binds the person born in a mountainous country to, his native
hills--perhaps some early associations, retaining their effect long after
the cause was forgotten, mingled in the feelings of pleasure with which
he regarded the scene before him.
‘And what,’ said Brown to the boatman, ‘is the name of that fine cape
that stretches into the sea with its sloping banks and hillocks of wood,
and forms the right side of the bay?’
‘Warroch Point,’ answered the lad.
‘And that old castle, my friend, with the modern house situated just
beneath it? It seems at this distance a very large building.’
‘That’s the Auld Place, sir; and that’s the New Place below it. We’ll
land you there if you like.’
‘I should like it of all things. I must visit that ruin before I continue
my journey.’
‘Ay, it’s a queer auld bit,’ said the fisherman; ‘and that highest tower
is a gude landmark as far as Ramsay in Man and the Point of Ayr; there
was muckle fighting about the place lang syne.’
Brown would have inquired into farther particulars, but a fisherman is
seldom an antiquary. His boatman’s local knowledge was summed up in the
information already given, ‘that it was a grand landmark, and that there
had been muckle fighting about the bit lang syne.’
‘I shall learn more of it,’ said Brown to himself, ‘when I get ashore.’
The boat continued its course close under the point upon which the castle
was situated, which frowned from the summit of its rocky site upon the
still agitated waves of the bay beneath. ‘I believe,’ said the steersman,
‘ye’ll get ashore here as dry as ony gate. There’s a place where their
berlins and galleys, as they ca’d them, used to lie in lang syne, but
it’s no used now, because it’s ill carrying gudes up the narrow stairs or
ower the rocks. Whiles of a moonlight night I have landed articles there,
though.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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