Over against it to the eastward rises Cutler Fell and, divided from the latter by the rich plain of Biggar, the heights of Bizzyberry and Quothquan, scenes of the exploits of William Wallace. Its northern slopes all drain into the Douglas Water. The moorland pastures that enclose Douglasdale spread away towards Cairn Table and the Ayrshire border; and from the nearer buttresses of Tinto glimpses are had, in the valley below, of the smoke from its coalfield and of the woods that surround the “Castle Dangerous” of history and romance.
DOUGLAS CASTLE.
The story of the House of Douglas may be read on the walls and on the floor of the church of St. Bride of Douglas, of which there remains only the spire and the choir, lately restored by the latest heir and representative of the Douglas line, Lord Dunglass, the eldest son of the Earl of Home. In its precincts, on Palm Sunday, 1307, took place that memorable struggle between the “good Sir James” of Douglas and his adherents, and the English garrison of Sir John de Walton, who undertook, for the winning of his lovesuit, the perilous emprise of holding the castle of the Douglases against its rightful master. Here, enclosed in what we are told is a silver casket, placed under glass in the floor of the church above the Douglas vault, is the heart of the great warrior and patriot himself, brought home after he had lost his life among the Paynim hosts of Spain while seeking to carry the Bruce’s heart to the Holy Land. His recumbent cross-legged effigy is one of the most ancient of the monuments to his kin who lie in the church of St. Bride; among these being “Archibald Bell the Cat,” and Archibald the second and James the third Dukes of Touraine, the sons of “Earl Tineman.” Hither came Sir Walter Scott, with Lockhart in his company, on his last sad pilgrimage of romance, when the shadows of the grave had already begun to gather about himself and his right hand was already losing its cunning.
Photo: A. Brown & Co., Lanark.
BONNINGTON LINN.