Lang Andrew
Highways and Byways in the Border
CHAPTER XVII KERSHOPEFOOT, CARLISLE CASTLE, SOLWAY MOSS
A little further down the river we come to the Kershope Burn, here the boundary between Scotland and England. It was here, at "the Dayholme of Kershoup" – which I take to be the flat land on the Scottish side of Liddel, opposite to the mouth of the burn – that the Wardens' Meeting was held in 1596, which became afterwards so famous owing to the illegal capture by the English of Kinmont Willie. All the world knows the tale, and all the world knows how gallantly Buccleuch rescued the prisoner from Carlisle Castle. But until one goes to Carlisle, and takes note for oneself of the difficulties with which Buccleuch had to contend, and the apparently hopeless nature of his undertaking, it is not possible to appreciate the full measure of the rescuer's gallantry. Kinmont, I suppose, on the day of his capture was riding quietly homeward down the Scottish side of the river, suspecting no evil, for the day was a day of truce. "Upon paine of death, presentlie to be executed, all persones whatsoever that come to these meitings sould be saife fra any proceiding or present occasioun, from the tyme of Meiting of the Wardens, or their Deputies, till the next Day at the sun rysing." The English did not play the game; from their own side of Liddel they had probably kept Kinmont in sight, meaning to seize him if opportunity offered. And they made the opportunity. For the most part, the banks of Liddel here are steep and broken, and the river is devoid of any ford; but a mile or two down from Kershopefoot the land on the Scottish side slopes gently from the water, and it is easily fordable.
Here probably began the chase which ended in Willie's capture. A very fine sword was found near this.
The night of Kinmont's release, the 13th of April, 1596, was very dark, with rain falling, and a slight mist rising over the river flats at Carlisle. And the Eden was swollen. It is not possible to form any very definite idea of the initial difficulty Buccleuch must have met with at this point, because the bed of the river is now entirely different from what it was then. In former days, I believe, a long, low island lay in mid-stream, the water flowing swiftly through two channels. Even now there is shallow water part way across, but the stream runs strong and it would be ill to ford, especially on a dark night. Buccleuch, I take it, must have swum his horses across the Eden nearly opposite, but a trifle above, the mouth of the litde river Caldew, the water being at the tyme, through raines that had fallen, weill thick; he comes to the Sacray, a plaine place under the toune and castell, and halts upon the syde of a little water or burn that they call "Caday."
The "Sacray" is of course what now goes by the name of the Sauceries.
Buccleuch's scaling ladders proved too short to enable him to get within the castle walls by their means; but there is a small postern gate in the wall (nearly abreast of the present public Abattoirs), and this was forced, or at least one or two men squeezed in here, possibly by removing a stone below the gate, and opened the postern to their comrades. This postern has recently been reopened. After Buccleuch's exploit it had been securely built upon both sides, outside and in; and later, a Cook's galley and other domestic offices were erected on the inner side, against the wall, effectually hiding the old gate.
These buildings and the stonework blocking the postern have now been pulled down, and the identical little oaken gate through which Buccleuch and his men entered, once more has seen the light of day, and, I understand, is now being put in a state of thorough repair.
Having made his entry, Buccleuch placed one part of his force between the castle and the town, so that he might not be assailed in rear, and, leaving a few men to guard the postern and secure their retreat, the rest pushed towards Kinmont Willie's place of confinement in the Keep, all making as great a noise as possible, "to terrifie both castell and toune by ane imaginatioun of a greater force." Hitherto they had encountered only the castle sentinels, who were easily scattered and brushed aside; "the rest that was within doors heiring the noyse of the trumpet within, and that the castell was entered, and the noyse of others without, both the Lord Scroope himself and his deputy Salkeld being thair with the garrisone and hys awin retinew, did keep thamselffis close."
It was one thing, however, for the rescuers to have forced their way inside the castle walls, but it should have been quite another, to accomplish the feat of getting the prisoner out of the dungeon. Through a female spy they knew in what part of the castle he lay; but his place of confinement, – inside the Keep, – was quite a hundred yards from the postern gate, and surely a few resolute men might have held so strong a post for a time without much difficulty. Lord Scrope, however, did not emerge from his retreat; and to the others as well, discretion seemed the better part of valour.
Meantime, Buccleuch's trumpets were blaring out the arrogant old Elliot slogan; "O wha daur meddle wi' me?"; and his men, falling to with energy, forced the gate of the Keep, burst in the massive door of the outer dungeon, tore away that of the dark and noisome inner prison, a rough, vaulted stone chamber to which no ray of light ever penetrated even on the brightest clay, and there they found Kinmont, chained to the wall. No time now to strike off his fetters; they could but free him from the long iron bar that ran along one side of the wall, and
"Then Red Rowan has hente him up,
The starkest man in Teviotdale —
'Abide, abide now, Red Rowan,
Till of my Lord Scroope I take farewell.'
"'Farewell, farew ell, my gude Lord Scroope!
My gude Lord Scroope, farewell!' he cried —
'I'll pay ye for my lodging maill,
When first we meet on the Border side.'
"Then shoulder high, with shout and cry,
We bore him down the ladder lang;
At every stride Red Rowan made,
I wot the Kinmont's aims played clang!
"We scarce had won the Staneshaw-bank,
When a' the Carlisle bells were rung,
And a thousand men on horse and foot,
Cam' wi' the keen Lord Scroope along."
But still they held aloof, hesitating to attack the retreating little Scottish band, and Buccleuch and his men, with Willie in their midst, plunged in and safely recrossed the swollen river.
"He turned him on the other side,
And at Lord Scroope his glove flung he —
'If ye likena my visit in merry England,
In fair Scotland come visit me!'"
But Lord Scrope on this night scarcely merited the term, "keen"; he went no farther towards Scotland than the water's edge.
"'He is either himself a devil frae hell,
Or else his mother a witch maun be;
I wadna have ridden that wan water
For a' the gowd in Christentie,'"
cried he, according to the ballad. Was he, one cannot help wondering, ashamed of the English breach of Border law entailed in the matter of Kinmont's capture, and was he in a measure wilfully playing into Buccleuch's hands? If that were the case, he took on himself a heavy risk. Elizabeth was not exactly the kind of Sovereign who would be likely to be tender hearted and to make allowances for slackness in such an affair, nor one with whom her servants might safely take liberties. As safely might the gambolling lamb play pranks with the drowsing wolf.
Not far from Longtown, at a place called Dick's Tree, on the farther side of Esk, there still stands the "smiddy" (or smith's shop) where Kinmont's irons were struck off. In one of Sir Walter Scott's M.S. letters of 1826 it is told that: "Tradition preserves the account of the smith's daughter, then a child, how there was a sair clatter at the door about daybreak, and loud crying for the smith; but her father not being on the alert, Buccleueh himself thrust his lance thro' the window, which effectually bestirred him. On looking out, the woman continued, she saw, in the grey of the morning, more gentlemen than she had ever before seen in one place, all on horseback, in armour, and dripping wet – and that Kinmont Willie, who sat woman fashion behind one of them, was the biggest carle she ever saw – and there was much merriment in the company." Except for this event, Dick's Tree is quite uninteresting, and quite unpicturesque; it is merely a cottage like a thousand others to be seen in the Border, possessing no special feature, or even any indication of antiquity.
And no one works the "smiddy" now, except at odd times; modern requirements have, I understand, taken the business away to Longtown.
What was the end of Kinmont Willie no one knows, but he certainly lived to pay, to some small extent, for his "lodging maill;" he was engaged in a raid on Lord Scrope's tenants in the year 1600, and doubtless he did not forget the debt incurred at Carlisle. Later than this I think there is no record of him, but it would not be surprising to learn that at the last Lord Scrope was able to give a receipt in full. Many an Armstrong in old days danced at the end of a rope at "Hairribie." Not improbably, Kinmont was one of them. There is a grave in an old churchyard not far from the Tower of Sark, which is pointed out as his. But the date on the tombstone makes it impossible that the veritable Willie of Kinmont lies underneath. The name of "William Armstrong called Kynmount" is in Lord Maxwell's Muster Roll of 1585, together with those of his seven sons. Willie, therefore – if at that date he had seven sons fit to fight – could have been no youth. Now the William Armstrong to whose memory the Sark tombstone is erected died in 1658, which, if he had been the famous Kinmont, would give him an age of considerably over a hundred years. But in any case, it is an interesting old stone. Many years ago steps were taken to preserve it from further decay, and the lettering and other points were retouched. Round the edges of the stone is cut:
"HEIR LYES. ANE. WORTHIE. PERSON. CALLIT. WILLIAM. ARMSTRONG. OF. SARK. WHO. DIED. TE IO. DAY. OF. JUNE. 16. 58. AETATIS. SVAE. 56."
On the body of the stone:
"Man as grass to grave he flies.
Grass decays and man he dies.
Grass revives and man doth rise.
Yet few they be who get the prise."
Below are the Armstrong bent arm holding a sword, a skull and crossed bones, an hour glass and other emblems, and below all, "memento mora." This William Armstrong, therefore, who died in 1658, aged 56, was not born when Kinmont Willie was rescued by Buccleuch from Carlisle Castle.
Here, on the lower part of Sark, we are in a country world famed for its old fashioned run-away marriages, more famed even than was Coldstream.
Down the river is Sark Bridge, with its toll-bar, and adjacent to it, Gretna Green. At the tollhouse alone in the early part of last century, within six years thirteen hundred couples were married – a profitable business for the "priest," (usually the village blacksmith,) for his fee ranged from half a guinea to a hundred pounds, according to the circumstances of each fond couple. But what was charged in a case such as that of Lord Erskine, Lord High Chancellor of England, who, when he was nearly seventy years of age, eloped with a blushing spinster and was married at Gretna – in the Inn, I think – history does not tell. There is a something, part comic, part pathetic, in the thought of the tired old gentleman gallantly propping himself in a corner of his post chaise, flying through the darkness of night on Love's wings, a fond bride by his side.
And when grey dawn at length stole through the breath-dimmed glass of the closed windows, revealing the "elderly morning dew" on his withered cheeks and stubbly chin, with callous disregard emphasizing the wrinkles, the bags below the puffy eyes – bloodshot from want of sleep – and the wig awry, did the young lady begin to repent her bargain, one may wonder.
Stretched between Sark and Longtown is the Debateable Land and Solway Moss; the latter "just a muckle black moss," they will tell you here, yet surely not without its own beauty under certain combinations of sun and cloud. "Solway Moss" is a name of evil repute to us of Scotland, for here on 24th November 1542 took place the most miserable of all Border battles – if indeed "battle" is a term in any degree applicable to the affair.
The encounter, such as it was, took place not so much in Solway Moss, however, as over towards Arthuret. The Scots – a strong raiding army, but disorganised, and in a state of incipient mutiny against their newly-appointed leader, Oliver Sinclair, (Ridpath says: "a general murmur and breach of all order immediately ensued" when his appointment was made known,) – at dawn of the 24th were already burning northward through the Debateable Land. Wharton with his compact little English force watched them from Arthuret Howes and skilfully drew them into a hopeless trap between the Esk and an impassable swamp, where there was no room to deploy. Here the English – at most not a sixth part so numerous as the Scots – charging down on the Scottish right flank threw them into hopeless confusion, and from that minute all was over. Panic seized the Scots: men cast aside whatever might hamper their flight, and, plunging into the water, scrambled for what safety they might find among the Grahams and the English borderers of Liddesdale – which, as it turned out, meant little better than scrambling from the frying pan into the fire.
Many were driven into the swamp and perished there miserably, many were drowned in the river, and twelve hundred men – including a large percentage of nobles – were captured. Out of a force variously estimated at from two to three thousand strong – Sir William Musgrave, who was with the cavalry, puts it at the higher figure – the English lost but seven men killed. It was a sorry business, a dreadful day for Scotland; and it ended the life of James V as effectually as if he had been slain on the field of battle.
I do not know if Arthuret church was injured on this occasion; it is recorded in 1597 that it had then been ruinous for about sixty years. Perhaps the Armstrongs may have been responsible; they made a big raid hereaway in 1528. The present building dates, I believe, from 1609.
There was another calamity connected with Solway Moss, later than the battle and local in effect, yet sufficiently terrible to cast over the district a black shadow of tragedy, the memory of which time has lightened but even yet has not entirely wiped out. November 1771 was a month of evil note for its storms and ceaseless wet. Day followed day sodden with driving rain, and the country lay smothered under a ragged grey blanket of mist. Firm ground became a quagmire that quaked under foot, pools widened into lakes, and the rivers rose in dreadful spate that yet failed to carry off the superfluous water.
Liddel roared through the rocky gorge of Fenton Linn with a fury such as had never been known; Esk left her bed and wandered at will. Many people living in the low lying flats surrounding the Moss, alarmed for the safety of their cattle, were abroad in the dark of the morning of 16th November, intent on getting the beasts to higher ground, when a long-drawn muffled rumble, as of distant thunder, startled them.
The Moss had burst, spewing out from its maw a putrid mass that spread relentlessly, engulfing house after house, in many cases catching the inhabitants in their beds. For weeks the horrible eruption spread, and ere its advance was stayed thirty families were homeless, their houses, furniture, and live-stock buried twenty feet deep under a black slime that stank like the pit of Tophet.
Harking back to Carlisle, (which we left in company of Kinmont Willie,) one would fain linger in that pleasant town, to dream awhile over its alluring past. But Carlisle is a subject too big to introduce at the close of a volume; there is a more than sufficient material in the story of the castle (with its wealth of warlike and other memories), and of the Cathedral, alone to make a fair-sized book. There is too much to tell; for, besides the story of the captivity here of Queen Mary of Scotland, and that of the capture of Carlisle by Prince Charlie, there are a hundred and one other things, if once a beginning were made and space to tell them were available. (What used to be called Queen Mary's Tower, to save cost of repairs was pulled down by Government between 1824 and 1835, together with the Hall in which Edward I held Parliaments, and much else of surpassing interest. Vandalism in those days was a vice which affected not alone the private individual.) Moreover, there would be the question of where to stop, for if the history of Carlisle be touched upon, at once we are mixed up with that of half a score of places in the immediate neighbourhood, all of which are full of profoundest interest. There would be, for example, Naworth, not far from the quaint little town of Brampton, Naworth with its massive walls, and memories of the Dacres, and of Belted Will Howard – a name better known to Border fame, at least to the Borderer of to day, than even that of his predecessors. Then there would necessarily be the fascinating subject of the Roman wall, of Bird-Oswald camp, of Lanercost, and of Gilsland, with its memories of Sir Walter. One must needs make an end somewhere, and it is hopeless to treat of such subjects in small space. But Bewcastle, perhaps, because of its connection with a subject mentioned earlier in this volume, must not be omitted.
CHAPTER XVIII BEWCASTLE, LIDDEL MOAT, NETHERBY, KIRK ANDREWS, GILNOCKIE, LANGHOLM
A pilgrimage to Bewcastle cannot be recommended to persons animated by curiosity alone; or even by a passion for the beauties of nature.
From childhood the writer had a desire to behold Bewcastle, because it was the Captain of Bewcastle who, in the ballad of Jamie Telfer, in The Border Minstrelsy, made such an unlucky raid on the cows of a farmer in Ettrickdale. The very word Bewcastle seemed to re-echo the trumpets of the Wardens' Raids and the battles long ago.
But when you actually find yourself, after a long walk or drive up a succession of long green ascents, in the broad bleak cup of the hills; when you see the grassy heights, with traces of ancient earthworks that surround the blind grey oblong of the ruined castle; the little old church, all modern within, and the tiny hamlet that nestles by the shrunken and prosaic burn; then, unless you be an antiquary and a historian, you feel as if you had come very far to see very little.
But if a secular antiquary and a ballad lover, you fill the landscape with galloping reivers, you restore the royal flag of England to the tower, and your mind is full of the rough riding life of Mus-graves and Grahams, Scotts, Elliots and Armstrongs. If, on the other hand, your tastes are ecclesiastical, and you are an amateur of Runic writing, you can pass hours with the tall headless Runic cross beside the church, a work of art dating from the middle of the seventh century of our era, according to the prevalent opinion.
Bewcastle is at least ten miles from the nearest railway at Penton; twelve from Brampton; not easily approached by a fell path from Gilsland; and is most easily if least romantically reached by motor car from Carlisle, a drive of nearly twenty miles. The Elliots and Scotts of the reiving days, got at Bewcastle by riding down Liddel water, crossing it at the Kershope burn ford, and then robbing all and sundry through some four miles. The castle they could not take in a casual expedition.
The oldest monument in the place, except the earthworks said to be Roman, is the Cross, which much resembles the more famous Cross of Ruthwell, near Dumfries, with the runes from the Song of the Rood. More fortunate than the Ruthwell relic of early Anglican Christianity, that of Bewcastle was never broken up by the bigots of the Covenant as "a monument of idolatry." The head, however, was removed by Belted Will of Naworth, and sent to Camden the historian, in the reign of James VI and I. The west face is the most interesting. The top panel contains a figure of St. John the Baptist; our Lord is represented in the central panel, inscribed in runes, Gessus Kristins. The figure is noble and broad in treatment; done in the latest gloaming of classical art. Beneath is seated a layman, in garb of peace, with his falcon. The runic inscription on the central panel is black, painted black, it seems, by a recent rector, the Rev. Mr. Maughan, who laboured long at deciphering the characters. Professor Stephens read them:
This victory-column
Thin set up
Hwaetred Woth
gar Olfwolthu
after Alcfrith
Once King
and son of Oswi
Pray for the high
sin of his soul.
Runes are difficult. Mr. Stephens once read a Greek epitaph in elegiac verse, for a Syrian boy, at Brough, as a Runic lament, in old English, for a martyred Christian lady. I have little confidence in Hwaetred, Olfwolthu, and Wothgar: who were they; the artists employed in making the Cross? Eac Oswiung, "and son of Oswin," "the king," is said to be plain enough, and to indicate Alchfrith, son of Oswin, who after a stormy youth accepted, as against the Celtic clerics, the positions of St. Wilfred.
The decorative work, knot work, vine scrolls, birds and little animals among the grapes, is of Byzantine and Northern Italian origin: like the decoration of the Ruthwell Cross.
Bewcastle must, it seems, have been a more important and populous place when this monument was erected, than even when the Royal castle was a centre of resistance to the Riddesdale clans in Queen Elizabeth's day.
Returning from Bewcastle by Penton, we strike the Riddel near Penton Linn, not distant from the vanished peel of that Judas, Hector Armstrong of Harelaw, who betrayed the Earl of Northumberland into the hands of the Regent Murray in 1569. A little way below, near the junction of Riddel and Esk, on a commanding height that overhangs railway and river, is Riddel Moat. Locally this moat is called "the Roman Camp," but to the average amateur there is certainly nothing Roman about it. No doubt the Romans may have had an outpost here; the position is too strong not to have been held by them, especially as they had a station barely a couple of miles away, at Netherby. But the prominent remains of fortifications now to be seen here manifestly date from long after Roman days. It is, I believe, the site of the earliest Riddel Castle, erected by Ranulph de Soulis before either the Riddel Castle at Castleton, or Hermitage, was built. This Riddel Castle was razed to the ground, wiped out of existence, by the Scottish army under David Bruce, which invaded England in 1346 and was so totally routed at Neville's Cross a few weeks later. On his march southward, says Redpath, Bruce "took the fortress of Riddel and put the garrison to the sword… spreading terror and desolation all round him in his progress through Cumberland." Liddel Moat is well worthy of a visit, but it is somewhat out of the beaten track and can only be reached by walking a little distance, preferably from the station at Biddings Junction. The position, defended on the landward side by an immensely deep moat, and on the other dropping almost sheer into the river – or rather, now, on to the intervening railway line – is a magnificent one, and the view obtained from the highest point is very fine, – at one's feet, just beyond the two rivers, "Cannobie lea";
"There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan,
Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran,
There was racing and chasing on Cannobie lea,
But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see."
A short way farther down the Esk is Netherby, headquarters of that clan whose peel towers once dotted this part of Cumberland and all the Debateable Land, and who in the early seventeenth century were so hardly used by James VI and I. They were no better, I suppose, than the others of that day, but they were no worse, and the story of their banishment is not very pleasant reading. Lord Scrope believed that the Grahams were "privy" to Buccleuch's rescue of Kinmont Willie, and certainly the Grahams did not love Lord Scrope, who, I suppose, was not likely to present the clan in a very favourable light to Queen Elizabeth. Their reputation, in any case, became increasingly black, and James I, when he came to the throne, issued a proclamation against them. In fact, the dog was given an exceedingly bad name – not of course wholly without cause – and hung; or, rather, many of their houses were harried, their women and children turned out to fend for themselves in the wet and cold, and their men shipped off to banishment in Ireland and in Holland. Certainly, in driblets they made their way back to their own country again, after a time – those who survived, that is, – but their nests had been harried, their broods scattered down the wind, and, as a clan, their old status was never regained.
As has already been told, Netherby was the site of a Roman station, and it is rich in evidences of the old Legions – coins, altars, and what not. The original peel at Netherby – which still forms part of the present mansion – I take to have been such another as the Graham tower of Kirk Andrews, its near neighbour, which stands – still inhabited – just across the Esk, perched on a rising ground overhanging the river. From a sporting point of view at least, the Esk here is a beautiful stream, famous for its salmon, which are plentiful and often of great size.
In his Notes to "Redgauntlet," Sir Walter Scott mentions that "shortly after the close of the American war, Sir James Graham of Netherby constructed a dam-dike, or cauld, across the Esk, at a place where it flowed through his estate, though it has its origin, and the principal part of its course, in Scotland. The new barrier at Netherby was considered as an encroachment calculated to prevent the salmon from ascending into Scotland; and the right of erecting it being an international question of law betwixt the sister kingdoms, there was no court in either competent to its decision. In this dilemma, the Scots people assembled in numbers by signal of rocket-lights, and, rudely armed with fowling-pieces, fish spears and such rustic weapons, marched to the banks of the river for the purpose of pulling down the dam dike objected to. Sir James Graham armed many of his own people to protect his property, and had some military from Carlisle for the same purpose. A renewal of the Border wars had nearly taken place in the eighteenth century, when prudence and moderation on both sides saved much tumult, and perhaps some bloodshed. The English proprietor consented that a breach should be made in his dam-dike sufficient for the passage of the fish, and thus removed the Scottish grievance. I believe the river has since that time taken the matter into its own disposal, and entirely swept away the dam-dike in question." I do not think there is now any trace of the obstruction which so roused the good people of Langholm and their supporters The question, of course, was not a new one. As early as the middle of the fifteenth century, Cumberland folks and Scots were at loggerheads over a "fish-garth" constructed by the former, which the Scots maintained prevented salmon from ascending to the upper waters. The dispute raged for something like a hundred years.
Leaving Kirk Andrews, we get at once onto the old London and Edinburgh coach road close to Scot's Dike, and in the course of two or three miles reach the village of Canonbie, where at a little distance from the bridge over Esk stands the comfortable old coaching inn, the Cross Keys, now favoured of anglers. Thence all the way to Langholm the road runs by the river-bank through very delightful scenery, said, in old days, indeed, to be the most beautiful of all between London and Edinburgh. In the twelfth century a Priory stood at Canonbie, and as late as 1576 there was still a resident Prior, but the building itself I think was wrecked by the English in 1542, after the battle of Solway Moss. A few of its stones are still to the fore, but I fear the ruin was used as a quarry during the building of Canonbie Bridge.
That also is a fate that waited on another famous building not far from Canonbie – Gilnockie Castle, the residence of the notorious Johnny Armstrong. Hollows Tower, a few hundred yards above the village of Hollows, is often confounded with Gilnockie, probably for the reason that no stone of the latter has been left standing on another, and that Hollows Tower is a conspicuous object in the foreground here.
Perhaps, too, Sir Walter Scott was partly responsible for the belief prevalent in many quarters that the Hollows is Gilnockie. In "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," he says: "His [Johny Armstrong's] place of residence (now a roofless tower) was at the Hollows, a few miles from Langholm, where its rains still serve to adorn a scene which, in natural beauty, has few equals in Scotland."
I am not certain, but I do not think that Sir Walter ever visited Gilnockie. If he had done so, it could scarcely have escaped his knowledge that another castle once stood less than half a mile from Hollows Tower, and that towards the end of the eighteenth century the stones from that castle were utilised in the building of Gilnockie Bridge. That they were so used is well authenticated; and I should think it is probable that the ruin was found to be a convenient quarry also when houses in the neighbouring village of Hollows were being built.
Hollows lower is a very good example of the old Border Keep, but it is small, much too small to have given anything like sufficient accommodation for Johny Armstrong's "tail," which must necessarily have been of considerable strength. The dining hall, for instance, measures roughly only a little over twenty-two feet by thirteen, and the total outside length of the tower is less than thirty-five feet. I should imagine it to be certain that Johny never lived here; indeed. I should be inclined to doubt if this particular Hollows Tower was even built during Johny Armstrong's life-time. Neither is the position a very strong one, – though on that point it is perhaps not easy to judge, because, in old days no doubt (as in the case of Hermitage Castle,) impassable swamps probably helped to protect it from assault on one or more sides.
