The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-08-24

Ao1 ~ very IOAk ago tuaI tue Salmon were 80
plentiful in the solway that servants engag-
ing to masters on the English or Scottish
side of the Firth stipulated that "salmon
or other fish should not be given them
oftener than three days in the week."
Strange, quiet, God-fearing souls these
these Bownsss folk, with giant frames and
great blue or hazel eyes and leonine heads
of fiaxen hair; and with dumb, sodden,
speechless ways to the end, which brings
them at last from behind the Roman affairs
of their sturdy home-walls to the drear old
churchyard, dug out of the fosse where
once the mighty Roman defenses stood.
IarryinR or going, one may we'll say of all
Here are the quaint old homes with the quaint
Where life to all is measured in three parts;
simple way: The birth the toll, the rest!
But a certain alertness of attention, an
unconscious habit and attitude of listening,
as it were, true of every man, woman and
child on both sides Of the Firth, discloses
that the tide is coming up from the Irish
sea. These folks will tell you they can hear
you are standing on the cliff,edee you will
see the fishers, waist deep in water. hurry
ing on the Tightening of their upright nets,
which for ten miles below seem like tiny
fences of rush; and away seward with your
glass you can see them scurrying up from
the ebb-slime and sands towards safety and
the shore. Then to your Impractical ears
come the faint reverberations of hoarse
roar; and soon, like pillar of flame in the
play OF the sunlight, the great mistrbanner
OF the advancing waters is flung from Scot
land to England, almost from Criffel to
Silloth, and moves toward you like lurid
moments more the brilliancy of the phe-
nomenon is greatest. Preceding the ad-
vancinR cloud along the seethinC front of a
wall Of water five miles wide, glitter, foams
and Kisses a bank of spume and spray,
zoned, trimmed and interlaced with tiny
rainbows. The roaring of the believing
water-hosts becomes deafening For an
instant you are enveloped by the cloud.
That passed. while you thrill with the mys-
terry and awful grandeur of the spectacle,
the great tide-head is abreast of you. true
tide-bore, such as breaks majestically into
Minas and other :estuaries of the bay of
Fundy, cylindrical and straight as an arrow
across the Firth, and from six to eight feet
in height, which sweeps past with below
and shrek like that OF an hundred thou
sand coast fog horns bowling in unison,
while close in its wake is hillocky, tenn
pestuous mass of waves brilliantly gorgeous
in htfully:swept prismatic colors; and the
Solway tide is in.
Some English tramps were singing for
their breakfasts before the doors of the
grave Scottish villagers at Ecclefechan
when tramped into the hamlet behind
them. There were five Of them, great,
hulking fellows, and their hoarse and ag-
gressive believing was the only sound in
dicative of human life in the village, even
at that late hour of the morning. They
stood beside a melodious burn which
dashed from under covered way and
coursed on through the village street. At
one side of the stream was an ancient wall.
On the other, were struggling houses, and
the one before which the vagabonds lifted
up their narrowing voices WAS one of the
plainest end quaintest in Ecclefechan,
From its appearance it might have been an
olden stable; an abandoned lodge at the
| entrance to some gentleman's establish
ment formerly located behind it; or the
ancient jail of the village, now smartly
whitewashed and transformed into a lowly
habitation. 1t was mite of thing with
an archway through it occupying one-third
| of the lower story. At each side was mar
row oaken door, and, nearer each end. a
tiny window. In the second story. another
little window, above each lower one, looked
into the street; and over the center of the
archway were two still more diminutiye
windows, side by side. It was a double
house of the dwarf variety, and the one al
tho north end. whore the strong lunced sor-
ners sang. Was the birthplace of Thomas
Carlyle.
The believing had brought mutch-capped
Ruidvives to various windows and alley-en-
frances at safe distances. I loitered near
enough to hear them discuss the matin- song
of the tramps rs well as the house and n
former occupants.
They medina fash (trouble) theirsels taa
sing there" croaked one old dame With :
: gentle swaying Of her head betokenina {