We Went Up Through The Little Town To The Castle, Which Is Still Kept In
Perfect Order, And The Ramparts Of Which Frown As Grimly Over The
Surrounding Country As They Did Centuries Ago.
No troops however are now
stationed here; a few old gunners alone remain, and Major somebody, I
forget his name, takes his dinners in the banqueting-room and sleeps in
the bed-chamber of the Stuarts.
I wish I could communicate the impression
which this castle and the surrounding region made upon me, with its
vestiges of power and magnificence, and its present silence and desertion.
The passages to the dungeons where pined the victims of state, in the very
building where the court held its revels, lie open, and the chapel in
which princes and princesses were christened, and worshiped, and were
crowned and wed, is turned into an armory. From its windows we were shown,
within the inclosure of the castle, a green knoll, grazed by cattle, where
the disloyal nobles of Scotland were beheaded. Close to the castle is a
green field, intersected with paths, which we were told was the
tilting-ground, or place of tournaments, and beside it rises a rock, where
the ladies of the court sat to witness the combats, and which is still
called the Ladies' Rock. At the foot of the hill, to the right of the
castle, stretches what was once the royal park; it is shorn of its trees,
part is converted into a race-course, part into a pasture for cows, and
the old wall which marked its limits is fallen down.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 158 of 396
Words from 42641 to 42908
of 107287
