106 



PYRETHRUM. 



force to scan the landscape before us. A rudely built cottage is 

 behind, — at our feet a precipitous bank, half cultivated, half o'ergrown 

 with coarse weeds, that touches the water and compels it to make one 

 other bend and a tardier course. Beyond — an alluvial and richly cul- 

 tivated haugh lies spread out, bounded to the left by a sweep of the 





HORNCLIFFE: ITS MILL. 



river and a green-swarded bank, — while on the right a wooded ravine 

 opens on the view, where some willows wave their silvery foliage ; 

 and a secluded cemetery near at hand tells its tale with effect. But 

 the Silver Tweed, which has here reached its full breadth and depth, 

 is still the principal feature, and the pleased eye follows up its sinuous 

 track, easy and graceful and unconstrained as the serpent's glide. It 

 leads VIS on to alternating banks and holms, — to woods and fructuous 

 plains, — to the ruined keep of Norham Castle, — to the opposed and 

 humble spire of Ladykirk, which yet records the gratitude of James 

 IV. for his delivery from drowning when, by night, he crossed the river 

 on his return from the company of the fair ladies Heron of Ford. In the 

 far distance a varied scenery relieves, for a time, the eye satiated with 

 nearer beauty, — in the centre the peaked hills of Eildon and castel- 

 lated ruins, — to the right the tripled range of the Cheviot hills, and 

 on the left the less elevated and rounded chain of the Lammermuirs 

 enclose the wide amphitheatre. You must add life to the landscape : 

 — the fisherman and his boat, the uncoated ploughman, the row of 

 bondagers on the haugh with the light rattle of their hoes, the picked 

 hay, the flocks of sheep and kine, the corn ripening to the harvest, 

 the swallows that flit so numerous along the bank and over the calm 

 reflective water, the loud whistle of the blackbird from the';dean, the 

 song and the thousand chirrups of the sparrow and sweeter birds ! 



