A TWEEDSIDE SKETCH 129 



Murmuring hocirse, and frequent seen, 

 Through bush and briar, no longer green, 

 An angry brook, it sweeps the glade, 

 Brawls over rock and wild cascade. 

 And foaming brown, with doubled speed, 

 Hurries its waters to the Tweed. 



Still the old tower of Elibank is black and strong 

 in ruin ; Elibank, the home of that Muckle Mou'd 

 Meg, who made Harden after all a better bride 

 than he would have found in the hanging ash-tree 

 of her father. These are unaltered, mainly, since 

 Scott saw them last, and little altered is the 

 homely house of Ashiesteil, where he had been 

 so happy. And we, too, feel but little change 

 among those scenes of long ago, those best- 

 beloved haunts of boyhood, where we have had 

 so many good days and bad, days of rising trout 

 and success ; days of failure, and even of half- 

 drowning. 



One cannot reproduce the charm of the strong 

 river in pool and stream, of the steep rich bank 

 that it rushes or lingers by, of the green and 

 heathery hills beyond, or the bare slopes where 

 the blue slate breaks through among the dark 



K 



