, like a masonic sign, which suggests the wedge shape of the
castle.

Sir S. knew all about this carving, and said that Americans had offered
two thousand pounds for the stone. But the Duchess of Norfolk, who is
mistress of Caerlaverock in her own right, turned up her nose,
metaphorically speaking, at the offer. "I bid ye fair:" is the motto
that goes with the crest over the huge gateway between two towers, and
the rumour is that the Americans, in bidding for the stone of the
initials, quoted this motto; but their aptness did them no good. In one
of those towers Murdoch, the blind Duke of Albany, was imprisoned for
seven years by James I before he was executed at Stirling; and they say
that in the green hollow where the great red ruin glows he can be seen
walking in the moonlight on the anniversary of his beheading.

One of my favourite stories in history is about Lord Nithsdale and his
brave, clever wife who saved him on the eve of his execution by dressing
him in her clothes and letting him walk calmly out of the Tower of
London in her place. Think of being able to do such a thing for a man
you loved! He was one of the Lords Nithsdale who came from Caerlaverock;
and not far away, at Terregles House, is a portrait of that Countess of
Nithsdale, with the cloak which her husband wore when he escaped. They
have a Prayer Book, too, of Queen Mary's in that house, for she gave it
to Lord Herries, who sheltered her in her flight after the battle at
Langside, eighty miles away. But we didn't see these things. It was the
old man at the castle who told us of them, because they are still in the
keeping of the Maxwell family, of which he is very proud.

We hurried quickly through Dumfries, not to see or think of the Burns
associations there until we should come back; but at Lincluden Abbey,
close by, we were forced to think of him--although, as far as our trip
was concerned, he wasn't born. At Lincluden, where he loved to come,
walking out from Dumfries (as he must have walked to Caerlaverock to cut
his initials) he saw the Vision. And Lincluden is so sweet a place that
my thoughts of it, mingling very humbly with the great poet's thoughts,
will lie together in my memory as pressed flowers lie between the pages
of a book.

The road which leads from Dumfries to Lincluden seems like a quiet
prelude to a lovely burst of music, so gentle and pretty it is. Then
suddenly you come to the promontory stitched on to the mainland with
gr