Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-08-17
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leaning to the side of mercy, once came 10 ''auld
Kate Kate Watson Of Thornhll in the publican 3
trade Tor fair day without license, and when it
was his sworn official duty
TO CoNFIsCATB HER GOODS
and land her in gaol, he only said to her with a
meaning wink. Kate, are we mad? Don't We
know that the supervisor and will be in We,
in the cours Q OF forty minutes? Goodbye t'ye
at present How, at the Kirkpatrick-Durha
having asked fiercely of the inmates OF the
cabin if such had been going on, a servant can
nily replied: I'VE hae ma license for that"
whereupon a wee lassie innocently confessed
that 1.-THE muckle black kist (chest) is flu o. the
bottles o. will (ale) that mither sat up NIGHT
brewin' for the fairi''-when Burns instantly
eyed bird hanging in q cage above the child's
head, and said: "If that bird speaks. there's no
use OF another speaking bird in this house while
that lassie' s to the fore;" and left the cabin
with the remark, ''We're in hurry now; but
when we return from the fair we'll examine the
muckle black kIsti'' How when he had caught
''auld widow Jenny OF Dunscore. in posses
sion of a large stock of smuggled tobacco. and,
from public knowledge of the case, was COM
PEELED 10 make seizure, he did it In this extra
ly, 81 knew this would be the upshot." Then
to Lewars. his assistant, Here. Lewars take
note of the number of rolls, as count them.
Now, Jock, did ye ever hear auld wife num-
bering her threads before check-reels were in
vented? 'Thou's ane, an thou's no ane. an
thou's ane out'-listen!" AS he counted and
handed out the rolls. every 9th er one was
dropped into ''auld widow Jenny's'' lap.
And so in larger sense, because Burns came
into q loving familiarity with every thing, OBJ
ject or place, which he gave lasting life from
the devotion of his poetic genius, or made as it
were part OF himself by its mention in his rare
and winsome letters TO his literary friends,
those who wander here feel almost the thrill of
personal companionship with not only the pas.
but the man. Tue Solway Firth, when the tide
is in or out, is a magical arm of the sea because
the excisemah Burns brayely captured snug
glers upon it, and because its mere name GIBBS
and flows through the measure OF his verse.
Nist-c owned Critfel looming above, is now
loT,
and since Burns time has had the attention of
Longfellow, a Wordsworth, a Ruskin and a
Carlyle, because of just two lines he penned,
1.-The NTH shall run TO Corsincon,
And Criffel sink to Solway-''
before foreign foe should be permitted to rally
on British ground. One has not a hundredth
part of the interest in that finest ecclesi lstica
ruin in the south of Scotland, Sweetheart ab-
hey, which stands by Nithsmouth st Criffeps
feet; or in that other majestic ruin, Carlaverock
castle, unquestionably the choicest specimen of
castella ted architecture in the whole of
Scotland, as in old Brow well, not two miles
from the latter, where Burns made his last
the Mill street cottage in Dumfries to die. And
this Brow well has heen singularly overlooked
by lovers of Burns visiting Nithsdale. Il is dis
tant but an eight miles tramp south from Dunn
fries, on the Ruthwell road. 1t is locally called
1.-The Broo'' Brow, and lies at the brow OF
the Locher Moss, O few hundred feet back from
the Solway tide-edge. An ancient '.clachan''
or prehistoric stone circle once stood near, and
the half dozen stone houses of the neighDorhood
have taken the name of 1.-THE auld clachan o.
the Broo." These houses. IS in Burns time, are
RUDE STRUCTURES,
merely hinds' houses. The road to Ruthwell,
which is but mile distant, winds past the
place; and little delving into antiquities makes
curious and not altogether improbable the con-
lecture that Ruthwell-Ruth being English for
The Gaelic Ruadh, red-was the name for the
locality originally comprising that village, the
Red Well itself and the clachan or stone circle
for the celebration of Pagan rites and ceremo-
mails. For Brow Well, of whose wa
tiers Burns for months vainly par
took is truly a red well, being strongly
Brow Well among those possessing miraculous
powers STEPPING q few feet from the roadside
towards the Solway. there is found deep pit
open to the Firth at the south. In the center
of this Is the well, square but few inches deep,
and perhaps five feet 1eross; altogether more
q stone basin than we'll, to which three stone
steps descend. The water filling it trickles
through g spout from the base of the bank
brow" above; and its overflow forms tiny
butn which, whipping and broadening in its de- /
scent, is reinforced by other half-hiddsn rills
from Locher Moss, until it cuts a clear and dis
.inct way through the reddish gray sands of the
Solway. In this dreaFy place Burns remained,
taking the waters OF 1.-THE Broo,' from the
middle of April until the middle of July, 1896.
His only companions were his thoughts and his
worn pocket-Bible.p His eyes could rest
upon but one scene--the roaring or sobbing of
Solway and the darkening range OF the English
hills on the Cumberland side of the Firth Re-
70 embering il all, that is one line OF English
lessly fraught with tinge of dolor and sad ness
Far pleasanter associations and memories
than those OF Brow Well cluster about the upper
region. Here. not two miles fro Z