"Here," says he, "in an old Orch-yard did the Herons in my time build their Nests upon some old Pear-trees, whereupon in the Harvest time are to be seen much Fruit growing, and Trouts and Iles crauling down the Body of these Trees. These fish the Herons take out of the River of Tweed to their Nests, and as they go in at the Mouth, so they are seen squirt out again at the Draught. And this is the remarkable Riddle they so much talk of, to have Flesh, Fish, and Fruit at the same time upon one tree." There is still a heronry at Dawyck, but not, I think, in an "Orch-yard." In the neighbourhood of Drummelzier there is a spot that takes us back in thought to those dim, far off days when the world was in its infancy. Near to where Powsayl Burn, the "burn of the willows," joins Tweed, you may see the grave of Merlin the Seer, the Wizard Merlin. Fleeing from the field of Arderydd (Arthuret, near Carlisle), after the terrible defeat of the Pagans by the Christians in 573, Merlin found refuge among the hills of Upper Tweed, and there lived for many years, half-crazed, a homeless wanderer. Finally, the fear {352}raised by his supposed possession of supernatural powers, and the dread of his enchantments, caused a mob of ignorant country-folk to club and stone him to death, and he was buried where he fell, by the Powsayl burn. In a poem still extant, Merlin tells how he wandered long in the wild wood of Caledon. "Sweet apple tree, growing by the river! Whereof the keeper shall not thrive on its fruit; Before I lost my wits I used to be around its stem With a fair sportive maid, matchless in slender shape. Ten years and forty, the sport of the lawless ones, Have I been wandering in gloom among sprites, After wealth in abundance and entertaining minstrels. After suffering from disease and despair in the forest of Caledon."