Would that one could say the same with regard to the effect of their dyes and refuse on the condition of the river. By a steep red "scaur" below Linglie there once was a pool clearer than amber, across which in summer weather small boys, breathless but greatly daring, essayed to swim. Farther down, at the back of Lindean Flour Mill, was another, where in the long twilights of June,
". . trout beneath the blossom'd tree,
Plashed in the golden stream,"
and whence many a pounder and half-pounder was drawn by eager young fishers. Where is that seductive amber-clear water now? Alas! in these days it is of a sickly blue tint, smelling evilly; and the stones in its bed, that once were a clear, warm grey, with yellow boulders interspersed that flashed in the stream of a sunny day like burnished copper,—they are slime-covered and loathsome, things to be shunned. Surely more can be done to check this pollution of our beautiful streams. So far as can be ascertained, there is but one of the mills of Selkirk that strives (and I believe it strives successfully,) so to deal with its refuse that the water it uses may be returned to Ettrick in a condition that does not defile that stream. Nevertheless, it has to be admitted that during the autumn floods salmon do run the gauntlet of Ettrick's lower reaches, and in countless numbers congregate below Selkirk Cauld (or weir), where the difficulty of ascent acts as a partial check on their continued migration. On a day in the month of November, if there should happen to be a considerable flood in the river, this cauld is a sight worth going a long way to look at. A wide rushing sea of tawny, foaming water—a hundred yards from bank to bank—races over the sloping face of the cauld, and, where it plunges into the deep pool at foot, rears itself in a mighty wave, with crest that tosses in the wintry breeze "like the mane of a chestnut steed." From daylight till dark you may watch the fish,—big and little, from the thirty-pound leviathan to the little one or two-pound sea trout—in their eagerness to reach the spawning-beds of the upper waters, hurl themselves high in air over this great barrier-wave, then, gallantly struggling, continue for a while their course up the rushing torrent, till gradually they lose way and come tumbling back, head over tail, into the pool from which half a minute before they had emerged. It is like standing by one of the jumps in an endless kind of tinny Grand National Steeple-chase; so many fish are in the air at once at any given moment that one becomes giddy with watching them. Probably a good many do in time accomplish the ascent, or perhaps get up by the salmon-ladders in mid-stream, but the great majority are swept back, over and over again. Those that make their attempt near the side, in the shallow water out of the main force of the current, are frequently taken in landing-nets (by water-bailiffs stationed there for the purpose), and are carried up and set at liberty in the smooth water above the cauld. It must be confessed that a considerable number are also taken in this way, or with the help of a "cleek," by poachers. The bailiffs cannot be everywhere; and a salmon is a temptation before which (in the Border) almost the most virtuous of his sex might conceivably succumb. The average Borderer, indeed, I believe would cheerfully risk his life sometimes, rather than forego his chance of "a Fish."—"The only crime prevalent [in Selkirk] is that of poaching," says the Rev. Mr. Campbell, minister of the parish for fifty years, writing in 1833. There was one, greatly sinning in this respect, of whom nevertheless, because of his gallant end, I cannot think without a feeling almost of affection. He—with a fish where no fish should have been—was hopelessly outmanoeuvred by the bailiffs, escape cut off on every side, and only the river, red, swollen, and cold as ice, open to him. "Here's daith or glory for Jockie!" he cried, and plunged into a torrent from which he came no more alive.
A little higher up than the cauld is the Piper's Pool, where, until he was hit by a chance bullet that brought him rolling like a shot rabbit down the brae into the water, a piper stood piping that September morning of 1645, when Montrose and Leslie were striving for the victory. On the bank above, those inhabitants of Selkirk who cared to run some risk—which was probably the whole community—took up their position and watched the fight as from a grand stand. There is no better vantage point imaginable.
Leslie, I suppose, crossing opposite the gap called Will's Nick, (not far from Lindean), came up the left bank of Ettrick and, hidden by the fog, skirted along the edge of the hills till he was within striking distance of the Royal camp, when he took them, no doubt, both in flank and in rear. But how did a man of Montrose's experience allow himself to be thus fooled? Montrose passed the night in Selkirk, and he received no information whatever of any hostile movement. It was too late when he and what mounted men he could hastily collect came thundering and foaming through the shallow stream next morning, and went spurring over the flat haugh against the enemy. Someone besides Traquair must have played him false. It is inconceivable that he had no pickets out, or employed none of his cavalry on outpost duty. If they were out, in spite of the fog they could not fail to have got in touch with some part of Leslie's force. No large body of troops could have come undetected by a route so obvious, if those on the look-out for them were doing their duty.
Selkirk on this occasion saw war, as it were from the dress circle. The town was burned to the ground by the English after Flodden, and at various other odd times, but I do not think that it ever saw much actual street fighting such as was the experience of Jedburgh again and again. Selkirk was out of the main current of invasion, and it was only odd "spates" that came her way, such as when, in 1304, Edward I passed through the town on his march back to England; and again when in 1309 Edward II, following an unexpected route to the north, took her on his way. Still, Selkirk had always been familiar with at least the pomp and circumstance of war. The town was old when Earl David founded its abbey in 1113; probably it had always been a headquarters of the Scottish Kings and their retinue, when hunting in the Forest. Certainly William the Lion, Alexander II, and Alexander III all passed a good deal of time in his castle, which of old stood on an eminence in what are now the grounds of Haining, near the "head" of the town. Probably the Court came here chiefly for the purpose of hunting; the Forest of Ettrick was famed for its deer, as its men—unlike the majority of their countrymen—were famed for their archery. At Falkirk, in 1298, the English themselves bore witness to the warlike prowess of the men of Selkirk, as well as to their stature and fine appearance. At Bannockburn the sons of the forest distinguished themselves. And again at Flodden.
Regarding the part borne by her sons in the last-named great struggle, there are many trad-'fons to which the inhabitants of Selkirk cling tenaciously. Some, I fear, will not bear too close investigation, Traditions are mis-chancey things to handle; it does not always do to enquire too closely if one would retain one's faith. A large body of the men of Selkirk and the Forest went to Flodden, and they fought as they always did fight. That much, at least, is certain. But who shall say how many returned from that fatal field? The Burgh Records are silent. There is a mournful gap of two months in the history of the town; not an entry of any sort for eight weeks in the autumn of 1513. And, says Mr. Craig-Brown in his History of Selkirkshire, "Quite as mournful and significant are the frequent services of heirs recorded after the battle." Selkirk suffered severely at Flodden. There, as elsewhere, her sons did their duty; and they fell gloriously. One could wish that that might suffice: it is an ungrateful task to rake among the dead cinders of time-honoured traditions. But it is the detestable habit of the day to leave none of our ancient beliefs unassailed: the more beloved the tradition, the more likely is some one to remain unsatisfied till he has upset it. Yet it must be admitted that few of our cherished legends emerge triumphant when assailed by the scoffer. That, for instance, of Fletcher and the English standard captured at Flodden, which has been revered in Selkirk by so many generations of Souters, I fear, when it is investigated, must crumble into dust.
Certainly the tradition regarding the origin of the town's Arms is impossible of maintenance. The figures are so obviously those of the Virgin and Child; the halo and the glory round their heads forbid any other interpretation. But it is easy to imagine that after the Reformation no Scottish town would care to acknowledge any connection, however remote, with the detested Church of Rome. Hence probably the legend of the dead woman and her still living baby who were found at the Lady-wood Edge by the Selkirk survivors of Flodden. Such a body, of course, may quite possibly have been discovered, and the tradition would be used later to account for the figures that appear in the town's Arms. Just in the same way is a gargoyle in Melrose Abbey, beside the reputed grave of Michael Scott, now pointed out to American and English tourists as an authentic representation in stone of that mighty Wizard.
As to the "Souters of Selkirk," there can be no proof either way; but I prefer to believe that the song is old, almost as old as Flodden. Perhaps I have misread Mr. Craig Brown, and am wrong in believing that he regards it as commemorating a famous football match played in 1815 between Souters and men under the leadership of Lord Home. If that were so, it could not have been sung at Dalkeith in 1804, when the Selkirkshire Yeomanry were present at a banquet there after the False Alarm. We read that Lord Home called for the song on that occasion, but that none of the Yeomanry cared to sing it before a man on whose ancestor it reflects, whereupon, amid rapturous applause, Lord Home sang it himself. If it refers to a football match, it must be to one of very ancient date, but one that surely could not fall to have left some mark on the minds of the Souters. Mr. Plummer, of Sunderland Hall, Sheriff Depute of the county prior to Sir Walter Scott, writing in 1793 says that though he had lived all his life within two miles of Selkirk and had known the song from his boyhood, there was not in his day, and he believed there never had been, any tradition connecting the song with anything of the nature of a football match. The verses may not have been written, probably were not written, immediately after the battle, but I am confident that it refers to Flodden—in spite of the fact that there was then no Earl of Home. No doubt the song has had variants from time, to time; probably there was no allusion to an "Earl" in the original verses. Popular calumny shortly after Flodden taxed Lord Home with having been the cause of James's defeat and death; he was unable, as we know, to come to his Sovereign's aid. This popular belief, coupled with the fact that Selkirks representatives suffered more cruelly than did Lord Home's men—-and therefore, of course local prejudice would infer, did their duty better—would be quite sufficient to give rise to the sentiment: "Down wi' the Merse to the Deil." In his letter of 1793, referred to above, Mr. Plummer says: "At election dinners, etc., when the Selkirk folks begin to get fou' they always call for music, and for that tune in particular. At such times I never heard a Souter hint at the football, but many times speak of the battle of Flodden." So far as it goes, there is nothing in the evidence to suggest a football origin for "The Souters of Selkirk."