"Edina! Scotia's darling seat!
All hail thy palaces and tow'rs,
Where once, beneath a monarch's feet,
Sat legislation's sov'reign pow'rs!"
BURNS.
ALL Mary's sensations of admiration were faint compared to those she
experienced as she viewed the Scottish metropolis. It was associated in
her mind with all the local prepossessions to which youth and enthusiasm
love to give "a local habitation and a name;" and visions of older times
floated o'er her mind as she gazed on its rocky battlements, and
traversed the lonely arcades of its deserted palace.
"And this was once a gay court!" thought she, as she listened to the
dreary echo of her own footsteps; "and this very ground on which I now
stand was trod by the hapless Mary Stuart! Her eye beheld the same
objects that mine now rests upon; her hand has touched the draperies I
now hold in mine. These frail memorials remain; but what remains of
Scotland's Queen but a blighted name!"
Even the blood-stained chamber possessed a nameless charm for
Mary's vivid imagination. She had not entirely escaped the superstitions
of the country in which she had lived; and she readily yielded her
assent to the asseverations of her guide as to its being the _bona fide_
blood of _David Rizzio,_ which for nearly three hundred years had
resisted all human efforts to efface.
"My credulity is so harmless," said she in answer to her uncle's attempt
to laugh her out of her belief, "that I surely may be permitted to
indulge it especially since I confess I feel a sort of indescribable
pleasure in it."
"You take a pleasure in the sight of blood!" exclaimed Mr. Douglas in
astonishment, "you who turn pale at sight of a cut finger, and shudder
at a leg of mutton with the juice in it!"
"Oh! mere modern vulgar blood is very shocking," answered Mary, with a
smile; "but observe how this is mellowed by time into a tint that could
not offend the most fastidious fine lady; besides," added she in a
graver tone, "I own I love to believe in things supernatural; it seems
to connect us more with another world than when everything is seen to
proceed in the mere ordinary course of nature, as it is called. I cannot
bear to imagine a dreary chasm betwixt the inhabitants of this world and
beings of a higher sphere; I love to fancy myself surrounded by----"
"I wish to heaven you would remember you are surrounded by rational
beings, and not fall into such rhapsodies," said her uncle, glancing at
a party who stood near them, jesting upon all the objects which Mary had
been regarding with so much veneration. "But come, you have been long
enough here. Let us try whether a breeze on the Calton Hill will not
dispel these cobwebs from your brain."
The day, though cold, was clear and sunny; and the lovely spectacle
before them shone forth in all its gay magnificence. The blue waters lay
calm and motionless. The opposite shores glowed in a thousand varied
tints of wood and plain, rock and mountain, cultured field and purple
moor. Beneath, the old town reared its dark brow, and the new one
stretched its golden lines; while all around the varied charms of nature
lay scattered in that profusion which nature's hand alone can bestow.
"Oh! this is exquisite!" exclaimed Mary after along pause, in which she
had been riveted in admiration of the scene before her. "And you are in
the right, my dear uncle. The ideas which are inspired by the
contemplation of such a spectacle as this are far--oh, how
far!--superior to those excited by the mere works of art. There I can,
at best, think but of the inferior agents of Providence; here the soul
rises from nature up to nature's God."
"Upon my soul, you will be taken for a Methodist, Mary, if you talk in
this manner," said Mr. Douglas, with some marks of disquiet, as he
turned round at the salutation of a fat elderly gentleman, whom he
presently recognised as Bailie Broadfoot.
The first salutations over, Mr. Douglas's fears of Mary having been
overheard recurred, and he felt anxious to remove any unfavourable
impression with regard to his own principles, at least, from the mind of
the enlightened magistrate.
"Your fine views here have set my niece absolutely raving," said he,
with a smile; "but I tell her it is only in romantic minds that fine
scenery inspires romantic ideas. I daresay many of the worthy
inhabitants of Edinburgh walk here with no other idea than that of
sharpening their appetites for dinner."
"Nae doot," said the Bailie, "it's a most capital place for that. Were
it no' for that I ken nae muckle use it would be of."
"You speak from experience of its virtues in that respect, I suppose?"
said Mr. Douglas gravely.
"'Deed, as to that I canna compleen. At times, to be sure, I am troubled
with a little kind of a squeamishness after our public interteenments;
but three rounds o' the hill sets a' to rights."
Then observing Mary's eyes exploring, as he supposed, the town of Leith,
"You see that prospeck to nae advantage the day, miss," said he. "If
the glasshouses had been workin', it would have looked as weel again.
Ye hae nae glass-houses in the Highlands; na, na."
The Bailie had a share in the concern; and the volcanic clouds of
smoke that issued from thence were far more interesting subjects of
speculation to him than all the eruptions of Vesuvius or Etna. But there
was nothing to charm the lingering view to-day; and he therefore
proposed their taking a look at Bridewell, which, next to the smoke from
the glass-houses, he reckoned the object most worthy of notice. It was
indeed deserving of the praises bestowed upon it; and Mary was giving
her whole attention to the details of it when she was suddenly startled
by hearing her own name wailed in piteous accents from one of the lower
cells, and, upon turning round, she discovered in the prisoner the son
of one of the tenants of Glenfern. Duncan M'Free had been always looked
upon as a very honest lad in the Highlands, but he had left home to push
his fortune as a pedlar; and the temptations of the low country having
proved too much for his virtue, poor Duncan as now expiating his offence
in durance vile.
"I shall have a pretty account of you to carry to Glenfern," said Mr.
Douglas, regarding the culprit with his sternest look.
"Oh 'deed, sir, it's no' my faut!" answered Duncan, blubbering
bitterly; "but there's nae freedom at a' in this country. Lord, an' I
war oot o't! Ane canna ca' their head their ain in't; for ye canna lift
the bouk o' a prin but they're a' upon ye." And a fresh burst of sorrow
ensued.
Finding the _peccadillo_ was of a venial nature, Mr. Douglas besought
the Bailie to us his interest to procure the enfranchisement of this his
vassal, which Mr. Broadfoot, happy to oblige a good customer, promised
should be obtained on the following day; and Duncan's emotions being
rather clamorous, the party found it necessary to withdraw.
"And noo," said the Bailie, as they emerged from his place of dole and
durance, "will ye step up to the monument, and tak a rest and some
refreshment?"
"Rest and refreshment in a monument!" exclaimed Mr. Douglas. "Excuse
me, my good friend, but we are not inclined to bait there yet a while."
The Bailie did not comprehend the joke; and he proceeded in his own
drawling humdrum accent to assure them that the monument was a most
convenient place.
"It was erected in honour of Lord Neilson's memory," said he, "and is
let aff to a pastrycook and confectioner, where you can always find some
trifles to treat the ladies, such as pies and custards, and berries, and
these sort of things; but we passed an order in the cooncil that there
should be naething of a spirituous nature introduced; for if ance
spirits got admittance there's no saying what might happen."
This was a fact which none of the party were disposed to dispute; and
the Bailie, triumphing in his dominion over the spirits, shuffled on
before to do the honours of this place, appropriated at one and the same
time to the manes of a hero and the making of minced pies. The regale
was admirable, and Mary could not help thinking times were improved, and
that it was a better thing to eat tarts in Lord Nelson's Monument than
to have been poisoned in Julius Caesar's.