Chapter 3

They lighted down on Tweed water
And blew their coals sae het,
And fired the March and Teviotdale,
All in an evening late.
AULD MAITLAND.

The report soon spread through the patrimony of Saint Mary's and its
vicinity, that the Mistress of Glendearg had received assurance from
the English Captain, and that her cattle were not to be driven off, or
her corn burned. Among others who heard this report, it reached the
ears of a lady, who, once much higher in rank than Elspeth
Glendinning, was now by the same calamity reduced to even greater
misfortune.

She was the widow of a brave soldier, Walter Avenel, descended of a
very ancient Border family, who once possessed immense estates in
Eskdale. These had long since passed from them into other hands, but
they still enjoyed an ancient Barony of considerable extent, not very
far from the patrimony of Saint Mary's, and lying upon the same side
of the river with the narrow vale of Glendearg, at the head of which
was the little tower of the Glendinnings. Here they had lived, bearing
a respectable rank amongst the gentry of their province, though
neither wealthy nor powerful. This general regard had been much
augmented by the skill, courage, and enterprise which had been
displayed by Walter Avenel, the last Baron.

When Scotland began to recover from the dreadful shock she had
sustained after the battle of Pinkie-Cleuch, Avenel was one of the
first who, assembling a small force, set an example in those bloody
and unsparing skirmishes, which showed that a nation, though conquered
and overrun by invaders, may yet wage against them such a war of
detail as shall in the end become fatal to the foreigners. In one of
these, however, Walter Avenel fell, and the news which came to the
house of his fathers was followed by the distracting intelligence,
that a party of Englishmen were coming to plunder the mansion and
lands of his widow, in order, by this act of terror, to prevent others
from following the example of the deceased.

The unfortunate lady had no better refuge than the miserable cottage
of a shepherd among the hills, to which she was hastily removed,
scarce conscious where or for what purpose her terrified attendants
were removing her and her infant daughter from her own house. Here she
was tended with all the duteous service of ancient times by the
shepherd's wife, Tibb Tacket, who in better days had been her own
bowerwoman. For a time the lady was unconscious of her misery; but
when the first stunning effect of grief was so far passed away that
she could form an estimate of her own situation, the widow of Avenel
had cause to envy the lot of her husband in his dark and silent abode.
The domestics who had guided her to her