EDINBURGH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.
Wall, from Glasgow we went to Edinburgh, and we found that that wuz a beautiful city, beautiful, with the ancient castle perched up on the rocks four hundred feet above, and old Edinburgh a-lyin’ at its feet, like old Vassals that gathers round their Chieftan; all on ’em aged, but loth to part.
The streets of old Edinburgh are so narrer that you can almost reach to both sides of ’em and touch the houses.
The houses, with pinted ruffs and gabriel ends, are quaint and picturesque in the extreme, and interestin’.
Between the new and the old is a gulf, as there often is, but partly filled up with a R. R. Station, and statutes and gardens and handsome bridges are throwed acrost it.
New Edinburgh is laid out dretful handsome, with broad, wide streets and handsome buildin’s, and statutes and fountains and parks and everything else that it needs for its comfort; and it might have got along with less on ’em, it seemed to me. I rode through ’em, for Martin always said he wanted to view every city exhaustively.
And we did it every time we rid out with him; I come home perfectly exhausted. He wanted to see so much, so much, in sech a short, sech a very short time.
Yes, indeed!
Oh, dear me suz!
When Josiah and me went alone by ourselves we took as much agin comfort, for though mebby I didn’t see so many things, I see ’em much better. My brain didn’t reel nigh so much, nor my spectacles wobble so.
Why, with Martin I would no sooner git them specs sot on anything, a steeple or anything, but them poor specs would have to do as poor little Joe did, that Dickens wrote about, “move along,” and move lively, too.
I wuz sorry for ’em and for the eyes under ’em.
Yes, indeed, I wuz!
Half of the time Martin wouldn’t look at the different things at all. But he said that he had never visited Edinburgh before, and that he wanted to take in all the sights.
And I believe my soul wuz raced through every solitary street that day we wuz out together.
He seemed to feel well when we got back to the hotel, he seemed to sort o’ wake up or roust up. I d’no as he had been sound asleep, mebby he’d been in a deep study about sunthin’—about his money-makin’, I guess. But his eyes wuz shet a good deal of the time.
But he said, with a happy look, that we had accomplished a great deal.
I knew he’d accomplished one thing, he had jest about killed one female.
And my poor pardner! poor creeter! wuz not his looks pitiful? He bore up in Martin’s sight (that man is kinder deceitful, but I wouldn’t want him to hear that I said it).
But when we wuz alone, he would take on, and limp, more’n I believe wuz neccessary.
Sez I—“You’ve no need to limp, Josiah; you rid most all the way.”
“Rid! I should think I had rid! I’m bed rid, that’s what ails me! I never shall be good for nothin’ agin. We’ve been four hundred milds sence we sot out, if we’ve been a step!”
And he sunk down onto the bed and groaned loud, so’s you could hear him quite a good ways.
“Wall,” sez I, “let’s bear up under it the best we can—it’s all paid for.”
“What good duz payin’ for a thing do that kills you?” Sez he, “When you’re killed, payin’ for things hain’t a-goin’ to help you! Oh! if I ever set foot on my farm agin,” sez he, “I’ll never leave it to go to meetin’, or anywhere.”
No megumness here, as I could see, but I pitied him and sympathized with him deeply.
Sez I, “It would seem dretful good, wouldn’t it, Josiah, to see you a-comin’ in with two pails of milk? It would be jest about this time you’d want the milk scum for the calves.”
“Don’t mention it!” he groaned, “them happy times wuz too happy to last; we didn’t appreciate ’em.”
“No,” sez I; “don’t you remember how you ust to dum the calves, and barn chores?”
“I praised ’em always,” sez he stoutly, “and I’d ruther milk my hull herd of Jerseys now this minute than to eat!”
Sez I, “I don’t believe I appreciated how happy I wuz a-standin’ by the buttery winder, calm and peaceful, a-washin’ dishes, or a-skimmin’ milk, and a-seein’ the red sun a-sinkin’ low beneath Balcom’s hill; and the sweet south wind a-wavin’ the mornin’-glory vines, and my snow-white strainer spread on the blossomin’ rose-bush under the winder. And the sight of the barns lookin’ so good, and sort o’ settled down and at rest, and the hen-house, and the ash-house, and the garden—”
“And how I ust to ketch the old mair,” sez Josiah, “and we’d ride over and see the children after the chores wuz done. Oh! happy days,” sez he, “we never shall see you agin!”
“Yes you will, Josiah Allen,” sez I; “bear up, and we will anon be back in our own peaceful home.”
And wantin’ to roust him up still further out of his despondency, I sez, “You will enjoy that home better than ever now, for how you will enjoy tellin’ Uncle Smedley all about what you see to-day, Josiah Allen.”
He brightened up; “Yes, Samantha, if I ever live to get home, it will be a treat to tell what we went through, and,” sez he, “won’t Uncle Smedley open his eyes when I tell him of——”
Alas! alas! I had done what I sot out to do. I had lightened my pardner’s gloom, but wearisome wuz the hours I spent a-hearin’ him rehearse what he wuz a-goin’ to tell the Jonesvillians.
Oh, the peticulars, oh, the peticulars! It wuz hard to tread the ground over under the rain of a Martin, but it wuz harder still to hear ’em rehearsed by the voice of a Josiah.
But of course I lived through it, or I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale.
Martin always done the fair thing, so fur as gittin’ good places to stay wuz concerned, and we had a plenty of everything for our comfort, only jest that one thing—rest.
But my onusual common sense learnt me that I mustn’t expect to be to home and on a tower at the same time.
And I felt quite grateful to Martin for invitin’ us to go with him—a good deal of the time I did; and I tried to do my part as well as I could. I kep’ a eye on Adrian, and see that his clothes and feet wuz dry, and see that he learnt his Sunday-school lesson, and see that Alice took her cough medicine every day; and when Martin took it into his head to go off for a day or two, he felt easy about the children, knowin’ my love and care for ’em couldn’t be excelled and gone beyend by anybody. He said it wuz a great care offen his mind, and made him feel at liberty to go and come.
He had to see certain men on business in these different countries where we went, and I presoom he did feel better to know that the children had some one with ’em that loved ’em while he was off milds away for days at a time.
And Alice kep’ a-sayin’ every day that she couldn’t have got along without me anyway. And I presoom I wuz some company for her; anyway, I loved her, and she knew it. You can’t hide sech feelin’s under a bushel.
And lots of times I gladly, gladly stayed to home with Adrian while Alice went out with her Pa. She would say so sweetly that it wuz too bad to deprive me of the pleasure of goin’ out with her Pa.
And I would say, “Don’t mention it, Alice; I am perfectly willin’ to stay to home with Adrian.” And Heaven knows I spoke the truth!
She would come home, the horses covered with sweat, and Martin and herself all fagged out; but the fagness of 20 hain’t like the fagness of——more maturer and older years.
And in the mornin’ she’d be ready for another start.
Of course some of the excursions I gladly jined in. I wuz glad enough to go to see Holyrood Palace, once the home of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots—Miss Darnley, she that wuz Stuart.
The most interestin’ queen that ever walked down the pages of history. A-walkin’ along with her big, soft eyes bent kinder downwards under that cap of hern, and her sweet face a-drawin’ men’s hearts out of their bodies to foller her to the throne, or the scaffold, as she trod onwards. Heaven pity her for her sorrow! If she wuz true or false, she atoned for her sin, poor thing! by the hardness of her fate.
Poor Mary! poor Miss Stuart that wuz! I wuz always sorry for her, and I always believed her cousin Lizabeth wuz jealous of her.
You know Lib wuzn’t very good-lookin’, and she wuz as vain as a pea-hen, and it gaulded her to have her cousin praised up so to her.
Relations are dretful mean sometimes, they’re dretful jealous of each other—cousins specially; and though they don’t make a practice of beheadin’ the ones they are jealous of, yet they stab ’em with the sharp, pizened daggers of detraction, lies, hatred, envy, mean insinuations, total incomprehension of their motives, etc., etc., etc.
So if you have to live nigh ’em, you might jest about as well have your head cut off, and done with it.
But to resoom. We see the rooms, not very big either, that poor Mary, Queen of Scots, ust to live in.
It made me feel real bad to see in what a condition her rooms wuz kep’. Poor thing! it seems as if she went through with enough while she wuz alive to have some respect paid to her memory now, and her rooms kep’ clean.
But they wuz dusty and dingy lookin’. The curtains round the bed where that pretty head ust to lay a-dreamin’—what?—wuz all ragged.
I wouldn’t have sech ragged things in my back chamber. But, poor thing! I didn’t lay anything to her; my rooms git out of order if I leave ’em for three days. And if I wuz away for three hundred years, mine would look jest as bad, and mebby worse.
Josiah wuz dretful took up in lookin’ at them blood spots in the anty-room, but I wouldn’t look at ’em. Sez I—
“If them stains are made new every few days from beef creeters, hens, or etcetery, I certainly don’t want to see ’em. And if they’re made by the blood of that Italian Rizzio, I wouldn’t give a cent to see ’em.”
Sez I, “I’m sorry for him, but I don’t believe he wuz what he ort to be. Anyway, he ort to known he wuz a-makin’ trouble in a family; men ortn’t to make pardners jealous of ’em if they can help it. But,” sez I, after thinkin’ a minute, “I d’no as he could help it. That fatal power Mary wielded held him, poor creeter! and drawed him on to his fate, jest as it did the jealous pardner, when the time come.”
Wall, I had sights of emotions in that palace and in the chapel adjoinin’, where we trod over the graves of so many kings and queens once so high and mighty, now nothin’ but dust.
Curous, curous, hain’t it? Wall, I went with ’em to visit the castle of Edinburgh. And the view from them rampants wuz so wide and extended that Josiah vowed he could see clear over to Jonesville. I disputed him, but he said and stuck to it, that he recognized the steeple.
I knew better, but it wuz a grand and sweepin’ view as I ever see, or ever expect to see. All Scotland lay spread out before us, some as our old map would if it wuz spread on the kitchen floor, and I looked down on it from the top of the kitchen table.
We see the room here where poor Mary, Queen of Scots, gave birth to a prince, James VI., afterwards James 1st of England. What she went through in this room! For when her baby wuz only eight days old it wuz let down in a basket from the cliff. Jest think on’t, sech a little baby let down four hundred feet; but it wuz to save his life, and she stood it.
Here we see the crown that they said rested on the head of Robert Bruce. And we see the place where so many, so many politicians had their heads cut off.
I didn’t like to hear sech talk, and I showed that I didn’t by my mean. But I proposed that we should jine Martin. He wuz a-settin’ down in front of them rampants a-addin’ up a row of figgers in a account book.
He said that it wuz some home business that had to be attended to. As he put the book back in his pocket, and proposed that we should start for somewhere else, I sez, “The view is enchantin’ from here, hain’t it, Martin?”
“Yes,” sez he in a absent-minded way, without turnin’ his head—
“Yes; there! I forgot to add that last five thousand dollars to the balance,” and he wrote it down as we walked onwards.
But my remark wuz evidently a-hangin’ round in some by-place in his mind, for he presently remarked as he went down the path—
“Yes, as you say, the view is perfectly enchanting.”
And he gazed dreamily at the rocks that riz up before us and shet out every mite of view from that place.
Al Faizi stood on the lofty eminence a-lookin’ off in silence, and it seemed as though he couldn’t hardly be tore from the seen; and the grandeur and beauty wuz reflected in his eyes, some as you can see your own face in a pardner’s orbs if you look clost and lovin’ into ’em.
Alice and Adrian wuz a-walkin’ along, and seemed to be enjoyin’ themselves first-rate.
Adrian wuz a-askin’ her quite a number of questions about Robert Bruce and King James, etc., etc., and she wuz a-answerin’ him quite lusid; bein’ so late at school made her quite a adept in history, adepter than any of the rest of us wuz, by fur.
Wall, we went to the Church of St. Giles, and we see the Heart of Mid Lothian. I had heard Thomas J. read the story, and I wuz interested in it.
In the northwest corner of the church there is a heart cut in the pavement, and here the old Tolbooth, the city prison, first stood. In St. Giles Churchyard John Knox wuz buried.
The grave-stun has nothin’ but his initial and the date of his death. As I looked at it, I thought what long epitaphs—and in poetry, too, some on ’em—failed to git any attention from posterity. But as long as posterity lives—and I spoze that will be a good while yet—this unasumin’ grave will be visited, for a Man lies buried here—a hero who wuzn’t afraid to speak his mind, and who follered the right, so fur as he see it, through good and evil report.
Wall, in the Parliament House we see a copy of the first Bible that wuz ever printed. That gin me a sight of emotions—a sight; and I had quite a number of emotions a-seein’ the manuscript of the Waverley Novels, and in meditatin’ that Walter’s own hand rested on these pages.
Kinder tired hands some of the time, no doubt, and the eyes above heavy from study and toil. And he (Walter) not a-dreamin’ how so many years after she who wuz once Smith would stand and look on ’em with respect and almost veneration.
No; he didn’t have this to encourage him and make him happy, poor creeter!
But how well he did; how much happiness he has gin, and how much valuable information has been took onbeknown from the pages of his stories, like powders of smartweed in a spunful of honey.
Old Gray Friar’s Church and churchyard wuz dretful interestin’ to us on account of a good many things.
Alice and I wuz extremely interested to learn that here wuz where Walter Scott ust to come to meetin’ in his young days. And to see the graves of his Pa and his Ma, and some of the rest of his folks in the old churchyard.
In this meetin’-house the National Covenant wuz signed in 1638. After listenin’ to a heart-searchin’ sermon by Alexander Henderson this paper wuz signed by the Earl of Sutherland, and all the rest of the folks who wuz to meetin’ that day. It wuz then took out into the buryin’-ground outside, and spread out on a flat tombstone—a fittin’ spot, jedgin’ from what come afterwards—and signed by crowds and crowds of the people. Some writ their names in blood, showin’ their willingness to die for the Faith.
THE NATIONAL COVENANT SIGNED BY THE EARL OF SUTHERLAND.
This wuz the Confession of Faith of 1580, drawed up by the principal Presbyterian ministers of Edinburgh. Them that signed it agreed to protect and preserve their religion even to the death.
And these Covenanters wuz persecuted and killed for their faith, and then, when they wuz in power, they wuz jest as cruel to their persecutors.
And all in the name of Religion. Sweet sperit, how can she stand it? But I spoze she made allowances for ’em, a-thinkin’ they wuz mistook.
Al Faizi looked down in silence on the stun with a railin’ round it where the Covenant wuz written. And finally he took out that book of hisen with a cross on it, and he writ quite a lot in it. What it wuz I d’no.
And as he stood in front of that monument, riz up there to the memory of the martyrs put to death for their religion, he writ a hull lot more.
I myself got a piece of paper from Josiah’s account book, and I had a pencil with me, and I copied this inscription, so’s to let Thomas J. see it.
It wuz dretful readin’. As History held up her torch to light me as I writ it down, mournin’ weeds seemed to wrop her round and droop over her forward, and her face looked cold and pale and awful out from under them weeds. It read as follers—
And I thought, I can tell you, as I read it of how Miss Argyll felt and Miss Renwick and the children, for though it is a good ways back, it hurt jest as bad to have your head cut off then as it duz now, and hearts of loved ones who wuz left ached jest as bad.
It read as follers—
“From May 27, 1661, that the most noble Marquise of Argyll was beheaded, to the 17th of February, 1668, that Mr. James Renwick suffered, were one way or other murdered or destroyed for the same cause about 18,000, of whom were executed in Edinburgh about 100 of noblemen, gentlemen, ministers, and other noble martyrs for Jesus Christ.”
Al Faizi’s face wuz a deep study as he stood there.
And he sez to Martin, who had sauntered up and wuz a-lookin’ round, with his hands in his pantaloons pockets—
Sez Al Faizi—“This war was between Presbyterians and Catholics?”
“Yes,” sez Martin.
“Both of these religious sects thought they were right?”
“Yes,” sez Martin; “I suppose so.”
“They both send missionaries to my people?”
“Yes,” sez Martin; “quite likely; of course they do.”
Al Faizi didn’t say nothin’, but he writ down quite a lot more; what it wuz I d’no.
But his face looked very thoughtful, and the light struck that jewelled cross on the back of his little book, and its rays streamed out as red as blood.
But he kinder shifted it a little after awhile, and a pure and lambient light gleamed from it.
Queer! I’d like to know what them stuns wuz.
I d’no what Josiah did think as he looked at that monument, but I had a sight of emotions, and of great size. And I sez to my pardner—
“One thing I am impressed by as I read of these dretful things done by men who thought they wuz doin’ right,” sez I, “it learns me to not be too set in my own way, even when I think I am right.”
Sez Josiah, “I always knew you wuz too sot!”
Somehow the words grated on my nerve. It is so much easier to run yourself down than to be run.
But right here in front of so many martyrs I wuzn’t goin’ to be overcome by a muskeeter, for truly my sufferin’s wuzn’t bigger than that, compared to theirn.
And I wuz jest a-goin’ to complete my self-conquest by speakin’ soft to him, when he whispered to me—
“I’m as hungry as a bear, Samantha. Not a bear in a circus,” sez he, “but a Rocky Mountain bear.
“I wonder if Martin hain’t about ready to go?”
Wall, Martin wuz ready by that time; but I see lots of other things whilst we wuz there. Alice and Martin went to the Queen’s Drive. I d’no who the Queen wuz, nor who she driv, nor how fur.
And they went to the ruins of St. Anthony’s Chapel, and Alice raved over the beautiful view from Arthur’s Seat. I d’no what kind of a seat it wuz, nor how long Arthur sot in it, but she said that the view from there wuz enchantin’. And we all went to the Antiquarian Museum, and see sights and sights of relicks. Autograph letters from Charles 2nd, Cromwell, Mary, Queen of Scots, and we see the old Scotch Covenant with the names of Montrose, Lothair, etc., signed to it. And one of the banners them Covenanters had bore in their battles.
Here wuz the very glass that Prince Charlie drank from before the battle of Culloden. And then the pulpit of John Knox; out of which that man three hundred years ago thundered out sech burnin’ words agin the Church of Rome.
Here is a piece of the last garments put on to Robert Bruce, and in which he was laid in his last sleep—a sound sleep. Poor creeter! disturbed not by the warlike bugles and sounds of fray.
And here is the blue ribbin of the Knight of the Garter, wore by Prince Charlie, and the ring gin to him by Flora Macdonald as they parted.
WHEN PRINCE CHARLIE AND FLORA MACDONALD PARTED.
And then there wuz sights and sights of weepons, coins, medallions, seals, old implements, etc., etc.
But one thing I see there madded me more’n considerable; it wuz a kind of a gullotine rigged up with a axe, that wuz held up between two posts, and let down on the necks of ’em they wanted to kill. This very thing took the life of the Earl of Argyll, Sir John Gordon, and lots of others.
But what madded me most wuz the name of the creeter.
“The Maiden.”
It is a wonder they didn’t call it the “Old Maiden,” if they’d wanted to be a little meaner.
It rousted me up fearfully to think a lot of men should rig up such a horrid, death-dealin’ thing to carry out their bloody and brutal idees and then call it—“Maiden.”
Why didn’t they call it after their own selves, and call it—the “Old Man,” or “the Feller,” or sunthin’ like that?
“The Maiden!!!”
No woman would countenance sech cuttin’ off the heads of folks, and they knew it. They named it so to be mean.
And Martin, sayin’ that it would be expected of him, and he should have questions asked him by influential parties which he should want to answer, went to see lots of Horsepitals, and Schools, and Universities.
Josiah went with him one day, and come home and said Heriot’s Horsepital beat anything he ever see for architecture, and, sez he, “it wuz designed by Indigo Jones.”
Sez I, “I don’t believe any woman ever named her babe ‘Indigo’ in this world.” And I inquired, and found out that it wuz “Inigo.”
Josiah said I hadn’t made out much. It wuzn’t any better name. But it wuz.
Indigo! the idee!!
A little ways out of the town is the home where Doctor Guthrie lived, and one of the most beautiful and interestin’ houses I see in Scotland or anywhere else. It wuz the one his brother, Mr. Thomas Nelson, built. Every American who goes to Scotland ort to walk by it and meditate out a spell, anyway, if they don’t go in.
Durin’ our late war, when foreign nations thought our great republic wuz a-totterin’ over to ruin, this man had faith in us, and invested thousands of pounds in goverment bonds.
And the rise in them bonds paid every cent this palace of hisen cost. I didn’t begrech it to him, not at all.
Them in England who invested so largely in Confederate bonds, and lost every cent, wouldn’t be so happy in ridin’ by that noble structure and lookin’ at it, mebby.
