The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-12-21 00:00:00

'GRETNA GREEN.

( From a Correspondent of the Manchester Guardian.)
Few persons, perhaps, who live at a considerable distance
from Gretna reen, and have not visited it on particular bu-
siness, are acquainted with the real character of that celebra-
ted place. Recent alterations in the laws respecting the ce-
lebration of marriages may, in time, if they have not already
begun to produce the effect, tend to destroy the reputation
which a rural village, in the south of Scotland, has acquired
by its possession of a" Hymeneal altar." It may not, there-
fore, be altogether an uninteresting task to the curious, to
collect a little knowledge of the scene where the " blacksmith"
long exercised his "sacred" and profitable profession. The
writer of these particulars was born and brought up within
three miles and a half of Gretna Green, and yet be. was not
aware, till he went to college, a distance from his home of a
hundred and twenty miles, that a place, whose situation and
name were so familiar to him, possessed almost a wider fame
than Marathon or Flodden Field.
The parish of Graitney, in Dumfries-shire, is bounded on
the south by the extremity of the Solway Frith, and on the
by the small river Sark, which forms the line of division
betwixt England and Scotland, from the Frith northward, as
far as the parish of Canonbie. The population of Graitney,
which is numerous, and in a great measure agricultural, does
not exhibit that strict moral principle, and attachment to re-
ligious observances, for which the neighbouring parishes are
so justly•praised. For one well acquainted with the district,
it is not difficult to discover several very plausible reasons for
this state of things. These depend partly upon the proximity
of Graitney to the county of Cumberland, partly upon a dif-
ference of excise law on the opposite sides of the border, and,
finally, in part upon its forming the principal thoroughfare
out of England into the north and west of Scotland, and vice
verses. These causes, however, it must be admitted, are not
in such full and active operation now as they were some
twenty or thirty years ago. The evil resulting from this dis-
advantageous position has consequently, since that period,
been very much diminished; and will soon, no doubt, under
the new and better regime, totally disappear.
It is well known that the Cumberland portion of the border
was, formerly, not the most remarkable district of England,
for the attention of many of its inhabitants to the fourth com-
mandment. Living on ground long considered doubtful, as
forming a part of the English or Scottish territory, and still
called " Debatable," they regarded themselves as belonging
to no one's flock, and subject to no one's superintendence or
jurisdiction. The same may be said of the careless and luke-
warm amongst the inhabitants of Graitney, and thus they al-
lowed themselves and their children to become the slaves and
supporters of a pernicious example. After the introduction
of such unnational practises, it is not to be wondered at, that
many other demoralizing habits, of which some were entirely
of a personal and domestic character, should be found deeply
rooted and reigning along this part of the Scottish border.
Systematic absence from the house of public prayer, and a
no less systematic desecration of the Sabbath, invariably
bring in their train idleness and discontent; and to thefts, at
this time, was added an endless catalogue of other crimes. One
circumstance, above all, tended to involve this parish in a kind
of moral degradation, from which others, by their geographical
position were happily exempted. The tow duty upon whiskey
in Scotland compared with the high duty in England, upon the
same article, of such extensive consumption, continued to af-
ford the idle and dishonest every encouragement to smuggling.
The mosses and plantations on each side of the border have
been the scenes of many fearful,and in many cases, lamentably
fatal, struggles between the smugglers and the officers of ex-
cise. The populous village of Springfield, a mile from Gretna
Green, on one side of the border, and Longtown, a still more
populous place, on the other, once contained hordes of per-
sons who lived entirely by this illicit commerce. Every arti-
fice was tried to elude detection—vessels of tin, fitted round
the body like stays—bladders resembling bundles of old
clothes, carried by old women, in the garb of itinerants—
small casks, buried in the dark interior of loads of turf,
conveyed over the Sark and Esk on wheelbarrows, by a
thrifty-looking housewife, or an industrious and provident-
looking husbandman. These and many other such means
were employed to continue a lucrative, secret, and dangerous
trade.
Again, vagrants from all parts of the British isles could
scarcely miss Graitney either on their northward or southward
peregrinations. Many a poor unfortuuate fellow. indeed,
without a home and a morsel of bread in England, has been
forced to seek au asylum in the north. Finding himself dis-
appointed in his search for a momentary relief in the north,
he has again involuntarily turned his face towards the south,
and continued, kicked about in this manner, crossing and re-
crossing the border, till the debatable land at last afforded
him a comparatively quiet, but wretched, bare, and roofless
resting place. From such a promiscuous and fluctuating
assemblage of inhabitants as was likely, from this circum-
stance, to be introduced, it cannot be expected that any place
could establish a character for settled principles of moral
duty. It is only when the population of a district feel them-
selves interested in one anothers well-being, and benefited
by living on terms of harmonious intercourse, and by culti-
vating high and ennobling sentiments of friendship, that we
can expect from them a general improvement in their con-
dition, manners, and character. In this respect the borderers
have lately made amazing and gratifying progress towards a
happier state of things; and the change is no doubt chiefly
attributable to the increased exertion which clergyman,
schoolmaster, landowner, and farmeri have combined to use
in rendering the condition of the poor and unemployed in
these parts more tolerable.
Gretna Green is of itself an insignificant little village,
nine miles from Carlisle, on the mail route to Glasgow, and
not more. than one mile from the bridge of Sark, which joins
the two countries. It is composed of a few houses, which
might eaisiy be enumerated one by one in a single breath.
You have the parish church, a simple and unassuming little
pile by the road-side, and near it the manse, or residence of
the clergyman ; then the parish school-house, and under the
same roof with it, the schoolmaster's neat, unadorned, and
modest dwelling; next a farm-house, and a small licensed
depot of tea, tobacco, and snuff; a cottage or two, and a
carpenter's workshop; and, lastly, an inn and posting-house,
conducted by Mr. John Linton, as well as, at a very short
distance from the church, a sweet little cottage built for Mrs.
Morgan, widow of the late minister of Graitney. The inn
was formerly the residence of Colonel Maxwell, to whom the
property belongs ; but possessing en advantageous situation
both with respect to distance from the city of Carlisle, and
its vicinity to the great roads from Portpatrick and Glasgow,
it was thought proper to convert it into an hotel. This was
effected a good many years ago, when that line of road was
carried more directly to Gretna Green by a bridge of cast
iron over the Esk, about three miles below Longtown, and
the coaches ceased running round by that town and Spring-
field.
The reasons which have placed Gretna Green amongst the
famous of British villages, are not to be discovered in its ar-
chitectural merits, or in its eminence for rural scenery. In
its immediate vicinity, you have, it is true, the valley of the
Esk, with its luxuriant woods and crystal river. On the
banks of the same stream lies the whole scene of Sir Walter
Scott's " Young Lochinvar ;" and indeed the poet could not
have chosen a spot in every respect more appropriate than
.his for a " runaway marriage," so as to cause
" Mounting 'along Gimmes of the Netherby clan ;"
r more convenient for

Racing and chasing on Canobie lea,
'rho' the lost bride of Netherby ne'er could they see.
Fifteen minutes' walk from the inn brings you to the Solwa_
Frith, to the ebbings and floorings of whose tide the same
author iu the same song has well compared the flowings and
ebbings of love. On the Cumberland side of the frith, oppo-
site Gretna Green, on a place called Burgh Marsh, stands a
monument, marking the spot where death arrested the proud
and impetuous career of the first Edward, as he teas marching
with giant strides across the border to conquer Scotland.
Nearly in the same direction, Skiddaw, Helvellyn, and
caw fell, with other mountains in the lake district of Cum-
berland, rear their tall blue summits in the distance, and
seem to plant an insuperable harrier against the progress of
the northman venturing south. The • hills, extending all
along the horizon, appear, when fhe sun is high in summer,
to form one regular and unbroken chain from Penrith to
Whitehaven. As soon, however, as the rays of the sinking
sun begin to fall upon the earth with considerable obliquity,
and to tinge with a golden hue the long steep flank of this
Alpine sierra, it is cut and broken into athousand individual
masses; and deep ravines, and winding valleys, and rugged
slopes, present ail the beautiful variety of their forms, which,
though perfect in outline, the distance sometimes renders in-
distinct in colour.
Amidst all the magnificence, however, of local scenery;
you may look in vain for the part which the village of Gretna
Green contributes to render itself worthy of a name. Some
other road then must lead the inquirer to the discovery of the
secret.
In the month of December, 1830, the writer of this notice
having occasion to travel by coach from Liverpool to Carlisle,
was intrusted by some friends of his with the care of a young
lady who was returning from school. Considering the friend-
ship betwixt himself and his protegde's family, and, in ad-
dition to this, considering that the young. lady, to superior
personal charms, added a very lively and humorous dispo-
sition, the happy gallant paved every possible attention to
his youthful and fair companion. in the course of the day,
the suspicions of their two inside fellow travellers, who were
both agreeable and facetious gentlemen, were roused to a
wonderfully high pitch respecting the object of the juvenile
couple's journey northward. These suspicions, which, in
fact, amounted to a tacit belief that this could be no other
than a " runaway match," were confirmed by an occasional
remark, which escaped the fair lady's protector, about order-
ing a postchaise for the few miles of the journey that would
remain after reaching Carlisle. At last the truth seemed to
flash upon them with satisfactory certainty; for Gretna
Green itself became the subject of conversation: and the
young lady was too much amused with this her first adven-
ture, after escaping from the surveillance of her watchful go-
verness, and her companion too much inclined to encourage
the deception, to dispel the speculations of their fellow-tra-
vellers by an attempt to correct them.
Here, then, is obtained a clew to the wonderful and mys-
terious charm which has bestowed upon the village of Gretna
Green a " deathless name." An altar has been built there,
and many a votary, urged by a zealous devotion,.has come
from Scotland's sister countries to offer sacrifices upon it in
honour of the divinity of love. This altar was not raised
upon a lofty eminence, that it might be seen from the east
and from the west; nor in a sombre valley, that the slain
victims might bleed without being exposed to vulgar eyes;
but Hymen at first chose for his temple a mean cottage in
one of the meanest border villages, and for his high priest be
took from the forge an unlettered blacksmith.
Springfield, already described as situated on the Longtown
road, about one mile from Gretna Green, was the village in
which these honours were originally instituted, and it was
here the blacksmith passed a long period of his mortal life in
discharging the duties of his "sacred vocation." Before the
recent improvements in the Glasgow road, this was the near-
est village in England by the old line; and every party,
eagerly desiring to pay their vows, here took advantage of
the earliest opportunity to kneel at the simple and much fre-
quented shrine. But the reforms of later times being intro-
duced, Springfield was deprived of much of its hitherto un-
interrupted popularity, and the blacksmith gathered together
all the sacred things belonging to his temple, and removed
them to the adjacent village of Gretna Green, where he
erected anew the altar of his patron deity.
Thus Gretna Green became the general resort of love-af-
fected swains and wealthy heiresses, determined, in spite of
disappointed parents and angry guardians, to be firmly
united in the bands of wedlock. But the blacksmith's heavy
hammer is now still in the forge, and his anvil is mute; there
the asthmatic bellows no longer draw their difficult respira-
tions, and the iron is suffered to grow cool upon the deserted
hearth. 'l'he aged priest is no more seen waiting anxiously
for the arrival of fresh worshippers, and his solemn tread
upon the steps of the altar have long ceased to echo through
the temple. The musician's epitaph may not inaptly be ap-
plied to the memory of this faithful minister of Cupid:—
" The harp, that once in Tara's hall
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's wall
As if that soul had fled."

Death has already some years ago summoned him to the
grave of his ancestars, and behind him he has left a name
that will be more lasting than the widely spread fame of many
a warrior or statesman.
It is commonly believed that the celebration of a Gretna
Green marriage is something beyond the nature of daily oc-
currences,—that the event is one of a curious and extraordi-
nary charazter,—and that, in fact, the ceremony must bear a
close resemblance to the Eleusinean mysteries so famous in
Grecian history. Upon a careful inquiry, however, in
subject, it will appear, that in these points the general _
people, especially in countries remote, greatly err, or are
grievously misinformed. It is sufficiently well-known that
the celebration of a Scotch marriage differs very materially
in respect of form from the same ceremony in England.—
Marriage, according to the customs of Scotland, is equally
valid, whether performed by a clergyman or a magistrate.
Few and easy are the preliminary measures necessary to be
taken here, when an attached couple desire to pledge a mu-
tual faith and a mutual late at the hymeneal altars Until a