Scene III The Storm on Solway
The lugger shot ahead for Scotland, the swift wind upon her beam. Suddenly its strength increased, and a storm swept down upon Solway. Clouds gathered above, and on the incoming ‘bore’ Maxwell saw with dismay the ‘white horses of Solway’ shaking their manes.
Darkness lowered about them; then a jagged flash of lightning rent the murky air, and Sandie as he wrestled with the tiller saw a face white as foam and ‘unco ghash’ beside him.
‘Hae ye onything on your conscience, Laird?’ cried Sandie in his ear, ‘ony bit adultery or murder? If ye hae, mak a vow instantly to St. Nicholas, or we’re lost.’
Maxwell made no reply, but groaned as he looked wildly through the storm.
Twelve forms—well kent to him—did he not see them pointing their accusing fingers against him? There was Ian—there Alastair, next Hamilton—he could look no further. God in Heaven! Wharton had hung his pledges.
Maxwell sank backwards, his hands to his eyes.
‘Mak the vow, Laird,’ yelled Sandie again in his ear, desperately.
‘I’ll mak a vow to Saint Nicholas,’ murmured the other brokenly, ‘to build a tower to his honour, and put a light into it nightly for all poor sailors on Solway.’
Heartened by this, Sandie thrust all his strength upon the tiller and kept the lugger straight ’twixt Scylla and Charybdis.
But ‘the white horses’ were now upon them, their streaming manes enveloping the gunwale, and Maxwell gave himself up for lost. The lugger shivered, then grated violently. ‘What’s yon?’ he cried in terror.
‘Yon’s the first stone o’ Repentance Tower,’1 cried Sandie triumphantly, as he drave the lugger high upon the beach.
Notes
1 Tradition commonly holds that the builder of the tower had thrown his captives overboard to lighten the boat, when returning from a raid into England; but if the writer remembers aright, Dr. Nielson in one of his erudite articles, seemed able to prove that Sir Robert Maxwell—who married the Herries heiress and became Lord Herries—was the builder. In this case the above tale gives the truer version of the tower’s origin.