This is the first impression. But the eye travelling upward sees the frowning wall blossom out above into what has the semblance of a fairy palace. It is like a straight, tall, rough-barked tree crowned with fairest bloom and tenderest foliage. Turrets both round and square, as if in obedience to the commanding wave of a magician’s wand, spring out of the angles of the building and hang with marvellous grace of poise over the abyss. There seems to be no actual plan, and yet there is perfect harmony; the whole beautiful mass appears as if it had come into being in some one far-away, wonderful, magical night! It is a sight full of glamour and romantic impression—grim fortalice below, ethereal fantasy aloft. Rough and rugged is the rock-like wall, standing dark and dim in the evening gloom; intangible, opalescent are the mystic forms above, in the tender warmth of the afterglow; cloud-coloured, faintly rosy, with shadows pearly-blue.
THE YEW WALK, CRATHES
FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF
Mr. Charles P. Rowley
Direct descendants of the old Norman keep, these Scottish castles, for the most part, retain the four-sided tower, as to the main portion of the structure. The walls need no buttresses, for they are of immense thickness, and the vaulted masonry, usually of the simple barrel form, that carries the floors of, at any rate, the lower stories, ties the whole structure together. The angle turrets carried on bold corbels that are so conspicuous a feature of these northern castles, broke away from the Norman forms and became a distinct character of the Scottish work. They were a helpful addition to the means of defence, and, as long as they were built for use, added much to the beauty and dignity of the structure. The only detail that shows a tendency to debasement in Crathes is the quantity of useless cannon-shaped gargoyles, put for ornament only, in places where they could not possibly do their legitimate work of carrying off rain-water from the roof.
There could have been no pleasure garden in the old days; but now these ancient strongholds, mellowed by the centuries, seem grateful for the added beauty of good gardening. The grand yew hedges may be of the seventeenth century. They stand up solid and massive for ten feet or more, with roof-shaped tops, and then rise again at intervals into great blocks, bearing ornaments like circular steps crowned with a ball. The ornament is simpler, a low block and ball only, in the first picture, where they accentuate the arches that lead right and left into the two divisions of the flower garden. This plainer form is perhaps more suitable to this grand old place than the more elaborate, just because it is simpler and more dignified.
The flower garden, as it is to-day, is quite modern. The finest of the hardy flowers are well grown in bold groups. Luxuriant are the masses of Phlox and tall Pyrethrum, of towering Rudbeckia, of Bocconia, now in seed-pod but scarcely less handsome than when in bloom; of the bold yellow Tansy and Japan Anemones; all telling, by their size and vigour, of a strong loamy soil.
Many are the arches of cluster and other climbing Roses; at one point in the kitchen garden coming near enough together to make a tunnel-like effect.