Читать книгу The Spell of Scotland - Keith Clark - Страница 7

t is possible to enter the Middle Marches from Berwick; in truth, Kelso lies scarcely farther from Flodden than does Berwick. But Flodden is on English soil to-day, and memory is content to let it lie there. These Middle Marches however are so essentially Scottish, the splendour and the romance, the history and the tragedy, that one would fain keep them so, and come upon them as did the kings from David I, or even the Celtic kings before him, who sought refuge from the bleak Scottish north in this smiling land of dales and haughs, of burns and lochs. Not at any moment could life become monotonous even in this realm of romance, since the Border was near, and danger and dispute so imminent, so incessant.

Preferably then one goes from Edinburgh (even though never does one go from that city, "mine own romantic town," but with regret; not even finally when one leaves it and knows one will not return till next time) to Melrose; as Scottish kings of history and story have passed before. There was James II going to the siege of Roxburgh, and not returning; there was James IV going to the field of Flodden and not returning; there was James V going to hunt the deer; there was James VI going up to London to be king; Mary Queen on that last journey to the South Countrie; Charles I and Charles II losing and getting a crown; Charles III—let us defy history and call the Bonnie Prince by his title—when he went so splendidly after Prestonpans.

JAMES II.

It is a royal progress, out of Edinburgh into the Middle Marches; past Dalkeith where James IV rode to meet and marry Margaret of England; past Borthwick, where Queen Mary spent that strange hot-trod honeymoon with Bothwell—of all place of emotion this is the most difficult to realize, and I can but think Mary's heart was broken here, and the heartbreak at Carberry Hill was but an echo of this; past Lauder, where the nobles of ignoble James III hung his un-noble favourite from the stone arch of the bridge; into the level rays of a setting sun—always the setting sun throws a more revealing light than that of noonday over this Scotland.