THROUGH GALLOWAY. 251 Her attendants, it is said, immediately cut it down, in order to stop the progress of any who might attempt to pursue her. The materials of the bridge were hurled into the stream and carried down to the sea; and it is not many years since several large logs, bearing marks of having formed some such structure, and supposed to have been a portion of the bridge destroyed on this occasion, were found sunk to a considerable depth in the sands below Kirkcudbright. While her friends were busied in demolishing the bridge, the Queen, wearied and worn, entered a neighbouring cottage and begged for something to satisfy the cravings of her thirst. The poor old widow to whom she applied, brought milk and coarse bread, upon which the Queen regaled herself. Expressing high satisfaction with the simple hospitality of her hostess, Mary asked if she could do her any service in return;-to which the woman replied, by expressing an anxious wish to become proprietrix of her cottage and of the small field adjacent. How the Queen, in the dejected state of her fortunes, was able to grant this request, does not appear; but it is the common tradition that she accomplished it, and it is certain that the little property has from time immemorial, and till recently, continued to belong to a family, who, from a natural feeling of pride, long resisted the importunate entreaties of their wealthier neighbours to dispose of it. It occupies a place in the most ancient valuation rolls of the Stewartry, among other estates, all of which surpass it by many degrees in value. Mary arrived at Dundrennan in the evening, and spent her last night in Scotland beneath the walls of the monastery-then a magnificent and extensive building. The situation of Dundrennan Abbey has much natural beauty, independent of historical associations, to recommend it to the attention of the traveller. The building is now greatly dilapidated; but enough still remains to indicate to the spectator its former splendour. It is almost entirely covered with a pale grey-coloured moss, which gives a character of peculiar and almost airy lightness to the lofty columns and Gothic arches, many of 252 MARY'S DEPARTURE FROM SCOTLAND. which are entire. Placed upon a gentle eminence, on the bank of a rocky and sparkling mountain burn, and surrounded on all sides except the south by an amphitheatre of hills, Dundrennan forms an exception to the usual aspect of Abbey scenery. There is little old wood near it, save in the deep and devious glens which intersect the adjacent grounds belonging to Mr Maitland of Dundrennan; but the neighbouring braes are generally clothed with copse, and afford from many points the same magnificent views of the Solway, and of the mountains of Cumberland which have been already described. From Newlaw-hill, an eminence adjoining the house of Dundrennan, the prospect is still more extensive, commanding, in addition to an almost boundless range of ocean, a view of the Isle of Man, and of the mountains of Morne in Ireland. But sentiment no doubt gives to Dundrennan its principal charm. These broken arches and tottering columns-these deserted cells and weedgrown aisles-these neglected monuments of ancient Barons and Belted Knights*-—and this wide scene of ruin and desolation, melancholy and silent though they be, are all invested with an inexpressible charm, as far superior to that imparted by mere fine scenery as the pleasures of the mind are to those of sense. To some this charm may appear visionary, but to the poet or philosopher it will be quite intelligible. From the Abbey to the sea, the distance is about a mile and a half. The road runs through a secluded valley of surpassing beauty, and leads directly to the shore, where the rock is still pointed out by the peasantry, from which the hapless Mary embarked upon her ill-starred voyage to England. It is situated in a little creek, surrounded by vast and precipitous rocks, and called Port Mary, in commemoration of the Queen. The scene is appropriately wild and sublime-and the contemplative stranger who visits it at the stilly eve is apt to imagine that the waves fall with a more mournful dash upon the shore, and that the cadence of the autumn wind is more low and * Several monuments of this description exist among the ruins. COAST ROAD OF GALLOWAY. 253 melancholy, than elsewhere, as if "nature's self" were conscious of, and lamented the unhappy event she had seen take place upon the spot. The sea coast in this neighbourhood merits the attention of the mineralogist, the natural philosopher, and the painter. Two caverns upon the Barlocco Shore, called the White and Black Cave, are particularly worthy of notice. The entrance to the former is as lofty as the mast of some great Ammiral, and its vast extent reminds the spectator of the airy and echoing Halls of Fingal in Staffa. The Black Cave is of an opposite and gloomy character, and its dark caverns would form no unfit habitation for the water kelpy, or Spirit of the Solway. The valley of Dundrennan is separated from the strath of the Dee by an uninteresting ridge of pastoral country, after passing which, the road at the top of Kilrony Brae suddenly opens upon the delicious scenery of St Mary's Isle and the Bay of Kirkcudbright. After skirting the shore for about two miles along richly wooded banks, and through the pleasure grounds of the Earl of Selkirk, the traveller reaches the town, which is situated upon the east banks of the Dee about two miles above the spot where the river discharges its waters into the Solway. At this point it assumes the appearance of an estuary, called Kirkcudbright Bay, and sometimes, from its land-locked character, and the usual serenity of its surface, the lake. This place afforded shelter during a storm to the Fleet of William the Third, when on his voyage to raise the siege of Londonderry.* * The following traditionary account of King William's visit has been supplied by an ingenious friend, Mr Robert Malcomson of Kirkcudbright. "The fleet put in at the Manxman's Lake, about two miles and a half from Kirkcudbright, where it lay for some time. Every day, crowds of people from the town and neighbouring country repaired to the place, to see and congratulate the Deliverers of Britain. One day, the Admiral, or some other person in command, inquired of the visitors if they could inform him who lived at a little white house on the other side of the Dee, which attracted his notice. On being informed that the possessor was a Mr Brown, a Roman Catholic gentleman of 254 TOWN OF KIRKCUDbright. Kirkcudbright, a royal burgh, a sea-port, and the capital of the Stewartry, is well built, and contains about two thousand inhabitants. It is a town of very pleasing appearance; for it is not only regular, clean, and neat, but possesses considerable charms in the way of natural scenery, and derives a certain degree of almost city-like grandeur from the towers of the jail, and of the ruined abode of the ancient Lords of Kirk-* cudbright, which at a little distance are seen to overtop the ordinary buildings. The streets of Kirkcud bright are all laid out in squares or parallelograms, like the New Town of Edinburgh; and there is no town in Scotland which possesses such a proportion of new houses. The cause of this is an arrangement among the inhabitants, similar to that known by the name of a menage, by which a certain number of houses are built by subscription every year and acquired by lot. In addition to the air of gaiety and liveliness which the town has acquired in this way, it is ornamented by the residences of many persons of good fortune, which, instead of being scattered in the suburbs of the town, as elsewhere, are fortune, who had a fishing on the river, and annually salted a great quantity of salmon for exportation, the commander ordered a party of his men to repair to the house, and carry away all the fish they could find. His orders were punctually and rigidly obeyed. The men assailed the house, which they found locked, stove in the door, and proceeded to secure all the fish. Having boiled or broiled a considerable quantity, they took a commission for their trouble in the shape of a hearty meal, and then began to ransack the house for drink. To their great mortification, no liquors were to be found, and they were obliged to slake their thirst at a neighbouring burn. It was said that William intended to present the fish as a gift to his unfortunate uncle King James. "Tradition further affirms that King William embarked at this remote part of his dominions in disguise. It is at least certain that the fleet here took on board a considerable quantity of troops. An old woman, who died within the recollection of people still alive, remembered having seen these men pass through the Stewartry towards the bay in which the fleet was lying. They made a halt at the Haugh of Urr, and fed their horses on grey oats, the only species of grain which the country then afforded." TOWN OF KIRKCUDBRIGHT. 255 placed in the streets, and that in considerable numbers. Kirkcudbright, although at one period a place of some foreign trade with our West India Colonies and America, now possesses little or none, and has no manufactures except hosiery upon a small scale. Chiefly subsisting upon its resources as a county-town, it is a very quiet and genteel-looking place. Some of the inhabitants are opulent; and few have the appearance of living in abject poverty. Kirkcudbright is nearly half surrounded by the river, and its other sides were formerly defended by a ditch into which the water ran, and by a rude rampart called the Dykes. In 1547, a party of that army whose object and conduct caused the Earl of Angus to observe that the young English King was a rougher wooer than the lion that formed his cognizance, repaired to Kirkcudbright, with the intention of causing the people to swear allegiance to their master; but, though early in the morning, the people were upon the alert, and shut their gates and kept their dykes; "for (says our authority) the town is dyked on both sides, with a gate to the water-ward, and a gate on the over end to the fell-ward ;" and this defence was effectual in preserving the town. Hector Boece, writing a generation before this time, calls Kirkoubrie "ane rich town, full of merchandise." It then consisted of a single street, at the extremity of which was the harbour. The shipping interest in the town is supposed to have been formerly much more extensive than at present. Paul Jones first appeared upon the stage of public life as commander of a West India vessel belonging to Kirkcudbright. But he killed his carpentirr, did he not, did he not? He killed his carpentirr, did he not ? and was then obliged to take to another way of doing. The county buildings and jail of Kirkcudbright have a highly respectable appearance; and from the tall tower which surmounts the latter, a most extensive view may |