Over the Ocean Part 7

No tourist will think of leaving Stirling without taking a ride to the field of Bannockburn, a short distance. The scene of a battle which occurred more than five hundred and fifty years ago cannot be expected to preserve many features of its former character; the only one which is of particular interest is the "Bore Stone," a fragment of rock with a small cavity, in which the Scottish standard is said to have been raised; it is clamped all over with iron bars, to prevent relic-hunters from carrying what remains of it away.

The story of the battle is one of the most familiar ones in Scottish history to both young and old readers, and your guide will indicate to you points where the Scotch and English forces were disposed, where the concealed pits were placed into which plunged so many of the English cavalry, the point where Bruce stood to watch the battle, nay, the very place where

"The monarch rode along the van, The foe's approaching force to scan,"

when Sir Henry Boune, thinking, as the Bruce was mounted on a slight palfrey, far in advance of his own line, to ride him down with his heavy war horse, set his lance in rest, and dashed out from the English lines with that intent.

"He spurred his steed, he couched his lance, And darted on the Bruce at once,"

thinking to distinguish himself and have his name in history. He did so, but not in the manner, probably, he had antic.i.p.ated; for

"While on the king, like flash of flame, Spurred to full speed, the war horse came!

But swerving from the knight's career, Just as they met, Bruce shunned the spear.

High in his stirrups stood the king, And gave his battle-axe the swing; Such strength upon the blow was put, The helmet cracked like hazel-nut;"

and so began the battle of Bannockburn, which ended in the defeat of one hundred thousand English by thirty thousand Scots, raising Bruce from a hunted rebel to the rank of an independent sovereign. It was the most important battle the Scots ever won, and the most severe defeat the English ever experienced in Scotland.

Another pleasant little excursion was a walk to Cambuskenneth Abbey, crossing the River Forth by an old ferry, where we had to hail the ferry-man from the other side. We did not have to say,--

"Boatman, do not tarry!

And I'll give thee a silver pound To row us o'er the ferry,"--

for the old fellow came over, rowed three of us across, and demanded _three half-pence_ for the service; so we were liberal, and gave him double fare. The only part of the abbey remaining is a Gothic tower, and a few remnants of walls, and the foundation lines of nave and transept, which are visible. A few years ago, when some excavations were being made here, the site of the high altar was found, and beneath it the supposed coffin and skeleton of James III. They were re-interred, and a handsome square sarcophagus marks the spot, bearing an inscription, which tells the visitor that Queen Victoria erected it in 1861, in memory of her ancestors.

While at Stirling we had the opportunity of seeing a real Highland regiment, who were quartered there, in their picturesque, unmilitary dress,--kilt, bare legs, plaid stockings, crown of feathers, &c.,--a most uncomfortable and inconvenient dress for service in the field, I should imagine. I also had an opportunity of hearing native Scotch songs, sung by a Scotch minstrel, as I never heard them sung before. It was a still, quiet moonlight night, in one of the streets, and the wandering minstrel accompanied himself on a violin. I never heard ballad-singing better or more effectively rendered. The singer's voice was a pure, flexible tenor, and as he sung, "Flow gently, sweet Afton,"

there was hardly a finger moved in the crowd that stood about him; but when he gave a pathetic Scotch ballad, in which the tear was in his voice, he brought it into the eye of more than one of his auditors; and the hearty manner in which many a poor, ragged fellow crowded up to give him a ha'penny at the close, showed how deeply they were touched, and how grateful they felt towards one who could interpret their national melodies so well.

From Stirling we will make a detour through that charming scenery of Scotland which Scott so frequently mentions in his Lady of the Lake, especially in the ride of Fitz-James after the stag, which at eve had "drunk his fill,"

"Where danced the moon on Monan's rill."

But first an unromantic railroad ride of sixteen miles must be taken; and not unromantic, either, for there are many pleasant spots and points of historic interest on the route,--the Bridge of Allan, a pleasant village, which is a popular watering-place not far from Stirling, being one;--through Donne,

"The bannered towers of Donne,"

and on by the rippling stream of the River Forth.

"They bathe their coursers' sweltering sides, Dark Forth, within thy sluggish tides."

And we might go on with half the poem in the same manner, such is the charm which Scott's poetry has lent to this part of the country.

At the rugged-looking little stone-built town of Callander we left the train, and climbed into a sort of open wagon stagecoach, similar to those sometimes used at the White Mountains, which held sixteen of us, and had a spanking team driven by an expert English "whip;" and we were whirled away, for a ride of twenty miles or more, through the lake country and "the Trossachs" to Loch Katrine. The word "trossachs," I was told by a communicative Scotchman, signified "bristles," and the name was suggested by the species of coa.r.s.e furze which abounds in the pa.s.ses of this rough and hilly country. The wild mountain scenery reminded me often of our own White Mountains; and the reaches of view, though giving pretty landscape scenes, showed a country rather sterile for the husbandman--better to shoot over than plough over.

At last we reached a little sort of hollow in the hills, where Lake Vennachar narrows down to the River Teith, and came to where the stream swept round a little gra.s.sy point of land; and here our coach stopped a moment for us to look,--

"For this is Coilantogle Ford,"--

which, it will be recollected, was

"Far past Clan Alpine's outmost guard,"

and the scene of the combat between Fitz-James and Roderic Dhu. "And there," said an old Scotchman, pointing to the little gra.s.sy peninsula, "is the very place where the fight took place"--a borrowed stretch of the imagination, inasmuch as the poet himself imagined the combat.

But we whirled away past Vennachar, mounted a little eminence, from whence we had a grand panoramic view of hills, lake, road, and river, with Benvenue rising in the background; and as we rattled down the hill the road swept round with a curve near to a little village that I recognized at once from the pictures in ill.u.s.trated editions of Scott's poems--Duncraggan's huts, one of the points at which the bearer of the fiery cross paused on his journey to raise the clans.

"Speed, Malise, speed! the lake is past, Duncraggan's huts appear at last."

And pa.s.sing this, we soon rolled over a little single-arched bridge--the bridge of Turk.

"And when the Brigg of Turk was won, The headmost horseman rode alone."

On over the Brigg of Turk, past Loch Achray, and we come to the Trossachs Hotel, commanding a good view of the black-looking "loch," and the rocky peak of Ben A'an. Between this point and Loch Katrine, a mile, are the "Trossachs." All the drives and scenery in the immediate vicinity are delightful; and the hotel, which is a fine castellated building, must be a most pleasant place for summer resort.

Embarking upon a little steamer named Rob Roy, on Loch Katrine, we sail close by Ellen's Isle, and sweep out into the middle of the lake--a lovely sheet of water, and reminding the American tourist of Lake George. A delightful sail on this lake carried us to Stronachlachar.

There we disembark, and take carriage again through the valley to Loch Lomond, pa.s.sing on the road the hut in which Helen McGregor, Rob Roy's wife, was born, and also a fort built to check the incursions of the McGregors, and at one time commanded by General Wolfe--the same who afterwards fell at the capture of Quebec. Then, descending to Inversnaid, we came to Loch Lomond, with the dark mountains looking down upon its waters.

That there is some wind among these Scotch hills we had ample opportunity of ascertaining; for so furiously did the gusts pour down upon the lake, that they lashed it into foam-capped waves, and sent the sheets of spray so liberally over the boat as to make us glad to contemplate this pride of the Scottish lakes, its hills, and thirsty islands from the cabin windows. Disembarking once more at Balloch, situated at the southern extremity of the lake, the train was in waiting which took us to Glasgow, pa.s.sing Dumbarton on our route, and giving us a fine view of Dumbarton Castle, situated upon the two high peaks of Dumbarton Rock, five hundred and sixty feet high, and noted as being the place of confinement of William Wallace. The highest peak of the rock is called Wallace's Seat, from this circ.u.mstance.

CHAPTER IV.

Glasgow Cathedral, situated on the highest ground in the metropolis of Scotland, looks over the spires, domes, and crowded masonry of a city of half a million inhabitants. A view from its tower, over two hundred feet in height, takes in the valley of the River Clyde, with woods, and hedges, and pleasant meadows, and the river itself rolling on its way towards the ocean. The Renfrews.h.i.+re Hills, the neighboring town of Paisley, Dumbarton Rock, and the Argyles.h.i.+re Mountains, and a ruin or two, with the waving ivy, green upon the shattered walls, complete the distant picture; while spread beneath, at our very feet, is the busy city itself, with its factories, its furnaces, and great ma.s.ses of high-storied houses, and stretching along by the water side the great quay wall of fifteen thousand feet in length, with vessels ranged two or three abreast before it.

This fine old cathedral is an elegant Gothic structure, and was built in 1136. It is remarkable from being one of the few churches in Scotland that have been preserved in a comparatively perfect state, and its annals for the past seven hundred years have been well preserved and authenticated; but with these I must have but little to do, for once immersed in the curious records of these old ecclesiastical edifices, so celebrated in history, and so wondrous in architectural beauty, and we shall get on all too slowly among the sights and scenes in foreign lands.

The grand entrance to the Glasgow Cathedral is at the great doorway at one end of the nave, and we enter a huge church, three hundred and nineteen feet long by about sixty wide, divided by a splendid screen, or rood loft, as it is called, separating the nave from the choir, that most sacred part of the Roman Catholic edifices, where the princ.i.p.al altars were erected, and high ma.s.s was performed. The carving and ancient decoration here are in a fine state of preservation, and the majestic columns which support the main arches, with their beautifully-cut foliaged capitals of various designs, are an architectural triumph.

The crypts beneath this cathedral are in an excellent state of preservation, and at one time were used for purposes of wors.h.i.+p. In Catholic times these old crypts were used for the purposes of sepulture for prelates and high dignitaries of the church; but nearly all traces of the monuments of these worthies were swept away in the blind fury which characterized the Reformation in its destruction of "monuments of idolatry;" and so zealous, or, we may now say, fanatical, were the Reformers, that they swept to swift destruction some of the finest architectural structures in the land, and monuments erected to men who had been of benefit to their race and generation, in one general ruin.

The tourist, as he notes the mutilation of the finest works of architectural skill, and the almost total destruction of exquisite sculpture and historical monuments, which he constantly encounters in these ecclesiastical buildings, finds himself giving utterance to expressions anything but flattering to the perpetrators of this vandalism.

An effigy of a bishop, with head struck off and otherwise mutilated, is now about all of note that remains of the monuments here in the crypt.

It is supposed to be the effigy of Jocline, the founder of this part of the cathedral, which is about one hundred and thirty feet in length, and sixty-five wide, with five rows of columns of every possible form, from simple shaft to those of elaborate design, supporting the structure above. The crypts are, it is said, the finest in the kingdom. But the great wonder of Glasgow Cathedral is its stained-gla.s.s windows, which are marvels of modern work, for they were commenced in 1859, and completed in 1864, and are some of the finest specimens of painted-gla.s.s work that the Royal Establishment of Gla.s.s Painting, in Munich, has ever produced.

These windows are over eighty in number; but forty-four of them are _great_ windows, twenty-five or thirty feet high, and each one giving a Bible story in pictures. The subjects begin with the Expulsion from Paradise, and continue on in regular order of Bible chronology. Besides these are coats of arms of the different donors of windows, in a circle of colored gla.s.s at the base, as each was given by some noted person or family, and serves as a memento of relatives and friends who are interred in the cathedral or its necropolis. Besides the leading events of biblical history, from the Old Testament portrayed, such as Noah's Sacrifice, Abraham offering Isaac, the Offer of Marriage to Rebekah, the Blessing of Jacob, the Finding of Moses, &c., there are figures of the apostles, the prophets, ill.u.s.trations of the parables of our Saviour, and other subjects from the Holy Scriptures, all beautifully executed after designs by eminent artists.

But s.p.a.ce will not permit further description of this magnificent building. Scott says this is "the only metropolitan church, except the Cathedral Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, that remained uninjured at the Reformation." It owes its preservation from destruction somewhat to the fact that James Rabat, who was Dean of Guild when its demolition was clamored for, was a good Mason, and saved this work of the masters' art by suffering the "idolatrous statues" of saints to be destroyed on condition of safety to the building.

At the rear of the cathedral rises the Necropolis, a bold, semicircular eminence, some three hundred feet in height, and formed in regular terraces, which are divided into walks, and crowded with elegant and costly modern monuments; too crowded, in fact, and reminding one more of a sculpture gallery than a cemetery. Among the most conspicuous of these monuments was a fine Corinthian shaft and statue to John Knox, and on the shaft was inscribed,--

"When laid in the ground, the regent said, 'There lieth he who never feared the face of man, who was often threatened with dag and dagger, yet hath ended his days in peace and honor.'"

A magnificent square sarcophagus, erected to James Sheridan Knowles, bore his name.