Descending from this high perch, we walked along ledges and through
arched corridors, and stood, contemplative, in the dampness of the
banqueting-hall, and sat down on the seats that still occupy the
embrasures of the deep windows. In one of the rooms, the sculpture of a
huge fireplace has recently been imitated and restored, so as to give an
idea of what the richness of the adornments must have been when the
building was perfect. We burrowed down, too, a little way, in the
direction of the cells, where prisoners used to be confined; but these
were too ugly and too impenetrably dark to tempt us far. One vault,
exactly beneath a queen's very bedchamber, was designated as a prison. I
should think bad dreams would have winged up, and made her pillow an
uncomfortable one.
There seems to be no certain record as respects the date of this palace,
except that the most recent part was built by James I., of England, and
bears the figures 1620 on its central tower. In this part were the
kitchens and other domestic offices. In Robert Bruce's time there was a
castle here, instead of a palace, and an ancestor of our friend Bennoch
was the means of taking it from the English by a stratagem in which valor
went halves. Four centuries afterwards, it was a royal residence, and
might still have been nominally so, had not Hawley's dragoons lighted
their fires on the floors of the magnificent rooms; but, on the whole, I
think it more valuable as a ruin than if it were still perfect.
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