happier
auspices, that is, with a heart at ease, a fitting companion, and
leisure enough to view quietly the scenes through which he passed, and
to enjoy the society of the people whom he met, could not have (p. 065)
failed, from its own interestingness, and its novelty to him, to have
enriched his imagination, and to have called forth some lasting
memorials. As it was, it cannot be said to have done either. There
are, however, a few incidents which are worth noting. The first of
these took place at Stirling. Burns and his companion had ascended the
Castle Rock, to look on the blue mountain rampart, that flanks the
Highlands from Ben Lomond to Benvoirlich. As they were both strongly
attached to the Stuart cause, they had seen with indignation, on the
slope of the Castle hill, the ancient hall, in which the Scottish
kings once held their Parliaments, lying ruinous and neglected. On
returning to their inn, Burns, with a diamond he had bought for such
purposes, wrote on the window-pane of his room some lines expressive
of the disgust he had felt at that sight, concluding with some
offensive remarks on the reigning family. The lines, which had no
poetic merit, got into the newspapers of the day, and caused a good
deal of comment. On a subsequent visit to Stirling, Burns himself
broke the pane of the window on which the obnoxious lines were
written, but they were remembered, it is said, long afterwards to his
disadvantage.

Among the pleasantest incidents of the tour was the visit to Blair
Castle, and his reception by the Duchess of Athole. The two days he
spent there he declared were among the happiest of his life. We have
seen how sensitive Burns was to the way he was received by the great.
Resentful as he was equally of condescension and of neglect, it must
have been no easy matter for persons of rank so to adapt their manner
as to exactly please him. But his hosts at Blair Castle succeeded to
admiration in this. They were assisted by the presence at the Castle
of Mr., afterwards Professor, Walker, who had known Burns in (p. 066)
Edinburgh, and was during that autumn living as a tutor in the Duke's
family. At dinner Burns was in his most pleasing vein, and delighted
his hostess by drinking to the health of her group of fair young
children, as "honest men and bonny lassies"--an expression with which
he happily closes his _Petition of Bruar Water_. The Duchess had her
two sisters, Mrs. Graham and Miss Cathcart, s