Читать книгу Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands (Vol.1&2). Letters & Travel Sketches from Europe онлайн

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We have a small steamer quite crowded with people, our excursion party being very numerous. In a few minutes after starting, somebody says,—

"O, here's where the Kelvin enters." This starts up,—

"Let us haste to Kelvin Grove."

Then soon we are coming to Dumbarton Castle, and all the tears we shed over Miss Porter's William Wallace seem to rise up like a many-colored mist about it. The highest peak of the rock is still called Wallace's Seat, and a part of the castle, Wallace's Tower; and in one of its apartments a huge two-handed sword of the hero is still shown. I suppose, in fact, Miss Porter's sentimental hero is about as much like the real William Wallace as Daniel Boone is like Sir Charles Grandison. Many a young lady, who has cried herself sick over Wallace in the novel, would have been in perfect horror if she could have seen the real man. Still Dumbarton Castle is not a whit the less picturesque for that.

Now comes the Leven,—that identical Leven Water known in song,—and on the right is Leven Grove.