While he was away his
apprentice had a dream in which he saw a most beautiful column, and,
setting to work at once to carry out the design of his dream, finished
the pillar, a perfect marvel of workmanship. When his master returned
and found the pillar completed, he was so envious and enraged at the
success of his apprentice that he struck him on the head with his mallet
with such force that he killed him on the spot, a crime for which he was
afterwards executed.
We passed on to the castle across a very narrow bridge over a ravine,
but we did not find much there except a modern-looking house built with
some of the old stones, under which were four dungeons. Rosslyn was
associated with scenes rendered famous by Bruce and Wallace, Queen Mary
and Rizzio, Robert III and Queen Annabella Drummond, by Comyn and
Fraser, and by the St. Clairs, as well as by legendary stories of the
Laird of Gilmorton Grange, who set fire to the house in which were his
beautiful daughter and her lover, the guilty abbot, so that both of them
were burnt to death, and of the Lady of Woodhouselee, a white-robed,
restless spectre, who appeared with her infant in her arms. Then there
was the triple battle between the Scots and the English, in which the
Scots were victorious:
Three triumphs in a day!
Three hosts subdued by one!
Three armies scattered like the spray,
Beneath one vernal sun.
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