314 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. (The West Bow.
thundering back again; being neither more nor
less than Satan come in one of his best equipages
to take home the major and his sister after
they had spent a night?s leave of absence in their
terrestrial dwelling.?
Scott also tellsus inhis ?Letters on Demonology,?
that bold indeed was the urchin who approached
the gloomy house, at the risk of seeing thC major?s
enchanted staff parading the desolate apartments,
.or hearing the hum of the necromantic wheel which
procured for his sister such a reputation as a spinner.
About the beginning of the present century,
according to the author above quoted, when Weir?s
house was beginning to be regarded with less
superstitious terror, an attempt was made by the
luckless proprietor to find one bold enough to
;become his tenant, and such an adventurer was
yrocured in the person of a dissipated old soldier
named William Patullo, whose poverty rendered
him glad to possess a house at any risk, on the low
terms at which it was offered; and the greatest
interest was felt by people of all ranks in the
city, on its becoming known that Major Weir?s
house was about to have a mortal tenant at last !
Patullo and his spouse felt rather flattered by
the interest they excited ; but on the first night, as
the venturesome couple lay abed, fearful and wakeful,
?a dim uncertain light proceeding from the
sathered embers of their fire, and all being silent
around them-they suddenly saw a form? like
that of a calf, which came forward to the bed,
and setting its fore-feet upon the stock, looked
steadfastly at the unfortunate pair. When it had
contemplated them thus for a few minutes, to their
great relief it took itself away, and, slowly retiring,
vanished from their sight. As might be expected,
they deserted the house next morning; and for
another half century no other attempt was made to
embank this part of the world of light from the
aggressions of the world of darkness.?
But even the world of spirits could not withstand
the Improvement Commission, and the
spring of 1878 saw the house of the wizard
numbered with the things that are no more in this
quarter of Edinburgh, and to effect the removal of
which the Commissioners gave freely the sum of
~ 4 0 0 , 0 0 0 .
Behind the abode of the major in the West Bow,
but entered from Johnstone?s Close, Lawnmarket,
was another very remarkable old house which was
demolished about the same time.
Memorials,?
that it exhibits an interior ?? abounding with plain
arched recesses and corbelled projections, scattered
throughout in the most irregular and lawless fashion,
Of this building Wilson says in his
and with narrow windows thrust into the oddest
corners, or up even above the very cornice of the
ceiling, in order to catch every wandering ray of
light, amid the jostling of its pent-up neighbourhood.
A view of the largest apartment is given in the
Abbotsford edition of the Waverley novels, under
the name of the ? Hall of the Knights of St. John,
St John?s Close, Canongate.? ? But he adds that he
had failed in every attempt to obtain any clue to the
early history of this mysterious edifice which tradition
thus associated with the soldier-monks of Torphichen.
Discoveries made in the course of its demolition
added to the mystery concerning it. In the stair
leading from the court to the hall there was a
quaint holy-water font; and in clearing out the
interior, it was found that the ceiling had at one
time been beautifully painted with flowers and
geometric designs. In the great open chimney-place
of the hall there were, singularly enough, two mall
windows; and in the heart of the massive walls
were found secret stairs that led from the hall to
rooms above it
In addition to these secret passages, the walls
disclosed four recesses that had been faced with
stone, and which concealed the relics of more than
one crime or mystery that will never be unravelled.
One held the skeleton of a child, with its cap and
part of its dress; and in the other there were
quantities of human bones. In a built-up cupboatd
a large vertebral bone of a whale was discovered.
?? The beams of the hall,? says the Scotsman of 8th
February, 1878, ?( and indeed of the whole house,
were of oak, which, according to tradition, was
grown on the Burghmuir, and, with the exception
of the ends which had been built into the wall, the
wood was found to be perfectly sound and beautifully
grained.?
Immediately opposite the close that led to the
house of Major Weir, and occupying nearly the site
of the present St John?s Free Church, stood an old
tenement, which bore the date 1602, with the arms
of the Somerville family, and the initials P. S. and
J. W., being those of a once worthy and wealthy
magistrate and his wife, whose son Bartholomew
Somerville was a benefactor to the University of
Edinburgh, when that institution was in its infancy.
The architrave of the door bore also the legend
IN. DOMINO. CONFIDO.
A narrow spiral stair led to a lofty wainscoted
room, with a fine carved oak ceilipg, on the second
floor. This was the first Edinburgh Assembly
Room, off which was a closet or recess, forming an
out-shot over the street, wherein the musickm
The West Bow.]
A BITTER personal quarrel had existed for some
years between James Johnstone of Westerhall and
Hugh (from his bulk generally known as Braid
Hugh) Somerville of the Writes, and they had
often fought with their swords and parted on equal
temis. Somerville, in the year 1596, chancing to
be in Edinburgh on private business, was one day
loitering about the head of the Bow, when, by
chance, Westerhall was seen ascending the steep
and winding street, and at that moment some
officious person said, ? There is Braid Hugh
Somerville of the Writes.?
THE OLD ASSEMBLIES. 3?5
Westerhall, conceiving that his enemy was lingering
there either in defiance, or to await him, drew
his sword, and crying, ?Turn, villain!? gave
Somerville a gash behind the head, the most severe.
wound he had ever inflicted, and which, according
to the ? Memoirs of the Somervilles,? was ? much
regrated eftirwards by himselt?
Writes, streaming with blood, instantly drew his
sword, and ere Westerhall could repeat the stroke,
put him sharply on his defence, and being the
taller and stronger man of the two, together with
the advantage given by the slope, he pressed him
could retire for refreshments, or to rosin their bows.
Here then did the fair dames of Queen Anne?s
time, in their formal stomachers, long gloves, ruffles
and lappets, meet in the merry country dance, or
the stately minuef de la (our, the beaux of the time,
with their squarecut velvet coats and long-flapped
waistcoats, with sword, ruffles, and toupee in tresses,
when the news was all about the battle of Almanza,
the storming of Barcelona, or the sinking of the
Spanish galleons by Benbow in the West Indies,
or it might be-in whispers-of the unfurling of the
standard on the Braes of Mar.
The regular assembly, according to Arnot, was
. first held in the year 17 10, and it continued entirely
hnder private management till 1746, but though
the Scots as a nation are passionately fond of
dancing, the strait-laced part of the community
bitterly inveighed against this infant institution.
In the Library of the Faculty of Advocates there
is a curious little pamphlet, entitled, a ?Letter
from a Gentleman iti the Country to his Friend in
the City, with an Answer thereto concerning the
New Assembly,? which affords a remarkable glimpse
of the bigotry of the time :-
?I am informed that there is lately a society
erected in your town, which I think is called an
Assembly. The speculations concerning this meeting
have of late exhausted the most part of the
public conversation in this countryside :. some are
pleased to say that ?tis only designed to cultivate
polite conversation, and genteel behaviouramong the
better sort of folks, and to give young people an
opportunity of accomplishing themselves in both ;
while others are of opinion that it will have quite a
different effect, and tends to vitiate and deprave the:
minds and inclinations of the younger sort.?
The author, who might have been Davie Deans
himself, and who writes in 1723, adds that he had
been much stirred on this matter by the approaching
solemnity of the Lord?s Supper, and that he had
been ?informed that the design of this (weekly)
meeting was to afford some ladies an opportunity
to alter the station that they had long fretfully continued
in, and to set off others as they should
prove ripe for the market.?
The old Presbyterian abhorrence of ?? promiscuous
dancing? was only held in check by the
less strait-laced spirit of the Jacobite gentry; but
so great was the opposition to the Edinburgh
Assembly, as Jackson tells us in his ?History of
the Stage,? that a furious rabble once attacked
the rooms, and perforated the closed doors with
red-hot spits.
Arnot says that the lady-directress sat at the
head of the room, wearing the badge of heroffice,
a gold medal with a motto and device,
emblematic of charity and parental tenderness.
After several years of cessation, under the effect.
of local mal-influence, when the Assembly was
re-constituted in 1746, among the regulations hung
up in the hall, were tko worth quoting :-
?No lady to be admitted in a nz$f-gowr
(negl&i?), and no gentleman in boots.?
?? No misses in skirts and jackets, robe-coats, nor.
staybodied-gowns, to be allowed to dance in country
dances, but in a set by themselves.?
