Cmigcrook.1 ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE. I09
them in the middle of the West Bow, and offered
to write the bond which they had agreed to subscribe
with their blood; but on Thomson demurring,
this stranger immediately disappeared. No contemporasy,
of course, could be at any loss to surmise
who this stranger was ! ?
Into Mr. Strachan?s house the assassins made
their way, broke open his study and cash-box, from
which they carried off a thousand pounds sterling
in bags of fifty pounds each, all ? milled money,?
except one hundred pounds, which were in gold.
strange stories regarding the discovery of Thornson?s
guilt.
It is more to the purpose that twelve months after
the murder of Helen Bell, Lady Craigcrook dreamed
that she saw the criminal, in whom she recognised
an old servant, kill the girl and hide the money in
two old barrels filled with rubbish, and that her
husband on making inquiries, found him possessed
of an unusual amount of money, had him arrested,
his house searched, and found .his. bags, which
he identified, with a portion of the missing coin.
CRAIGCROOK IN 1770. (After an Etching by Clerk df E/din).
Robertson actually proposed to set the house on
fire before departing, but Thomson said ?he had
done wickedness enough already, and was resolved
not to commit more, even though Robertson
should attempt to murder him for his refusal.?
Five hundred merks reward was offered by Mr.
jtrachan for the detection of the perpetrators of
these crimes ; but it was not until after some weeks
elapsed that suspicion fell upon Thomson, who
was arrested, made a voluntary confession, and was
executed in the Grassmarket.
As no reference is made to the other culprit, he
must have effected his escape. But the credulous
Wodrow, in his ?Analecta,? records one of his
In 1736 Craigcrook Castle and grounds were let
on a lease for ninety-nine years, on which early
in the present century they became possessed by
Archibald Constable, the eminent publisher, who
made great improvements upon the mansion and
grounds. Without injuring the appearance of
antiquity in the former, he rendered it partly
the commodious modem residence which Lord
Jeffrey found it for so many summers of his life,
and, like John Hunter, made the old fortalice
sacred in a manner to literary and philosophic
culture.
Here was born, in I 8 I 2, the late Thomas Constable,
who began business in 1833, and by his
taste and care did more than any other man
