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Updated: May 31, 2025
Helen Palmer was originally from Cumberland; her parents were English, but her father had removed with Helen, an only daughter, whilst yet a child, to the neighbourhood of Closeburn Castle, to a small village which still goes by the name of Croalchapel.
She knew, for example, that the age in which she lived was one of cruelty and bloodshed; that the second Charles, who, at that time, filled the throne, was a sensual tyrant; that Lag, Clavers, Douglas, Johnstone, and others, were bloody persecutors; and that even Sir Roger Kirkpatrick himself, the humane and amiable in many respects, was "a friend of the castle" of the court and would not permit any of the poor persecuted remnant to take refuge in the linns of Creehope, or in any of the fastnesses on his estate of Closeburn.
Such, however, was not the reception of some young gentlemen who arrived about this time at the castle of Closeburn, on a sporting expedition, with dogs and guns, and a suitable accompaniment of gamekeepers and other servants. These strangers were manifestly Englishmen, but from what quarter of England nobody knew, and, indeed, nobody inquired.
This state ceremony had cost the family of Kirkpatrick many broad acres; for, when the old and heirless proprietor of the fine estate of Carlaverock called at the castle of Closeburn, with the view of bequeathing his whole property to the then laird, the drawbridge was up he was refused immediate entrance, because Sir Thomas was at dinner.
Robert Lawson, formerly minister of the parish of Closeburn; but who, rather than conform to the English prayer-book and formula, had taken to the mountain, to preach, to baptize, and even to dispense the Sacrament of the Supper, in glens, and linns, and coverts, far from the residence of man.
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.
"God only knows the heart," would he say; "but, to all outward appearance, William Douglas was a cleansed and a sanctified vessel: the mercy of God is infinite it even extended to the thief on the cross." In the west corner of the churchyard of Dalgarno now a section of the parish of Closeburn there is a small, but neat headstone, with two figures joining hands, as if in the attitude of marrying.
Then all in a moment she turned to me with a twinkle in her eye that was hardly less than impish. Indeed, I may say that she flew at me much like an angry wasp when a chance of your walking-stick stirs its nest. "It's prophesied," she said, "that some day a Kirkpatrick of Closeburn will be greater than a queen. For me it was, 'Thank you kindly!
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