I tell him the ruins are not any more likely to be damp than
a good many of the houses that people live in; but this didn't shake
him, and I suppose if we come to any more vine-covered and shattered
remnants of antiquity I shall be obliged to go over them by myself.
The castle is a great place, which I wouldn't have missed for the
world; but the spot that stirred my soul the most was in a little
garden, as high in the air as the top of a steeple, where we could look
out over the battlefield of Bannockburn. Besides this, we could see the
mountains of Ben-Lomond, Ben-Venue, Ben-A'an, Benledi, and ever so much
Scottish landscape spreading out for miles upon miles. There is a
little hole in the wall here called the Ladies' Look-Out, where the
ladies of the court could sit and see what was going on in the country
below without being seen themselves, but I stood up and took in
everything over the top of the wall.
I don't know whether I told you that the mountains of Scotland are
"Bens," and the mouths of rivers are "abers," and islands are
"inches." Walking about the streets of Stirling, and I didn't have time
to see half as much as I wanted to, I came to the shop of a "flesher."
I didn't know what it was until I looked into the window and saw that
it was a butcher shop.
I like a language just about as foreign as the Scotch is. There are a
good many words in it that people not Scotch don't understand, but that
gives a person the feeling that she is travelling abroad, which I want
to have when I am abroad. Then, on the other hand, there are not enough
of them to hinder a traveller from making herself understood. So it is
natural for me to like it ever so much better than French, in which,
when I am in it, I simply sink to the bottom if no helping hand is held
out to me.
I had some trouble with Jone that night at the hotel, because he had a
novel which he had been reading for I don't know how long, and which he
said he wanted to get through with before he began anything else. But
now I told him he was going to enter on the wonderful country of the
"Lady of the Lake," and that he ought to give up everything else and
read that book, because if he didn't go there with his mind prepared
the scenery would not sink into his soul as it ought to. He was of the
opinion that when my romantic feeling got on top of the scenery it
would be likely to sink into his soul as deep as he cared to have it,
without any preparation, but that sort of talk wouldn't do for me.
