THE BARLEY BANNOCK
Between Falkirk and Stirling are the remains of a wood, even yet pretty extensive, which existed in the times of Wallace and Bruce. It is the well-known Torwood, so frequently mentioned in the histories of these Scottish heroes, and so celebrated for the shelter and concealment it afforded them on frequent occasions during their seasons of adversity. In those days, however, if we may believe old chronicles, the Torwood covered a great deal more ground than it does now, extending, on its northern side, it is said, to the banks of the Forth, a distance of about four miles. Experiencing the fate of our other ancient woods, the progress of cultivation and improvement has now greatly lessened its extent; but it forms even in the present day, a singularly striking and impressive piece of sylvian scenery. Its outward characteristics, striking as they are, may not differ from those of other forests; but there are associations connected with the Torwood, which fill its sombre, solitary depths and recesses with a profound and solemn mystery, and which diffuse throughout its picturesque glades a golden atmosphere of poetry and romance. The spirit of the olden time is there, and has flung its bewitching glamoury around the forest scene. There are few who have wandered through its green arcades, and have penetrated its far and gloomy depths, with a knowledge and recollection of the scenes which they have witnessed, and the sounds they have heard—the mustering of Wallace's patriot bands, and the stirring strains of the bugle of Bruce—few, we say, who have roamed through the dark solitudes of the Torwood, and who have thought of these things, but must have felt the fullest, the deepest effect of those sacred associations and recollections which enshrine the memory of the mighty dead.
At the period we refer to, namely, the glorious period when Bruce was struggling to complete the work which his great predecessor Wallace had begun—to compass the independence of Scotland—a rude little cottage or bothy reared its humble form on the eastern skirts of the Torwood, or rather a little way within the verge of the forest.
This lowly and lonely domicile was then occupied by a widow woman of the name of Margaret Grahame. Her husband had been killed, some years previous to the period at which we introduce her to the notice of the reader, in a skirmish with a party of the English garrison from Stirling; and she was thus left to bring up, as she best might, a family of young children; the eldest of whom, a beautiful girl, named after her mother, was only nine years of age at the time of her husband's death.
Margaret, however, was not one of those women who sink under misfortune—who unresistingly yield to the pressure of calamity. In that which had befallen her, she only saw an additional reason for redoubling those exertions in behalf of her family which had never, at any time, been wanting. After her husband's death, she continued to cultivate, with the assistance of her children, the little patch of ground, which, together with a small track of pasturage, on which two cows, her whole stock of bestial, grazed, formed her only means of subsistence.
Small and humble as these means were, however, the industry and thrifty management of Margaret Grahame rendered them sufficient to place herself and family beyond the reach of want. The fare, indeed, which she could put before her children, was homely enough in quality, but it was abundant.
In character, Margaret, who had been a remarkably good-looking woman in her day, and who was even yet a comely dame to look upon, was what we, in Scotland here, call "furthy." She was a lively, rattling, kind-hearted, out-spoken person; warm in her feelings, active in all her habits, and possessing a natural courage and presence of mind, that singularly fitted her for performing the duties of friendship in cases of difficulty, danger, or distress.
Such, then, was Margaret Grahame, and such were the circumstances in which she was placed at the period when we bring her before the reader. These essential preliminary matters recorded, we proceed to say, that, on a certain evening, a wet and stormy one, in the month of October, 1307, as Margaret was busily employed, with the assistance of her eldest daughter—the younger children having been put to bed—in toasting some barley meal bannocks before the fire, some one rapped smartly at the door.
"Wha's there?" exclaimed Margaret, in some surprise at the lateness of the visit, and little accustomed to the calls of either friends or foes at her remote and solitary dwelling, wondering who the person could be who sought admittance. To her inquiry, a mellow-toned, but masculine voice replied—that the person without was one who had no other place of shelter to go to for the night, and who would cheerfully pay for a little refreshment, and an hour or two's shelter from the storm.