A couple of miles up Ettrick, above Tushielaw, is Thirlestane, the seat of Lord Napier of Ettrick, surrounded by its woods. It is a mansion built something less than a hundred years ago, but close to it are the remains of the old Thirlestane Castle. I do not know if Hertford's long arm was responsible in 1544 for its ruin. It is probable enough. The stronghold belonged then to Sir John Scott, a prominent man in those days, and the only Scottish baron at Fala-muir who did not refuse to follow James V into England, for which reason the king charged "our lion herauld and his deputies for the time be and, to give and to graunt to the said John Scott, ane Border of ffleure de lises about his coatte of armes, sik as is on our royal banner, and alsua ane bundell of launces above his helmet, with thir words, Readdy, ay Readdy, that he and all his after-cummers may bruik the samine as a pledge and taiken of our guid will and kyndnes for his true worthines." Lord Napier is this John Scott's descendant.
Across the river from Thirlestane are the ruins of another castle—Gamescleuch, built by Simon Scott, named Long Spear, a son of John of Thirlestane. Tradition says that Gamescleuch was never occupied, but was allowed to fall into decay because its owner, Simon of the Spear, was poisoned by his step-mother the night before he should have been married and have taken up his abode there.
We are getting far into the wild hills now, near to the head of Ettrick, by Ettrick Pen, Wind Fell, and Capel Fell, all hills considerably over two thousand feet in height. But before crossing over to Yarrow and St. Mary's, there remain to be noticed Ettrick Kirk, and James Hogg's birthplace, Ettrick Hall. Ettrick Kirk, of course, is inalienably associated with the Rev. Thomas Boston, "Boston of Ettrick," minister of the parish for a quarter of a century, a man who left a deep mark on the religious life of Scotland. He died here in 1732, and his monument stands in the little graveyard by the kirk, not lar from the head-stone to the memory of the Ettrick Shepherd, and near to the spot where, as the stone tells us, "lyeth William Laidlaw, the far-famed Will of Phaup, who for feats of Frolic, Agility, and Strength, had no equal in his day." Liaidlaw was Hogg's grandfather.
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How many persons now-a-days are familiar with, or indeed, perhaps, ever heard of, Boston's "Fourfold State," or his "Crook in the Lot"? Perhaps in Ettrick there may yet be, in cottages, an odd copy or two, belonging to, and possibly yet read by, very old people. But Boston, who as a theologian had once so marked an influence, is now little more than a name, even to the descendants of his flock in Ettrick, and his books, which formerly were to be found in almost every peasant's house in Scotland, are unknown to later generations. Nor, perhaps, is that great matter for wonder. It must be confessed that these writings, which, up to even quite a recent date, had so great a hold on the Scottish peasant, and which, indeed, with the Bible formed almost his only reading, do not appeal to present day readers. The plums in the pudding to modern eyes seem few and far between. But there are plums to be found, and many a forcible expression. In "The Crook in the Lot," for instance, where his theme is profligacy, the expression is a happy one whereby he warns the vicious man against the possibility of a "leap out of Delilah's lap into Abraham's bosom."
Like most of his class and creed in those days, Boston was stern and unbending in his Calvinism, and when he came to Ettrick in 1707, he was faced by a state of affairs that bred for a time great friction between minister and congregation. The flock had been for a while without a shepherd, and laxity had crept into their church-going. Boston had to complain of the "indecent carriage of the people at the kirk, going out and in, and up and down the kirkyard the time of divine service." But he speedily drilled them into a line of conduct more seemly; and whereas when he dispensed the Sacrament for the first time in 1710 there had been present only fifty-seven communicants, in 1731 when he dispensed it for the last time, there were no fewer than seven hundred and seventy-seven. Crowds of people from other parishes came vast distances over the pathless mountains in order to be present. Where did they all find food and accommodation, one wonders. The farmers, then as now the most hospitable and kindly of human beings, fed and housed numbers, as a matter of course, but they could not accommodate all, and there was then no inn at Tushielaw, none indeed nearer than Selkirk. Great must have been the fervour of those many scores of men and women who resolutely tramped so far over the wild hills to be present at "the Sacrament." There were no roads in those days, or practically none.
