"Wha ever heard, in ony times,
Siccan an Outlaw in his degree
Sic favour get before a King
As the Outlaw Murray of the Forest free?"
Of right "Tamlany"—by far the finest of the Border fairy ballads—belongs more to Ettrick than to Yarrow. The scene is laid in Carterhaugh, at the confluence of the two streams, two miles above Selkirk. The ballad (24 stanzas) is too long to quote, but may be read in all good collections. For the same reason also we must pass over the "Battle of Philiphaugh," commemorating Leslie's victory over Montrose in 1645; and the "Gay Goss-Hawk," the dramatic ending of which is laid at St. Mary's Kirk, high upon the hillside overlooking the waters of the Loch. Nothing is left now save the site, and a half-deserted burying-ground where "Covenanter and Catholic, Scotts, and Kers and Pringles—all sorts and conditions of men—sleep their long sleep at peace together." Among the shrines of Yarrowdale, this is not the least notable. Like the grave of Keats outside the walls of Rome, as some one has said, "it would almost make one in love with death to be buried in so sweet a spot among the heather and brackens, and the sighing of the solitary mountain ash." St. Mary's Loch lies shimmering at our feet. Scott's "Marmion" picture is still wonderfully correct:
"Oft in my mind such thoughts awake,
By lone Saint Mary's silent lake;
Thou know'st it well—nor fen, nor sedge
Pollute the pure lake's crystal edge;
Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink
At once upon the level brink;
And just a trace of silver sand
Marks where the water meets the land.
Far in the mirror, bright and blue,
Each hill's huge outline you may view;
Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare,
Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake is there,
Save where, of land, yon slender line
Bears thwart the lake the scatter'd pine,
Yet even this nakedness has power,
And aids the feeling of the hour."
All this delightsome countryside is Hogg-land too, let us remember, as well as Scott-land. For here, in ballad-haunted Yarrow, the immortal James spent the best years of his life, failing so tantalizingly as farmer, but as poet, "King of the Mountain and Fairy school," dreaming so well of that most bewitching of all his conceptions—"Bonnie Kilmeny." Yonder, overlooking Tibbie Shiel's "cosy beild"—a howff of the Noctes coterie—stands the solitary white figure of the beloved Shepherd as Christopher North's prophetic soul felt that it must be some day. Hogg was born in the neighbouring Ettrick valley—in 1770 presumably. His birth-cottage is extinct now, but a handsome memorial marks the spot. Most of his life, as has been said, was passed in the sister vale, first at Blackhouse, then at Mount Benger, and at Altrive (now Eldinhope), where he died three years after his truest of friends—Sir Walter. The Ettrick homeland guards his dust. Close by is the resting-place of Thomas Boston, that earlier "Ettrick Shepherd" whose "Fourfold State" and "Crook in the Lot" are not yet forgotten. In the sequestered Yarrow churchyard sleeps Scott's maternal great-grandfather, John Rutherford, who was minister of the parish from 1691 to 1710. Scott spoke of Yarrow as the "shrine of his ancestors," and himself, like Hogg, and Willie Laidlaw, frequently worshipped within its old grey walls. Further down the stream, the "shattered front of Newark's towers" reminds us that here Scott placed the recital of the "Lay." He would fain have fitted up the ancient fabric as a residence, had it been possible. Almost opposite, the birthplace of Mungo Park, the first of the knight-errantry of Africa, attracts attention, and a mile or two nearer Selkirk, are Philiphaugh, and "sweet Bowhill," the two finest domains in the Forest. The Covenanters' Monument within Philiphaugh grounds is worthy of notice, and on the Ettrick side, Kirkhope and Oakwood, both in fairly good repair, are excellent specimens of the peel period. At Selkirk, the capital of Ettrickdale, Scott's statue as "the Shirra"—a most admirable representation—looks out at scenes upon which his eyes in life must often have feasted. Here we read the lines that express his heart's deep love for a district interwoven so closely with all the years of his working life:
"By Yarrow's streams still let me stray,
Though none should guide my feeble way;
Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break,
Although it chill my wither'd cheek."