The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

A Strange Revenge. 335
she was queen of the Castle, and the controller of every
heart that beat within its ancient grey walls.
The home of the Stuarts was not much to look at in
this, what misfortune and fate had decreed to be, the last
generation of the family who had continued its occupancy
for centuries. It is more picturesque to-day as a ruin,
crumbled and ivy-grown. Antiquarians of architectural
bias note down its few quaint features as they pass on ; but
the romance of its decay has remained buried as surely as
the successive lairds, who were wont make its halls ring
with their hospitalit}'. A three-storied, square, quaint
structure, divested of its court-yard, moat, and draw-bridge,
it had been made— with wretched incongruit}'— to accom-
modate itself to the new-fangled idea of an English
mansion, while every stone and turret it possessed protested
its association with the days of Scottish chivalry, the
national independence—and vicissitudes. The majority of
the Stuart acres were treated according to the rude agricul-
ture of the 1 8th century; a few were devoted to the
growing fashion of tree-raising ; and the remainder, in the
unpaying form of heathery slopes, retreated inland, until
the sea-flowing mountain torrent demarcated the southern
limits of the property. To the north, the tide ebbed and
flowed with lazy monotony ; eastwards ships appeared and
disappeared on the mysterious ocean— -views beautiful
and comprehensive, no doubt, but the aesthetic age had yet
scarcely dawned ; scenery had not yet begun to pay ; and
each laird pro tein was alone concerned with eking from his
limited revenues the precarious existence of a moderate-
going country gentleman.
" He is in good heart to-day ;
he
must have got that
bond arranged," David murmured, as the laird persisted in
placing Flora on a swing, hung between two pines, which
formed the sole remnants of the once sylvan glories of the
place, and began to swing her vigorously, laughter and
merry jest accompanying the performance.
The laird was indeed a gay old man, boyish, even mis-