ve feature of the Yarrow at all
seasons of the year? Out of this have emerged very probably the spirit
of the balladists and their ballads. One after another have simply
followed suit, and the likelihood is that had gladness and not gloom
been the burden of some far back strain, we should not have had the
Yarrow we possess to-day. Men of the most diverse temperaments have come
under the sad spell of the Yarrow. The most lighthearted sons of song
have succumbed to the general feeling. Wordsworth himself would have
preferred to strike another note, but the enchantment of the spot held
him fast:

"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!"

All the verse writers of the last century were mere continuators of
their fellow-bards centuries before. There are, to be sure, some
flippant spirits who would dare to alter the very atmosphere of Yarrow,
but what a poor attempt at the impossible! Yarrow must ever abide the
embodiment of the most heart-piercing, and at the same time, the most
winsome melody the world has listened to.

Popularly speaking, the best of the Yarrow ballads concerns itself with
the famous "Dowie Dens" tragedy, of which there seems to be some
authentic reference in the Selkirk Presbytery Record for 1616. It is
there narrated how Walter Scott of Tushielaw made "an informal and
inordinate marriage with Grizell Scott of Thirlestane without consent of
her father." Just three months later, the same Record contains entry of
a summons to Simeon Scott, of Bonytoun, an adherent of Thirlestane, and
three other Scotts "to compear at Melrose to hear themselves
excommunicated for the horrible slaughter of Walter Scott." We have here
probably the precise incident on which the unknown "makar" founded his
crude but intensely picturesque and dramatic lay. How much of womanly
winsomeness and heroism, of knightly dignity and daring, and the
unconquerable strength of love are portrayed in the following stanzas!
There are, indeed, few ballads in any language that match its strains:

"She kiss'd his cheek, she kaim'd his hair,
As oft she had done before, O;
She belted him with his noble brand,
And he's away to Yarrow.

* * * * *

"'If I see all, ye're nine to ane;
And that's an unequal marrow;
Yet will I fight, while lasts my brand,
O