To the Island of Tides. Alistair Moffat
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of William Wallace should not be demolished. Far better to remember the monks who walked the old road beside these oddities: Modan, Boisil, Cuthbert and other later figures whose stories were of this place, men who searched the big skies above the river for signs of God’s presence and who helped make the land look as it does now.
Beyond the mound, the long straight track of the Monks’ Road headed north. The Pathfinder map showed that it led to Monksford, and my determination to splash across the Tweed in Cuthbert’s wake. Supplying access to a smart wooden hut on the banks of the river, one used by those paying handsomely to fish the pools of the Dryburgh Upper beat, the road was in good repair and I made good time. At the end I could see a much more overgrown track beyond a metal gate. Tree-lined and curving down to the riverbank, it seemed not to be much used.
In my rucksack, I had packed spare socks, pants and a towel. My plan was to stuff my boots, trousers and socks in the pack and towel myself dry after I had crossed the monks’ ford and gained the farther bank. About halfway down the track, I spotted a likely, leggy rowan and, with my penknife, cut a staff from it. As I waded the river and its uneven bed of smoothed stones, I wanted something to steady me and test the depth in front. Shaded and quiet, I noticed that the track had been used recently when I saw the marks of horseshoes in damp places, and as I finished the last of my fudge I wondered how recently someone had ridden here. I was certain I was following Cuthbert on his horse, for the track was old and there appeared to be no other way down to the ford he must have used to reach Old Melrose.
However, puzzlement and disappointment waited once more. Instead of leading to the riverbank, the track simply petered out amongst some broadleaf woodland. Beyond it the banks of the Tweed were overgrown with bushes, nettles and the wide, rhubarb-like leaves of hogweed. I thought I could make out the shallows of the beginning of the ford but no path led to it. And off to my left I could see where the rider had gone. There was another track leading along the river, but it went back the way I had come. It was probably used by fishermen.
Only a little daunted, and of course rationalising that the path must have disappeared long ago since no one had been daft enough to use the ford for at least a couple of centuries, I used my rowan pole to thrash aside the hogweed and also warn me of sudden, unseen, ankle-twisting ditches in the overgrown bank. Of which there were several.
On what seemed like an area of level ground (but not free of nettles), I checked to see that no one was around to watch the crazy person strip to his pants and shirt, then stuffed everything into my pack. When I splashed at last into the river, a family of ducks erupted a little way upstream and the sun came out to glint brilliantly off the water. It was cold but not icy, and I could see where large flat stones had been laid near the bank, clear remains of the old ford. Some were the same colour of red sandstone that had built the Temple of the Muses.
I had reckoned the Tweed was about sixty or more yards wide at Monksford, but after I had carefully gone about twenty-five yards and the water was up to my knees, I found it difficult to see the bottom and judge what was in front of me. The channel by the far bank was in shadow and I had no idea how deep it might be. The surface was flowing smoothly, like a large volume of water, no stone or shallows broke it and the river seemed to be moving much more slowly. The small, wing-like shapes of sycamore seeds were eddying, not flowing directly downstream. Prodding with the rowan pole, I suddenly felt it go down much further and nearly lost my balance. My heavier pack didn’t help and I rocked a little. I reckoned the pole touched bottom at about three feet, waist height. So, no. There seemed to be an invisible shelf rather than a gradual incline. So, not that way.
I turned upstream, thinking I might have lost the direction of the ford. Even though the maps all showed it running the shortest distance, directly from bank to opposite bank, perhaps it crossed on the diagonal? No. Not that way either. The far channel seemed deep there too. My baptism into the world of Cuthbert was baulked by a real obstacle.
After more splashing around, almost capsizing again after slipping on some big rounded stones, I decided to go back, to give up, very reluctantly. Without really articulating it beforehand (all I wanted to do was follow Cuthbert as closely as possible), I suppose I saw the wading of the river as a form of informal baptism into his world. But like bridges, fords need to be maintained. The spates of centuries of winters had probably shifted what shallow footing there had been, as the great river reclaimed its natural course. In winter, crossing must have been impossible, as rain and snow swelled the current. Boats would have been the only option. For me there was nothing for it but to be sensible, wade back to the bank to dry off, put my jeans, socks and boots back on, and retrace my steps back to the Temple of the Muses and the footbridge below it.
I had barely begun this journey with Cuthbert but had already seen several reverses and false starts. But in one sense at least I felt I had been close to him. On the road from Brotherstone, I had met no one. On a sunny July morning I had enjoyed a few hours of real peace as I moved through the summer landscape, something I would come to think of as the peace of Cuthbert.
Recently refurbished, the footbridge looked splendid. The views up and downstream revealed broad areas of white, dried-out river boulders and stones below the overgrown banks, but even though the water was low the channel under the bridge seemed deep.
After I had crossed, I came upon a small car park. Signs told me this was a section of St Cuthbert’s Way. Beginning at Melrose Abbey, then climbing the saddle between Eildon Hill North and Eildon Mid Hill, descending to Newtown St Boswells before going on to the village of Bowden, it is not a way Cuthbert would ever have come. But it does pass some beautiful views and, having climbed the long steps to the bank above the river, I came across a steady stream of walkers who were enjoying it, stopping often to take photographs on their phones. One bench had been set up to look north, and of course Eildon Hill North dominated the landscape.
After a long climb up a winding wooden stair, the path snaked through dense woodland above the river and footbridges had been built to cross the deeper wooded deans. After about half a mile, I saw that a recent gale labelled Storm Hector (why has this childish American habit of anthropomorphising destructive weather been adopted?) had blown down a big ash tree and it had landed squarely on a bench, pulverising it. There seemed to be a message there. The path occasionally forked and I found myself following it away from the river. Around a corner, I was suddenly assailed by the roar of traffic above me, a bridge carrying the trucks and cars of the busy A68. This riverside woodland suddenly felt like an underworld, parts of a palimpsest, layers below the thunder of the twenty-first century. A helicopter flew low, unseen, and it seemed to make the trees vibrate. The peace of Cuthbert was shattered and once more I decided to retrace my steps to look for a path by the riverbank.
When at last I emerged from the green shade of the woodland, I found I had been going not so much in circles but back and forth, so that I had only walked half a mile in half an hour, poor progress. The path by the Tweed had almost been overwhelmed by the broad leaves of hogweed, and when I eventually reached the bank opposite the ford it was very difficult to get close to the water to see how deep it was. I met a fisherman in chest-high waders who told me I had been wise to turn back. Not only was there no one about if I had got into difficulties, I had been standing on the edge of a salmon pool he had only ever thought it safe to fish from the bank or from the place where I had been splashing around in the shallows of the far side.
Some wooden signs and two inexplicable red and blue arrows suggested at least three directions of travel, but I wanted to stay in sight of the Tweed. Someone had taken the trouble to strim the long grass and nettles to open a track and I assumed that it led to Old Melrose. But after a few hundred yards it simply stopped dead on the edge of another deep pool. By this time, I could see the high bank where the river had turned to make its loop around Old Melrose. The site of the old monastery was close and after several reverses and many steps retraced, I did not want to turn back yet again and look for another path. The problem was the alternative – a climb up a high bank to my left. The map showed the woods running out into fields at the top; somewhere up there a track might be found.
There seemed to be plenty of saplings growing out of the slope, most of them as thick as my arm, and for about twenty feet I made good and careful progress. But then I had to swing across the face of the bank for a good handhold on a sapling that would lead