We toiled up the castle to see the sunset. Oh, but it was beautiful! I have no idea of describing it; but Edinboro’, to me, will be a picture seen through an atmosphere of powdered gold, mellow as an eve on the Campagna. We looked down on the surging sea of architecture below us, and whether it was the wavy cloudiness of a myriad of reeking chimneys, or whether it was a fancy Glenlivet-born in my eye, the city seemed to me like a troop of war-horses, rearing into the air with their gallant riders. The singular boldness of the hills on which it is built, and of the crags and mountains which look down upon it, and the impressive _lift_ of its towering architecture into the sky, gave it altogether a look of pride and war-likeness that answers peculiarly well to the chivalric history of Scotland. And so much for the first look at “Auld Reekie.”
My friend had determined to have what he called a “flare-up” of a Scotch breakfast, and we were set down, the morning after our arrival, at nine, to cold grouse, salmon, cold beef, marmalade, jellies, honey, five kinds of bread, oatmeal cakes, coffee, tea, and toast; and I am by no means sure that that is all. It is a fine country in which one gets so much by the simple order of “breakfast at nine.”
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.