Extended in succession gay,
Deep waving fields and pastures green,
With gentle slopes and groves between;
Those fertile fields, that softened vale,
Were once the birthright of the Gael."
The outer gates of the castle are said to have been built by the old Romans, and were strong enough for ancient batteries, but not for modern artillery. The marks of the cannon shot fired by General Monk when he attacked the castle, directing the whole fire of his artillery at one point till he battered down a portion of the wall, and the breach through which William Wallace entered, are points of interest. So was the dark, secure, stone cell into which we peeped, where Rob Roy is said to have been confined. The outer works of the castle were erected in Queen Anne's time, and that known as the Palace, built by James V. The little room known as the Douglass Room, with its adjoining closet, is one of the "lions" of the castle, for it was here that the Earl of Douglass—the "Black Douglass"—met King James II. under promise of safe conduct; and after a fierce discussion, in which the king vainly tried to induce him to abandon a compact he had made with other chiefs, he stabbed the earl, in a fit of passion. The nobles attendant on the king, concealed in the little antechamber, rushed in and completed the murder, throwing the body from the window—which is pointed out to us—into the garden beneath.
Not far from the castle is the "Lady's Rock," a small hill from which the ladies of the Scottish court, and other favored ones, could look down upon the tournament field, a hundred feet below. And as we sat there, and looked upon the form of the lists, still visible upon the turf below, marked by the green ridges, it was easy to imagine what an animated and beautiful scene it must have presented when filled with knights and squires, steeds and men; for it was here that James was forced to award Douglass the prize, as the victor in the feats of strength at the Scottish sports.
"The gray-haired sires, who know the past,
To strangers point the Douglass cast,
And moralize on the decay