In returning, I passed in the rear of the castle, and looked into the temporary pavilions erected for the banquet and ball. They were covered exteriorly with rough board and sails, and communicated by an enclosed gallery with one of the larger apartments of the castle. The workmen were still nailing up the drapery, and arranging lamps and flowers; but with all this disadvantage, the effect of the two immense halls, lined as they were with crimson and white in broad alternate stripes, resembling in shape and fashion two gigantic tents, was exceedingly imposing. Had the magnificent design of Lord Eglinton been successfully carried out it would have been a scene, with the splendor of the costumes, the lights, music, and revelry unsurpassed probably by anything short of enchantment.
Principal Day.—I was awakened at an early hour the morning after arriving at Ardrossan by a band of music in the street. My first feeling was delight at seeing a bit of blue sky of the size of my garret skylight, and a dazzling sunshine on the floor. “Skirling” above all other instruments of the band, the Highland bagpipe made the air reel with “A’ the blue bonnets are over the border,” and, hoisting the window above my head, I strained over the house-leads to look at the performer. A band of a dozen men in kilt and bonnet were marching up and down, led by a piper, something in the face like the heathen representations of Boreas; and on a line of roughly-constructed rail-cars were piled, two or three deep, a crowd resembling at first sight, a crushed bed of tulips. Bonnets of every cut and color, from the courtier’s green velvet to the shepherd’s homely gray, struggled at the top; and over the sides hung red legs and yellow legs, cross barred stockings and buff boots, bare feet and pilgrim’s sandals. The masqueraders scolded and laughed, the boys halloed, the quiet people of Ardrossan stared in grave astonishment, and, with the assistance of some brawny shoulders, applied to the sides of the overladen vehicles, the one unhappy horse got his whimsical load under way for the tournament.
Train followed train, packed with the same motley array; and at ten o’clock, after a clean and comfortable Scotch breakfast in our host’s little parlor, we sallied forth to try our luck in the scramble for places. After a considerable fight we were seated, each with a man in his lap, when we were ordered down by the conductor, who informed us that the Chief of the Campbells had taken the car for his party, and that, with his band in the succeeding one, he was to go in state (upon a railroad!) to Eglinton. Up swore half-a-dozen Glasgow people, usurpers like ourselves, that they would give way for no Campbell in the world; and finding a stout hand laid on my leg to prevent my yielding to the order to quit, I gave in to what might be called as pretty a bit of rebellious republicanism as you would find on the Mississippi. The conductor stormed, but the Scotch bodies sat firm; and as Scot met Scot in the fight, I was content to sit in silence and take advantage of the victory. I learned afterwards that the Campbell Chieftain was a Glasgow manufacturer; and though he undoubtedly had a right to gather his clan, and take piper and eagle’s plume, there might, possibly, be some jealous disapprobation at the bottom of his townsmen’s rudeness.
Campbell and his party presently appeared, and a dozen or twenty very fine-looking men they were. One of the ladies, as well as I could see through the black lace veil thrown over her cap and plumes, was a remarkably handsome woman, and I was very glad when the matter was compromised, and the Campbells distributed among our company. We jogged on at a slow pace toward the tournament, passing thousands of pedestrians, the men all shod, and the women all barefoot, with their shoes in their hands, and nearly every one, in accordance with Lord Eglinton’s printed request, showing some touch of fancy in his dress. A plaid over the shoulder, or a Glengary bonnet, or, perhaps, a goose-feather stuck jauntily in the cap, was enough to show the feeling of the wearer, and quite enough to give the crowd, all in all, a most festal and joyous aspect.
The secluded bit of road between the rail-track and the castle lodge, probably never before disturbed by more than two vehicles at a time, was thronged with a press of wheels, as closely jammed as Fleet street at noon. Countrymen’s carts piled with women and children like loads of market baskets in Kent; post-chaises with exhausted horses and occupants straining their eyes forward for a sight of the castle; carriages of the neighboring gentry with “bodkins” and over-packed dickeys, all in costume; stout farmers on horseback, with plaid and bonnet; gingerbread and ale carts, pony carts, and coal carts; wheelbarrows with baggage, and porters with carpet bags and hat boxes, were mixed up in merry confusion with the most motley throng of pedestrians it has ever been my fortune to join. The vari-colored tide poured in at the open gate of the castle; and if I had seen no other procession, the long-extended mass of caps, bonnets, and plumes, winding through that shaded and beautiful avenue, would have repaid me for no small proportion of my subsequent discomfort. I remarked, by the way, that I did not see a hat in the entire mile between the porter’s lodge and the castle.
The stables, which lay on the left of the approach (a large square structure with turret and clock, very like four Methodist churches, dos-à-dos,) presented another busy and picturesque scene—horses half-caparisoned, men-at-arms in buff and steel, and the gay liveries of the nineteenth century paled by the revived glories of the servitude of more knightly times. And this part of the scene, too, had its crowd of laughing and wondering spectators.
On reaching the Gothic bridge over the Lugton, we came upon a cordon of police who encircled the castle, turning the crowd off by the bridge in the direction of the lists. Sorry to leave my merry and motley fellow-pedestrians, I presented my card of invitation and passed on alone to the castle. The sun was at this time shining with occasional cloudings-over; and the sward and road, after the two or three fine days we had had, were in the best condition for every purpose of the tournament.
Two or three noble trees with their foliage nearly to the ground stood between me and the front of the castle, as I ascended the slope above the river; and the lifting of a stage-curtain could scarce be more sudden, or the scene of a drama, more effectively composed, than the picture disclosed by the last step upon the terrace. Any just description of it, indeed, must read like a passage from the “prompter’s book.” I stood for a moment, exactly where you would have placed an audience. On my left rose a noble castle with four round towers, the entrance thronged with men-at-arms, and comers and goers in every variety of costume. On the greensward in front of the castle lounged three or four gentlemen archers in suits of green silk and velvet. A cluster of grooms under an immense tree on the right were fitting two or three superb horses with their armor and caparisons, while one beautiful blood palfrey, whose fine limbs and delicately veined head and neck were alone visible under his embroidered saddle and gorgeous trappings of silk, was held by two “tigers” at a short distance. Still farther on the right, stood a cluster of gayly decorated tents; and in and out of the looped-up curtain of the farthest passed constantly the slight forms of lady archers in caps with snowy plumes, kirtles of green velvet, and petticoats of white satin, quivers at their backs and bows in their hands—one tall and stately girl (an Ayrshire lady of very uncommon beauty, whose name I took some pains to inquire,) conspicuous by her grace and dignity above all.
The back-ground was equally well composed—the farther side of the lawn making a sharp descent to the small river which bends around the castle, the opposite shore thronged with thousands of spectators watching the scene I have described; and in the distance behind them, the winding avenue, railed in for the procession, hidden and disclosed by turns among the noble trees of the park, and alive throughout its whole extent with the multitudes crowding to the lists. There was a chivalric splendor in the whole scene, which I thought at the time would repay one for a long pilgrimage to see it—even should the clouds, which by this time were coming up very threateningly from the horizon, put a stop to the tournament altogether.