Selkirkshire

“ Mr David MacRitchie, in his very interesting Ancient and Modern Britons, a book full of novel matter and views, accepts the ballad as “partly true,” apparently to the extent “that this ‘outlaw’ was as yet an actual, independent king, and that modern Selkirkshire was not a part of Scotland:” and this whether the king of Scotland was James IV or an earlier monarch, II, 136-139. This is pitting the ballad against history.
[110] Craig-Brown, II, 336-338. ”

“ The valley now widens; the scenery becomes softer and richer; and the river, bending in a more easterly direction, passes Innerleithen, where it receives the Leithen from the north and the Quair from the south. It then crosses Selkirkshire in a south-easterly direction, and, having received the Ettrick from the south on the borders of Roxburghshire, flows northward past Abbotsford, forming for about 2 miles the boundary between the counties of Selkirk and Roxburgh. ”

“ Population and Administration.—In 1891 the population numbered 27,712, and in 1901 it was 23,356, or 88 to the sq. m., a decrease of 15.78 %, much the largest for the decade in Scotland. Fifty-seven persons spoke Gaelic and English, none Gaelic only. The chief towns are Galashiels (pop. 13,615) and Selkirk (6292) . Selkirkshire combines with Peeblesshire to return a member to Parliament, and the county town and royal burgh of Selkirk and the municipal burgh of Galashiels united with Hawick (in Roxburghshire) to constitute the Border or Hawick group of parliamentary burghs. ”

“ Alas! that one should record the fact,—in old days the drainage of the upper town (what there was of drainage in those times, that is to say) , fell into the Haining Loch not a hundred yards from the spot where the town's supply was drawn off! And yet people lived in Selkirk to unusually great ages. Our ancestors were hardy persons; but perhaps it was only the very fit who then survived.
It must have been a dull, uneventful, depressing life, that of the prisoners in Selkirk, more especially in those months between October and March, when darkness comes early and the days are chill and grey. ”

“ Selkirk is the starting point. And Selkirk is a very seemly, very prosperous town, looking not at all like an ecclesiastic city, as it started to be in the dear dead days of David the saint, looking very much as a hill city in Italy will look some day when Italy becomes entirely "redeemed" and modern, and exists for itself in [Pg 71] stead of for the tourist. Selkirk is indifferent to tourists, as indeed is every Scottish town; Scotland and Scotsmen are capable of existing for themselves. Selkirk hangs against the hillside above the Ettrick, and its show places are few ”

“ The scene is laid in the Selkirk or Ettrick Forest, a mountainous tract covered with the remains of the old Caledonian Forest. About a mile above Selkirk is a plain called Carterhaugh, and here may still be seen those fairy rings of which it was believed that anyone sleeping upon one will wake in a fairy city. And here was, and perhaps still is, an ancient well. The ballad opens by telling how all young maids were forbidden to come or go by way of Carterhaugh, "for young Tamlane (or Thomalin) is there," and every one going by Carterhaugh is obliged to leave him something in pledge. ”

“ Selkirk did not fail to visit Scotland. Passing through St. Andrew, could he help experiencing anew the desire to see his old friend pretty Kitty? Once more he appeared before the bar of the Royal Salmon. This time, on meeting, Selkirk and Catherine both experienced a sentiment of painful surprise. The latter, stouter and fuller than ever, fat and red-faced, touched the extreme limit of her fourth and last youth ”

“ Late in the evening of August 29, 1817, I arrived at the ancient little border town of Selkirk, where I put up for the night. I had come down from Edinburgh, partly to visit Melrose Abbey and its vicinity, but chiefly to get sight of the “mighty minstrel of the north.” I had a letter of introduction to him from Thomas Campbell, the poet, and had reason to think, from the interest he had taken in some of my earlier scribblings, that a visit from me would not be deemed an intrusion. ”

“ The Selkirk scheme is put to the vote. To a man the Hudson’s Bay Company shareholders declare for it. To a man there vote against it all those Nor’Westers who have bought Hudson’s Bay stock, except the two whose purchase was made but a week before: £29,937 of stock for Selkirk, £14,823 against him. By a scratch of the pen he has received an empire larger than the British Isles. Selkirk believed that he was lord of this soil as truly as he was proprietor of his Scottish estates, where men were arrested as poachers when they hunted. ”

“ The morning after my arrival at Hawick was fine, and I left the uncomfortable inn with pleasure very early. My eyes followed the Tiviot, in its course towards Kelso, and the Tweed; in its sweet dale, as far as the road to Selkirk would permit me; but it was not long before it carried me to a very hilly dreary country; for nothing can be more so, than the greatest part of the way from Hawick to Selkirk. As for Selkirk town, nothing can be more deplorable than its appearance. The houses are mostly old, falling to pieces, and deserted: nothing but dirt and misery to be seen. ”

“ Selkirk hastens to transport thither his hatchets, his guns, his seal-skins and goat-skins, his Bible, his spy-glass, his pipes, his ladder, his stools, even his traps; all his riches! it is a complete removal.
On taking possession of the island, he had engraved on the bark of several trees the date of his arrival; he now inscribes upon them the day of his departure. For many months his reckoning has been interrupted; to determine the date is impossible; he knows only the day of the week. ”

“ Lord Selkirk's scheme is dazzling almost beyond belief. A territory is his, purchased out and out, from the Hudson's Bay Company, about four times the area of Scotland, his native land, and the greater part of it fertile, with the finest natural soil in the world, waiting for the farmer to give a return in a single year after his arrival. A territory, not possessed by a foreign people, but under the British flag! A country yet to be the home of millions! It is worth living to be able to plant such a tree, which will shelter and bless future generations of mankind. ”

“ Born in 1771, Selkirk came to his title in 1779, and in 1807 married the daughter of James Colville, one of the heaviest shareholders in the Hudson’s Bay Company. All that life could give the young nobleman possessed, wealth, position, love, power. ”

“ This book had filled Selkirk's mind with a great conception. Men had settled, he told Lord Pelham, on the sea-coast of British America, until no tract there was left uninhabited but—frozen wastes and arid plains. What of the fruitful regions which lay in the vast interior? It was thither that the government should turn the thoughts of the homeless and the improvident. Leading to this temperate and fertile area was {16} an excellent northern highway—the waters of Hudson Bay and the Nelson. ”

“ Lord Selkirk did not attend the trials of the Nor'westers at York, and seems to have returned to Britain with his wife and children before the end of the year 1818. He was ill and in a most melancholy state of mind. {136} Unquestionably, he had not secured a full measure of justice in the courts of Canada. A man strong in health might have borne his misfortunes more lightly. As it was, Selkirk let his wrongs prey upon his spirit. ”

“ Long before the vote had granted Selkirk an empire, Scotland was being scoured for settlers and servants by Colin Robertson. The new colony must have a forceful, aggressive leader on the field. For Governor, Selkirk chose a forest ranger of the Ottawa, who had been an officer in the Revolutionary War of America—Captain Miles MacDonell of the riotous clan, that had waged such murderous warfare for the Nor’Westers in Albany Department. ”

“ The Selkirks are graceful pyramids and sharp sierras, up to their shoulders in magnificent forests of lofty pines. The trees on the Rockies are much smaller and poorer. Right above the hotel, to the left of the overhanging Glacier, is the bare steeple of Sir Donald, one of the monarchs of the range; Ross Peak and Cheops frown on the descent of the line to the Pacific; and the line of the Atlantic is guarded by the hundred pinnacles of the rifted mountain, formerly known as the Hermit, and now, with singular infelicity, re-christened, in an eponymous fit, Mount Tupper. ”

“ John M'Leod was a man of faith. He expected that Lord Selkirk's colony would soon be again firmly on its feet, and he was not to be disappointed. A fourth contingent of settlers arrived during the month of October 1815, having left Scotland in the spring. This band comprised upwards of ninety persons, nearly all natives of Kildonan. These were the most energetic body of settlers so far enlisted by the Earl of Selkirk. They experienced, of course, great disappointment on their arrival. ”

“ Selkirk stops; he comprehends the mute language of the bird.
'You do not know then what a man is! He is the enemy of every creature to whom God has given life, the enemy even of his kind! You have then never been threatened by the arms that I bear!'
And with the palm of his hand, striking the butt of his gun, he made the hammer click. ”

“ In territory, resources, and influence the opening up of the West is making Canada complete. And, if so, we owe it to Lord Selkirk and to Selkirk Settlers, who stood true to their flag and nationality. Very willingly will we observe the Selkirk Centennial in 1912. "Many a time and oft" it looked in their case to be one long, continued and alarming drama, but on the 30th day of August, the day of their landing on the banks of the Red River, shall we recite the epic of Lord Selkirk's Colonists, and it will be of the temper of Browning's couplet:
God's in His Heaven,
All's right with the world. ”

“ Thanks to Selkirk, the shore which received him at his disembarkation, presents to-day an aspect not only picturesque, but animated. The hand of man has made itself felt there.
The bushes and tufts of trees which hid the view of the hills in the distance, have been uprooted and cut down; pretty paths, covered with gravel, wind over the vast lawn; one in the direction of the valleys at the right, another towards the mountains at the left; a third leads to a tall mimosa, whose topmost boughs and dense foliage spread out like a parasol. ”

“ We had now reached the hunting grounds of the Selkirkers, or colonists of English, Scotch, French and half-breeds, who lived on the territory granted to Lord Selkirk for the purpose of establishing a colony there. The land from the Rocky Mountains to the Red River is pleasant to look at, and rich with game of all kinds. Buffalo, deer, and smaller game, range in great numbers over the plains, and the hunters and trappers of the Selkirk colony are scattered in the season, in all directions over this splendid territory. ”

“ The towns upon the border, and especially Selkirk and Jedburgh, were inhabited by a race of citizens, who, from the necessity of their situation, and from the nature of their possessions (held by burgage tenure) , were inured to the use of arms. Selkirk was a county town, and a royal burgh; and when the array of the kingdom, amounting to no less than one hundred thousand warriors, was marshalled by the royal command, eighty men seems no unreasonable proportion from a place of consequence, lying so very near the scene of action. ”

“ I was five years at school at Selkirk, have lived all my days within two miles of that town, and never once heard a tradition of this imaginary contest till I saw it in print.
"Although the words are not very ancient, there is every reason to believe, that they allude to the battle of Flodden, and to the different behaviour of the souters, and Lord Home, upon that occasion. At election dinners, &c. when the Selkirk folks begin to get fou', (merry) they always call for music, and for that tune in particular. ”

“ In a twinkling, Selkirk’s men have captured every cannon in Fort William and are knocking at the doors of the central building. Not a gun has been fired; not a blow struck; not a drop of blood shed; but the trampling feet terrify the women in the attic. They crowd above the trapdoor to hold it down, when, presto! the only tragedy of the semi-farce takes place! The crowding is too much for the trapdoor. ”

“ Here in Scotland were people starving for want of land. There in America were lands idle for lack of people. Selkirk had already sent out some colonists to the Lake St. Clair region of Ontario and to Prince Edward Island, but what he heard from MacKenzie turned his attention to the new empire of the prairie. Then in Montreal, where he had been dined and wined by the Northwest Company's "Beaver Club," he had heard still more of this vast new land, of its wealth of furs, of its untimbered fields, where man had but to put in the plowshare to sow his crop. ”

“ The river banks rise higher. Then they drop gradually to the flats now known as Point Douglas. Another bend in the sinuous red current, looping and curving and circling fantastically through the prairie, and the Selkirk settlers are in full view of the old Cree graveyard,—bodies swathed in skins on scaffolding,—down at the junction of the Assiniboine. Hard by they see the towered bastions of the Northwest Company's post, Fort Gibraltar. Somewhere between what are known to-day as Broadway Bridge and Point Douglas, the Selkirk settlers land on the west side. ”