Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

We shall not explore Portobello further, but turn to the left, and follow the road that runs parallel to the railway to Leith. On one side of us is the sea, breaking on a narrow, shingly beach; and beyond, there is nothing to stop the eye till it reaches the distant shores of Fife, but the rugged outline of Inchkeith, with its lines of fortification gleaming white in the sunlight. Before we have gone very far, we see a level crossing and a signal-box on the railway beside us; and, taking advantage of our privileges as pedestrians, we pass safely and unquestioned through the narrow posterns, while it might require some persuasion to get the heavy gates unlocked and opened for a carriage to enter them. We now find ourselves following a straight path leading across the flat green meadows, which stretch far away on either side, their expanse being only broken by narrow watercourses. With the level rays of the afternoon sun glancing over them, gilding the tips of the grass, and imparting an air of Dutch-like prosperity and peace, it comes upon one rather as a shock to be told that these quiet pastures are the great sewage farm of Edinburgh, an experiment on a large scale which has turned out successfully. We presently come to high walls, behind which stands the old house of Craigentinnie, long the inheritance of the Nisbets, a younger branch of the Nisbets of Dean. As we have already said, it was bought in the last century by the father of the late Mr. William Miller. The latter added greatly to the house, and built steep roofs and turrets in the style of a French château, which has altered it very much from the old Scotch house that originally stood there.

We now come to the little village of Restalrig, or Lestalric, as it used always to be called. For centuries it was famous all over Scotland as the burial-place of the blessed virgin St. Triduana. "She is said," writes Dr. Laing, "to have come from Achaia in the 4th century in company with St. Regulus, and to have died at Restalrig in the year 510, in the reign of Eugenius III., the 8th of October being held as her festival day. Although no precise date can be assigned when a church or chapel was first erected and dedicated to this saint, whose bones for many centuries were held in high veneration, or when it first became the parish church of Leith, we can trace it back at least to the 12th century."[48]

[48] _Collegiate Churches of Midlothian._ Bannatyne Club, 1861.

St. Triduana's name is unknown in the Roman breviary, but tradition says that, with two companions, she devoted herself to a recluse life at Roscoby. Her great beauty attracted the attentions of Nectan, a Pictish chief; and she fled to Dunfallad in Athole to escape him. His emissaries still pursued her, and as she discovered it was her eyes which had entranced him, she plucked them out and sent them to him transfixed on a thorn.[49] She then withdrew to Restalrig, where she died. Henceforward she became the patron saint of those whose eyesight was defective, and many a pilgrimage was made to her well. She was frequently painted carrying her own eyes on a salver, or on the point of a sword.

[49]

Sanct Tredwell als thare may be sene,
Quhilk on ane prik hes baith her ene.

SIR DAVID LINDSAY--"The Monarchie."

The church, which in its restored form we should hardly recognise as being of great antiquity, was erected into a collegiate church by James III. in honour of the Holy Trinity, and was endowed by the two succeeding monarchs. James V. placed here a dean, nine prebendaries, and two singing boys. It was John Sinclair, Dean of Restalrig, that married Queen Mary to Lord Darnley in Holyrood Chapel in July 1564. By that time the building itself had suffered sadly from the effects of the Reformation. It was demolished by order of the General Assembly in 1560, and many of the stones were taken to build the new port or gate just inside the Netherbow, which was erected during the siege of the Castle of Edinburgh in 1571. We have no description, plan, or representation to furnish us with any idea of what the collegiate church was like. Such ruins as remained were restored in 1836; and the eastern window and wall of the present church formed part of the old chancel. The huge mound resembling a mausoleum, which stands on the south side, though generally called the family vault of the Logans, was undoubtedly attached to the church, either as a chapter-house, or as St. Triduan's Chapel. It has internally a beautiful groined roof, springing from a single pillar in the centre. Of late years it has certainly been used as a burial-place, and some of the Logans, as well as the Balmerinos, their successors, lie here. Among them is "Lady Janet Ker, Lady Restalrig, quha departed this life 17th May 1526." The tomb now belongs to Lord Bute; and Wilson in his _Reminiscences_ quotes an incident told him by Charles Sharpe respecting it, which shows how often political animosity outlives the grave:--"Application was made to him (Lord Bute) to allow Miss Hay, whom I well knew,--daughter of Hay of Restalrig, Prince Charles's forfeited secretary,--to be buried in the vault. This was refused; and she lies outside the door. May the earth lie light on her! old lady, kind and venerable." In the last century Restalrig churchyard was a favourite resting-place of the non-juring Scottish Episcopalians, as the burial service was then forbidden to be read in the city burial grounds. Several bishops of the Scottish Church lie here.

After leaving the church, we turn first north, then eastwards, along a road running between very high walls; and pass a tall gloomy-looking villa called Marionville. It was built in the last century by the Misses Ramsay, whose milliner's shop was on the east side of the old Lyon Close. There they made a fortune, out of which they built Marionville. It was locally known as "_Lappet Ha'_," in derision of their profession. In later years it was the residence of Captain Macrae, whose unfortunate duel (in 1790) with Sir George Ramsay of Bamff on Musselburgh Links, and its fatal consequences, made him an exile for the remainder of his life.[50] Beyond Marionville a road to the right leads to a small sheet of water called Lochend.

[50] See Chambers's _Traditions of Edinburgh_.

The modern villa, standing among trees immediately behind Craigentinnie, is now called Restalrig House, but the old castle of the Logans crowned the rocky bank which rises abruptly from Lochend; and parts of it may still be distinguished in the more recent building which has been engrafted on it. These powerful barons possessed Restalrig from the 14th century. They came to an end with Robert Logan, who was mysteriously mixed up in the Gowrie Conspiracy. He had before that been deeply involved in the treasonable projects of Francis, Earl of Bothwell; but his share in the Gowrie Conspiracy remained unknown till nine years after his death, when the correspondence between him and Lord Gowrie was discovered in the possession of Sprot, a notary at Eyemouth. Their intentions had been, after seizing the king's person at Gowrie House, to hurry him into a boat on the Tay, and carry him by sea to Logan's inaccessible fortress of Fast Castle (which he had acquired by marriage with the heiress, a Home), and there await the decision of the other conspirators as to his ultimate fate. It is a matter of history how completely their schemes failed; but every one who had been concerned in the plot, to the smallest degree, suffered for it. Sprot was executed merely for possessing the treasonable letters. Logan's dead bones were brought into court, to have the following sentence passed on them: "That the memory and dignity of the said umqle Robert Logan be extinct and abolisheit, his arms riven and deleted from all books of arms, and his goods escheated."[51]

The lands of Restalrig next passed into the hands of the Elphinstones, Lords Balmerino. They lost them from too faithful a devotion to their exiled king. The Hays followed them in acquisition and forfeiture, and now the property is all broken up.

[51] The Logans of Restalrig quartered the arms of Ramsay of Dalhousie with their own. They bore 1st and 4th, or, three piles issuing from a chief, and conjoined in base, sable, for Logan; 2nd and 3rd, argent, an eagle displayed with two heads sable, beaked and membered gules, for Ramsay.

We are now close to the outskirts of Leith, so we will turn back and take the first road to the right, which soon brings us out on the London Road, not far from Abbeyhill.

WALK V.

Corstorphine--The Cat-Stane--Gogar--Hatton--Saughton
Hall--Dalry.

Our walk to-day takes us in an entirely different direction, and to fields as yet unexplored. With our faces to the setting sun, we leave Edinburgh by the great west road, which for the first few miles is so cramped and hemmed in by modern houses that all recollections of the past are effaced. By degrees, as we pass Murrayfield, the villas grow fewer, the gardens and parks which lie on the hill slopes to our right get larger, but there is a sadly short interval of green fields and hedgerows, before we enter the rapidly growing village of Corstorphine, which threatens soon to lose its identity, and become a mere suburb of Edinburgh. How changed since the day when

On Ravelston cliffs, and on Clermiston Lee
Died away the wild war-notes of bonnie Dundee.

Clermiston Lee still rises steep and bare behind the village, but the old castle of the Foresters, which then stood below it, has vanished; only a few stones remaining to show where it once was. Gone, too, is their town house in Forester's Wynd,--gone is their very name! The proud and ancient title of Lord Forester of Corstorphine has passed by inheritance to an English earl, and is merged in the higher honours of Verulam. The tombs alone of the old knights remain in the beautiful church, which, altered and mutilated as it is, still bears traces of its past glory.

The first Forester who possessed Corstorphine was Sir Adam. He was a gallant knight, who fought by the side of the Douglas at Homildon Hill, and fell a captive into Hotspur's hands. He was ransomed, but three years later (1405) he died at Corstorphine, full of years and honours. His son, Sir John, was Great Chamberlain of Scotland, and Master of the Household to James I. In his time the church was built (1444), and erected into a collegiate foundation, with a provost, four prebendaries, and two singing boys. It has been conjectured that one of the first provosts was the "Gentill Rowll," whom Dunbar, in his beautiful "Lament of the Makaris," bemoans as one of those whom Death "has tane out of this countrie."

He has tane Rowll of Abirdeen
And gentill Rowll of Corstorphyne;
Twa bettir fallowis did no man sie,
_Timor mortis conturbat me_.

His name is embalmed with those of other poets of his day, Chaucer, Wyntoun, Blind Harry, Barbour; but it is doubtful if a line of his writings has come down to us.[52] When we enter the old church where he officiated, we shall be sadly disappointed. The requirements of a Presbyterian place of worship have altered it so much from its original form, that we must shut our eyes, and throw our minds back into former days, before we can picture it, or even understand it at all. What is now the porch was then the chancel, but the altar-tombs have been spared, with their recumbent effigies.

[52] There is a poem in the Bannatyne MS. termed "Rowll's Cursing." Whether written by him, or only in his name, is not known. "The following passage in it," writes the learned Lord Hailes, "determines the era at which he lived:--

----and now of Rome that beiris the rod,
Undir the hevin to lowse and bind,
Paip Alexander.

The Pontiff here meant must have been the virtuous Alexander VI., who was _Divine Vicegerent_, from 1492 to 1503." In _Select Remains of the Ancient Popular Poetry of Scotland_, printed by Dr. Laing in 1822, the poem is given, and entitled

The cursing of Sir John Rowlis
Upoun the steilars of his fowlis;

but to which of the two Rowlls this refers is unknown.

"Two of the altar-tombs," to quote Wilson's vivid description, "occupy arched recesses in the chancel, one of them being the monument of Sir John Forester, the founder of the collegiate church, and his lady, apparently a St. Clair of Orkney, judging from the arms impaled with the Foresters' on one of the sculptured shields. The knight and lady are in armour and dress of the fifteenth century, and the latter clasps her breviary in her hands. In the other monument, supposed to represent the son of the founder and his wife, the lady's hands are meekly crossed over her breast. The supposed Crusader lies apart on his altar-tomb in the south transept, with his dog at his feet. He is traditionally affirmed to be Bernard, Lord of Aubigny, who died at the castle of Corstorphine, while on an embassy to the court of James IV. in 1508; but the monument is of older date, and the shield bears the Foresters' own heraldic hunting horns stringed."[53] One shield impaled with Forester bears the _fesse cheque_ of Stuart,--perhaps for Marion Stewart, Lady Dalswinton, wife of the second Sir John Forester.

[53] Wilson's _Reminiscences of Old Edinburgh_.

The church is built in the form of a cross, and part of the roof is still covered with the old grey flagstones. A small square belfry tower at the west end is surmounted by a short octagonal spire, with richly ornamented string mouldings. In the pre-Reformation days, the provostry of Corstorphine was a lucrative and much sought after office. In the beginning of the sixteenth century it was held by the Robert Cairncross who bears an unenviable reputation in Buchanan's history, by the manner in which he obtained the Abbey of Holyrood, without subjecting himself to the law against simony. Having ascertained that the abbot was at the point of death, he wagered a considerable sum with the king that he would _not_ be offered the first vacant benefice, and lost his bet by being appointed Abbot of Holyrood.

Putting on one side such wild legends as derive the name of Corstorphine from _Croix d'or fin_, the golden cross presented to the church by some mythical French noble, it seems far more probable that the village was called after the "Cross of Torphin;" though of that there are now no traces left. Probably it was erected by the same Torphin who gave his name to one of the outlying spurs of Pentland, which is still called Torphin Hill, and stands in Colinton parish. Tradition says he was an archdeacon of Lothian, but his name carries one back to the early Saxon invaders of the land. In old days a loch stretched over what now is fertile plain; and the Water of Leith, which ran out of it, was deep enough for the Lords Forrester to bring their provisions up from Edinburgh by boat to their castle of Corstorphine, which stood close to the north-west corner of the loch.

At this castle a terrible crime was committed in August 1679. George, the first Lord Forester, had no son, and, to prevent the extinction of the family name, he resigned his honours into Charles II.'s hands, and obtained a fresh patent in favour of his daughter Jean and her husband, James Baillie of Torwoodhead, who accordingly succeeded as second Lord Forester. This nobleman's first wife had died childless, it is said, heart-broken at the neglect and indignities she suffered at his hands. He was a second time a widower,--having married a daughter of the old Cavalier general, Patrick Ruthven, Earl of Forth and Brentford, by whom he had five children, all of whom bore their mother's name of Ruthven,--when popular rumour accused him of carrying on an intrigue with the beautiful Christian Nimmo,[54] the wife of a merchant in Edinburgh. She was a great deal younger than himself, and a niece of his first wife's. This near relationship greatly increased the scandal, which was aggravated by Lord Forester having always professed to be a religious man, and a rigid Presbyterian. Mrs. Nimmo, besides being a very beautiful woman, was of a violent and impulsive nature. She was believed always to carry a sword under her petticoats,[55] and so was not a person to be treated lightly, especially by those who reflected what blood ran in her veins,--a Mrs. Bedford, who had murdered her husband a few years before, being her cousin-german. She was also related to the unhappy Lady Warriston, who suffered death for the same crime in 1600. Lord Forester's passion for her appears to have cooled; and, shutting his eyes to possible consequences, he permitted himself in one of his carouses to speak more than lightly of her. This came to her ears, and, seized with fury, she went at once to his castle at Corstorphine. He was absent when she arrived, drinking at a tavern in the village. She sent for him, and met him in the garden, close to the old dovecot, where a violent altercation took place between them. In the midst of it, she snatched the sword from his side, ran him through the body, and killed him.

[54] She was Christian Hamilton, daughter of Grange Hamilton, and maternal grand-daughter of the first Lord Forester.

[55] Kirkton's _History of the Church of Scotland_, edited with notes by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, page 184.

"The inhabitants of the village," writes Charles Sharpe, "still relate some circumstances of the murder, not recorded by Fountainhall. Mrs. Nimmo, attended by her maid, had gone from Edinburgh to the castle of Corstorphine." After the murder, "she took refuge in a garret of the castle, but was discovered by one of her slippers, which dropped through a crevice in the floor. It need hardly be added that, till lately, the inhabitants of the village were greatly annoyed, of a moonlight night, by the appearance of a woman clothed in white, with a bloody sword in her hand, wandering and waiting near the pigeon-house." She was seized and brought before the sheriff in Edinburgh. She confessed her crime, but pleaded that Lord Forester, being ferocious and intoxicated with drink, had drawn his sword; that, to save herself, she had snatched it from him, and that in the struggle he had fallen upon it, and so killed himself. In spite of this defence, sentence of death was passed upon her, which she contrived to have postponed for two months, under a false pretext of her condition. During this interval she escaped one evening from the Tolbooth, disguised as a man, but she was recaptured next day at Fala Mill, and beheaded at the Market Cross on the 12th November 1679. At her execution she appeared dressed in deep mourning, with a long veil, which, before laying her head on the block, she took off, and replaced with a white taffeta hood. She met her fate with great courage.[56] It was said at the time that, in spite of his professed Presbyterianism, a dispensation from the Pope to marry Mrs. Nimmo was found among Lord Forester's papers, and that his delay in using it had caused her fury.

[56] Fountainhall's _Historical Notices_, vol. i. p. 231-233.

By the terms of the patent, the barony and lands of Corstorphine passed to Lord Forester's nephew, William Baillie, his mother having been Lilias, youngest daughter of the first baron. He became third Lord Forester, and in his line the title has since remained.

The fertile pastures that surround Corstorphine provided our forefathers with that favourite delicacy, known as Corstorphine cream. It was a variety of the old Scottish dish called "Hattit Kit," and much resembled it.[57]

[57] This preparation of milk is very ancient, and probably originated among the Tartars, by whom it was made of mares' milk, and called _Koumiss_. It is believed to have been introduced into this country by the wandering Eastern tribes, who, leaving their native Phœnicia, gradually spread themselves along the north of Africa, and, leaving traces of their passage in the Basque Provinces and Brittany, colonised first Cornwall, and then the western coast of this island; and a few of whose customs still linger among us. There is a very interesting dissertation on this subject in _The Pillars of Hercules_, by the late David Urquhart, M. P.

About a quarter of a mile to the west of Corstorphine, the high road divides in two,--the branch to the right making its way by Linlithgow to the north; the other leading straight on, and reaching Glasgow eventually. Though it is out of the direction of this walk, and we shall have to retrace our steps to this point, we would pray our kind companions to go with us as far along the first-named road as the bridge which crosses the Almond near Kirkliston, and joins the counties of West and Midlothian. It is not more than a mile and a half off, and, just before reaching it, we turn aside, along a rough cart track leading into a field. This field lies in the angle between the Almond and the impetuous little Gogar Burn, which we have crossed without noticing; and about the centre, on slightly rising ground, stands the object of our search--the end of our pilgrimage. To you it is but a rude, shapeless block of stone, too stunted and lumpy to have any appearance of dignity, and not more venerable or ancient-looking than any other time-worn, moss-grown fragment. But to us who know, it is eloquent with a thousand voices! This is the Cat-Stane, the most northerly monument of that intruding race by which Pict and Gael alike were driven back to their native hills. Beneath this massive stone has slept for centuries the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa. "In oc tumulo jacit Vetta f. Victi." So its mutilated inscription was read years ago by the learned Edward Lhwyd,--and so does its latest interpreter, Sir James Simpson, read it also.

The Venerable Bede, in describing the invasion of England by the German tribes in the time of Vortigern, states that their "leaders were two brothers, Hengist and Horsa, who were the sons of Victgils, whose father was Vetta, whose father was Victa, whose father was Woden." So the genealogy runs, and in this all the old chroniclers are agreed; and here undoubtedly lies a Vetta, the son of Victa, neither of them common names among the Saxons. We may ask ourselves what brought the Saxon chief so far from his native shores, and to a land where his race did not take root? But we have the authority of Nennius for saying that the Saxons occupied for a short period various regions beyond the _Mare Frisicum_ (the Firth of Forth), and Ammianus Marcellinus tells us that, two generations before the invasion of Hengist and Horsa, a Saxon host was leagued with the other races of Scotland, the Picts, Scots, and Attacots, against their common enemy, the Romans, and fought with a Roman army under Theodosius. The battle probably took place near this spot, for it must have been fought somewhere between the two Roman walls, and this place is included in that tract of country. The vulgar name of the monument, the Cat-Stane, points to this hypothesis, the name being clearly derived from the British _Cad_, the Scoto-Irish _Cath_, the Welsh _Cat_, all meaning "battle."[58] When Mr. Lhwyd visited the spot in 1688, the sculptured stone was surrounded by large stones laid lengthways, this one only being set on end.

[58] Should any one wish to pursue this subject further, he will find it most exhaustively treated in vol. I. of _Archæological Essays_, by the late Sir James Young Simpson, Baronet. May not possibly Torphin, who gave his name to the neighbouring village of Corstorphine, have been a leader in the same Saxon host?

Beside this venerable monument, how modern appears everything else that we have looked at! What changes it has seen! And yet here it stands, little altered by the centuries that have passed over it. One deed of violence it was a witness of, which we must not forget to mention. On this very spot, in April 1567, Queen Mary was seized, on her way from Stirling to Edinburgh, by a troop consisting of eight hundred spears, commanded by Lord Bothwell. They surrounded her attendants, and, taking possession by force of the Queen's person, hurried her off on the fatal journey to Dunbar.

Returning now to the point where we left the Glasgow road, we pursue it for a mile, and then see on our right some beautiful hammered-iron gates. These are the lost gates of Caroline Park, whose forsaken gate pillars we shall see to-morrow. They now defend the entrance to Gogar House, a curious old mansion with winding stairs, which stands in a sheltered position near the Gogar Burn. It was once a much more important place. It possessed two villages, Nether Gogar and Gogar Stone. One has disappeared, the other dwindled down to a few houses. It had a church whose priest was one of the prebendaries of Corstorphine. Only a small portion is still extant, and that is used as a burial ground. In the 14th century Gogar was given by King Robert Bruce to his faithful companion, Sir Alexander Seton. He was one of those who signed the famous letter to the Pope in 1330, asserting the independence of their country, and vowing that, so long as a hundred of them remained alive, they would never submit to the king of England.[59] After him Gogar belonged to many different families, including the Logans of Restalrig, and the Erskines, a younger branch of Mar. At the end of the last century it was bought by the Ramsays of Barnton.

[59] The original document, with signatures and seals attached, is preserved in the Register House, Edinburgh.

We now turn to the left and pass Millburn Tower and Gogar Station, and then, crossing the Union Canal, we finally emerge on the other great west road that leaves Edinburgh and runs past Dalmahoy to Midcalder. Dalmahoy, and even Riccarton (of which we see the woods to the west of us), are too far out of the range of our walks to explore; but, though Hatton is even farther off, we must make a passing allusion to that curious old place. It is almost the only house left in this part of Scotland which preserves untouched the characteristics of the time when it was built, the latter half of the 17th century. Part of the house is the original tower of the Lauders of Haltoun,[60] and dates from the 14th century, but it was completely altered and remodelled, when Charles Maitland, afterwards fourth Earl of Lauderdale (who married the heiress) built the present house. It stands back in a flagged court, closed by iron gates. On the garden side the ground falls rapidly away, so that a terraced wall bounds the courtyard on this side, and is supported at the corners by curious old-fashioned pavilions with steep roofs, and doors opening into the garden below. Everywhere may be seen the coronets and crossed L's of the Lauderdales, who made this one of their principal seats, till it was sold in 1792 by the eighth earl. He was my great-grandfather; and a curious story is handed down of his father's residence at Hatton. That Lord Lauderdale kept a pack of harriers with which he was very fond of hunting. Time after time these hounds put up a very large hare in the park, which, after a good run, invariably succeeded in eluding them, and always disappeared near a cottage, inhabited by a solitary old woman, popularly believed to be a witch. His huntsman told him that hare would never be caught, as he was sure it was the witch herself, but Lord Lauderdale would not believe him. At last, one day, just as the hare was making off as usual, the leading hound got near enough, and seized it by the leg; but, not having sufficient hold, the hare got away and disappeared in the cottage. Lord Lauderdale, who was close up, jumped off his horse and went into the cottage, where he found no hare, but only the old woman sitting by the fire, groaning and rubbing her leg. She had been quite well that morning, but made some excuse to Lord Lauderdale about having hurt herself. He knew better, and so did every one else.

[60] The arms of Lauder of Haltoun were--argent, a griffon salient sable, beaked and membered gules.

When Lord Lauderdale sold Hatton, it was bought by the Davidsons of Muirhouse, who cut down the beautiful lime avenue of great length, which formerly led up to the house. In their turn, they sold it to the present Lord Morton, then Lord Aberdour, in 1872.

After this digression, we return to our walk, and continue our way towards Edinburgh. It is a flat, uninteresting, highly cultivated country through which we are passing. Away to our right, but quite out of sight, is the deep valley of the Water of Leith, which runs past Currie and Colinton. Near it stands the curious old house of Baberton, where Charles X. resided for a short time, when, after the Revolution of 1830, he found a refuge in Scotland. Just before reaching Saughton, we cross the Water of Leith, which is permanently spoilt and discoloured by the mills farther up. The beautiful old bridge lies a hundred yards to the left, and to reach Saughton Hall we have to cross it. It has three arches supported by massive piers, and on a square panel is the date 1670, when it was probably repaired. It is of great age.

Saughton Hall is the old seat of the Bairds of Saughton, now represented by Sir James Gardiner Baird, whose grandfather let it, early in this century, to the proprietors of a private lunatic asylum. To fit it for their use, it has been so added to, and the place so altered, that little of its original form remains.

We next pass the little village of Gorgie, with its tan works, and find ourselves in the outskirts of Edinburgh. The suburb by which we enter the town is called Dalry, a name of Celtic origin, from _dal_, a vale, and _righ_, the king. The earliest mention of this property is in the time of Robert I., who granted a charter of the lands of Dalry to William Bisset. The Bissets were a powerful and important family in those days. In the 16th century, Dalry became the property of the Chiesly family, wealthy burgesses of Edinburgh.

On Easter Sunday, March 31, 1689, the Lord President, Sir George Lockhart of Carnwath, was shot dead by John Chiesly of Dalry. The motives for this dreadful deed were those of private ill-feeling. Chiesly, who was on bad terms with his wife, swore to be revenged on the Lord President for assigning to her a small aliment (only £93 a year) out of his estates. He was a man of violent and ungovernable passions. Six months before the murder, he told Sir James Stewart in London that he was "determined to go to Scotland before Candlemas, and kill the President." "The very imagination of such a thing," said Sir James, "is a sin before God." "Leave God and me alone," was the fierce answer; "we have many things to reckon betwixt us, and we will reckon this too!" The Lord President was warned of these threats, but took no notice. Chiesly dogged him home from church that Easter Sunday, and shot him in the back as he went into his own house, in the Old Bank Close. Lady Lockhart was confined to her bed with illness, but, on hearing the pistol-shot, she sprang up and rushed forward in her night-dress, just in time to see her husband carried in, and laid on two chairs, where he instantly expired. Chiesly, being caught red-handed, was sentenced to death next day by the Lord Provost. He was dragged on a hurdle to the Cross, where his right hand was struck off while still alive. Then he was hanged in chains at the Gallowlee, and his right hand was nailed on the West Port. It was said that his relations and servants came at dead of night and carried off his body, and buried it near his house of Dalry, which for long after was alleged to be haunted. It is a curious fact "that on repairing the garden-wall at a later period," says Wilson, "an old stone seat, which stood in a recess of the wall, had to be removed, and underneath was found a skeleton entire, except the bones of the right hand--without doubt the remains of the assassin, that had secretly been brought hither from the Gallowlee."

His daughter Rachel married the Honourable James Erskine, Lord Grange, and was the unhappy Lady Grange, whose story is well known. After twenty years of quarrels and unhappiness, her husband had her secretly conveyed to the Hebrides, where, first in one island, then in another, she lingered out in captivity and solitude the remaining seventeen years of her most wretched life. Lord Grange was involved in Jacobite plots, and it is believed that his wife's threat of betraying him to the Government was what finally decided him in shutting her up where she could not hurt him.

The old house of the Chieslys still exists. It is a curious old place with small projecting towers crowned with ogee roofs; but it is almost concealed among the humbler tenements which thickly cover that part of the estate, and is now a training school for Scottish Episcopalian teachers. From the Chieslys, Dalry passed to Sir Alexander Brand, who owned the neighbouring property of Brandfield in the district of Fountainbridge. His house there has quite disappeared, but its name is preserved in Brandfield Place, which is built on its site. In later times Dalry belonged to the Kirkpatricks of Allisland, and then to the Walkers, in whose possession it is now.

WALK VI.

Warriston--Caroline Park--Muirhouse--Lauriston
Castle--Cramond--Braehead--Cammo--Barnton--Craigcrook--Ravelston.

To-day we come to our last walk, which will take us past several curious and interesting places. There is no more imposing and majestic way for the traveller to approach or leave Edinburgh, than the Queensferry Road, which is our choice to-day. The broad, well-engineered road sweeps with an easy curve over the Dean Bridge, passes the handsome stone houses of Buckingham Terrace, and in a few moments more emerges into open country, without any of the intervening hovels which generally encumber the outskirts of a great town. We diverge from the main road at Comely Bank, and then turn due north towards Granton. To our left hand is the property of Craigleith, on which stands the massive pile of St. Cuthbert's Poorhouse. It is far over-topped and outshone by its neighbour on the opposite side of the road, Fettes College, founded in 1863 in accordance with the will of Sir William Fettes, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, to whom the estate of Comely Bank belonged. Bryce was the architect, and at some future period, when the surrounding plantations have grown up, it will look very well, but its solitary position, at the top of an exposed ridge, gives it a bare and comfortless appearance.

No old legends linger about either of these places, but about a mile and a half to the east of us stands a house whose history is too noticeable to overlook, though in the course of to-day's walk we do not actually pass it. This is Warriston House, which stands on a gentle eminence beyond the Botanical Gardens. It belonged once to the family of Kincaid, cadets of the Kincaids of that Ilk in Stirlingshire, and in 1600 it was the scene of a dreadful tragedy.

John Kincaid of Warriston was married to a beautiful woman, much younger than himself, Jean Livingston, the daughter of the Laird of Dunipace. Owing to some alleged ill-treatment, she conceived a deadly hatred of her husband, which was fomented and encouraged by her nurse. The lady was induced to tamper with a young man named Robert Weir, a servant of her father's at Dunipace, and at last she persuaded him to become her instrument. Early one morning, in July 1600, Weir came to Warriston, and being secretly admitted to the laird's chamber, he fell upon him and beat him to death with his fists. He then fled. The lady and the nurse remained at home, and seem to have taken no steps to evade the punishment of their crime. They were both seized, taken before the magistrates, and condemned to death. In the interval between the sentence and the execution, Lady Warriston, who was only twenty-one, was brought by the offices of a pious clergyman to a state of repentance and resignation to her fate. The case is reported in a curious old pamphlet called "Memorial of the Conversion of Jean Livingston (Lady Warriston), with an account of her carriage at her execution," which was reprinted by Charles Sharpe. She stated that on Weir assaulting her husband, she went to the hall, and waited till the deed was done. She thought she still heard the pitiful cries uttered by her husband while struggling with his murderer. Afterwards, by way of dissembling, she tried to weep, but not a tear could she shed. She could only regard her approaching death as a just punishment of her offence.

Her relations do not seem to have shown much grief at her fate, but for their own sakes they made interest to obtain that her execution should be as little public as possible. It was arranged that while the nurse was being burnt on the Castle-hill at four in the morning, and thus attracting the attention of any that should be about at that early hour, the lady should be taken to the Girth Cross, at the east end of the town, and should there be beheaded by the Maiden.

According to the contemporary pamphlet: "The whole way, as she went to the place of execution, she behaved herself so cheerfully, as if she had been going to a wedding and not to her death. When she came to the scaffold, and was carried up upon it, she looked up to the Maiden, with two longsome looks, for she had never seen it before. This I may say of her, to which all that saw her will bear record, that her only countenance moved, although she had not spoken a word. For there appeared such majesty in her countenance and visage, such a heavenly courage in her gesture, that many said, '_That woman is ravished with a higher spirit than man or woman._'" She then calmly resigned herself to her fate. A melancholy end for one so young! It shows the horror in which her deed was held at the time, that in the ballad of "The Laird of Warriston," the Enemy of Mankind is introduced as appearing to her, and tempting her to this awful crime. Four years later, her accomplice, Weir, was taken and broken on the wheel, a punishment hardly ever before inflicted in Scotland.[61]

[61] Chambers's _Domestic Annals of Scotland_; Pitcairn's _Criminal Trials_, ii. p. 445.

We now return to our actual walk, and soon find ourselves facing the lodge-gates of Caroline Park, or Roystoun, as it was called before it became the property of John, Duke of Argyle.

Though many years have passed since I last saw Caroline Park, how vividly it rises before me, with its curious, steep-pitched roof, and the carved inscription below it, telling how George, Lord Tarbat, had erected this little cottage (_tuguriolum_) in 1685.

When you entered the door, you passed through an outer hall into the courtyard, round which the house was built. The flagstones which paved it were green and damp-stained; but a little path of well-worn bricks, with a wooden roof supported on pillars (to shield one from the weather), led straight across to the low, matted hall, with its further door opening on the sea-view, and its framed diagrams of yacht-flags and signals, which recalled the days of the _Lufra_ and the _Flower o' Yarrow_. A door to the right led to the great staircase, which was bordered by the most beautiful iron trellis-work, hammered into flowers and arabesques, that it was ever my good fortune to see. Up-stairs, owing to the house being only one room thick, and being built in a complete square round the courtyard, all the rooms opened into one another, though by an ingenious arrangement of staircases it was possible to get to each suite separately. Heude, a pupil of Verrio, had painted the ceilings, and though the "Diana and Endymion" in the smaller drawing-room was perhaps the more exquisitely lovely, it was hard to decide between it and the "Aurora" in the larger room. What a beautiful room that great drawing-room was, as I remember it! with its panelled walls painted white, hung with portraits of the exiled Stuart kings, and over the chimney-piece and above the doors landscapes in grisaille let into the walls. There were a good many of these in the house. They were principally foreign scenes, but there was a curious view of Edinburgh, painted before the North Loch was drained and while the New Town was still unthought of, which is now preserved at Dalkeith.

When my aunt, Lady John Scott, lived here, a curious circumstance sometimes occurred in this room. The first time she remembered its happening, she was sitting alone about eleven o'clock one evening. Suddenly the window at the end of the room, close to the door opening into the dining-room, was violently burst open, and a cannon-ball (apparently) bounded in, falling heavily on the floor and rolling forwards. It rebounded three times, and seemed to come as far as the screen half-way up the room, and stop there. My aunt rang violently, but when the servants came nothing could be seen, the window was shut and uninjured, and everything as usual. Every effort was made to find out what had caused this noise, but in vain; and as there were no rooms above this part of the house, it was the more unaccountable. I remember, in January 1879, when we, as children, were spending a fortnight there alone with our German governess, that she heard the same sound one evening, and was so terrified, that she would never sit alone in that room at night again. This time the cannon-ball seemed to roll right up to where she was sitting by the fire. The two maid-servants who were always left in the house constantly heard it, but got used to it, and did not mind. Nothing was ever seen, and it could never be accounted for in any way.

To the east of the house, under the trees, where the first daffodils flowered each spring, was an ancient moss-grown well, out of which, tradition said, the "Green Ladye" rose at midnight, and rang the alarm bell in the courtyard. Many a time have I heard that bell toll mournfully, when every one in the house was in their beds, and there was not a breath of wind to sway it. On the same side of the house, but close to where the railway now runs through the park, lay formerly a large flat stone. The story went that above two hundred years ago, a foreign vessel came into the Forth, and drifted on to the low rocks and sand close to Caroline Park. The crew were stricken with the plague, and in a day or two the captain and the men were all found dead. A very deep pit was dug on this spot, and the crew were buried together in one large grave. The captain was buried alone on the top of the others, about three or four feet below the surface of the ground, and the large flat stone was laid above them all. When Lord and Lady John Scott were living at Caroline Park, they had a great wish to know if there was any truth in this wild legend, so they moved the stone and dug beneath it. A few feet down they came on the entire bones of one man, and a few feet farther they found a great mass of bones all thrown together into one deep grave. They put everything back carefully, as it had been before, and replaced the stone on the top. Before leaving Caroline Park that year to go to England, Lord John begged Mr. Howkins, the Granton engineer, to see that during the making of the railway (then in progress) neither grave nor stone should be touched. Unfortunately, none of his directions were attended to, and when he returned, he found the grave cut away, and the stone propped up against the park wall, so that of this curious spot, nothing is left but the empty tale.

There are beautiful old stone gate-pillars to the sea-entrance, with ducal coronets surmounting the carved finials; but the hammered iron gates, which corresponded with the staircases inside the house, have long been removed, and their places filled by common wooden doors. They were taken away early in this century by a well-known judge, and they now ornament the lodge of Gogar, where we saw them yesterday.

To the west of the place lay the garden, the most enchanting tangle of flowers, fruit-trees, and shady bowers. Everything in it seemed to grow to greater perfection, and to bloom earlier than elsewhere, it was so sheltered and so sunny. Peaches and apricots ripened on the walls, and the beds were full of every old-fashioned, sweet-scented flower. Beyond it rose the ruins of Granton Castle, over which strayed the Persian yellow rose and the Austrian briar, and veiled the mouldering walls with wreaths of golden petals. In the corner next the old fig-tree, a door opened into what we used to call the "opera-box." It had exactly its shape and form. You stepped in and found yourself overhanging the shore,--but instead of a painted scene, lay the wide panorama of the Forth, with the hills beyond fading into softer and softer purple; and for music, there was the ceaseless plash of the waves on the rocks far down below us.

The "opera-box" itself had been part of the outer buildings of the old castle. This once belonged to Sir Thomas Hope of Craighall, the famous lawyer of Charles I.'s time, who made it his principal residence. After his death in 1646, it passed through many different hands, including various members of the Hope family, till it was bought in 1740 by John, Duke of Argyle and Greenwich, who had acquired Roystoun the year before from Sir James Mackenzie, grandson of the Lord Tarbat who built the house. The Duke threw the two places together, and called them Caroline Park, out of compliment to his royal mistress, the queen of George II. At his death, the property passed, by the marriage of his daughter Caroline, to the ducal family of Buccleuch, who now possess it. The prosperity of the neighbouring port of Granton has proved the destruction of Caroline Park. Warehouses and other buildings press closely upon it, and the beautiful old house itself has been turned into the offices of a printing-ink manufactory.

Leaving it behind us, we turn along a road which leads westwards from the lodge, and, passing a little place called Granton House, we soon reach Muirhouse. Griffins surmount the gate-pillars which open on to a broad and fine avenue, at the end of which stand the ruins of the old royal hunting-lodge, and a finely wooded park slopes down to the sea. This barony was granted by King Robert Bruce to Sir William Oliphant of Aberdalgy. Previously it had been royal property. The last Oliphant that possessed Muirhouse, or the Murrows, as it was then called, was Sir James Oliphant of Newton (born in 1612), who in a drunken fit stabbed his own mother with a sword, so that she died. This dreadful event obliged him to fly into Ireland, where he died in great penury and wretchedness.[62] All his property was sold. Muirhouse now belongs to the Davidson family, who acquired it in 1776.

[62] Scot's _Staggering State_.

A little to the south-west of Muirhouse, we pass Drylaw, a place that once belonged to a younger branch of the Foresters of Corstorphine, and then come to the village of Davidson's Mains, or Muttonhole, hole, as it used to be called. The east gate of Barnton faces us, but we shall describe that place later, and, turning to the right along the park wall, we soon see the towers of Lauriston rising between us and the sea. The castle appears to have been built about the end of the 16th century, as over two of the windows we can still see the letters S. A. N. and D. E. M. They are the initials of Sir Archibald Napier and his second wife, Dame Elizabeth Mowbray. They acquired Lauriston from the Foresters in the latter half of the sixteenth century. One of the windows near the roof has a kind of stone shelf at its base, intended to hold a beacon, which could be seen simultaneously from the castles of Merchiston and Barnbougle, the former homes of its master and mistress. At Sir Archibald's death in 1608, Lauriston passed to his younger son, Sir Alexander. He has left a trace of his tenure in the _Celestial Theme_, which is cut on a stone nineteen inches square, and is still preserved here. It was probably calculated for him by his more celebrated brother, John Napier, the inventor of Logarithms, who was deeply versed in astrology. After his death, Lauriston passed away from the Napiers, and in 1683 came into the hands of the family with which its name is most closely associated. John Law, the great financier, succeeded his father here in 1688.[63]

[63] See Wood's _Account of the Parish of Cramond_, 1794.

The history of the famous Comptroller-General, whose fertile brain evolved the Mississippi Scheme, is too well-known to repeat here; but it is only just to his memory to say that he was no ordinary speculator. He believed as firmly in the reality of these golden dreams as the most enthusiastic of his followers; and his system appears to have been founded on a real intention to extend the commerce and improve the credit of France. It was against his wish, and in opposition to his advice, that the fatal edict was promulgated, which, by lowering the value of the bank-note, brought about the downfall of public credit; and in the crash that followed Law lost everything, including the large private fortune he had inherited from his father. The end of his life was a sad one, for he died at Venice in great poverty in 1729, at the comparatively early age of fifty-seven. It is a touching trait of his character, that, even in the height of his power and prosperity, his thoughts still fondly turned to his distant Lauriston. Archibald, Duke of Argyle, then Lord Islay, relates that, going to wait upon him by appointment, he found the antechambers filled with persons of the highest quality in France. Being by special order admitted to Law's private apartments, he found him writing what, from the number and the rank of those left to await his leisure, he took to be most important despatches. On saying this to his old friend, to his amusement he learnt that Law was only writing to his gardener at Lauriston, and giving him directions to plant cabbages in a particular spot. This was at a time when he stood at a giddy height, which few subjects have ever reached. He was the object of the adulation, almost the worship of the whole nation. After his death, and that of his only son, Lauriston Castle passed to his brother William and to his descendants, who were all in the French service.[64]

[64] The Laws of Lauriston bear ermine, a bend between two cocks, gules. The cock in their arms is supposed by Nisbet to refer to the concluding part of the crow of that bird having a similar sound to the name Law.

William Law's son was Baron de Lauriston and Governor of Pondicherry. His grandson was Napoleon's distinguished general, Alexander, Marquis de Lauriston (born 1768, died 1828). He served in most of Napoleon's campaigns, and was sent on important embassies to London and St. Petersburg. After the Restoration he reconciled himself to the royal family, and was given various posts at court, and finally was created Maréchal de France in 1823. His son Auguste was an almost equally distinguished officer. When hardly more than a boy, he served in the Imperial campaigns from 1808-1814. He carried on the line of the family in France, where they still exist, and are known by their French title. Their Scottish home was sold early in this century to Mr. Allan, a banker in Edinburgh. It has since belonged to Lord Rutherfurd, and is now the property of Mr. Macknight Crawford.