Stephenson: The Ettrick Shepherd 



17 



Mary's Loch. On the hillside is the yard of St. Mary's church, 

 long since disappeared. From there on down the valley, past 

 ''Dryhope's ruined Tower", the Dowie Dens of Yarrow, past 

 Newark, back to Selkirk, every milestone marks the scene of 

 one of those grand old ballads such as The Gay Goshatvk and 

 The Outlaw Murray. Save for a few intervals, the Ettrick 

 Shepherd never escaped the influence of such surroundings, 

 an influence that is to be felt in every page he wrote. 



But a sho)'t distance down the Yarrow from the loch is the 

 junction of the Douglas Burn, a harmless looking rill in the 

 bottom of a pleasant valley. Yet we know from the article 

 on Storms how grim and terrible it could becomie upon occa- 

 sion. Three miles up the Douglas Burn stand the ruins of 

 Blackhouse tower, once a possession of the Black Douglas, and 

 on the hillside near are the ''standing stones" which, tradition 

 asserts, are the scene of the Douglas Tragedy. Here, in the 

 neighboring farmhouse, tenanted by the third Mr. Laidlaw for 

 whom Hogg shepherded, the poet came to live. The farm is 

 almost at the head of the valley in its wildest part, and among 

 these barren hills Hogg shepherded for ten years. During a 

 large part of each year he was more or less alone on the hills 

 for days at a time in company with his sheep. How this na- 

 ture-communion affected his character can best be told in his 

 own words : 



It is almost impossible, also, that a shepherd can be other than a 

 religious character, being so much conversant with the Almighty in his 

 works, in all the goings-on of nature, and in his control of the otherwise 

 resistless elements. He feels himself a dependent being, morning and 

 evening, on the great Ruler of the universe; he holds converse with him 

 in the cloud and storm — on the misty mountain and the darksome waste — 

 in the whirling drift and the overwhelming thaw — and even in the voices 

 and sounds that are only heard by the howling cliif or solitary dell. 

 How can such a man fail to be impressed with the presence of an eternal 

 God, of an omniscient eye, and an almighty arm?''- 



Hogg began his service at Whitsuntide in 1790, and no place 

 in the Border could so well have helped to bring out the poetic 

 element in his nature; for, besides the poetic surroundings, 

 he found in Mr. Laidlaw not only a master but also a friend. 

 He possessed a good library among the books, of which were 

 to be found the writings of Milton, Pope, Thompson, Young, 

 and The Spectator. Laidlaw encouraged Hogg to read. The 



^■-Thc Shepherd's Calendar, Chapter XVII. 

 2—21943 



