The Duke Tried To Make Us Amends By Making Some
Of His People Sing Us Gaelic Songs And Show Us Some Of The Athletic
Highland Games.
The little lodge he also went over with us, and
said that the Duchess came there and lived six or seven weeks in the
autumn, and that the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch rented it for
many years while he was a minor.
If you could see the tiny little
rooms, you would be astonished to find what the love of sport can do
for these people who possess actual palaces.
After dining again upon salmon and grouse at the pretty little inn,
we took a post chaise to go on to Taymouth, a little village
adjoining Lord Breadalbane's place. We did not arrive at the inn
till after eight and found it completely full. . . . We were sent to
the schoolmaster's to sleep in the smallest of little rooms, with a
great clock which ticked and struck so loud that we were obliged to
silence it, to the great bewilderment, I dare say, of the scholars
the next day. Before we were in bed, there was a knock at the door,
which proved to be from Lord Breadalbane's butler, to say that he
had been commissioned to enquire whenever we arrived at the inn, as
his Lordship had heard that we were in Scotland and wished us to
make them a visit.
Next morning before we were up came a note from Lord Breadalbane
urging us to come immediately to the Castle. . . . Taymouth Castle,
though not more than fifty years old, has the air of an old feudal
castle. . . . As we were ushered up the magnificent staircase
through first a large antechamber, then through a superb hall with
lofty ceiling glowing with armorial bearings, and with the most
light and delicate carving on every part of the oaken panelling,
then through a long gallery, of heavier carving filled with fine old
cabinets, into the library, it seemed to me that the whole Castle
was one of those magical delusions that one reads of in Fairy Tales,
so strange did it seem to find such princely magnificence all alone
amid such wild and solitary scenes. I had always the feeling that
it would suddenly vanish, at some wave of an enchanter's wand, as it
must have arisen also. The library is by far the finest room I ever
saw. Its windows and arches and doorways are all of a fine carved
Gothic open work as light as gossamer. One door which he lately
added cost a thousand pounds, the door alone, not the doorway, so
you can judge of the exquisite workmanship. Here Lady Breadalbane
joined us, whom I had never before met. . . . During dinner the
piper in full costume was playing the pibroch in a gallery outside
the window, and after he had done a band, also in full Highland
dress, played some of the Italian, German as well as Scotch music,
at just an agreeable distance.
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