182 Innerwich Castle, etc. By Dr Hardy. 



rocky banks, expecting that he did not know of the bridge. 

 But seeing him advance directly down upon it from the top 

 of the Butterlaw Bank, the sentinels cried out, ' Edward 

 kens the brig ! ' which alarming cry communicated a panic 

 to the Scots, who retreated. The untimely alarm, the panic 

 it caused, and the disaster fixed the name, which was 

 abbreviated to ' Edenken's Brig.' The King's Stones (see 

 Ante, p. 49) had been blasted with gunpowder, to make 

 clearances for agriculture, before I was old enough to 

 remember them. But I was a boy grown when, to prevent 

 travellers from using the ancient pathway, the venerable grey 

 bridge was blown down with gunpowder. The first impulse 

 of indignation which I felt in my life, at anything like an 

 outrage on public privileges, was felt at the destruction of 

 Edenken's Brig. The first time that a desire was kindled 

 in me to take a pen and write, was the desire to avenge 

 its fall. The first attempt I made at rhyming was to 

 record its fate." 



"We were up to the Butterlaw Bank and into the Horse 

 Hill planting before we ceased to speak of Edenken's and 

 the old recollections it brought to our minds. There was 

 the Eig on our left where James had herded the cows, where 

 Peter had herded after him, and where I herded after Peter. 

 There were trees on which all three, with years between, 

 had carved our names ; rabbit holes where we all had caught 

 rabbits ; a trickling spring, where all had stemmed pools 

 and placed our water-mills."* 



The quiet scene at Thornton was also personally interesting 

 to me, for my venerable father, as he once told me, in an 

 early stage of his prolonged earthly pilgrimage, halted here, 

 and, when a boy, "run about the braes"; and I may be here 

 excused for this personal reference by quoting Coleridge. 



" For 1 have found 



That outward forms, the loftiest, still receive 



Their finer influence from the Life within; 



Fair cyphers else : fair, but of import vague 



Or unconcerning, where the heart not finds 



History or prophecy of friend, or child, 



Or gentle maid, our first and early love, 



Or Father." 

 * The Autobiography of a Working Man, pp. 270, 271, 272, 274. 

 London, 1854. 



