SCOTTISH STAGES—THOROUGH-BRED SETTER—SCENERY—FEMALE PEASANTRY—
MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, STIRLING CASTLE.
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 up 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 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 in history.
“Can history cut my hay or get my corn in?
Or can philosophy vend it in the market?”
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 guards 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.
“Oh for a plump fat leg of mutton,
Veal, lamb, capon, pig, and cony,
None is happy but a glutton,
None an ass but who wants money.”
So sang the servant of Diogenes, with an exceptionable 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_.