Oat Meal: The War Winner

by James Ritchie Grieve

Rolled o’er the glen their level way;

Each purple peak, each flinty spire

Was bathed in floods of living fire.”

The capital city of Scotland is Edinburgh. It is a city of marvelous contrasts in the style of its architecture. It is divided into the old and the new towns. But the first of these arrests the attention, chiefly from the quaint and curious combinations in structure which its buildings present. They are built of stone, and many of them rise ten and twelve stories, their entrances carved with figures grotesque and repulsive—griffins, dragons, monsters—half beast and half man, with hideous scowls and leers glare and grin upon you as if daring you to enter. On one of the lower streets is the “Grass Market” which was the principal place for public evecutions, and where so many of the martyrs of the Scottish covenant sealed their testimony to the truth of God’s word with their blood. This spot recalls many of the dark deeds of an age which placed an interdict upon the human mind, attempted to rule conscience by the strong arm of law, and crush human liberty under the iron heel of remorseless and ferocious oppression. Here is Holyrood palace, an ancient pile with its quadrangles, courts, turrets, winding stone stairs, and long resounding corridors. Here is the secret stair upon which, on that memorable night in Scottish history, crept Ruthren, Douglass, and their co-conspirators, who bursting into the Queen’s private apartment, seized Rizzio, the Italian singer, and in spite of his cries for mercy, and the intercession of his royal mistress, dragged him out upon the landing, and stabbed him to death with their daggers. The stain of his blood is shown on the oaken floor to this day.

A little way up the Cannon gate stands the house of John Knox, that man of iron resolution and overpowering eloquence, who alone dared to face the treacherous and unhappy Queen and wring from her eyes the tears of vain but exasperated importunity. This is he who prayed in the over pouring interest of his soul, “Lord, give me Scotland else I die,” and whose epitaph was, “Here lies one who never feared the face of man.”

Edinburg has many monuments to its Kings, Princes, and great warriars, but the monument to John Knox is not of brass or marble, but a more enduring memorial built in the deathless admiration and affection of the Scottish people. He was a man for the age in which he lived. Much however, which he did and said can not be approved in the clearer light and under the calmer judgment of this century, and by the unimpassioned standard of a juster apprehension of God’s scheme of human salvation. Still he was one of the greatest minds Scotland has produced, and his name is enrolled among the immortals.

A little to the Southeast of Edinburgh rises a lofty hill, called “Arthur’s seat.” It presents a curious phenomnon in the outlines of its summit. Looking at it from the eastern side in the purple glow of sunset, there is clearly defined in beautiful but colossal proportions the form of a couchant lion, one part of the summit to the left forming the hips, the other elevation the neck and head, the undulation between showing the soft outlines and symmetrical bend of the body. The head seems to rest on the outstretched paws and slightly turned, looks as if watching the city with sleepless vigilance. In one of the most conspicuous points of Princes street stands that splendid triumph of architectural genius dedicated to the brightest mind in literature which Scotland claims.

A man dear to every lover of ancient song and story—one who has robed the mountains, valleys and streams of Scotland with immortal glory and universal renoun—Sir Walter Scott. We have spent many a pleasant hour studying the rugged and homely face of that figue which sits in the Centre with the Scottish plait thrown over his sholder and his favorite and famous stag-hound crouching at his feet. He has given to Scotland a citizenship of literature. Scenery, monuments, houses, cottages, characters of every age and condition from the baron to the fisherman, from the lady to the smuggler and fish wife.

The witchery of the man’s genius has cast its spell over every Englid-speaking nation. In every society that cultivates the graces and refinements of polite literature, no author holds a place of higher distinction than Walter Scott.

His works are classics. With the exception of Shakespeare, no author has “held the mirror up to nature” and pictured it with such graphic nicety of detail and gracefulness of flowing outlines as this “wizard of the north.” He opens wide the doors of romance and invites us to partake with him in the rich and abundant banquet of song and story which a thousand years of history have been preparing, and which he has with prodigious labor and unwearied industry collected with his own hand and brain and disposed on the ample board with such graceful profusion. The guests he invites us to meet are for the most part real men and women—heroes whose deeds of powess eclipse in daring and self-sacrifice the classic warriors who wandered with Aeneas, and battled around the walls of ancient Troy. The martial ardor of Wallace and Rob Roy is kindled in our breasts, we catch the glow of a holy and patriatic inspiration as we stand with the heroes of the Scottish covenant at Drumclog, and see them after psalm and prayer in fierce conflict with the Royal forces under Claverhouse, and putting them to flight after one of the bloodiest battles, for the number engaged recorded in history.