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Updated: May 31, 2025


Before him flowed the Nith, over its blue pebbles, and through a thousand windings; beyond it were the woods and hills of Closeburn, all blooming and blushing in the setting beams of the sun, and rising up, tier above tier, till they terminated in the blue sky of the east.

Morton gazed at her with surprise; for although he well knew that the persecuted Presbyterians had in the preceding reigns sought refuge among dells and thickets, caves and cataracts, in spots the most extraordinary and secluded; although he had heard of the champions of the Covenant, who had long abidden beside Dobs-lien on the wild heights of Polmoodie, and others who had been concealed in the yet more terrific cavern called Creehope-linn, in the parish of Closeburn, yet his imagination had never exactly figured out the horrors of such a residence, and he was surprised how the strange and romantic scene which he now saw had remained concealed from him, while a curious investigator of such natural phenomena.

There the husband and father had been employed originally as forester on the estate of Closeburn, belonging to Sir Roger Kirkpatrick, and had afterwards become chamberlain or factor on the same property. Peter Palmer was a superior man. He had been well educated for the time in which he lived, and had been employed in Cumberland in keeping accounts for a mining establishment.

He did not, indeed, approve of the atrocities which were practising every day around him, and in the parish of Closeburn in particular; but he ventured to hope that a few instances of severity would put an end to the delusion of the people, and that they would again return to their allegiance and their parish churches. Helen was mighty and magnificent in the cause of non-conformity and humanity.

He was still near the Closeburn bank, an' we a' ran down the side to see if we could help him out. Again an' again he rose to his feet; but the water was mighty, it was terrible, it just whumbled him owre, an' we saw nae mair o' him. Her husband's head appeared floating in the whirl she screamed, leaped into the deep, deep pool, an' next day they were found clasped in each other's arms.

Douglas, the sixth son, acquired the estate of Closeburn, in Dumfriesshire, for the sum of £225,000. George, a still younger member of the family, was proprietor of the estate of Strichen, in Aberdeenshire, and Stichell, in Roxburghshire the former purchased in 1865 for the sum of £145,000, and the latter inherited from his brother David, who purchased it in 1853 for the sum of £150,000.

Closeburn is the place where the Kirkpatricks, the Empress Eugénie's family, used to live before they went to Spain. At Auldgirth we went over a bridge built by Carlyle's father. At Mauchline Burns grew from a boy into a man and fell in love. At Ellisland, Burns lived for a long time with his handsome wife, Jean Armour. At Dalswinton the first steamboat made its first trip, and Burns was on it.

For instance, he remembered one day of setting out with the intention of going to attend divine worship in the High Church, and when, within a short space of its door, he was overtaken by young Kilpatrick of Closeburn, who was bound to the Grey-Friars to see his sweetheart, as he said: "and if you will go with me, Colwan," said he, "I will let you see her too, and then you will be just as far forward as I am."

The hearts, however, of these mountain residents were deeply attuned to religious and civil liberty, and revolted with loathing from the cold doctrines and compulsory ministrations of the curate of Closeburn. They were, therefore, marked birds for the myrmidons of oppression, led on by Claverhouse, and "Red Rob," the scarlet-cloaked leader of his band.

In particular, although the whole district suffered, it was in the vale of the Nith, and in the hilly portion of the parish of Closeburn, that the fury of Grierson, Dalzell, and Johnstone not to mention an occasional simoom, felt on the withering approach of Clavers with his lambs was felt to the full amount of merciless persecution and relentless cruelty.

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