Embarked on the bosom of Loch Fine, Captain Dalgetty
might have admired one of the grandest scenes which
nature affords. He might have noticed the rival
rivers Aray and Shiray, which pay tribute to the lake,
each issuing from its own dark and wooded retreat.
He might have marked, on the soft and gentle slope
that ascends from the shores, the noble old Gothic
castle, with its varied outline, embattled walls, towers,
and outer and inner courts, which, so far as the picturesque
is concerned, presented an aspect much more striking
than the present massive and uniform mansion.
He might have admired those dark woods which for many
a mile surrounded this strong and princely dwelling,
and his eye might have dwelt on the picturesque peak
of Duniquoich, starting abruptly from the lake, and
raising its scathed brow into the mists of middle sky,
while a solitary watch-tower, perched on its top like
an eagle’s nest, gave dignity to the scene by
awakening a sense of possible danger. All these,
and every other accompaniment of this noble scene,
Captain Dalgetty might have marked, if he had been
so minded. But, to confess the truth, the gallant
Captain, who had eaten nothing since daybreak, was
chiefly interested by the smoke which ascended from
the castle chimneys, and the expectations which this
seemed to warrant of his encountering an abundant
stock of provant, as he was wont to call supplies
of this nature.
The boat soon approached the rugged pier, which abutted
into the loch from the little town of Inverary, then
a rude assemblage of huts, with a very few stone mansions
interspersed, stretching upwards from the banks of
Loch Fine to the principal gate of the castle, before
which a scene presented itself that might easily have
quelled a less stout heart, and turned a more delicate
stomach, than those of Ritt-master Dugald Dalgetty,
titular of Drumthwacket.
CHAPTER XII.
For close designs and
crooked counsels fit,
Sagacious, bold, and
turbulent of wit,
Restless, unfix’d
in principle and place,
In power unpleased,
impatient in disgrace.
—Absalom
and Achitophel.
The village of Inverary, now a neat country town,
then partook of the rudeness of the seventeenth century,
in the miserable appearance of the houses, and the
irregularity of the unpaved street. But a stronger
and more terrible characteristic of the period appeared
in the market-place, which was a space of irregular
width, half way betwixt the harbour, or pier, and
the frowning castle-gate, which terminated with its
gloomy archway, portcullis, and flankers, the upper
end of the vista. Midway this space was erected
a rude gibbet, on which hung five dead bodies, two
of which from their dress seemed to have been Lowlanders,
and the other three corpses were muffled in their
Highland plaids. Two or three women sate under
the gallows, who seemed to be mourning, and singing
the coronach of the deceased in a low voice. But
the spectacle was apparently of too ordinary occurrence
to have much interest for the inhabitants at large,
who, while they thronged to look at the military figure,
the horse of an unusual size, and the burnished panoply
of Captain Dalgetty, seemed to bestow no attention
whatever on the piteous spectacle which their own
market-place afforded.
