The Spell of Scotland

s Castle, built in 1500, where the room is shown in which Duncan was murdered in 1000, although Shakespeare says it was at Inverness; and to Kirriemuir, if

IS C

century after Killiecrankie. For here in a last splendid moment, Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount of Dundee, and sometime Bonnie Dundee, was killed, the battle having gone gloriously his way,

ame? I cannot make them seem the same. To me there are two of them: Graham of Claverhouse, whom I hate, and the Bonnie Dund

nce, the trees thick green on both sides the bending Garry, and not a living thing in view, nothing which belongs to the Duke

ral I did not claim any memory b

Westport and l

enhearteningly like usquebaugh-I think my courage would have been great enough to do the thing I had crossed over seas to do-to walk from Blair Athole throug

was to lie all night in the fields, or to walk upon the causeway with a jack and a knapschall (helmet), a Glasgow buckler, and a broadsword." Her father's errant soul was hers. And once she ventured it, but in fear of her life, when she fled from the wraith of Darnley, to the

N T

as Kansas. It is thirty miles, the mountain way. There is no inn. There is possibility-there is danger-of losin

empty. And I suppose since Pictish time this glen has been deserted. There were deer, red deer, that thought they were free, and who looked out of their coverts indifferently. We had not the heart to tell them that they belonged, body and soul, to the Duke of Atholl. After the Porteous riots, Queen Caroline, presiding in the p

rly losing the train, because we were so engrossed in watching the loading of the luggage, the Scotch porter cheering on his assistant, "

ls above the town a bird of magic such as I have never heard else

its dashing splendour of a coach and six-except that it was not a thirty-mile walk. But it is to be historically remembered, be

ls I have ever seen, so does the ripened heather dye the distances more deeply. There were rocky glens, great loneliness, a mansion here and there only just on leaving Blairgowrie, Tullyveolan, of course; scarce a cottage even on the roadside; once a flock of sheep, near the Spittal

ye that auld

ght gowd wad y

th ends o' my gre

our hame be in

t gowd in your gr

niffer my cr

, a tremendous and dangerous turn in the road, every one dismounts from the coach, and the s

CAULD

ae

pend more money at the Fife Arms or the Invercauld than any but royalty has a

ut as the coach flashes

lived in the summer of 1881,

to be ho

ere that Malcolm Canmore instituted the Highland Gathering which persists to this day. And here, under cover of the hunt, s

een to the Prince who came rather to establish his father than himself, the Fifteen seemed like yesterday. In this remote high corner of the world anything is possible, even the oblivion of time. It seemed very

rd on the b

streamin

ing pipe o

ng loud a

dmen frae h

hue, wi' bo

aids and burn

ng late

join our n

ond and G

Murray, R

and gall

men, Clanr

men, Macgi

's men, the

nder and

t to any Sandy or "Mac" he might legally carry. Having been informed by him that our name was Lowland and we were entitled to none of the thrills of the Highlands, we failed to mount farther than the third stage of the Morrone Hill. The

t in this fashion. We were content to master, almost master, its pronunciation according to the pure Gaelic-Muich Dhui. And then we lear

measured in particular Scottish accuracy-we timed ourselves to a second and found we could measure the miles by the numbers of our breaths. The forest is thick and bosky, not an original forest, doubtless. But I was reminded that Taylor, on his Pennyless Pilgrimage came to Braemar three hundred years ago, and wrote "as many fir trees

that royalty, or at least ladies-in-waiting-if Duke's w

with a sense of possession of the greater Dee, "we like to see what the Dee can do." Surely it can do it. In these rock walls it has spent centuries carving for

e wind was cold, the minstrel was infirm and old. Had we walked all the mountain way we

a Charlie is coming to me," and "Will ye no come back again." And we sang with particular satisfaction that we were not, after all, t

am' on, the t

the hills

't that your

should be

m in a High

r'd him bu

eneath a bu

e for Princ

RAL C

s, the Prince made his adventure-yes, and simply because of that adven

and, which shall have its Home Rule like Ireland-which was once Scotland-and which may have it at the great peace; down through an increasingly pleasant country. Balmoral Castle looks deserted now of its queen-and when queens desert, places

ung footsteps in

bonnet, my cloa

ong perished my

e through the pi

home till the

e rays of the br

cheer'd by tra

e natives of da

eth then slew they there in the wood of

er

sonality, than Aberdeen. It is plainly a self-sufficient city, and both in politics and in r

neteen miles from the city at Harlow, and sad to say, he was killed. So now the provost remai

olicism running across the country, from Aberdeen to Skye, through the heart of the Highlands. As might be

HAL CO

ty. After a rain its granite glitters as though it had been newly cut, and to one accustomed to smoke-grimed American cities

ving walked a day through a circumscribed portion of that Spanish granite, I chose to limit my footsteps in Marischal college. Only to verify the

half

say

tham

e, if not on every tree, on every lintel and over every fireplace; from Nemo

ince Mr. Carnegie gave them his benefaction, education is free in this University of Aberdeen. King's College, if not the next greatest granite pile, has a ston

, was refounded by the saint who was David I-of course; what a busy saint this was-and

ook strange and foreign; also they treat you, a foreigner, with all that curiosity, and something of that disrespect which you, of course, deserve, having interloped into their sanctuary. The Duke of Cumberland live

h George Gordon, Lord Byron, lived in his school d

yne' brings Scot

snoods, the blue hil

, Balgownie's Br

elings, all m

reamt, clothed i

ffspring;-float

n this childis

a glimpse of '

rom 1320, crosses the Don, and Byron steadfastly avoided it, lest he, a single son, might b

asked again, and again. Finally, not ears but intuition told me. It was a Scandinavian-Gaelic-English. I remembered that in Edinburgh I had once asked a policeman the way, and hearing his reply I turned to my friend-"Wouldn't you think you were in Minneapolis?" For especially in Aberdeen you are looking to

oway, to

way o'er

daughter

maun bring

tragedy of that f

miles off

ty fatho

es gude Sir

ts lords at

way down to the shore, but Aberdeen is a sea-port, and docks inste

rocks by

histlin' wa

dered an

ee

is a truly marvelous monstrous place, I s

nd increasingly by the waves, than this east coast. Neither Biarritz nor Brittany nor Nova

oming up in the night from London and had to hold my breath until we passed these swift fish trains which have the

not

down the coast, King James had sailed after the failure of the Fifteen. Fishing vessels lay idly in the narrow harbour, their tall masts no doubt come "frae Norroway

ily since time and the coast began, against which it moans and whines at low tide, an

TTAR

would make impression on this great red crag. I know they would; after Liege and Namur o

iles over level country, and then, sudd

ry bed where once may have hung a draw bridge, and, entering through a portcullis, it climbs to the castle, through a winding, tortuous way, sometimes a climb, sometimes a fli

s three a

s must be sanctuary they took the high places; otherwise why should one l

s excommunicated by the Bishop of St. Andrew's-who did not anticipate the Lords of the Congregation and the Covenanters. Sir William appeal

pe Wallace. Nothing daunted, Wallace scaled the cliff, entered a window-the proof is t

it, and Montro

e keeping the regalia of Scotland. The castle was besieged by those who had killed their king and would destroy the king's insignia. If the castle should fall the very symbol of th

returning to Kinneff five miles down the sea. When Mrs. Grainger left the castle she carried with her the crown of Scotland. Sitting on her horse she made her way through the besieging lines, and her maid followed with the scepter of Scotland and the sword in a bag

re, and the Lady sent forth the rumour that Sir John had carried the regalia to the King o'er the water, to Charles II at Paris. It was

lt" there lodged one hundred and sixty-seven Covenanters as prisoners, and they lodged badly. Many died, a few escaped, the rest were sold as slaves. Coming on ship to New Jersey as the property of Scott of Pitlochry, Scott

where "Old Mortality" was working when Scott came upon him. The stone c

l, speak a varied existence. There is a watch tower, a keep, rising forty sheer feet above the high rock, with ascent by a winding stair, somewhat perilous after the centuries; but from the Watchman's seat what a pro

ea, and that looks far over the North Sea; that sea which is more mysterious to me and more lovely than the Mediterranean; I have seen it a beautiful intense Italian blue, with an Italian sky above it. I h

laster still clings to the walls in places, and there is a fireplace where still one could light a fire against the chill of the North. The date above is 1645, when Charles was still king, and there was no threat of disloyalty. The

in wit and wisdom to Voltaire. And no doubt here sat his mother, loyal Jacobite, steadfast Catholic, sending her two sons forth to battle for the lost cause of the Ste

in my wee

and the reel

on the day t

sab till I

was a good

as an earl'

be Lady K

king comes o'