with such disease
Fame taxes him) that he could send forth word
To level with the dust a noble horde,
A brotherhood of venerable trees,
Leaving an ancient Dome and Towers like these
Beggar'd and outraged! Many hearts deplored
The fate of those old trees; and oft with pain
The Traveller at this day will stop and gaze
On wrongs which Nature scarcely seems to heed;
For shelter'd places, bosoms, nooks, and bays,
And the pure mountains, and the gentle Tweed,
And the green silent pastures yet remain.

_I_ was spared any regret for the fallen woods when we were there, not
then knowing the history of them. The soft low mountains, the castle,
and the decayed pleasure-grounds, the scattered trees which have been
left in different parts, and the road carried in a very beautiful line
along the side of the hill, with the Tweed murmuring through the unfenced
green pastures spotted with sheep, together composed an harmonious scene,
and I wished for nothing that was not there. When we were with Mr. Scott
he spoke of cheerful days he had spent in that castle not many years ago,
when it was inhabited by Professor Ferguson and his family, whom the Duke
of Queensberry, its churlish owner, forced to quit it. We discovered a
very fine echo within a few yards of the building.

The town of Peebles looks very pretty from the road in returning: it is
an old town, built of grey stone, the same as the castle. Well-dressed
people were going to church. Sent the car before, and walked ourselves,
and while going along the main street William was called aside in a
mysterious manner by a person who gravely examined him--whether he was an
Irishman or a foreigner, or what he was; I suppose our car was the
occasion of suspicion at a time when every one was talking of the
threatened invasion. We had a day's journey before us along the banks of
the Tweed, a name which has been sweet to my ears almost as far back as I
can remember anything. After the first mile or two our road was seldom
far from the river, which flowed in gentleness, though perhaps never
silent; the hills on either side high and sometimes stony, but excellent
pasturage for sheep. In some parts the vale was wholly of this pastoral
character, in others we saw extensive tracts of corn ground, even
spreading along whole hill-sides, and without visible fences, which is
dreary in a flat country; but there is no dreariness on the banks of the
Tweed,--t