The House of Whispers

Book Excerpt: irfeudal origin and exhibit traces of obsolete power than does the greatgaunt pile of ruins known as Glencardine. Its situation is bothpicturesque and imposing, and the stern aspect of the two squarebaronial towers which face the south, perched on a sheer precipice thatdescends to the Ruthven Water deep below, shows that the castle was oncethe residence of a predatory chief in the days before its associationwith the great Montrose.Two miles from the long, straggling village of Auchterarder, in thecentre of a fine, well-wooded, well-kept estate, the great ruined castlestands a silent monument of warlike days long since forgotten. There, within those walls, now overgrown with ivy and weeds, and where bigtrees grow in the centre of what was once the great paved courtyard, Montrose schemed and plotted, and, according to tradition, kept certainof his enemies in the dungeons below.In the twelfth century the aspect of the deep glen was very differentfrom what it is to-day. In those days the RuthvRead Mo