Beneath, far down, the surface of the steel-gray water was wrinkled like the scaly back of a fish. Midway a little island rears its spine of rock out of the stream. Westward at some distance rises a crag, on which is a tiny lighthouse-tower, painted red. The long, graceful stone piers that stretch into the Forth at this point,--breakwaters to form a harbour,--and all the little gray houses of Queensferry, Inverkeithing, and the adjacent villages looked like the toy buildings which are the playthings of children. A steamboat was making her way up the river, while near the shores were many small boats swinging at their moorings, for the business of the day was not yet begun. Over this scene the scarce risen sun, much obscured by dull clouds, cast a faint rosy light, and even while the picture was at its best we glided away from it into the pleasant land of Fife. [Illustration: _The Forth Bridge._] [Illustration: _Dunfermline Abbey._] In former days the traveller to Stirling commonly went by the way of Linlithgow, which is the place where Mary Stuart was born, and he was all the more prompted to think of that enchanting woman because he usually caught a glimpse of the ruins of Niddry Castle, one of the houses of her faithful Lord Seton, at which she rested, on the romantic and memorable occasion of her flight from Loch Leven. Now, since the Forth bridge has been opened, the most direct route to Stirling is by Dunfermline. And this is a gain, for Dunfermline is one of the most interesting places in Scotland. That Malcolm of whom we catch a glimpse when we see a representation of Shakespeare's tragedy of _Macbeth_ had a royal castle there nine hundred years ago, of which a fragment still remains; and on a slope of the coast, a few miles west from Dunfermline, the vigilant antiquarian has fixed the sight of Macduff's castle, where Lady Macduff and her children were slaughtered by the tyrant. Behind the ancient church at Dunfermline, the church of the Holy Trinity,--devastated at the Reformation, but since restored,--you may see the tomb of Malcolm and of Margaret, his queen,--an angel among women when she lived, and worthy to be remembered now as the saint that her church has made her. The body of Margaret, who died at Edinburgh Castle, November 16, 1093, was secretly and hastily conveyed to Dunfermline, and there buried,--Edinburgh Castle, The Maiden Castle it was then called, being assailed by her husband's brother, Donald Bane. The remains of that noble and devoted woman, however, do not rest in that tomb, for long afterward, at the Reformation, they were taken away, and after various wanderings were enshrined at the church of St. Lawrence in the Escurial. I had often stood in the little chapel that this good queen founded in Edinburgh Castle,--a place which they desecrate now, by using it as a shop for the sale of pictures and memorial trinkets,--and I was soon to stand in the ruins of St. Oran's