The Country of Sir Walter Scott

by Charles S. Olcott

The keeper next conducted me to the rear of the castle, where he pointed out a well-preserved square tower below which the ground slopes at a sharp angle to the river's edge. The lower part was used as a dungeon, where we may suppose Henry Morton to have been confined. It was once occupied by a nobleman of real life, who, not so fortunate as the hero of the novel, was led away to execution. Above the dungeon was the kitchen and pantry, with windows perhaps twenty feet above the ground. At the corner there was once an old yew, the stump of which may still be seen.

Readers of 'Old Mortality' will recall that during the siege of the castle, Cuddie Headrigg, though an old servant, found himself with the opposing army. With five or six companions he found his way to the rear, where there was less danger, and proceeded to attempt to capture the stronghold by climbing the tree and gaining access through the window of the pantry. All might have gone well had it not been for the fact that Jenny Dennison had chosen the pantry as the safest place of retreat. When, therefore, Cuddie's figure appeared at the window, clad in the steel cap and buff coat which had belonged to Sergeant Bothwell, Jenny not only failed to recognize her lover, but was terribly frightened. With an hysteric scream she rushed to the kitchen, where she had hung on the fire a pot of kail-brose (a kind of vegetable stew), having promised to prepare Tam Halliday his breakfast. Seizing the pot and still screaming, she jumped to the window and poured the whole scalding contents upon the head and shoulders of the unfortunate Cuddie, thus 'conferring upon one admirer's outward man the viands which her fair hands had so lately been in the act of preparing for the stomach of another.'

I had great difficulty in photographing this tower. The declivity was so steep that it was almost impossible either to place the tripod in proper position or to find a footing from which to look into the camera. While in the midst of my preparations the keeper informed me casually that a man had fallen down the slope three weeks before and broken his neck. With this encouragement, I persevered and was finally able to obtain what I believe to be one of the best evidences of the accuracy with which Scott often made his investigations and subsequent descriptions.

On one of our excursions from Melrose, we followed the course of the Yarrow, from its junction with the Ettrick to its source in St. Mary's Loch; then continuing to the southwest, we traced the course of Moffat Water, which forms the outlet of the Loch of the Lowes, to a point just above the place where the stream meets the Evan and the Annan; then turning westward and passing through the town of Moffat, we followed the course of the Tweed northward and eastward from its source to our starting-place. For a large part of this drive, we were in wild, desolate regions, which presented to us, we were well assured, exactly the same aspect as they did to Sir Walter Scott, and to the Covenanters a century or more before his time. From St. Mary's Loch to Moffat and from the latter northward for at least fifteen or twenty miles, we were in the very region where the Covenanters were wont to find a safe retreat from persecution.

Scott was fond of riding through these wild mountain passes, and often did so with his friend, Skene, of Rubislaw, who has left an entertaining account of one of these expeditions:—

One of our earliest expeditions was to visit the wild scenery of the mountainous tract above Moffat, including the cascade of the Grey Mare's Tail and the dark tarn called Loch Skene. In our ascent to the lake we got completely bewildered in the thick fog which generally envelops the rugged features of that lovely region; and as we were groping through the maze of bogs, the ground gave way, and down went horse and horsemen pell-mell into a slough of peaty mud and black water, out of which, entangled as we were with our plaids and floundering nags, it was no easy matter to get extricated. Indeed, unless we had prudently left our gallant steeds at a farmhouse below and borrowed hill-ponies for the occasion, the result might have been worse than laughable. As it was, we rose like the spirits of the bogs, covered cap-à-pie with slime, to free themselves from which our wily ponies took to rolling about on the heather, and we had nothing for it but following their example. At length, as we approached the gloomy loch, a huge eagle heaved himself from the margin and rose right over us, screaming his scorn of the intruders; and altogether it would be impossible to picture anything more desolately savage than the scene which opened, as if raised by enchantment on purpose to gratify the poet's eye, thick clouds of fog rolling incessantly over the face of the inky waters, but rent asunder, now in one direction and then in another—so as to afford us a glimpse of some projecting rock or naked point of land, or island bearing a few scraggy stumps of pine—and then closing again in universal darkness upon the cheerless waste. Much of the scenery of 'Old Mortality' was drawn from that day's ride.

James Hogg, who conducted the party on that day, says:—

I conducted them through that wild region by a path, which if not rode by Clavers, as reported, never was rode by another gentleman.... Sir Walter, in the very worst paths, never dismounted save at Loch Skene to take some dinner. We went to Moffat that night, where we met with Lady Scott and Sophia and such a day and night of glee I never witnessed. Our very perils were to him matters of infinite merriment.

The Grey Mare's Tail is a waterfall three or four hundred feet in height, forming the outlet of Loch Skene. It is a narrow stream and the water comes boiling and bubbling in foamy whiteness over the ruggedest of rocks and through the wildest of ravines.

I am inclined to think that Scott, in striving to find a retreat for Balfour, or Burley, poetically in keeping with the stern, fierce, and dangerous character of that terrible individual, combined the awesome features of the Grey Mare's Tail with the wild beauty of another ravine which he had visited. The latter is the deep gulch known as Crichope Linn, near the village of Closeburn, north of Dumfries. A narrow stream, flowing through a thick wood, has cut a deep chasm in the solid rock, through which the water has carved many curious channels. One of these is called 'Hell's Cauldron,' where the water has worn a deep round hole, through which it rushes with terrific force. Near by is the Soutar's Seat, so called from the legend that a 'soutar' or cobbler used to conceal himself there to mend the shoes of the Covenanters.