We begin to-day's walk at the bottom of the Whitehouse Loan, turning to the left into the ancient thoroughfare which led of old from the Linton Road to St. Giles's Grange, and is still called the Grange Loan. A villa bearing the name of St. Roque, which we pass on the right, recalls memories of the chapel which once stood here.[19] It was of great antiquity, and it is uncertain when exactly, or by whom, it was founded, but from early days it was a dependency of St. Cuthbert's. Being dedicated to the saint whose help was implored for protection from the plague, a cemetery gradually grew round it, where those who died of that dreadful malady were buried. In 1532 we find that the Provost and bailies, "moved by devotion for the honour of God, and his Blessed Mother Virgin Marie, and the holy confessor Sanct Rok," granted four acres of land in the Boroughmuir to Sir John Young, the then chaplain, so that he and his successors might offer prayers for the souls of those who lay buried round, and that they might also keep the walls and windows in repair.[20] After the Reformation the performance of divine service was left off, and the building, with the land attached to it, granted to private persons; but for some time longer people continued to be buried there. The fanaticism of the time spared the chapel, and, though gradually mouldering to decay, its ruins remained safe and unharmed till the beginning of this century, when they were swept away by the vandalism of a retired tradesman, who thought they encumbered the grounds of his villa!
Before turning down Blackford Avenue, which opens to our right, a hundred yards farther on, let us glance for a moment at that curious old house, the Grange,—or, as its title more correctly stands, St. Giles's Grange. This was once the farm belonging to the cathedral church of St. Giles, in the pre-Reformation days, when each church and abbey had broad lands attached to it. In the 17th century the Grange was among the large possessions of Sir William Dick; and in the wreck of his fortunes, it was preserved to his third son William by the liberality and wealth of the latter's wife, Janet M'Math. She had inherited great riches from her own family, of whom she was the last survivor, as well as from her first husband, Thomas Bannatyne. Much of this money she devoted to the needs of her second husband's family, even paying the bill of poor Sir William's funeral expenses. Her descendant, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder (who also represents a younger branch of Lauder of the Bass), is the present possessor of the Grange.
When Prince Charles held his court at Holyrood, he visited the Grange, and presented the family with the thistle from his bonnet, which is still preserved by them with great care. Robertson, the historian, spent the last years of his life here, where he died in 1793. Parts of the house are very old, but it has been a good deal added to, at different times. It is said to be haunted by a ghost in the form of a miser, who rolls a sack of gold coins about the older parts of the building. The tradition is, that if any of the family were to see him, they would become possessed of the treasure.
Till within the last few years, the most picturesque cottages imaginable stood close to the gate of the Grange. Their whitewashed walls, overhung with masses of ivy,—their thatched roofs and irregular gables,—their curious outside stairs, and the air of antiquity that overshadowed them, made them dear to every artist's soul; and no scene in the vicinity of Edinburgh was more often drawn or painted. Now, alas! the mania for so-called improvement, which is the curse of the present day, has swept them away; and the Grange, like any other villa, is enclosed by a prim stone wall, ending in the most modern of lodges.
A little farther along the loaning is the Penny Well, which was restored a few years ago; but as yet I have not succeeded in discovering anything of its history or traditions. Somewhere near here there formerly existed a holy well, to which the nuns of the convent of St. Catherine of Sienna used to resort; but I do not know if it can be identified with the Penny Well. The Lovers' Loan runs along the western boundary of the garden of the Grange, in a northerly direction, till it almost reaches the Meadows. Not so many years ago it was a shady, secluded walk,—now it is only a path between high walls; and though some of the hawthorn bushes at the northern end still survive, they have been clipped and cut in, till they have lost all remembrance of their old luxuriance. It is probable that this is the remains of one of the old paths that intersected the Boroughmuir, to which we occasionally find reference in old charters.
A little west of the Grange, Blackford Avenue branches off to the south. Till the making of the Suburban Railway gave a great impetus of progress to this part of Edinburgh, it was a quiet country road, shaded with trees on either side, and leading to the gateway of Blackford House. The charming description that Sir Thomas Dick Lauder gives of this place in his Scottish Rivers describes so exactly what it was early this century, and what it remained up to within a few years ago, that I cannot refrain from quoting it.
"The house was old, and not very large, and in no very remarkable style of architecture; but what there was of it—and there were a good many small rooms in it—might be said to be very rambling. There was something so venerable in the very air of its front, that no one could lift its brass knocker without a certain feeling of respectful awe. It was covered with the richest jessamines and roses, and the gravel circle before the door was always kept in a state of the most exact tidiness. On the south side of the premises there was a high and steep bank of shaven turf, with a pretty little parterre flower-garden between its base and the house, and a broad terrace walk at top, that stretched along under some noble trees, close to the boundary of the place in that direction. The fruit and vegetable garden, which had some variegated hollies of goodly size in it, occupied the gently sloping ground at some little distance in front of the house, and beyond this there was, and we think we may say is, a fine open grove of old and well-grown trees.... There we find, seated in her arm-chair, but springing from it in a moment to meet us half-way across the room, an old lady of a handsome, dignified countenance, lighted up with clear, black, benevolent eyes, and of a tall and commanding figure, though modified by a very slight bend.... Those who did not know her so well as we did, might have supposed her to have been but a little above seventy years of age only, from the freshness and vigour she displayed; we, who were aware that in her younger days she had flirted with our father, knew that she had seen ninety years. But oh, how green and vigorous her old age was, both in body and mind! and how fresh and warm were all her affections!... How interesting were the old stories that she told! how easily were they narrated in the purest Scottish vernacular, and how perfectly did she bring back and vivify people, of whom we had heard much, but whom we had not lived early enough to know personally!"
The old friend whom Sir Thomas describes so touchingly was Miss Menie Trotter, one of the last of the race of old Scotch ladies, so clever, so original, almost to eccentricity, so idiomatic and plain-spoken in their expressions, and yet such perfect gentlewomen. She was the sister of the laird of Morton Hall, and, though but slenderly endowed, her liberality and charitableness to her poorer neighbours was unbounded.[21] All her life she was a very active woman. Every morning she bathed in the Jordan, which then ran pure and sparkling through her garden, and afterwards she walked all over Blackford Hill before breakfast. Ten miles at a stretch was nothing to her within a few years of her death, which happened when she was above ninety.
The railway has shorn the old place of many of its attractions; and the road now runs past it, and gradually mounts up to the red sandstone gateway which leads to Blackford Hill. The hill, which formerly belonged to Morton Hall, was bought by the town of Edinburgh in 1884, to form a great public park, chiefly by the exertions of Sir George Harrison, the then Lord Provost. Though no longer a lonely and sequestered spot, the wind blows as freshly over the hill, the view is as beautiful, and the whins and thorn trees grow as freely as when Sir Walter wrote his never-to-be-forgotten lines, which rise unbidden to the traveller's thoughts, as he slowly and wearily climbs to the highest rocky point—