n one of them. You would have thought the Maxwell
ladies had thrown their rubies and diamonds into it one wild day when
they were escaping from enemies, and that the jewels had lain ever since
at the bottom of the moat unnoticed, though the sunlight found out and
treacherously tried to tell the secret. Think of Ptolemy writing about
Caerlaverock, and calling it Carbantorigun! I'm glad we haven't to call
it that now, or I should always have to say _it_--as one goes on saying
"you" to a person whose name one hasn't caught.

Even if Caerlaverock were in hideous surroundings, it would be
magnificent: but the river Solway is its silver foreground, and Lochar
Moss is its mysterious background; so it is perfect in beauty as in
strength, and if only no such hateful things as cannons had been
invented, it would not now be a ruin. Although it lies so low, it was
built to resist everything but gunpowder: for how could the Maxwells
dream that all their beautiful arrangements for pouring down molten lead
and boiling oil would be useless against a new foe?

Edward I took the castle in 1300, but Bruce got it back thirteen years
later; and there was much fighting and tossing back of the Key from one
hand to the other even before the great siege when the Earl of Essex
punished Lord Herries for defending Queen Mary. Still, the walls stood
bravely, and after the Essex affair they were made stronger than
ever--so strong and so splendid it must have seemed as if Caerlaverock
need never capitulate again to any enemy. But no sooner had the Maxwells
finished a lovely new facade, the best they'd ever had, with carved
window and door caps of the latest fashion, than Colonel Home came along
with his grim Covenanters and blew up everything with his horrid
cannons. I can't help disliking him, for the Maxwells seem to have been
the most fascinating people. One Lord Maxwell of the seventeenth
century, who was Roman Catholic when it wasn't safe to be Roman
Catholic, used to disguise himself as a beggar, and play the fiddle in
the market-place of Dumfries as a signal to tell the faithful of his own
religion where and when they might come to Mass. They understood
according to certain tunes agreed upon, which was easy, as they had only
three meeting-places. A nice old man in the castle told us these stories
and showed us the exquisite courtyard where Burns came one day when he
was seventeen and cut on a stone in the wall the initials R. B. in a
triangle