92 Ancient Monuments of Gorebridge District. [Sess. 



II.— ANCIENT MONUMENTS OF THE GOREBRIDGE 



DISTRICT. 



By Rev. D. W. WILSON, M.A. 



{Read Dec. 17, 1913.) 



Scotland itself, its literature, and its history owe much to 

 Sir Walter Scott. He discovered the beauties of our country 

 to the lovers of natural scenery in all lands. The Border 

 district and the Highlands are under an imperishable debt 

 of gratitude to the great writer. What did he not do for the 

 history of our country ? By his rare and powerful genius he 

 has made past epochs live over again. The great men of 

 other days have, so to speak, risen from their graves and 

 walk about before our eyes. In vision we see them, and in 

 intelligence we understand them. And not great men ouly, 

 but the ordinary men and women of an epoch are represented 

 to us, so that we catch the mode of their speech, study their 

 manners and customs, understand their beliefs and prejudices, 

 and really become acquainted with them. It was a very 

 great thing, as Thomas Carlyle writes, " To teach all men this 

 truth which looks like a truism, and yet was as good as 

 unknown to writers of history and others, till so taught — 

 that the bygone ages of the world were actually filled by 

 living men." To him is largely traceable that impulse which 

 led in this country to the pursuit of archaeology. He was a 

 tireless student in his investigation of the facts of other days. 

 He made the study of them interesting to many, and revealed 

 what stores of romantic lore lie hidden in the story of our 

 past. His historical and antiquarian footnotes in his various 

 books, the use which he made of the materials he had hunted 

 up, his valuable prefaces with their rich stores of antiquarian 

 facts, all tended to awaken men to an interest in the past, and 

 to set them on to an investigation of it. 



In our own district of Gorebridge monuments of other days 

 have been discovered. Some have been consigned to the safe 

 custody of the Antiquarian Museum, and others still exist in 



