There is a small shop in Edinburgh where tickets and tackle can be taken, and much advice from the canny Scot who keeps the shop, and who would make your fishing expedition a success. "I don't know what your scruples are," he ventured, "but if ye want the Loch Leven boatmen to be satisfied, I'd advise ye to take wi' a bit o' Scotch. A wee bit drappie goes a long wa."
"Just a wee deoch and doris!"
We remembered Harry Lauder, and wondered if we could say "It's a braw bricht moon licht nicht." Or would those redoutable boatmen ken that we were but pretending to Scotch and even suspect our "Scotch"?
They did not.
The Green hotel is an excellent place to stay, kept by a Scotchman who knows that in America every one knows every one else. We slept in feather beds, and we inspected the collection of "stanes," one of the best I have ever seen in Scotland, a great variety, some of them natural boulders, some wood with iron weights—someday I must brave the rigours of a Scotch winter and see them curl on Duddingston or on Leven. And I should like to see Bob Dunbar of St. Paul, champion curler of America, measure his skill against the champion of Scotland.
And, of course, there was talk with the Scot host. "So ye're American. Well, maybe ye ken a mon that lives in Minn'apolis. He's twa sisters live here; and he's built a hoose for them." It happened that we did ken of this man, who came from Kinross to Minneapolis with only his Scotch canniness, and has built the Donaldson business into one of the great department stores of America.
And next day, after we had slept on feather beds, we had our fishing in Loch Leven, with thousands of wild swan disputing our possession; a big boat, with big oars, sweeps, one man to each oar, one a loquacious fellow with no dialect (he might as well have been English), and the other taciturn with a dialect thick as mud or as Lauder's. And we caught two of the twenty-five thousand odd which were credited to that year.
As the train came alongside Loch Leven on its way to Kinross station, suddenly I felt Mary as I never have realized her, before or since. There across the lake lay St. Serf's isle, and there rose the keep of the old castle. And over that water, as plainly—more plainly, than the fishing boats that lay at their ease—I saw her take boat on a still evening, May 2, 1568, at half past seven o'clock from prison—to liberty—to prison!
I was not mistaken. She who was with me saw it, as distinctly, as vividly. Perhaps it was that all our lives this had been to us one of the great adventuring moments—for which we would exchange any moment of our lives. We were idolaters always, Mariolaters. And now we know that places are haunted, and that centuries are of no account; they will give up their ghosts to those who would live in them.
"Put off, put off, and row with speed,
For now is the time and the hour of need,
To oars, to oars, and trim the bark,
Nor Scotland's queen be a warder's mark;
Yon light that plays 'round the castle moat,
Is only the warder's random shot;
Put off, put off, and row with speed,
For now is the time and the hour of need.
"Those pond'rous keys shall the kelpies keep,
And lodge in their caverns, so dark and deep,
Nor shall Loch Leven's tower and hall
Hold thee, our lovely lady, in thrall;
Or be the haunts of traitors sold,
While Scotland has hands and hearts so bold.
Then onward, steersman, row with speed,
For now is the time and the hour of need.
"Hark! the alarum bell has rung,
The warder's voice has treason sung,
The echoes to the falconets roar,
Chime sweetly to the dashing shore;
Let tower, hall, and battlement gleam,
We steer by the light of the taper's gleam,
For Scotland and Mary on with speed,
Now, now, is the time and the hour of need!"