London to John O* Groat's. 245 



green, ridgy slope, where the lambs lay in the sun by 

 the river, these stones, and a million more scattered 

 hither and thither, once stood in walls high, hideous 

 and wrathful, for half a dozen centuries and more. If 

 the breathings of human woe, if the midnight misery 

 of wretched, broken hearts, could have penetrated these 

 stones, one might almost fancy that they would have 

 sweat with human histories in the ditch where they 

 lay, and discolored the puddles they bridged with the 

 bitter distilment of grief centuries old. On that gentle 

 rising from the little Xen stood Fotheringay Castle. 

 That central depression among the softl}*-carpeted 

 ridges marks the site of the donjon huge and horrid, 

 where many a knight and lady of noble blood was 

 pinioned or penned in darkness and hopeless duress 

 centuries before the unfortunate Mary was born. There 

 nearly half the sad years of her young life and beauty 

 were prisoned. There she pined in the sickness of hope 

 deferred, in the corroding anguish of dread uncertainty, 

 for a space as wide as that between the baptismal font 

 and presentation at Elizabeth's court. There she laid 

 her white neck upon the block. There fell the broad 

 axe of Elizabeth's envy, fear and hate. There fell the 

 fair-haired head that once gilded a crown and wore all 

 the glory of regal courts still beautiful in the setting 

 light of farewell thoughts. 



