incidents are perhaps the most stirring of any combined in one of Scott's poetical works. Its scenery is more scattered than that of "The Lay," but the chief portions may be visited during a summer day actively spent near Belford, Northumberland, or Berwick-onTweed. The first scene is a sunset view of Norham Castle on the Tweed, - a view minutely drawn and brilliantly colored, reviving the former grandeur of that once important and famous English stronghold; an example of such as characteristic of the English Border, as is Newark of the Scottish Border. It is easily reached from Melrose, by rail, as well as from Berwick, and by carriage-road from Belford. Almost any approach to Norham town is pretty, and the town itself is interesting as a representative sort of place. It is simply, almost meanly, built upon one long street, with small houses and queer little inns and shops, and has a market-cross midway, the church at one end, and the castle at the other. This church is a venerable, round-arched edifice, quite romantically situated in its green and shaded burial-yard beside the river Tweed. A small extent of field separates the town from the castle-site. One ascends a little, and then, after passing under the mouldering "gloomy portal-arch" yet remaining, enters the spacious area of the court-yard. Embanked and embrasured walls, combining mediæval and more modern styles of defensive architecture, surround it. Near the centre is the chief feature of the ruin, the grand and massive keep, dating from the twelfth century, and still seventy feet high, though shattered enough now, one of its sides and a portion of another being sadly dilapidated. It appears as if double, the western half being the newer. On the south-west side rises a fragment of a bell-turret. The style is English castellated Gothic, simple yet imposing. The material, sandstone, once well hewn and faced, now scaled and furrowed, bleached and worn, has grown a reddish ashy-gray. The keep cannot now be easily ascended (the stair having been removed), nor does it present entire apartments. Perhaps the most complete of these is the vaulted basement. The writer was not, however, induced to explore its recesses; for he found them converted into a particularly offensive cow-house. But a glowing sunset, such as it was his good fortune to behold glorifying the old keep and the pleasant landscape around it, revivifies Norham with the light of romance; and, under such an effect, one may wander delighted over its "castled steep," beneath its ruins, or its thickly growing beeches and alders, or its precipitous rocky banks of dark and light veined strata, that, mostly pale ashengray, rise closely above the placid river. One sees northward rural or forest-mantled grounds, and southward, over town and castle-hill, as far as the long but not prominent forms of the Cheviots in the blue distance. Then may be well imagined how this "Tale of Flodden Field" begins by showing Lord Marmion, a powerful noble and soldier, ushered at twilight into the castle, with presenting of arms by the guard, and by sound of trumpet and "salvo-shot," and minstrels' greeting: "Welcome to Norham, Marmion! Stout heart, and open hand! Well dost thou brook thy gallant roan, "They marshall'd him to the Castle-hall, -'Room, lordlings, room for Lord Marmion, With the crest and helm of gold!'" "Then stepp'd, to meet that noble Lord, Sir Hugh the Heron bold, Baron of Twisell and of Ford, And Captain of the Hold. He led Lord Marmion to the deas, Raised o'er the pavement high, And placed him in the upper place - The Heron invited Lord Marmion to remain with him awhile at Norham; but, with the invitation, he jestingly added words about a certain "gentle page" whom he had seen with Marmion when they last met, at Raby Castle. "Lord Marmion ill could brook such jest; He roll'd his kindling eye, With pain his rising wrath suppress'd, Yet made a calm reply: "That boy thou thought'st so goodly fair, He might not brook the northern air. And the story eventually explains his lordship's ire and the strange character of the page, and how the page was "sick in Lindisfarne." Lord Marmion, in turn, inquired about Lady Heron, then absent; asking, with covert irony, if she had "gone on some pious pilgrimage," for he knew that "fame whispered light tales of Heron's dame." The husband, however, did not "mark the taunt; " replying that Norham was too grim a place for her, and that she was at the Court of Queen Margaret of Scotland. Upon which Marmion, instead of accepting Sir Hugh's invitation, continued: : "Nay, if with Royal James's bride Your tender greetings prompt to bear; A friendly messenger, to know, Why, through all Scotland, near and far, Their King is mustering troops for war." Guides of the desirable sort did not appear abundant. It was, however, arranged that Marmion should be accompanied by a palmer just arrived at the castle. Accordingly, "with early dawn Lord Marmion rose," and before long departed with his train, amid flourishes of trumpets and salvos of cannon. The breeze that swept away this artillery smoke was at the same time blowing freshly along the Northumbrian coast, bearing onward a bark, upon the deck of which sat the "Abbess of St. Hilda," "with five fair nuns," bound "from high Whitby's cloister'd pile " "to St. Cuthbert's Holy Isle." Their progress is graphically and picturesquely sketched in Scott's peculiarly delightful topographic poetry: "The vessel skirts the strand Of mountainous Northumberland; Of lofty Seaton-Delaval; They saw the Blythe and Wansbeck floods At Coquet-isle their beads they tell Then did the Alne attention claim, Thy tower, proud Bamborough, mark'd they there, "As to the port the galley flew, "In Saxon strength that Abbey frown'd, To emulate in stone. On the deep walls the heathen Dane And needful was such strength to these, Exposed to the tempestuous seas, Open to rovers fierce as they, Which could twelve hundred years withstand Winds, waves, and northern pirates' hand." The many romantic places described in these lines are all well worth attention, and may be visited while the traveller is also visiting scenes sketched in chapter xxxvii. Space admits here only brief account of the Abbey of the Holy Island, Lindisfarne, now a ruin, that is agreeably accessible from the town of Belford, and connectedly with an excursion to Flodden Field, - a place so conspicuous among the scenes of "Marmion." The traveller, going from Belford by a shaded roadway, and thence across open country in sight of the sea, reaches a very wide extent of soft sand (if the tide is low); and this must be passed in a carriage or the saddle for the sake of comfort, and a guide must be taken for safety. This route is impracticable when the tide is rising or at any height. Then, very possibly, a couple of barefooted women will drag a boat, on a sort of two-wheeled truck, down to the water's edge; and a ferryman, hoisting a dark reddish-brown sail, will soon transport the traveller to the curious, secluded Holy Island. It is eight or nine miles in circuit; its northern part is rather low; its southern point rises very steeply and conically, presenting a sharp spur north eastward toward its little town, or port. This elevation, or peak, is crowned by the small but celebrated and picturesque "Castle of the Holy Island," — well represented by Finden's engraving. Other scenery on the island is not remarkable, but the panoramic view from it is of no little interest. Eastward rolls the broad, wild, storied German Ocean; south-eastward stretch the low shores of this out-of-the-way spot, with rows of fishing-boats, ended by the old castle. Beyond that lie the low, rocky Farn Isles,--scenes of many dreadful wrecks, and of Grace Darling's heroism. Thence around westward to north, extend wastes of sand towards towering, embattled Bamborough, and then the Northumbrian fields. Looking on these, one cannot marvel that the pagan Northmen should manifest such predilections for them as they did. Farther north, the view ranges along this pleasant land till it terminates in the high shores towards Berwick, and in the broad and sometimes broken masses of the Kyloe Hills. The most interesting object on the island is that most associated with this poem, the ruined Lindisfarne Abbey. As usual in similar remains, the church is now the principal portion spared. It is small, — only a hundred and thirty-eight feet long,—but very venerable, built at various early dates by persons now scarcely known. The style is chiefly decorated Norman. The material is soft red sandstone. The choir, part of what may have been the transepts, and the left aisle of the nave are tolerably preserved. A single, massive, richly ornamented rib, diagonally spanning the intersecting arms of the edifice, is left, alone, to show the former style and arrangement of the roof. The underground passages once existing are filled or broken now, so that one cannot stand, indignant, where was enacted the next scene of the Tale: "Where, in a secret aisle beneath, Council was held of life and death. Than the worst dungeon cell." "But though, in the monastic pile, Some vague tradition go, Few only, save the Abbot, knew Where the place lay; and still more few |