University of Virginia Library

136. LETTER CXXXVI.

The lakes of Scotland are without the limits of
stage-coach and post-horse civilization, and to arrive at
these pleasant conveniences is to be consoled for the
corresponding change in the character of the scenery.
From Callander there is a coach to Stirling, and it was
on the top of the “Highlander” (a brilliant red coach,
with a picture of Rob Roy on the panels), that, with
my friend and his dog, I was on the road, bright and
early, for the banks of the Teith. I have scarce done
justice, by the way, to my last-mentioned companion
(a superb, thorough-bred setter, who answered to the
derogatory appellation of Flirt”) for he had accompanied
me in most of my wanderings for a couple of
months, and his society had been preferred to that of
many a reasoning animal on the road, in the frequent
dearth of amusement. Flirt's pedigree had been
taken on trust by my friend, the dog-fancier, of
whom he was bought, only knowing that he came of
a famous race, belonging to a gentleman living somewhere
between Stirling and Callander; and to determine
his birthplace and get another of the same breed,
was a greater object with his master than to see all the
lakes and mountains of Caledonia. Poor Flirt was
elevated to the highest seat on the coach, little aware
that his reputation for birth and breeding depended on
his recognising the scenes of his puppyhood—for if
his former master had told truly, these were the fields
where his young ideas had been taught a dog's share
in shooting, and his unconscious tail and ears were
now under watchful surveillance for a betrayal of his
presumed reminiscences.

The coach rolled on over the dew-damp road, crossing
continually those bright and sparkling rivulets,
which gladden the favored neighborhood of mountains;
and the fields and farm-houses took gradually
the look of thrift and care, which indicates an approach
to a thickly-settled country. The castle of Doune, a
lovely hunting-seat of the Queen of Scots, appeared
in the distance, with its gray towers half buried in
trees, when Flirt began to look before and behind, and
take less notice of the shabby gentleman on his left,
who, from sharing with him a volant breakfast of bread
and bacon, had hitherto received the most of his attention.
We kept on at a pretty pace, and Flirt's tail
shifted sides once or twice with a very decided whisk

and his intelligent head gradually grew more erect
upon his neck of white-and-tan. It was evident he
had travelled the road before. Still on, and as the
pellucid Teith began to reflect in her eddying mirror
the towers of Castle Doune—a scene worthy of its tender
and chivalrous associations—a suppressed whine
and a fixed look over the fields to the right, satisfied
us that the soul of the setter was stirring with the recognition
of the past. The coach was stopped and
Flirt loosed from his chain, and, with a promise to join
me at Stirling at dinner, my friend “hied away” the
delighted dog over the hedge, and followed himself
on foot, to visit, by canine guidance, the birthplace of
this accomplished family. It was quite beautiful to
see the fine creature beat the field over and over in his
impatience, returning to his slower-footed master, as
if to hurry him onward, and leaping about him with
an extravagance eloquent of such unusual joy. I lost
sight of them by a turning in the road, and reverted
for consolation to that loveliest river, on whose green
bank I could have lain (had I breakfasted) and dreamed
till the sunset of the unfortunate queen, for whose
soft eyes and loving heart it perhaps flowed no more
brightly in the days of Rizzio, than now for mine and
those of the early marketers to Stirling.

The road was thronged with carts, and peasants in
their best attire. The gentleman who had provided
against the enemy with a brown-paper of bread and
bacon, informed me that it was market-day. A very
great proportion of the country people were women
and girls, walking all of them barefoot, but with shoes
in their hands, and gowns and bonnets that would have
eclipsed in finery the bevy of noble ladies at Gordon
Castle. Leghorn straw-hats and dresses of silk, with
ribands of any quantity and brilliancy, were the commonest
articles. Feet excepted, however (for they
had no triflers of pedestals, and stumped along the
road with a sovereign independence of pools and pebbles),
they were a wholesome-looking and rather pretty
class of females; and, with the exception of here
and there a prim lassie, who dropped her dress over
her feet while the coach passed, and hid her shoes
under her handkerchief, they seemed perfectly satisfied
with their own mode of conveyance, and gave us a
smile in passing, which said very distinctly, “You'll be
there before us, but it's only seven miles, and we'll
foot it in time.” How various are the joys of life! I
went on with the coach, wondering whether I ever
could be reduced to find pleasure in walking ten miles
barefoot to a fair—and back again!

I thought again of Mary, as the turrets of the proud
castle where she was crowned became more distinct in
the approach—but it is difficult in entering a crowded
town, with a real breakfast in prospect and live Scotchmen
about me, to remember with any continuous enthusiasm
even the most brilliant events of history.

says somebody in the play, and with a similar thought
I looked up at the lofty towers of the home of Scotland's
kings, as the “Highlander” bowled round its
rocky base to the inn. The landlord appeared with
his white apron, “boots” with his ladder, the coachman
and guard with their hints to your memory; and,
having ordered breakfast of the first, descended the
“convenience” of the second, and received a tip of
the hat for a shilling to the remaining two, I was at
liberty to walk up stairs and while away a melancholy
half hour in humming such charitable stanzas as
would come uncalled to my aid.

So sang the servant of Diogenes, with an exception
able morality, which, nevertheless, it is difficult to get
out of one's head at Stirling, if one has not already
breakfasted.

I limped up the long street leading to the castle,
stopping on the way to look at a group of natives who
were gaping at an advertisement just stuck to the wall,
offering to take emigrants to New-York on terms “ridiculously
trifling.” Remembering the “bannocks
o' barley meal” I had eaten for breakfast, the haddocks
and marmalade, the cold grouse and porridge, I longed
to pull Sawney by the coat, and tell him he was just
as well where he was. Yet the temptation of the
Greenock trader, “cheap and nasty” though it were,
was not uninviting to me!

I was met on the drawbridge of the castle by a trim
corporal, who offered to show me the lions for a consideration.
I put myself under his guidance, and he
took me to Queen Mary's apartments, used at present
for a mess-room, to the chamber where Earl Douglas
was murdered, etc., etc., etc., in particulars which are
accurately treated of in the guide-books. The pipers
were playing in the court, and a company or two of a
Highland regiment, in their tartans and feathers, were
under parade. This was attractive metal to me, and I
sat down on a parapet, where I soon struck up a friendship
with a curly-headed varlet, some four years old,
who shouldered my stick without the ceremony of
“by-your-leave,” and commenced the drill upon an
unwashed regiment of his equals in a sunshiny corner
below. It was delightful to see their gravity and the
military air with which they cocked their bonnets and
stuck out their little round stomachs at the word of
command. My little Captain Cockchafer returned
my stick like a knight of honor, and familiarly climbed
upon my knee to repose after his campaign, very much
to the surprise of his mother, who was hanging out to
dry, what looked like his father's inexpressibles, from
a window above, and who came down and apologized
in the most unmitigated Scotch for the liberty the
“babby” had taken with “his honor.” For the child
of a camp-follower, it was a gallant boy, and I remember
him better than the drill-sergeant or the piper.

On the north side of Stirling Castle the view is
bounded by the Grampians and laced by the winding
Teith; and just under the battlements lies a green
hollow, called the “King's Knot,” where the gay tournaments
were held, and the “Ladies' Hill,” where sat
the gay and lovely spectators of the chivalry of Scotland.
Heading Hill is near it, where James executed
Albany and his sons, and the scenes and events of history
and poetry are thickly sown at your feet. Once
recapitulated, however—the Bruce and the Douglas,
Mary and the “Gudeman of Ballengiech,” once honored
in memory—the surpassing beauty of the prospect
from Stirling towers, engross the fancy and fill the
eye. It was a day of predominant sunshine, with here
and there the shadow of a cloud darkening a field of
stubble or a bend of the river, and I wandered round
from bastion to bastion, never sated with gazing, and
returning continually to the points from which the
corporal had hurried me on. There lay the Forth—
here Bannockburn and Falkirk, and all bathed and
flooded with beauty. Let him who thinks the earth
ill-looking, peep at it through the embrasures of Stirling
Castle.

My friend, the corporal, got but sixteen pence a
day, and had a wife and children—but much as I
should dislike all three as disconnected items, I envied
him his lot altogether. A garrison life at Stirling, and
plenty of leisure, would reconcile one almost to wife
and children and a couple of pistareens per diem.