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Updated: May 12, 2025
During the happy mouths of the preceding autumn, while Scotland was yet free, and the path of honorable distinction still open before her young nobility, Wallace married Marion Braidfoot, the beautiful heiress of Lammington.
"Ruined, indeed, sir," replied he; "and its story is very sad. When the Southrons, who hold Annandale, heard of the brave acts of Sir William Wallace, they sent an army to destroy this castle and domains, which are his, in right of the Lady Marion of Lammington. Sweet creature! I hear they foully murdered her in Lanark."
He had hardly gone the circuit of these now cheerful valleys, when an embassy from England, which had first touched at Lochmaben, overtook him at the Tower of Lammington.
At the moment their splendid cavalcade, escorted by a party from Sir Eustace Maxwell, entered the gate of Lammington, Wallace was in the hourly expectation of Edwin, and hearing the trampling of horses, he hastened into the courtyard, attended by Gregory's grandchildren. One was in his arms, two others held by his plaid, and a third played with the sword he had unbuckled from his side.
Far to the left stretched the wide domains of Lammington: there his youthful heart first knew the pulse of love: there all nature smiled upon him, for Marion was near, and hope hailed him, from every sunlit mountain's brow.
As he rode over the moors which led toward the district of Crawford Lammington, those hills amidst which the beloved of his soul first drew breath, he became totally silent. Time rolled back; he was no longer the Regent of Scotland, but the fond lover of Marion Braidfoot.
His heart beat as it was wont to do in turning his horse down the defile which led direct to Lammington; but the scene was completely changed; the groves in which he had so often wandered with her were gone; they had been cut down for the very purpose of destroying that place, which had once been the abode of beauty and innocence, and of all the tender charities.
In these duties, his wakeful eye was kept open the greatest part of the night. They for whom he labored slept securely! That thought was rest to him. But they closed not their eyes without praying for the sweet repose of their benefactor. And he found it; not in sleep, but in that peace of heart which the world cannot give. Lammington.
Gregory, the honest steward of Lammington, was now recognized in this old man's narration; but time and hardship had so altered his appearance, that Wallace could not have otherwise recollected the ruddy face and active figure of his well-remembered companion, in the shaking limbs and pallid visage of the hoary speaker. When he ended, the chief threw himself from his horse.
One shattered tower alone remained of the house of Lammington. The scathing of fire embrowned its sides, and the uprooted garden marked where the ravager had been. While his army marched before him along the heights of Crawford, Wallace slowly moved forward, musing on the scene.
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