Let us wander along the banks of this far-famed and beautiful river, gliding sweetly through one of the most beautiful vales in Scotland, and once adorned with numerous castles and monasteries, whose mouldering remains yet diversify the landscape. The whole vale of the Tweed, both above and below Peebles, was studded with a chain of castles, built in the shape of square towers, and ordinarily consisting of three stories, to serve as a defence against the invasion of the English freebooters. They were built alternately on each side of the river, and at such distances that one could be seen from the other. A fire kindled on the top of one of these, to give warning of a hostile incursion, could thus be perpetuated through the whole, till a tract of country seventy miles long, "from Berwick to the Bield," and fifty broad, was alarmed in a few hours. What objects of terror and sublimity these blazing summits, lighting, in a dark night, the whole valley of the Tweed, and flashing their ruddy gleam upon copsewood and river, hill-top and castle turret! "A score of fires, I ween, From height, and hill, and cliff were seen, Each with warlike tidings fraught, Each from each the signal caught; Each after each they glanced in sight, As stars arise upon the night: They gleamed on many a dusky tarn Haunted by the lonely earn,[163] On many a cairn's grey pyramid, Where urns of mighty chiefs lie hid." _Lay of the Last Minstrel._ [Footnote 163: The Scottish eagle.] But the grey mist of evening is beginning to settle upon the vale of the Tweed, and the quaint old town of Peebles, "with its three old bridges, and three old steeples, by three old churches borne." With fair weather, and in admirable spirits, we set off next morning, after breakfast, and travel at an easy pace down the fair banks of the "silver Tweed," till we reach the pretty village of Innerleithen, at the bottom of a sequestered dell, encircled on one side by high and partially wooded hills, and enlivened by the clear waters of the Tweed, rolling in front. Passing a handsome wooden bridge which crosses the river, we reach the hamlet of Traquair and Traquair house, and naturally enquire for the far-famed "Bush aboon Traquair." It is pointed out at the bottom of the hill which overlooks the lawn, where a few birch trees may be seen, the only remains of that dear old spot, made sacred by melody and song. Continuing our journey across the country, we get among the hills, and after travelling some time through a deep glen, we see before us the "haunted stream of Yarrow," the very name of which has become a synonym for all that is tender in sentiment and beautiful in poetry. "And is this Yarrow? This the stream, Of which my fancy cherished So faithfully a waking dream, An image that hath perished?"