Waverley was therefore once more consigned to silence,
foreseeing that further attempts at conversation with any of the party
would only give Balmawhapple a wished-for opportunity to display the
insolence of authority, and the sulky spite of a temper naturally
dogged, and rendered more so by habits of low indulgence and the incense
of servile adulation.
In about two hours' time, the party were near the Castle of Stirling,
over whose battlements the union flag was brightened as it waved in the
evening sun. To shorten his journey or perhaps to display his importance
and insult the English garrison, Balmawhapple, inclining to the right,
took his route through the royal park, which reaches to and surrounds
the rock upon which the fortress is situated.
With a mind more at ease, Waverley could not have failed to admire
the mixture of romance and beauty which renders interesting the scene
through which he was now passing--the field which had been the scene
of the tournaments of old--the rock from which the ladies beheld
the contest, while each made vows for the success of some favourite
knight--the towers of the Gothic church, where these vows might be
paid--and, surmounting all, the fortress itself, at once a castle and
palace, where valour received the prize from royalty, and knights and
dames closed the evening amid the revelry of the dance, the song,
and the feast.
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