VALE OF YARROW 109 



range of the uplands are their characteristic aspects 

 more perfectly displayed. Down the centre of the 

 dale runs the strip of level green haugh, through 

 which the stream meanders from side to side across 

 banks of shingle, with a murmuring cadence that 

 is borne down on the wind like a low plaintive wail. 

 On either hand, the smooth green slopes rise into 

 the rounded summits of the fells, mottled here with 

 sheets of bracken and there with folds of heather. 

 The declivities are indented by little side-valleys, 

 each leading a clear rivulet between grassy banks to 

 the main stream. Nowhere do any rugged features 

 mar the gentle undulations of the ground. The 

 outer world seems to lie far beyond the high hills 

 that enclose and shelter the quiet valley. There is 

 a deep silence over the scene, broken now and then 

 by the melancholy scream of the curlew or the 

 mournful note of the plover. The mind, amid 

 such surroundings, easily glides from the present 

 into reverie amidst the past. The ruined peel seems 

 to whisper tales of * old unhappy far-off things and 

 battles long ago.' The greener grass around some 

 mouldering stones points to hamlets long since for- 

 saken and forgotten. The scattered birks and alders 

 recall the ' fair forest ' that once clothed the valley 

 with ' many a seemly tree,' and when in these tracts, 

 now sacred only to sheep, there were 



' Hart and hynd, and dae and rae, 

 And of a' wild beasts great plentie.' 



There is a natural expectation in the mind that 

 scenery which has made for itself so notable a place 



