CHAPTER III.
THE CASTLE OF ROHALLION.
"Hast them seen that lordly castle,
That castle by the sea?
Golden and red above it,
The clouds float gorgeously;
And fain it would stoop downward,
To the mirrored wave below,
And fain it would soar upward,
In the evening's crimson glow."—LONGFELLOW.
The baronial fortalice in which our story has opened stands, as we have stated, upon a cliff, at least one hundred and fifty feet in height above the ocean, or where the estuary of the Clyde widens thereunto, on the Carrick shore; but since 1798 it has undergone many alterations, not perhaps for the better.
In that year it consisted of the old Scottish Keep, built in the reign of James I. by Sir Ranulph Crawford, of Rohallion, his ambassador, first to Henry VI. of England, and afterwards to Charles VII. of France, for which services he was created Keeper of the Royal Palace of Carrick. Adjoining this grim tower, with its grated windows, machicolated ramparts, and corner tourelles, was the more modern mansion built in the time of James VI., by Hugh, third Lord Rohallion, who slew the gipsy king in single combat at the Cairns of Blackhinney. It had crowstepped gables, dormer windows, gabletted and carved with dates, crests, and quaint monograms, and many a huge chimney, conical turret, and creaking vane, added to its picturesque appearance. To this was added a wing in the time of Queen Anne, somewhat unsightly in its details, yet the general aspect of the whole edifice was bold and pleasing, chastened or toned down as it was by time and the elements.
On one side it overlooked the Firth, then opening to a stormy sea, with the ruins of Turnberry in the distance—the crumbling walls wherein the conqueror of the proud Plantagenet first saw the light, and learned "to shake his Carrick spear." On the other, its windows opened to the most fertile portion of the bailiewick—wooded heights that looked on the banks and braes of the Doon, where the scenery wakened a flood of historical or legendary memories; where every broomy knowe and grassy hill, every coppice and rushy glen, grey lichened rock and stony corrie, were consecrated by some old song or stirring tale of love or local war—the fierce old feudal wars of the Kennedies, the Crawfords, and the grim iron Barons of Auchindrane; and, more than all, it was the birthplace, the home of Robert Bruce and of Robert Burns—the one the warrior, and the other the bard of the people. From the windows of Rohallion could be seen the very uplands, where, but a few years before, the latter had ploughed and sown, and where, as he tells us in his filial love of his native soil, when he saw
"The rough burr-thistle spreading wide,
Among the bearded bear;
I turned the weeding-hook aside,
And spared the emblem dear!"
The scenery from whence he drew his inspiration looked down on the old tower of Rohallion, which contained on its first floor the stone-paved hall, that had witnessed many a bridal feast and Christmas festival, held in the rough old joyous times, when Scotland was true to herself, and ere sour Judaical Sabbatarianism came upon her, to make religion a curse and a cloak for the deepest hypocrisy; and ere her preachers sought "to merit heaven, by making earth a hell."
It presented the unusual feature (in a baronial edifice) of a groined roof, having at least six elaborately carved Gothic bosses, where the ribs that sprang from beautiful corbels placed between the windows intersected each other. On the frieze of the high-arched fireplace was a shield gules, with a fess ermine, the old arms of the Crawfords, Lords of Crawford, in Clydesdale (a family ancient as the days of William the Lyon), from whom the peers of Rohallion—whose patent was signed by James IV. on the night before Flodden—took their bearings and motto, Endure Furth! Though, certainly, it was but little they were ever disposed to endure with patience, if displeased with either king or commoner.
Stags' skulls, antlers, a few old barred helmets, dinted corslets, rusty swords and pikes, decorated this great stone apartment. Its furniture was massive and ancient, but seldom used now, so there the busy spiders spun their webs all undisturbed, across the grated windows, and the moss grew in winter on the carved jambs of the great fireplace, within which, according to tradition, for ages before these days of unbelief, the little red brownie of Rohallion was wont to come o' nights when all were abed, and warm himself by the smouldering grieshoch.
Lady Rohallion preferred the more modern rooms of Queen Anne's reign, where the buhl and marqueterie furniture was more to her taste.
There, the double drawing-room with its yellow damask curtains, high-backed chairs and couches, its old bandy-legged tabourettes, slender gueridon work-tables; its old-fashioned piano, with perhaps "H.R.H. the Duke of York's Grand March" on the music-frame; its Delft-lined fireplace and basket-grate set on a square block of stone, a spinning-wheel on one side, and cosy elbow-chair, brilliant with brass nails, on the other, was the beau-ideal of comfort, especially on a tempestuous night, such as the last we have described; nor was it destitute of splendour, for its lofty panelled walls exhibited some fine pictures. There were some gems by Greuze, of golden-haired boys and fair full-bosomed women in brilliant colours; one or two ruddily-tinted saints by Murillo; one or two dark Titians, and darker Vandykes representing Italian nobles of cut-throat aspect, in gilt armour, with trunk breeches and high ruffs. Then there were also some of the Scottish school; the Lord Rohallion (who opposed the surrender of Charles I. to the English) by Jameson; his son, a vehement opposer of the Union, attired in a huge wig and collarless red coat, by Aikman; and the father of the present lord, by Allan Ramsay, son of the poet.
This Lord in 1708 left his country in disgust, swearing that "she was only fit for the Presbyterian slaves who sold her;" and for several years he solaced himself at the head of a Muscovite regiment against the Turks on the banks of the Danube—as the Scots whigs had it, "learning to eat raw horse and forget God's kirk, among barbarians in red breeks."
Near the castle, and forming indeed a portion of it, was a platform, facing the little sandy bay, where the fishing boats were beached, and thereon were mounted twelve iron twenty-four pounders, part of the spoil of La Bonne Citoyenne, a French privateer, which was cast away on the Parian Craig; and there, as the old lord and representative peer (whose wife is awaiting him) still retained his military instincts, being a retired general officer, he had all the able-bodied men of his tenantry drilled to the use of sponge and rammer as artillerymen, for rumours of invasion were rife; gunboats were being built at Boulogne, and those who then looked across the Straits of Dover, could see the white tents of the Armée d'Angleterre, under the Irish soldier of fortune, Kilmaine, covering all the hostile shore of France. So all Britain was bristling with bayonets; from Cape Wrath to the Land's End in Cornwall, every man who could handle a musket was a volunteer, if not otherwise enrolled in the line, militia, or Fencibles.
On this battery the flag was hoisted and a salute loyally and joyously fired every 4th of June, in honour of His Majesty George III., by the Rohallion volunteers; and there with loud hurrahs they drank confusion to France and to his enemies, Tom Paine, the Pope, and the Devil, and very frequently in the best French brandy, which somehow found its way quite as often as our good Farintosh or Campbelton whisky, duty free, into the sea coves beneath the castle rock.
These twelve twenty-four pounders protected the approach to the bay on one side, and to the gate of the castle on the other—the haunted gate of Rohallion, as it was named, from the circumstance that there the old village dominie, Symon Skaill, when going home one morning (night he affirmed it to be) in midsummer, after topering with Mr. John Girvan, saw a very startling sight. Clearly defined in the calm still twilight of the morning, there stood by the gate the tall and handsome figure of John, Master of Rohallion, who was known to be then serving with the Foot Guards under Cornwallis, in America. He wore his scarlet regimentals, his brigadier wig, his long straight sword, and little three-cocked hat; but his face was pale, distorted by agony, and blood was flowing from a wound in his left temple.
Ere the affrighted dominie could speak, the figure—the wraith—melted into the twilight, and not a trace of it remained by the arched gate, where the birds were twittering about in the early morning. A note was made of this singular vision, and it was found that at that hour, the Master of Rohallion had been shot through the head, when leading on his company of the Guards at the attack on Long Island.
Such, in 1798, was the old Scottish mansion of Rohallion, the residence of Reynold, sixth Lord of that ilk, which, by the events of the last night's storm, has become the starting-place, or, as the quartermaster might phrase it, the point d'appui, of our story.