North Loch.] <?GANGING TO THE DEIL HIS AIN GATE? 81
For the sake ot ornament the magistrates kept
Swans and wild ducks on the loch, and various
entries for their preservation occur in their accounts;
and one passed in Council between 1589-
94 ordained a boll of oats to be procured for
feeding them A man was outlawed for shooting
a swan in the said loch, and obliged to find another
rash act. Hearing the tumult, the father of the
late Lord Henderland threw up his window in
James?s Court, and leaning out, cried down the
brae to the people : ?What?s all the noise about?
Can?t ye e?en let the man gang to the dei1 his ain
gate ?? Whereupon the honest man quietly walked
out of the loch, to the no small amusement of the
THE HOLYROOD FOUNTAIN.
in its place. ?I The loch,? says Chambers, ? seems
to have been a favourite place for boating. Various
houses in the neighbourhood had servitudes of the
use of a boat upon it, and these, in later times,
used to be employed to no little purpose in
smuggling whisky into the town. . . . . It
was also the frequent scene of suicide, and on this
point one or two droll anecdotes are related. A
man was proceeding deliberately to drown himself,
when a crowd of the townspeople rushed down to
the water-side, venting cries of horror and alarm at
the spectacle, yet without actually venturing into
the water to prevent him from accomplishing the
59
lately appalled neighbours.? There a lady was.
saved from suicide by her hoop-petticoat.
The loch must have abounded in some kind of
fish, as the Council Register refers to an eel-ark
set therein, at ten merks yearly, for the benefit of
the Trinity Hospital; and in February, 1655,
Nicoll records that in consequence of the excessively
stormy weather, some thousands of dead
eels were cast upon its banks, ? to the admiration
of many.?
On the 11th February, 1682, three men were
drowned in the loch by the ice giving way. We
have a proverb,? says Lord Fountainhall, under
