Whatever record leap to light,
He never shall be shamed!
To have done with the “Scott Country,” we should hold on westward up the Tweed to where its sources almost mingle with those of the Clyde, below the bold mass of Tinto and other hills that might claim a less modest title. This route would bring us by the renowned inn of Clovenfords, “howff” of Christopher North and many another choice spirit, by Ashestiel, then by Innerleithen, set up as a spa through its claim to represent St. Ronan’s; and so to Peebles, a haunt of pleasure since the days when James I. wrote of “Peeblis to the play.” For some reason or other, Peebles and Paisley have become butts of Gotham banter, their very names attracting the sly jests by which Scotsmen love to make fun of themselves. But neither of them is a town to be sneezed at. Peebles, for its part, after falling into a rather sleepy state, has been wakened up in our time through the Tontine “hottle,” that so much excited Meg Dods’ scorn; the huge Hydropathic that has introduced German bath practice into Scotland; and the Institution bestowed on the town by William Chambers, who hence set out to turn the proverbial half-crown into a goodly fortune. Was it not at this Institution that the local Mutual Improvement Society gravely debated the question, “Shall the material Universe be destroyed?” and decided, by a majority of one, in the negative! When Sir Cresswell Cresswell, from his peculiar bench, laid down the dictum that marriages between May and December often turned out ill, it must have been a Paisley statistician who wrote to him for the data on which he founded his assertion that “marriages contracted in the latter part of the year, etc.” But Paisley has its manufacturing prosperity to fling in the teeth of calumny; and Peebles has romantic as well as comic associations, notably its Neidpath Castle and its Manor Water Glen, haunted by memories of the Black Dwarf.
The leisurely tourist might gain Edinburgh by a
branch line through Peebles, and this route can be recommended to the hippogriffs of cycles and motors. Beyond the Catrail, ancient barrier of the Picts or the Britons of Strathclyde, our main railroad, as its way is, keeps on straight up the course of the Gala, leaving to its right the dreary Lammermoors; then between the Castles of Borthwick and Crichton, it enters on the more prosaic Lothian country. To the left is seen the Pentland ridge, and straight ahead springs up the cone of Arthur’s Seat beaconing us to Edinburgh, goal of the race for which a Caledonian express will be speeding along the farther side of the Pentlands.
And not a kilt have we seen yet, since leaving London! Of this more anon; kilts are not at home on the Borders, though I have seen one on the Welsh Marches, worn in conjunction with a pith helmet by a retired Liverpool tradesman. Since “gloves of steel” and “helmets barred” went out of fashion on Tweedside, the local colour has been that modest shepherd’s plaid displayed in Lord Brougham’s trousers to the ribaldry of Punch, and even that goes out of homely wear. You may buy Scott and Douglas tartans in the shops, but they seem vain things, fondly invented, as indeed are some of the patterns now seen in the Highlands. But there will be a good show of kilts in Edinburgh Castle, where once they were like to be bestowed in the dungeon:—