CHAPTER V.
A TRAMP-TRIP THROUGH THE HIGHLANDS.
His Royal Highness and a Demand for Fresh Air—A Boy in his Father’s Clothes—Among the Common People—Nature’s Stronghold—Treason Found in Trust—Body Quartered and Exposed on Iron Spikes—Receiving a Royal Salute—Following no Road but a Winding River—Sleeveless Dresses and Dyed Hands—Obelisk to a Novelist and Poet—On the Scotch Lakes—Eyes to See but See Not—A Night of Rest and a Morning of Surprise—A Terrestrial Heaven—A Poetic Inspiration—A Deceptive Mountain—A Glittering Crown—Hard to Climb—An Adventure and a Narrow Escape—Johnson Gives Out—Put to Bed on the Mountain Side—On and Up—A Summit at Last—Niagara Petrified—Overtaken by the Night—Johnson Lost in the Mountains—A Fruitless Search—Bewildered—Exhausted—Sick.
AFTER a sojourn of ten days, I left Edinburgh, the site of Scottish nobility. While there I heard so much of Dukes and Earls, of Lords and Nobles, of Her Majesty and His Royal Highness, etc., that it became necessary for me to seek some mountain peak where I could get a full supply of fresh air. If there is such a thing, I have a pious contempt for high-sounding titles of honor and nobility, and especially when, as is too often the case, the appellations themselves are of more consequence than the men who wear them. A man may indeed have a great name “thrust upon him,” but greatness itself is not thus attained. I like to see a son inherit his father’s good qualities, and the more of them the better, but as for honors and titles, let him win those for himself. I saw a “Duke” the other day who reminded me of a half-grown boy on the streets wearing his father’s worn-out pants and coat and hat.
Well, as I started out to say, I became so nauseated with these inherited, worn-out, loose-fitting titles of nobility that I determined to leave the rendezvous of “honor,” and get out into the country among the common people. Accordingly I left Edinburgh, a week ago to-day, for an extended tramp-trip through the Highlands. I came first by rail, via Glasgow, to Dunbarton, a ship-building town of 13,000 inhabitants, on the river Clyde. Thence, a pleasant walk of three miles brought me to Dunbarton Castle, which I saw from the steamer as we were coming from America, and which was barely mentioned in a previous chapter. “This Castle,” says the Scottish historian, “is one of the strongest in Europe, if not in the world.” It is, as before stated, a great moss-covered rock, standing in the river, measuring a mile in circumference, and rising nearly three hundred feet high. In the first century of the Christian era, the Romans gained possession of, and fortified themselves in, this Castle. By the treachery of John Monmouth, Sir William Wallace, while on this rock, was betrayed, in 1305, into the hands of the British, who took him to London and struck off his head, after which his body was quartered and exposed upon spikes of iron on London Bridge. A long two-handed sword, once used by Wallace, and other ancient relics of warfare, are shown to the visitor.
From the top of the Castle, one gets a commanding view of the surrounding country. While there, looking northward, I saw Ben Lomond, more than twenty miles away. I could not refrain from taking off my hat to this “Mountain Monarch.” And, as if to return my salute, the clouds just then were lifted, leaving the snow-covered head of the mountain bare for a moment. For this act of civility, I determined to pay His Royal Highness a visit. Hence, with felt hats pulled down over our eyes, with canes in hand, and small leather satchels strapped across our backs, my traveling companion and I set out on foot for the Highlands.
We followed no road, being guided by the river only, which flows from Loch Lomond into the Clyde. The general scenery along this route is nothing unusual; but the river itself is surpassingly beautiful, its water being transparent, and flowing deep, smooth and swift, but silent, between its level green banks.