Over the Ocean Part 4

Another pleasant walk was one taken up a winding road on the hill-side, to a spot containing some of the Druidical remains found in different parts of England. This is known here as the Druids' Temple, and consists of a great circle of upright stones, six or eight feet in height, and set up at regular intervals, with two or three placed together at one side of the circle, as if for a gigantic altar. The spot for this temple was admirably chosen by the ancient priests of the oak and mistletoe for their mysterious rites, being upon a sort of natural platform, or hill shaped like a truncated cone, while all round rises a natural circle of lesser hills.

From Keswick to Penrith is a pleasant ride by rail. Near the station in Penrith are the ruins of an old castle, for a long time the residence of the Duke of Gloster, afterwards Richard III. From this spot we started on a pleasant walk for Brougham Hall, the seat of Lord Brougham, about two and a half miles distant, pa.s.sing on the way a curious formation in a field, denominated King Arthur's Round Table. It very much resembles places in waste land in America, where a travelling circus has left its ring-mark, that becomes overgrown with turf, only the circle was much larger. This field and formation were carefully preserved by the owner, it being, as we were informed, one of those places where the Knights of King Arthur's time used to exercise themselves in the practice of horsemanship and feats of arms. Perhaps it was.

Brougham Hall is situated upon a hill not far from the ruins of Brougham Castle, and is an old and picturesque building, commanding, from its elevated position, extensive views of the surrounding country. The place was invested with a peculiar interest, as being the residence of one of England's greatest orators and statesmen. His voice, since our visit to his beautiful home, however, has been hushed forever, and he has laid him down to sleep with the humblest.

Owing to its situation and prospects, the English guide-books style this castle the "Windsor of the North." The grounds are beautifully laid out--a broad lawn, bounded by a grove of old trees, with the rooks cawing and circling about them; the great paved court-yard of the castle, upon which the stables and servants' rooms looked out; a tower on the stables, with clock and bell. From this, a Gothic arched gateway opened into another square and more pretentious court-yard, upon which the inner windows of his lordship's family looked. On one side of this court-yard, the castle wall was completely covered with a thick, heavy ma.s.s of beautiful ivy, the window s.p.a.ces and turrets all being cut out in shape, giving it a novel and picturesque appearance. In the centre of this court-yard was a pretty gra.s.s plat.

The other front of the castle looked out upon the estate, and the view from the windows upon this side was lovely. The fine lawn and trimly laid out grounds, the gradually sloping landscapes stretching down to the little River Eamont, winding on its tortuous way, and spanned, as usual, by the pretty arched bridges, and the hills of Ullswater for a background, made a charming prospect. There were so many novel and interesting things to see in the different apartments of the castle, that description will in some degree appear but tame.

We first went into the armor-room, used on great occasions as a dining-hall. The apartment was not very large, but the walls and niches were filled with rare and curious arms and armor of various periods, and that had been used by historic personages. Here we were shown the skull of one of Lord Brougham's ancestors, carefully preserved under a gla.s.s case--a Knight Templar, who fought in the first crusade; this skull was taken, together with a spur, from his coffin a few years ago, when the tomb was opened, where he was found lying with crossed feet, as a good Knight Templar should lie. At one end of this hall was a little raised gallery about five feet from the floor, separated from the room by a high Gothic screen, through which a view of the whole could be obtained.

This platform led to an elegant little octagon chamber, a few steps higher up, occupied by Lord Brougham's son as a sort of lounging and writing room. In this apartment were a few choice and beautiful pictures; one of dogs fighting, presented to Lord Brougham by Louis Napoleon, some original t.i.tians, Vand.y.k.es, Tintorettos, Hogarth, &c.

We next visited the drawing-room, which was hung all over with beautiful Gobelin tapestry, wrought to represent the four quarters of the globe in productions, fruit, flowers, vegetation, and inhabitants--a royal gift and an elegant sight. Here were also displayed a fine Sevres dessert service, the gift of Louis Philippe, the great purses of state presented to Lord Brougham when he was chancellor, as a sort of badge or insignia of office. These were rigged on fire-frame screens, and were heavily gold-embroidered affairs, twenty-four inches square or more, and worth over three hundred pounds each. Here also was a gla.s.s case filled with gifts made to Lord Brougham by different distinguished personages, such as gold snuff-boxes from different cities, watches, a miniature, taken from life, of the great Napoleon, presented by Joseph Bonaparte, &c.

The library, which was well stocked with choice books, was another elegant room, most artistically arranged. Here portraits of great writers, by great artists, occupied conspicuous positions; and among other noteworthy pictures in this room was one of Hogarth, painted by himself, a portrait of Voltaire and others.

The ceilings of these apartments were laid out in squares or diamond indentation, elegantly frescoed, or carved from the solid oak, the color formed to harmonize with the furniture and upholstery. The ceiling of the drawing-room was occupied by the different quarterings of the coat of arms of the Brougham family, in carved work of gold and colors, one to each panel, very elaborately finished.

When we were escorted to the sleeping apartments, new surprises awaited us. Here was one complete suite of rooms,--chambers, dressing-room, closet, &c.,--all built and furnished in the early Norman style; the old, carved, black, Norman bedstead, hundreds of years old; gilt leather tapestry on the walls, decorated with Norman figures of knights, horses and spearmen; huge Norman-looking chairs; great bra.s.s-bound oaken chests, black with age and polished by the hand of time; rude tables; chests of drawers; the doors and windows with semicircular arched head-pieces, the former of ma.s.sive black oak, with huge bra.s.s chevron-shaped hinges, quaint door-handles, and bolts of the period represented, and the various ornaments of zigzag, billet, nail-head, &c., of Norman architecture appearing in every direction. Something of the same style is seen in some of our Episcopal churches in America, but it is more modernized. Here the Norman rooms were Norman in all details, the dark, old wood was polished smooth as steel, the bra.s.s work upon the doors and old chests gleamed like beaten gold, and the whole picture of quaint, old tracery of arches and narrow windows, tapestry, carving, and ma.s.sive furniture, conveyed an impression of wealth, solidity, and substantial beauty.

From the Norman rooms we pa.s.sed into the Norman gallery, a corridor of about fifty feet long and sixty feet wide, upon the sides of which are painted a complete copy of the wonderous Bayeaux tapestry, wrought by Matilda, queen of William I., and representing the conquest of England--the only perfect copy said to have been made. The different sleeping apartments were each furnished in different styles; in one was an elegantly carved bedstead, of antique design, which cost four hundred guineas, and was a present to Lord Brougham.

Lord Brougham's own study, and his favorite resort for reading, writing, and thinking, was one of the plainest, most unpretending rooms in the whole building; the furniture of the commonest kind, the pictures old impressions of Hogarth's, Marriage a la Mode, and the Industrious and Idle Apprentice, in cheap frames, and that familiar to Americans, of Humboldt in his study. Two battered hats, hung upon a wooden hat-tree in the corner,--hats that Punch has made almost historical, and certainly easily recognizable wherever seen,--completed the picture of the simple apartment where one of the greatest statesmen of the present generation was wont to muse upon the affairs of one of the mightiest nations of the world, at whose helm his was the guiding hand.

Returning on our way to the railway station, we lunched in the tap-room of a little wayside inn, "The White Hart," just one of those places that we Americans read of in English novels, and which are so unlike anything we have at home, that we sometimes wonder if the description of them is not also a part of the writer's creation. But here was one just as if it had stepped out of an English story book; the little room for guests had a clean tile floor ornamented with alternate red and white chalk stripes, a fireplace of immense height and width, round which the village gossips probably sipped their ale o' winter nights, the wooden chairs and benches and the wooden table in the centre of the room, spotlessly clean and white from repeated scrubbings; half a dozen long clay tobacco pipes were in a tray on the table for smokers, cl.u.s.tering vines and snowy curtains shaded the windows, and there was an air of quiet comfort and somnolency about the place quite attractive to one who was fatigued with a long and dusty walk.

The landlady entered with snowy ap.r.o.n, broad, clean cap, and of a figure suggestive of the nutritious quality of English ale or good living, and, like the Mrs. Fezziwig of d.i.c.kens,--

"One vast, substantial smile."

"What will you please to horder, sir?"

"Can we have some ale and crackers?"

"Hale, sir? Yes, sir. Bread and cheese, sir?" (_interrogatively_).

"Yes; bread and cheese."

"Two mugs and bread and cheese, Mary," said the landlady, as she bustled out through the pa.s.sage to a little wicket enclosure, behind which we caught through the opening door the flash of tankards in gleaming rows, and in a moment more "Mary" tripped in with two beer mugs, shining like silver, and the snowy foam rising high and bubbling in creamy luxuriance over their brims upon the little tray that bore them.

Good English home-brewed is said to be better than that served in America; perhaps it may be that we "'aven't got the 'ops" to make as good as they brew in England, or it may be that tasting it while the spring breeze is blowing the perfume from the hedgerows and meadows in at the windows of little road-side inns, which command a pretty rustic view of gentle slope, green valley, and cool shade trees, has something to do with one's judgment of it. The attack upon the ale of old England and the loaf of sweet, close-grained bread and cheese, involved the enormous outlay of ten pence, to which we added two more for Mary, an even shilling, for which she dropped a grateful courtesy, and we strolled on through the antiquated little town of Penrith, visiting the churchyard and seeing the giant's grave, a s.p.a.ce of eight feet between a gigantic head and foot stone, each covered with nearly obliterated Runic inscriptions.

CHAPTER III.

From Penrith we were whirled away over the rails to Edinburgh. Edinburgh is certainly a wonder--a wonder of historic interest, a wonder of curious old buildings, and a wonder of magnificent new ones. Here we were in the very place that Walter Scott has made us long and long to see, and were to visit the scenes that were sung in his matchless minstrelsy, and painted in his graphic romances. Here was the city where Knox, the Reformer, preached, and Mary, Queen of Scots, held her brief and stormy reign. Here we were to see Holyrood, Edinburgh Castle, and a hundred scenes identified with Scottish history, the very names of which served to help the melodious flow of the rhythm of Scott's entrancing poems. With what wondrous charms does the poet and novelist invest historic scenes! How memory carried us back to the days when the Tales of a Grandfather held us chained to their pages, as with a spell! How the Waverley Novels' scenes came thronging into imagination's eye, like the half-forgotten scenes of happy youth, when we read of the bold Scottish champions, the fierce Highlanders, and the silken courtiers, the knights, battles, spearmen, castles, hunts, feasts, and pageants, so vividly described by the Wizard of the North!

Here we are at a hotel on Princes Street, right opposite the Scott Monument, a graceful structure of Gothic arches and pinnacles, and enshrining a figure of Sir Walter and his favorite dog. The view, seen from Princes Street, reminds one very much of the pictures of Athens Restored, with its beautiful public buildings of Grecian architecture.

Between Princes Street, which is in the new, and the old city is a deep ravine or valley, as it were, now occupied by the tracks of the railroad, and spanned by great stone-arched bridges. An immense embankment, called the Mound, also connects the old and new city, its slopes descending east and west into beautiful gardens towards the road-bed. Upon the Mound are the Royal Inst.i.tution, Gallery of Fine Arts, the former a sort of Pantheon-looking building, and both with plenty of s.p.a.ce around them, so that they look as if placed there expressly to be seen and admired.

Princes Street, which is one of the finest in Great Britain, runs east and west. It is entirely open upon the south side, and separated only by a railing from the lovely gardens that run down into the hollow I have mentioned, between the old and new town. Looking across the hollow, we see the old city, where the historic steeples of St. Giles and others mingle among the lofty houses in the extended panoramic view, the eastern end of which is completed by the almost impregnable old castle, rich in historic interest, which lifts its battlements from its rocky seat two hundred feet above the surrounding country, and is a grand and picturesque object. The city, both old and new, appears to be built of stone resembling our darkest granite. The old town is built upon a ridge, gradually ascending towards the castle, and is a curious old place, with its lofty eight and ten-story houses, its narrow lanes, called "wynds," or "closes," and swarming population.

The "closes" are curious affairs, being sort of narrow enclosures, running up in between lofty buildings, with only one place of ingress and egress, that could, in old times, be closed by a portcullis, the remains of some of them being still in existence, and were built as defences against incursions of the Highlanders.

Here in the old town are many streets, the names of which will be recognized by all familiar with Scott--the High Street, Gra.s.s Market, Cow Gate, and Canon Gate. We went, one afternoon, and stood in the Gra.s.s Market, amid a seething ma.s.s of humanity that fills it. Lofty old houses rise high about on all sides, every one with a history, and some of them two or three hundred years old--houses the windows of which were oft packed with eager faces to see the criminal executions here. Some of these houses, Scott says in his Heart of Mid-Lothian, were formerly the property of the Knights Templars and Knights of St. John, and still exhibit, on their points and gables, the cross of those orders in iron--houses that looked down on the furious mob that hung Captain Porteous upon the dyer's pole, over the very spot where we stood. Then, walking down towards the other extremity, we entered the Canon Gate, extending down the hill towards Holyrood Palace--Canon Gate, which was the residence of the wealthy canons of the church when Holyrood was an abbey, and after the Reformation the abode of the Scottish aristocracy.

At one end of the old city stands Holyrood, at the other the castle rock rears its rugged height.

The new city is beautifully laid out in broad streets and squares, which are adorned with imposing buildings, monuments, and bronze statues of celebrated men; but I am not to give a guide-book description of Edinburgh, although there is so much that interests in its streets and buildings that one is almost tempted to do so.

The very first visit one desires to make is to the lofty old castle that overlooks the city. It is situated on an elevated basaltic rock, and is separated from the town by an esplanade about three hundred feet wide, and three hundred and fifty long. The castle is said to have been founded in the year 617, and contains many curious relics of antiquity, and is fraught with historic interest, having been the scene of so many crimes, romantic adventures, captivities, and sieges, within the past three or four hundred years--scenes that have been the most vivid in the pages of history, and formed an almost inexhaustible theme for the most graphic pictures of the novelist.

Among the most notable captures will be recollected that of the Earl of Randolph, nephew to Robert Bruce. And also, when in the possession of the English King Edward I., thirty brave fellows, guided by a young man called William Frank, who had often climbed up and down the Castle Rock to visit his sweetheart, ventured one night, in their heavy iron armor, with their swords and axes, to scale the most precipitous side overhanging the West Princes Street Gardens, and, succeeding, quickly overcame the garrison. In 1341, when the castle was again held by the English, Sir William Douglas and Sir Simon Fraser took it by stratagem and surprise in broad daylight, having sent in a cart loaded with wine, which was dexterously overturned in the gateway, so that the gate could not be closed when the Scottish soldiers rushed forward to the attack.

The broad esplanade before the castle affords a fine view, and is used as a place for drilling the troops, the castle having accommodations for two thousand men. We pa.s.sed across this, and by the statue of the Duke of York, son of George III., and uncle of Queen Victoria, and the monumental cross, erected in memory of the officers of the Highland regiment who fell in the years 1857 and 1858, in the Indian Rebellion War. On over the moat and drawbridge, and through the old portcullis gate, over which was the old prison in which the Earl of Argyle, and numerous adherents of the Stuarts, were confined previous to their execution, and after pa.s.sing beneath this, were fairly within the castle. One point of interest was the old sally-port, up which Dundee climbed to have a conference with the Duke of Gordon, when on his way to raise the Highland clans in favor of King James II., while the convention were a.s.sembled in the Parliament House, and were proceeding to settle the crown upon William and Mary.

Dundee, accompanied by only thirty picked men, rode swiftly along a street in the old city, nearly parallel to the present line of Princes Street, while the drums in the town were beating to arms to pursue him; and leaving his men in a by-place, clambered up the steep rock at this point, and urged the duke to accompany him, but without effect. Scott's song of "Bonnie Dundee" tells us,--

"Dundee he is mounted, he rides up the street, The bells they ring backward, the drums they are beat; But the provost, deuce man! said, 'Just e'en let him be, For the town is well rid of that de'il o' Dundee.'"

Dundee rode off towards Stirling, with the threat that,--

"If there's lords in the Southland, there's chiefs in the North; There are wild dunnie va.s.sals, three thousand times three, Will cry, 'Hey for the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee!'"

From what is known as the Bomb Battery an excellent view of Edinburgh is obtained. Here is a curious piece of early artillery, of huge size, designated Mons Meg, made at Mons in Brittany, in 1476, of thick iron bars hooped together, and twenty inches diameter at the bore. Near this is the Chapel of Queen Margaret, a little Norman building eight hundred years old, used by Margaret, Queen of Malcolm III., daughter of Edward the Outlaw, and granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, who, it will be remembered, disputed the crown of England for so many years with Canute.

One of the most interesting, as well as one of the oldest rooms, was a little irregular-shaped apartment, known as Queen Mary's Room, being the room in which James VI. was born, in 1566. The original ceiling remains, with the initials J. R. and M. R., surmounted by a crown, and wrought into the panels. From the window of this little room, it is said, the infant king was let down to the street, two hundred and fifty feet below, by means of a rope and basket, and carried off secretly to Stirling Castle, to be baptized in the Roman Catholic faith. When James made his first visit to Scotland, in 1617, after his accession to the English throne, he caused the royal arms to be elaborately painted on the wall, and underneath his mother's prayer, which still remains in quaint old English letters, somewhat difficult to decipher:--

"Lord Jesu Chryst that crownit was with Thornse Preserve the birth quhais Badyie heir is borne.

And send hir Sonne successive to reigne stille Lang in this Realme, if that it be Thy will.

Als grant O Lord quhat ever of Hir proseed Be to Thy Glorie, Honer and Prais sobied."

The view from the windows, here at the east and south sides of the old castle, is varied and romantic. The curious old houses in the Gra.s.s Market, far down below; the quaint, blackened old streets of the old city; the magnificent towers of Herriot's Hospital against the blue sky; and stretching beyond the city, the fine landscape, with the familiar Borough moor, where the Scottish hosts were wont to muster by clans and chieftains,--form a scene of picturesque beauty not soon forgotten.

The armory of the castle contains many interesting weapons of ancient warfare. Among the most notable was a coat of mail worn by one of the Douglases in Cromwell's time; Rob Roy's dagger; some beautiful steel pistols, used by some of the Highland followers of Prince Charles Stuart at the battle of Culloden; and cuira.s.ses worn by the French cuira.s.siers at Waterloo. The crown room contains the regalia of Scotland, and the celebrated crown of Robert Bruce. The regalia of Scotland consist of a crown, sceptre, and sword of state, the latter a most beautiful piece of workmanship, the scabbard elegantly ornamented with chased and wrought work, representing oak leaves and acorns, and which was a present from Pope Julius II. to James IV. Particular interest attaches to these regalia, from the fact of their discovery through Scott's exertions, in 1818, after a disappearance of about one hundred and eleven years. The crown is the diadem that pressed the valiant brow of Robert the Bruce, and the devoted head of Mary, and was placed upon the infant brow of her son. Charles II. was the last monarch who wore this regal emblem, which is connected with so many stirring events in Scottish history.

From Edinburgh Castle, a gradually descending walk, through some of the most interesting portions of the old city, will take the visitor to Holyrood Palace and Abbey,--quite a distance, but which should be walked rather than rode, if the tourist is a pedestrian of moderate powers, as it is thronged with so many points of historic interest, to which I can only make a pa.s.sing allusion. The High Street, as it is called, is one of the princ.i.p.al through which we pa.s.s, and in old times was considered very fine; but its glory departed with the building of the new portion of the city, and the curious old "closes," in the streets diverging from it, are the habitations of the lowest cla.s.s of the population.

Bow Street, which, if I remember rightly, runs into Gra.s.s Market from High Street, was formerly known as West Bow, from an arch or bow in the city wall. We pa.s.sed down this quaint old street, which used to be the princ.i.p.al avenue by which carriages reached the upper part of the city.

It was a curve of lofty houses, filthy kennels, and noisy children, spirit-shops, groceries, and garbage; yet up this street had ridden, in old times, Anne of Denmark, James I., Charles I., Oliver Cromwell, Charles II., and James II. It was down this street that the Earl of Argyle and Marquis of Montrose were dragged, in the hangman's cart, to execution in the Gra.s.s Market, which is situated at its foot, and to which I have previously alluded. Porteous was also dragged down through this street to execution, by the rioters who took him from his jailers.

In the old city we visited a court called Dunbar's Close, where, after the victory of Dunbar, some of Cromwell's soldiers were quartered. Here remains a carved inscription, said to bear the oldest date in the city.

It reads as follows:

=Y faith in Christ.

Onlie Savit, MDCLII.=