So spake the stern chieftain.—No answer is made;
But each mantle unfolding, a dagger display'd.
Campbell.
We must now go still further back into our history, and give some account of Sir David Bruce, and the unhappy causes that led to so unexpected and so speedy a termination of a connexion honourable and enviable in every respect, and indeed every way deserving of happier results.
In the parish of Kirkoswald, in Ayrshire, is situated the ancient and the celebrated castle of Turnberry, stationed upon the north-west point of a rocky angle of the coast, extending towards Girvan. This castle belonged to Sir Robert Bruce, Laird of Annandale. The situation of the castle of Turnberry is extremely delightful, commanding a full view of the Frith of Clyde, and its indented shores. Upon the land side it overlooks a richly extended plain, bounded by distant hills, which rise around in gradual and beautiful undulations, and adorned to their very summits with woods of mountain-ash, oak, and the most graceful of all trees, in glen, plain, valley, or mountain, the weeping birch.
The lord of this castle—we should say "the laird"—was Sir Robert Bruce, and with him resided his twin-brother, Sir David Bruce, the hero of this eventful tale. This castle had belonged in the olden time to Alexander Earl of Carrick, who died nobly fighting, as a true and valiant Red-Cross Knight, in the Holy Land; who left an only daughter, named Martha Countess of Carrick. This noble lady having accidentally met Robert Bruce, (the ancestor of our hero,) Laird of Annandale in Scotland, and Baron Cleveland in England, while he was occupied in a hunting party near her castle, his manners, deportment, and person, pleased the countess; she invited him to the castle of Turnberry, and they were speedily married.
From this illustrious marriage sprung the kings of Scotland of the royal race of Stuart;—and hence the successors of Bruce, until they ascended the throne of Scotland, were styled Earls of Carrick; and this title still appertains to the heir apparent to the throne of England, one of the titles of the Prince of Wales being "Earl of Carrick and Lord of the Isles."
Robert was the ancestor of David, who married a lady of the noble house of Moray. Sir David Bruce, Laird of Annandale, died when young, leaving two sons, Robert and David, (the latter the subject of these memoirs,) and appointing, by his last will and testament, his lady and the Reverend George Wardlaw, D. D., as guardians to his sons. His death was soon followed by that of his lady. And the young men, now grown up, having received a due preparatory education from the Reverend Doctor, whilom fellow of St. Andrew's College, were there shortly matriculated as students. But Robert soon got tired of his Reverend tutor and the grave and ponderous tomes of Saint Andrew's, which were soon exchanged for the academy of nature, the wooded banks of the Doon, and the rocky, romantic shores of Ayrshire.
David, on the contrary, pursued his academic studies with much perseverance, and with very considerable credit, calling forth the approbation and praise of his Reverend tutor and the heads of that learned seminary.
While in the university he formed an intimacy with Thomas Lord Maxwell, which was soon cemented into friendship. They were chums; their studies, pursuits, and tastes coincided, and they were inseparable companions.