๋จ๋ฝ์ ํด๋ฆญํ๋ฉด ์ดํยท๋ฌธ๋ฒ ํด์ค์ด ์ค๋ฅธ์ชฝ์ ํ์๋ฉ๋๋ค.
AN OLD-WORLD LANDLADY. But to make up my tale,
She breweth good ale,
And thereof maketh sale. SKELTON. Although few, if any, of the countries of Europe, have increased so
rapidly in wealth and cultivation as Scotland during the last half
century, Sultan Mahmoud's owls might nevertheless have found in
Caledonia, at any term within that flourishing period, their dowery of
ruined villages. Accident or local advantages have, in many instances,
transferred the inhabitants of ancient hamlets, from the situations
which their predecessors chose with more respect to security than
convenience, to those in which their increasing industry and commerce
could more easily expand itself; and hence places which stand
distinguished in Scottish history, and which figure in David M'Pherson's
excellent historical map,[I-A][I-1] can now only be discerned from the wild
moor by the verdure which clothes their site, or, at best, by a few
scattered ruins, resembling pinfolds, which mark the spot of their
former existence.
ํด์ค ๋ณด๊ธฐ โThe little village of St. Ronan's, though it had not yet fallen into the
state of entire oblivion we have described, was, about twenty years
since, fast verging towards it. The situation had something in it so
romantic, that it provoked the pencil of every passing tourist; and we
will endeavour, therefore, to describe it in language which can scarcely
be less intelligible than some of their sketches, avoiding, however, for
reasons which seem to us of weight, to give any more exact indication of
the site, than that it is on the southern side of the Forth, and that it
is not above thirty miles distant from the English frontier.
ํด์ค ๋ณด๊ธฐ โA river of considerable magnitude pours its streams through a narrow
vale, varying in breadth from two miles to a fourth of that distance,
and which, being composed of rich alluvial soil, is, and has long been,
enclosed, tolerably well inhabited, and cultivated with all the skill of
Scottish agriculture. Either side of this valley is bounded by a chain
of hills, which, on the right in particular, may be almost termed
mountains. Little brooks arising in these ridges, and finding their way
to the river, offer each its own little vale to the industry of the
cultivator. Some of them bear fine large trees, which have as yet
escaped the axe, and upon the sides of most there are scattered patches
and fringes of natural copsewood, above and around which the banks of
the stream arise, somewhat desolate in the colder months, but in summer
glowing with dark purple heath, or with the golden lustre of the broom
and gorse. This is a sort of scenery peculiar to those countries, which
abound, like Scotland, in hills and in streams, and where the traveller
is ever and anon discovering in some intricate and unexpected recess, a
simple and silvan beauty, which pleases him the more, that it seems to
be peculiarly his own property as the first discoverer.
ํด์ค ๋ณด๊ธฐ โIn one of these recesses, and so near its opening as to command the
prospect of the river, the broader valley, and the opposite chain of
hills, stood, and, unless neglect and desertion have completed their
work, still stands, the ancient and decayed village of St. Ronan's. The
site was singularly picturesque, as the straggling street of the village
ran up a very steep hill, on the side of which were clustered, as it
were, upon little terraces, the cottages which composed the place,
seeming, as in the Swiss towns on the Alps, to rise above each other
towards the ruins of an old castle, which continued to occupy the crest
of the eminence, and the strength of which had doubtless led the
neighbourhood to assemble under its walls for protection. It must,
indeed, have been a place of formidable defence, for, on the side
opposite to the town, its walls rose straight up from the verge of a
tremendous and rocky precipice, whose base was washed by Saint Ronan's
burn, as the brook was entitled. On the southern side, where the
declivity was less precipitous, the ground had been carefully levelled
into successive terraces, which ascended to the summit of the hill, and
were, or rather had been, connected by staircases of stone, rudely
ornamented. In peaceful periods these terraces had been occupied by the
gardens of the Castle, and in times of siege they added to its security,
for each commanded the one immediately below it, so that they could be
separately and successively defended, and all were exposed to the fire
from the place itself--a massive square tower of the largest size,
surrounded, as usual, by lower buildings, and a high embattled wall. On
the northern side arose a considerable mountain, of which the descent
that lay between the eminence on which the Castle was situated seemed a
detached portion, and which had been improved and deepened by three
successive huge trenches. Another very deep trench was drawn in front of
the main entrance from the east, where the principal gateway formed the
termination of the street, which, as we have noticed, ascended from the
village, and this last defence completed the fortifications of the
tower.
ํด์ค ๋ณด๊ธฐ โIn the ancient gardens of the Castle, and upon all sides of it excepting
the western, which was precipitous, large old trees had found root,
mantling the rock and the ancient and ruinous walls with their dusky
verdure, and increasing the effect of the shattered pile which towered
up from the centre.
ํด์ค ๋ณด๊ธฐ โSeated on the threshold of this ancient pile, where the "proud porter"
had in former days "rear'd himself,"[I-2] a stranger had a complete and
commanding view of the decayed village, the houses of which, to a
fanciful imagination, might seem as if they had been suddenly arrested
in hurrying down the precipitous hill, and fixed as if by magic in the
whimsical arrangement which they now presented. It was like a sudden
pause in one of Amphion's country-dances, when the huts which were to
form the future Thebes were jigging it to his lute. But, with such an
observer, the melancholy excited by the desolate appearance of the
village soon overcame all the lighter frolics of the imagination. Originally constructed on the humble plan used in the building of Scotch
cottages about a century ago, the greater part of them had been long
deserted; and their fallen roofs, blackened gables, and ruinous walls,
showed Desolation's triumph over Poverty. On some huts the rafters,
varnished with soot, were still standing, in whole or in part, like
skeletons, and a few, wholly or partially covered with thatch, seemed
still inhabited, though scarce habitable; for the smoke of the
peat-fires, which prepared the humble meal of the indwellers, stole
upwards, not only from the chimneys, its regular vent, but from various
other crevices in the roofs. Nature, in the meanwhile, always changing,
but renewing as she changes, was supplying, by the power of vegetation,
the fallen and decaying marks of human labour. Small pollards, which had
been formerly planted around the little gardens, had now waxed into huge
and high forest trees; the fruit-trees had extended their branches over
the verges of the little yards, and the hedges had shot up into huge and
irregular bushes; while quantities of dock, and nettles, and hemlock,
hiding the ruined walls, were busily converting the whole scene of
desolation into a picturesque forest-bank.
ํด์ค ๋ณด๊ธฐ โTwo houses in St. Ronan's were still in something like decent repair;
places essential--the one to the spiritual weal of the inhabitants, the
other to the accommodation of travellers. These were the clergyman's
manse, and the village inn. Of the former we need only say, that it
formed no exception to the general rule by which the landed proprietors
of Scotland seem to proceed in lodging their clergy, not only in the
cheapest, but in the ugliest and most inconvenient house which the
genius of masonry can contrive. It had the usual number of
chimneys--two, namely--rising like asses' ears at either end, which
answered the purpose for which they were designed as ill as usual. It
had all the ordinary leaks and inlets to the fury of the elements, which
usually form the subject of the complaints of a Scottish incumbent to
his brethren of the presbytery; and, to complete the picture, the
clergyman being a bachelor, the pigs had unmolested admission to the
garden and court-yard, broken windows were repaired with brown paper,
and the disordered and squalid appearance of a low farm-house, occupied
by a bankrupt tenant, dishonoured the dwelling of one, who, besides his
clerical character, was a scholar and a gentleman, though a little of a
humourist.
ํด์ค ๋ณด๊ธฐ โBeside the manse stood the kirk of St. Ronan's, a little old mansion
with a clay floor, and an assemblage of wretched pews, originally of
carved oak, but heedfully clouted with white fir-deal. But the external
form of the church was elegant in the outline, having been built in
Catholic times, when we cannot deny to the forms of ecclesiastical
architecture that grace, which, as good Protestants, we refuse to their
doctrine. The fabric hardly raised its grey and vaulted roof among the
crumbling hills of mortality by which it was surrounded, and was indeed
so small in size, and so much lowered in height by the graves on the
outside, which ascended half way up the low Saxon windows, that it might
itself have appeared only a funeral vault, or mausoleum of larger size. Its little square tower, with the ancient belfry, alone distinguished it
from such a monument. But when the grey-headed beadle turned the keys
with his shaking hand, the antiquary was admitted into an ancient
building, which, from the style of its architecture, and some monuments
of the Mowbrays of St. Ronan's, which the old man was accustomed to
point out, was generally conjectured to be as early as the thirteenth
century.
ํด์ค ๋ณด๊ธฐ โ