The earls of Cromartie; their kindred, country, and correspondence . cent, when the crossbow was thrownaside for the i:)etronel, to the still more formidable bullet, were placed by pairs on the severalprojections that stood out from the main body of the building, and were connected by hang-ing bartizans. There is a tradition that sometime in the seventeentli century, a party ofHighlanders, engaged in some predatory enterprise, approached so near the Castle on thisside, that their leader, vshen in the act of raising his arm to direct their march, was shot atfrom one of the turrets and killed, a
The earls of Cromartie; their kindred, country, and correspondence . cent, when the crossbow was thrownaside for the i:)etronel, to the still more formidable bullet, were placed by pairs on the severalprojections that stood out from the main body of the building, and were connected by hang-ing bartizans. There is a tradition that sometime in the seventeentli century, a party ofHighlanders, engaged in some predatory enterprise, approached so near the Castle on thisside, that their leader, vshen in the act of raising his arm to direct their march, was shot atfrom one of the turrets and killed, and that the part\, wrapping up the body in their plaids,carried it away. The front of the castle opened to the lawn, from which it was divided by a dry moat,nearly filled with rubbish, and a high wall indented with embrasures, and pierced by an archedgateway. Within was a small coiirt flagged with stone, and bounded on one of the sides bya projection from the main building, bartizaned and turreted like all the others, but only ^ Wyntouns Chronicle, vol. i. p. - 1 i * I T M ;>- f ^ 4 ^ .1!^ TEE BARONY AND CASTLE OF CROMARTIE. 445 three storeys in height, and so completely fallen into decay that the roof and all the floorshad disappeared. From the level of the court a flight of stone steps led to the vaults below ;another flight of greater breadth, and bordered on both sides by an antique balustrade, ascendedto the entrance ; and the architect, aware of the importance of this part of the building, hadso contrived it that a full score of loopholes in the several turrets and outjets which com-manded the court, opened directly on the landing-place. Round tlie entrance itself therejutted a broad, grotesquely-proportioned moulding, somewhat resembling an old-fashionedpicture frame, and directly over it there was a square tablet of dark blue stone, bearing inhigh relief the arms of the old proprietors ; but the storms of at least five centuries haddefaced all the nicer strokes
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookidearlsofcroma, bookyear1876
