"O Thou who pour'd the patriot tide That streamed through Wallace's undaunted heart, Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride Or nobly die, the second glorious part, (The patriot's God, peculiarly Thou art, His friend, inspirer, guardian and reward!) O never, never, Scotia's realm desert; But still the patriot and the patriot bard, In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!" Surely a consecration of this crossing after its centuries of unrest. General Monk spent the winter of 1659 in Coldstream, lodging in a house east of the market-place, marked with its tablet. And here he raised the first of the still famous Coldstream Guards, to bring King Charles "o'er the water" back to the throne. Coldstream is the Gretna Green of this end of the Border, and many a runaway couple, noble and simple, has been married in the inn. Four miles south of Coldstream in a lonely part of this lonely Border--almost the echoes are stilled, and you hear nothing but remembered bits of Marmion as you walk the highway--lies Flodden Field. It was the greatest of Scotch battles, not even excepting Bannockburn; greatest because the Scotch are greatest in defeat. It was, or so it seemed to James, because his royal brother-in-law Henry VIII was fighting in France, an admirable time wherein to advance into England. James had received a ring and a glove and a message, from Anne of Brittany, bidding him "Strike three strokes with Scottish brand And march three miles on Scottish land And bid the banners of his band In English breezes dance." James was not the one to win at Flodden, notwithstanding that he had brought a hundred thousand men to his standard. They were content to raid the Border, and he to dally at Ford. "O for one hour of Wallace wight, Or well skill'd Bruce to rule the fight, And cry--'Saint Andrew and our right!' Another sight had seen that morn From Fate's dark book a leaf been torn, And Flodden had been Bannockburn!" The very thud of the lines carries you along, if you have elected to walk through the countryside, green now and smiling faintly if deserted, where it was brown and sere in September, 1513. One should be repeating his "Marmion," as Scott thought out so many of its lines riding over this same countryside. It is a splendid, a lingering battle picture-- "And first the ridge of mingled spears Above the brightening cloud appears; And in the smoke the pennon flew, As in the storm the white sea mew, Then mark'd they, dashing broad and far, The broken billows of the war; And plumed crests of chieftains brave, Floating like foam upon the wave, But nought distinct they see. Wide ranged the battle on the plain; Spears shook, and falchions flash'd amain, Fell England's arrow flight like rain, Crests rose and stooped and rose again Wild and disorderly."