Friend Mac Donald Part 27

A gentleman in kilts would make as great a sensation in the streets of Edinburgh as he would on the Boulevard des Italiens. Nay, more, if he stood still, he might have pence offered him.

The costume of _d.i.c.kson_ in _La Dame Blanche_ is only seen on the backs of those splendid Highlanders whom the maidservants in large towns hire by the afternoon on Sundays to accompany them to the parks.

In London you will sometimes see Highlanders--from Whitechapel--playing the bagpipes and dancing reels, talents which bring an ample harvest of pennies in populous neighbourhoods, but which would fall rather flat in Edinburgh.

I cannot imagine anything much more picturesque than Princes Street at night, when the old city in amphitheatre-shape, on the other side of the valley, stands out from the sky which it seems to touch with its old sombre majestic castle, and its houses ten or twelve stories high, rising tier above tier up the side of the hill, and s.h.i.+ning with a thousand lights. I can understand that the inhabitants of Edinburgh enjoy to come out in the evening and feast their eyes on the enchanting sight, and this even in winter, when the street is a very funnel for the east wind which blows across straight from the Scandinavian icebergs.

Edinburgh is the only town in Great Britain, which I have visited, whose streets are not shunned by respectable people at night.

A fine road about two miles long leads to Leith, which stands for Piraeus to the Scotch Athens. There, in the mud and smoke, dwells a population of sixty thousand toil-stained folk, who contrast strongly with their elegant neighbours of Edinburgh. There is nothing here to attract the eye of the traveller, unless it be the harbour with its two piers--one 3,530, the other 3,123 feet long--where the inhabitants can go and breathe the sea air, away from the noise and smoke of the town.

Along the coast to the west, two miles from Leith, we come upon the interesting village of Newhaven. Here we find a little world apart, composed of fisherfolk, all related one to another, it is said. They treat as Philistines all who did not first see the light in their sanctuary, and the result is that they are constantly intermarrying. All the men work at fis.h.i.+ng. The women go to Edinburgh to sell what their husbands catch, and bring back empty baskets and full pockets. These worthy women would think they were robbing their dear village if they bought the least thing in Edinburgh. Needless to say, the little community prospers. To see the costume of the women, who, in no point imitate the ridiculous get-up of their sisters in great towns; to see the activity and zeal for their work, one would believe oneself in France.

"All the skippers own their own boats, and the pretty little houses they live in," said the Scotchman who accompanied me.

And how neat and clean they look, those little white houses covered with climbing plants of all sorts! The whole scene speaks loudly of the work, thrift, and order of the people.

By pus.h.i.+ng on two miles further we come to Granton. There we can take the boat which will carry us over the Firth of Forth, and set us down at Burntisland in Fifes.h.i.+re; but instead of there taking the train to the north of Scotland, we will stop to see Rossend Castle.

Standing on a promontory, which dominates the Firth of Forth and the hills of Edinburgh, Rossend Castle is one of the most romantic places in Scotland.

Its old square tower contains the bedroom used by Mary Stuart when she travelled in Fifes.h.i.+re, and stopped at the castle. The present owner, whose hospitality is proverbial in the neighbourhood, has religiously preserved the room intact. It is there just as it existed three hundred years ago, with its two little turret-rooms, oak wainscoting, and a thousand relics of its unhappy visitor.

The portrait of Mary Stuart at Rossend is the most striking that I saw in Scotland. Placed over the mantelpiece, it seems to fill the room with its dreamy melancholy gaze. It seems to follow you, and you cannot take your eyes off it. I occupied this room for four nights, a prey to the saddest thoughts. It was in the month of January, and the wind, which was blowing hard across the Firth, roared round the tower. With my feet before the fire, which burned in the immense fireplace, I let my fancy reconstruct the scene in which poor Chastelard lost his head, first figuratively, and then in reality.

As I mentioned in the preceding chapter, my young and handsome countryman Pierre de Boscosel de Chastelard had conceived a mad pa.s.sion for the queen. He had dared to declare this love in the Holyrood Palace.

His offence was forgiven.

Imagining, from the fact of his having been pardoned, that he had succeeded in inspiring affection in the heart of his royal mistress, the poor moth must needs flutter again around the flame, which was to be his destruction. The romantic troubadour secretly followed the queen from Edinburgh to Rossend Castle, and, on the night of the 14th of February, 1562, hid himself in her chamber, until she was almost undressed for the night, when he left his hiding-place, and, seizing the queen in his arms, so alarmed her, that she screamed for protection. This woman who, to avenge Rizzio's death, did not hesitate to have a barrel of powder placed under her husband's bed, felt herself insulted. Her cries attracted her attendants, and Murray was ordered by the indignant queen to stab the young madman dead then and there. But Murray preferred to wreak his wrath on Chastelard, whom he hated, by having him hanged. The poor secretary, who had been so favoured by his mistress that all the courtiers were jealous of him, who had so often beguiled her solitude by his poems and his music, went cheerfully to the scaffold. Like Cornelius de Witt, who, a century later, recited Horace's _Justum et tenacem_ while the executioner of The Hague put him to the torture, Chastelard mounted the scaffold calm and smiling, reciting Rousard's _Ode to Love_.

"I die not without reproach, like my ancestor Bayard," said he; "but, like him, I die without fear."

And then, turning his eyes towards the castle inhabited by Mary Stuart, he cried:

"Adieu, thou cruel but beautiful one, who killest me, but whom I cannot cease to love!"

Rossend Castle is a veritable poem in stone. Do not visit Edinburgh without pus.h.i.+ng to Burntisland. The _chatelain_ is justly proud of his romantic home, and does the honours of it with a kind grace that charms the visitor.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Aberdeen, the Granite City. -- No sign of the Statue of "you know whom." -- All Grey. -- The Town and its Suburbs. -- Character of the Aberdonian. -- Why London could not give an Ovation to a Provost of Aberdeen. -- Blue Hill. -- Aberdeen Society. -- A thoughtful Caretaker. -- To this Aberdonian's Disappointment, I do not appear in Tights before the Aberdeen Public.

It does not enter into the plan of this book to give a detailed description of the princ.i.p.al towns and sites in Scotland. That can be found in any guide-book.

The aim of this little volume is to give an idea of the character and customs of the Scotch, from _Souvenirs_ of several visits made by the author to the land of Burns and Scott.

But a few words must be said on the subject of the City of Granite.

Aberdeen is a large, clean-looking town, with more than a hundred thousand inhabitants; wide, regular streets, fine edifices, and many statues, among which we are happy, for a change, not to find that of _you know whom_.

If Glasgow and Dundee are the princ.i.p.al centres of commercial activity in Scotland, Edinburgh and Aberdeen are the two great centres of learning.

Union Street, the princ.i.p.al thoroughfare, is about half-a-mile long, and is built entirely of light grey granite, which gives it a rather monotonous aspect. Public buildings, churches, private houses, pavements, all are grey; the inhabitants are mostly dressed in grey, and look where you will, you seem to see nothing but grey.

Just as it is in London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, the fas.h.i.+onable quarter is the west, and the poor live in the east.

Is this due to chance?

The most conspicuous edifice of the town is the Munic.i.p.al Building, forming a town hall and a court of justice. The most interesting is Marischal College, the home of the Faculty and School of Medicine, which now form part of the University of Aberdeen, after having had a separate existence for two hundred and sixty-six years. The college is a very fine building, but is unfortunately hemmed in by a number of other buildings which hide its _facade_.

A mile from the town stands the college of the university (King's College), built in 1495 on the model of the Paris university. Most of the Scotch buildings, which date from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, have a very p.r.o.nounced French character.

I would advise tourists, who go as far north as Aberdeen, not to miss making the ascension of the Blue Hill, which is about four miles from the town. From the summit of this hill, they will see a delightful panorama of Aberdeen, a stretch of fifty or sixty miles of coast, the ruins of the celebrated castle of Dunnottar, and all the valley of the Dee framed in hills. It is a grand sight; unfortunately, to thoroughly bring out its beauties, a clear sky is essential, and there comes the rub.

The county of Aberdeen is not only one of the great intellectual centres of Scotland, it is the home of Caledonian shrewdness and pawkiness.

Aberdeens.h.i.+re alone furnished more than half the anecdotes collected by Dean Ramsay.

The Aberdonians are the chosen people, the elect of G.o.d.

Every Scot is proud of his nationality, but an Aberdonian will tell you: "Not only am I a Scotchman, but I was born in Aberdeen."

And true enough, "tak' awa' Aberdeen, and twal' miles round, and faar are ye?"

It is related that a provost of Aberdeen, having come to London with his wife, someone recommended the lady to be sure and go to Covent Garden to see the opera.

"No," she replied, "we have come to London to be quiet and not to receive ovations. We shall not show ourselves in public during our stay in the capital."

Her resolution was adhered to, and London saw them not.

For the future life, the Aberdonian has no fears, and if he will only recommend you to Saint Peter, you will not have to wait long at the gates of Paradise.

Society in Aberdeen is of the choicest. Its aristocracy is an aristocracy of talent. In Aberdeen, as in Edinburgh, the local lions are the professors of the university, literary people, doctors, barristers, and artists. To cut a figure there, you need not jingle your guineas, but only show your brains and good manners. In Glasgow, show your _savoir-faire_; but, in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, your _savoir-vivre_.

I cannot quit the subject of Aberdeen without relating a little incident which exceedingly diverted me.

A few hours before delivering a lecture at the Albert Hall, I paid a visit to the place to see if my reading-desk had been properly arranged.

Great was my surprise, on entering the hall, to see near the platform an elegant improvised green-room, curtained off. I asked the caretaker if there was not a retiring-room, in which I could await the moment for beginning my lecture, to which he replied: