Volume I Part 13 (2/2)
This old bridge has a prophecy connected with it, which was repeated to us, and you shall have it literatim:--
”Brig of Balgounie, black's your wa', Wi' a wife's ae son, and a mare's a foal, Doon ye shall fa'!”
The bridge was built in the time of Robert Bruce, by one Bishop Cheyne, of whom all that I know is, that he evidently had a good eye for the picturesque.
After this we went to visit King's College. The tower of it is surmounted by a ma.s.sive stone crown, which forms a very singular feature in every view of Aberdeen, and is said to be a perfectly unique specimen of architecture. This King's College is very old, being founded also by a bishop, as far back as the fifteenth century. It has an exquisitely carved roof, and carved oaken seats. We went through the library, the hall, and the museum. Certainly, the old, dark architecture of these universities must tend to form a different style of mind from our plain matter-of-fact college buildings.
Here in Aberdeen is the veritable Marischal College, so often quoted by Dugald Dalgetty. We had not time to go and see it, but I can a.s.sure you on the authority of the guide book, that it is a magnificent specimen of architecture.
After this, that we might not neglect the present in our zeal for the past, we went to the marble yards, where they work the Aberdeen granite.
This granite, of which we have many specimens in America, is of two kinds, one being gray, the other of a reddish hue. It seems to differ from other granite in the fineness and closeness of its grain, which enables it to receive the most brilliant conceivable polish. I saw some superb columns of the red species, which were preparing to go over the Baltic to Riga, for an Exchange; and a sepulchral monument, which was going to New York. All was busy here, sawing, chipping, polis.h.i.+ng; as different a scene from the gray old cathedral as could be imagined. The granite finds its way, I suppose, to countries which the old, unsophisticated abbots never dreamed of.
One of the friends who had accompanied us during the morning tour was the celebrated architect, Mr. Leslie, whose conversation gave us all much enjoyment. He and Mrs. Leslie gave me a most invaluable parting present, to wit, four volumes of engravings, representing the ”Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland,” ill.u.s.trated by Billings. I cannot tell you what a mine of pleasure it has been to me. It is a proof edition, and the engravings are so vivid, and the drawing so fine, that it is nearly as good as reality. It might almost save one the trouble of a pilgrimage. I consider the book a kind of national poem; for architecture is, in its nature, poetry; especially in these old countries, where it weaves into itself a nation's history, and gives literally the image and body of the times.
LETTER VII.
DEAR COUSIN:--
While here in Aberdeen I received a very odd letter, so peculiar and curious that I will give you the benefit of it. The author appears to be, in his way, a kind of Christopher in his cave, or Timon of Athens. I omit some parts which are more expressive than agreeable. It is dated
”STONEHAVEN, N.B., Kincardines.h.i.+re, } 57 N.W. This 21st April, 1853. }
”To MRS. HARRIET B. STOWE:--
”My dear Madam: By the time that this gets your length, the fouk o'
Aberdeen will be shewin ye off as a rare animal, just arrived frae America; the wife that writ Uncle Tom's Cabin.
”I wad like to see ye mysel, but I canna win for want o' siller, and as I thought ye might be writin a buke about the Scotch when ye get hame, I hae just sent ye this bit auld key to Sawney's Cabin.
”Well then, dinna forget to speer at the Aberdeenians if it be true they ance kidnappet little laddies, and selt them for slaves; that they dang down the Quaker's kirkyard d.y.k.e, and houket up dead Quakers out o' their graves; that the young boys at the college printed a buke, and maist naebody wad buy it, and they cam out to Ury, near Stonehaven, and took twelve stots frae Davie Barclay to pay the printer.
”Dinna forget to speer at ----, if it was true that he flogget three laddies in the beginning o' last year, for the three following crimes: first, for the crime of being born of puir, ignorant parents; second, for the crime of being left in ignorance; and, third, for the crime of having nothing to eat.
”Dinna be telling when ye gang hame that ye rode on the Aberdeen railway, made by a hundred men, who were all in the Stonehaven prison for drunkenness; nor above five could sign their names.
”If the Scotch kill ye with ower feeding and making speeches, be sure to send this hame to tell your fouk, that it was Queen Elizabeth who made the first European law to buy and sell human beings like brute beasts. She was England's glory as a Protestant, and Scotland's shame as the murderer of their bonnie Mary. The auld hag skulked away like a coward in the hour of death. Mary, on the other hand, with calmness and dignity, repeated a Latin prayer to the Great Spirit and Author of her being, and calmly resigned herself into the hands of her murderers.
”In the capital of her ancient kingdom, when ye are in our country, there are eight hundred women, sent to prison every year for the first time. Of fifteen thousand prisoners examined in Scotland in the year 1845, eight thousand could not write at all, and three thousand could not read.
”At present there are about twenty thousand prisoners in Scotland.
In Stonehaven they are fed at about seventeen pounds each, annually. The honest poor, outside the prison upon the parish roll, are fed at the rate of five farthings a day, or two pounds a year.
The employment of the prisoners is grinding the wind, we ca' it; turning the crank, in plain English. The latest improvement is the streekin board; it's a whig improvement o' Lord Jonnie Russell's.
”I ken brawly ye are a curious wife, and would like to ken a' about the Scotch bodies. Weel, they are a gay, ignorant, proud, drunken pack; they manage to pay ilka year for whuskey one million three hundred and forty-eight thousand pounds.
<script>