TURNBERRY CASTLE.— AILSA ROCK. 185 



announcement, " why then, if things be in the state thou sayest, why didst 

 thou make the signal ?" " I made no signal, my liege," replied the messenger, 

 " but observing a fire on yonder eminence, I feared it might mislead you, and 

 therefore I made all haste to meet and warn you from the coast." Bruce stood 

 for a moment as if stunned by this unlooked for intelligence. He questioned 

 the messenger strictly regarding the strength and vigilance of the enemy, the 

 disposition of the people, and their resources. The answers to these questions 

 were far from encouraging. Bruce, however, who had been thus mysteriously 

 induced to embark, listened to nothing but the dictates of his own invincible 

 spirit, leaped ashore, and by a sudden advance, charged the enemy's outposts, 

 carrying terror and destruction to the very gates of the castle. Percy heard 

 the din of conflict, but not knowing the force he might have had to encounter 

 in a sortie, kept his men within the walls, and left Bruce to follow up his 

 present advantage. During three days the royal leader marched in triumph over 

 the Carrick shore, finding at every step a fresh adherent where he had so 

 lately met a foe. But reinforcements having soon pom-ed into Turnberry from 

 the garrisons adjacent, and enabled Percy to act with greater decision, Bruce 

 was compelled to retire into the mountains, and thus escaped the chance of 

 being overwhelmed by numbers. — Some years afterwards, he returned under 

 better auspices, and taking the castle by storm, dismantled it so completelv, 

 that it was never afterwards garrisoned, or even repaired. Little more than the 

 foundations now remain, with an outline of the moat, and part of the buttresses 

 of the drawbridge and bastions. From the lower apartments a subterranean 

 passage opens upon the sea. The ruins enclose a wide ar_ea, and command 

 beautiful views of the Frith of Clyde, with a rich plain of six hundred acres 

 on the land-side, bounded by a range of soft, undulating, pastoral hills. 



In fi'ont of this castellated promontory, the basaltic rock of Ailsa — floating 

 like a vast iceberg in the sea — presents a most singular and imposing feature. 

 It is the " Bass" of the western coast ; and, towering in isolated grandeur to 

 the height of nearly a thousand feet above the waves, forms the great object of 

 attraction from the Carrick shore. If Staffa may point " the finger of contempt at 

 the puny imitation of her temples on lona, Ailsa may well smile in pity on the 

 pyramids of Egypt ! " It produces a powerful effect upon the senses. It unites 

 the sublime and the beautiful, by combining vastness of dimensions, simplicity of 

 form, and variety of features — all under the control of an almost architectiual 

 regularity — and all comprehended in one grasp of the eye. There is nothing 

 which we are obliged to infer or conjecture — no unattainable point to wish forj 

 whence it might appear to the greatest advantage ; at one view we are over- 



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