which princes and princesses were christened, and worshiped, and were
crowned and wed, is turned into an armory. From its windows we were shown,
within the inclosure of the castle, a green knoll, grazed by cattle, where
the disloyal nobles of Scotland were beheaded. Close to the castle is a
green field, intersected with paths, which we were told was the
tilting-ground, or place of tournaments, and beside it rises a rock, where
the ladies of the court sat to witness the combats, and which is still
called the Ladies' Rock. At the foot of the hill, to the right of the
castle, stretches what was once the royal park; it is shorn of its trees,
part is converted into a race-course, part into a pasture for cows, and
the old wall which marked its limits is fallen down. Near it you see a
cluster of grassy embankments of a curious form, circles and octagons and
parallelograms, which bear the name of King James's Knot, and once formed
a part of the royal-gardens, where the sovereign used to divert himself
with his courtiers. The cows now have the spot to themselves, and have
made their own paths and alleys all over it. "Yonder, to the southwest of
the castle," said a sentinel who stood at the gate, "you see where a large
field has been lately ploughed, and beyond it another, which looks very
green. That green field is the spot where the battle of Bannockburn was
fought, and the armies of England were defeated by Bruce." I looked, and
so fresh and bright was the verdure, that it seemed to me as if the earth
was still fertilized with the blood of those who fell in that desperate
struggle for the crown of Scotland. Not far from this, the spot was shown
us where Wallace was defeated at the battle of Falkirk. This region is now
the scene of another and an unbloody warfare; the warfare between the Free
Church and the Government Church. Close to the church of the
establishment, at the foot of the rock of Stirling, the soldiers of the
Free Church have erected their place of worship, and the sound of hammers
from the unfinished interior could be heard almost up to the castle.

We took places the same day in the coach for Callander, in the Highlands.
In a short time we came into a country of hillocks and pastures brown and
barren, half covered with ferns, the breckan of the Scotch, where the
broom flowered gaudily by the road-side, and harebells now in bloom, in
little companies, were swinging, heavy with the rain, on their slender
stems.