The /Liddel/ rises in a great morass in Roxburghshire called Deadwater. For some ten miles it is a wild mountain stream, flowing dark and sullen through a rocky glen, but as it reaches lower ground the glen widens and softens into a beautiful valley with trees and fine pasture land, whilst lower still are fertile fields. The Liddel has many tributaries, whereof we will only mention Hermitage Water, near the source. It is a wild mountain stream, and at its wildest part, amidst morasses and bare desolate mountains, stand the ruins of grim old Hermitage Castle, with its thick towers and walls and rare narrow windows. See it on some gloomy November day, when the storm spirit is abroad, and it stands the very abomination of desolation! Turn to its history, and the gloom grows ever darker; for 'tis little but a record of cruel deeds. This is one of the oldest baronial buildings in Scotland. Sir William Douglas, the "Knight of Liddesdale" and "Flower of Chivalry," took the place in 1338 from the English. You wonder at his name! Four years later he wounded and seized at Hawick Sir Alexander Ramsay, Sheriff of Teviotdale, of whose appointment he was jealous, and, throwing him into a deep dungeon at Hermitage, left him to starve. A few chance droppings from the granary protracted his miserable existence through seventeen awful days. His captors, hearing his groans, at length took him out and gave him--not bread, but a priest, in whose arms Ramsay expired! The "Flower of Chivalry" was finally slain by the Earl of Douglas, head of his house, whilst hunting in Ettrick Forest. It was whispered the Earl had discovered that his Countess entertained a guilty passion for the murdered man. A rude old ballad represents her as coming out of her bower when she heard of the crime, and proclaiming her own shame-- "And loudly there she did ca', It is for the Lord of Liddesdale That I let all these tears doune fa'."