Gretna Green, of course, lies on the western highroad from England, beside which the Caledonian Railway route from Carlisle enters Scotland, soon turning off into a part of it comparatively sheltered from invasion by the Solway Firth, whose rapid ebb and flow make a type of many a Gretna love story. This side too, has often rung with the passage of armed men. At Burgh-on-Sands, in sight of the Scottish Border, died Edward I., bidding his bones be wrapped in a bull’s hide and carried as bugbear standard against those obstinate rebels. The rout of Solway Moss made James V. turn his face to the wall, his heart breaking with the cry, “It came with a lass and it will go with a lass!” And the Esk of the Solway was seldom “swollen sae red and sae deep” as to daunt hardy lads from the north who once and again Swam ower to fell English ground, And danced themselves dry to the pibroch’s sound. These immigrants, unless they found six feet of English ground for a grave, seldom failed to go “back again,” perhaps with an English host at their heels. Prince Charlie’s army passed this way on its retreat from Derby. But this side of the Borderland is less well illustrated by stricken fields and sturdy sieges. It has, indeed, no lack of misty romance of its own, such as an American writer dares to bring into the light of common day by adding a sequel to Lady Heron’s ballad, in which the fair Ellen is made to nurse a secret grudge at last confessed: she could not get over, even on any plea of poetic license, that rash assertion: There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far Who would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar! “Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves,” how they rode and they ran on those hills and leas in days unkind to “a laggard in love and a dastard in war”! These names belong to the English side, as does Grahame in part. Elliot and Armstrong, Pringle and Rutherford, Ker and Home, Douglas, Murray, and Scott, are Scottish Border clans, who kept much together as in the Highlands. “Is there nae kind Christian wull gie me a night’s lodging?” begged a tramp on the Borders, and had for rough answer, “Nae Christians here; we’re a’ Hopes and Johnstones!” a jest transmuted farther north into the terms of a black Mackintosh and red Macgregors.