548 PRÆTERITA-III

friend, of whom I have spoken¹), began her married life. Kirkchrist is just on the opposite side from Kirkcudbright, overlooking the River Dee.”

I must go back to a middle-aged map of 1773, to find the noble river rightly traced from its source above Kenmure Castle to the winding bay which opens into Solway, by St. Mary’s Isle; where Kirkchrist is marked as Christ K, with a cross, indicating the church then existing.

I was staying with Arthur and Joan, at Kenmure Castle itself in the year 1876, and remember much of its dear people: and, among the prettiest scenes of Scottish gardens, the beautiful trees on the north of that lawn on which the last muster met for King James;² “and you know,” says Joanie, “the famous song that used to inspire them all, of ‘Kenmure’s on and awa’, Willie!’”* The thoughts come too fast upon me, for before Joanie said this, I was trying to recollect on what height above Solway, Darsie Latimer pauses with Wandering Willie, in whom Scott records for ever the glory,-not of Scottish music only, but of all Music, rightly so called,-which is a part of God’s own creation, becoming an expression of the purest hearts.

74. I cannot pause now to find the spot,† and still less the churchyard in which, at the end of Wandering Willie’s tale, his grandsire wakes:³ but, to the living reader, I have this to say very earnestly, that the whole glory and blessing of these sacred coasts depended on the rise and fall of

* “Lady Huntley plays Scotch tunes like a Highland angel. She ran a set of variations on ‘Kenmure’s on and awa’,’ which I told her were enough to raise a whole country-side. I never in my life heard such fire thrown into that sort of music.”-Sir Walter writing to his daughter Sophia. Lockhart’s “Life,” vol. iv., page 371 [ed. 1, 1837].

† It is on the highest bit of moor between Dumfries and Annan. Wandering Willie’s “parishine” is only thus defined in Redgauntlet [Letter xi.]- “They ca’ the place Primrose Knowe.”

¹ [See above, p. 540.]

² [It is a local tradition that it was from the bowling-green of Kenmure Castle that Lord Kenmure rode away to take part in the rising of 1715.]

³ [See again Letter xi.]

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