It was here that Wordsworth heard
"Yon solitary Highland lass,
Reaping and singing by herself; ...
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old unhappy far-off things,
And battles long ago....
The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more."
But one leaves the train with a curious feeling. Of course one may be a little tired. Arm chair travel and arm chair tragedy have their advantages. But—Nairn is the nearest point to the blasted heath.
"Where's the place?
Upon the heath,
There to meet Macbeth."
It is not entirely necessary that one should make Nairn and walk out to The Heath. Any of these northern silent Scottish blasted heaths will serve. It is as though the witches had made their mysterious incantations anywhere, everywhere. And if Shakespeare was in Scotland in 1589—as I like to think he was—it is doubtful if he saw The Heath. Johnson told Hannah More, so she reports, that when he and Boswell stopped for a night at a spot where the Weird Sisters appeared to Macbeth, they could not sleep the night for thinking of it. Next day they found it was not The Heath. This one is, in all faith, apocryphal. Still, if you come hither toward evening, when
"Good things of day begin to droop and drowse"
it is fearsome enough. Such heaths demand their legend.
"The thane of Cawdor lives
A prosperous gentleman."
Not so prosperous now as when he lived in the life. Shakespeare took liberties with the Thane. He immortalized him into Macbeth! And Cawdor Castle, out from Nairn a few paces on the burn of Cawdor, might have been the very home of Macbeth. It is pleasant, flowery, lovely. But also, it is stern and looks like a castle for tragedy. But not for mystery. I did not hear a bird of prey, as some travelers report—