Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-10-04

shades of Wristbands, hip-pockets and
killed skirts While about George Square
at Glasgow, the old Iron steeple, Dumfries,
| the picturesque landing place at Oban, and
along High street or in Waterloo place,
| Edinburgh, you will see scores of people
standing idly in the rain: as though they
had come out of irksome and conining
habitations for an invigorsting sup, literally
sup, of this sort of fresh air.
Perhaps it is the wizard witchery of
Scott, as poet and novelist perhaps the ra-
diant romance of all Scottish Borderland,
but YOU never tire of tender Tweed-vale
and its sweetly flowing stream. You are
not the first to feel this. The old monks
loved the valley and dotted the Tweed-side
with splendid 'monasteries. Their grazing
lands were the richest; their cattle the finest;
their grain of the plumpest kernel; their
fruit the sweetest; in all Britain.
ORCHARDS ON THE TWEED.
Tradition has 1t that the fine old apple
orchards still standing here-all of them on
the Tweed's north banks, and many of them
as wonderful in their fruitage as in that
marvellous Vale of Apples where once dwelt
Gabriel and Evangeline at the edge of Minas
Basin-were planted by these cowled and
sandaled folk. That must have been hun
dreds of years ago. But these rare old trees
are big, gnarled and gray enough for that
Little hamlets have grown up within and
about these ancient orchards. Weavers'
villages they once were. The clack of
the dusty loom is now still; but they
are quaint old nests housing quaint
old folk, who have ripened and mel
lowed in these sunny places along the
Tweed until they fit into their orchard ell
yironment as the orchards themselves blend
he nj hou
wandered up and down the Tweed, perhaps
of all these brae-side nests you have found
Gattonsiie, by MeIrose, the dreamiest and
quaintest. Leaving the glorious abbey to
your right you saunter along a shadowy
road overarched with Scotch frs and beeches,
cool and fragrant On the one side is
ancient ST. Cuthbert's and a moss-grown
mill and dam. Tiny fields, with tidily
stocked grain, rise in patches of yellow,
gray and green on the other. At the end of
the vista now and then flashes the blue of
the Tweed. Then an old suspension bridge
is crossed. Above and below, anglers stand
waist deep in the river, and few cars are
taking gravel from its shining bed.
A SILENT HAMLET.
A little farther on groups of old peasant
women, pausing now and then to bless the
Covenanters or boil new bree from ar old
scandal, are cutting thistles and weeds with
sickles at the waterside. These brambles
will be dried to help piece out the meager
fuel in the near winter days. At the
village edge the road ends; or rather blends
into score of century-beateu paths; for
Gattonside has no street. Each OF its
thatched houses, as if with a touch of
Scotch obstinacy, sets its face toward its
own liking; but all have the Tweed and its
songs Just below them; and every one has
its orchard inclosed with yellow or white
sinuous wall. Huge as oaks are these
knotted old apple trees, but their we'll
pruned branches are bending even to the
cottage roofs with such loads of "rosy-
cheekit" apples, that their scarlet blends
with the green foliage.
II men live in the village your keen
est gaze cannot find them. 1t is. shopless,
save where in one little window "sweeties"
OF ancient make and flavor are exposed. 1t
is kirkless, and nought but the sound of the
old abbey bell from mile away at Melrose
disturbs the wondrous quiet of tine place.
All doors are open to all in Scotland, and
you can peer into this cottage and that. The
incarnation OF sweetness and cleanliness, but
no human is beheld. Here is an old school
house deserted and silent An orchard was
its playground but few sheep are grazing
among its tender grasses now. Unconsciously
YOU have begun to tiptoe through the ham
let, for it seems as though even football
might break the spell of silence and repose;
and you pass on to reach the rough, red
road that leads to the primeval forest be-
youd. But no, here is such quaint old
cottage that you halt again. Something
like an arched front from which rises a
huge chimney arrests your attention. On
either side of the chimney is tiny pane of
glass
You peep into one and see the oldest ingle-
nook in all Scotland. A huge arch sustain
ing the bowed wall of the cottage and the
chimney above encIoses a cavernous fire.
place. At each side of this settle of stone
is built in the bow beneath the arch. The
panes of glass are little outlooks from this
peasant fortalice of a snuggery. Opposite
the one into which you are peering an old,
old woman is asleep. She has been knitting
and looking and dreaming out through the
apple boughs across the sunlit valley. Her
white old face is as white as her white old
"mutch" cap. She had knit to the middle
OF her needle, aud then fallen asleep But
her thin old hands hold the needles upright
and clenched. as though duty lasted beyond
and her cat has come to the
opposite settle to stare at the silent face, as
if doubtful OF the meaning when the click
ing needles stopped. This is the only soul
you have found in Gattonside among the
ample orchards and their sunshine by the
Tweed. EDGAR L. WAKEMAN.