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AND THE VALE OF THE ESK. 129 they were named after the rustic lovers in the poem, or whether Allan Ramsay chose the names from their association with the place, we are unable to discover. - Further on, past the ruins of Brunstane Castle, lies Penicuik village, With Penicuik House and its famous Ossian Hall, painted by Runciman In the Valleyfield grounds we come upon a monument, the only relic of a phase in Penicuik history long since passed away. Here in 1810 the Vdleyfield mills on the banks of the Esk were turned into a dCpBt for six thousand prisoners of war, and the peaceful little cottages around into temporary barracks. For four years the redcoats were quartered here ; and, when the war was over and the mills were set to work again, this monument was raised over the grave of more than three hundred prisoners of war who had died in these four years. ‘ Grata quies patriae, sed et omnis terra sepulchrum ’ was the inscription suggested by Sir Walter Scott, added to which is the magnanimous explanation :-‘ Certain inhabitants of this parish, desiring to remember that all men are brethren, caused this monument to be erected.’ And so the poor Frenchmen passed away without seeing again la be& France. Probably they thought Penicuik a tn3e place ! In the neighbouring parish of Glencorse we come to ‘ Auchendinny’s hazel shade, And haunted Woodhouselee.’ This is an old ruined castle, possessing an authentic legend and ghost. To this castle the lady of Bothwelhaugh fled to escape the anger of the Regent Murray, her husband‘s implacable foe; but she was followed by the Regent’s messengers, who set the castle on fire, and turned out the lady, with her newborn child in her arms, to wander through the November night. When morning came she was found distracted with fear and calling for revenge, and Bothwelhaugh never rested till the Regent was assassinated at Linlithgow. So the story runs. The phantom lady and child haunt Woodhouselee to this day ; and, since some of its stones were used to build the newer Woodhouselee among the Pentlands,’_the seat of the Tytler family, the apparition has kindly divided its attention between the two places. ROSLIN. W e now approAch the most beautiful part of the Vale. The ‘ rocky glen,’ through which the Esk flows, is a mass of luxuriant foliage, so that, from the R
Volume 11 Page 186
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