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Over the farm-studded hills into miles and miles of wide-open country, the girl from Goosedubbs walked the fields where peasants had long toiled. But out here, Agnes was no peon repressed by a greedy baron. Step by step, she made her way across the timeless landscape, experiencing what it meant to feel free, if only for a day.

A toll road constructed in 1820 eased travel in and out of Glasgow and was built according to the broken-stone “macadam” method developed by Scotsman John Loudon McAdam. Perhaps Agnes and her ragtag team hitched a ride on the back of a farmer’s cart or with a benevolent mail-coach driver. Though advantageous to wagon wheels, the crushed rocks were not so kind to tired feet and skinny ankles.

Seven miles into the journey, it was time for a rest. Crossing into Newton Mearns, Agnes spotted a “halfway house,” as roadside taverns were called. Here horses were fed and watered or changed if the travel was long, creating an ideal spot to catch a ride. Vagabonds, locals, and travelers stopped for a smoke and a drink. In the city, women were generally not seen in saloons, but in the country, all paying customers were welcome. A few pennies would buy Agnes, Janet, and Helen a steaming bowl of soup and a soft piece of bread. Weary foot travelers, they huddled near the warm fire, removed their boots, and rubbed the bottoms of their feet. The three lasses dared not dawdle because nightfall approached by half past four and they had fourteen miles yet to go.

Over the braes and past sheep that grazed the gentle grasslands, the city girls arrived in real farm country. Unlike drab January in Glasgow, this landscape was bursting with winter wildlife. Geese, ducks, black-bird-sized woodpeckers, and bright blue-and-orange kingfishers kept the wooded lochs alive with activity. Giant whooper swans migrating from Iceland were everywhere. Their silly honking, echoing through the hollows, would have cracked a grin on the face of even the gloomiest adolescent.

As the city disappeared, it was like walking through a looking glass and emerging into an enchanted countryside of glistening lakes, streams gurgling pristine water, and cozy thatched-roof cottages. The determined damsels tramped down the track toward Kilmarnock, lapsing into silence. The only sound was from the footfalls of their rough-worn boots. The lonely road dragged on and on. Four hours of majestic beauty had become tedious and exhausting.

Five miles outside Kilmarnock, Agnes, Janet, and Helen happened upon another inviting halfway house, its pristine whitewashed stucco and shiny black shutters unlike anything they’d seen in Glasgow. Amid the merriment inside of gin drinkers and tobacco puffers, the girls made a beeline for the coal-burning stove. Toasting her feet before the fire, Agnes rubbed her aching toes. Janet, knowing that daylight was in short supply, soon pulled her younger charges onto their feet and back into the January cold. Lengthening shadows signaled the final leg of their trek. The sun’s quick descent had begun to dull the soft green palette cast across rolling farmland.

In the thick of gnarled sycamores tinged pink, turrets rose from the horizon. This late in the day, nearly twenty miles on the road, Agnes, Janet, and Helen probably didn’t care much about abandoned castles, but the Rowallan estate commanded attention from the most road-weary traveler. Located in a sheltered hollow, it is “environed with trees, many of which have braved the blast for centuries, and still wave their branches as majestically as they did in days of yore, when knights and ladies gay walked beneath their shadows.”9

Rowallan was, in fact, the birthplace of scandalous Scottish royalty. Countess Elizabeth Mure was born on its marshy grounds in 1315. Longtime mistress to Robert II, High Steward of Scotland, she married him after giving birth to nine children. Because they had violated forbidden degrees of kinship, approval to marry required a papal dispensation. Had she not died before Robert ascended the throne,