The Jed, joining the Teviot close to Jedfoot Station, reminds us that the county town of Roxburgh—Jedburgh—is within easy access, and the fascinating valley of the Jed which Burns so vigorously extolled. The Jed takes its rise between Needslaw and Carlintooth on the Liddesdale Border. Its general course is east and north, and its length about seventeen miles. The places of chief interest on its banks are Southdean, where the Scottish chiefs assembled previous to Otterburn, and where the poet Thomson spent his boyhood; Old Jedworth, the original township, a few grassy mounds marking the spot; Ferniherst Castle, a Ker stronghold; Lintalee, the site of a Douglas camp described in Barbour's "Bruce;" the Capon Tree, a thousand years old, one of the last survivors of "Jedworth's forest wild and free;" and the Hundalee hiding caves. The charm of Jedburgh consists in its old-world character and its semi-Continental touches. Its fine situation early attracted the notice of the Scottish Kings, though Bishop Ecfred of Lindisfarne is believed to have been its true founder. He could not have chosen a more sweet or appropriate nook for his little settlement. Nestling in the quiet valley, and creeping up the ridge of the Dunion, the song of the river ever in its ears, freshened by the scent of garden and orchard, and surrounded by finely-wooded heights, Nature has been lavish in filling with new adornments, as years sped by, a spot always bright and fair.
"O softly Jed! thy sylvan current lead
Round every hazel copse and smiling mead,
Where lines of firs the glowing landscape screen,
And crown the heights with tufts of deeper green."
The modern beauty of the place notwithstanding, Jedburgh's history has been a singularly troubled one. As a frontier town and the first place of importance north of the Cheviots, it was naturally a scene of strife and bloodshed. Around it lay the famous Jed Forest, rivalling that of Ettrick. The inhabitants were brave warriors, and noted for the skill with which they wielded the Jeddart staff or Jedwood axe. Their presence at the Reidswire decided that skirmish in favour of the Scottish Borderers:
"Then rose the slogan wi' ane shout,
Fye, Tynedale, to it! Jeddart's here."
And at Flodden the men from the glens of the Jed were conspicuous for their heroism. Jedburgh Abbey is the chief "lion" of the locality. Completer than Kelso and Dryburgh, and simpler and more harmonious than Melrose, it stands in the most delightful of situations, girt about with well-kept gardens, overlooking the bosky banks of the Jed—a veritable poem in Nature and Art. Queen Mary's House (restored) the scene of her all but mortal illness in 1566 is still existing, and well worth a visit. The literary associations of the burgh are more than local. James Thomson was a pupil at its Grammar School. Burns was made a burgess during his Border tour in 1787. Scott made his first appearance as a criminal counsel at Jedburgh, pleading successfully for his poacher client. The Wordsworths visited Jedburgh in 1803. Sir David Brewster and Mary Somerville were natives, and here the "Scottish Probationer" lived and died. Samuel Rutherford was born at Crailing, the next parish, where also David Calderwood, the Kirk historian, was minister. Cessford Castle, in Eckford parish, was the residence of the redoubtable "Habbie Ker," ancestor of the Dukes of Roxburghe. Marlefield, "where Kale wimples clear 'neath the white-blossomed slaes," is a supposed scene (erroneous) of the "Gentle Shepherd." Yetholm, on the Bowmont, near the Great Cheviot, has been the headquarters of Scottish gypsydom since the 17th century. Opposite Floors Castle, at the confluence of the Tweed and Teviot is the green tree-clad mound with a few crumbling walls, all that remains of the illustrious Castle of Roxburgh, one of the strongest on the Borders, the birthplace and abode of kings, and parliaments, and mints, and so often a bone of bitter contention between Scots and English. The town itself, the most important on the Middle Marches, has entirely disappeared, its site and environs forming now some of the most fertile fields in the county:
"Roxburgh! how fallen, since first, in Gothic pride,
Thy frowning battlements the war defied,
Called the bold chief to grace thy blazoned halls,
And bade the rivers gird thy solid walls!
Fallen are thy towers; and where the palace stood,
In gloomy grandeur waves yon hanging wood.
Crushed are thy halls, save where the peasant sees
One moss-clad ruin rise between the trees;
The still green trees, whose mournful branches wave
In solemn cadence o'er the hapless grave.
Proud castle! fancy still beholds thee stand,
The curb, the guardian, of this Border land;
As when the signal flame that blazed afar,
And bloody flag, proclaimed impending war,
While in the lion's place the leopard frowned,
And marshalled armies hemmed thy bulwarks round."