Much is changed,in the countryside as well as in the country;but much remains.The little towns of your time are populous and excessively black with the smoke of factories--not,I fear,at present very flourishing.In Galashiels you still see the little change-house and the cluster of cottages round the Laird's lodge,like the clachan of Tully Veolan.But these plain remnants of the old Scotch towns are almost buried in a multitude of "smoky dwarf houses"--a living poet,Mr.Matthew Arnold,has found the fitting phrase for these dwellings,once for all.All over the Forest the waters are dirty and poisoned:I think they are filthiest below Hawick;but this may be mere local prejudice in a Selkirk man.To keep them clean costs money;and,though improvements are often promised,I cannot see much change--for the better.Abbotsford,luckily,is above Galashiels,and only receives the dirt and dyes of Selkirk,Peebles,Walkerburn,and Innerleithen.On the other hand,your ill-omened later dwelling,"the unhappy palace of your race,"is overlooked by villas that prick a cockney ear among their larches,hotels of the future.Ah,Sir,Scotland is a strange place.Whisky is exiled from some of our caravanserais,and they have banished Sir John Barleycorn.It seems as if the views of the excellent critic (who wrote your life lately,and said you had left no descendants,le pauvre homme!)were beginning to prevail.This pious biographer was greatly shocked by that capital story about the keg of whisky that arrived at the Liddesdale farmer's during family prayers.Your Toryism also was an offence to him.
Among these vicissitudes of things and the overthrow of customs,let us be thankful that,beyond the reach of the manufacturers,the Border country remains as kind and homely as ever.I looked at Ashiestiel some days ago:the house seemed just as it may have been when you left it for Abbotsford,only there was a lawn-tennis net on the lawn,the hill on the opposite bank of the Tweed was covered to the crest with turnips,and the burn did not sing below the little bridge,for in this arid summer the burn was dry.But there was still a grilse that rose to a big March brown in the shrunken stream below Elibank.This may not interest you,who styled yourself No fisher,But a well-wisher To the game!
Still,as when you were thinking over Marmion,a man might have "grand gallops among the hills"--those grave wastes of heather and bent that sever all the watercourses and roll their sheep-covered pastures from Dollar Law to White Combe,and from White Combe to the Three Brethren Cairn and the Windburg and Skelf-hill Pen.Yes,Teviotdale is pleasant still,and there is not a drop of dye in the water,purior electro,of Yarrow.St.Mary's Loch lies beneath me,smitten with wind and rain--the St.Mary's of North and of the Shepherd.Only the trout,that see a myriad of artificial flies,are shyer than of yore.The Shepherd could no longer fill a cart up Meggat with trout so much of a size that the country people took them for herrings.
The grave of Piers Cockburn is still not desecrated:hard by it lies,within a little wood;and beneath that slab of old sandstone,and the graven letters,and the sword and shield,sleep "Piers Cockburn and Marjory his wife."Not a hundred yards off was the castle-door where they hanged him;this is the tomb of the ballad,and the lady that buried him rests now with her wild lord.
Oh,wat ye no my heart was sair,When I happit the mouls on his yellow hair;Oh,wat ye no my heart was wae,When I turned about and went my way!{7}
Here too hearts have broken,and there is a sacredness in the shadow and beneath these clustering berries of the rowan-trees.That sacredness,that reverent memory of our old land,it is always and inextricably blended with our memories,with our thoughts,with our love of you.Scotchmen,methinks,who owe so much to you,owe you most for the example you gave of the beauty of a life of honour,showing them what,by heaven's blessing,a Scotchman still might be.
Words,empty and unavailing--for what words of ours can speak our thoughts or interpret our affections!From you first,as we followed the deer with King James,or rode with William of Deloraine on his midnight errand,did we learn what Poetry means and all the happiness that is in the gift of song.This and more than may be told you gave us,that are not forgetful,not ungrateful,though our praise be unequal to our gratitude.Fungor inani munere!
