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And Scott, a name which while the greenwood grows,
While Skiddaw towers, and silver Solway flows,
While eyes love light, and ladies lover-story,
Shall shine in martial might and minstrel glory;
And bold Kirkpatrick, Closeburn's fiery knight,
Dimm'd now and shining with diminish'd light.
And Halliday, what muse but thinks of thee,
The wight, the witty, friendly, frank, and free;
And ancient Lyddal, thou whose lineage long
Has cherish'd northern oral lore and song;
And all the names in olden tale renown'd,
Sung in romance on fancy's charmed ground ;—
On these we'll muse, stretch'd on the sunward sod,
Erewhile by mailed knight and fairy trod,
Swathed in the shepherd's maud-around, around,
Will gray tradition pour her fitful sound,
And charm us up old visions haught and high,
Reveal'd to none save ours, or the GREAT WIZARD's eye.

The stream of Lyddal, in winding down the romantic border vale on which it confers its name, partly encloses a small, round, woody mount, or knoll, once occupied by a fortress or tower, the residence of the ancient and warlike name of Lyddal. This fortress, during the eventful times of the English and Scottish wars, acknowledged for captains many of the martial names of Cumberland and Dumfrieshire. If the winds of Lyddal fanned the pennons of the Percys, the Musgraves, the Mordaunts, the Selbys, the Dacres, and the Harclas; they also in succession waved the banners of the Scotts, the Maxwells, the Johnstones, the Hallidays, and the Lyddals. And tradition does not fail to inform us, that the same breeze which blew on the loyal pennons of these redoubted border chieftains, blew more than once with equal gentleness on the banners of the marauding Grahames, Armstrongs, and Jardines, fairly displayed on the summit of Lyddal tower. Nay; to one of these temporary lords of Lyddal is ascribed the famous war-cry in the onset at Ancram-moor, "Every man for his ain hand, and God for us a';" and a border family still show a gold girdle, with an embossed sword, which in that memorable day forsook the side of Sir Brian Latoun, and attached itself to the side of Richard Armstrong, lord, for the time, of the towers of Gillknockie and Lyddal.

But disuse, says the poet, will rust the brightest sword; so time will sap the strength of the strongest wall. The castle of Lyddal was silently dismantled by the long peace which

followed the first Stuart to the English throne; and though it held up its head for a season, during the great civil war, it gradually lost its martial appearance; and soon after the accession of the Hanoverian branch of the Stuarts, when the wars which filled our towns with fire, and flooded our hearths with blood, were carried to foreign lands, it reduced its exterior to the peaceful look of domestic repose, and national tranquillity. This quiet sustained a slight interruption by the march of the Highland host, in 1745, when the mutilated tower was occupied as a magazine by a retainer to the chief of the clan Macpherson. On the retreat of the rebels from England, orders were given to blow up the magazine, and this service was entrusted to a clansman, much better skilled in the virtues of sword-blades and dirks, than in the powers of twenty barrels of gunpowder. He made his way to the door, and throwing a blazing turf, which he plucked from a peasant's hearth, among the barrels, quietly awaited the result. The tower was shattered from turret to foundation-stone, and the astonished clansman thrown three acres broad from the spot where he stood. He started to his feet, much singed, and but little hurt, and shaking the fire from his kilt and plaid, exclaimed with a snort: "Tamn ye! put ye're hasty elding" (fuel.)

Walter Lyddal, to whom this tower pertained at the time of the highland incursion, was the last of the ancient and immediate race, and altogether a remarkable person. In

his youth, he was renowned over the whole border for the beauty of his person, for his skill in all manly exercises, and for the undaunted bravery of his nature. He was in love with a young lady, of the ancient family of the Selbys, and won her affection from many opulent and noble rivals. They met and plighted their vows, and broke a ring between them at the foot of Lyddalcross, an ancient monument of stone held in superstitious veneration by the peasantry; but their affections were crossed by false friends, or by their own evil fortunes. He flew to a foreign land, and the loss of her lover, and the disasters which the fatal rebellion of 1715 brought on her family, conducted the lady to an untimely grave. Walter Lyddal returned to his native land, but he was no longer the gay and the fiery youth, whose bravery kept the border-riders in awe, and influenced the hearts of many noble maidens. He abolished the ancient state and splendour of his house-turned his deerherds to the mountains, permitted no one to call him lord, and exchanged the mantle, and hat, and heron plume, worn by many of the romantic youths of that period, for a lowland bonnet, and a shepherd's maud. The sword and pistols, the common badges of gentle birth, and which personal safety often demanded, were exchanged for a simple staff; and for the sound of the trumpet, and the marshalling of armed men, he had now the music of the shepherd's pipe, and the management of numerous flocks, which he delighted to lead out to pasture among the romantic hills of his native land.

This transformation was beheld with sorrow and pity by the ancient dependants of the name of Lyddal; they had ever been accustomed to associate the name with the sword, and the spear, with chivalry and feats of arms, and sighed to see the descendant of the heroes of their fathers' tales and songs degenerate into a feeder of flocks. The rustic minstrels of the north made ballads "of scoff and of scorn" on this unhappy degeneracy, but nothing would rouse him from his lethargy. Even when the highland host took forcible possession of his residence, and made it

into a magazine, he offered resistance neither in word nor deed, but seated himself on a little hill, and looked unconcerned on the strange array of warriors as they passed. When his home-the ancient dwelling of his race was blown to the air, he was only observed to remove with much anxiety the rubbish from the old stone cross which stood beside the tower; and pulling an emblem or token from his bosom, he walked round and round the ancient monument, muttering words which sounded like a prayer, and of which the name of Selby could alone be distinguished.

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After the retreat of the Highlanders, the house was speedily re-built, and the name was changed to Lyddalcross; a name which the peasantry, out of love for the proprietor, allowed it to retain. As he advanced in years, his attachment to a pastoral life became more and more decided; he sometimes admitted visitors from among the gentle friends of his father's house; but he heard of titles and rank conferred on names long in rivalry with his own with perfect indifference, and drove out his flocks to pasture, and consorted with peasants and shepherds, like one who had never aspired at distinction, or prayed for ladies' love. But he was no churl, though churls were his companions; his heart was kind, and his hand was ever open. His hearth, during winter, blazed the brightest of all border hearths; his hall was crowded with the wretched and the indigent, and his tables loaded with the abundance which his extensive estates supplied. To a race of beings whom the sordid feelings of the present portioners of the earth have shut up in alms-houses and cells, "the moping idiot, and the madman gay," his house was ever. open, and his table ever spread. His large fire was commonly flanked by a couple of these wanderers,-to whose residence in a family, the merciful proverb of the north imputed half the good fortune that befel; nor did the incumbents think of removing, till perhaps the arrival of others, equally deranged, but more intractable than themselves, drove them from the chimney-cheek. The new occupants again in their turn were

dispossessed, more by force than entreaty, by others of their brethren of the district.

To those fond of observing the revival of the rude hospitality of our ancestors, a view of the evening fire-side of Lyddalcross would have given no small pleasure. The halt, the lame, and the blind; those who felt distress, or counterfeited misfortune; the young and the aged, the soldier from the wars, and the mariner from the waves, all were there. The soldier's wife, with her children, and her story of distress, and the last letter she received from one who would never more write again; the blue gown mendicant, the privileged lifter of every door-latch, and the chronicle of the district; the strolling seller of ballads and tales, those wandering booksellers, whose traffic in abridged romances, legends, and songs, has been long cut up by the periodical venders of visionary reforms, and leading articles in the practice and morals contained in the impure pages of Paine; and though last, not the least important, the pleasaut packman, whose tact in selling snoods of silk, and kirtles of callimanco, had rendered him a standard favourite on the border; all considered Lyddalcross as a refuge and a home.

These various and discordant materials of fire-side felicity the proprietor knew well how to manage, and perhaps no person ever possessed equal skill in extracting information and amusement from such intractable matter. He entered into the peculiar habits and feelings, and singularities of each individual, and distributed little marks of attention and notice, with such a graceful, but yet frugal hand, that all felt pleased, went away satisfied, and returned with joy. He suited himself to the whimsical and capricious humours of the crazy and demented; and with the old mendicants, he entered deeply into the spirit and history of past times, and conversed on family feuds, domestic misfortunes, national quarrels, and stories steeped deep in popular belief and superstition. On those who possessed the gift of storytelling in the greatest perfection, the laird's favours not only dropt, but were absolutely showered; and, to tell the

truth, to go to Lyddalcross, without some real or well-feigned story, was to expose the visitant, not to expulsion, but to the mortification of a seat distant from the fire, and cold cheer at the supper table.

Of all this the travelling people of the neighbouring districts were perfectly aware, and amply indulged the aged laird in this harmless propensity, so that the Tales of Lyddalcross became famous, like the minstrelsy of old, all over the north countrie. The shepherd maiden sang at bught and bridal the songs of Lyddalcross, and the mendicant tale-teller justified in remote parishes any departure which he made from the direct line of established narrative, by declaring "such is the way at Lyddalcross;" so that this mansion became as famous for the cleverest versions of traditional story, as the Ballantyne press is at present for the finest editions of popular books.

How I became acquainted with Walter Lyddal is a tale easily told, and to me, at this distant day, there is pleasure in relating it. In the early part of my life, I was pursuing my way along the border towards Carlisle, with the carelessness of one who had not learned to set value upon time, and to whom an hour of lingering by an old castle wall, or a couple of hours pondering around the circumference of a Danish or Roman entrenchment, were moments numbered by joy. It was nigh the close of harvest, and the sun had nearly an hour to shine, when, after pursuing the curves and freaks of a pure and beautiful brook, I came within sight of the house of Lyddalcross; I stood looking on the romantic scene before me, conjuring up as I gazed the forms of the heroes of old, whose names and deeds had rendered this valley famous in story. So deeply was I engaged among the imaginary heroes of the Round Table, the wizard Merlin, the enchanter Walter de Soulis, and, descending down the stream of traditional chivalry, among the English and Scottish knights and minstrels, who tilted and battled, and sang on the streamlet banks, that I scarcely observed the approach of two men, who seemed engaged in very earnest conversation.

They were travelling merchants or pedlars, one was old and bent, with a look of particular shrewdness and calculation; the other was young, but there was a forecast in his looks, and a spirit of consideration in his eye, which foreboded that he would become an accomplished person in his way. Of this his hoary companion seemed to be aware, from the particular pains which he took to school him in his craft or calling, and prepare him for making his first foot, or entrée," at Lyddalcross, with honour and emolument. "And now William," said the old pedlar, "having settled the mystery of merchandize, have ye got a tale to tell to the laird of Lyddalcross, to secure ye a cozie seat at the fire, and the choicest comfort at his supper-board? Let me tell ye, my man, never be wanting in your tale; better want an inch of your ellwand. Ye maun have a tale of love and witty courtship for the maidens, a tale of mirth for the young men, and a tale of devotion, weel larded with scripture warrant, and the death-bed saws of saints, for the old and devout. But for the Laird of Lyddalcross, ye maun have an auld-world tale of blood-spilling, and hership and spulziement; or something anent witches, and wizards may be. There was auld Marget Humlock, yere mother's nearest neighbour, as uncannie a cummer as a man may talk about; ye can readily spirit up some sinful story anent her, and may be, my lad, tell nae falsehoods for all that; she was a fearful woman: or a tale of fairyrade and revelry-age; better than a', and more becoming for one of thy years." "Ah, Simon," said he to the senior," let me alone for a cunning tale, and a grave face. I vow I have as rare a tale to tell as the ears of an old man may covet." "Hast thou indeed," responded Symon, in a tone that seemed intended to reprove the presumption of the youth, "it will be something notable gif it be brewed in thy own brain; let me have a tasting on't, my bairn; repeat me a bit, and repeat it deliverly." Repeat to thee my tale; my chiefest of all tales," answered Willie; "my sooth man I'm nae sic simpleton; ye would tell't for your ain, and win the warm cheer, and the cozie seat frae

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the laird, and leave me a cauld and supperless seat, and a bed in the barn, under an ell-deep of damp sacks." " Aweel, aweel, keep it thyself," said the senior, whose temper the insolence of the youth seemed unable to ruffle. "But what tempts

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thee to think I would steal one of thy quoth he' and 'quoth I' stories; and wi' sic a gallant collection of my own. I shall tell a tale tonight, sic as has nae been heard in Lyddal tower since the banner of Johnie Armstrong, the freebooter, floated oure its rafters. But let us forward, else some daft and demented carlin will catch the warmest nook before us; and ye maun ken, the laird never moves the seat of a crazy bodie; no, for the fairest tale ever invented and tauld. Ye need nae wonder at that; he has a fellowfeeling, Willie, my man; he's tarred with the same stick, as the corbiecrow said to the raven." And forward the two companions hastened, leaving me much interested in the singular laird of Lyddalcross.

I had heard of Walter Lyddal, for the unhappy tale of his youthful days had flown far and wide; and I had also heard of his return to Scotland, of the remarkable style of rude hospitality in which he lived, and the curious characters which it was his delight to assemble about him. As I recalled these matters to my mind, two women, cloaked and hooded, with long walking sticks in their hands, advanced along the road, and the theme on which they turned the current of conversation was the same which at that time employed my own thoughts. "Aweel and aweel," said one old cummer, showing from below her hood, as she spoke, a long gray eyelash, and lucken brows,

aweel, its a wonderous weel told tale; but its too common, Marion, its too common; it looks too like yesterday to pass for a bairn of fernyear. A tale like that will never win the notice of the laird, nor win a pound of hawslock wool to make hose for your good man. I see ye're green at this gear; sae hearken hinnie, and I will school thee. It is now some sax and twenty years, come summer, since I began to feast on the fat of Lyddalcross; mony's the good stone of gimmer-wool I have gained by

cannie management, and mony's the happy and gladsome night I have spent at his fire-side. It was nae sae in auld times, I have heard my douce good man say, low as he now lies in Wamphray kirkyard, with the green grass growing aboon one of the whitest and manliest brows the sun ever shone on; it was nae sae, he said, when the hall of Lyddalcross, instead of hanging full of the sides and spaulds of sheep, and deer hams, and kippered salmon, and teats of wool, and hanks of yarn, was gleaming from floor to rafter with the swords and the bucklers of mighty men. The horn that now blaws the shepherd to his sunkit on the hill side, had it been set to a Lyddal's lip, would have touted out two hundred helmets, with as mony bauld Lyddals and Hallidays, all on their barbed steeds, with their mail coats on, and their swords by their sides. But times, hinnie, are sadly altered now, and a man has to toil and sweat, and turn over dirty acres, from sunrise to sun-set, for a handful of meal and a pint of skimmed milk. A man in the auld times would mount his horse at the gloaming, and clink into his wife's lap, sometime ere midnight, the golden gauds of some baron's lady; he lived, lass, by the bow and the spear, and reaped a richer and a readier harvest in ae night, than a farmer will reap now in seven years. But as I was saying, mony a happy night have I spent at the hearth of Lyddalcross; but for every night of howff and shelter have I rewarded him with some cannie auld-farrand tale. Sae all that ye have to do is to glide in at the gate like a ghaist, with a 'peace be here,' and health t'ye laird of Lyddalcross;' and should ony ane say, away ye strange quean, the laird disnae ken ye,' ye maun make answer: Eh, sirs, but that's the first unkindly word woman ever heard at Lyddalcross. The auld Lyddals had a frank hand, and a weel plenished board for their dependants; it's altered days indeed. I heard my grandsire say, that when the auld lords of Lyddal feasted the nobles and the princes, the venison smoked like Lyddal mount in a mist, and the wine ran as red as ever the Lyddal ran with English blood,

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mair by token three parishes feasted on the crumbs after the feast, and got drunk on the remnant wine.' Say this, or something like this, and I'll be your warrant; only ye'll have yere tale to tell, or yere ballad to sing nevertheless:" and continuing this amusing admonition, the two cummers descended into the valley, and proceeded towards the house.

To resist the wish of visiting Walter Lyddal, after listening to these conversations, was impossible; so I descended into the valley, and approached the house, not without apprehension that I might fail in the curious trial of introduction to the warmest seat, and the choicest cheer. The door appeared to be guarded by a gray-headed domestic, who, on observing an utter stranger in the path, came forward to meet me: "Ye'll be wanting to look at Lyddal mount, Sir, and the Saxon cross, whilk my master calls Lady Selby's cross," said the retainer of the last lord of Lyddal; "or ye may be wanting," added he, in a lower tone, but of equal kindness, "food and fire, and shelter." I looked round the ancient mount, and the Saxon cross, and rewarding my conductor with a small gratuity for his trouble, prepared to pass the threshold; he whispered in a confidential tone, in which he perhaps wished me to think that my notice of him was not forgotten: "Your food will be the richer, Sir, and your bed softer, and your welcome warmer, if ye can tell some brave auldworld tale to cheer the heart of my kind auld master; for, the saints help him! he kens of nae comfort now, save what comes frae strange lips."

I entered, and found a large and roomy hall, already peopled with motley guests, while a huge fire in the middle of the floor shared the glory of illuminating the place with the last ray of the descending sun. Tale and ballad had already begun, for a wandering dealer in legends and songs endeavoured, as I advanced, to obtain a warmer seat, and augment his evening cheer, by singing the following song, of which he carried six dozen of printed copies, at the rate of seven songs for a penny.

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