Author.—They are said to occupy a space of not less than an hundred yards square.
Clifford.—This, then, is the very castle whence your Danish prince escaped with his lady-love. Let me tell you, that if their grey steed had not gone with a somewhat freer pace than your verses do, the old king of the castle would have caught them ere they had covered half the way to Dulsie.
Grant.—I’ll warrant me those huge round towers and massive curtains have many strange and eventful histories attached to them.
Clifford.—Come, Signore Cicerone, prelect to us about it, if you please.
Author.—Loch-an-Dorbe was one of the few royal or national fortresses which Scotland possessed. When Edward the First traversed this country with his army in 1303, he came to Loch-an-Dorbe in the month of September, and occupied it for some time; and Edward the Third considered it as a place of so much importance, that he and Edward Baliol marched all the way from Perth to its relief in August, 1336, when Catherine de Beaumont, widow of David de Hastings, Earl of Athol, and her son were besieged in it by the brave Sir Andrew Moray, then Governor of Scotland. Sir Andrew would have been overwhelmed by the superior force of the English monarch, had he not baffled pursuit by crossing the river Findhorn at the celebrated pass, the Brig of Randolph, so called, as you know, from Randolph, Earl of Moray, Regent of Scotland. Another important historical fact is connected with this castle. It was here that William Bullock was confined. After abandoning the cause of Baliol, and after having risen to high honours under David the Second, he was enviously and maliciously accused of treason; and having been thrown into one of the dungeons within these massive walls, he was cruelly allowed to perish of cold and hunger. We also know that the famous Alexander Stewart, son of King Robert the Second, and who, from his ferocious disposition, was surnamed the Wolf of Badenoch, possessed and inhabited this castle. It was from hence he is supposed to have issued when he made his famous descent into the low country of Moray, and fired the Cathedral of Elgin, reducing that magnificent structure, that speculum patriæ et decus regni, as it was called, and many other religious edifices in the town, to a heap of ruins.
Clifford.—Oh, you have told us enough, in all conscience, about that wild beast; “adesso parliamo d’altro.”
Author.—I am at a stand, so far as the history of Loch-an-Dorbe is concerned, excepting that I may add, that in more recent times it was possessed by the Earls of Moray, and passed from their hands into those of the Campbells of Cawdor, and thence to the Grants of Grant. I have seen at Cawdor Castle a massive iron gate, believed to have been that of the Castle of Loch-an-Dorbe, which tradition says was carried off from thence by Sir Donald Campbell of Cawdor, who bore it on his back all the way across the moors till he set it down where it is now in use, the distance being not less than some twelve or fifteen miles. But this is a story much too marvellous for belief in these matter-of-fact days of ours.
Clifford.—It is incredible enough, to be sure. Yet I have a story, a well authenticated story too, which I think will almost match it.
Grant.—Out with it then.
Clifford.—No, I promise you you don’t get my stories at so very easy a rate; and for this simple reason, that they are by no means so plenty as yours. Besides, I have just been thinking that with this warm breeze, that so gently ripples the surface of the lake, I could kill a handsome dish of trouts this afternoon, if trouts there be within its watery world. Why might we not loiter off the remainder of the day about this lake?