CHAPTER V 



" And far beneath in lustre wan 

 Old Melros' rose, and fair Tweed ran." 



Lay of the Last Minstrel. 



MY first visit to the Tweed was before 

 the Minstrel of the North had sung 

 those strains which enchanted the 

 world, and attracted people of all 

 ranks to this land of romance. The scenery there- 

 fore at that time, unassisted by story, lost its chief 

 interest ; yet was it all lovely in its native charms. 

 What stranger just emerging from the angular 

 enclosures of the South, scored and subdued by 

 tillage, would not feel his heart expand at the first 

 sight of the heathery mountains, swelling out into 

 vast proportions, over which man has had no 

 dominion ? At the dawn of day he sees, perhaps, 

 the mist ascending slowly up the dusky river, 

 taking its departure to some distant undefined re- 

 gion ; below the mountain range his sight rests 

 upon a deep and narrow glen, gloomy with woods, 

 shelving down to its centre. What lies hid in that 

 mysterious mass the eye may not visit ; but a sound 

 comes down from afar, as of the rushing and din of 

 waters. It is the voice of the Tweed, as it bursts 

 from the melancholy hills, and comes rejoicing down 

 the sunny vale, taking its free course through the 



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