The castle now again behold, Then mark yon lofty turret bold, Which frowns above the western wing, Its grim walls darkly shadowing. There is a room within that tower No mortal dare approach; the power Of an avenging God is there. Dread--awfully display'd--beware! And enter not that dreadful room, Else yours may be a fearful doom.
According to one legendary romance--founded on an incident which is said to have occurred during one of the carousals of the Earl of Crawford, otherwise styled "Earl Beardie" or the "Tiger Earl"--there was many years ago a grand "meet" at Glamis, as the result of which many a noble deer lay dead upon the hill, and many a grizzly boar dyed with his heart's blood the rivers of the plain. As the day drew to its close, "the wearied huntsmen, with their fair attendants, returned, 'midst the sounds of martial music and the low whispered roundelays of the ladies, victorious to the castle." In the old baronial dining hall was spread a sumptuous and savoury feast, at which "venison and reeking game, rich smoked ham and savoury roe, flanked by the wild boar's head, and viands and pasties without name, blent profusely on the hospitable board, while jewelled and capacious goblets, filled with ruby wine, were lavishly handed round to the admiring guests."
At the completion of the banquet, the minstrel strung his ancient harp, and soon the company tripped lightly on the oaken floor, till the rafters rang with the merry sounds of their midnight revelry. For three days and nights the hunt and the feast continued, and as, at last, the revelries drew to a close, still four dark chieftains remained in the inner chamber of the castle, "and sang, and drank, and shouted, right merrilie. The day broke, yet louder rang the wassail roar; the goblets were over and over again replenished, and the terrible oaths and ribald songs continued, and the dice rattled, and the revelry became louder still, till the many walls of the old castle shook and reverberated with the awful sounds of debauchery, blasphemy, and crime."
"At length their wild, ungovernable frenzy reached its climax. They had drunk until their eyes had grown dim, and their hands could scarcely hold the hellish dice, when, driven by expiring fury, with fiendish glee, they defiantly gnashed their teeth and cursed the God of heaven! Then, with returning strength, and exhausting its last and fitful energies in still louder imprecations and more fearful yells, they deliberately and with unanimous voice consigned their guilty souls to the nethermost hell! Fatal words! In a bright, broad sheet of lurid and sulphurous flame the Prince of Darkness appeared in their midst, and struck--not the shaft of death, but the vitality of eternal life--and there to this day in that dreaded room they sit, transfixed in all their hideous expression of ghastly terror and dismay--doomed to drink the wine cup and throw the dice till the dawning of the Great Judgment Day."[21]