Allen, a rivulet of Melrose parish, rises in the NW corner of Roxburghshire, on the northern slope of Sell Moor, at an altitude of 1200 feet. Thence winding 9 miles SSE, past hills 800 to 1000 feet high, it falls into the Tweed, 2½ miles WNW of Melrose town. Its lower course lies through the Fairy or Nameless Dean, a narrow glen, threaded by the old monks' bridle-way to Soutra: and Scott laid here the scene of his Monastery. Instead, however, of the single peel-house of ' Glendearg, ' three ruinous towers stand at the head of the glen-the Cairncrosses' Hillslap (1585), the Borthwicks' Colmslie, and Langshaw. See Lander's Scottish Rivers (edit. 1874), pp. 115-117: and Hunnewell's Lands of Scott (1871), pp. 322-332.
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