July 7th.--We bestirred ourselves early this morning, . . . . and took
the rail for Stirling before eight. It is but a few minutes' ride, so
that doubtless we were earlier on the field than if we had slept at
Stirling. After our arrival our first call was at the post-office, where
I found a large package containing letters from America, but none from
U----. We then went to a bookseller's shop, and bought some views of
Stirling and the neighborhood; and it is surprising what a quantity and
variety of engravings there are of every noted place that we have
visited. You seldom find two sets alike. It is rather nauseating to
find that what you came to see has already been looked at in all its
lights, over and over again, with thousand-fold repetition; and, beyond
question, its depictment in words has been attempted still oftener than
with the pencil. It will be worth while to go back to America, were it
only for the chance of finding a still virgin scene.
We climbed the steep slope of the Castle Hill, sometimes passing an
antique-looking house, with a high, notched gable, perhaps with an
ornamented front, until we came to the sculptures and battlemented
wall, with an archway, that stands just below the castle. . . . . A
shabby-looking man now accosted us, and could hardly be shaken off. I
have met with several such boors in my experience of sight-seeing. He
kept along with us, in spite of all hints to the contrary, and insisted
on pointing out objects of interest. He showed us a house in Broad
Street, below the castle and cathedral, which he said had once been
inhabited by Henry Darnley, Queen Mary's husband. There was little or
nothing peculiar in its appearance; a large, gray, gabled house standing
lengthwise to the street, with three windows in the roof, and connected
with other houses on each side. Almost directly across the street, he
pointed to an archway, through the side of a house, and, peeping through
it, we found a soldier on guard in a court-yard, the sides of which were
occupied by an old mansion of the Argyle family, having towers at the
corners, with conical tops, like those reproduced in the hotel at the
Trosachs. It is now occupied as a military hospital. Shaking off our
self-inflicted guide, we now made our way to the castle parade, and to
the gateway, where a soldier with a tremendously red nose and two medals
at once took charge of us.
Beyond all doubt, I have written quite as good a description of the
castle and Carse of Stirling in a former portion of my journal as I can
now write. We passed through the outer rampart of Queen Anne; through
the old round gate-tower of an earlier day, and beneath the vacant arch
where the portcullis used to fall, thus reaching the inner region, where
stands the old palace on one side, and the old Parliament House on the
other. The former looks aged, ragged, and rusty, but makes a good
appearance enough pictorially, being adorned all round about with
statues, which may have been white marble once, but are as gray as
weather-beaten granite now, and look down from between the windows above
the basement story. A photograph would give the idea of very rich
antiquity, but as it really stands, looking on a gravelled court-yard,
and with "CANTEEN" painted on one of its doors, the spectator does not
find it very impressive. The great hall of this palace is now
partitioned off into two or three rooms, and the whole edifice is
arranged to serve as barracks. Of course, no trace of ancient
magnificence, if anywise destructible, can be left in the interior. We
were not shown into this palace, nor into the Parliament House, nor into
the tower, where King James stabbed the Earl of Douglas. When I was here
a year ago, I went up the old staircase and into the room where the
murder was committed, although it had recently been the scene of a fire,
which consumed as much of it as was inflammable. The window whence the
Earl's body was thrown then remained; but now the whole tower seems to
have been renewed, leaving only the mullions of the historic window.
We merely looked up at the new, light-colored freestone of the restored
tower in passing, and ascended to the ramparts, where we found one of the
most splendid views, morally and materially, that this world can show.
Indeed, I think there cannot be such a landscape as the Carse of
Stirling, set in such a frame as it is,--the Highlands, comprehending our
friends, Ben Lomond, Ben Venue, Ben An, and the whole Ben brotherhood,
with the Grampians surrounding it to the westward and northward, and in
other directions some range of prominent objects to shut it in; and the
plain itself, so worthy of the richest setting, so fertile, so beautiful,
so written over and over again with histories. The silver Links of Forth
are as sweet and gently picturesque an object as a man sees in a
lifetime. I do not wonder that Providence caused great things to happen
on this plain; it was like choosing a good piece of canvas to paint a
great picture upon. The battle of Bannockburn (which we saw beneath us,
with the Gillie's Hill on the right) could not have been fought upon a
meaner plain, nor Wallace's victory gained; and if any other great
historic act still remains to be done in this country, I should imagine
the Carse of Stirling to be the future scene of it. Scott seems to me
hardly to have done justice--to this landscape, or to have bestowed pains
enough to put it in strong relief before the world; although it is from
the light shed on it, and so much other Scottish scenery, by his mind,
that we chiefly see it, and take an interest in it. . . . .
I do not remember seeing the hill of execution before,--a mound on the
same level as the castle's base, looking towards the Highlands. A
solitary cow was now feeding upon it. I should imagine that no person
could ever have been unjustly executed there; the spot is too much in the
sight of heaven and earth to countenance injustice.
Descending from the ramparts, we went into the Armory, which I did not
see on my former visit. The superintendent of this department is an old
soldier of very great intelligence and vast communicativeness, and quite
absorbed in thinking of and handling weapons; for he is a practical
armorer. He had few things to show us that were very interesting,--a
helmet or two, a bomb and grenade from the Crimea; also some muskets from
the same quarter, one of which, with a sword at the end, he spoke of
admiringly, as the best weapon in the collection, its only fault being
its extreme weight. He showed us, too, some Minie rifles, and whole
ranges of the old-fashioned Brown Bess, which had helped to win
Wellington's victories; also the halberts of sergeants now laid aside,
and some swords that had been used at the battle of Sheriffmuir. These
latter were very short, not reaching to the floor, when I held one of
them, point downward, in my hand. The shortness of the blade and
consequent closeness of the encounter must have given the weapon a most
dagger-like murderousness. Ranging in the hall of arms, there were two
tattered banners that had gone through the Peninsular battles, one of
them belonging to the gallant 42d Regiment. The armorer gave my wife a
rag from each of these banners, consecrated by so much battle-smoke; also
a piece of old oak, half burned to charcoal, which had been rescued from
the panelling of the Douglas Tower. We saw better things, moreover, than
all these rusty weapons and ragged flags; namely, the pulpit and
communion-table of John Knox. The frame of the former, if I remember
aright, is complete; but one or two of the panels are knocked out and
lost, and, on the whole, it looks as if it had been shaken to pieces by
the thunder of his holdings forth,--much worm-eaten, too, is the old oak
wood, as well it may be, for the letters MD (1500) are carved on its
front. The communion-table is polished, and in much better preservation.
Then the armorer showed us a Damascus blade, of the kind that will cut a
delicate silk handkerchief while floating in the air; and some inlaid
matchlock guns. A child's little toy-gun was lying on a workbench among
all this array of weapons; and when I took it up and smiled, he said that
it was his son's. So he called in a little fellow four years old, who
was playing in the castle yard, and made him go through the musket
exercise, which he did with great good-will. This small Son of a Gun,
the father assured us, cares for nothing but arms, and has attained
all his skill with the musket merely by looking at the soldiers on
parade. . . . .
Our soldier, who had resigned the care of us to the armorer, met us again
at the door, and led us round the remainder of the ramparts, dismissing
us finally at the gate by which we entered. All the time we were in the
castle there had been a great discordance of drums and fifes, caused by
the musicians who were practising just under the walls; likewise the
sergeants were drilling their squads of men, and putting them through
strange gymnastic motions. Most, if not all, of the garrison belongs to
a Highland regiment, and those whom we saw on duty, in full costume,
looked very martial and gallant. Emerging from the castle, we took the
broad and pleasant footpath, which circles it about midway on the grassy
steep which descends from the rocky precipice on which the walls are
built. This is a very beautiful walk, and affords a most striking view
of the castle, right above our heads, the height of its wall forming one
line with the precipice. The grassy hillside is almost as precipitous as
the dark gray rock that rises out of it, to form the foundations of the
castle; but wild rose-bushes, both of a white and red variety, are
abundant here, and all in bloom; nor are these the only flowers. There
is also shrubbery in some spots, tossing up green waves against the
precipice; and broad sheets of ivy here and there mantle the headlong
rock, which also has a growth of weeds in its crevices. The castle walls
above, however, are quite bare of any such growth. Thus, looking up at
the old storied fortress, and looking down over the wide, historic plain,
we wandered half-way round the castle, and then, retracing our steps,
entered the town close by an old hospital.
A hospital it was, or had been intended for; but the authorities of the
town had made some convenient arrangement with those entitled to its
charity, and had appropriated the ancient edifice to themselves. So said
a boy who showed us into the Guildhall,--an apartment with a vaulted
oaken roof, and otherwise of antique aspect and furniture; all of which,
however, were modern restorations. We then went into an old church or
cathedral, which was divided into two parts; one of them, in which I saw
the royal arms, being probably for the Church-of-England service, and the
other for the Kirk of Scotland. I remember little or nothing of this
edifice, except that the Covenanters had uplifted it with pews and a
gallery, and whitewash; though I doubt not it was a stately Gothic
church, with innumerable enrichments and incrustations of beauty, when it
passed from popish hands into theirs. Thence we wandered downward,
through a back street, amid very shabby houses, some of which bore tokens
of having once been the abodes of courtly and noble personages. We
paused before one that displayed, I think, the sign of a spirit-retailer,
and looked as disreputable as a house could, yet was built of stalwart
stone, and had two circular towers in front, once, doubtless, crowned
with conical tops. We asked an elderly man whether he knew anything of
the history of this house; and he said that he had been acquainted with
it for almost fifty years, but never knew anything noteworthy about it.
Reaching the foot of the hill, along whose back the streets of Stirling
run, and which blooms out into the Castle Craig, we returned to the
railway, and at noon took leave of Stirling.
I forgot to tell of the things that awakened rather more sympathy in us
than any other objects in the castle armory. These were some rude
weapons--pikes, very roughly made; and old rusty muskets, broken and
otherwise out of order; and swords, by no means with Damascus blades--
that had been taken from some poor weavers and other handicraft men who
rose against the government in 1820. I pitied the poor fellows much,
seeing how wretched were their means of standing up against the cannon,
bayonets, swords, shot, shell, and all manner of murderous facilities
possessed by their oppressors. Afterwards, our guide showed, in a gloomy
quadrangle of the castle, the low windows of the dungeons where two of
the leaders of the insurrectionists had been confined before their
execution. I have not the least shadow of doubt that these men had a
good cause to fight for; but what availed it with such weapons! and so
few even of those!
. . . . I believe I cannot go on to recount any further this evening the
experiences of to-day. It has been a very rich day; only that I have
seen more than my sluggish powers of reception can well take in at once.
After quitting Stirling, we came in somewhat less than an hour to