Illustrations of the Author of Waverley / Being Notices and Anecdotes of Real Characters, Scenes, and Incidents Supposed to Be Described in His Works

by Robert Chambers

SMAILHOLM TOWER.

We hope to be able to show, from the description of this ancient fortress, that it agrees in the leading features with Avenel Castle; and if the reader will carry back his imagination for two centuries, he will be better able to minute the resemblance. Smailholm tower, distant about seven miles from Melrose to the east, and eight from Kelso to the west, is the most perfect relic of the feudal keep in the south of Scotland. It stands upon a rock of considerable height, in the centre of an amphitheatre of craggy hills, which rise many hundred feet above the level of the fertile plains of the Merse. Between the hills there appear ravines of some depth, which, being covered with straggling clumps of mountain shrubs, afford an agreeable relief to the rocks which are continually starting upon the eye. Nature indeed seems to have destined this isolated spot for a bulwark against the border marauders; but its strength and security was not confined to the encircling eminences. It chiefly lay in a deep and dangerous loch, which completely environed the castle, and extended on every side to the hills. Of this loch only a small portion remains, it having been drained, many years ago, for the convenience of the farmer on whose estate it was thought a nuisance. But the fact is evident, not only from the swampiness of the ground, which only a few years since created a dangerous morass, but from the appearance of the remaining pool, which has hitherto defied the efforts of the numerous drain-beds which surround it in every direction. Some people in the neighbourhood recollect and can mark out the extent of the large sheet of water which gave so romantic an air to this shred of antiquity.

We cannot omit giving the following animated picture of the local beauties, from the pencil of Sir Walter Scott.

“—Then rise those crags, that mountain tower,

Which charmed my fancy’s wakening hour.

* * * *

It was a barren scene and wild,

Where naked cliffs were rudely piled:

But ever and anon between

Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green;

And well the lonely infant knew

Recesses where the wall-flower grew,

And honeysuckle loved to crawl

Up the low crag and ruined wall:

I deemed such nooks the sweetest shade

The sun in all his round surveyed;

And still I thought that shattered tower[72]

The mightiest work of human power;

And marvelled, as the aged hind

With some strange tale bewitched my mind,

Of forayers who, with headlong force,

Down from that strength had spurred their horse,

Their southern rapine to renew,

Far in the distant Cheviots blue,

And, home-returning, filled the hall

With revel, wassail-rout, and ball.”

There is much feeling in this description; and so might there be, for the early years of the bard were passed in the farmhouse of Sandy-knowe (about a bow-shot from the tower,) with a maternal aunt, whose mind was stored with border legends, which she related to her youthful charge. With this instructress, and by poring incessantly for many years on the relics of antiquity which are to be found in the neighbourhood, it is probable that he first received the impressions that afterwards came forward to such an illustrious maturity, and stored his imagination with those splendid images of chivalry that have since been embodied in imperishable song.

The external appearance of the tower may be briefly described. The walls are of a quadrangular shape, and about nine feet in thickness. They have none of the decorations of buttress or turret; and if there were any ornamental carving, time has swept it away. A ruined bartizan, which runs across three angles of the building, near the top, is the only outward addition to the naked square donjon. The tower has been entered on the west side, as all the other quarters rise perpendicularly from the lake. Accordingly, there we discern the fragments of a causeway, and the ruins of a broad portal, whence a drawbridge seems to have communicated with an eminence about a hundred yards distant. On this quarter also there may be traced the site of several small booths which contained the retainers or men-at-arms of the feudal lord.

On the west side,[73] at a little distance from the Castle, is the Watch Crag, a massive rock, on the top of which a fire was lit to announce the approach of the English forayers to the neighbourhood. It is thus described in the ballad of the Eve of St. John:

“The bittern clamoured from the moss,

The wind blew loud and shrill;

Yet the craggy pathway she did cross

To the airy beacon hill.

* * * *

I watched her steps, and silent came,

Where she sat her all alone;

No watchman stood by the dreary flame,

It burnèd all alone.”

The interior of the castle bespeaks the mansion of the lesser Scottish Baron. The sunk-floor, or keep, seems, from its structure, to have contained the cattle of the Baron during seasons of alarm and invasion. It is vaulted in the roof, and the light is admitted by a small outshot. Some have conjectured that this apartment was occupied as a dungeon, or Massy More, where the captives taken in war were confined; but this idea is improbable, not only from the comfortable appearance it exhibits, but from the circumstance of every border fortress having a place of the description formerly alluded to. Ascending a narrow winding staircase, we arrive at a spacious hall, with the customary distinction of a huge chimney-piece. The roof is gone, but the stone props of it, which were of course the support of another floor, remain. This latter would seem to have been the grand banqueting-room, where the prodigal hospitality of our ancestors was displayed in its usual style of extravagance. There also remain the marks of a higher floor, thus making three storeys in all. The highest opens by a few steps to the bartizan we have already mentioned, whence we ascend to a grass-grown battlement, which commands a magnificent prospect. To the east the spires of Berwick are descried, terminating an extensive plain, beautified by the windings of the Tweed; to the south, the conical summits of the Eildon Hills; to the north, the Lammermoors rear their barren heads above the verdant hills of the Merse; and on the south, the blue Cheviots are seen stretching through a lengthened vista of smaller hills. Besides this grand outline, the eye can take in a smaller range, beyond the rocky barrier of the Castle,—a most cultivated dale, varied with peaceful hamlets, crystal streams, and towering forests.

The history of the ancient possessors of the tower is involved in obscurity. We only know that there were Barons of Smailholm, but no memorable qualities are recorded of them. They were, as we already observed, in the rank of the lesser Barons—that is, those who had not the patent of peerage, but who were dignified only by the extent of their possessions. But we know that the present proprietor, Mr. Scott, of Harden, is not a descendant of that ancient family, as we believe he acquired the estate by purchase. This gentleman cares so little for the antique pile within his domains, that it is not long since he intimated his intention to raze it to the ground, and from its materials to erect a steading to the farm of Sandy-knowe. This would have certainly taken place, had not his poetic kinsman, Sir Walter Scott, interfered, and averted the sacrilegious intent; and to prevent the recurrence of the resolution, he composed the admired ballad of the Eve of St. John, which ranks among the best in the Border Minstrelsy.

Tradition bears that it was inhabited by an aged lady at the beginning of the last century, and several old people still alive remember of the joists and window-frames being entire. A more interesting legend exists, of which the purport is, that there was once a human skull within this tower, possessed of the miraculous faculty of self-motion to such a degree, that, if taken away to any distance, it was always sure to have found its way back to its post by the next morning.[74] This may perhaps remind the reader of the strange journeys performed by the “black volume” in the Monastery, whose rambling disposition was such a source of terror and amazement to the monks of St. Mary’s.

CHAPTER XI.

The Romances.