CHAPTER III.
THE CASTLE OF ROHALLION.
"Hast them seen that lordly castle,
That castle by the sea?
Golden and red above it,
The clouds float gorgeously;
And fain it would stoop downward,
To the mirrored wave below,
And fain it would soar upward,
In the evening's crimson glow."—LONGFELLOW.
The baronial fortalice in which our story has opened stands, as we have stated, upon a cliff, at least one hundred and fifty feet in height above the ocean, or where the estuary of the Clyde widens thereunto, on the Carrick shore; but since 1798 it has undergone many alterations, not perhaps for the better.
In that year it consisted of the old Scottish Keep, built in the reign of James I. by Sir Ranulph Crawford, of Rohallion, his ambassador, first to Henry VI. of England, and afterwards to Charles VII. of France, for which services he was created Keeper of the Royal Palace of Carrick. Adjoining this grim tower, with its grated windows, machicolated ramparts, and corner tourelles, was the more modern mansion built in the time of James VI., by Hugh, third Lord Rohallion, who slew the gipsy king in single combat at the Cairns of Blackhinney. It had crowstepped gables, dormer windows, gabletted and carved with dates, crests, and quaint monograms, and many a huge chimney, conical turret, and creaking vane, added to its picturesque appearance. To this was added a wing in the time of Queen Anne, somewhat unsightly in its details, yet the general aspect of the whole edifice was bold and pleasing, chastened or toned down as it was by time and the elements.
On one side it overlooked the Firth, then opening to a stormy sea, with the ruins of Turnberry in the distance—the crumbling walls wherein the conqueror of the proud Plantagenet first saw the light, and learned "to shake his Carrick spear." On the other, its windows opened to the most fertile portion of the bailiewick—wooded heights that looked on the banks and braes of the Doon, where the scenery wakened a flood of historical or legendary memories; where every broomy knowe and grassy hill, every coppice and rushy glen, grey lichened rock and stony corrie, were consecrated by some old song or stirring tale of love or local war—the fierce old feudal wars of the Kennedies, the Crawfords, and the grim iron Barons of Auchindrane; and, more than all, it was the birthplace, the home of Robert Bruce and of Robert Burns—the one the warrior, and the other the bard of the people. From the windows of Rohallion could be seen the very uplands, where, but a few years before, the latter had ploughed and sown, and where, as he tells us in his filial love of his native soil, when he saw
"The rough burr-thistle spreading wide,
Among the bearded bear;
I turned the weeding-hook aside,
And spared the emblem dear!"
The scenery from whence he drew his inspiration looked down on the old tower of Rohallion, which contained on its first floor the stone-paved hall, that had witnessed many a bridal feast and Christmas festival, held in the rough old joyous times, when Scotland was true to herself, and ere sour Judaical Sabbatarianism came upon her, to make religion a curse and a cloak for the deepest hypocrisy; and ere her preachers sought "to merit heaven, by making earth a hell."
It presented the unusual feature (in a baronial edifice) of a groined roof, having at least six elaborately carved Gothic bosses, where the ribs that sprang from beautiful corbels placed between the windows intersected each other. On the frieze of the high-arched fireplace was a shield gules, with a fess ermine, the old arms of the Crawfords, Lords of Crawford, in Clydesdale (a family ancient as the days of William the Lyon), from whom the peers of Rohallion—whose patent was signed by James IV. on the night before Flodden—took their bearings and motto, Endure Furth! Though, certainly, it was but little they were ever disposed to endure with patience, if displeased with either king or commoner.
Stags' skulls, antlers, a few old barred helmets, dinted corslets, rusty swords and pikes, decorated this great stone apartment. Its furniture was massive and ancient, but seldom used now, so there the busy spiders spun their webs all undisturbed, across the grated windows, and the moss grew in winter on the carved jambs of the great fireplace, within which, according to tradition, for ages before these days of unbelief, the little red brownie of Rohallion was wont to come o' nights when all were abed, and warm himself by the smouldering grieshoch.
Lady Rohallion preferred the more modern rooms of Queen Anne's reign, where the buhl and marqueterie furniture was more to her taste.