Travellers
had need to give this place a wide berth, for it was a veritable
den--indeed "Lowrie's Den" was the name by which it was known, and
feared, by every respectable person. Many a bloody, drunken fight took
place there, many were the evil deeds done and the robberies committed;
not even was murder unknown in its immediate vicinity.
Well for us that in our day we know of such places only by ancient
repute. When we talk regretfully of "the good old days," we are apt to
leave out of the reckoning those Mump's Ha's and Lowrie's Dens of our
forefathers' times; we forget to add to the burden of a journey such
items as indifferent roads and highway robbers, and the possibility of
reaching one's destination minus purse, watch, or rings. From an
encounter with highwaymen, few passengers emerged with flying colours,
having had the best of the deal. Not to many persons was such fortune
given as fell to the lot of a country lass near Kelso one winter's
evening. She had little enough to lose in the way of money or valuables,
and it was "bogles," more than the fear of footpads that disturbed her
mind as she stumped along that muddy road in the gathering gloom.
Consequently, after one terrified shriek, it was almost a relief to her
to find that the two figures which bounced out on her from the
blackness, demanding her money, were flesh and blood like herself, and
not denizens of another world.
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