[Original]
and after the Hays, by purchase came the Queensberry family, of whom, the fourth Duke, "Old Q.," Wordsworth's "Degenerate Douglas," "unworthy lord," did his best to wreck the estate in 1795. What he could spoil and disfigure, he did spoil and disfigure. And here at Neidpath he swept off the face of nature every stick of timber, old and young, that could be felled or destroyed, leaving, as far as lay in his power, the landscape bare almost as it was when primeval chaos ended. Replanting could not be set about as long as "Old Q." lived, and a hundred years scarce repaired the damage he did. It is curious to note how one who in all respects during his life was so very far removed from grace, at the end wished to lie (where I believe his body does lie), under the Communion Table of St. James's Church, Piccadilly—in his estimation perhaps a sort of side-gate or private entrance to Heaven. The path is steep and the way thorny to most of us. And how fares "Old Q."? I hardly think that the inhabitants of Peebles, had they been Roman Catholics at the time of his death, would have paid for Masses for the soul of the dead "Old Q.," as they did lang syne for the soul of the dead King James the First.
Neidpath Castle is said by old Dr. Pennecuick to have been in reality the stronghold which was anciently called the Castle of Peebles. But there are allusions to the "Castel of Peebles" in the Earl of Tweeddale's Rental book for 1685, and Neidpath was Neidpath centuries before that date. On this subject, Professor Veitch, writing about 1877, says: "The Castle of Peebles was standing and inhabited in the early part of last century. It was afterwards pulled down, and the materials converted, according to the morality and taste of the time, into one of the least architecturally attractive palish edifices in Christendom." As to Neidpath's age, there is no sure record, but as it was a seat of that Sir Simon Fraser who defeated the English three times in one day at Roslin Muir in 1303, its antiquity must be very great. And what a place of immense strength it must originally have been, before the days of artillery. Its walls are ten feet thick, put together with that ancient form of cement which, when dry, became hard as the stones it bound together; and it stands on a high rock overhanging an elbow of Tweed where the water is deep, and was therefore on the river face unassailable.
[Original]
But the day of artillery came too soon for Neidpath. It fell before the guns of Cromwell in 1650. after a most gallant resistance under the young Lord Yester,—father, I suppose, of the Lord Yester who wrote the fine old ballad "Tweedside."
Like every other part of the Yale of Tweed, here also it is beautiful. Looking back towards Peebles from above Neidpath the view is very fine, though perhaps an eyesore may be found in the unwholesome speckled appearance given to the castle by the way in which the "facing" of its walls has been done.
Little more than a mile from here, Tweed is joined by Manor Water, a stream now probably best known as that beside which stands the cottage of "Bowed Davie," the original of Scott's "Black Dwarf" of Mucklestane Muir. Sir Walter was staying at Hallyards, on Manor Water, in 1797, with his friend Adam Ferguson, and it was on that occasion that he first saw David Ritchie, a poor mis-shapen dwarf, embittered by the derision which his extraordinary personal appearance everywhere brought on him, and who had retired to this unfrequented valley, where he built himself a cottage of dimensions in keeping with his own stature.