towering mansions again filled with wondering, exulting,
or sorrowing faces, as the wily Earl of BIorton
lays his head under the axe of the ? Maiden,?
and the splendid Montrose, as he is dragged to a
felon?s doom, with the George sparkling on his
breast and the Latin history of his battles tied in
mockery to his neck; again, we shall see Jenny
Geddes hurl her fauldstool at the dean?s head as
he gives out the obnoxious liturgy ; and, anon, the
resolute and sombre Covenanters, grasping their
swords in defence of ?? an oppressed Kirk and a
broken Covenant.?
In the Cowgate-whilom a pleasant country
when the dissolute Darnley was done to death I
in the lonely Kirk-of-field. -
Again we shall see her, when she is led in from
Carberry Hill, a helpless captive in the midst of
her rebel nobles, and thrust-pale, dishevelled,
in tears, and covered with dust-into the gloomy
stone chambers of the famous Black Turnpike,
while the fierce and coarse revilings of the inflamed
multitude made her woman?s heart seem to die
within her.
Turning into the High School Wynd, under the
shadow of its quaint, abutting, and timber-fronted
mansions, we shall meet the Princess-for such she
was-Elizabeth St. Clair of Roslin, surrounded
by the state which Hay records ; for he tells us
that she ?was served (in the days of James 11.)
by seventy-five gentlewomen, whereof fifty-three
were daughters of noblemen, clothed in velvet and
silks, with their chains of gold .and other ornaments,
and was attended by 200 riding gentlemen
in all journeys; and if it happened to be
dark when she went to Edinburgh, where her
lodgings were at the foot of the Blackfriars Wynd,
eighty lighted torches were carried before her.?
Here, in later years, was often seen one who.
was to write of all these things as no man ever
wrote before or since-a little lame boy, fair-haired
and blue-eyed, named Walter Scott, limping to.
school with satchel on back, and playing, it might
be, ? the truant,? with Skene,.by seventy-five gentlewomen, whereof fifty-three
were daughters of noblemen, clothed in velvet and
silks, with their chains of gold .and other ornaments,
and was attended by 200 riding gentlemen
in all journeys; and if it happened to be
dark when she went to Edinburgh, where her
lodgings were at the foot of the Blackfriars Wynd,
eighty lighted torches were carried before her.?
Here, in later years, was often seen one who.
was to write of all these things as no man ever
wrote before or since-a little lame boy, fair-haired
and blue-eyed, named Walter Scott, limping to.
school with satchel on back, and playing, it might
be, ? the truant,? with Skene,.
Again shall be seen the city girt by its loftywalls
and those embattled gates, which were seldom
without a row of human heads on iron spikes-the
grisly relics of those who were too often the victims.
of dire misrule-with the black kites, then thechief
scavengers in the streets, hovering about
them.
In the steep and quaint West Bow-now nearly
all removed-dwelt the Wizard, Weir of Kirkton,
who perished at the stake in 1670, togetherwith
his sister and the wonderful walking-stick, which
was surmounted by a carved head, and performed
his errands. His lofty mansion, long the alleged
abode of spectres, and a source of terror to the
neighbourhood, was demolished only in the spring
of 1878.
