Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: First impressions of England and its people / By Hugh Miller. Source: Wellcome Collection.
28/440 page 4
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: First impressions of England and its people / By Hugh Miller. Source: Wellcome Collection.
![simply because tbe one-half of them bad first seen the light on the one side of the hill, and the other half on the other side. ^Vnd yet such was the state of things which obtained in this Avild district for many hundred years. It seems, hoAveA^er, especially Avell for England, since the quarrel began at all, that it should have been so doggedly maintained by the Aveaker people,—so Avell maintained, that the Border hamlet, round Avhich they struggled, in the daj^s of the first EdAvard, as a piece of doubtful property, is a piece of doubtful property still, and has, in royal proclamation and act of Parliament, its OAvn separate clause assigned to it, as the “ toAAUi called BerAvick- upon-TAveed.” It is quite enough for the English, as shoAvn by tlie political history of modern times, that they conquered Ire¬ land ; had they conquered Scotland also, they Avould have been ruined utterly. “ One such victory more, and they Avould have been undone.” Men haA-e long suspected the trade of tiie hero to be a bad one; but it is only iioav they are fairl}* be ginning to learn, that of all great losses and misfortunes, his master achievement,—the takinr/ of a nation,—is the greatest and most incurablA^ calamitous. «/ The line of boundary forms the AA^ater-shed in this part of tlie island: the streams on the Scottish side trot aAvay north- Avards toAvard the valley of the Thveed; AAdiile on the English side they pursue a southerly course, and are included in the drainage of the Tyne. The stream Avhich runs along the bare o])en valley on Avhich Ave had noAV entered, forms one of the larger tributaries of the latter river. But everything seemed as Scottish as ever,—the people, the dAvelling-houses, the country. I could scarce realize the fact, that the little gray parish church Avith the square toAver, Avhich Ave had just pass¬ ed, Avas a church in Avhicli a curate read the Prayer-Book every Sunday, and that I had left behind me the Scottish laAV,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29320501_0028.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
