A Name for Herself

by L. M. Montgomery

  “July 30, 1911.

  ROYAL HOTEL,

  Prince St.,

  Edinburgh.

  “Monday we went out to Ayr with a Cook guide.232 As a rule we dislike the Cook parties and go alone wherever we can. But this expedition was pleasant, as there were only two besides ourselves and they were Canadians, Mr. and Mrs. T. from Ontario.233 We had also a very nice guide. Two things subtracted from the pleasure of the day, it poured rain most of the time and I had a grumbling facial neuralgia. But in spite of both drawbacks I enjoyed myself ‘where’er we trod ’twas haunted, holy ground.’234 We saw the room – the low-ceilinged, humble little room where once a cotter’s son was ‘royal born by right divine,’235 and we explored the ruins of the old Alloway Kirk made classic forever by Tam O’Shanter’s adventures.236

  POOR, SWEET HIGHLAND MARY!

  “Then we went to the Burns monument just because it was on the list of ‘sights’ and the guide was bound to do his duty by us.237 I have no interest whatever in monuments. They bore me horribly. But two things in the monument did interest me, a lock of Highland Mary’s fair hair and the Bible upon which she and Burns swore their troth in their parting tryst.238 Poor, sweet Highland Mary! I don’t suppose she was anything more than a winsome little country lass, no sweeter or prettier than thousands of other maidens who have lived and died, if not unwept, at least unhonored and unsung.239 But a great genius flung over her the halo of his love and lo! she is one of the immortals, one of the fair ladies of old romance who will be forever remembered because of the man who loved her. She is of the company of Laura and Beatrice, and Stella, of Lucasta and Julia, and of the unknown lady of Arvers’ sonnet.240

  “Wednesday we went to the Trosachs.241 This is one of the expeditions I have looked forward to all my life, ever since I read The Lady of the Lake in schooldays. Sitting behind my old desk at school I dreamed out the panorama of hill and lake and pass, where Ellen lived and Fitz-James wandered and Roderick Dhu brooded like a storm cloud over a Highland hill.242 And I made a covenant with myself that when my ship came in I should go and see it.

  “We sailed up Loch Lomond to Inversnaid and there took coaches for a five-mile drive across to Loch Katrine.243 Of all the ways of locomotion I have ever tried I like coaching best. It beats motoring ‘hollow.’ We soon reached Stronachlachar,244 which, in spite of its dreadful name, is an exquisite spot, and took the boat down Loch Katrine to the Trosachs pier.

  BETTER THAN THE REAL

  “I cannot decide whether Loch Katrine disappointed me or not. I think it did, a little. It was as beautiful as I had dreamed it, but it was not my Loch Katrine, not quite the Loch Katrine of my ‘Chateau en Espagne.’245 And I resented the difference, as one might resent a change made in his childhood’s home on going back to it after long years.

  “The lower portion of the lake is certainly much smaller than my idea of it as given by the poem. And the famous ‘Silver Strand’ is a poor affair now. Since the instalment of the Glasgow waterworks the lake has risen several feet and covered ‘the beach of pebbles white as snow.’246 I brought a handful of them home with me as souvenirs. But I think I shall keep the Loch Katrine of my dream in my geography of the ‘Lady of the Lake.’ I like it better than the real one.247

  “We coached through the Trosachs to the Trosachs hotel. The Trosachs is beautiful and grand, and perhaps before the carriage road was made it was wild enough, especially for some benighted wanderer who had all too good reason to fear Highland plunderers.248 But it is far from being the wild, riven, precipitous dell of my fancy. No, it is not the Trosachs where I have so often wandered with Fitz-James.

  “The hotel is in a lovely spot, on the shore of Loch Achray.

  “‘Where shall we find in foreign land – So lone a lake, so sweet a strand?’249

  “Yet Loch Achray, too, was on a smaller scale than I had expected. We walked along it that night as far as the ‘Brig of Turk,’250 gathering bell-heather and bluebells as we went. Scottish bluebells are certainly the sweetest things! They seem the very incarnation of old Scotia’s romance.

  A FOOLISH DISAPPOINTMENT

  “Next morning we walked through the Trosachs to Loch Katrine in a pouring rain and hired one of the boatmen to row us to and around ‘Ellen’s Isle.’251 I don’t think I liked it because it, too, was not the islet of my dream, and I was conscious of a foolish disappointment.

  “Benvenue, however, did not disappoint me.252 It dominates the landscape. Everywhere we went, there was old Benvenue, rugged and massive, with a cloud-wreath resting on his ‘summit hoar.’253 I was very sorry that the night we spent there was wet. I should have loved to have seen a sunset effect on Benvenue.”

  “August 6, 1911.

  “Last Monday morning we went by train to Melrose and coached over six miles of most beautiful road to Abbotsford.254 Although we went on our own account we could not help falling in with a Cook excursion and this somewhat spoiled the day for us. But the scenery along the road is exquisite and we saw the Eildon Hills, cleft in three by the spells of wizardry.255 Abbotsford is most interesting, crowded with relics I should have loved to have dreamed over in solitude. But that might not be. The rooms were filled by a chattering crowd, harangued by a glib guide. I wondered if Scott would have liked to think of his home being so over-run by a horde of curious sight-seers.256

  WHERE SCOTT IS BURIED

  “We drove from Abbotsford to Dryburgh where Scott is buried.257 As we were able to escape from the ‘Cookies’ here we enjoyed the magnificent ruin doubly. Then we returned to Melrose and explored the ruins of the Abbey there. We could not follow Scott’s advice, which I never believe he failed, as is asserted, to take himself, and view it by moonlight.258 But in that mellow, golden-gray evening light it was beautiful enough, beautiful and sad, with the little bluebells growing in its ruined courts and over its old graves. Michael Scott is reputed to be buried there,259 and there the heart of Robert Bruce was buried,260 and, doubtless, rests as quietly as though it had, according to his wish, been laid in the soil of the Holy Land.

  “There is some wonderful hand-carving still left in Melrose, and the little hand high up on one of the arches is as suggestive as it is beautiful. What fair lady’s hand was chiselled there in lasting stone? One cannot but think it was wrought by a lover.

  “On Wednesday we left for Inverness,261 but stopped off en route to visit Kirriemuir, the ‘Thrums’ of Barrie’s stories. In particular, I wanted to see the ‘Den’ where Sentimental Tommy and his cronies held their delightful revels.262 It is a lovely spot. One thing about it made me feel at home, its paths, which Barrie calls ‘pink,’263 are the very red of our own island roads. I could have fancied that I was prowling in the woods around Lovers’ Lane.264

  LIKE INVERNESS BEST

  “Of all the places we have visited in Scotland thus far I like Inverness best. In itself it is only a small gray town but the surrounding scenery is magnificent.

  “We drove out to Culloden265 the evening of our arrival and it is one of the drives that, for sheer pleasure, will always stand out in my memory. The road was exceedingly lovely and we were fortunate enough to have a nice old driver who knew all the history and legend of everything, and was very willing to tell it in delightful broad Scotch.

  “The next day we visited Tomnahurich, the famous cemetery of Inverness. It deserves its fame; I am sure it must be the most beautiful cemetery in the world. It is a large hill outside the city, rising in a perfect cone, and thickly covered with trees. The name is a Gaelic word meaning ‘the hill of the fairies,’ and surely it must once have been a spot meet for a fairy kingdom and the revels of Titania.266 Seen at eventide, against a sunset sky, it seems a veritable outpost of the Land of Old Romance.

  “We returned by way of the Caledonian Canal to Fort William,267 and thence by train. The sunset effects on the mountains along our way were wonderful. If I were to live near mountains for any length of time I should learn to love them almost as much as I love the se
a.”

  “August 13, 1911.

  “Last Monday we visited Roslin Chapel,268 a wonderful specimen of Gothic work in perfect preservation. This is the chapel of Scott’s ballad, ‘Fair Rosabelle’:

  ‘Seemed all on fire that chapel proud

  Where Roslin’s chiefs uncoffined lie.’269

  “Wednesday we left Edinburgh and went to Alloa to visit friends.270 Thursday we ‘did’ Dollar Glen.271 I had never heard of this place until Mr. M.272 of Alloa told us of it, yet it is one of the wildest, grandest spots we have seen in all Scotland. If Scott had touched it with his genius it would be as widely known as the Trosachs. Indeed, it is much like what I had imagined the Trosachs to be. Dollar Glen is like a deep gash cleft down through the heart of the mountain.

  “Stirling and Abbey Craig on Friday, places steeped with romance.273 Yesterday we came to Berwick to spend a week in the Marmion country.274 Mr. M. and Miss A. came with us.275 Berwick is a most quaint, antiquated old town. As we live on the Spittal side,276 when we want to go anywhere we have to be rowed over the river mouth by one of the half-dozen quaint old ferrymen who have boats for hire. Last night we all went for a walk along the Spittal shore by moonlight. It was beautiful, but so like the Cavendish shore that it made me bitterly homesick.”

  “Carlisle, August 20.277

  “We are spending Sunday in Carlisle perforce, since we could not get any farther last night, owing to the big railway strike which has been paralysing Britain this past week. At Berwick we did not suffer from it, nor heed it. We let the outer world go by and lived in realms of romance where ferry boats and shank’s mare278 were the only desired means of locomotion.

  “Last Monday we went to Holy Island and explored the ruins of the old Abbey which was the scene of Constance de Beverley’s death in ‘Marmion.’279 We had an enjoyable sail down to Holy Island but the return home was sadly different. It was quite rough and how that wretched little steamer pitched and rolled! Both our gentlemen became so overcome that they had to retire temporarily from the scene, while Miss A. and I fought off surrender only by a tremendous effort of will and would have suffered less I think if we had just allowed ourselves to go!

  “Luckily seasickness is never fatal and next day we were all ready for an excursion to Norham Castle,280 a very ruinous ruin.

  “Growing all over the grounds was a little blue flower which I never saw anywhere else save in the front orchard of the old home in Cavendish. Great-grandmother Woolner had brought it out from England with her. It gave me an odd feeling of pain and pleasure mingled, to find it growing there around that old ruined Scottish castle which seemed to belong so utterly to another time and another order of things. We walked from Norham to Ladykirk and then back by the Tweed.281 When we grew tired we sat down on its bank and dreamed dreams. What meeter place could there be for dreaming than the twilit banks of Tweed?282

  “Next day we went to Flodden Field.283 It disappointed me unreasonably, it was all so peaceful, and harvest-hued, and agricultural. I felt as aggrieved as though I had had any right to expect to see a mediæval battle being fought under my eyes.

  “Thursday afternoon we had a delightful little expedition to Homecliffe Glen and its deserted old mill.284 It might serve as a scene for a ghost story. In the midst of the ravine we came upon a clump of spruce trees literally loaded with gum, the first I had seen since leaving home. Spruce gum and the delights of picking it seem quite unknown in Scotland. We spent a half-hour picking it. To me and my husband the gum tasted delicious, but neither Mr. M. nor Miss A. liked its flavor declaring it was ‘bitter.’”

  “York, England.285

  August 27, 1911.

  “Last Monday we went to Keswick and stayed there until Thursday. It is impossible to exaggerate the beauty of the Lake District:286

  ‘The haughtiest heart its wish might bound

  Through life to dwell delighted here.’287

  “And then it is so interwoven with much of the best in English literature. The very spirit of Wordsworth seems to haunt those enchanted valleys, those wild passes, those fairy-like lakes.

  “Monday afternoon we took a coach-drive around Lake Derwentwater. All was beautiful. An interesting sight was the Castle Rock, which figures as the magic castle of St. John in Scott’s ‘Bridal of Triermain.’288 There is only one point where the resemblance to a castle – said to be very striking – can be seen, and we were not fortunate enough to see it from that particular point.

  “Tuesday we went to Buttermere Lake; Wednesday we motored for eighty miles around Lake Windermere.289 Some of the huge rocks on the mountain tops are of very peculiar shape. One of them is named, ‘The Lady Playing on the Organ.’ It is on the very top of a majestic mountain and certainly does, from one point of view, look exactly like a woman seated at a huge organ. Somehow, it captivated my imagination and I wove a hundred fancies round it. Who was the player, sitting forever at her mighty instrument? And what wonderful melodies did she play on it when the winds of heaven blew about her and the mountain tempest thundered and the great stars stayed to listen?

  “That evening we walked out to the ‘Druid Circle,’ a ring of large stones on a hill-top, supposed to have been in old time a temple of the sun.

  “Nothing I have seen thus far made such a vivid impression on me as this. The situation is magnificent. The hill is completely encircled by a ring of the most famous mountains in the Lake District, Helwellyn and Skiddaw among them, and the sense of majesty produced was overwhelming. Certainly those old sun-worshippers knew how to choose their sites. To stand there, at sunset, in that temple of a departed creed, surrounded by that assembly of everlasting hills and picture the rites, perchance dark and bloody, which must once have been celebrated there, was an experience never to be forgotten.

  “Friday we came to York, mainly to see the magnificent cathedral. It is magnificent, a dream of beauty made lasting in stone.

  “Yesterday afternoon I became the proud and happy possessor of a pair of china dogs!290

  “I have been pursuing china dogs all over England and Scotland. When I was a little girl, visiting at Grandfather Montgomery’s, I think the thing that most enthralled me was a pair of china dogs which always sat on the sitting-room mantel. They were white with green spots all over them; and Father told me that whenever they heard the clock strike twelve at midnight they bounded down on to the hearth-rug and barked. It was, therefore, the desire of my heart to stay up until twelve some night and witness this performance, and hard indeed did I think the hearts of my elders when this was denied me. Eventually I found out, I forget how, that the dogs did nothing of the sort. I was much disappointed over this but more grieved still over the discovery that Father had told me something that wasn’t true. However, he restored my faith in him by pointing out that he had only said the dogs would jump down when they heard the clock strike. China dogs, of course, could not hear.

  “I have always hankered to possess a pair of similar dogs, and, as those had been purchased in London, I hoped when I came over here, I would find something like them. Accordingly I have haunted the antique shops in every place I have been but, until yesterday, without success. Dogs, to be sure, there were in plenty but not the dogs of my quest. There was an abundance of dogs with black spots and dogs with red spots; but nowhere the aristocratic dogs with green spots.

  “Yesterday in a little antique shop near the great Minster I found a pair of lovely dogs and snapped them up on the spot.291

  To be sure they had no green spots. The race of dogs with green spots seems to have become extinct. But my pair have lovely gold spots and are much larger than the old Park Corner dogs. They are over a hundred years old and I hope they will preside over my Lares and Penates with due dignity and aplomb.”292

  “Russell Hotel,293 London.

  September 18, 1911.

  “So much has been crammed into this past fortnight that I have a rather overfed feeling mentally. But when time is limited and sights unlimited what are haras
sed travellers to do? The British Museum, the Tower, Westminster Abbey, Crystal Palace, Kenilworth Castle, the Shakespeare Land, Hampton Court, Salisbury and Stonehenge, Windsor and Parks and Gardens galore!294

  “Our hotel is in Russell Square, the haunt of so many of the characters in Vanity Fair. One expects to see Amelia peering out of a window looking for George, or perhaps Becky watching for Jos.295

  “Our afternoon at Kenilworth Castle was a delight. Of course, we had to be pestered with a guide; but I succeeded in forgetting him, and roamed the byways of romance alone. I saw Kenilworth in its pride, when aspiring Leicester entertained haughty Elizabeth.296 I pictured poor Amy Robsart creeping humbly into the halls where she should have reigned as Mistress.297 Back they thronged from the past, those gay figures of olden days, living, loving, hating, plotting as of yore.

  “Last Thursday we went to see the Temple Church, in the grounds of which Oliver Goldsmith is buried.298 The church is a quaint old place, set in a leafy square which, despite the fact that Fleet Street is roaring just outside it,299 is as peaceful and silent as a Cavendish road. But when I recall that square it is not of the quaint old church and Poor Noll’s grave that I shall think.300 No, it will be of a most charming and gentlemanly pussy cat, of exquisite manners, who came out of one of the houses and walked across the square to meet us. He was large and handsome and dignified, and any one could see with half an eye that he belonged to the caste of Vere de Vere.301 He purred most mellifluously as I patted him, and rubbed himself against my boots as though we were old acquaintances, as perchance we were in some other incarnation. Nine out of ten cats would have insisted on accompanying us over to Oliver’s grave, and perhaps been too hard to get rid of. Not so this Marquis of Carabas.302 He sat gravely down and waited until we had gone on, seen the grave and returned to where he sat. Then he stood up, received our farewell pats, waved his tail amiably, and walked gravely back to the door from which he had emerged, having done the honor of his demesne in most irreproachable fashion. Truly he did give the world assurance of a cat!