Would prove the lad,
In time to make fond maidens glad.
Baloo, baloo,’ &c.
The fate of the deceiver proved a remarkable echo of some of the verses of the ballad. Having carried his military experience and the influence of his rank into the party of the Covenanters, he was stationed (1640) with his brother-in-law, the Earl of Haddington, at Dunglass Castle, on the way to Berwick, actively engaged in bringing up levies for the army, then newly advanced across the Tweed; when, by the revenge of an offended page, who applied a hot poker to the powder magazine, the place was blown up. Erskine, with his brother-in-law and many other persons, perished. A branch of the Mar family retained, till no remote time, the awe-mingled feeling which had been produced by this event, which they had been led to regard as a punishment inflicted for the wrongs of Anne Bothwell.
Byres’s Close, Back of Commendator Bothwell’s House.
At the back of the Commendator’s house there is a projection,[67] on the top of which is a bartisan or flat roof, faced with three lettered stones. There is a tradition that Oliver Cromwell lived in this house,[68] and used to come out and sit here to view his navy on the Forth, of which, together with the whole coast, it commands a view. As this commander is said to have had his guard-house in the neighbouring alley called Dunbar’s Close, there is some reason to give credit to the story, though it is in no shape authenticated by historical record. The same house was, for certain, the residence of Sir William Dick, the hapless son of Crœsus spoken of in a preceding article.
These houses preserved, until their recent renovation, all the characteristics of that ancient mode of architecture which has procured for the edifices constructed upon it the dignified appellative of Mahogany Lands. Below were the booths or piazzas, once prevalent throughout the whole town, in which the merchants of the laigh shops, or cellars, were permitted to exhibit their goods to the passengers. The merchant himself took his seat at the head of the stair to attend to the wants of passing customers. By the ancient laws of the burgh, it was required that each should be provided with ‘lang wappinis, sick as a spear or a Jeddart staff,’ with which he was to sally forth and assist the magistrates in time of need; for example, when a tulzie took place between the retainers of rival noblemen meeting in the street.
