FROM GILSLAND TO BEWCASTLE.
Gilsland, with its green daisy-starred mounds, its streams and glades and waterfalls, its Stepping-stones, and Popping-stone, and Kissing-bush, and generally romantic associations, is the greatest possible contrast to the wild fells which we have so lately left, but which can still be seen along the eastern horizon.
The very name of Gilsland speaks of softness, and verdure, and tinkling streams.
Here it was, so says history, that Sir Walter Scott wooed and won his life-partner, and the scenes of the different stages of his wooing are pointed out with brazen assurance.
It therefore seemed most appropriate, when first I visited Gilsland in a search for rooms, to be mistaken for a member of a wedding-party, and to be greeted with the words, "Ye're just in time to see the bride!"
Gilsland was full of "the bride." It was hopeless to try and get any attention to business until she had passed down the street on her father's arm, amid whispers of, "It's real crêpe de chine,"—"Did ye see how it's cut?" etc.
When I had finished my business, "the bride" still pursued me. I picked up a halfpenny, and was looking round for some child who might have dropped it, when the butcher at his shop door called out, "That's a looky ha'-penny, cast at the bride. Ye'll be the next. Ye must keep it."
There must be something in the very air of Gilsland!
I had no intention of being "the next," so I gave it to a small boy for his money-box, while the butcher looked his disapproval. It evidently was not "the thing" to have done in sentimental Gilsland.