210 THE RUTHWELL CKOSS 



High on the west, beyond the Nith, rises the granite 

 bulk of Criffel; on the hither side of the river, some 

 five or six miles from where I stand, loom the dark 

 towers of Caerlaverock, ruined and roofless now, and 

 dozing in decrepitude among their ancient trees, but 

 once the centre of military stir the chief defence of 

 the western Scottish Border. Its lords were chiefs of 

 the once powerful clan of Maxwells, and the hill on the 

 north side of the castle gave its name as their slogan 

 'Wardlaw! bide Wardlaw!' Yonder to the south, 

 beyond the wide firth, the Cumberland hills Skiddaw 

 and Saddleback whitened with their first snow, show 

 pale, but clear; paler and less clear, because of the 

 smoke-drifts from Whitehaven and Workington, may 

 be traced farther to the west the clustering summits 

 of the Isle of Man. On the east, the eye rests on a 

 truncated green cone, conspicuous over the gentle 

 elevations of the plain, as Carlyle exultingly tells 

 Goethe in one of his letters. This is Birrenswark, a 

 much fortified and oft contested stronghold Trimon- 

 tium of Roman generals, who thus rendered the Celtic 

 name treamh monaidh, the village on the hill. To the 

 north the view is contracted by the deep woodland 

 encircling the massive keep of Comlongan, still in the 

 possession of the Murrays. 



But in this land lying on the very highway of 

 English invasion let the eye once begin to wander, 

 and memories rise thick and fast from every hill and 

 hamlet, every tower and river. For the present, I want 

 to talk only of the humble little kirk among the leafless 



