Gilmerton.; THE HOUSE IN THE ROCK. 345
character or by the stronger claims of natural affection.
Choosing, therefore, a dark and windy night,
when the objects of his vengeance were engaged in
a stolen interview, he set fire to a stack of dried
thorns and other combustibles, which he had caused
to be piled against the house, and reduced to
a pile of glowing ashes the dwelling and all its
inmates.?
In 1587 Gilmerton Grange was the property of
Mark Kerr, Master of Requests in 1577, and for
each apartment there was a skylight-window. It
was all thoroughly drained and finished about the
end of 1724.
Alexander Pennicuik, ?? the burgess-bard of
Edinburgh,? furnished the following inscription,
which was carved in stone over the entrance :
?? Here is a house and shop hewn in this rock
with my own hand.-GEoRGE PATERSON.
?? Upon the earth there ?s villany and woe,
But happiness and I do dwell below ; 1
DRUM HOUSE.
whom Newbattle was erected into a temporal lordship
in 1591. He died first earl of the house of
Lothian.
The soft and workable nature of the sandstone at
Gilmerton tempted a blacksmith named George
Paterson, in 1720, to an enterprise of a very remarkable
character. In the little garden at the
end of his house he excavated for himself a dwelling
in the living rock, comprising several apartments.
Besides a smithy with a forge, there were
a dining-room fourteen feet six inches long, seven
feet broad, and six in height, furnished with a bench
all round, a table, and bed recess; a drinking
parlour, rather larger ; a kitchen and bed-place ; a
cellar seven feet long ; and a washing-house. In
140
My hands hewed out this rock into a cell,
Wherein from din of life I safely dwell :
On Jamb?s pillow nightly lies my head,
My house when living and my grave when dead :
Inscribe upon it, when I?m dead and gone,
? I lived and died within my mother?s womb.? ?
In this abode Paterson dwelt for eleven years.
Holiday parties came from the city to see him and
his singular house, and even judges of the courts
imbibed their liquor in his stone parlour. ?The
ground was held in feu, and the yearly duty and
public burdens were forgiven him, on account of
the extraordinary labour he had incurred in makig
himself a home.?
He died about 1735, and his cave is occasionally
