Edward II., in his invasion of Scotland in 1323, burned down Dryburgh Abbey, as he had done that of Melrose in the preceding year; and both these magnificent houses were restored principally at the cost of Robert Bruce. It was again destroyed by the English in 1544, by Sir George Bowes and Sir Brian Latoum, as Melrose was also. Among the most distinguished of its abbots we may mention Andrew Fordum, Bishop of Moray, and afterward Archbishop of St. Andrews, and Ambassador to France, and who held some of the most important offices under James IV. and James V. The favors conferred upon him were in proportion to his consequence in the state. Along with this abbey of Dryburgh, he held in commendam those of Pittenweem, Coldingham, and Dunfermline. He resigned Dryburgh to James Ogilvie, of the family of Deskford. Ogilvie was also considerably employed in offices of diplomacy, both at London and Paris.
The Erskines seemed to keep firm hold of the Abbey of Dryburgh; and Adam Erskine, one of Abbot James's successors, was, under George Buchanan, a sub-preceptor to James VI. This James I. of England dissolved the abbey in 1604, and conferred it and its lands, together with the abbeys and estates of Cambuskenneth and Inehmahorne, on John Erskine, Earl of Mar, who was made, on this occasion, also Baron of Cardross, which barony was composed of the property of these three monasteries. In this line, Dryburgh descended to the Lords of Buchan. The Earls of Buchan, at one time, sold it to the Halliburtons of Mortoun, from whom it was purchased by Colonel Tod, whose heirs again sold it to the Earl of Buchan in 1786. This eccentric nobleman bequeathed it to his son, Sir David Erskine, at whose death in 1837 it reverted to the Buchan family.
Two monasteries in Ireland, the abbey of Druin-la-Croix in the County of Armagh, and the abbey of Woodburn in the county of Antrim, acknowledged Dryburgh as their mother. A copy of the Liber S. Mariae de Dryburgh is in the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, containing all its ancient charters. Such are the main points of history connected with Dryburgh; but, when we open the ballad lore of the South of Scotland, we find this fine old place figuring repeatedly and prominently….
Grose says: "The freestone of which the monastery of Dryburgh and the most elegant parts of the Abbey of Melrose were built, is one of a most beautiful color and texture, and has defied the influence of the weather for more than six centuries; nor is the sharpness of the sculpture in the least affected by the ravages of time. The quarry from which it was taken is still successfully worked at Dryburgh; and no stone in the island seems more perfectly adapted for the purpose of architecture, as it hardens by age, and is not subject to be corroded or decomposed by the weather, so that it might even be used for the cutting of bas-reliefs and of statues." …
As the remains of the abbey have since been carefully preserved, they present still much the same aspect as at Grose's visit in 1797. When I visited this lovely ruin and lovely neighborhood in 1845, I walked from Melrose, a distance of between three and four miles. Leaving the Eildon Hills on my right, and following the course of the Tweed, I saw, as I progressed, Cowdenknowes, Bemerside, and other spots famous in border song. Issuing from a steep and woody lane, I came out on a broad bend of the river, with a wide strand of gravel and stones on this side, showing with what force the wintry torrents rushed along here. Opposite rose lofty and finely-wooded banks. Amid the trees on that side shone out a little temple of the Muses, where they are represented as consecrating James Thomson the poet. Farther off, on a hill, stands a gigantic statue of William Wallace, which was originally intended for Burns; but, the stone being too large, it was thought by the eccentric Lord Buchan, who erected it, a pity to cut it down….
I was ferried over by two women, who were by no means sorry that the winds and floods had carried my Lord Buchan's bridge away, as it restored their business of putting people over. I then ascended a lane from the ferry, and found myself in front of an apparently old castle gateway; but, from the Latin inscription over it, discovered that it was also erected by the same singular Lord Buchan, as the entrance to a pomarium, or, in plain English, an orchard, dedicated to his honored parents, who, I suppose, like our first parents, were particularly fond of apples. That his parents or himself might enjoy all the apples, he had under the Latin dedication, placed a simple English menace of steel traps and spring guns. I still advanced through a pleasant scene of trees and cottages, of rich grassy crofts, with cattle lying luxuriously in them, and amid a hush of repose, indicative of a monastic scene.
Having found a guide to the ruins, at a cottage near the river, I was led across a young orchard toward them, the two old gables and the fine circular window showing themselves above the foliage. I found the interior of the ruins carpeted by soft turf, and two rows of cedars growing in the church, marking where the aisle formerly ran. The cloisters and south transept were still entire, and displayed much fine workmanship. The great circular window is especially lovely, formed of five stars cut in stone, so that the open center between them forms a rose. The light seen through this charming window produced a fine effect. The chapter-house was also entire, the floor being now only of earth; and a circle was drawn in the center, where the remains of the founder and his lady lie. Here, again, however, the fantastic old Lord Buchan had interfered, and a statue of Locke, reading an open book, and pointing to his own forehead; one of Inigo Jones, and one of Newton, made you wonder what they were doing there. So totally without regard to fitness did this half-crazy nobleman put down his ornaments. The wonder is that his successor had not removed these, and some statues or busts which had as little business on the spot.
But the charm of the place in every sense was the grave of Scott. It was in the Lady aisle, and occupies two arches of it; and the adjoining space under the next arch is the burial place of the Erskines, as Scott's burial-place was that of his ancestors, the Halliburtons. The whole, with the tier of small sectional Norman arches above, forms a glorious tomb much resembling one of the chapel tombs in Winchester Cathedral. Taken in connection with the fine ruins, and the finer natural scenery around, no spot can be supposed more suitable for the resting-place of the remains of the great minstrel and romancer, who so delighted in the natural, historic, and legendary charms of the neighborhood, and who added still greater ones to them himself.
Since my visit, a massive tomb, of Aberdeen granite, has been placed over the remains of Sir Walter and Lady Scott, and those of their eldest son. A railway also now makes the place much more accessible, the station for Dryburgh being at the village of Newtown, on the other side of the river. Near St. Boswell's, opposite to Dryburgh, has also been lately erected a bridge over the Tweed, opening up the communication betwixt the north and south side of the river, and thus enabling the tourist to explore at great convenience the scenes of ancient loves and feuds, and the haunts of Scott. Here his dust lies amid the objects redolent of his fame; and within a few miles, near Makerstoun, a view may he obtained, from a hill, of Smailholme Tower, where the poet passed some of the years of his boyhood, and the memory of which he has perpetuated in one of the epistles which introduce each Canto of Marmion.
MELROSE ABBEY [Footnote: From "The Ruined Abbeys of the Border."]
The foundation of Melrose Abbey generally dates from 1136, when David I. of Scotland, among his many similar erections, built a church here. But Melrose, as a seat of religion, boasts a much earlier origin. It was one of those churches, or more properly missionary stations, which the fathers of Ireland and of Iona spread over Britain and the continent. It was in fact a portion of that pure and beautiful British church which existed prior to the Roman hierarchy in these islands, and of which the professors presented in their primitive habits and primitive doctrines so apostolic a character….
In 1136 the pious David raised a new and much superior abbey, about two miles westward of the original site, but on the same south bank of the Tweed, and established in it the Cistercians. He conferred on them extensive lands and privileges; the lands of Melrose, Eldun, and Dernwie; the lands and wood of Gattonside, with the fishings of the Tweed along the whole extent of those lands; with the right of pasturage and pannage in his forests of Selkirk and Traguair, and in the forest between the Gala and the Leeder, with wood from those forests for building and burning. In 1192 Jocelin, Bishop of Glasgow, granted to the monks of Melrose the church of Hassindean, with its lands, tithes, and other emoluments, "for the maintenance of the poor and of pilgrims coming to the house of Melrose." From this cause the old tower of Hassindean was called "Monks' Tower," and the farm adjoining the church is still called "Monks' Croft." In fact, the Abbey of Melrose was a sort of inn, not only to the poor, but to some of the greatest men of the time. The Scottish kings from time to time, and wealthy subjects too, added fresh grants; so that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Abbey had accumulated vast possessions and immunities; had many tenants, great husbandmen, with many granges and numerous herds. It had much other property in Ayrshire, Dumfriesshire, Selkirkshire, and Berwickshire.
But the abbey church which David built was not that of which we have now the remains. The whole place was repeatedly burned down by the English invaders. In 1215 the rebellious barons of King John of England swore fealty to Alexander II. of Scotland, at the altar of Melrose. Edward I., in 1295-6, when at Berwick, granted the monks of Melrose restitution of the lands of which they had been deprived; but in 1332 Edward II. burned down the abbey and killed the abbot William de Peeblis and several of his monks. Robert I., of Scotland, in 1326 or four years afterward, gave £2,000 sterling to rebuild it; and Edward II., of England, came from New Castle at Christmas, 1341, and held his yule in the abbey, and made restitution of the lands and other property which his father had seized during the late war. In 1378 Richard II. granted a protection to the abbot and his lands; but in 1385 he burned down Melrose and other religious houses on his expedition into Scotland.
Robert Bruce, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, granted a revenue to restore the abbey; and betwixt this period and the Reformation arose the splendid structure, the ruins of which yet charm every eye. It is in the highest style of the decorated order, every portion is full of work of the most exquisite character, occasionally mingled with the perpendicular. They are the only ruins of the church which remain, and they present the finest specimen of Gothic architecture and sculpture that Scotland possesses. One of Scotland's most discriminating writers says, "To say that Melrose is beautiful, is to say nothing. It is exquisitely—splendidly lovely. It is an object possest of infinite grace and unmeasurable charm; it is fine in its general aspect, and in its minutest details. It is a study—a glory." The church is two hundred and eighty-seven feet in length, and at the greatest breadth one hundred and fifty-seven feet. The west is wholly ruined; but the great eastern window remains, and one above the southern door, which are extremely fine. The pillars that remain to support the roof are of singular grace, and wherever you turn you behold objects that rivet the attention by their richness of sculpture, tho often only in fragments. The only wonder is that so much has escaped the numberless assaults of enemies.
During the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth, the abbey was continually suffering from their inroads, in which the spirit of vengeance against the Scots who resisted their schemes of aggression was mixed strongly with that of enmity to Popery. In the year 1545, it was twice burned and ransacked by the English, first under Sir Ralph Eyre and Sir Bryan Layton, and again by the Earl of Hertford. At the Reformation, when all its lands and immunities were invested in the Crown, they were valued at £1,758 Scots, besides large contributions in kind. Among them, in addition to much corn were one hundred and five stones of butter, ten dozens of capons, twenty-six dozens of poultry, three hundred and seventy-six more fowl, three hundred and forty loads of peats, etc. Queen Mary granted Melrose and its lands and tithes to Bothwell, but they were forfeited on his attainder. They then passed to a Douglas, and afterward to Sir James Ramsay, who rescured James VI. in the conspiracy of Gowrie; then to Sir Thomas Hamilton in 1619, who was made Earl of Melrose, and afterward Earl of Haddington.
About a century ago they became the property of the family of Buccleuch, in which they remain. The Douglas built himself a house out of the ruins, which may still be seen about fifty yards to the north of the church. The ruins are preserved with great care, and are shown by a family which is at once intelligent and courteous. The person going round, most generally, points out the shattered remains of thirteen figures at the great eastern window, in their niches, said to have been those of our Savior and his Apostles. They were broken to pieces by a fanatic weaver of Gattonside. A head is also pointed out, said to be that of Michael Scott, the magician, who exerted his power so wonderfully, according to tradition, in this neighborhood, as to split, the Eildon hill into three parts….
The name of Melrose is clearly derived from the Ancient British, Melross, the projection of the meadow. Moel in Welsh and Maol in Irish signify something bald, naked, bare. Thus Moal-Ross, in the language of the Irish monks who first built the church here, would signify the naked promontory. Moel in Welsh is now usually applied to a smooth mountain, as Moel-Siabod; and we find Ross continually showing its Celtic origin where there is a promontory, as Ross on the Moray-frith, and Ross in Herefordshire from a winding of the Wye. But some old sculptor, on a stone still preserved in the village, has made a punning derivation for it, by carving a mell, or mallet, and a rose over it. This stone was part of a wall of the old prison, long since pulled down.
The site of Melrose, like all monastic ones, is fine. The abbey stands on a broad level near the Tweed, but is surrounded by hills and fields full of beauty, and peopled with a thousand beings of romance, tradition, and poetry. South of the village rise the three peaks of the Eildon hill, bearing aloft the fame of Michael Scott and Thomas the Rhymer. On the banks of the Tweed, opposite to Melrose, lies Gattonside, buried in its gardens and orchards, and still retaining its faith in many a story of the supernatural; and about three miles westward, on the same bank of the river, stands Abbotsford, raised by a magician more mighty than Michael Scott. How is it possible to approach that haunted abode without meeting on the way the most wonderful troop of wild, and lofty, and beautiful beings that ever peopled earth or the realm of imagination? Scotch, English, Gallic, Indian, Syrian come forth to meet you. The Bruce, the Scottish Jameses, Coeur de Lion, Elizabeth, Leicester, Mary of Scots, James I. of England, Montrose, Claverhouse, Cumberland the Butcher. The Covenanters are ready to preach, and fight anew, the Highland clans rise in aid of the Stuart. What women of dazzling beauty—Flora M'Ivor, Rose Bradwardine, Rebecca the noble Jewess, Lucy Ashton, and Amy Robsart, the lovely Effie Deans, and her homely yet glorious sister Jenny, the bewitching Di Vernon, and Minna and Brenda Troil, of the northern isles, stand radiant amid a host of lesser beauties. Then comes Rob Roy, the Robin Hood of the hills; then Balfour of Burley issues, a stalwart apparition, from his hiding-place, and of infinite humor and strangeness of aspect. Where is there a band like this—the Baron of Bradwardine, Dominie Sampson, Meg Merrilies, Monkbarns, Edie Ochiltree, Old Mortality, Bailie Nicol Jarvie, Andrew Fairservice, Caleb Balderston, Flibbertigibbet, Mona of the Fitful head, and that fine fellow the farmer of Liddesdale, with all his Peppers and Mustards raffling at his heels? But not even out of Melrose need you move a step to find the name of a faithful servant of Sir Walter. Tom Purdie lies in Melrose Abbey-Yard; and Scott himself had engraven on his tomb that he was "the Wood-forester of Abbotsford," probably the title which Tom gave himself. Those who visit Melrose will take a peep at the gravestone of Tom Purdie, who sleeps amid a long line of the dead, reaching from the days of Aidan to our own, as alive he filled a little niche in the regard! of a master who has given to both high and low so many niches in the temple of immortality.
CARLYLE'S BIRTHPLACE AND EARLY HOMES [Footnote: From "Fresh Fields." By special arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1884.]
There was no road in Scotland or England which I should have been so glad to have walked over as that from Edinburgh to Ecclefechan, a distance covered many times by the feet of him whose birth and burial place I was about to visit. Carlyle as a young man had walked it with Edward Irving (the Scotch say "travel" when they mean going afoot), and he had walked it alone, and as a lad with an elder boy, on his way to Edinburgh College. He says in his "Reminiscences" he nowhere else had such affectionate, sad, thoughtful, and in fact interesting and salutary journeys….
Not to be entirely cheated out of my walk, I left the train at Lockerby, a small Scotch market-town, and accomplished the remainder of the journey to Ecclefechan on foot, a brief six-mile pull. It was the first day of June; the afternoon sun was shining brightly. It was still the honeymoon of travel with me, not yet two weeks in the bonnie land; the road was smooth and clean as the floor of a sea beach, and firmer, and my feet devoured the distance with right good will….
Four miles from Lockerby I came to Mainhill, the name of a farm where the Carlyle family lived many years, and where Carlyle first read Goethe, "in a dry ditch," Froude says, and translated "Wilhelm Meister." The land drops gently away to the south and east, opening up broad views in these directions, but it does not seem to be the bleak and windy place Froude describes it. The crops looked good, and the fields smooth and fertile. The soil is rather a stubborn clay, nearly the same as one sees everywhere….
The Carlyles were living on this farm while their son was teaching school at Annan, and later at Kircaldy with Irving, and they supplied him with cheese, butter, ham, oatmeal, etc., from their scanty stores. A new farmhouse has been built since then, tho the old one is still standing; doubtless the same Carlyle's father refers to in a letter to his son, in 1817, as being under way. The parish minister was expected at Mainhill. "Your mother was very anxious to have the house done before he came, or else she said she would run over the hill and hide herself."
From Mainhill the highway descends slowly to the village of Ecclefechan, the site of which is marked to the eye, a mile or more away, by the spire of the church rising up against a background of Scotch firs, which clothe a hill beyond. I soon enter the main street of the village, which in Carlyle's youth had an open burn or creek flowing through the center of it. This has been covered over by some enterprising citizen, and instead of a loitering little burn, crossed by numerous bridges, the eye is now greeted by a broad expanse of small cobble-stones. The cottages are for the most part very humble, and rise from the outer edges of the pavement, as if the latter had been turned up and shaped to make their walls. The church is a handsome brown-stone structure, of recent date, and is more in keeping with the fine fertile country about than with the little village in its front. In the cemetery back of it, Carlyle lies buried. As I approached, a girl sat by the roadside, near the gate, combing her black locks and arranging her toilet; waiting, as it proved, for her mother and brother, who lingered in the village. A couple of boys were cutting nettles against the hedge; for the pigs, they said, after the sting had been taken out of them by boiling. Across the street from the cemetery the cows of the villagers were grazing.
I must have thought it would be as easy to distinguish Carlyle's grave from the others as it was to distinguish the man while living, or his fame when dead; for it never occurred to me to ask in what part of the inclosure it was placed. Hence, when I found myself inside the gate, which opens from the Annan road through a high stone wall, I followed the most worn path toward a new and imposing-looking monument on the far side of the cemetery; and the edge of my fine emotion was a good deal dulled against the marble when I found it bore a strange name. I tried others, and still others, but was disappointed. I found a long row of Carlyles, but he whom I sought was not among them. My pilgrim enthusiasm felt itself needlessly hindered and chilled. How many rebuffs could one stand? Carlyle dead, then, was the same as Carlyle living; sure to take you down a peg or two when you came to lay your homage at his feet.
Presently I saw "Thomas Carlyle" on a big marble slab that stood in a family inclosure. But this turned out to be the name of a nephew of the great Thomas. However, I had struck the right plat at last; here were the Carlyles I was looking for, within a space probably of eight by sixteen feet, surrounded by a high iron fence. The latest made grave was higher and fuller than the rest, but it had no stone or mark of any kind to distinguish it. Since my visit, I believe, a stone or monument of some kind has been put up. A few daisies and the pretty blue-eyed speedwell were growing amid the grass upon it. The great man lies with his head toward the south or southwest, with his mother, sister, and father to the right of him, and his brother John to the left. I was glad to learn that the high iron fence was not his own suggestion. His father had put it around the family plot in his lifetime. Carlyle would have liked to have it cut down about half-way. The whole look of the cemetery, except in the size of the head-stones, was quite American….
A young man and his wife were working in a nursery of young trees, a few paces from the graves and I conversed with them through a thin place in the hedge. They said they had seen Carlyle many times, and seemed to hold him in proper esteem and reverence. The young man had seen him come in summer and stand, with uncovered head, beside the graves of his father and mother. "And long and reverently did he remain there, too," said the young gardener. I learned this was Carlyle's invariable custom: every summer did he make a pilgrimage to this spot, and with bared head linger beside these graves. The last time be came, which was a couple of years before he died, he was so feeble that two persons sustained him while he walked into the cemetery.
BURNS'S LAND [Footnote: From "Our Old Home." Published by Houghton,Mifflin Co.]
We left Carlisle at a little past eleven, and within the half-hour were at Gretna Green. Thence we rushed onward into Scotland through a flat and dreary tract of country, consisting mainly of desert and bog, where probably the moss-troopers were accustomed to take refuge after their raids into England. Anon, however, the hills hove themselves up to view, occasionally attaining a height which might almost be called mountainous. In about two hours we reached Dumfries, and alighted at the station there….
We asked for Burns's dwelling; and a woman pointed across a street to a two-story house, built of stone, and whitewashed, like its neighbors, but perhaps of a little more respectable aspect than most of them, tho I hesitate in saying so. It was not a separate structure, but under the same continuous roof with the next. There was an inscription on the door, bearing no reference to Burns, but indicating that the house was now occupied by a ragged or industrial school. On knocking, we were instantly admitted by a servant-girl, who smiled intelligently when we told our errand, and showed us into a low and very plain parlor, not more than twelve or fifteen feet square. A young woman, who seemed to be a teacher in the school, soon appeared, and told us that this had been Burns's usual sitting-room, and that he had written many of his songs here.
She then led us up a narrow staircase into a little bedchamber over the parlor. Connecting with it, there is a very small room, or windowed closet, which Burns used as a study; and the bedchamber itself was the one where he slept in his later lifetime, and in which he died at last. Altogether, it is an exceedingly unsuitable place for a pastoral and rural poet to live or die in,—even more unsatisfactory than Shakespeare's house, which has a certain homely picturesqueness that contrasts favorably with the suburban sordidness of the abode before us….
Coming to St. Michael's Church, we saw a man digging a grave, and, scrambling out of the hole, he let us into the churchyard, which was crowded full of monuments. There was a footpath through this crowded churchyard, sufficiently well worn to guide us to the grave of Burns, but a woman followed behind us, who, it appeared, kept the key to the mausoleum, and was privileged to show it to strangers. The monument is a sort of Grecian temple, with pilasters and a dome, covering a space of about twenty feet square. It was formerly open to all the inclemencies of the Scotch atmosphere, but is now protected and shut in by large squares of rough glass, each pane being of the size of one whole side of the structure. The woman unlocked the door, and admitted us into the interior. Inlaid into the floor of the mausoleum is the gravestone of Burns—the very same that was laid over his grave by Jean Armour, before this monument was built. Displayed against the surrounding wall is a marble statue of Burns at the plow, with the Genius of Caledonia summoning the plowman to turn poet. Methought it was not a very successful piece of work; for the plow was better sculptured than the man, and the man, tho heavy and cloddish, was more effective than the goddess. Our guide informed us that an old man of ninety, who knew Burns, certifies this statue to be very like the original.
The bones of the poet, and of Jean Armour, and of some of their children, lie in the vault over which we stood. Our guide (who was intelligent, in her own plain way, and very agreeable to talk withal) said that the vault was opened about three weeks ago, on occasion of the burial of the eldest son of Burns. [Footnote: This was written in 1860.] The poet's bones were disturbed, and the dry skull, once so brimming over with powerful thought and bright and tender fantasies, was taken away and kept for several days by a Dumfries doctor. It has since been deposited in a new leaden coffin, and restored to the vault.
We went into the church, and found it very plain and naked, without altar-decorations, and having its floor quite covered with unsightly wooden pews. The woman led us to a pew cornering on one of the side-aisles, and, telling us that it used to be Burns's family pew, showed us his seat, which is in the corner by the aisle. It is so situated, that a sturdy pillar hid him from the pulpit, and from the minister's eye; "for Robin was no great friends with the ministers," said she. This touch—his seat behind the pillar, and Burns himself nodding in sermon time, or keenly observant of profane things—brought him before us to the life. In the corner-seat of the next pew, right before Burns, and not more than two feet off, sat the young lady on whom the poet saw that unmentionable parasite which he has immortalized in song. We were ungenerous enough to ask the lady's name, but the good woman could not tell it. This was the last thing which we saw in Dumfries worthy of record; and it ought to be noted that our guide refused some money which my companion offered her, because I had already paid her what she deemed sufficient.
At the railway station we spent more than a weary hour, waiting for the train, which at last came up, and took us to Mauchline. We got into an omnibus, the only conveyance to be had, and drove about a mile to the village, where we established ourselves at the Loudoun Hotel, one of the veriest country inns which we have found in Great Britain. The town of Mauchline, a place more redolent of Burns than almost any other, consists of a street or two of contiguous cottages, mostly whitewashed, and with thatched roofs. It has nothing sylvan or rural in the immediate village, and is as ugly a place as mortal man could contrive to make, or to render uglier through a succession of untidy generations. The fashion of paving the village street, and patching one shabby house on the gable-end of another, quite shuts out all verdure and pleasantness; but, I presume, we are not likely to see a more genuine old Scotch village, such as they used to be in Burns's time, and long before, than this of Mauchline. The church stands about midway up the street, and is built of red freestone, very simple in its architecture, with a square tower and pinnacles. In this sacred edifice, and its churchyard, was the scene of one of Burns's most characteristic productions, "The Holy Fair."
Almost directly opposite its gate, across the village street, stands Posie Nansie's inn, where the "Jolly Beggars" congregated. The latter is a two-story, red-stone, thatched house, looking old, but by no means venerable, like a drunken patriarch. It has small, old-fashioned windows, and may well have stood for centuries—tho seventy or eighty years ago, when Burns was conversant with it, I should fancy it might have been something better than a beggar's alehouse….
[Burns's farm of] Moss Giel is not more than a mile from Mauchline, and the road extends over a high ridge of land, with a view of far hills and green slopes on either side. Just before we reached the farm, the driver stopt to point out a hawthorn, growing by the wayside, which he said was Burns's "Lousie Thorn"; and I devoutly plucked a branch, altho I have really forgotten where or how this illustrious shrub has been celebrated. We then turned into a rude gateway, and almost immediately came to the farmhouse of Moss Giel, standing some fifty yards removed from the high-road, behind a tall hedge of hawthorn, and considerably overshadowed by trees.
The biographers talk of the farm of Moss Giel as being damp and unwholesome; but I do not see why, outside of the cottage walls, it should possess so evil a reputation. It occupies a high, broad ridge, enjoying, surely, whatever benefit can come of a breezy site, and sloping far downward before any marshy soil is reached. The high hedge, and the trees that stand beside the cottage, give it a pleasant aspect enough to one who does, not know the grimy secrets of the interior; and the summer afternoon was now so bright that I shall remember the scene with a great deal of sunshine over it.
Leaving the cottage, we drove through a field, which the driver told us was that in which Burns, turned up the mouse's nest. It is the enclosure, nearest to the cottage, and seems now to be a pasture, and a rather remarkably unfertile one. A little farther on, the ground was whitened with an immense number of daisies—daisies, daisies everywhere; and in answer to my inquiry, the driver said that this was the field where Burns ran his plowshare over the daisy. If so, the soil seems to have been consecrated to daisies by the song which he bestowed on that first immortal one. I alighted, and plucked a whole handful of these "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flowers," which will be precious to many friends in our own country as coming from Burns's farm, and being of the same race and lineage as that daisy which he turned into an amaranthine flower while seeming to destroy it. Prom Moss Giel we drove through a variety of pleasant scenes, some of which were familiar to us by their connection with Burns.
By and by we came to the spot where Burns saw Miss Alexander, the Lass of Ballochmyle. It was on a bridge, which (or, more probably, a bridge that has succeeded to the old one, and is made of iron) crosses from bank to bank, high in air, over a deep gorge of the road; so that the young lady may have appeared to Burns like a creature between earth and sky, and compounded chiefly of celestial elements. But, in honest truth, the great charm of a woman, in Burns's eyes, was always her womanhood, and not the angelic mixture which other poets find in her.
Our driver pointed out the course taken by the Lass of Ballochmyle, through the shrubbery, to a rock on the banks of the Lugar, where it seems to be the tradition that Burns accosted her. The song implies no such interview. Lovers, of whatever condition, high or low, could desire no lovelier scene in which to breathe their vows: the river flowing over its pebbly bed, sometimes gleaming into the sunshine, sometimes hidden deep in verdure, and here and there eddying at the foot of high and precipitous cliffs.
Our ride to Ayr presented nothing very remarkable; and, indeed, a cloudy and rainy day takes the varnish off the scenery and causes a woeful diminution in the beauty and impressiveness of everything we see. Much of our way lay along a flat, sandy level, in a southerly direction. We reached Ayr in the midst of hopeless rain, and drove to the King's Arms Hotel. In the intervals of showers I took peeps at the town, which appeared to have many modern or modern-fronted edifices; altho there are likewise tall, gray, gabled, and quaint-looking houses in the by-streets, here and there, betokening an ancient place. The town lies on both sides of the Ayr, which is here broad and stately, and bordered with dwellings that look from their windows directly down into the passing tide.
I crossed the river by a modern and handsome stone bridge, and recrossed it, at no great distance, by a venerable structure of four gray arches, which must have bestridden the stream ever since the early days of Scottish history. These are the "Two Briggs of Ayr," whose midnight conversation was overheard by Burns, while other auditors were aware only of the rush and rumble of the wintry stream among the arches. The ancient bridge is steep and narrow, and paved like a street, and defended by a parapet of red freestone, except at the two ends, where some mean old shops allow scanty room for the pathway to creep between….
The next morning wore a lowering aspect, as if it felt itself destined to be one of many consecutive days of storm. After a good Scotch breakfast, however, of fresh herrings and eggs, we took a fly, and started at a little past ten for the banks of the Doon. On our way, at about two miles from Ayr, we drew up at a roadside cottage, on which was an inscription to the effect that Robert Burns was born within its walls. It is now a public-house; and, of course, we alighted and entered its little sitting-room, which, as we at present see it, is a neat apartment, with the modern improvement of a ceiling. The walls are much overscribbled with names of visitors, and the wooden door of a cupboard in the wainscot, as well as all the other woodwork of the room, is cut and carved with initial letters. So, likewise, are two tables, which, having received a coat of varnish over the inscriptions, form really curious and interesting articles of furniture. I have seldom (tho I do not personally adopt this mode of illustrating my humble name) felt inclined to ridicule the natural impulse of most people thus to record themselves at the shrines of poets and heroes.
On a panel, let into the wall in a corner of the room, is a portrait of Burns, copied from the original picture by Nasmyth. The floor of this apartment is of boards, which are probably a recent substitute for the ordinary flagstones of a peasant's cottage. There is but one other room pertaining to the genuine birthplace of Robert Burns: it is the kitchen, into which we now went. It has a floor of flagstones, even ruder than those of Shakespeare's house—tho, perhaps, not so strangely cracked and broken as the latter, over which the hoof of Satan himself might seem to have been trampling. A new window has been opened through the wall, toward the road; but on the opposite side is the little original window, of only four small panes, through which came the first daylight that shone upon the Scottish poet. At the side of the room, opposite the fireplace, is a recess, containing a bed, which can be hidden by curtains. In that humble nook, of all places in the world, Providence was pleased to deposit the germ of the richest human life which mankind then had within its circumference.
These two rooms, as I have said, make up the whole sum and substance of Burns's birthplace: for there were no chambers, nor even attics; and the thatched roof formed the only ceiling of kitchen and sitting-room, the height of which was that of the whole house. The cottage, however, is attached to another edifice of the same size and description, as these little habitations often are; and, moreover, a splendid addition has been made to it, since the poet's renown began to draw visitors to the wayside alehouse. The old woman of the house led us, through an entry, and showed a vaulted hall, of no vast dimensions, to be sure but marvelously large and splendid as compared with what might be anticipated from the outward aspect of the cottage. It contained a bust of Burns, and was hung round with pictures and engravings, principally illustrative of his life and poems. In this part of the house, too, there is a parlor, fragrant with tobacco-smoke; and, no doubt, many a noggin of whisky is here quaffed to the memory of the bard, who profest to draw so much inspiration from that potent liquor.
We bought some engravings of Kirk Alloway, the Bridge of Doon, and the monument, and gave the old woman a fee besides, and took our leave. A very short drive farther brought us within sight of the monument, and to the hotel, situated close by the entrance of the ornamental grounds within which the former is enclosed. We rang the bell at the gate of the enclosure, but were forced to wait a considerable time; because the old man, the regular superintendent of the spot, had gone to assist at the laying of the corner-stone of a new kirk. He appeared anon, and admitted us, but immediately hurried away to be present at the ceremonies, leaving us locked up with Burns.
The enclosure around the monument is beautifully laid out as an ornamental garden, and abundantly provided with rare flowers and shrubbery, all tended with loving care. The monument stands on an elevated site, and consists of a massive basement-story, three-sided, above which rises a light and elegant Grecian temple—a mere dome, supported on Corinthian pillars, and open to all the winds. The edifice is beautiful in itself; tho I know not what peculiar appropriateness it may have, as the memorial of a Scottish rural poet.
The door of the basement-story stood open; and, entering, we saw a bust of Burns in a niche, looking keener, more refined, but not so warm and whole-souled as his pictures usually do. I think the likeness can not be good. In the center of the room stood a glass case, in which were deposited the two volumes of the little Pocket Bible that Burns gave to Highland Mary, when they pledged their troth to one another. It is poorly printed, on coarse paper. A verse of Scripture, referring to the solemnity and awfulness of vows, is written within the cover of each volume, in the poet's own hand; and fastened to one of the covers is a lock of Highland Mary's golden hair. This Bible had been carried to America by one of her relatives, but was sent back to be fitly treasured here.
There is a staircase within the monument, by which we ascended to the top, and had a view of both Briggs of Doon; the scene of Tam O'Shanter's misadventure being close at hand. Descending, we wandered through the enclosed garden, and came to a little building in a corner, on entering which, we found the two statues of Tam and Sutor Wat—ponderous stonework enough, yet permeated in a remarkable degree with living warmth and jovial hilarity. Prom this part of the garden, too, we again beheld the old Briggs of Doon, over which Tam galloped in such imminent and awful peril. It is a beautiful object in the landscape, with one high, graceful arch, ivy-grown, and shadowed all over and around with foliage.
When we had waited a good while, the old gardener came, telling us that he had heard an excellent prayer at laying the corner-stone of the new kirk. He now gave us some roses and sweetbrier, and let us out from his pleasant garden. We immediately hastened to Kirk Alloway, which is within two or three minutes' walk of the monument. A few steps ascend from the roadside, through a gate, into the old graveyard, in the midst of which stands the kirk. The edifice is wholly roofless, but the side-walls and gable-ends are quite entire, tho portions of them are evidently modern restorations. Never was there a plainer little church, or one with smaller architectural pretension; no New England meetinghouse has more simplicity in its very self, tho poetry and fun have clambered and clustered so wildly over Kirk Alloway that it is difficult to see it as it actually exists. By the by, I do not understand why Satan and an assembly of witches should hold their revels within a consecrated precinct; but the weird scene has so established itself in the world's imaginative faith that it must be accepted as an authentic incident, in spite of rule and reason to the contrary. Possibly, some carnal minister, some priest of pious aspect and hidden infidelity, had dispelled the consecration of the holy edifice, by his pretense of prayer, and thus made it the resort of unhappy ghosts and sorcerers and devils.
The interior of the kirk, even now, is applied to quite as impertinent a purpose as when Satan and the witches used it as a dancing-hall; for it is divided in the midst by a wall of stone masonry, and each compartment has been converted into a family burial-place. The name on one of the monuments is Crawfurd; the other bore no inscription. It is impossible not to feel that these good people, whoever they may be, had no business to thrust their prosaic bones into a spot that belongs to the world, and where their presence jars with the emotions, be they sad or gay, which the pilgrim brings thither. They shut us out from our own precincts, too—from that inalienable possession which Burns bestowed in free gift upon mankind, by taking it from the actual earth and annexing it to the domain of imagination.
Kirk Alloway is inconceivably small, considering how large a space it fills in our imagination before we see it. I paced its length, outside of the wall, and found it only seventeen of my paces, and not more than ten of them in breadth. There seem to have been but very few windows, all of which, if I rightly remember, are now blocked up with mason-work of stone. One mullioned window, tall and narrow, in the eastern gable, might have been seen by Tam O'Shanter, blazing with devilish light, as he approached along the road from Ayr; and there is a small and square one, on the side nearest the road, into which he might have peered, as he sat on horseback. Indeed, I could easily have looked through it, standing on the ground, had not the opening been walled up. There is an odd kind of belfry at the peak of one of the gables, with the small bell still hanging in it. And this is all that I remember of Kirk Alloway, except that the stones of its material are gray and irregular.
The road from Ayr passes Alloway Kirk, and crosses the Doon by a modern bridge, without swerving much from a straight line. To reach the old bridge, it appears to have made a bend, shortly after passing the kirk, and then to have turned sharply toward the river. The new bridge is within a minute's walk of the monument; and we went thither, and leaned over its parapet to admire the beautiful Doon, flowing wildly and sweetly between its deep and wooded banks. I never saw a lovelier scene; altho this might have been even lovelier, if a kindly sun had shone upon it. The ivy-grown, ancient bridge, with its high arch, through which we had a picture of the river and the green banks beyond, was absolutely the most picturesque object, in a quiet and gentle way, that ever blest my eyes. Bonny Doon, with its wooded banks, and the boughs dipping into the water! The memory of them, at this moment, affects me like the song of birds, and Burns crooning some verses, simple and wild, in accordance with their native melody…. We shall appreciate him better as a poet, hereafter; for there is no writer whose life, as a man, has so much to do with his fame, and throws such a necessary light upon whatever he has produced. Henceforth, there will be a personal warmth for us in everything that he wrote; and, like his countrymen, we shall know him in a kind of personal way, as if we had shaken hands with him, and felt the thrill of his actual voice.
HIGHLAND MARY'S HOME AND GRAVE [Footnote: From "A Literary Pilgrimage."By arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, J. B.Lippincott Co. Copyright, 1895.]
There is no stronger proof of the transcending power of the genius of Burns than is found in the fact that, by a bare half-dozen of his stanzas, an humble dairy servant—else unheard of outside her parish and forgotten at her death—is immortalized as a peeress of Petrarch's Laura and Dante's Beatrice, and has been for a century loved and mourned of all the world. We owe much of our tenderest poesy to the heroines whose charms have attuned the fancy and aroused the impassioned muse of enamoured bards; readers have always exhibited a natural avidity to realize the personality of the beings who inspired the tender lays—prompted often by mere curiosity, but more often by a desire to appreciate the tastes and motives of the poets themselves. How little is known of Highland Mary, the most famous heroine of modern song, is shown by the brief, coherent, and often contradictory allusions to her which the biographies of the plowman-poet contain. This paper—prepared during a sojourn in "The Land of Burns"—while it adds a little to our meager knowledge of Mary Campbell, aims to present consecutively and congruously so much as may be known of her brief life, her relation to the bard, and her sad, heroic death.
She first saw the light in 1764, at Ardrossan, on the coast, fifteen miles northward from the "auld town of Ayr." Her parentage was of the humblest, her father being a sailor before the mast, and the poor dwelling which sheltered her was in no way superior to the meanest of those we find to-day on the narrow streets of her village. From her birthplace we see, across the Firth of Clyde, the beetling mountains of the Highlands, where she afterward dwells and southward the great mass of Ailsa Craig looming, a gigantic pyramid, out of the sea. Mary was named for her aunt, wife of Peter McPherson, a ship-carpenter of Greenock, in whose house Mary died. In her infancy her family removed to the vicinage of Dunoon, on the western shore of the Firth, eight miles below Greenock, leaving the oldest daughter at Ardrossan. Mary grew to young womanhood near Dunoon then returned to Ayrshire, and found occupation at Coilsfield, near Tarbolton, where her acquaintance with Burns soon began. He told a lady that he first saw Mary while walking in the woods of Coilsfield: and first spoke with her at a rustic merrymaking, and "having the luck to win her regards from other suitors," they speedily became intimate. At this period of life Burn's "eternal propensity to fall into love" was unusually active, even for him, and his passion for Mary (at this time) was one of several which engaged his heart in the interval between the reign of Ellison Begbie—"the lass of the twa sparkling, roguish een"—and that of "Bonnie Jean." Mary subsequently became a servant in the house of Burn's landlord, Gavin Hamilton, a lawyer of Mauchline, who had early recognized the genius of the bard and admitted him to an intimate friendship, despite his inferior condition….
Within a stone's-throw of Mary dwelt Jean Armour, and when the former returned to Coilsfield, he promptly fell in love with Jean, and solaced himself with her more buxom and compliant charms. It was a year or so later, when his intercourse with Jean had burdened him with grief and shame, that the tender and romantic affection for Mary came into his life. She was yet at Coilsfield, and while he was in hiding—his heart tortured by the apparent perfidy of Jean and all the countryside condemning his misconduct—his intimacy with Mary was renewed; his quickened vision now discerned her endearing attributes, her trust and sympathy were precious in his distress, and awoke in him an affection such as he never felt for any other woman. During a few brief weeks the lovers spent their evenings and Sabbaths together, loitering amid the
"Banks and braes and streams aroundThe Castle of Montgomery,"
talking of the golden days that were to be theirs when present troubles were past; then came the parting which the world will never forget, and Mary relinquished her service and went to her parents at Campbelltown—a port of Cantyre behind "Arran's mountain isle." Of this parting Burns says, in a letter to Thomson, "We met by appointment on the second Sunday of May, in a sequestered spot on the Ayr, where we spent the day in taking farewell before she should embark for the West Highlands to prepare for our projected change of life." Lovers of Burns linger over this final parting, and detail the impressive ceremonials with which the pair solemnized their betrothal: they stood on either side of a brook, they laved their hands in the water and scattered it in the air to symbolize the purity of their intentions; clasping hands above an open Bible, they swore to be true to each other forever, then exchanged Bibles, and parted never to meet more.
It is not strange that when death had left him nothing of her but her poor little Bible, a tress of her golden hair, and a tender memory of her love, the recollection of this farewell remained in his soul forever. He has pictured it in the exquisite lines of "Highland Mary" and "To Mary in Heaven." In the monument at Alloway—between the "auld haunted kirk" and the bridge where Maggie lost her tail—we are shown a memento of the parting; it is the Bible which Burns gave to Mary and above which their vows were said. At Mary's death it passed to her sister, at Ardrossan, who bequeathed it to her son William Anderson; subsequently it was carried to America by one of the family, whence it has been recovered to be treasured here. It is a pocket edition in two volumes, to one of which is attached a lock of poor Mary's shining hair….
A visit to the scenes of the brief passion of the pair is a pleasing incident of our Burns pilgrimage. Coilsfield House is somewhat changed since Mary dwelt beneath its roof—a great rambling edifice of gray weather-worn stone with a row of white pillars aligned along its façade, its massive walls embowered in foliage and environed by the grand woods which Burns and Mary knew so well. It was then a seat of Colonel Hugh Montgomerie, a patron of Burns. The name Coilsfield is derived from Coila, the traditional appellation of the district. The grounds comprise a billowy expanse of wood and sward; great reaches of turf, dotted with trees already venerable when the lovers here had their tryst a hundred years ago, slope away from the mansion to the Faile and border its murmuring course to the Ayr. Here we trace with romantic interest the wanderings of the pair during the swift hours of that last day of parting love, their lingering way 'neath the "wild wood's thickening green," by the pebbled shore of Ayr to the brooklet where their vows were made, and thence along the Faile to the woodland shades of Coilsfield, where, at the close of that winged day, "pledging oft to meet again, they tore themselves asunder." Howitt found at Coilsfield a thorn-tree, called by all the country "Highland Mary's thorn," and believed to be the place of final parting; years ago the tree was notched and broken by souvenir seekers; if it be still in existence the present occupant of Coilsfield is unaware…..
Mary remained at Campbelltown during the summer of 1786. Coming to Greenock in the autumn, she found her brother sick of a malignant fever at the house of her aunt; bravely disregarding danger of contagion, she devoted herself to nursing him, and brought him to a safe convalescense only to be herself stricken by his malady and to rapidly sink and die, a sacrifice to her sisterly affection. By this time the success of his poems had determined Burns to remain in Scotland, and he returned to Moss Giel, where tidings of Mary's death reached him. His brother relates that when the letter was handed to him he went to the window and read it, then his face was observed to change suddenly, and he quickly went out without speaking. In June of the next year he made a solitary journey to the Highlands, apparently drawn by memory of Mary. If, indeed, he dropt a tear upon her neglected grave and visited her humble Highland home, we may almost forgive him the excesses of that tour, if not the renewed liaison with Jean which immediately preceded, and the amorous correspondence with "Clarinda" (Mrs. M'Lehose) which followed it…..
Poor Mary is laid in the burial-plot of her uncle in the west kirk-yard of Greenock, near Crawford Street; our pilgrimage in Burns-land may fitly end at her grave. A pathway, beaten by the feet of many reverent visitors, leads us to the spot. It is so pathetically different from the scenes she loved in life—the heather-clad slopes of her Highland home, the seclusion of the wooded braes where she loitered with her poet-lover. Scant foliage is about her; few birds sing above her here. She lies by the wall; narrow streets hem in the enclosure; the air is sullied by smoke from factories and from steamers passing within a stone's throw on the busy Clyde; the clanging of many hammers and the discordant din of machinery and traffic invade the place and sound in our ears as we muse above the ashes of the gentle lassie.
For half a century her grave was unmarked and neglected; then, by subscription, a monument of marble, twelve feet in height, and of graceful proportions, was raised. It bears a sculptured medallion representing Burns and Mary, with clasped hands, plighting their troth. Beneath is the simple inscription, read oft by eyes dim with tears:
Erected over the grave ofHighland Mary1842
"My Mary, dear departed shade,Where is thy place of blissful rest?"
THROUGH THE CALEDONIA CANAL TO INVERNESS [Footnote: From "Notes onEngland." Published by Henry Holt & Co.]
In the luminous morning mist, amid a line of masts and rigging, the steamboat sailed down the Clyde to the sea. We proceeded along the indented and rugged coast from one bay to another. These bays, being almost entirely closed in, resemble lakes, and the large sheets of water mirror an amphitheater of green hills. All the corners and windings of the shore are strewn with white villas; the water is crowded with ships; a height was pointed out to me whence three hundred sail may often be counted at a time; a three-decker floats in the distance like a swan among sea-mews. This vast space spread forth and full of life, dilates the mind, one's chest expands more freely, one joyfully inhales the fresh and keen breeze. But the effect upon the nerves and the heart does not resemble that of the Mediterranean; this air and country, instead of pre-disposing to pleasure, dispose to action.
We enter a small vessel drawn by three horses, which transports us along the Crinan canal, between two banks of green turf. On the one side are rocks covered with brushwood; on the other, steep declivities of a gray or reddish tinge; this, indeed, is color at least, a pleasure for the eye, well mingled, matched, and blended tints. On the bank and amid the bushes are wild roses, and fragile plants with white tufts smile with a delicate and charming grace.
At the outlet from the canal we go on board a large steamer, and the sea opens out wider than ever. The sky is exceedingly clear and brilliant, and the waves break in the sunlight, quivering with reflections of molten tin. The vessel continues her course, leaving in her track a bubbling and boiling path; sea gulls follow unweariedly behind her. On both sides, islands, rocks, boldly-cut promontories stand in sharp relief in the pale azure; the scene changes every quarter of an hour. But on rounding every point the infinite ocean reappears, mingling its almost flat line with the curve of the white sky.
The sun sets, we pass by Glencoe, and Ben Nevis appears sprinkled with snow; the bay becomes narrower, and the mass of water, confined amid barren mountains, assumes a tragic appearance. Human beings have come hither to little purpose. Nature remains indomitable and wild; one feels oneself upon a planet.
We disembark near Fort William; the dying twilight, the fading red rays on the horizon enable us to get a glimpse of a desolate country; acres of peat-bog, eminences rising from the valley between two ranges of huge mountains. A bird of prey screams amid the stillness. Here and there we see some wretched hovels; I am told that those on the heights are dens without windows, and from which the smoke escapes through a hole in the roof. Many of the old men are blind. What an unpropitious abode for man!
On the morrow we voyaged during four hours on the Caledonian canal amidst solitudes, a monotonous row of treeless mountains, enormous green eminences, dotted here and there with fallen stones. A few sheep of a dwarf breed crop the scanty herbage on the slopes; sometimes the winter is so severe that they die; in the distance we perceive a shaggy ox, with savage eyes, the size of a small ass. Both plants and animals perish, or are stunted. In order to make such a land yield anything it must first be replanted with trees, as has been done in Sutherlandshire; a tree renews the soil; it also shelters crops, flocks and herds, and human beings.
The canal terminates in a series of lakes. Nothing is more noble than their aspect, nothing more touching. The water, embrowned by the peat, forms a vast shining plain, surrounded by a circle of mountains. In proportion as we advance each mountain slowly grows upon us, becomes more conspicuous, stands forth with its form and physiognomy; the farther blue peaks melt the one behind the other, diminishing toward the horizon, which they enclose. Thus they stand in position like an assemblage of huge, mournful beings around the black water wherein they are mirrored, while above them and the lake, from time to time, the sun flashes through the shroud of clouds.
At last the solitude becomes less marked. The mountains are half-wooded at first, and then wholly so; they dwindle down; the widening valleys are covered with harvest; the fresh and green verdure of the herbage which supplies forage begins to clothe the hollows and the slopes. We enter Inverness, and we are surprised to find at almost the extreme north of Scotland, on the border of the Highlands, a pretty and lively modern town. It stretches along the two banks of a clear and rapid river. Many houses are newly-built; we note a church, a castle, an iron bridge. In every part are marks of cleanliness, forethought, and special care. The window-panes shine, the frames have been painted; the bell-handles are of copper; there are flowers in the windows; the poorest nouses are freshly whitewashed. Well-drest ladies and carefully drest gentlemen walk along the streets. Even a desire to possess works of art is shown by Ionian pillars, specimens of pure Gothic, and other architectural gimcrackery, and these prove at least the search after improvement. The land itself is clearly of inferior quality; industry, order, economy and labor have done everything. How great the contrast between all this and the aspect of a small town on the shores of the Mediterranean, so neglected and filthy, where the lower middle class exist like worms in a worm-eaten beam!
THE SCOTCH HIGHLANDS [Footnote: From "Notes on England." Published byHenry Holt & Co.]
On the slopes the violet heaths are spread like a silken carpet under the scanty firs. Higher still are large patches of evergreen wood, and, as soon as the mountain is approached, a brown circle of barren eminences may be discerned toward the horizon. At the end of an hour the desert begins; the climate is inimical to life, even to that of plants. A tarn, the tint of burned topaz, lies coldly and sadly between stony slopes whereon a few tufts of fern and heather grow here and there. Half a league higher is a second tarn, which appears still more dismal in the rising mist. Around, patches of snow are sprinkled on the peaks, and these descending in rivulets produce morasses. The small country ponies, with a sure instinct, surmount the bog, and we arrive at an elevation whence the eye, as far as it can reach, embraces nothing but an amphitheater of desolate, yet green summits; owing to the destruction of timber, everything else has perished; a scene of ruined nature is far more melancholy a spectacle than any human ruins. On our return across the lake, a bag-piper played his instrument. The music is strange and wild, its effects harmonizing with the aspect of the bubbling streams, veined with striking or somber reflections. The same simple note, a kind of dance music, runs through the whole piece in an incorrect and odd manner, and continually recurs, but it is always harsh and rough; it might be likened to an orange shriveled with the cold and rendered bitter.
These are the Highlands. From Braemar to Perth we journey through them for many long miles. It is always a solitude; sometimes five or six valleys in succession are wholly bare, and one may travel for an hour without seeing a tree; then for another hour it is rare merely to see in the distance a wretched twisted birchen-tree, which is dying or dead. It would be some compensation if the rock were naked, and exhibited its mineral structure in all its fulness and ruggedness. But these mountains, of no great elevation, are but bosses with flabby outlines, they have fallen to pieces, and are stone heaps, resembling the remains of a quarry. In winter, torrents of water uproot the heather, leaving on the slopes a leprous, whitened scar, badly tinted by the too feeble sun. The summits are truncated, and want boldness. Patches of miserable verdure seam their sides and mark the oozing of springs; the remainder is covered with brownish heather. Below, at the very bottom, a torrent obstructed by stones, struggles along its channel, or lingers in stagnant pools. One sometimes discerns a hovel, with a stunted cow. The gray, low-lying sky, completes the impression of lugubrious monotony.
Our conveyance ascends the last mountain. At length we see a steep declivity, a great rocky wall; but it is unique. We descend again, and enter a habitable tract. Cultivation occurs first on the lower parts, then on the slopes; the declivities are wooded, and then entire mountains; forests of firs spread their somber mantle over the crests; fields of oats and barley extend on all sides; we perceive pretty clumps of trees, houses surrounded by gardens and flowers, and then culture of all descriptions upon the lessening hills, here and there a park and a modern mansion. The sun bursts forth and shines merrily, but without heat; the fertile plain expands, abounding in promises of convenience and pleasure, and we enter Perth thinking about the historical narrations of Sir Walter Scott, and the contrast between the mountain and the plain, the revilings and scornings interchanged between the inhabitants of the Highlands and the Lowlands.
BEN LOMOND AND THE HIGHLAND LAKES [Footnote: From "Views Afoot."Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.]
It was indeed a glorious walk from Dumbarton to Loch Lomond through this enchanting valley. The air was mild and clear; a few light clouds occasionally crossing the sun chequered the hills with sun and shade. I have as yet seen nothing that in pastoral beauty can compare with its glassy winding stream, its mossy old woods and guarding hills and the ivy-grown, castellated towers embosomed in its forests or standing on the banks of the Leven—the purest of rivers. At the little village called Renton is a monument to Smollett, but the inhabitants seem to neglect his memory, as one of the tablets on the pedestal is broken and half fallen away. Farther up the vale a farmer showed us an old mansion in the midst of a group of trees on the banks of the Leven which he said belonged to Smollett—or Roderick Random, as he called him. Two or three old pear trees were still standing where the garden had formerly been, under which he was accustomed to play in his childhood.
At the head of Leven Vale we set off in the steamer "Watch-Witch" over the crystal waters of Loch Lomond, passing Inch Murrin, the deer-park of the Duke of Montrose, and Inch Caillaeh,
"where gray pines wave Their shadows o'er Clan Alpine's grave."
Under the clear sky and golden light of the declining sun we entered the Highlands, and heard on every side names we had learned long ago in the lays of Scott. Here was Glen Fruin and Bannochar, Ross Dhu and the pass of Beal-ma-na. Farther still we passed Rob Roy's rock, where the lake is locked in by lofty mountains. The cone-like peak of Ben Lomond rises far above on the right, Ben Voirlich stands in front, and the jagged crest of Ben Arthur looks over the shoulder of the western hills….
When we arose in the morning, at four o'clock, to return with the boat, the sun was already shining upon the westward hills; scarcely a cloud was in the sky and the air was pure and cool. To our great delight, Ben Lomond was unshrouded, and we were told that a more favorable day for the ascent had not occurred for two months. We left the boat at Rowardennan, an inn, at the southern base of Ben Lomond. After breakfasting on Loch Lomond trout I stole out to the shore while my companions were preparing for the ascent, and made a hasty sketch of the lake.
We proposed descending on the northern side and crossing the Highlands to Loch Katrine; tho it was represented as difficult and dangerous by the guide who wished to accompany us, we determined to run the risk of being enveloped in a cloud on the summit, and so set out alone, the path appearing plain before us. We had no difficulty in following it up the lesser heights, around the base. It wound on over rock and bog, among the heather and broom with which the mountain is covered, sometimes running up a steep acclivity and then winding zigzag round a rocky ascent. The rains two days before had made the bogs damp and muddy; but, with this exception, we had little trouble for some time.
Ben Lomond is a doubly-formed mountain. For about three-fourths of the way there is a continued ascent, when it is suddenly terminated by a large barren plain, from one end of which the summit shoots up abruptly, forming at the north side a precipice five hundred feet high. As we approached the summit of the first part of the mountain the way became very steep and toilsome, but the prospect, which had before been only on the south side, began to open on the east, and we saw suddenly spread out below us the vale of Monteith, with "far Loch Ard and Aberfoil" in the center and the huge front of Ben Venue filling up the picture. Taking courage from this, we hurried on. The heather had become stunted and dwarfish, and the ground was covered with short brown grass. The mountain-sheep which we saw looking at us from the rock above had worn so many paths along the side that we could not tell which to take, but pushed on in the direction of the summit, till, thinking it must be near at hand, we found a mile and a half of plain before us, with the top of Ben Lomond at the farther end. The plain was full of wet moss crossed in all directions by deep ravines or gullies worn in it by the mountain-rains, and the wind swept across with a tempest-like force.
I met near the base a young gentleman from Edinburgh who had left Rowardennan before us, and we commenced ascending together. It was hard work, but neither liked to stop; so we climbed up to the first resting-place, and found the path leading along the brink of a precipice. We soon attained the summit, and, climbing up a little mound of earth and stones, I saw the half of Scotland at a glance. The clouds hung just above the mountain-tops, which rose all around like the waves of a mightly sea. On every side, near and far, stood their misty summits, but Ben Lomond was the monarch of them all. Loch Lomond lay unrolled under my feet like a beautiful map; just opposite, Loch Long thrust its head from between the feet of crowded hills to catch a glimpse of the giant. We could see from Ben Nevis to Ayr—from Edinburgh to Staffa. Stirling and Edinburgh castles would have been visible but that the clouds hung low in the valley of the Forth and hid them from our sight.
… At a cottage on the farm of Coman, we procured some oatcakes and milk for dinner from an old Scotch woman who pointed out the direction of Loch Katrine, six miles distant; there was no road, nor, indeed, a solitary dwelling between. The hills were bare of trees, covered with scraggy bushes and rough heath, which in some places was so thick we could scarcely drag our feet through. Added to this, the ground was covered with a kind of moss that retained the moisture like a sponge; so that our boots ere long became thoroughly soaked. Several considerable streams were rushing down the side, and many of the wild breed of black Highland cattle were grazing around. After climbing up and down one or two heights, occasionally startling the moorcock and ptarmigan from their heathery coverts, we saw the valley of Loch Con, while in the middle of the plain on the top of the mountain we had ascended was a sheet of water which we took to be Loch Ackill. Two or three wild-fowl swimming on its surface were the only living things in sight. The peaks around shut it out from all view of the world; a single decayed tree leaned over it from a mossy rock which gave the whole scene an air of the most desolate wildness.
From the next mountain we saw Loch Ackill and Loch Katrine below, but a wet and weary descent had yet to be made. I was about throwing off my knapsack on a rock to take a sketch of Loch Katrine, which appeared to be very beautiful from this point, when we discerned a cavalcade of ponies winding along the path from Inversnaid to the head of the lake, and hastened down to take the boat when they should arrive…. As we drew near the eastern end of the lake the scenery became far more beautiful. The Trosachs opened before us. Ben Ledi looked down over the "forehead bare" of Ben An, and as we turned a rocky point Ellen's Isle rose up in front. It is a beautiful little turquoise in the silver setting of Loch Katrine. The northern side alone is accessible, all the others being rocky and perpendicular and thickly grown with trees. We rounded the island to the little bay, bordered by the silver strand, above which is the rock from which Fitz-James wound his horn, and shot under an ancient oak which flung its long gray arms over the water. We here found a flight of rocky steps leading to the top, where stood the bower erected by Lady Willoughby D'Eresby to correspond with Scott's description. Two or three blackened beams are all that remain of it, having been burned down some years ago by the carelessness of a traveler.
The mountains stand all around, like giants, to "sentinel this enchantedland." On leaving the island we saw the Goblin's Cave in the side of BenVenue, called by the Gaels "Coiran-Uriskin." Near it is Beal-nam-bo—the"Pass of Cattle"—overhung with gray weeping birch-trees.
Here the boatmen stopt to let us hear the fine echo, and the names of Rob Roy and Roderick Dhu were sent back to us apparently as loud as they were given. The description of Scott is wonderfully exact, tho the forest that feathered o'er the sides of Ben Venue has since been cut down and sold by the Duke of Montrose.
When we reached the end of the lake, it commenced raining, and we hastened on through the pass of Beal-an-Duine, scarcely taking time to glance at the scenery, till Loch Achray appeared through the trees, and on its banks the ivy-grown front of the inn of Ardcheancrochan—with its unpronounceable name.
TO THE HEBRIDES [Footnote: From "A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D."]
My acquaintance, the Reverend Mr. John Macauley, one of the ministers of Inverary, and brother to our good friend at Calder, came to us this morning, and accompanied us to the castle, where I presented Dr. Johnson to the Duke of Argyle. We were shown through the house; and I never shall forget the impression made upon my fancy by some of the ladies' maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. After seeing for a long time little but rusticity, their lively manner, and gay, inviting appearance, pleased me so much, that I thought for the moment, I could have been a knight-errant for them.
We then got into a low one-horse chair, ordered for us by the duke, in which we drove about the place. Dr. Johnson was much struck by the grandeur and elegance of this princely seat. He thought, however, the castle too low, and wished it had been a story higher. He said, "What I admire here, is the total defiance of expense." I had a particular pride in showing him a great number of fine old trees, to compensate for the nakedness which had made such an impression on him on the eastern coast of Scotland.
When we came in, before dinner, we found the duke and some gentlemen in the hall. Dr. Johnson took much notice of the large collection of arms, which are excellently disposed there. I told what he had said to Sir Alexander Macdonald, of his ancestors not suffering their arms to rust. "Well," said the doctor, "but let us be glad we live in times when arms may rust. We can sit to-day at his grace's table without any risk of being attacked, and perhaps sitting down again wounded or maimed." The duke placed Dr. Johnson next himself at the table. I was in fine spirits, and tho sensible that I had the misfortune of not being in favor with the duchess I was not in the least disconcerted, and offered her grace some of the dish that was before me. It must be owned that I was in the right to be quite unconcerned, if I could. I was the Duke of Argyle's guest, and I had no reason to suppose that he adopted the prejudices and resentments of the Duchess of Hamilton….