Harking back now for a moment to Jed,--five or six miles above the bridge at Camptown where we quitted the line of river to follow the old coach road over Carter Fell, we come to Southdean. Here are the ruins of an ancient church, (the foundations, at least, and part of the walls and tower,) which have lately been dug out from the great green mound with its big ash trees atop, which lay these two hundred years and more between hillside and river, down by the little grey {149}bridge. This is the "churche in a fayre launde called Zedon," wherein, says Froissart, Douglas and the other Scottish leaders met on the eve of that expedition into England which ended with the glorious fight of Otterbourne. "I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas," wrote Sir Philip Sidney, "that I found not my heart more moved than with a trumpet;" and who is there to-day, in spite of lapse of centuries, whose blood does not quicken at the very sound of the word "Otterbourne." It used to be said that the "Zedon" of Froissart was more applicable to Yetholm than to Southdean. Some, indeed, still maintain that, as far at least as _sound_ is concerned, "Zedon" (the "Z", as was formerly not uncommon, being treated as a "Y") bears a much greater resemblance to "Yethoim" than to "Southdean." One may readily admit that as it is spelled, "South-dean" is not in the least like "Zedon." But it is an entirely different affair when we come to a matter of local pronunciation. In this case the pronunciation is, as near as may be, "Seuden." If we very slightly soften the sound of the letter "Z," and allow for the fact that the "e" of Zedon would naturally be used by Froissart with the same value that it bears in his own language, we arrive absolutely at the local pronunciation of the name--"Seuden." In any case, it seems most unlikely that the point of assembly could have been Yetholm, if only for the reason that when marching from there into England,--presumably by way of the Bowmont valley, and so past Wooler and through Northumberland,--Douglas would have exposed himself to be struck in rear and on his left flank from the adjacent vantage points of Roxburgh and Wark, both of which formidable strongholds were then in English hands, and, (seeing that the intention of the Scots to make an invasion had long been known in Northumberland,) probably held in force. And certainly, if the column came by way of Ottercops and Rothely Crags, as it is said to have done, its starting point was not {150}Yetholm. Obviously, too, a Scottish army concentrated at Southdean was in a much better strategical position than any that it could have occupied in the neighbourhood of Yetholm. From Southdean it could strike either way at will, either over the easy, and necessarily well known, pass by Catcleuch Shin, or across the hills by the old Roman way, the Whele Causeway, into Liddesdale, and thence on to Carlisle.