Volume I Part 11 (1/2)
”There,” said Mr. S., as we stood on the banks of the Clyde, now lying flushed and tranquil in the light of the setting sun, ”over there is Ayrs.h.i.+re.”
”Ayrs.h.i.+re!” I said; ”what, where Burns lived?”
”Yes, there is his cottage, far down to the south, and out of sight, of course; and there are the bonny banks of Ayr.”
It seemed as if the evening air brought a kind of sigh with it. Poor Burns! how inseparably he has woven himself with the warp and woof of every Scottish a.s.sociation!
We saw a great many children of the poor out playing--rosy, fine little urchins, worth, any one of them, a dozen bleached, hothouse flowers. We stopped to hear them talk, and it was amusing to hear the Scotch of Walter Scott and Burns shouted out with such a right good will. We were as much struck by it as an honest Yankee was in Paris by the proficiency of the children in speaking French.
The next day we bade farewell to Glasgow, overwhelmed with kindness to the last, and only oppressed by the thought, how little that was satisfactory we were able to give in return.
Again in the railroad car on our way to Edinburgh. A pleasant two hours'
trip is this from Glasgow to Edinburgh. When the cars stopped at Linlithgow station, the name started us as out of a dream.
There, sure enough, before our eyes, on a gentle eminence stood the mouldering ruins of which Scott has sung:--
”Of all the palaces so fair, Built for the royal dwelling, In Scotland, far beyond compare Linlithgow is excelling; And in its park in genial June, How sweet the merry linnet's tune, How blithe the blackbird's lay!
The wild buck's bells from th.o.r.n.y brake.
The coot dives merry on the lake,-- The saddest heart might pleasure take, To see a scene so gay.”
Here was born that woman whose beauty and whose name are set in the strong, rough Scotch heart, as a diamond in granite. Poor Mary! When her father, who lay on his death bed at that time in Falkland, was told of her birth, he answered, ”Is it so? Then G.o.d's will be done! It [the kingdom] came with a la.s.s, and it will go with a la.s.s!” With these words he turned his face to the wall, and died of a broken heart. Certainly, some people appear to be born under an evil destiny.
Here, too, in Linlithgow church, tradition says that James IV. was warned, by a strange apparition, against that expedition to England which cost him his life. Scott has worked this incident up into a beautiful description, in the fourth canto of Marmion.
The castle has a very sad and romantic appearance, standing there all alone as it does, looking down into the quiet lake. It is said that the internal architectural decorations are exceedingly rich and beautiful, and a resemblance has been traced between its style of ornament and that of Heidelberg Castle, which has been accounted for by the fact that the Princess Elizabeth, who was the sovereign lady of Heidelberg, spent many of the earlier years of her life in this place.
Not far from here we caught a glimpse of the ruins of Niddrie Castle, where Mary spent the first night after her escape from Lochleven.
The Avon here at Linlithgow is spanned by a viaduct, which is a fine work of art. It has twenty-five arches, which are from seventy to eighty feet high and fifty wide.
As the cars neared Edinburgh we all exclaimed at its beauty, so worthily commemorated by Scott:--
”Such dusky grandeur clothes the height, Where the huge castle holds its state, And all the steeps slope down, Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky, Piled deep and ma.s.sy, close and high, Mine own romantic town!”
Edinburgh has had an effect on the literary history of the world for the last fifty years, that cannot be forgotten by any one approaching her.
The air seemed to be full of spirits of those who, no longer living, have woven a part of the thread of our existence. I do not know that the shortness of human life ever so oppressed me as it did on coming near to the city.
At the station house the cars stopped amid a crowd of people, who had a.s.sembled to meet us. The lord provost met us at the door of the car, and presented us to the magistracy of the city, and the committees of the Edinburgh antislavery societies. The drab dresses and pure white bonnets of many Friends were conspicuous among the dense moving crowd, as white doves seen against a dark cloud. Mr. S. and myself, and our future hostess, Mrs. Wigham, entered the carriage with the lord provost, and away we drove, the crowd following with their shouts and cheers. I was inexpressibly touched and affected by this. While we were pa.s.sing the monument of Scott, I felt an oppressive melancholy. What a moment life seems in the presence of the n.o.ble dead! What a momentary thing is art, in all its beauty! Where are all those great souls that have created such an atmosphere of light about Edinburgh? and how little a s.p.a.ce was given them to live and to enjoy!
We drove all over Edinburgh, up to the castle, to the university, to Holyrood, to the hospitals, and through many of the princ.i.p.al streets, amid shouts, and smiles, and greetings. Some boys amused me very much by their pertinacious attempts to keep up with the carriage.
”Heck,” says one of them, ”that's _her_; see the _courls_.”
The various engravers, who have amused themselves by diversifying my face for the public, having all, with great unanimity, agreed in giving prominence to this point, I suppose the urchins thought they were on safe ground there. I certainly think I answered one good purpose that day, and that is, of giving the much oppressed and calumniated cla.s.s, called boys, an opportunity to develop all the noise that was in them--a thing for which I think they must bless me in their remembrances.
At last the carriage drove into a deep gravelled yard, and we alighted at a porch covered with green ivy, and found ourselves once more at home.
LETTER VI.