Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1924-04-12
of scent blown of 1t by the breez.

of scent blown OF 1t by the breeze.
That night the party dined and
slept in a fairy city Of minister
towers seen across an abyss of
green gardens, of circling walls. Of
silvery canal with boats and barges
1t was going to be all rather jolly:
seeing life and places at these peo-
cations of ones own, thought Archie.
ssa
Next day again that small boy was
his companion along the mounting
Great North Road where England
seems to rise, rise, rise, beneath
ones journeying feet. The child
began to count those wayside signs
pointing ITO the NORTH"
Came Newcastle on Tyne: hideous
and black and busy.
THE town that won the war!"
grunted one of the men: his voice
drowned in shrieks from feminine
members Of the party at the sight OF
their faces. unacceptable for
smuts and CRIME. in the hotel mir
rior.
Black towns fell behind.
That day the heather began.
!, It mingled with the golden bed
straw, the bluebells that lined their
northern, ascending route; II colored
the way ever more WILDLY with
streaks. with patches, strips,
stretches, vistas OF mauve ana pur-
pie. A freshening, colder, more
vivifying air met the ears, fattening
back from his brow the hair of the
little boy, who had now rammed his
schoolcap into his pocket.
".To the North" he exulted as
another of those signs swept by.
when we cross the border shall
we see the border, wonder! TO the
North look
And at last they passed by a
signboard, all white. bearing the
word, the proud word
SCOTLAND"
Edinburgh Castle had appeared,
like some huge crustacean which had
crawled up ont of the firth and lay
summing its scales, which were the
gray housetops of its hills.
The third day had passed, ana the
rush to Inverness, through country
which reminded the Rover OF his
mothers land. But Wales itself was
a book of samples taken from, the
furnishings of the Highlands! The
hillsides were here wedged with
birch woods. tho tapping llyns (here
called lochs), the precipitous roads.
the vivid joyous colors of mountain
land whereon ragwort flames yell
lower, honeysuckle roster, blue bells
bluer and willow herb a richer pink
than in the paler, the facile South
the moors, the groves OF mountain
ash, the rocky steeps-all these
would have been like Wales-but,
! ah. the distances that the cars
could cover before ever they came
to q village; n chapel--ah, the end
less stretches of unhumanized wild!
Inverness. solid and gray as a
boulder, had harbored the party for
that night.
Next day--the fourth-those sign
posts still urged them ITO the
North"
On! On!
White cascades stitched the dark
crags around, behind. They left the
hills.
Caithncss; flatter, spreading out
carpets and carpets Of pure heather.
many shaded, treeless.
UP and down the white tape OF
/ road.
At last. at last in the distance
there doomed up on the skyline
doomed, big and gaunt through mist,
a bulk of masonry, turreted.
That's the castle!" yelped the lit
tie boy at Archie's elbow. Isn't
that our castle, Laverock?"
Yes, old man. Nearly there now"
A curious thrill ran through young
Laverock as he said It, This might
have been communicated by the
child's own excitement. Or II might
have been the natural curiosity of
the traveller who sees, Mt tho
journeys end, the unknown place
that Is to be for, weeks his home.
Yes; perhaps II was, only later on
that Archie persuaded himself, "As
soon as 1 saw those towers against
the sky I knew. l knew that some
thing was going TO happen to mo
there. l knew something was waiting.
Fate, l suppose"
Came a long, straight drive. The
castle, its eleventh century keep, and
fifteenth century wings buttressed on
either hand by woods of ancient
sycamore fiattcned down and matted
together by winter gales; upper
branches leafless, trunks fufred
with squirrel-gray lichen.
Came a brace of old cannon, set
to guard the gravel-sweep over
which the cars purred up to the en-
trance.
In an arched doorway above steps
there appeared maids in bright
blue gowns with gay chintz aprons;
past these flew little girl of about
eleven with long brown legs, crying
"mother-mother!"
The party had arrived.
OF the castle and its inhabitants
young Laverock-chauffeur to the
rarty-that evening saw little
enough. his prescriptions being tho
luggage. the cars, the man to work
under him. the orientation of the
garages, OF his own quarters.