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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