The City Cross. -
acute, intelligent, and also faithful to any duty entrusted
to them. A stranger coming temporarily to
reside in Edinburgh got a caddie attached to his
service, to conduct him from one part of the town
to another, and to run errands for him; in short, to
be wholly at his bidding. A caddie did literally
know everything of Edinburgh, even to that kind
of knowledge which we now expect only in a street
directory; and it was equally true that he could
hardly be asked to go anywhere, or upon any
It is difficult now to understand the gross perversion
of taste and the barbarous absence of
all veneration that prevailed in the Scotland of the
eighteenth century, and how such a memorial as
the inoffensive cross of Edinburgh was doomed
to destruction; but doomed it was, and on the
night before its demolition began there came a bacchanalian
company, probably Jacobites, and with a
crown bowl of punch upon its battlements, solemnly
drank ?? the dredgie of the auld mercat cross.?
THE CITY CROSS.
mission, that he would not go. On the other hand,
the stranger would probably be astonished to find
that, in a few hours, his caddie was acquainted with
every particular concerning himseg where he was
from, what was his purpose in Edinburgh, his family
connections, tastes, and dispositions. Of course for
every particle of scandal floating about Edinburgh
the caddie was a ready book of reference. We sometimes
wonder how our ancestors did without newspapers.
We do not reflect on the living vehicle of
? news which then existed ; the privileged beggar for
country people ; for towns-folk the caddies.?
But now, the Iatter, like the City Guard, the
Tronmen, Bedesmen, town-piper and drummer, are
all numbered with the things that were.
On one side of the cross there stood, of old,
the Dyvours sfane, whereon might be seen seated
a row of those unfortunates, who, for misfortune
or roguery, were, by act of the Council, compelled
to appear each market day at noon in the bankrupt?s
garb-in a yellow bonnet and coat, oRe half
yellow and the other brown, under pain of three
months? imprisonment. The origin of this singular
mode of protecting public credit was an Act of
Sederunt of the Court of Session in 1604, wherein
the seat is described as ?ane pillery of hewn stone,
near to the mercat croce,? and from 10 AM. till
one hour after dinner, was the time for the Dyvours
sitting thereon.
The Luckenbooths, an extinct range of pic
THE AULD KIRK STYLE. I53 The Luckenbootha.]
turesque and heavily-eaved buildings, stood in the
thoroughfare of the High Street, parallel to St.
Giles's church, from which they were separated
by a close and gloomy lane for foot passengers
alone, and the appellation was shared by the
opposite portion of the main street itself. This
singular obstruction, for such it was, existed from
among whom we may well include the well-known
firm of Messrs. M'Laren and Sons.
It was pierced in the middle by a passage called
the Auld Kirk Style, which led to the old north
door of St. Giles's, and there it was that in 1526
the Lairds of Lochinvar and Drumlanrig slew Sir
Thomas MacLellan of Bombie (ancestor of the
'
CREECH'S LAND. (Frmn an Ewaving ix Air "Fugitive Pircer.")
' the reign of James 111. till 1817, and the name is
supposed to have been conferred on the shops
in that situation as being close buuths, to distinguish
them from the open ones, which then lined the great
street on both sides, Zacken signifying close, thus
implying a certain superiority to the ancient traders
in these booths ; and it was considered remarkable
that amid all the changes of the old town there
is still in this locality an unusual proportion of
mercers, clothiers? and drapers, of very old standing,
a0
Lords Kirkcudbright), with whom they mere at
feud-an act for which neither of them was ever
questioned or punished.
Prior to the year 18 I I there remained unchanged
in the Luckenbooths two lofty houses of great
strength and antiquity, one of which contained
the town residence of Sir John Byres, Bart., of
Coates, an estate now covered by the west end of
new Edinburgh. He was a gentleman who made
a great figure in the city during the reign of
