“Above the booming ocean leant
The far-projecting battlement.”
On the land side were those gate-works and walls which Marmion cleared, after bidding bold defiance to the “Douglas in his hall,” and behind which the turbulent Earls of Angus, for their part, so often bade defiance to their Sovereigns. James V. once brought up against it “Thrawn-mu’d Meg and her Marrow,” and other great pieces of mediæval ordnance from Dunbar, where three lords were placed in pawn for their safe return. But he failed to “ding doon Tantallon”; that feat was reserved for the Covenanters.
Now the spirit of Walter Scott seems to haunt the ruins, in company with the ghosts of “Bell-the-Cat,” and the other dead Douglases who built or strengthened these storm-battered walls. The Magician of the North has waved his wand over the Forth from Ben Lomond to Tantallon and the Bass!
John Geddie.
NORTH BERWICK, FROM THE HARBOUR.
