LURE OF GALLOWAY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4219, 4 December 1939, Page 3

LURE OF GALLOWAY

LAND OF GLAMOUR. WHERE MARCH THE GHOSTLY COVENANTING COLUMNS. , (By H. D. Ganld, F.R.S.G.S., F.S.A., Scot) During our Scottish summer it is not unusual to observe In the high noon of night the first roseate flush of approaching dawn, brightening the eastern shy while the last gleam of the afterglow of sunset still faintly gilds the clouds of the west. At such an hour of summer night there is glamour in the hills and the thrall of witchery on the moors that only the wild, creatures and the lonely wayfarer know. There is no real darkness in the canopy of the night, only a duskier hue of purple gemmed with a glittering star, and a gleam along the horizon at the entrance to the glens. And against that uncanny gleam which palely reflects in its cold face the shadowy night, the hills stand forth black and silent as the tomb. It Is like walking in the upper valleys of the shadow of death, so gloomy the path, so deep the silence, so awesome the breaking down. But the air is pure and sweet with the tang of the moorlands, for we tread the threshold of the land of glamour going down into Galloway. HEART OF THE MENNOCKS. In the heart of the Mennocks, where wild waters flow and Dun Law and Dungrain and Lowther glower across the pass like gigantic beasts of prey at Wellgrain Dod and Rake Law, Snarhead, Sowen and White Dod as though the sleeping villages of Leadhills and Wanlockhead were in dispute among them, one may hear at times, where the path sweeps through the mirk of the glen, sounds that might be the weary tread of Covenanting captives marching northward to their unhappy doom. I know not why but there is always the sound of marching in those ghostly fells. I hear it in the summer night as plainly as the cries of whaup and jcucliit, and glimpse, too, in darksome crooks of the pass, in the wildfire’s momentary glare, ths measured rise and fall of a phalanx of marching feet, as though a phantom army were passing there, bound for a. rendezvous. Who are those phantoms marching thus in the throat of the pass through the dark of the night, marching with such rhythm, with such steadfastness of purpose, with such invincibility? Are they the legions of ancient Rome, or the men of Bruce and Wallace, or the hosts of later times? Are they the lessening shadow of things past or the broadening portent of things to come? Do they who lie abed in the cottages of Wanlockhead hear aught of these things in the waning light of summer moons? STORIED SENTINELS. In old times, when it was necessary to guard the passes of the river valleys and the hills, the castles of Sanquhar, Barr, Ryehill, Eliock, Gilmour, Drumlanrig, Enoch, Tibbers, and Morton sentinelled in this quarter the middle Nith Valley, and the passes of the Crawick, Mennock, Enterkin, Well Patil and Dalveen. Of these Sanquhar was not the least important, occuping as it did a strong site above the water of Nith almost, equi-distant between those points where the Crawick and Mennock debouch upon the main stream. The castle is now in a deplorable plight, as are so very many of our ancient structures. Much of it has been wholly swept away and what remains is quite uncared for. Yet it dates from early times and has played its part in the history of Scotland. The inception of this site as the fortified place is lost in the mists of time, the first authentic record of it dating back from the time when it was held by cadets of the family of Roose or Rossc, barons of Sanquhar. In the days of Bruce, Isobel, daughter of Robert de Rosse, the last of his line, espoused William, second son of Thomas, Lord Crichton, whose son was the first baron of Sanquhar of this new line. The Circhtons of that Ilk in Midlothian and of Frendraught in Aberdeenshire were also powerful

in the land. Sir Robert Crichton of Sanquhar, great grandson of Isobel de Rosse, was appointed hereditary sheriff of Dumfriesshire in the reign of King James 111. The castle and barony of Sanquhar, having been mortgaged to Sir William Douglas of Drumlanrig, passed from the Crichtons into his possession in the year 1630. Sir William, first Duke of Queensberry, resided in Sanquhar Castle while his palatial pile of Drumlanrig was in course of being built. He is said to have passed only one night in new Drumlanrig and to have died in the old stronghold of Sanquhar by the Nith. The second Duke of Queensberry abandoned Sanquhar and the rapacity of the neighbouring burghers soon made of it what most burghers make of all stately houses left to their tender mercies. 11 ■ i 1 1 1 “A DOUGLAS!” Many legends are told of old Sanquhar, and one of the most stirring recounts the recapture of the castle from the minions of Edward I of England by Sir .William Douglas of Douglasdale and his men, who put the Invaders to the sword. The castle, which was approached from the village of Sanquhar by an avenue of stately trees, consisted of outer and inner court yards, the entrance to the latter being protected by a massive round tower. Within the inner court yard were the main buildings of the hold, commanded from the south east angle by the nuclear keep; but the destruction of. the whole is now so complete that, few save the diligent antiquary can read the riddle of the shattered stones. A little to southward is the castle mote whence feudal justice was dispensed. Still may be traced the sites of moat and drawbridge, and the gentle lines of park and pleasaunce.

Southward lie the hills of glamouiwith the aureole o£ evening alight around their crests —brave hills of an old world of legend and romance. How peacefully the little townships nestle there in the folds of the valleys, with no sounds at eventide to trouble them save the cry of the curlew, and at night only the sough of the winds. HILLMEN OF MONIAIVE. At the gateways into Galloway stand the villages of Corsack and Moniaive, quaint in their peaceful old world ways; Corsack with its tales of Carlyle and Craigenputtock and the moor road by the lonely Urr; and Moniaive of the hillmen and the moormen, who live against the spacious sky where the great winds blow. I know now whence came those marching men of the Mennock Pass. They were the spirits of the men of old who saved the day lor Scotland on many a stricken field. They rest uneasy now in a world of guile. Fool that 1 am not to have known it sooner; not to have known that their line of inarch must, lie through their own brave hills where the spirit of the past is not dead. So I will go down there to-morrow in the footsteps of the men of old, into Moniaive, over the bow-backed brig and along the narrow, winding street among the kindly faces, and round the corner where stands tire old inn and the still older Cross, to where the road leads out of a world of dishonour into a great free realm, where the unconquered hills smile in the morning sun —in the land of glamour.