ioo 



CHAPTER IV. 



ETTRICK AND YARROW. 



" Ettricke Foreste is a feir foreste, 



In it grows manie a semelie trie ; 

 There's hart and hynd, and dae and rae, 

 And of a' wilde bestis grete plentie." 



The Sang of the Outlaw Murray. 



bTTRICK FOREST is still fair but not 

 with seemly trees. Scanty and scrubby are 

 now the representatives, in cleugh and on 

 hill-side, of the ash, the birch, the alder, and the 

 rowan-tree, that by their abundance gave the district 

 its name and its old character affording shelter in the 

 remotest times to the bear, the bison, the wolf, and 

 the stag, to the native Britons, when the Roman 

 conqueror had pitched his camp on the Eildons, and 

 lorded over all he surveyed from that lofty post 

 in the later or historical and ballad-times to the out- 

 law and the reiver, and the great families of Douglas 

 and Scott. It is still "the Forest," however; and, 

 although with the trees have passed away the " hart 

 and hynd, and dae and rae," there remain the lochs, 

 rivers, and rivulets, and their original inhabitants. 

 The salmon hardly now penetrates to the Ettrick 

 and Yarrow, save in breeding-time, but at that pe- 

 riod every stream is ploughed up by spawners, and a 

 greater number of them escape the leister than might 



