There is no trace of the "kirk o' the shielings," founded by the religious from Iona, from which by way of Scheleschyrche came Selkirk. Nor is there trace of Davis's pile, ruined or unruined, in this near, modern, whirring city. It is the sound of the looms one remembers in Selkirk, making that infinity of yards of Scotch tweed to clothe the world. Selkirk and Galashiels and Hawick form the Glasgow of the Border. Always industrious, in the time of Flodden it was the "souters of Selkirk" who marched away to the Killing-- "Up wi' the Souters of Selkirk And down wi' the Earl o' Home." These same souters--shoemakers--were busy in the time of Prince Charles Edward and contracted to furnish two thousand pair of shoes to his army; but one does not inquire too closely into whether they furnished any quota of the four thousand feet to go therein. It was a warm sunny day when I made my pilgrimage up the Yarrow to St. Mary's. Although Yarrow has always sung in my ears, I think it was rather to see one sight that I came for the first time to Scotland, to see "The swan on still St. Mary's Lake Float double, swan and shadow." I rather think it was for this I had journeyed across the Atlantic and up the East coast route. Such a sentimental lure would I follow. But then, if that seems wasteful and ridiculous excess of sentiment, let us be canny enough, Scotch enough, to admit that one sees so many other things, incidentally. The "wan waters" of the Yarrow were shimmering, glimmering, in the morning light as I coached out of Selkirk, and by Carterhaugh. "I forbid ye, maidens a', That wear gowd in your hair, To come or gae by Carterhaugh; For young Tamlane is there." These round-shouldered hills, once covered with the Wood of Caledon, and the Forest of Ettrick, and the Forest of Yarrow, are very clear and clean in their green lawns to-day, scarce an ancient tree or a late descendant standing; here and there only gnarled and deformed, out of the centuries, out of perhaps that "derke forest" of James IV. His son, the Fifth James, thought to subdue the Border and increase his revenue by placing thousands of sheep in this forest; and these ruining the trees have decreased the tourists' rightful revenue. It is because of this absence of trees that one is perhaps more conscious of the shining ribbon of river; longer, clearer stretches may be seen in the green plain: "And is this--Yarrow? This the stream Of which my fancy cherished So faithfully a waking dream? An image that has perished! O that some minstrel's harp were near To utter notes of gladness, And chase this silence from the air That fills my heart with sadness!"