Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/215

 TJic Armstrong Claji.

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��still a familiar one upon the border, and in the border poetry.

From my memoranda of a visit to this interesting locality in 1884, 1 make the following extracts : —

On May 5, 1884, after visiting Abbotsford, Melrose, and the tomb of Sir Walter Scott at Dryburgh Abbey, I took the train at St. Boswell's station for New Castleton.

Before this town was reached, the sun was sinking behind the western hills and flooding their loftiest summits with his glorious light. In the south- west, black, surging clouds of billowy darkness came rolling up the sky, ren- dered more dark and vivid by the brightness of the rays of the setting sun. The old cemetery of Castleton, a bleak and lonely spot on the hillside, where repose many of the Armstrongs, was plainly in view.

Night came on apace. As black- ness settled down over slumbering mountains, hills, and vales, I reached the " Debateable Country " ; was in the old home of the EUiotts, the Johnstons, the Scotts, the Armstrongs, and other border families whose conflicts have made these localities historic, and the clashing of whose swords and spears, echoing through the advancing years, have reached this distant age, and distant climes.

On the morning of May sixth, riding over an excellent road (as all roads are excellent in Great Britain), through woods, bright with Scotch primroses and various flowers, where golden pheasants and other protected game could be distinctly seen, I visited the "Hermitage Castle," built in 1244, six miles distant, the ancient seat of the Douglasses, and an interesting ruin. The old cemetery at Castleton was in- spected. Many names common in the

��Scotch settlements in the United States were found inscribed upon the me- morial tablets.

There were stones erected to the Rev. Mr. Robert Armstrong, who died April 16, 1732, aged seventy-two, being bprn in 1660. He was the father of Dr. John Armstrong, a somewhat noted physician and poet, of London, whose writings can be found in the Linen Hall Library, in Belfast, Ireland.

There were stones to the Rev. Will- iam Armstrong and to Robert Arm- strong, shepherd, thus denoting his avo- cation, which is common in the old burial-places.

One mile south of New Castleton are the four spanning arches of the railroad bridge which cross the bonnie stream known as the Liddel River. Near this, and on the southwest bank of the stream, can be seen the ruins of Mangerton Castle, an ancient Arm- strong stronghold. This is twenty miles northeast of Carlisle, England.

A short distance from the Ettleton Cemetery, near the road, but in a fiekl, is the old "Millholm Cross" erected in memory of some Armstrong as early as 1350. It is of light sandstone, bronzed and seamed by time. Carved upon it are the letters I. H. S. and M. A. A. A., while below is a sword with the point to the earth. The cross has undergone some changes at a late period ; but it is an exceedingly interesting relic of the past.

The Ettleton Cemetery lies on the sloping side and near the top of a great swelling hill. The country is in full view for miles around, and the high hills are daik with the brown heather in the clear light of this spring day.

In the centre of the yard, upon a tall marble shaft, is this inscription : —

"In this spot, near which rest the

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