CHAPTER V 



" And far beneath in lustre wan 

 Old Melros 1 rose, and fair Tweed ran/ 1 



Lay of the Last Minstrel. 



MY first visit to the Tweed was before the Minstrel 

 of the North had sung those strains which en- 

 chanted the world, and attracted people of all ranks 

 to this land of romance. The scenery therefore 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 pro- 

 portions, 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 region ; 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 



