CHAP. XVITI. THE "LAST ACT OF THE UNION." 415 



Bridge forms a very fine object in a picture of great 

 interest, full of striking architectural variety and beauty. 

 The bridge was opened on the 15th of August, 1849, 

 and a few days after the royal train passed over it, 

 halting for a few minutes to enable her Majesty to 

 survey the wonderful scene below. In the course of the 

 following year the Queen opened the extensive stone 

 viaduct across the Tweed, above described, by which 

 the last link was completed of the continuous line of 

 railway between London and Edinburgh. Over the 

 entrance to the Berwick station, occupying the site of 

 the once redoubtable Border fortress, so often the deadly 

 battle-ground of the ancient Scots and English, was 

 erected an arch under which the royal train passed, 

 bearing in large letters of gold the appropriate words, 

 " The last act of the Union." 



The warders at Berwick no longer look out from the 

 castle walls to descry the glitter of Southron spears. 

 The bell-tower, from which the alarm was sounded of old, 

 though still standing, is deserted ; the only bell heard 

 within the precincts of the old castle being the railway 

 porter's bell announcing the arrival or the departure 

 of trains. You see the Scotch Express pass along the 

 bridge and speed southward on the wings of steam. 

 But no alarm spreads along the Border now. North- 

 umbrian beeves are safe. Chevy-Chase and Otterburn 

 are quiet sheep pastures. The only men at arms on the 

 battlements of Alnwick Castle are of stone. Bamborough 

 Castle has become an asylum for shipwrecked mariners, 

 and the Norman Keep at Newcastle has been converted 

 into a Museum of Antiquities. The railway has indeed 

 consummated the Union. 



