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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.
From time to time messages came from Bruce, telling him that he was receiving many promises of support; the whole of the vassals of Annandale and Carrick had assembled at Lochmaben, where many small landowners with their retainers also joined him. As soon as his force had grown to a point when he need fear no interruption on his march toward Glasgow, Bruce left Lochmaben.
He returned to Lochmaben, where, on the following Thursday, the Pretender's standard was proclaimed: Lochmaben is a small market-town about fifteen miles from Dumfries; it served for some time as the head-quarters of the Jacobite party.
The successive attacks on Alnwick and Warkworth roused the Percies to a greater effort, and, in October, they invaded Scotland, and were defeated at the battle of Sark or Lochmaben Stone. In 1449 the Franco-Scottish League was strengthened by the marriage of King James to Marie of Gueldres. Now began the second struggle with the Douglases.
The renewal was necessitated by various acts of hostility which had rendered it, in effect, a dead letter. The English were still in possession of such Scottish strongholds as Roxburgh, Berwick, and Lochmaben, and round these there was continual warfare. The Scots sacked the town of Roxburgh in 1377, but without regaining the castle, and, in 1378, they again obtained possession of Berwick.
And here already the born tastes of the boy began to show themselves: for he had no liking for the homely shepherd's trade; he felt a natural desire for a chisel and a hammer the engineer was there already in the grain and he was accordingly apprenticed to a stonemason in the little town of Lochmaben, beyond the purple hills to eastward.
During the previous year the Jacobite gentry had met at Lochmaben, under pretence of a horse-racing; and, although it does not appear that the Earl of Nithisdale was among those who assembled on that occasion, yet several of his kinsmen attended.
There he remained only a few months; for his master using him badly, the high-spirited youth would not brook it, and ran away, taking refuge with his mother at The Crooks, very much to her dismay. What was now to be done with Tom? He was willing to do anything or go anywhere rather than back to his Lochmaben master.
He was handsome, well educated, of great personal strength and prowess, and frank, winning address, and the Scots had suffered so much under their oppressors, that they were ready to rally round the first leader who offered himself. Going to his castle of Lochmaben, he mustered his adherents.
As a matter of fact, Lady Lochmaben has just as good diamonds as Mrs. Carruthers ever had; and the chances are that she keeps them where Mrs. Carruthers kept hers, if you could enlighten me on that point." As it happened, I could, since I knew from his niece that it was one on which Mr. Carruthers had been a faddist in his time.
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