We parted after having achieved it, my companion going before me to Dumbartonshire; and, with a “wee callant” for a guide, I took my way to Holyrood.
At the very foot of Edinboro’ stands this most interesting of royal palaces—a fine old pile, though at the first view rather disappointing. It might have been in the sky, which was dun and cold, or it might have been in the melancholy story most prominent in its history, but it oppressed me with its gloom. A rosy cicerone in petticoats stepped out from the porter’s lodge, and rather brightened my mood with her smile and courtesy, and I followed on to the chapel royal, built, Heaven knows when, but in a beautiful state of gothic ruin. The girl went on with her knitting and her well-drilled recitation of the sights upon which those old fretted and stone traceries had let in the light; and I walked about feeding my eyes upon its hoar and touching beauty, listening little till she came to the high altar, and in the same broad Scotch monotony, and with her eyes still upon her work, hurried over something about Mary Queen of Scots. She was married to Darnley on the spot where I stood! The mechanical guide was accustomed evidently to an interruption here, and stood still a minute or two to give my surprise the usual grace. Poor, poor Mary! I had the common feeling, and made probably the same ejaculation that thousands have made on the spot, that I had never before realized the melancholy romance of her life half so nearly. It had been the sadness of an hour before—a feeling laid aside with the book that recorded it—now it was, as it were, a pity and a grief for the living, and I felt struck with it as if it had happened yesterday. If Rizzio’s harp had sounded from her chamber, it could not have seemed more tangibly a scene of living story.
“And through this door they dragged the murdered favorite; and here under this stone, he was buried!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Poor Rizzio!”
“I’m thinkin’ that’s a’, sir!”
It was a broad hint, but I took another turn down the nave of the old ruin, and another look at the scene of the murder, and the grave of the victim.
“And this door communicated with Mary’s apartments!”
“Yes—ye hae it a’ the noo!”
I paid my shilling, and exit.