The Ettrick, which joins the Tweed not a great way above Abbotsford, no longer flows through a "feir foreste;" where once there was "grete plentie" of hart and hind, of doe and roe, mighty flocks of sheep now graze. Of Ettrick House, where the pastoral poet was born; of Thirlestane Castle, the strength of "Ready, aye ready" John Scott; of Tushielaw, where another of the Scotts, Adam of that ilk, was hanged by the king who had no mercy for Johnnie Armstrang; of Carter haugh, where the "fair Janet" met "young Tamlane," and by strength of love won him from the thraldom of the Fairy Queen; of Selkirk, whose burly "souters" (_sutors_) gave so good an account of themselves at Flodden Field--of all this there is no space to speak. Nor can there be anything but barest mention of the Yarrow, whose bonnie holms and dowie dens were dear to Wordsworth and other modern poets, as they were to the old folk-singers of the Border. St. Mary's lone and silent lake, with its swans that "float double;" Henderland, where Cockburne's widow mourned her knight "sae dear;" Dryhope, where the "Flower of Yarrow" was wooed and won by Walter Scott of Harden; Newark's stately tower, where the last minstrel's trembling fingers tuned his harp and swept its strings--these and other scenes must all be left unnoticed. But the Yarrow is perhaps the most benign of Border streams, and it has inspired the sweetest and saddest of Border songs, not excepting even the "Flowers of the Forest," or "Annan Water." And of them all, none is more sad or sweet than that which tells the story of the Baron of Oakwood, who was slain on its "dowie banks," and there found by his "ladye gaye." "She kissed his cheek, she kaimed his hair, She searched his wounds all thorough; She kissed them till her lips grew red On the dowie howms of Yarrow." It is near Philiphaugh that Yarrow and Ettrick wed--Philiphaugh, famed for its memories of Outlaw Murray, and still more for the crushing defeat which Montrose here suffered at the hands of David Leslie. The most princely of apostates was taken completely by surprise, and the men who until now had carried all before them were fleeing for their lives before he could strike a blow. Leslie is said to have butchered many of his prisoners in cold blood, some being shot in the courtyard of Newark Castle, while others were precipitated from a high bridge over the Tweed. It would be pleasant to believe that the story is not true, or is at all events exaggerated. The latter part of it is certainly inaccurate, if not wholly false, for in those days there was no bridge over the Tweed in this region. Sir Walter, however, was at the trouble to point out that there is a bridge over the Ettrick only four miles from Philiphaugh, and another over the Yarrow, either of which might have been the scene of the massacre.