Ruthven Castle. 311 



the glen, not one trace of man to be seen, no wonder it 

 makes one eerie, and you feel as if 



" Nature had made a pause, 

 An awful pause, prophetic of its end." 



Memory must have much to do with this eerie feel- 

 ing upon such occasions, I take it, for every scrap of 

 Scottish poetry and song bearing upon the Highlands 

 comes rushing back to me. There are whispering 

 sounds in the glen : 



" Shades of the dead, have I not heard your voices 

 Rise on the night-rolling breath of the gale ? 

 Surely the soul of the hero rejoices 



And rides on the wind o'er his own Highland vale." 



I hear the lament of Ossian in the sough of the 

 passing wind. 



We stopped at the inn at Kingussie, one of the cen- 

 tres of sporting interest, but drove on beyond to spread 

 our luncheon upon the banks of the Spey, close to the 

 remains of Ruthven Castle, a fine ruin in this beautiful 

 valley. We walked to it after luncheon. It was here 

 that the Highland clans assembled after the defeat at 

 Culloden Field and resolved to disband, and the country 

 was rid of the Stuarts forever. How far the world has 

 travelled since those days ! The best king or family of 

 kings in the world is not worth one drop of an honest 

 man's blood. If the House of Commons should decide 

 to-day that the Prince of Wales is not a fit and proper 



