?—
"there oft is heard, at midnight, or at noon,
beginning faint, but rising still more loud,
and nearer, voice of hunters, and of hounds;
and horns, hoarse-winded, blowing far and keen!
forthwith the hubbub multiplies; the gale
labours with wilder shrieks, and rifer din
of hot pursuit; the broken cry of deer
mangled by throttling dogs; the shouts of men,
and hoofs thick beating on the hollow hill.
sudden the grazing heifer in the vale
starts at the noise, and both the herdman's ears
tingle with inward dread—aghast he eyes
the mountain's height, and all the ridges round,
yet not one trace of living wight discerns,
nor knows, o'erawed and trembling as he stands,
to what or whom he owes his idle fear—
to ghost, to witch, to fairy, or to fiend;
but wonders, and no end of wondering finds."
we listened for the hunt, but could only hear the wind sobbing from the blind "hopes."[3]
the view from the top reaches from the huge harestane broadlaw—nearly as high as ben lomond—whose top is as flat as a table, and would make a race-course of two miles, and where the clouds are still brooding, to the cheviot; and from the maiden paps in liddesdale, and that wild huddle of hills at [pg 181]moss paul, to dunse law, and the weird lammermoors. there is ruberslaw, always surly and dark. the dunion, beyond which lies jedburgh. there are the eildons, with their triple heights; and you can get a glimpse of the upper woods of abbotsford, and the top of the hill above cauldshiels loch, that very spot where the "wondrous potentate,"—when suffering from languor and pain, and beginning to break down under his prodigious fertility,—composed those touching lines:—
"the sun upon the weirdlaw hill
in ettrick's vale is sinking sweet;
the westland wind is hushed and still;
the lake lies sleeping at my feet.
yet not the landscape to mine eye
bears those bright hues that once it bore,
though evening, with her richest dye,
flames o'er the hills of ettrick's shore.
with listless look along the plain
i see tweed's silver current glide,
and coldly mark the holy fane
of melrose rise in ruined pride.
the quiet lake, and balmy air,
the hill, the stream, the tower, the tree,
are they still such as once they were,
or is the dreary change in me?
alas! the warped and broken board,
how can it bear the painter's dye!
the harp of strained and tuneless chord,
how to the minstrel's skill reply!
[pg 182]to aching eyes each landscape lowers,
to feverish pulse each gale blows chill;
and araby or eden's bowers
were barren as this moorland hill."
there, too, is minto hill, as modest and shapely and smooth as clytie's shoulders, and earlston black hill, with cowdenknowes at its foot; and there, standing stark and upright as a warder, is the stout old smailholme tower, seen and seeing all around. it is quite curious how unmistakable and important it looks at what must be twenty and more miles. it is now ninety years since that "lonely infant," who has sung its awful joys, was found in a thunderstorm, as we all know, lying on the soft grass at the foot of the grey old strength, clapping his hands at each flash, and shouting, "bonny! bonny!"
we now descended into yarrow, and forgathered with a shepherd who was taking his lambs over to the great melrose fair. he was a fine specimen of a border herd—young, tall, sagacious, self-contained, and free in speech and air. we got his heart by praising his dog jed, a very fine collie, black and comely, gentle and keen—"ay, she's a fell yin; she can do a' but speak." on asking him if the sheep dogs needed much teaching—"whyles ay and whyles no; her kind (jed's) needs nane. she sooks't in wi' her mither's milk." on asking[pg 183] him if the dogs were ever sold, he said—"never, but at an orra time. naebody wad sell a gude dowg, and naebody wad buy an ill ane." he told us with great feeling, of the death of one of his best dogs by poison. it was plainly still a grief to him. "what was he poisoned with?" "strychnia," he said, as decidedly as might dr christison. "how do you know?" "i opened him, puir fallow, and got him analeezed!"
now we are on birkindale brae, and are looking down on the same scene as did
"james boyd (the earle of arran, his brother was he),"
when he crossed minchmoor on his way to deliver james the fifth's message to
"yon outlaw murray,
surely whaur bauldly bideth he."
"down birkindale brae when that he cam
he saw the feir foreste wi' his ee."
how james boyd fared, and what the outlaw said, and what james and his nobles said and did, and how the outlaw at last made peace with his king, and rose up "sheriffe of ettricke foreste," and how the bold ruffian boasted,
[pg 184]
"fair philiphaugh is mine by right,
and lewinshope still mine shall be;
newark, foulshiels, and tinnies baith
my bow and arrow purchased me.
and i have native steads to me
the newark lee o' hangingshaw.
i have many steads in the forest schaw,
but them by name i dinna knaw."
and how king james snubbed
"the kene laird of buckscleuth,
a stalwart man and stern was he."
when the laird hinted that,
"for a king to gang an outlaw till
is beneath his state and dignitie.
the man that wins yon forest intill
he lives by reif and felony."
"then out and spak the nobil king,
and round him cast a wilie ee.
'now haud thy tongue, sir walter scott,
nor speak o' reif or felonie—
for, had every honest man his awin kye,
a richt puir clan thy name wud be!'"
(by-the-bye, why did professor aytoun leave out this excellent hit in his edition?)—all this and much more may you see if you take up the border minstrelsy, and read "the song of the outlaw murray," with the incomparable[pg 185] notes of scott. but we are now well down the hill. there to the left, in the hollow, is permanscore, where the king and the outlaw met:—
"bid him mete me at permanscore,
and bring four in his companie;
five erles sall cum wi' mysel',
gude reason i sud honoured be."
and there goes our shepherd with his long swinging stride. as different from his dark, wily companion, the badenoch drover, as was harry wakefield from robin oig; or as the big, sunny cheviot is from the lowering ruberslaw; and there is jed trotting meekly behind him—may she escape strychnia, and, dying at the fireside among the children, be laid like
"paddy tims—whose soul at aise is—
with the point of his nose
and the tips of his toes
turn'd up to the roots of the daisies"—
unanaleezed, save by the slow cunning of the grave. and may her master get the top price for his lambs!
do you see to the left that little plantation on the brow of foulshiels hill, with the sunlight lying on its upper corner? if you were there you might find among the brackens[pg 186] and foxglove a little headstone with "i. t." rudely carved on it. that is tibbie tamson's grave, known and feared all the country round.
this poor outcast was a selkirk woman, who, under the stress of spiritual despair—that sense of perdition, which, as in cowper's case, often haunts and overmasters the deepest and gentlest natures, making them think themselves
"damn'd below judas, more abhorred than he was,"—
committed suicide; and being, with the gloomy, cruel superstition of the time, looked on by her neighbours as accursed of god, she was hurried into a rough white deal coffin, and carted out of the town, the people stoning it all the way till it crossed the ettrick. here, on this wild hillside, it found its rest, being buried where three lairds' lands meet. may we trust that the light of god's reconciled countenance has for all these long years been resting on that once forlorn soul, as his blessed sunshine now lies on her moorland grave! for "the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the lord that hath mercy on thee."
now, we see down into the yarrow—there is the famous stream twinkling in the sun.[pg 187] what stream and valley was ever so be-sung! you wonder at first why this has been, but the longer you look the less you wonder. there is a charm about it—it is not easy to say what. the huge sunny hills in which it is embosomed give it a look at once gentle and serious. they are great, and their gentleness makes them greater. wordsworth has the right words, "pastoral melancholy"; and besides, the region is "not uninformed with phantasy and looks that threaten the profane"—the flowers of yarrow, the douglas tragedy, the dowie dens, wordsworth's yarrow unvisited, visited, and re-visited, and, above all, the glamour of sir walter, and park's fatal and heroic story. where can you find eight more exquisite lines anywhere than logan's, which we all know by heart:—
"his mother from the window looked,
with all the longing of a mother;
his little sister, weeping, walked
the greenwood path to meet her brother.
they sought him east, they sought him west,
they sought him all the forest thorough—
they only saw the cloud of night,
they only heard the roar of yarrow."
and there is newark tower among the rich woods; and harehead, that cosiest, loveliest, and hospitablest of nests. methinks i hear certain young voices among the hazels; out[pg 188] they come on the little haugh by the side of the deep, swirling stream, fabulosus as was ever hydaspes. there they go "running races in their mirth," and is not that—an me ludit amabilis insania?—the voice of ma pauvre petite—animosa infans—the wilful, rich-eyed, delicious eppie?
"oh blessed vision, happy child,
thou art so exquisitely wild!"
and there is black andro and glowr owr'em and foulshiels, where park was born and bred; and there is the deep pool in the yarrow where scott found him plunging one stone after another into the water, and watching anxiously the bubbles as they rose to the surface. "this," said scott to him, "appears but an idle amusement for one who has seen so much adventure." "not so idle, perhaps, as you suppose," answered mungo, "this was the way i used to ascertain the depth of a river in africa." he was then meditating his second journey, but had said so to no one.
we go down by broadmeadows, now held by that yair "hoppringle"—who so well governed scinde—and into the grounds of bowhill, and passing philiphaugh, see where stout david lesly crossed in the mist at daybreak with his heavy dragoons, many of them old soldiers of gustavus, and routed the gallant graeme; and[pg 189] there is slainmens lee, where the royalists lie; and there is carterhaugh, the scene of the strange wild story of tamlane and lady janet, when
"she prinked hersell and prinned hersell
by the ae light of the moon,
and she's awa' to carterhaugh
to speak wi' young tamlane."
noel paton might paint that night, when
"'twixt the hours of twelve and yin
a north wind tore the bent";
when "fair janet" in her green mantle
"—— heard strange elritch sounds
upon the wind that went."
and straightway
"about the dead hour o' the night
she heard the bridles ring;
their oaten pipes blew wondrous shrill,
the hemlock small blew clear;
and louder notes from hemlock large
and bog reed, struck the ear,"
and then the fairy cavalcade swept past, while janet, filled with love and fear, looked out for the milk-white steed, and "gruppit it fast," and "pu'd the rider doon," the young tamlane,[pg 190] whom, after dipping "in a stand of milk and then in a stand of water,"
"she wrappit ticht in her green mantle,
and sae her true love won!"
this ended our walk. we found the carriage at the philiphaugh home-farm, and we drove home by yair and fernilee, ashestiel and elibank, and passed the bears as ferocious as ever, "the orange sky of evening" glowing through their wild tusks, the old house looking even older in the fading light. and is not this a walk worth making? one of our number had been at the land's end and johnnie groat's, and now on minchmoor; and we wondered how many other men had been at all the three, and how many had enjoyed minchmoor more than he.
dr john brown.
