simply because the one half of them had first seen the light on the one side of the hill, and the other half on the other side. And yet, such was the state of things which obtained in this wild district for many hundred years. It seems, however, especially well for England, since the quarrel began at all, that it should have been so doggedly maintained by the weaker people,—so well maintained that the border hamlet, round which they struggled, in the days of the first Edward, as a piece of doubtful property, is a piece of doubtful property still, and has, in royal proclamation and act of Parliament, its own separate clause assigned to it, as the "town called Berwick-upon-Tweed." It is quite enough for the English, as shown by the political history of modern times, that they conquered Ireland; had they conquered Scotland also, they would have been ruined utterly. "One such victory more, and they would have been undone." Men have long suspected the trade of the hero to be a bad one; but it is only now they are fairly beginning to learn, that of all great losses and misfortunes, this master achievement—the taking of a nation—is the greatest and most incurably calamitous.
The line of boundary forms the water-shed in this part of the island: the streams on the Scottish side trot away northwards toward the valley of the Tweed; while on the English side they pursue a southerly course, and are included in the drainage of the Tyne. The stream which runs along the bare, open valley on which we had now entered, forms one of the larger tributaries of the latter river. But everything seemed as Scottish as ever,—the people, the dwelling-houses, the country. I could scarce realize the fact, that the little gray parish-church, with the square tower, which we had just passed, was a church in which the curate read the Prayer-book every Sunday, and that I had left behind me the Scottish law, under
