Part 2
Morton Hall stands to our left, with its winding drives, its woods and sheltered gardens, lying open to every gleam of the sun, and protected from the cold north winds by the high ground of the park behind. In the reign of James III. it belonged to the St. Clairs of Roslin. It became the property of the Trotters, an ancient Berwickshire family, about 1641, and now belongs to Colonel Trotter of the Grenadier Guards. John Trotter, the second in possession of Morton Hall, was a great loyalist, and was fined £500 in 1645 by Parliament, for assisting Montrose. The house, which was built towards the end of the 17th century, is a comfortable square stone building, and has in it some very fine tapestry representing the story of Perseus and Andromeda. At different places in the park occur those curious whinstone monoliths, of which a line once extended across the country, from the Pentlands to the Esk. On the south side of the Braid Hills, within the park, is a small natural sheet of water, which lies in a hollow that was called of old _Elve's_ or _Elf Kirk_, denoting a place where the fairies assembled. A little distance below this, nearer Morton Hall (says the Rev. Mr. Whyte in his account of Liberton Parish), is a piece of ground called Kilmorton. The name tells us that here stood a Cella, or religious house; but no tradition survives concerning it, nor are any remains of it to be seen.
Returning to the high road, on the opposite side stands Comiston, a small place which derives its name from the _Camus stone_, once the marchstone of its eastern boundary. This was a huge monolith which stood on the brow of the hill at Fairmilehead, and which, within the memory of the last generation, was barbarously broken up to make road-metal. Like other _Camus_ or _Cambus_ stones (from the celtic _Cam_, crooked) in different parts of the country, it had probably been set up as a landmark, or as a memorial of some contract between great chiefs.[8]
[8] See Wilson's _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_.
At Fairmilehead, where formerly stood a toll, four roads meet. The one to the left leads past Morton House, and along the sunny park-wall of Morton Hall, to the Burdiehouse road. Part of Morton House is very old. Like Morton Hall, the property belonged in James III.'s time to Sir Oliver Sinclair of Roslin. His successors possessed both places for many years. From them Morton House passed to the Riggs, cadets of the family of Rigg of Carberry. It now belongs to Colonel Trotter, but it is generally let, and it was here that Dr. Hill Burton, the historian, died in 1881.
Our way lies to the right, and yet, the road stretching straight in front of us,--how sorely does it tempt the wanderer on! Past Hillend, where the three ways part, and along the upper road under the shoulder of Cairketton,--and so on to where the shadows play beneath the high beech avenues of Woodhouselee,--till he turns at last to reach the wooded opening of Glencorse, and sees before him that wild, lonely loch, beneath whose silvery waters lies the ruined chapel of St. Catherine of the Hopes. Let him wander up the solitary haunts of Logan Water, till the path ends, the last tree is left behind, and he finds himself in an amphitheatre of hills. They stand around him in silent majesty, while the lengthening shadows creep up their steep, grassy sides. The sky is blue and cloudless overhead,--the whispering wind is all but hushed in this sheltered spot,--not a sound is heard but the far-off bleat of a sheep, or the crow of a grouse on the moors beyond,--and then, in the solemn peacefulness of this place, let him realize if he can that a city, with its turmoil, its din, and its busy crowd, lies little more than an hour's ride from him!
But to-day we must not stray so far; and, before leaving Fairmilehead, let us turn for a moment to the recollections of a prehistoric age, of which the land on which we stand is full. It is certain that this was the site of a Roman town (the name Morton meaning "the great city," from _Mhor_, the Celtic "great"), to which a road led from Teviotdale, and proceeded to Cramond, an important Roman station on the Forth. To preserve the memory of the ancient Roman road, the present one was formed on its line for nearly a mile, by direction of Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, one of the most learned antiquarians of his day. Tradition says a great battle took place here between the Romans and the Picts. The Roman army was encamped on the Gallachlaw (the wooded rising ground to the east), and traces of their entrenchments can still be seen along the west approach to Morton Hall. The Pictish king was killed, and buried beneath a huge tumulus, now, alas! destroyed, but in which remains of men and weapons were found.
Countless years have rolled Since their last shout of battle died away,[9]
and now all that remains to tell the tale of how this ancient people fought and struggled, is the massive, unhewn Battle-stone, lichen-covered and weather-stained, which stands a silent witness to the past. Behind it still rise the mighty hills, whose name of Pentland recalls the Pechts or Picts, who so long ago sought refuge in their fastnesses from the foreign invader.
[9] Violet Fane--"Autumn Songs."
The Battle-stone, Kelstane or Caiystone, as it is variously called, stands on the right of the road, about a hundred yards west of Fairmilehead. It is a monolith of red sandstone, standing seven feet high, and reaching nearly as far below the ground. Near its base are still distinctly visible the mark of seven cup excavations, of the usual form, arranged in a row like those of the cromlech at Bonnington.
Passing the steep narrow lane to the left, which leads to Swanston,--a hill farm of Colonel Trotter's on the slope of Cairketton,--whose low, thatched, white cottages make a charming study for the artist, we reach the picturesque tiled roofs of the Hunter's Tryst. This was long ago a comfortable little ale-house. Persons still alive remember when it was kept by two respectable old women, who cooked a capital dinner. In former days it was the custom for citizens of Edinburgh to shut up their places of business early on Saturdays, and go out into the country to dine about four or five o'clock at one of these little inns. The Hunter's Tryst was a favourite resort. The Six-Feet Club used to meet here from time to time. It was an athletic society, to which Sir Walter Scott and the Ettrick Shepherd belonged.[10] We now pass the entrance-gate of Dreghorn, and, turning to the left, skirt the park. This is a pretty place standing at the foot of the Howden Glen, and with the Redford Burn running through it. Though the house is modern in appearance, part of it was begun in the 17th century by Sir William Murray, Master of the Works to Charles II. He married the daughter of Sir James Foulis of Colinton, to whose family most of the surrounding land then belonged. Since then Dreghorn has passed through many hands, and now belongs to Mr. Macfie. In 1720, when the property of Mr. George Home of Kelloe, a young man came as tutor to the family, whose name--David Malloch or Mallet,--would mean as little to us now as it did to those who only saw in him the struggling pedagogue, had it not been for the one ballad, which, written as he wandered up the banks of the Redford Burn, has from that day been enshrined in every collection of ballad literature:--
'Twas at the silent, solemn hour When night and morning meet, In glided Margaret's grimly ghost, And stood at William's feet.
Her face was like an April morn, Clad in a wintry cloud; And clay-cold was her lily hand, That held her sable shroud.
[10] I have been told by Mr. Stillie, who has good reasons for knowing the truth of the matter, that Allan Ramsay laid the scenery of "The Gentle Shepherd," round the Hunter's Tryst, and that
A flowrie howm between twa verdant braes, Where lasses use to wash and spread their claes; A trottin' burnie wimplin' thro' the ground, Its channel pebbles shining smooth and round,
lies down in the hollow at the bottom of the hill by the Braid Burn. Old Mr. Trotter of the Bush was very anxious to establish the fact that Habbie's Howe was up the Logan Water in Glencorse; and Mr. Brown of Newhall claimed the site for his property farther west along the Pentlands, and wrote a book to prove that he was right. In consequence, it is the generally received opinion that the spot now called Habbie's Howe on Newhall was the one intended by Allan Ramsay; but, according to the tradition received by my informant from Allan Ramsay's friends and relations, both were wrong.
So run the first two verses of "William and Margaret." The opening lines were put into Mallet's head by the fragment of an old ballad spoken by "Merrythought" in Fletcher's play of "The Knight of the Burning Pestle;" but the poem itself commemorates an unhappy affair much talked of at the time.
The inscription on a tablet in honour of General Gordon, which we see as we pass the keeper's house, was put up by Mr. Macfie. He also raised the slender monument, supported by four clustered columns, a few yards farther on. It bears an inscription on one side in memory of the Covenanters (who, in 1666, were encamped here previous to the battle of Rullion Green), and on the other side some lines which refer to the ancient Roman camp which stood close by. The road now makes a steep descent, and crosses the burn by a picturesque, ivy-hung bridge, which, with the castellated gate-house beside it, and the wooded banks overhanging the stream, form a charming picture. Though so near the hills, this is a most sheltered spot, and the first snowdrops and the earliest green buds on the hawthorn may generally be found here.
To our right, close to the burn, lies Redford House; and those colossal stone carvings which adorn the stable-wall were once part of the pediment of the old Infirmary in Edinburgh, and were removed here by Mr. Macfie when that was pulled down. A few yards farther on, as we reach Colinton, the road branches to the right and left. That to the left leads, by many winding turns, to Bonally and the wild hill-country beyond. Originally a farmhouse, the late Lord Cockburn transformed Bonally in 1845 into its present form, and laid out the charming garden with its quaint laurel hedges and smooth-shaven lawns sloping down to the burn. Passing through the little wood behind it, we can reach a track which leads over the shoulder of the hill into Glencorse, close to the remains of a Roman camp; and which, though rather boggy in wet weather, is quite rideable, and from which the views are lovely beyond words.
The other houses about Colinton are hardly more than villas, standing in their own grounds, and with no particular interest attached to them, so we will return to where we branched off, and take the road to the right which passes the gate of Colinton House. This was originally known as Hales (from the Celtic _Hales_, a mound or hillock).[11] Ethelred, the son of Malcolm Canmore, granted it to the monks of Dunfermline, but it seems to have been an uncertain possession, as later it was taken away, and given to the canons of Holyrood, and transferred from them in 1445 to the canons of St. Anthony at Leith. After the Reformation, it was bought by James Foulis, the Clerk-Register, a man of very ancient family--his ancestor having come from France in the reign of Malcolm Canmore. The old manor-house, of which the ruins still remain in the park, was the home of the Foulis; but there is no authority for the supernatural interest with which Mrs. Oliphant has chosen to invest it in her story of _The Open Door_. The present house was built by Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, who bought Colinton in 1800 from Sir James Foulis. After his death, it passed into the hands of the Speaker Abercromby, first Viscount Dunfermline, to whose grand-daughter, the Hon. Mrs. Trotter, it now belongs. The high, steep bank overhanging the Water of Leith, with the little village nestling at its foot, is very picturesque; but the pride of the place lies in its magnificent cedars, and the tall old holly hedges in the garden.
[11] The name of Hales is still retained by a quarry on the farther side of the Water of Leith.
Leaving Colinton behind us on the left, we proceed along the shady, beech-bordered road that leads to Craiglockhart, and soon pass the Hydropathic Establishment. To the north, sloping down to the Water of Leith, is a very old place--Redhall. Edward I. of England is said to have been here in 1298. It belonged to the ancient family of Otterburn of Redhall, which became extinct in the 17th century. The heiress, Anne Otterburn, married Sir James Hamilton (of the Priestfield family), and it was he who defended Redhall against Cromwell in 1650. The castle was besieged by ten companies of the Coldstream Guards (then known as General Monk's Regiment), which eventually carried it by storm. The only vestiges left of the old castle are the red stones of which it was built (which have been largely used in the modern walls of the park), and a large memorial stone bearing the arms of the Otterburn family, very finely sculptured.[12] The place now belongs to Mr. David Chalmers.
[12] The Otterburn arms were--argent, _guttee de sable_; a _cheveron_ between three _otters' heads couped_ of the last; and on a _chief_ azure, a _crescent_ or.
We now see the two hills of Craiglockhart on our right. The name is probably derived from _Craig-lochard_ (the high craig by the loch), an appropriate enough name in the old days, when its rocky sides were reflected in the great Loch of Corstorphine, which then extended to its foot. The steep face of the eastern hill is thickly wooded and ivy-grown, and traces may still be seen of the winding paths and shady bowers which made it once a beautiful pleasure-ground. These were laid out about the beginning of the century by a Dr. Munro,[13] but neglect and forgetfulness has turned them to a wilderness.
[13] The same Dr. Munro was dining once at Niddrie. One of the children had not been well, and was still looking pale, and Mrs. Wauchope (my great-great-grandmother) asked him what she had better do. "You should take advice, madam," was his answer, thus intimating that no opinion was to be got out of him gratis. His daughter married Sir James Stuart, the last baronet of Allanbank, and was the "pert wife" against whom Charles Sharpe inveighed with such bitterness for persuading her husband to sell the portrait of "Pearlin' Jean."
No traditions remain to tell when or by whom the old tower was built, of which we can still see the ruins nestling in the shelter of the red-roofed farm buildings. The history of much of this neighbourhood seems lost in the mists of forgetfulness. Half a mile farther on, where the Union Canal comes close to the road on the left, we look across it and see a solitary gate-pillar standing in a field. This, and a curious old pillar sundial on the opposite side of the road, are all that remain of the ancient mansion of Meggetland, which, in the early part of the 18th century, belonged to a family named Sievewright; but of what it was like, what was its history, and why it was destroyed, there is no trace or record.
We are fast returning to our original starting-point; but, before making our way back by Merchiston Castle, let us turn aside for one moment at Myreside, and, taking the road to the right, in a few minutes we reach the old mansion of Craighouse. This curious old place stands on the eastern slope of Craiglockhart Hill, and is approached by a venerable lime avenue. An air of mysterious antiquity hangs over the house, which, with its massive walls, and small, many-paned windows,[14] looks as if it had been the scene of more than one romantic tale. Could its walls speak, we might know the truth of that weird story (which so often has made me shudder as I gazed at them) of the unhappy Lady of Craighouse, who, overcome with grief and misery at the loss of an adored husband, shut herself up here, and spent the remainder of her life in a room all hung with black, into which the light of heaven was never permitted to enter! The lapse of years has dimmed all recollection of her name and previous history; and equally unknown is the mysterious S. C. P., whose initials, with the date 1565, are carved on the lintel of the entrance door. There is one story said to be connected with Craighouse, which I have heard all my life, and have read in collections of Scottish traditional tales, which I should have liked to relate here,--that of the deadly quarrel between Moubray of Barnbougle and the sons of the murdered Bruntfield of Craighouse,--but on attempting to verify it from ancient histories and MSS. in the Advocates' Library, I found, to my disappointment, that it was a romance resting on the slenderest foundations, and in no way connected with Craighouse.
[14] Alas! that is how it looked a few years ago, but lately the place has been acquired by the Morningside Lunatic Asylum, and has been sadly changed. Modern plate-glass replaces the old sixteen and twenty paned windows that I remember, and other alterations seem in progress.
During the reign of James VI., this place belonged to a younger branch of the Kincaids of that ilk in Stirlingshire. John Kincaid, the laird's eldest son, got into great trouble in 1600, by forcibly carrying off a young and beautiful widow, named Isabel Hutcheon, who was living at the time in the house of a peaceful citizen, by the water of Leith. John Kincaid, helped by an armed party of friends and relations, took her to Craighouse, but, fortunately for her, the king happened at that very time to be riding across the neighbouring fields. Hearing her screams, he sent Lord Mar and Sir John Ramsay to see what was happening. They threatened to set Craighouse on fire, unless Mistress Hutcheon was at once released, which was done. Kincaid was tried for this outrage, and fined 2,500 marks, payable to the Treasurer. He was also ordered to deliver up his brown horse to the king.[15] Soon after this, Craighouse passed into the possession of a historically well-known man, Sir William Dick of Braid, Knight, who in his own person experienced greater alterations of fortune than usually befall one single individual. Lord Provost of Edinburgh in the time of Charles I., and so wealthy, that the value of his money and landed estates has been computed at no less than £226,000 sterling, which is nearly equal to two millions of money at the present time,--he yet died in the debtors' prison. During the civil war he was alternately plucked by either party, who took from him, by forced loans, not less than £180,000 in hard cash. Going to London with his family, in hopes of recovering this money from Parliament, he was arrested for some small debts incurred there; and the remainder of his property being locked up in lands and bonds, and not readily to be got at, he was thrown into prison, where he died December 19, 1655,--a strange and sad end for one who, not long before, had been the richest commoner in the kingdom. Craighouse and Braid, with other of his possessions, were swallowed up by the mortgages upon them. Craighouse has passed through many hands since, and eventually, like the Hermitage, was bought by the Gordons of Cluny.
[15] Pitcairn's _Criminal Trials_.
Returning to Myreside, we continue our walk due east, along a road bordered by villas, till we find ourselves passing on the left the narrow postern door, guarded by the lions _couchant_ that surmount the pillars on either side. Behind it stands Merchiston. This very ancient castle, built no one knows when or by whom, has for centuries belonged to the illustrious family of Napier, they having acquired it in 1438. Their most famous son, John Napier, the inventor of logarithms, was born here in 1550. His father, Sir Alexander, who was only sixteen years old at the time of his birth, was later Master of the Mint to James VI. His mother was Janet, only daughter of Sir Francis Bothwell, and sister to Adam, Bishop of Orkney. John Napier pursued his studies and researches at Merchiston. He was supposed by the vulgar to be deeply versed in magic, and to possess a familiar spirit in the shape of a jet-black cock. The story goes that once, when some petty thefts had been committed in the castle, of which one of the servants was suspected, Napier brought them all up the winding stair into a darkened room, where the cock was placed. He commanded them to stroke its back, declaring it would crow at the touch of the guilty person. During the whole ceremony the cock remained silent, but afterwards the hand of the culprit was found to be free from the soot with which the bird's feathers had been liberally sprinkled.
Napier was also believed to possess the power of discovering hidden treasure. Among the Merchiston papers still exists a curious contract, dated July 1594, between him and Robert Logan of Restalrig, which sets forth: "Forasmuch as there were old reports and appearances that a sum of money was hid within Logan's house of Fast Castle, John Napier should do his utmost diligence to work and seek out the same." For his reward he was to have a third of the discovered treasure. "This singular contract," says Wilson, "acquires a peculiar interest when we remember the reported discovery of hidden treasure, with which the preliminary steps of the Gowrie conspiracy were effected;" Logan of Restalrig being deeply implicated in that plot, though nothing of his share in it was known at the time.
The true fruit of Napier's years of toil and study appeared in 1614, when he produced his book of logarithms, which he dedicated to Prince Charles (afterwards Charles I.), and which rapidly made his name famous over Europe. He died at Merchiston in 1617, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Archibald. This was the first Lord Napier. He married Montrose's sister, and for some years he acted as tutor to his illustrious brother-in-law, who was left fatherless very young. It was his son, the second Lord Napier, who was Montrose's faithful companion and friend. He married Lady Elizabeth Erskine, and when he passed into the exile from which he never returned, she remained for some time at his castle of Merchiston, and was here when Montrose was executed. From here she sent the faithful servant, who at the dead of night stole to the unhallowed spot on the Boroughmuir where the mutilated trunk of the dead hero had been hastily buried. He carefully and reverently extracted the heart; and, wrapping it in the piece of fine linen, which to this day is treasured in the Napier charter-chest, he brought it to his mistress, who had it skilfully embalmed. It was then enclosed in a steel box made of the blade of Montrose's sword, and preserved as a precious relic. Montrose had always felt a deep affection for his nephew and his wife, and had promised at his death to leave his heart to Lady Napier, and so the pledge was redeemed. The adventures through which the heart passed afterwards, and the marvellous manner in which it was more than once lost and recovered, would fill volumes. A most interesting account is given of it in the appendix to Napier's _Life of Montrose_. Thirlestane on the Ettrick, which came later by marriage into the family, is now the home of the Napiers, and Merchiston has been for many years let as a school. An old pear-tree in front is still pointed out as having been planted by Queen Mary; and a quaint little panelled closet is called her bedroom.