The road, which is a mere track, winds along the banks of the torrent, ever and anon covered and flanked by huge masses of rock, which have been shaken from the brow of the mountain, or been excavated, as it were, and brought into high relief, by the roaring flood. About the middle of this pass, as if it were for the express purpose of relieving the thirst of the weary traveller, in a wilderness "unknown to public view," and at a distance from any human habitation, there sparkles out, from beneath a huge mass of grey-stone, a most plentiful and refreshing fount or well of spring-water. How often have we enjoyed the refreshment of this spring, in the society of the companions of our travel and of our early days! Here we reposed at noon, making use of refreshments, and indulging in all the wild and ungoverned hilarity of high spirits and bosoms void of care. Yet, even amidst our madness, we could not help viewing, or at least imagining that we viewed, a blood-spot on the very rock from which the water burst in such purity and abundance, and recollecting the sad narrative with which that stone was connected--for we were all Closeburn lads, and had heard the tale of the Pass of Enterkin repeated by our nearest and dearest relatives. Fletcher of Saltoun says, "Let me make the popular songs of a country, and any one who pleases may make the laws." We would go a little farther, and say that, in youth, the character is decidedly formed by traditionary lore; and that thus mothers contribute, far more than they are aware of at the time, to the formation of the future character--to the happiness or misery, through life, of their children. At least we know this, that we would not give what we learned from our mother, for all that we have ever attained either by private or public study. But to our story. It was during a drifty night in the month of February, 168-, that a party of ten individuals were travelling up this awful pass. The party consisted of six dragoons, who had dismounted from and were leading their horses, and four country people, three males and one female, whom they were driving before them, bound as prisoners, on their way to Edinburgh. The drift was choking, and they had ever and again to turn round to prevent suffocation. There were other and imminent dangers. At every turn, the road, from the eddies of the drift, became invisible; and they were in danger of losing footing, and of being precipitated many fathoms down into the bottom of the roaring linn beneath. The soldiers were loud in their curses against their commanding officer, Captain Douglas, who had sent them, under command of a serjeant, on this business, at such an unseasonable hour, in such a tempest, and along such a difficult road; whilst the poor nonconformists--for such they were--employed their breath, in the intervals of the blast, in singing a part of the 121st Psalm:--