o, having been
appointed to watch at this spot for some Covenanters who were expected to
be passing on horseback into England, in order to escape from the savage
cruelty of their persecutors, had immediately, and in drunken blindness,
fired upon this inoffensive group. The ball, alas! took too fatal effect in
the heart of Helen Palmer; and it was on her, and not as Allan Cunningham
represents it, "on Helen Irving, the daughter of the laird of Kirkconnel,"
that the following most pathetic verses were written--

"I wish I were where Helen lies;
Night and day on me she cries:
Oh, that I were where Helen lies,
On fair Kirkconnel lea!

"Oh, Helen fair beyond compare,
I'll make a garland of thy hair;
Shall bind my heart for ever mair,
Until the day I dee.

"Curst be the heart that thought the thought,
And curst the hand that fired the shot,
When in my arms burd Helen dropped
On fair Kirkconnel lea!"

XII.--THE CAIRNY CAVE OF GAVIN MUIR.

There is a wild, uninhabited district, which separates Nithsdale from
Annandale, in Dumfriesshire. It is called Gavin Muir; and, though lonely,
and covered with spret and heather, exhibits some objects which merit the
attention of the traveller in the wilderness. There is the King's Loch, the
King's Burn, and the King's Chair, all records of King James V.'s
celebrated raid to subdue the thieves of Annandale. Tradition says, what
seems extremely likely, that he spent a night in the midst of this muir;
and hence the appellations of royalty which adhere to the objects which
witnessed his bivouac. But, although the localities referred to possess an
interest, they are exceeded, in this respect, by a number of "cairns," by
which the summits of several hills, or rising grounds, are topped. These
cairns, which amount to five or six, are all within sight of each other,
all on eminences, and all composed of an immense mass of loose, water-worn
stones. And yet the neighbourhood is free from stones, being bare, and fit
for sheep-pasturage only. Tradition says nothing of these cairns in
particular; or, indeed, very little of any similar collections, frequent as
they are in Scotland and throughout all Scandinavia. Stone coffins, no
doubt, have been discovered in them, and human bones; but, beyond this, all
is surmise and uncertainty. Often, when yet a boy, and engaged in fishing
in the King's Burn, have we mounted these pyramids, a