Highways and Byways in the Border. Lang Andrew
thereof, quhilk grettumlie discuragit all his nobill gentlemen and freindis that war stand aboot him." Near at hand on the farther bank of Tweed stands, or until lately stood, an old thorn tree which is said to mark the spot where the King fell.
The ancient Roxburgh has utterly disappeared;
"Fallen are thy lowers, 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."
But there lingers yet one relic of the days when her Markets and Trysts were famed throughout the country. St. James's Fair, which w-as held at Roxburgh as long ago as the days of King David I, is still kept each August in the pleasant haugh by the ruins of the castle, between Teviot and Tweed. There, on a little eminence, the Town Clerk of Jedburgh each year reads this Proclamation: "OYEZ, OYEZ, OYEZ." Whereas the Fair of St. James is to be held this – th day of August 19 – , and is to continue for the space of eight days from and after this proclamation. Therefore, in name and authority of Our Sovereign King George V, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, and in name and authority of the Honourable the Provost and Bailies of the Royal Borough of Jedburgh, and in name and authority of a High and Potent Prince the Duke of Roxburgh, and his Bailie of Kelso, I make due and lawful proclamation that no person or persons shall presume to trouble or molest the present Fair, or offer any injury one to another, or break the King's peace, – Prohibiting all old Feuds and new Feuds, or the doing of anything to disquiet the said Fair, under the highest pains of law. As also – that no person or persons make any private bargains prejudicial to the customs and Proprietors of said Fair, – Certifying those who contravene any part of said customs that they will be prosecuted and fined according to law. "GOD SAVE THE KING."
In these degenerate days, the Fair lasts but one day in place of eight, and Feuds, new or old, are unknown. But not so very long ago the rivalry at this Fair of the neighbouring towns of Kelso and Jedburgh was very bitter. Roxburgh had ceased to be, indeed, but the Fair survived, and it chanced that the Provost and Bailies of Jedburgh – like Roxburgh, a Royal burgh, – having under some old charter acquired a right to "proclaim" the Fair and collect the market dues, duly came in state each August in order to exercise this privilege at the ancient stance. Now, Kelso in the course of time became a larger and more important town than Jedburgh; it is, moreover, in close proximity to the ground on which the Fair is held, whereas Jedburgh was no better than a foreign land, miles removed – ten, at least, – from Roxburgh. Hence Kelso resented what it considered to be an outrage on the part of her officious neighbour. What was Jedburgh that she should oust them from those market tolls and dues! A beggarly interloper, no less! The outcome of such a frame of mind was generally what might be expected amongst men whose forebears for many hundreds of years had been fierce fighters. As the procession of Jedburgh magistrates, all in their robes and escorted by a compact body of townsmen, advanced towards the place of proclamation, taunts of "Pride and Poverty!" – "Pride and Poverty!" were hurled at their ears by the irritated men of Kelso. "Doo Tairts an' Herrin' Pies!" fiercely retorted Jedburgh's inhabitants. It is difficult now-a-days to see where came in the sting of the original taunt, or the appositeness of the "Countercheck Quarrelsome." But in those old days they were amply sufficient. Some man, more hasty, or less sober, than his neighbour would follow up the taunt by a push or a blow, and St. James's Fair was speedily as lively a spot as now could be any Fair even in Ireland. Kelso and Jedburgh were "busy at each other"; and sometimes one prevailed, sometimes the other. An attempt that Kelso once made to hold the Fair on its own side of the river was utterly defeated; Jedburgh marched across the bridge and made things so warm that the experiment of shifting the venue of St. James's Fair has never been repeated.
No doubt, when Roxburgh ceased to be a Royal Burgh, its rights naturally devolved on Jedburgh, the only other Royal Burgh in the country. But Jedburgh tradition tells of a time when the English, taking advantage of heavy floods which prevented Kelso men from crossing the river, raided the Fair and carried off rich plunder. Then Jedburgh, coming to the rescue, smote the English and recaptured the booty, and for their gallant conduct were awarded those privileges which they still exercise.
The Kelso taunt of "Pride and Poverty" may possibly have originated from a custom to which the economical burgesses of Jedburgh seem to have been addicted. In a letter written in 1790, Sir Walter Scott mentions that when he himself visited the Fair in that year, he found that, there not being in possession of the men of Jedburgh enough riding boots to accommodate all the riders in the procession, the magistrates had ruled that only the outside men of each rank should wear boots, or, rather each a boot on his outer leg. Thus, as the men rode in threes, one pair of boots would be sufficient to maintain the dignity of each rank, – a device worthy of Caleb Balderstone himself. It is easy enough to assign an origin to "Pride and Poverty," but the local custom which gave occasion for the bitter taunt of "Doo tairts and Herrin' Pies" is baffling. There are many such taunts in the Border, hurled by town at rival town. "Selkirk craws," is the reproach flung at that burgh by its neighbour, Galashiels; and
"Galashiels Herons, lockit in a box,
Daurna show their faces, for Selkirk gamecocks,"
is, or was, the jibe that stung Gala lads to fury.
Before quitting the subject of Roxburgh, it may be of interest to mention that in the churchyard of the present village of that name there is a gravestone to the memory of the original of Edie Ochiltree, the bluegown of Sir Walter's Antiquary. Andrew Gemmels was his name. He died in 1793 at Roxburgh Newtown, a farm on the banks of Tweed a few mi es from Roxburgh, at the great age of one hundred and six.
The first tributary received by Teviot on the right bank is the Kale Water, running through the parish of Linton, which was in King David's time an appanage of Kelso Abbey. The church has been restored, but the walls are, like those of Kelso, Norman work, and in the porch is an enigmatic piece of sculptors' work; apparently somebody is fighting a dragon – Sir Herbert Maxwell suggests St. George, but St. Michael was the more orthodox dragon slayer. About the object grew an aetiological myth; a Somerville of old times
"Slew the Worm of Worrnes glen
And wan all Lintoun parochine."
The dragon-slaying story is found in most parts of the world, from Troy to Dairy in the Glenkens. Here the Worm twisted himself round the Mote, or tumulus (apparently the basis of an old fort), and was killed by the local blacksmith. In 1522-1533, Linton tower was among the scores of such Border Keeps which the English destroyed. They could hold their own against a Border raid; not in face of a regular English army. Roxburghshire was not so deeply tainted by Covenanting principles as Galloway, Lanarkshire, and the south-west, Ayrshire and Renfrewshire. Covenanters needed wild hills and wild wastes. They are said to have held coil venticles in a deep glen of Kale; but, as a rule, they knew enough to preach in places of wide outlook, where they could detect the approach of parties of dragoons. In the bed of a burn they would be at great disadvantage.
A tower more interesting than that of Linton, namely Ormistoun, fell when Linton fell; but it must have been rebuilt, for here, in Mary Stuart's day, dwelt the Black Laird of Ormistoun, James, with Hob, his brother, two of Bothwell's most cruel and desperate "Lambs." The Black Laird was with Bothwell, Hay of Talla (on upper Tweed), and one of Bothwell's own clan, Hepburn of Bowton, when they placed the powder under Darnley's chamber in Kirk o'-Field (February 9-10, 1567), and so, in the feeling words of Bothwell, "sent him fleeing through the air." After doing another deed as treacherous as this murder, the Black Laird was taken, tried, and hanged in 1573. Bothwell was Warden of the Border, which he ruled from Hermitage Castle on the Liddel water, and all these loose Border lairds rode and slew at his bidding. They had probably, in that twilight of faith, no religion in particular; Catholicism lingered in the shape of oaths, Calvinism was not yet well settled in these regions. But, probably in prison, the Black Laird "got religion." He professed to be of the Elect, and confident of his salvation, while he drew a dark enough picture of life among lairds of his quality. On the day of his hanging he said, "With God I hope this night to sup… Of all men on the earth I have been one of the proudest and most high-minded, and most filthy of my