290 



ESKDALE. 



PART VITT. 



beforehand, he might possibly have survived to found 

 a British peerage ; but as it was, the genius of the Arm- 

 strong dynasty was for a time extinguished, only, how- 

 ever, to reappear, after the lapse of a few centuries, in 

 the person of the eminent engineer of Newcastle-upon- 

 Tyne, the inventor of the Armstrong gun. 



The two centuries and a half which have elapsed since 

 then have indeed effected extraordinary changes. 1 The 

 energy which the old borderers threw into their feuds 

 has not become extinct, but survives under more be- 

 nignant aspects, exhibiting itself in efforts to enlighten, 

 fertilize, and enrich the country which their wasteful 

 ardour before did so much to disturb and impoverish. 

 The heads of the Buccleugh and Elliot family now sit in 

 the British House of Lords. The descendant of Scott of 

 Harden has achieved a world- wide reputation as a poet 

 and novelist; and the representative of the Graemes 

 of Netherby whose country seat now sits so peacefully 

 amidst its woods upon the English side of the border, 

 overlooking Lower Esk is one of the most venerable 

 and respected of British statesmen. The border men, 



1 It was long before the ] Deforma- 

 tion flowed into the secluded valley 

 of the Esk ; but when it did, the 

 energy of the Borderers displayed 

 itself in the extreme form of their 

 opposition to the old religion. The 

 Eskdale people became as resolute in 

 their covenanting as they had before 

 been in their freebooting ; and the 

 moorland fastnesses of the moss- 

 troopers became the haunts of the 

 persecuted ministers in the reign of 

 the second James. A little above 

 Lang-holm is a hill known as " Peden's 

 View," and the well in the green hol- 

 low at its foot is still called " Peden's 

 Well " that place having been the 

 haunt of Alexander Peden, the " pro- 

 phet." His hiding-place was among 

 the alder-bushes in the hollow, while 

 from the hill-top he could look up 

 the valley, and see whether the John- 

 stones of Wester Hall were coming. 

 Quite at the head of the same valley, 



at a place called Craighaugh, on Esk- 

 dale Muir, one Hislop, a young cove- 

 nanter, was shot by Johnstone's men, 

 and buried where he fell; a gray 

 slabstone still marking the place of 

 his rest. Since that time, however, 

 quiet has reigned in Eskdale, and its 

 small population have gone about 

 their daily industry from one genera- 

 tion to another in peace. Yet, though 

 secluded and apparently shut out by 

 the surrounding hills from the outer 

 world, there is not a throb of the 

 nation's heart but pulsates along the 

 valley; and when the author visited 

 it, some two years since, he found 

 that a wave of the great Volunteer 

 movement had flowed into Eskdale ; 

 and the "lads of Langholm" were 

 drilling and marching under their 

 chief, young Mr. Malcolm of the 

 Burnfoot, with even more zeal than 

 | in the populous and far more exposed 

 I towns and cities of the south. 



