Below are the Armstrong bent arm holding a sword, a skull and crossed bones, an hour glass and other emblems, and below all, "memento mora." This William Armstrong, therefore, who died in 1658, aged 56, was not born when Kinmont Willie was rescued by Buccleuch from Carlisle Castle.
Here, on the lower part of Sark, we are in a country world famed for its old fashioned run-away marriages, more famed even than was Coldstream.
[Original]
Down the river is Sark Bridge, with its toll-bar, and adjacent to it, Gretna Green. At the tollhouse alone in the early part of last century, within six years thirteen hundred couples were married—a profitable business for the "priest," (usually the village blacksmith,) for his fee ranged from half a guinea to a hundred pounds, according to the circumstances of each fond couple. But what was charged in a case such as that of Lord Erskine, Lord High Chancellor of England, who, when he was nearly seventy years of age, eloped with a blushing spinster and was married at Gretna—in the Inn, I think—history does not tell. There is a something, part comic, part pathetic, in the thought of the tired old gentleman gallantly propping himself in a corner of his post chaise, flying through the darkness of night on Love's wings, a fond bride by his side.
[Original]
And when grey dawn at length stole through the breath-dimmed glass of the closed windows, revealing the "elderly morning dew" on his withered cheeks and stubbly chin, with callous disregard emphasizing the wrinkles, the bags below the puffy eyes—bloodshot from want of sleep—and the wig awry, did the young lady begin to repent her bargain, one may wonder.