GRANTON. 9'
Snow-white, snow-soft, snow-silently,
Our darliig bud up-curled,
And drop i' the grave, God's lap, our wee
White rose of all the world.' *
Or this note of the same sad melody :-
' Ah, God ! when in the glad life-cup
The face of death swims darkly up,
The crowning flower is sure to droop.
And so we laid our darling down,
When summer's cheek grew ripely brown :
And still though grief hath milder grown,
Unto the stranger's land we cleave,
Like some poor birds that grieve and grieve
Round the robbed nest, and cannot leave.'
His description of Craigcrook Castle, in that other poem of almost equal
merit, which bears the name, is likewise very admirable, a perfect photograph
of this old picturesque residence, as it now looks and lives in this leafy month
of June, and with the quotation of which we shall pass on :
' Mid glimpsing greenery at the hill-foot stands
The castle with its tiny town of towers :
A smiling martyr to the climbing strength
Of ivy that will crown the old bald head,
And roses that will mask him merry and young,
Like an old man with children round his knees.
With cups of colour here the roses rise
On walls and bushes, red and yellow and white ;
A dance and dazzle of roses range all round.'
GRAN T 0 N,
Which lies some three or four miles to the east, in the same parish, and
about two and a half from Edinburgh, is a place of very recent origin. It
was founded in the year 1835 by the Duke of Buccleuch, as proprietor of the
adjacent estate of Caroline Park, and is yet considerably on the sunny side
of its half-century. Still, recent though it be in its origin, and with Leith in a
way as its rival, it has made wonderful progress during the short period of its
existence. As a seat of population, indeed, it has not attained to anything
like importance, but in stir and commercial activity it far surpasses many
towns or seaports of ten or twenty times its. size.
92 QUEENSFERRY TO MUSSELBURGH.
~
Its harbour is its great attraction. A finer or roomier is rarely to be found
anywhere; certainly not on the Firth. With an extent of pierage of over
1700 feet in length, and from 80 to 160 in breadth ; four pairs of jetties, each
extending go feet at regular intervais ; two slips, 325 feet each, to facilitate
the shipping and landing of cattle and heavy goods.at all states of the tide;
a high solid wall cleft with short thoroughfares, trending along the middle of
the esplanade; the whole being enclosed by a strong massive breakwater
running out on the west about three-fourths of a mile from the pier, and on
the east to a distance somewhat less, curving in a demicircle, and terminating
on a line with the pier-head, so as to Ieave an entrance of considerable breadth
-it affords not only a safe place to haven in, but is furnished, at the same
time, with every convenience and mechanical appliance for the speedy loading
GRANTON PIER. LEITH PIER.
and unloading of the numerous vessels which frequent it. Let us add that
it is the principal ferry from Edinburgh to Fife, vid the North British Railway,
and fiom which steamers pIy regularly to and from London, Aberdeen,
and Stirling. This harbour, begun in ~835,p artially opened in 1838, and
completed in 1845, was erected at a cost of &io,ooo.
To the west there is a hamlet of rather humble dwellings, built by the Duke
for the accommodation of his work-people; while to the east, again, there is a
village of cottages of a much better class, and two stories high, and which are
likewise tenanted by the empZuyis of the harbour, with here and there a house
of a more aspiring or pretentious character, occupied by the grocer, the baker,
