Part 3

A few yards farther brings us to the main road, which runs by the west side of Bruntisfield Links, and out by Morningside. A curious relic is preserved on the crest of the hill to the south, between the turnings to Church Hill and to Newbattle Terrace. This is the block of red sandstone in which the flagstaff of the royal standard was planted, when King James IV. mustered his army on the Boroughmuir in 1513.

Highest and midmost was descried The royal banner, floating wide; The staff, a pine tree strong and straight, Pitched deeply in a massive stone, Which still in memory is shown.[16]

[16] Scott--"Marmion."

It is now called the _Bore-stone_, or _Hare-stane_, and is preserved from injury by being securely fastened on the top of the wall, while its history is inscribed on a bronze tablet beneath.

After this brief divergence, we turn to the left, and find ourselves in a few minutes back on Bruntisfield Links, where our pilgrimage to-day began. Before ending this chapter, it might be worth while to give the true ghost-story of the Wryteshouses, as so many different versions have been told of it.

Towards the middle of the last century, the Wryteshouses was rented for a year by General Robertson of Lawers, while his own house in Perthshire was undergoing some alterations. He had at the time a black servant, who was given a room near his master's. The first morning, the man came scared and trembling to General Robertson, and said he could not stay another night in the house, for that, after he had fallen asleep, he had been roused by a noise, and saw a headless lady, with a child in her arms, walking up and down the room. General Robertson treated the story with ridicule, and the man was persuaded to sleep in the same room the following night. Next morning he again came, entreating to be allowed to go away altogether, rather than to suffer such terrors. The General would not listen to him, and would neither let him go away, nor even change his room. The man got thinner and more miserable-looking every day, and was quite out of health when, by the end of the year, they returned to Lawers.

Many years passed. General Robertson died, and was succeeded by his niece, Mrs. Williamson (whose husband, Lord Balgray, was a Lord of Session). She was one day visited at Lawers by a friend, to whose family the Wryteshouses belonged. This lady asked her if, during the twelvemonth they had spent there, any of the family had heard or seen anything extraordinary. Mrs. Williamson, in answer, told her the story of the black servant. The lady was much interested, and asked whether he was still alive, and if it would be possible to hear him tell the story himself. Mrs. Williamson replied, that was quite easy, as, though now an old man, he was living close by, in a cottage that had been given him. She sent for him, and he repeated his story, and said the year he had spent at the Wryteshouses had been one of terror and misery, as, to the very last night of his stay, the lady had walked backwards and forwards in his room, with the child in her arms. Mrs. Williamson's visitor made him describe exactly the room he had inhabited, and then told him that, in making some alterations in that very room, they had lately discovered a large closet, which they had broken open. Inside they found a box containing the skeletons of a woman and a little child. The box was too short, so the woman's head had been cut off, and placed beside her. In the same closet was also found a chest full of MS. papers. One of these papers appeared to be a sort of confession, written by an ancestor of the family; who said that his elder brother (the owner of the property) had been ordered abroad to the wars, leaving his wife and child to the care and guardianship of the younger brother. He never returned, and the writer owned to having murdered both mother and child, setting about a report that they had died, and by these means possessed himself of the inheritance.[17]

The Wryteshouses,--Wrychtishousis,--or Wrightshouses, as it is variously spelt, was pulled down in 1800 to make room for Gillespie's Hospital, a very ugly edifice built in accordance with the will of James Gillespie, who had amassed a large fortune as a tobacconist. The ancient family of Napier of the Wryteshouses has long been extinct. They were in no way related to the Napiers of Merchiston, but probably were a branch of Kilmahew, whose estates lay in the Lennox. The arms of the two families indicate this connection, both having a _bend_ azure; on which Kilmahew bore three _crescents_, and Wryteshouses a _crescent between two mullets_. The Napiers of Merchiston bear arms quite distinct from either, a saltier engrailed, cantonned with four roses.[18]

[17] This story was told by Mrs. Williamson herself to the old Miss Robertsons (who lived in George Square), and they repeated it to Lady John Scott.

[18] The Napiers of Merchiston bear the arms of the Earls of Lennox of old, instead of their own,--their ancestor having married an heiress of that family in the 15th century.

WALK II.

St. Roque--The Grange--Blackford--Liberton--St. Catherine's Well--Gilmerton--The Burnt Grange--The Drum--Moredun--The Inch.

We begin to-day's walk at the bottom of the Whitehouse Loan, turning to the left into the ancient thoroughfare which led of old from the Linton Road to St. Giles's Grange, and is still called the Grange Loan. A villa bearing the name of St. Roque, which we pass on the right, recalls memories of the chapel which once stood here.[19] It was of great antiquity, and it is uncertain when exactly, or by whom, it was founded, but from early days it was a dependency of St. Cuthbert's. Being dedicated to the saint whose help was implored for protection from the plague, a cemetery gradually grew round it, where those who died of that dreadful malady were buried. In 1532 we find that the Provost and bailies, "moved by devotion for the honour of God, and his Blessed Mother Virgin Marie, and the holy confessor Sanct Rok," granted four acres of land in the Boroughmuir to Sir John Young, the then chaplain, so that he and his successors might offer prayers for the souls of those who lay buried round, and that they might also keep the walls and windows in repair.[20] After the Reformation the performance of divine service was left off, and the building, with the land attached to it, granted to private persons; but for some time longer people continued to be buried there. The fanaticism of the time spared the chapel, and, though gradually mouldering to decay, its ruins remained safe and unharmed till the beginning of this century, when they were swept away by the vandalism of a retired tradesman, who thought they encumbered the grounds of his villa!

[19]

Thus the Lindesay spoke, Thus clamour still the war-notes when The King to mass his way has ta'en, Or to St. Katharine's of Sienne, Or Chapel of Saint Rocque.

SCOTT--"Marmion."

[20] Sir David Lindesay in "The Monarchie" thus enumerates the saints to whom superstitious honours were paid:

Thair superstitious pilgramagis To menie divers imagis; Sum to Sanct Roche, with diligence To saif them from the pestilence; For thair teeth to Sanct Apollene; To Sanct Tred well to mend thair ene.

Before turning down Blackford Avenue, which opens to our right, a hundred yards farther on, let us glance for a moment at that curious old house, the Grange,--or, as its title more correctly stands, St. Giles's Grange. This was once the farm belonging to the cathedral church of St. Giles, in the pre-Reformation days, when each church and abbey had broad lands attached to it. In the 17th century the Grange was among the large possessions of Sir William Dick; and in the wreck of his fortunes, it was preserved to his third son William by the liberality and wealth of the latter's wife, Janet M'Math. She had inherited great riches from her own family, of whom she was the last survivor, as well as from her first husband, Thomas Bannatyne. Much of this money she devoted to the needs of her second husband's family, even paying the bill of poor Sir William's funeral expenses. Her descendant, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder (who also represents a younger branch of Lauder of the Bass), is the present possessor of the Grange.

When Prince Charles held his court at Holyrood, he visited the Grange, and presented the family with the thistle from his bonnet, which is still preserved by them with great care. Robertson, the historian, spent the last years of his life here, where he died in 1793. Parts of the house are very old, but it has been a good deal added to, at different times. It is said to be haunted by a ghost in the form of a miser, who rolls a sack of gold coins about the older parts of the building. The tradition is, that if any of the family were to see him, they would become possessed of the treasure.

Till within the last few years, the most picturesque cottages imaginable stood close to the gate of the Grange. Their whitewashed walls, overhung with masses of ivy,--their thatched roofs and irregular gables,--their curious outside stairs, and the air of antiquity that overshadowed them, made them dear to every artist's soul; and no scene in the vicinity of Edinburgh was more often drawn or painted. Now, alas! the mania for so-called improvement, which is the curse of the present day, has swept them away; and the Grange, like any other villa, is enclosed by a prim stone wall, ending in the most modern of lodges.

A little farther along the loaning is the Penny Well, which was restored a few years ago; but as yet I have not succeeded in discovering anything of its history or traditions. Somewhere near here there formerly existed a holy well, to which the nuns of the convent of St. Catherine of Sienna used to resort; but I do not know if it can be identified with the Penny Well. The Lovers' Loan runs along the western boundary of the garden of the Grange, in a northerly direction, till it almost reaches the Meadows. Not so many years ago it was a shady, secluded walk,--now it is only a path between high walls; and though some of the hawthorn bushes at the northern end still survive, they have been clipped and cut in, till they have lost all remembrance of their old luxuriance. It is probable that this is the remains of one of the old paths that intersected the Boroughmuir, to which we occasionally find reference in old charters.

A little west of the Grange, Blackford Avenue branches off to the south. Till the making of the Suburban Railway gave a great impetus of progress to this part of Edinburgh, it was a quiet country road, shaded with trees on either side, and leading to the gateway of Blackford House. The charming description that Sir Thomas Dick Lauder gives of this place in his _Scottish Rivers_ describes so exactly what it was early this century, and what it remained up to within a few years ago, that I cannot refrain from quoting it.

"The house was old, and not very large, and in no very remarkable style of architecture; but what there was of it--and there were a good many small rooms in it--might be said to be very rambling. There was something so venerable in the very air of its front, that no one could lift its brass knocker without a certain feeling of respectful awe. It was covered with the richest jessamines and roses, and the gravel circle before the door was always kept in a state of the most exact tidiness. On the south side of the premises there was a high and steep bank of shaven turf, with a pretty little parterre flower-garden between its base and the house, and a broad terrace walk at top, that stretched along under some noble trees, close to the boundary of the place in that direction. The fruit and vegetable garden, which had some variegated hollies of goodly size in it, occupied the gently sloping ground at some little distance in front of the house, and beyond this there was, and we think we may say _is_, a fine open grove of old and well-grown trees.... There we find, seated in her arm-chair, but springing from it in a moment to meet us half-way across the room, an old lady of a handsome, dignified countenance, lighted up with clear, black, benevolent eyes, and of a tall and commanding figure, though modified by a very slight bend.... Those who did not know her so well as we did, might have supposed her to have been but a little above seventy years of age only, from the freshness and vigour she displayed; we, who were aware that in her younger days she had flirted with our father, knew that she had seen ninety years. But oh, how green and vigorous her old age was, both in body and mind! and how fresh and warm were all her affections!... How interesting were the old stories that she told! how easily were they narrated in the purest Scottish vernacular, and how perfectly did she bring back and vivify people, of whom we had heard much, but whom we had not lived early enough to know personally!"

The old friend whom Sir Thomas describes so touchingly was Miss Menie Trotter, one of the last of the race of old Scotch ladies, so clever, so original, almost to eccentricity, so idiomatic and plain-spoken in their expressions, and yet such perfect gentlewomen. She was the sister of the laird of Morton Hall, and, though but slenderly endowed, her liberality and charitableness to her poorer neighbours was unbounded.[21] All her life she was a very active woman. Every morning she bathed in the Jordan, which then ran pure and sparkling through her garden, and afterwards she walked all over Blackford Hill before breakfast. Ten miles at a stretch was nothing to her within a few years of her death, which happened when she was above ninety.

[21] Miss Menie was of a very hospitable disposition. At the beginning of every winter she killed and salted down a Highland bullock, which she and her guests ate steadily through till it was finished. Lady Robert Kerr, and my two great-grand-aunts, Mrs. Mackenzie and Mrs. David Wauchope, constantly dined with her, and she used to press her neighbour, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, to come, with the reminder, "We we getting gey near the tail noo."

The railway has shorn the old place of many of its attractions; and the road now runs past it, and gradually mounts up to the red sandstone gateway which leads to Blackford Hill. The hill, which formerly belonged to Morton Hall, was bought by the town of Edinburgh in 1884, to form a great public park, chiefly by the exertions of Sir George Harrison, the then Lord Provost. Though no longer a lonely and sequestered spot, the wind blows as freshly over the hill, the view is as beautiful, and the whins and thorn trees grow as freely as when Sir Walter wrote his never-to-be-forgotten lines, which rise unbidden to the traveller's thoughts, as he slowly and wearily climbs to the highest rocky point--

Blackford! on whose uncultured breast, Among the broom, and thorn, and whin, A truant boy, I sought the nest, Or listed, as I lay at rest, While rose on breezes thin The murmur of the city crowd; And from his steeple jangling loud, Saint Giles's mingling din.

Now from the summit to the plain, Waves all the hill with yellow grain; And o'er the landscape as I look, Nought do I see unchanged remain, Save the rude cliffs and chiming brook. To me they make a heavy moan, Of early friendships past and gone.[22]

[22] Scott--"Marmion."

Leaving the hill behind us to the west, we pass through the farm of West Liberton Mains, and, after turning to the right, soon emerge on the old coach road which led from Edinburgh to Peebles and Biggar, and all the wide stretch of country between them.

Liberton crowns the hill in front of us, and when we see its modern-looking church, and the trim villas that surround it, it is difficult to realize what an old place it is. The name is supposed to be a corruption of _leper-tun_, as of old a hospital for lepers existed here, every vestige of which has disappeared. The earliest mention of this place occurs in charters of David I. between 1124 and 1153, some of which were witnessed by Macbeth, Baron of Liberton. It was he who granted titles and lands to the chapel, which was then subordinate to the church of St. Cuthbert. By a later charter of King David's (1143-47), Liberton was granted to the canons of Holyrood, who retained it till the Reformation. There were three subordinate chapels,--St. Margaret's, near the Balm Well of St. Catherine; the Blessed Virgin's Chapel at Niddrie; and the little hunting-chapel built by James V. at the Bridgend near The Inch. Since the 16th century the barony of Upper Liberton has belonged to the Littles, and it is now in possession of their direct descendant and representative, Mr. Gordon Gilmour of Craigmillar. The old house of Liberton stands to the west of the village. An avenue of lime trees leads down to it, on one side of which stands the dovecot, in old days the distinctive privilege of the lord of the barony. Additions to the house, early in this century, have spoiled it externally, but inside it is very curious. The walls are of immense thickness, the windows are small and numerous, and over them, as well as over most of the doors and fireplaces, there are massive arches of red sandstone. The hole is still visible in the wall of the turret staircase, which, commanding the outer door, enabled the inhabitants to fire unseen on their assailants. Over one of the windows is the date 1695, but the house is far older, and is known to have been in possession of the Littles in 1570. The tower, hard by, though ruined and deserted, still lifts its head proudly over the humble sheds and farm-buildings at its side, and "far o'er the Forth, looks to the north," across the deep and lonely valley in front of it, as it did in the old days, when it was the terror of the surrounding country.

In a hedge near the cross road, which leads back from Liberton House to the village, grows the wormwood (_Artemisia vulgaris_), with its deeply-cut, silver-lined leaves, and curious, aromatic smell. It is the only place in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh where I have noticed it growing. When we reach the main road again, we turn to the right, and, passing the large reservoir that the Edinburgh Water Company have lately built, we soon reach the east lodge of Morton Hall. On the opposite side of the road is a small place, St. Catherine's, in the garden of which still stands the famous Balm Well, to which in former days so many pilgrimages were made. The water of the spring is covered with a film of petroleum; and however frequently the film is removed, it always returns. In old days the well was much resorted to for the curing of cutaneous distempers. It owes its origin to the following miracle. St. Catherine had a commission from St. Margaret, the queen of Malcolm Canmore, to bring her some holy oil from Mount Sinai. At this very place she happened by accident to lose a few drops, and on her earnest supplication the well appeared.

When James VI. was in Scotland in 1617, he went to visit it, and ordered that it should be fenced in with stones from bottom to top, and that a door and staircase should be made for it, so that it might be more easy of access. The royal commands being immediately obeyed, the well was greatly adorned, and remained so till 1650, when Cromwell's soldiers almost totally destroyed it. It was repaired again after the Restoration. St. Catherine was buried in a chapel adjoining the well, which was pulled down in the last century. It was observed that the man who pulled it down never prospered again. There are still remains of the old stonework to be seen; and now, as then, a black, oily substance floats on the top of the water, but the well is only visited in these days as a curiosity, and not with the trusting faith that its miracle-working powers excited of old.

When we reach the blacksmith's shop at the corner, our way turns to the left, and we leave the road we have hitherto followed, to pursue its course to the shale-works and coal-pits of Straiton and Loanhead. The thick white smoke drifting along the rising ground to the south of us comes from the limekilns of Burdiehouse, which are surrounded by a labyrinth of caves, out of which the limestone has been quarried. Fossils of curious plants and fishes are found there in great quantities. It is said that the name Burdiehouse is a corruption of "Bordeaux," and that the place was so called by some of Queen Mary's French attendants who settled there.

Taking the next turn to the right, we cross the small burn, and climb the steep hill to Gilmerton, passing the old Place or Manor House, which stands within gates at the west end of the village. This was the dower house of the ladies of Newbyth. Mrs. Baird, the mother of the famous general, Sir David Baird, of Mrs. Wauchope of Niddrie, and of Lady Haddo, lived here at the end of the last century. Some cottages a little farther on bear the pretty and romantic name of Laverock Hall. In former days the inhabitants of Gilmerton had a bad reputation as a lawless and turbulent set. Cut-throat Lane, the name of the road where we again turn to the left, just before reaching the railway arch, is suggestive of days when highway robberies were more common than now. Before the Glencorse railway was made, this was a desolate, lonely spot, and the rough, overgrown hedges on either side might easily have concealed a dangerous ambush.

When we reach the end of Cut-throat Lane, before turning northwards, on the way back to Edinburgh, let us pause for a moment; for down in the hollow to the south is a cottage which deserves more than a passing mention. Five centuries have elapsed since the terrible tragedy took place which turned the name of Gilmerton Grange to Burndale, or the Burnt Grange; and, whether we read the story in the quaint, unadorned language of _The Memorie of the Somervilles_, or with the charm of Sir Walter's verse[23] thrown round it, it alike fills the mind with horror. The tale may be briefly told as follows:--

[23] Scott--"The Gray Brother." For this and other stories of the Somerville family, see _The Memorie of the Somervilles_.