"can write nane
But just the letters of his name."
Further up, Ale rests in the dull deep loch of Alemuir, which looks as if it held more pike than trout. And so we follow her into the hills and the water-shed that, on one side, contributes feeders to the Ettrick. It is a lofty land of pasture and broken hills, whence you see the airy peaks of Skelfhill, Penchrise, the Dumon, and the ranges of "mountains" as Scott calls the hills through which the Border Waters run, Yarrow, Ettrick, Borthwick Water and Ale Water. A "water" is larger than a "burn," but attains not to the name of a river.
Rule, the next tributary as we ascend Teviot, is but a "Water," a pretty trout stream it would be if it had fair play. The question of fishing in this country is knotted. Almost all the trout streams were open to everybody, in my boyhood, when I could fish all day in Tweed or Ale, and never see a rod but my own. The few anglers were sportsmen. "Duffer" as I was, I remember a long summer day on Tweed at Yair, when, having come too late for the ten o'clock "rise" of trout, I had an almost empty creel. Just before sunset I foregathered with old Adam Linton, his large creel three-quarters full of beauties. "What did you get them with?" I asked. At the moment he was using the tiniest midges, and the finest tackle. "Oh, wi' ae thing and another, according to the time o' day," he answered. I daresay he used the clear water worm, fished up stream; deadly sin m Hampshire, but not in the Forest. Since these days the world has gone wild on angling, the waters are crowded like the Regent's canal with rods. Now I am all for letting every man have his cast; but the only present hope for the survival of trout is in the associations of anglers who do their best to put down netting and dynamiting. A close time when trout are out of season, we owe to Sir Herbert Maxwell, opposed as he was by the Radical Member for the Border Burghs. I am not sure that there is a rule against slaying trout under, shall we say, seven inches? However it may be, I had my chance and wasted it; being a duffer. Trout may become extinct like the Dodo; it makes no odds to me. I never cast fly in Rule, nor even examined "the present spiritless parish church," on the site of a Norman church of the early twelfth century. The few relics of carved stone fill Sir Herbert Maxwell's heart with bitterness against the dull destroyers. Our Presbyterian forefathers, as far as in them lay, destroyed every vestige of the noble art whereof these glens were full, when, in the twelfth century, the Border was part of a civilised country. For all that I know, they were innocent of ruin at Bedrule; the English of Henry VIII may here, as all through this region, have been the destroyers. They were Protestants of a sort. Moreover in Rule dwelt the small but fierce clan of Turnbull, who, between Scotts and Kers, fought both of these great clans, and now, as a power, "are a' wede awa'." Perhaps an enemy of theirs took sanctuary in the church, and they "burned the chapel for very rage," as the Scotts burned St. Mary of the Lowes shortly before the Reformation.
Somewhere about 1620, Rule Water had her minstrel, named Robin, nick-named "Sweet-milk," from the place of his residence. In my opinion these singers of the late days of James VI and I, were the survivors of the Border minstrels who, says Queen Mary's Bishop of Ross, Lesley, the historian, made their own ballads of raids and rescues, such as Jock o' the Cow, and as much as is not Scott's of Kinmont Willie. There was a rival minstrel, Willie Henderson, whom I take to have sided with the Scotts, while Robin was the Demodocus of the Eliotts of Stobs. The pair met, drank, fought, and Willie pinked "Sweet-Milk" Robin, the Eliotts' man.
"Tuneful hands with blood were dyed,"
says Sir Walter, but what was the cause of the quarrel? I have a hypothesis. The famous ballad of Jamie Telfer exists in two versions. In one the Scotts are covered with laurels, while Martin Eliott plays the part of a cur. In the other, the Eliotts gain all the glory, while Scott of Buccleuch acts like a mean dastard. One of these versions is the original, the other is a perversion. The ballad itself, which takes us all through the Border, from Bewcastle on the English side, to the fair Dodhead on Upper Ettrick, is not of the period of the incidents described. As far as these are historical, the date is about 1596. The author of the ballad does not know the facts, and makes incredible statements. Consequently he is late, writes years after the Union of the Crowns (1603) and the end of Border raids. I guess that either Will Henderson was the author of the ballad in favour of the Scotts, and that Robin, the minstrel of the Eliotts, perverted it into the Eliott version, or vice versa, Robert was the original author, Will the perverter. Here, in any case, was infringement of copyright and deadly insult. The poets fought. Certainly, Robin fell, and the Eliotts hanged Will, gave him "Jeddart justice." To the ballad we shall return; it is, though inaccurate, full of the old Border spirit, and is in itself an itinerary of the Marches.
These high powers, the Scott and Eliott clans, like the States of Europe, were now allies, cementing their federacy by intermarriages; and again were bitter foes. The strength of the chief of the Eliotts was in Liddesdale, of the Scotts, in Teviotdale. They were allies for young James V against his Keepers, the Douglases,
"When gallant Cessford's life-blood dear
Reeked on dark Eliott's Border spear"