OCTOBER 203 



St. Clair, in 1166, the persons of Edmund the son of 

 Bonda, and Gillemichel his brother, and their sons 

 and daughters, and all their future progeny, for the 

 sum of three merks (40s). 



The landscape has altered not less than the ways of 

 men. The uplands of Tweed and Yarrow, of which the 

 nakedness impressed Washington Irving so unfavour- 

 ably, were then almost unbroken woodland. 



' The King was cumand thro' Caddonford, 



And full five thousand men was he ; 



They saw the derke foreste them before, 



They thought it awsome fer to see.' 



Nothing more 'awsome' is now to be seen than the 

 thriving plantations round the quiet seats of country 

 gentlemen, and all that remains of the ' derke foreste ' 

 is here a birken shaw in a hill glen, and there a few 

 crouching oaks and scattered pines, as on the Gate- 

 heugh cliffs opposite Old Melrose. But the 'Covin 

 Tree,' a huge Spanish chestnut, still stands between 

 the tower and the ancient ' pleuse ' or pleasure-ground. 

 Standing on this bright morning beneath its canopy of 

 autumn gold, I look across the valley to conscious 

 Eildon, triply cleft, and then pass along the narrow 

 paved way down which so many generations of Haigs 

 have been carried to burial in St. Mary's aisle of 

 Dryburgh. 



Still, as of yore, broad Tweed fills the sloping woods 

 with gentle sound; still the salmon return year after 

 year to linger among the loops and bends between the 

 Monk's Ford and Gladswood. But, with the people, the 



