Sir Roger and all the friends of Mr William Graham were opposed to his union with Miss Palmer, as Graham always called her. Her own father, too, was opposed to her forming a connection with the son of one who had treated him so cruelly, and, as he thought, unjustly—and it became manifest to William, as he was in every sense of the word his own master, that had he his fair betrothed in the leas of Middlefield, he might set them all at defiance, and effect their union peaceably, according to the rules of the church. In an evil hour, Helen consented to leave her father's house by night, along with her William, and on horseback, to take their way across the Border for Cumberland. They had reached the parish of Kirkconnel about two o'clock in the morning, and were giving their horses a mouthful of water in the little stream called Kirtle, when a shot was heard in the immediate neighbourhood—it was heard, alas! by two only, for the third was dying, and in the act of falling from her seat in the saddle. She was caught by a servant, and by her lover; but she could only say—"I am gone—I am gone!" before breathing her last. Oh, curse upon the hand that fired the shot? It was, indeed, an accursed hand, but a fatal mistake. It was one of the bloody persecutors of Lag's troop, who, having been appointed to watch at this spot for some Covenanters who were expected to be passing on horseback into England, in order to escape from the savage cruelty of their persecutors, had immediately, and in drunken blindness, fired upon this inoffensive group. The ball, alas! took too fatal effect in the heart of Helen Palmer; and it was on her, and not as Allan Cunningham represents it, "on Helen Irving, the daughter of the laird of Kirkconnel," that the following most pathetic verses were written—
"I wish I were where Helen lies;
Night and day on me she cries:
Oh, that I were where Helen lies,
On fair Kirkconnel lea!
"Oh, Helen fair beyond compare,
I'll make a garland of thy hair;
Shall bind my heart for ever mair,
Until the day I dee.
"Curst be the heart that thought the thought,
And curst the hand that fired the shot,
When in my arms burd Helen dropped
On fair Kirkconnel lea!"
XII.—THE CAIRNY CAVE OF GAVIN MUIR.
There is a wild, uninhabited district, which separates Nithsdale from Annandale, in Dumfriesshire. It is called Gavin Muir; and, though lonely, and covered with spret and heather, exhibits some objects which merit the attention of the traveller in the wilderness. There is the King's Loch, the King's Burn, and the King's Chair, all records of King James V.'s celebrated raid to subdue the thieves of Annandale. Tradition says, what seems extremely likely, that he spent a night in the midst of this muir; and hence the appellations of royalty which adhere to the objects which witnessed his bivouac. But, although the localities referred to possess an interest, they are exceeded, in this respect, by a number of "cairns," by which the summits of several hills, or rising grounds, are topped. These cairns, which amount to five or six, are all within sight of each other, all on eminences, and all composed of an immense mass of loose, water-worn stones. And yet the neighbourhood is free from stones, being bare, and fit for sheep-pasturage only. Tradition says nothing of these cairns in particular; or, indeed, very little of any similar collections, frequent as they are in Scotland and throughout all Scandinavia. Stone coffins, no doubt, have been discovered in them, and human bones; but, beyond this, all is surmise and uncertainty. Often, when yet a boy, and engaged in fishing in the King's Burn, have we mounted these pyramids, and felt that we were standing on holy ground. "Oh," thought we, "that some courteous cairn would blab it out what 'tis they are!" But the cairns were silent; and hence the necessity we are under of professing our ignorance of what they refused to divulge. But there is a large opening in the side of one of these cairns, respecting which tradition has preserved a pretty distinct narrative, which we shall now venture, for the first time, to put under types, for the instruction of our readers.
The whole hill country, in Dumfriesshire and Galloway in particular, is riddled, as it were, with caves and hiding-places. These, no doubt, afforded refuge, during the eight-and-twenty years of inhuman persecution, to the poor Covenanter; but they were not, in general, constructed for or by him. They existed from time immemorial, and were the work of that son of night and darkness—the smuggler, who, in passing from the Brow at the mouth of the Nith, from Bombay, near Kirkcudbright, or from the estuary of the Cree, with untaxed goods from the Isle of Man—then a separate and independent kingdom—found it convenient to conceal both his goods and himself from the observation of the officers of excise. So frequent are these concealed caves in the locality to which we refer, that, in passing through the long, rank heather, we have more than once disappeared in an instant, and found ourselves several feet below the level of the upper world, and in the midst of a damp, but roomy subterraneous apartment of considerable extent. We believe that they are now, in these piping times of peace and preventive service, generally filled up and closed by the shepherds, as they were dangerous pitfalls in the way of their flocks. In the time, however, to which we refer—namely, in the year 1683—they were not only open, but kept, as it were, in a state of repair, being tenanted by the poor, persecuted remnant (as they expressed it) of God's people. That the reader may fully understand the incidents of this narrative, it will be necessary that he and we travel back some hundred and fifty years, and some miles from the farm-house of Auchincairn, that we may have ocular demonstration of the curious contrivances to which the love of life, of liberty, and of a good conscience, had compelled our forefathers to have recourse. That cairn which appears so entire and complete, of which the stones seem to have been huddled together without any reference to arrangement whatever, is, nevertheless, hollow underneath, and on occasions you may see—but only if you examine it narrowly—the blue smoke seeking its way in tiny jets through a thousand apertures. There is, in fact, room for four or five individuals. Beneath, there are a few plaids and bed-covers, with an old chair, a stool, and seats of stone. There is likewise a fire-place and some peats, extracted from the adjoining moss. But there is, in fact, no entrance in this direction. You must bend your course round by the brow of that hollow, over which the heather hangs profusely; and there, by dividing and gently lifting up the heathy cover, you will be able to insert your person into a small orifice, from which you will escape into a dark but a roomy dungeon, which will, in its turn, conduct you through a narrow passage, into the very heart or centre of this seemingly solid accumulation of stones. When there, you will have light such as Milton gives to Pandemonium—just as much as to make darkness visible, through the small, and, on the outside, invisible crevices betwixt the stones. Should you be surprised in your lighted and fire apartment—should any accident or search bring a considerable weight above you, so as to break through your slightly supported roofing—you can retreat to your ante-room or dungeon, and from thence, if necessary, make your way into the adjoining linn, along the bottom of which, you may ultimately find skulking-shelter, or a pathway into a more inhabited district. Now that you have surveyed this arrangement, as it existed a hundred and fifty years ago, we may proceed to give you the narrative which is connected with it.
In the year above referred to, the persecution of the saints was at its height—Clavers, in particular, went about the country with his dragoons, whom he designated (like the infamous Kirk) his Lambs, literally seeking to hurt and destroy in all the hill country, in particular of Dumfriesshire and Galloway. Auchincairn was a marked spot; it had often been a city of refuge to the shelterless and the famishing; but it had so frequently been searched, that every hole and corner was as well known to Clavers and his troop as to the inhabitants themselves. There was now, therefore, no longer any refuge to the faithful at Auchincairn; in fact, to come there was to meet the enemy half-way—to rush as it were into the jaws of the lion. In these circumstances, old Walter Gibson, a man upwards of seventy years of age, who, by his prayers and his attending conventicles, had rendered himself particularly obnoxious, was obliged to prolong a green old age by taking up his abode in the cave and under the cairn which has already been described. With him were associated, in his cold and comfortless retreat, the Rev. Robert Lawson, formerly minister of the parish of Closeburn; but who, rather than conform to the English prayer-book and formula, had taken to the mountain, to preach, to baptize, and even to dispense the Sacrament of the Supper, in glens, and linns, and coverts, far from the residence of man. Their retreat was known to the shepherds of the district, and indeed to the whole family of Auchincairn; but no one ever was suspected of imitating the conduct of the infamous Baxter, who had proved false, and discovered a cave in Glencairn, where four Covenanters were immediately shot, and two left hanging upon a tree. On one occasion, a little innocent girl, a grand-daughter of old Walter, was surprised whilst carrying some provisions towards the hill-retreat, by a party of Clavers' dragoons, who devoured the provisions, and used every brutal method to make the girl disclose the secret of the retreat; but she was neither to be intimidated nor cajoled, and told them plainly that she would rather die, as her granduncle had done before her, than betray her trust. They threw her into a peat-hag filled with water, and left her to sink or swim. She did not swim, however, but sank never to rise again. Her spirit had been broken, and life had been rendered a burden to her. She expressed to her murderers, again and again, a wish that they would send her to meet her uncle (as she termed it) William. Her body was only discovered some time after, when the process of decomposition had deformed one of the most pleasing countenances which ever beamed with innocence and piety.
"The old hound will not be far off, when the young whelp was so near," exclaimed Clavers, upon a recital of the inhuman murder. "We must watch the muirs by night; for it is then that these creatures congregate and fatten. We must continue to spoil their feasting, and leave them to feed on cranberries and moss-water." In consequence of this resolution, a strict watch was set all along Gavin Muir; and it became almost impossible to convey any sustenance to the famishing pair; yet the thing was done, and wonderfully managed, not in the night-time, but in the open day. One shepherd would call to another, in the note of the curlew or the miresnipe, and without exciting suspicion, convey from the corner of his plaid the necessary refreshments, even down to a bottle of Nantz. The cave was never entered on such occasions; but the provisions were dropped amidst the rank heather; and a particular whistle immediately secured their disappearance. Night after night, therefore, were these prowlers disappointed of their object, till at last, despairing of success, or thinking, probably, that the birds had escaped, they betook themselves, for the time, elsewhere, and the cairn was relieved from siege. Clavers, in fact, had retired to Galloway, along with Grierson and Johnstone, and the coast was clear, at least for the present.