"His manner in the pulpit was singularly easy, graceful and pleasing. All that he said and did was natural and becoming. His fine open countenance, his animated appearance, his fluency of utterance, the pleasantly modulated tones of his voice, his graceful action, and the solemn devotional feeling which obviously pervaded all these, rivetted attention, and threw a peculiar charm over his whole discourse. There was no seeking for effect, no going out of the way for ornaments, no efforts to dazzle and to overwhelm. He was occupied with his subject, and sought to fill the minds of his hearers with it, as his own mind was filled with it. There were occasionally passages of great beauty, touchingly tender statements, stirring suddenly the deeper emotions of the heart; but the ordinary character of his eloquence was instructive and pleasing, rather than affecting or overpowering."] CHAPTER XV. Dumbarton Castle--Lochlomond--Luss--Ascent of Benlomond--Magnificent Views--Ride to Loch-Katrine--Rob Roy Macgregor--'Gathering of Clan Gregor'--Loch-Katrine and the Trosachs--The city of Perth--Martyrdom of Helen Stark and her husband. Embarking in a steamer at Glasgow, we glide down the Clyde as far as Dumbarton Castle, which rises, in stern and solitary majesty, from the bosom of the river,-- "A castled steep, Whose banner hangeth o'er the time-worn tower So idly, that rapt fancy deemeth it A metaphor of peace." In ancient times, however, those old battlements frequently stood the shock of invading war. Dumbarton was the "Alcluith" of the ancient Britons, subsequently "Dumbriton," or "the fortified hill of the Britons." The vale of the Clyde was called "Strathclutha," and here was the capital of the kingdom of the "Strathclyde Britons." "Alcluith" is the "Balclutha" of Ossian; _balla_ signifying a _wall_ or _bulwark_, from the Latin _vallum_, a _wall_. "I have seen the walls of Balclutha," sings Ossian, in the poem of Carron, "but they were desolate. The fire had resounded in the halls; and the voice of the people is heard no more. The stream of the Clutha (Clyde) was removed from its place by the fall of the walls. The thistle shook here its lonely head; the moss whistled to the wind. The fox looked out from the windows; the rank grass of the walls waved round its head. Desolate is the dwelling of Morna; silence is in the house of her fathers." In the reign of Queen Mary this stronghold was taken by an escalade. This was accomplished by Captain Crawford, an officer of great energy and talent, who acted for the confederated lords who opposed Queen Mary after the death of her husband, Henry Darnley. Provided with scaling-ladders, and whatever else was necessary, Crawford set out from Glasgow with a small but determined body of men. The night was dark and misty, when they reached the castle-walls. Crawford, and a soldier who acted as a guide, scrambled up