Oh, name the mighty ransom; task my power;
Let there be danger, difficulty, death,
To enhance the price.—Tamerlane.
It may easily be supposed that, with all his anxiety for the fate of his kinsman, Sir Patrick's desire to see, or be near Murielle, was also near his heart; and inspired by this double object, he rode rapidly, and tasking the speed of his horse, passed through districts the features of which have long since been changed by time and cultivation: for rivers that were then broad and deep have shrunk to mere rills, and rills have disappeared; stone bridges have superseded dangerous and subtle fords, where the luring kelpie lurked for the drowning wayfarer; lochs and morasses have become fertile fields; dense forests, where the wild bull bellowed, and the savage boar whetted his tusks on the gnarled oak, have been cleared away; populous towns have sprung into existence, where whilom the thatched hamlet stood; churches, wherein generations had worshipped God in fervour and holiness, and where Scotland's best and bravest men were laid under tombs of marble and brass, have been ruined and desecrated, as if by the hands of sikhs or sepoys; but hills whereon the mosstrooper drove herd and hirsel, and where the wild furze and whin grew in luxuriance, have been rendered arable to their steepest summits, and fertile, even, as the most fertile parts of Lothian.
By many an old Roman road formed by the warriors of the adventurous Agricola, and those of the discomfited emperor Severus—old ways, where the rank grass grew among the causeway stones, he travelled, and soon reached the wild heathy uplands of Stobo that look down on the green vale of the Tweed, and then the steeps of Hells Cleuch, which are furrowed by a mountain torrent that rushes red and foaming to join the broader waters of the Forth. On by the wild morasses of Tweedsmuir, where an ancient Celtic cross that stood amid the rough obelisks of a Druid Temple of the Sun, was the only landmark for that savage and solitary pass, which was overlooked by the barred and battlemented tower of many a rude mosstrooping laird.
On—on yet past Moffat, secluded in its lovely vale amid its almost inaccessible hills, above the dim summits of which the pale blue mist was floating, and the black eagles were soaring, past its naked or heathy mountain gorges, through which the yellow rays of the setting sun were falling on the moss-covered shealing, and the browsing herd and hirsel; and on the old square castles of red sandstone, built with seashell mortar, the abode of many a turbulent baron.
He was now amid the tremendous scenery of the Southern Highlands; and there, after a ride of fifty miles from Edinburgh, he tarried for the night with the priest of the village church, as he wanted rest, seclusion, and secrecy. There, as at one or two other places, he arranged for a relay of horses, as he knew not what might be the issue of his expedition; and ere it was over, he had reason to thank Heaven for his foresight.
Refreshed and newly horsed, he departed next day with the rising sun, and soon saw the moors of Kirkmichael and the mossy monolith of the six corpses, where Wallace slew Sir Hugh of Moreland and five other Englishmen; and ere long Dumfries, so red and sombre, with its spires of St. Michael and of many a convent and friary, rose before him, and with its long bridge of the thirteenth century—then considered the rival of that of London—spanning by thirteen carved Gothic arches the broad blue waters of the lovely Nith, where, between green and undulating shores, they rolled, glittering in the sunshine, towards the Solway Firth.
The ruined castle of the false Comyns yet overlooked the river; and the jangle of the convent-bell at Nunholm came and went on the noonday wind.
He advanced along the bridge, the passage of which was barred by an iron gate and portal of old red sandstone. It was quaint and time-worn, having been built by the Lady Devorgilla, of Galloway, the mother of the mock-king, John Baliol. Above it were the arms of the burgh—a chevron with three fleurs-de-lys; St. Michael winged and trampling on a serpent, with the motto, "a' at the Lower Burn," the slogan and the muster-place of the inhabitants. At this gate a toll on corn, merchandise, and passengers was collected for the benefit of the Franciscan monastery, which the pious Lady Devorgilla had founded for the salvation of her soul, and of the souls of her ancestors and posterity, in the full-flowing Christian charity of an age which is branded as the dark and superstitious simply because we know little or nothing about it. After this gate was passed, and its iron grille had clanked behind him, the heart of Gray beat faster, for he was now completely in Galloway—the land of his love and of his enemies.
The warder or loiterer, who looked across the Nith from the old castle of Dumfries, saw the flashing of armour in the noonday sunshine, as our solitary horseman rode furiously on, and, from his speed, supposed that some warden-raid or invasion was at hand; and the old Franciscan who dosed on a seat by the friary wall woke up from his dreams, and, in dread of either, muttered an Ave Maria gratia plena, &c., and dosed off to sleep again.
The peasant on the rigs of Teregles saw him passing like a whirlwind, and thought, with an angry sigh, that he might soon have to exchange his blue bonnet and grey maud for a breastplate and bourgoinette; for such speed never betokened an errand of peace, but of tumult and war.