File:The land of heather (1904) (14793189603).jpg

Identifier: landofheather01john (find matches)
Title: The land of heather
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Johnson, Clifton, 1865-1940
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, The Macmillan company London, Macmillan and co., limited
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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awbridge that spansthe ancient moat, and dodged along through the guideswho blocked the way with offers of their services untilI passed under the portcullis-guarded arch of the en-trance. As I went in a squad of Scotch soldiersmarched jauntily out with their pipes jigging merrilyon ahead. The soldiers with their bare knees, theirkilts, high black hats, and other fancy fixings, lookedmore as if they were gotten up for a circus parade thanfor war, but they were tall, brawny fellows, and I donot question their effectiveness. The castle is to-day mainly composed of heavy,gray stone barracks of no great antiquity, but amongthe rest is a tiny chapel erected about eight hundredyears ago, which claims to date back farther than anyother building in Scotland. The sole occupant of thechapel, as I saw it, was an old woman who sat behindan array of guide-books for sale, like a venerable spiderin its lair, hopeful of enticing unwary flies. In a roomnear by one can look through some iron bars at the
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Historic Ground 113 ancient Scottish crown, sceptre, and other gewgaws ofthis sort; but there was to me much more charm inthe view from the fortification parapets off over thesmoky city. The castle stands at the far end of theridge, where the rock rises highest, and you cannot butthink the situation must have possessed almost im-pregnable strength in the days before the invention ofheavy siege pieces. Nothing, too, would seem moreunHkely than escape from the dungeon prisons hewnin the solid rock; yet the castle has been often taken,and prisoners have frequently found means to get free.Even the almost vertical cliffs have been scaled onoccasions, and it is one of the pleasures of the present-day little boys of Edinburgh to risk their necks intrying to climb the crags. Close under the base of the hill to the north is anarrow glen. Through the centre of this runs therailway, but the rest is laid out in lawns and flower-beds, with a mingling of shrubbery and trees. For-merly a body of wat

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