In close proximity to the castle is an old graveyard, with remains—at least the foundations—of a pre-Reformation church and a few interesting old stones, two, at least, apparently very ancient, if one may judge from the style of sword cut on them. Not far from this are traces of the old Roman Road, and near at hand a stone bridge, also believed to be Roman, once crossed the stream. But it is said—with what truth I know not—to have been destroyed long ago by a Minister, whose care of his flock was such that, to prevent the lads of Langholm strolling that way of an evening, disturbing the peace of mind and pious meditations of his female domestics, he demolished it.
As in the case of Selkirk, and of Hawick, the great festival of the year at Langholm is on the occasion of the Fair and Common Riding. In the Proclamation of the Fair, after a statement of the penalties to be imposed on disturbers of the festival, the curious words occur: "They shall sit down on their bare knees and pray seven times for the King, and thrice for the Muckle Laird o' Ralton." The Laird of Ralton was an illegitimate son of Charles II, but what he had to do with Eskdale, or what is the origin of the words, I have been quite unable to learn.
To go, even superficially, into the history of Langholm and of the interesting and beautiful country surrounding it, would occupy much space, and neither time nor space is available.
Here, amongst the hills and the many waters, we must leave the Border. It is a country whose mountains are seldom grand or awe-inspiring, as in some parts of the Scottish Highlands they may be; its streams do not flow with the rich majesty of Thames, nor with the mighty volume of Tay; and there are, doubtless, rivers possessed of wilder scenery. But to the true Borderer, however long absent he be, into what part soever of the world he may have been driven by the Fates, there are no hills like the Border hills—they are indeed to him "the Delectable Mountains"; there are no waters so loved, none that sing to him so sweetly as Tweed and all the streams of his own land. "If I did not see the heather at least once a year, I think I should die," said Scott. To a greater or less extent it is so with all of us. One of her most loving sons (he who should have guided the course of this volume, and who, had he lived, would have made of it something worthy of the Border), once said, on his return from a visit to famed Killarney: "The beauty of the Irish Lakes is rather that of the Professional Beauty. When one comes back to the Border, there one finds the same beauty one used to see in the face of one's mother, or of one's old nurse." And: "I am never so happy as when I cross the Tweed at Berwick from the South," he writes in an Introduction to Mr. Charles Murray's "Plamewith." It was not only his own, but, I think, every Borderer's sentiments that he voiced when he wrote:
"Brief are man's days at best; perchance
I waste my own, who have not seen
The castled palaces of France
Shine on the Loire in summer green.
"And clear and fleet Eurotas still,
You tell me, laves his reedy shore,