From Fox's Earth 



silver, wind-chased surface, filling yonder cup, 

 with flights or flocks of water -fowl. And feels 

 how it would light up the scene. The vision 

 passes, the reality comes out. All is brown 

 heath and shaggy wood, with the silver winding 

 down the glens. 



So Scott's border ballad is lakeless, save for 

 hints of a few mountain tarns, hidden away 

 in the uplands, by the sources of the streams. 

 In a lakeland the shading would have been 

 lighter. So, too, would the temperament of the 

 people with no wide expanse of light, relieved 

 only as by the transient gleam on the hillside, or 

 the song of running water. So, too, would the 

 course of border history, the atmosphere of 

 border story and song. The " Lay of the Last 

 Minstrel " might not have been written. Sir 

 William of Deloraine's ride was all by stream- 

 sides. From the Teviot it lasted till 



Far beneath in lustre wan, 



Old Melrose rose, and fair Tweed ran. 



The haughs are green and pleasant, the shade 

 of trees grateful in the midday heat. Between 

 the banks the stream glides, widening slowly by 

 the way. Burns trickle in ; and below, the 

 volume of water is so much more. Nowhere 

 does it bud out in a sheet of wind-chased 

 ripples. 



Salmon enter at Berwick ; they sail for a while 



124 



