Thence we wandered downward,
through a back street, amid very shabby houses, some of which bore tokens
of having once been the abodes of courtly and noble personages. We
paused before one that displayed, I think, the sign of a spirit-retailer,
and looked as disreputable as a house could, yet was built of stalwart
stone, and had two circular towers in front, once, doubtless, crowned
with conical tops. We asked an elderly man whether he knew anything of
the history of this house; and he said that he had been acquainted with
it for almost fifty years, but never knew anything noteworthy about it.
Reaching the foot of the hill, along whose back the streets of Stirling
run, and which blooms out into the Castle Craig, we returned to the
railway, and at noon took leave of Stirling.
I forgot to tell of the things that awakened rather more sympathy in us
than any other objects in the castle armory. These were some rude
weapons--pikes, very roughly made; and old rusty muskets, broken and
otherwise out of order; and swords, by no means with Damascus blades--
that had been taken from some poor weavers and other handicraft men who
rose against the government in 1820. I pitied the poor fellows much,
seeing how wretched were their means of standing up against the cannon,
bayonets, swords, shot, shell, and all manner of murderous facilities
possessed by their oppressors. Afterwards, our guide showed, in a gloomy
quadrangle of the castle, the low windows of the dungeons where two of
the leaders of the insurrectionists had been confined before their
execution.
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