Anniversary A 



discovery. Be that as it may, 1 ask 3^011 to courteously 

 accept for the Club an apologia pro vita sua, based on its 

 antiquarian tastes alone. 



For this purpose, let us contrast the man who has set 

 himself to learn what he may of local history, with him 

 who cares for none of these things The latter, standing on 

 Lin glee Hill, and looking across the Ettrick towards the 

 ancient burgh of Selkirk, has, after noting the woods and 

 eminences, houses, steeples, and chimney stalks, exhausted 

 all the view can give him. To the Antiquary, on the other 

 hand, it is alive with interest and with movement. He 

 pictures to himself the scenes that have been witnessed in 

 the valley since time began. It takes him little trouble to 

 realise with a fair amount of confidence how it appeared 

 when man first hunted in its woods. Savages these are, 

 armed with stone weapons, and clothed in skins when 

 clothed at all. Their bee-hive hovels are easily seen on the 

 fringe of the natural forest, where it thins as it climbs the 

 hill. Then, he notes messengers who come with evil 

 tidings, discerns changes of habit — a growth of cortimon 

 action, and the raising of ramparts for defence. 



By and by, dreaded swords and helmets glitter in the 

 distance, the wretched natives hear the tramp of Roman 

 legions, and feel the edge of the Roman gladius. At 

 intervals the conquerors disappear and reappear, to find that 

 the rough Celts have anew learned something of their own 

 stratagems and habits. Herds of half-tamed cattle begin to 

 be tended on the hills ; here and there are patches of grain. 

 Freed at last from the Roman yoke, it is only to wage 

 desperate war with hordes of Saxons pressing forward from 

 the east. Copying in their rude way the roads which joined 

 the Roman stations, they connect their own big camps by a 

 deep track of which this very ditch at our feet, so 

 meaningless near the hill-top, is a fragment. All in vain ; 

 the Saxon wins his stubborn way, and soon the valley 

 reveals a life of settlement and order. A stranger in long 

 robes, the saintly Cuthbert, gathers people around him, and 

 tells them wonderful stories of a Divine Man, who died and 



