In truth it is a lovely surrounding country. And have you not from childhood, if you read "Macbeth" as early as did Justice Charles E. Hughes, thought Birnam and Dunsinane the loveliest names in the world? Six miles up the Tay through bonny country, stands Dunsinnan Hill; not so lovely as our Dunsinane; once it was Dunscenanyse! But Shakespeare always gave words their magic retouching. And once there stood here the castle of Dunsinane where a certain Lady walked in her sleep, and then slept. And below, you see Birnam wood—
"Till great Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane."
To see that wood wave in the wind is fairly eerie!
Dunkeld is less of a city, more of a memory, exquisite in its beauty, lodged in a close fold of the Highlands. And you reach it through the station, cis-Tay, called Birnam!
It is a quiet peaceful place, more like a now quiet Border town. Hither to this cathedral, the precious remains of Saint Columba were brought by the MacAlpine. So I suppose they still rest here, that wandering dust, that missionary zeal. Also, inharmony, here rest (?) the remains of the Wolf of Badenoch, wicked son of Robert II, and—I am certain the pun has been ventured before—bad enough. Gavin Douglass of the Vergilian measure was bishop here, and Mrs. Oliphant has written stories round about.
"Cam ye by Athole, lad wi' the philabeg?"
We are getting into the Highlands, we are at them, from now on nothing but philabegs, pibrochs, pipes, tartans and heather, nothing but the distilled essence of heather—heather ale? the secret was lost when the Picts were conquered.