analyse that inexplicable feeling which 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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