"Come alang, sir! We canna be keepit here the haill nicht," bawled the driver crossly as Ronald appeared upon the road, where the white steam was curling from the four panting horses in the moonlight, which revealed Evan, seated with the goods and chattels of himself and master among the muffled-up passengers who loaded the coach-top.
"Inside, sir?" said the guard from behind the shawl which muffled his weather-beaten face as he held open the door. Ronald, scarcely knowing what he did, stepped in, and the door closed with a bang which made the driver rock on his seat. "A' richt, Jamie; drive on!" cried the guard, vaulting into the dickey; and in a few minutes more the noise of wheels and hoofs had died away from the ears of poor Alice and her brother, who listened with beating hearts to the retiring sound.
CHAPTER V.
EDINBURGH CASTLE.
"But tender thoughts maun now be hushed,
When danger calls I must obey;
The transport waits us on the coast,
And the morn I will be far away."
Tannahill.
The young Highlander, who had never beheld a larger city than Perth, was greatly struck with the splendid and picturesque appearance of Edinburgh. The long lines of densely crowded streets, the antique and lofty houses, the spires, the towers, the enormous bridges spanning deep ravines, the long dark alleys, crooks, nooks, and corners of the old town, with its commanding castle; and then the new, with its innumerable and splendid shops, filled with rich and costly stuffs, the smoke, noise, and confusion of the great thoroughfares and promenades contrasted with the sombre and gloomy grandeur of the Canongate and Holyrood, were all strange sights to one who from infancy had been accustomed to "the eagle and the rock, the mountain and the cataract, the blue-bell, the heather, and the long yellow broom, the Highland pipe, the hill-climbing warrior, and the humbler shepherd in the garb of old Gaul."
From the castle he viewed with surprise and delight the vast amphitheatre which surrounds the city. To the westward Corstorphine, covered to the summit with the richest foliage, Craiglockart, Blackford, the ridges of Braid and Pentland, the Calton, the craigs of Salisbury and Arthur's seat, encircling the city on all sides except the north, where the noble Frith of Forth—the Bodoria of the Romans,—the most beautiful stream in Scotland, perhaps in Britain, wound along the yellow sands.
Far beyond were seen the Lomonds of Fife, the capes of Crail and Elie, the broad bays and indentures of the German Ocean, and the islets of the Forth, the banks of which are studded with villages, castles, churches, and rich woodland. As he entered the fortress he was particularly struck with the gloomy and aged appearance of its embattled buildings and lofty frowning batteries, where the black cannon peeped grimly through antique embrasures. It was a place particularly interesting to Ronald, (as it is to every true Scotsman,) who thought of the prominent part it bore in the annals of his country,—of the many sieges it had sustained, and the many celebrated persons who had lived and died within the walls, which held the crown and insignia of a race whose name and power had passed away from the land they had ruled and loved so long.
Kilted sentinels, wearing the plumed bonnet, tasselled sporan or purse, and the dark tartan, striped with yellow, of the Gordon Highlanders, appeared at the different bastions as he passed the drawbridge, entered through many a strong gate studded with iron, and the black old arch where the two portcullises of massive metal hang suspended.
Ronald, for the first time since he left home, found himself confounded and abashed when he was received by the haughty staff-officer in the cold and stiff manner which these gentlemen assume to regimental officers. Here he reported himself, as the phrase is, and presented the letters of the adjutant-general. It was in a gloomy apartment of the old palace, and the very place in which the once beautiful Mary of Guise breathed her last. Its furniture consisted of two chairs and a hardwood table covered with books, army lists, papers and dockets of letters: boards of general orders, a couple of swords, and forage-caps hung upon the wall. A drum stood in one corner, and an unseemly cast-iron coal-box bearing the mystic letters "B.O." stood in another. A decanter of port and a wine-glass, which appeared on the mantel shelf, showed that the occupant of the office knew the secret of making himself comfortable.