ich John Mitchell Kemble puzzled
out--a kind of rhymed soliloquy the cross itself was supposed to speak;
and afterward he found the whole thing in an Anglo-Saxon MS. of the
seventh or eighth century, far away from Scotland, in a library at
Vercelli, near Milan. But it was written by the Northumbrian bard
Caedmon, in a poem called "The Dream of the Holy Rood."

No wonder Sir S. wished to see Ruthwell Cross. There's nothing else of
the kind, he thinks, so splendid anywhere.

Even then my first wonderful day in Scotland wasn't over, for we had
time to see Caerlaverock Castle, which, according to Sir S., is another
of the best things on earth. I suppose, in old days, when the world was
small because it was difficult to travel great distances, it didn't seem
odd to find magnificent runic crosses, and castles, and historic
blacksmiths' shops, and houses of geniuses all standing cheek by jowl
within a step of each other. They had to be like that, or nobody from
the next county would ever have seen them: but now, especially to a
person who has seen nothing except in dreams, it is startling, almost
incredible.

Caerlaverock, Mrs. James said, was probably Scott's Ellangowan in "Guy
Mannering"; so I shall read "Guy Mannering" as soon as I settle down to
live with my mother. We couldn't help getting a little mixed up with
Scott even here, at the gate of the Crockett country; and there were
traces of Burns too, because of our being near already to Dumfries,
where he lived for years and finally died. But the idea Sir S. had set
his heart upon was for us to come back to Dumfries after we had seen
Galloway and had run up to Burns's birthplace at Ayr. It would make each
part of the trip more "concrete," he said.

Whether or no the stronghold of the Maxwells was Ellangowan, it was in
any case the key to southwest Scotland, and in looking at the place it
is easy to understand why. A great red-gold Key it was when we saw it,
red-gold in the western sunlight in a hollow near the river; such red
and gold colour as the old sandstone had, in contrast with the green of
lichen and green of waving grass, I wouldn't have believed in, if I'd
seen it in a picture. I should have said, "The artist who painted that
ruined castle put on the colours he would like to see, not those he did
see." But I should have misjudged him, because the colours were real.

Once there was a double moat all round the vast, triangular castle, and
still there's water i