I18 QUEENSFERRY TO MUSSELBURGH.
Bums’s sweetness and pathos, and emits in many of those musically strung
and beautifully expressed warblings of his the true Bums’s intonation or ring.
‘ The idea of their lives should sweetly creep
Into our study of imagination ;
And every lovely organ of their lives
Should come apparell’d in more precious habit
. Into the eye and prospect of our souls
Than when they lived indeed.’
P o RT o BE p L 0.‘
Travelling eastward for about two miles along the shore we reach this
town, pleasantly situated and looking out upon the Firth, with a considerable
extent of fine level sandy beach, which renders it a most enjoyable place
during the summer for sea-side holiday-seekers. It lies in the parish of
buddingstone, and is comparatively of recent origin. Little over half a
century ago it could hardly be said to have an existence; and it is only
within these last thirty years that it has shot up into anything like its present
extensive and imposing dimensions. Indeed, within the memory of many
still living, the whole district around was one rude barren waste, covered
with furze or whin, the haunts of the tinker, the smuggler, and the robber.
‘The Figget,’ as it was then called, was the terror of travellers in that
direction after nightfall, and many are the stories told of hairbreadth escapes,
daring rencontres, and cruel, murderous assaults, as associated with the
locality. Perhaps it may not be uninteresting to state that, at a much earlier
period, this same wild, whin-covered district-the last remnants of which
may be seen on the north and southeast slopes of Arthur’s Seat-gave shelter
to a much more respectable set of outlaws,-to Wallace and his brave compatriots
who at this time were meditating an attempt on Berwick.
He foresaw that the
district, wild and waste as it was, was capable of improvement,and he set
himself to do what might have been done long years before,-to reclaim and
enclose the land. Very noticeably, too, just about this time, and a little
inland from the shore of this ill-reputed and dreary quarter, an humble,
solitary cottage was seen to arise. Tradition says that it was built and
inhabited by a retired sailor. As the story runs, he had served under
Admiral Vernon in his South American Expedition in 1739, and returning
with the little prize-money he had been prudent enough to save, erected this
The proprietor meanwhile began to bestir himself.
