(Distance walked seventeen miles.)

Saturday, October 7th.

Falkirk, which stands on a gentle slope on the great Carse of Forth, is surrounded by the Grampian Hills, the Ochills, and the Campsie Range.  Here King Edward I entirely routed the Scottish Army in the year 1298.  Wallace’s great friend was slain in the battle and buried in the churchyard, where an inscription recorded that “Sir John de Grahame, equally remarkable for wisdom and courage, and the faithful friend of Wallace, being slain in the battle by the English, lies buried in this place.”

We left the inn at six o’clock in the morning, the only people visible being workmen turning out for their day’s work.  The last great fair of the season was to be held that day, and we had the previous day seen the roads filled with cattle making for Falkirk Fair, perhaps one of the largest fairs in the kingdom.  We had been told by the drovers that the position was well adapted for the purpose, as the ground was very sandy and therefore not so liable to be trampled into mud by the animals’ feet.

We passed through the village of Laurieston, where Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and blasting gelatine, lived, and saw a plough at work turning up potatoes, a crowd of women and boys following it and gathering up the potatoes in aprons and then emptying them into a long row of baskets which extended from one end of the field to the other.  A horse and cart followed, and the man in charge emptied the contents of the baskets into the cart.  We questioned the driver of the plough, who assured us that no potatoes were left in the land, but that all were turned up and gathered, and that it was a much better way than turning them out by hand with a fork, as was usual in England.

[Illustration:  LINLITHGOW PALACE.]

[Illustration:  ANCIENT KEY OF LINLITHGOW PALACE.]

About two miles farther on we passed the romantic village of Polmont, and on through a fine stretch of country until we reached another fair-sized village called Linlithgow Bridge.  We were then about a mile and a half from the old town of Linlithgow; here the River Avon separates the counties of Stirlingshire and Linlithgowshire.  The old bridge from which the place takes its name is said to have been built by Edward I of England.  In 1526 the Battle of Linlithgow Bridge was fought at this spot; it was one of those faction fights between two contending armies for predominance which were so prevalent in Scotland at the time, the real object, however, being to rescue King James V from the domination of the Earl of Angus.  The opposing fronts under Angus and Lennox extended on both sides of the Avon.  The Earl of Lennox was slain by Sir James Hamilton after quarter had been granted to the former.  His sword was afterwards found, and may still be seen in the small museum at Linlithgow.  In this village Stephen Mitchell, tobacco and snuff manufacturer, carried on business and had an old snuff mill here; he was the first founder in Great Britain of a Free Library.  Burns the Scottish poet stayed a night here on August 25th, 1787.