The “worthy John Livingston, a sailor in Borrowstownness,” who is quoted for a saying at the 37th page of the fourth volume, will be found at 107th page of Patrick’s “Life of Cameron,” with the words ascribed to him at full length. Borrowstownness seems to have been a somewhat holy place in its day; for, besides this worthy, we learn from the same authority that it also produced “Skipper William Horn, that singular, solid, serious, old exercised, self-denied, experienced, confirmed, established, tender Christian,” and another tar of the name of Alexander Stewart, who “suffered at the Cross” for a cause in which few of his profession have ever since thought of suffering,—together with two other worthies named Cuthel, one of whom was beheaded along with Mr. Cargill.
At the 40th page of the same fourth volume, David Deans declares himself to have been the person “of whom there was some sport at the Revolution, when he noited thegither the heads of the twa false prophets, their ungracious Graces the Prelates, as they stood on the High Street, after being expelled from the Convention-parliament.” The source of this story is also to be found in the works of Patrick Walker. This sage historian relates the circumstance in a manner rather too facetious to be altogether consistent with his habitual gravity. “Fourteen Bishops,” says he, “were expelled at once, and stood in a cloud, with pale faces, in the Parliament Close. James Wilson, Robert Neilson, Francis Hislop, and myself, were standing close by them. Francis Hislop, with force, thrust Robert Neilson upon them, and their heads went hard upon each other. Their graceless Graces went quickly off; and in a short time neither Bishop nor Curate were to be seen in the streets. This was a sudden and surprising change, not to be forgotten. But some of us would have rejoiced still more to have seen the whole cabalzie sent legally down the Bow, that they might have found the weight of their tails in a tow, to dry their stocking-soles, and let them know what hanging was.”[33]
PARTICULARS REGARDING SCENERY, ETC.
Saint Leonard’s Crags, the scene of David Deans’s residence, are an irregular ridge, with a slight vegetation, situated in the south-west boundary of the King’s Park, at Edinburgh. Adjacent to them, and bearing their name, there exists a sort of village, now almost inclosed by the approaching suburbs of the city. The neighbouring extremity of the Pleasance, with this little place, seem to have formed at one period the summer residences or villas of the inhabitants of Edinburgh, some of the houses even yet bearing traces of little garden plots before the door, and other peculiarities of what is still the prevailing taste in the fitting up of boxes. None of these may, however, have existed in the time of David Deans. In former times, St. Leonard’s Crags and the adjoining valley used to be much resorted to by duellists. This part of their history is, however, to be found at full length in the “Heart of Midlothian.” There is a case of duel on record, in which a barber challenged a citizen, and fought him with swords. It happened in the year 1600. The citizen was slain; and his antagonist, being instantly apprehended, was tried, and, by the order of the King, executed, for having presumed to take the revenge of a gentleman.[34]
Muschat’s Cairn, so conspicuously introduced into this Tale, was a heap of stones placed upon the spot where a barbarous murder was committed in the year 1720. The murderer was descended of a respectable family in the county of Angus, and had been educated to the profession of a surgeon. When in Edinburgh, in the course of his education, it appears that he made an imprudent match with a woman in humble life, named Margaret Hall. He shortly repented of what he had done, and endeavoured by every means to shake himself free of his wife. The attempts which he made to divorce, to forsake, and to poison her, proved all unsuccessful; till at length he resolved, in the distraction caused by his frequent disappointments, to rid himself of his incumbrance by the surest method, that of cutting her throat. The day before the perpetration of this deed, he pretended a return of affection to the unfortunate woman, and in the evening took her to walk with him, in the direction of Duddingston. The unhappy creature was averse to the expedition, and intreated her husband to remain in Edinburgh; but he persisted, in spite of her tears, in his desire of taking her with him to that village. When they had got nearly to the extremity of the path which is called the Duke’s Walk, (having been the favourite promenade of the Duke of York, afterwards King James II.,) Muschat threw her upon the ground, and immediately proceeded to cut her throat. During her resistance he wounded her hand and chin, which she held down, endeavouring to intercept the knife; and he declared in his confession, afterwards taken, that, but for her long hair, with which he pinned her to the earth, he could not have succeeded in his purpose, her struggles being so great. Immediately after the murder, he went and informed some of his accomplices, and took no pains to evade apprehension. He was tried and found guilty upon his own confession, and, after being executed in the Grassmarket, was hung in chains upon the Gallowlee.[35] A cairn of stones was erected upon the spot where the murder took place, in token of the people’s abhorrence and reprobation of the deed. It was removed several years since, when the Duke’s Walk was widened and levelled by Lord Adam Gordon.
St. Anthony’s Chapel, among the ruins of which Robertson found means to elude the pursuit of Sharpitlaw, is an interesting relic of antiquity, situated on a level space about half-way up the north-west side of the mountain called Arthur’s Seat. It lies in a westerly direction from Muschat’s Cairn, at about the distance of a furlong; and the Hunter’s Bog, also mentioned in this Tale, occupies a valley which surrounds all that side of the hill. The chapel was originally a place of worship, annexed to a hermitage at the distance of a few yards, and both were subservient to a monastery of the same name, which anciently flourished on the site of St. Anthony’s Street in Leith. In the times of Maitland and Arnot the ruin was almost entire; but now there only remain a broken wall and a few fragments of what has once been building, but which are now scarcely to be distinguished from the surrounding grey rocks;—so entirely has art in this case relapsed into its primitive nature, and lost all the characteristics of human handiwork. The slightest possible traces of a hermitage are also to be observed, plastered against the side of a hollow rock; and, further down the hill, there springs from the foot of a precipice the celebrated St. Anthony’s Well. Queen Mary is said to have visited all these scenes; and, somehow or other, her name is always associated with them by those who are accustomed to visit, on a Sunday afternoon, their hallowed precincts. They are also rendered sacred in song, by their introduction into one of the most beautiful, most plaintive, and most poetical of all Scotland’s ancient melodies:
“I leant my back unto an aik,
I thought it was a trusty tree:
But first it bowed and syne it brak,
Sae my true love’s forsaken me.