“Fortunately for myself,” he said, “and perhaps still more fortunately for those who hear me, I am not often in circumstances which call upon me to speak in public. On the present occasion, when there has been conferred on me the high honour of being made a burgess of the royal burgh of Kinghorn—an honour which I never expected, and which I do not feel that I have done anything to merit—for this, gentlemen, I thank you most sincerely. It is an honour which shall ever be held by me, and by those who come after me, in the highest esteem. There are many things which make Kinghorn a place of much interest to me, and which give a peculiar value to any mark of respect which comes from its town council or its inhabitants. For one thing, it was the birthplace of my mother, and we all know what that means. But it must not be supposed that my attachment to Kinghorn is solely on this account. I love it for its own sake, for its quaint and picturesque old character as a royal burgh; and I love it also for its fine coast-scenery, with its beautiful sands, its bold rocks, and its many advantages for bathing, fishing, and even for those who think they perform their whole duty at the seaside when they merely saunter along it and inhale its health-giving breezes. But I love it still more—perhaps most of all—for the sunshine with which it filled my early years, making my holidays holidays indeed. I stayed always with my grandfather and grandmother, whose kindness was very great and unceasing. So strong was the impression made upon me at that early period of my life, that I never allow a season to pass without visiting Kinghorn, and renewing my acquaintance with the rocky scenery of the coast, which must be admitted to be exceptionally fine. So great is my familiarity with the coast here that I know every rock of any consequence that it contains; and I may add that there are few places more richly endowed with all the amenities which health-seekers are in quest of and value. It ought to be one of the most popular of the health-resorts on our shores. Another thing which took a hold of me in my early years, and which I still remember well, was the talk of the old folks. They had some themes on which they never ceased to descant. One of these was Paul Jones’s piratical visit to the Firth of Forth, which was looked upon as a very formidable event by the small towns on the coast of Fife, but which happily turned out a scare. My grandmother saw the big ship of the pirate from near the hamlet of Glassmount, about two miles from Kinghorn. And there is good news for strangers who may come now-a-days to the old place for summer quarters. They need not be afraid for another Paul Jones coming to alarm them, as there is now a strong fortress on the Pettycur road, under the shadow of whose wings they may rest in perfect safety. But there was another matter quite as engrossing, and that was the injury which steam-boats had done or would do to the town. Before these began to ply there were big, ordinary boats which carried passengers; and as these boats started only at particular times of the tide, passengers had generally to stay some time in the town: more to the delight of the innkeepers and others, we should imagine, than to that of the strangers thus detained, in order to have the opportunity of leaving a little of their money behind them. We know better now; and I am sure that the inhabitants of Kinghorn would not be inclined to go back, on any terms whatever, to those good old ways, so easy in all that belonged to them. Such retrospects, while both interesting and instructive, are not without an infusion of sadness. In my case, early companions in and about Kinghorn have all disappeared but two: namely, Henry Darney, a worthy citizen of the town, and Major Greig, now of Toronto, Canada. It is a touching thought, and brings to my remembrance the tender and beautiful verses of Delta, with which I conclude:—
‘Where are the playmates of those years?
Hills arise and oceans roll between.
We call, but scarcely one appears;
No more shall be what once has been.
‘Yet, gazing o’er the bleak green sea,
O’er snow-capped cliffs and desert plain,
Mirrored in thought methinks to me
The spectral past returns again.
‘Once more to retrospection’s eyes,
As ’twere to present life restored,
The perished and the past arise,
The early lost and long deplored.’ ”
While the memorial cross erected on the King’s Crag had been thus occupying so much of his attention, the various works of restoration undertaken by him in Edinburgh were not neglected. They continued, indeed to engage his attention, and to furnish him with ever-renewed pleasure, till the close of his life. He thus writes to me in April 1887:—“St. Bernard’s Well is not quite finished yet, but it begins to look very different from what you will remember of it in our morning visits together: quite a little gem indeed, now that the mosaic work is done, or nearly so. A handsome parapet wall with railing runs along the river-side. The grounds are laid out, I think, in good taste, and a fine broad stair leads down from the street instead of the dingy back way you and I used to have to traverse in our morning visits to the well. Altogether it is a great success. The number of visitors to the well has greatly increased already; and if it correspondingly diminishes the number of visitors to the taverns, as I hope it will, then we have all the success that could be desired. You must repeat your visit to us soon, and have another tumbler of the water, and see all we have been doing in the way of improvement; it will be all in order before you arrive.”
Again, in a postscript to one of his letters to the Rev. Charles Shaw, in the early part of the same year, he says: “My restorations at the Castle are getting on briskly. The Argyle Tower is far advanced, and as a piece of architecture it will be a great success. The hospital building has been made over to me, and operations for the restoration and conversion of it into what will be almost a facsimile of the old Parliament Hall have been already begun. It will be a very interesting building in its reformed condition.” In another letter to the same correspondent, who was an active member of the local committee for the erection of the memorial cross at Kinghorn, he thus writes:—“I send you a letter that I received a few days ago from Lord Napier. I asked him if he would come to the unveiling of the memorial to Alexander III., and let his voice be heard on the occasion as one of the speakers; but this, he says, he will be unable to do. The first part of the letter is of special interest to you, as it refers to some discoveries that have been made at the clearing out of the old Parliament Hall in the Castle. They have been so important that an almost perfect facsimile can be made of the hall as it was in the days of its glory: all except in the matter of the tapestry with which the walls were either wholly or partly covered; and it would be too much to hope for that any part of this should be to the fore at this time of day. Everything else is known. The roof exists in its entirety; parts of the floor have been found. It was of Arbroath pavement; and the account for the freight of the stones from Dundee to Leith has been recovered in the Rolls of the Exchequer in the Register Office. The ancient windows have also been discovered, and they just require to be cleared of the masonry with which they have been built up, and have fresh mullions inserted; and it is known how the original mullions would be from specimens that exist in other buildings of the period. The doorway that formed the ancient main entrance to the building has been found. The doorway and stair that led to the kitchen, which was below the hall, have also been discovered; and the kitchen exists in its entirety, it being made use of as a store for clothing for the troops. From the great size of it and that of the fireplace, it is clear that creature comforts were not overlooked in days of yore by our old Scottish legislators.”
Public interest grew apace as the work of restoration in the Castle progressed. The Argyle Tower, as it approached completion, presented an attractive feature, harmonizing admirably with the older remains of the fortress, and attracting the notice of all, as seen from Princes Street. As the rumour of one after another of the discoveries of original portions of the great hall, furnishing valuable guidance for its restoration, gained currency, fresh zest was given to public curiosity. Paragraphs, such as the one quoted below, made their appearance from time to time in the daily press, until a general interest was revived, and a renewed anxiety expressed, not only for completing the restoration of the ancient buildings, but for making such modifications of the huge, unsightly pile of barracks and other modern structures within the Castle as should make them harmonize in some degree with its ancient features.
“Yesterday afternoon the Marquis of Lothian, along with Mr. William Nelson, drove up to Edinburgh Castle and examined the alterations which are being carried out there at the expense of the latter. The work of clearing out the old Parliament Hall is proceeding apace. Finely-carved, and in most cases well-preserved, freestone corbels have been uncovered underneath the plaster. In no two cases are the designs on these corbels alike. In one it is a lion’s head, in another a thistle, in a third a rose, a fourth is a female head, while others bear the letters I.R., and I.H.S., the former evidently meant for ‘James Rex.’ At the north-eastern corner of the hall, the top of a staircase which apparently must have led from ‘the Queen Mary’ apartments in the Palace to the balcony outside the Parliament Hall, has been discovered; but it is not yet known at what point in the royal apartments the lower end of the staircase came out. The restoration of the Argyle Tower is rapidly approaching completion, and the masons are now engaged in building the hewn stones on the roof.”
One result of all this was that Mr. Nelson responded to the intelligent interest manifested in the work now in progress by arranging for a succession of Saturday visits to the Castle. I am indebted to an old friend, who shared in the pleasure of those informal gatherings, for the following account of them: “They were attended by artists and antiquaries, professors from the University, and literary men; to whom were added occasionally some distinguished stranger, as well as officers of rank who felt a professional interest in the work. Along with those were always to be seen some of the clerks and workmen from Parkside; and it was very pleasant to notice the kind way in which he made them feel at their ease, and indeed seemed totally unconscious of anything unusual, as he turned from some learned professor or officer of rank to address himself with marked respect to one of his own employés, and explain to him the significance of some recently disclosed portions of the original building.”
Meanwhile the grand scheme of a tour by the Volga to Astrakhan, and by the Caspian Sea and the overland route to Batoum on the Black Sea, and so to Greece, had been first delayed, and then greatly modified. In the midst of all this preoccupation with mediæval restorations in his own romantic town, he turned anew to the favourite classical studies of early years; and his letters in the spring and summer of 1886 show that Hellenic history, and the associations that linger around every cape and mountain, river and vale of Greece, had quickened into an intense longing to explore their storied scenery. In the month of August 1887, I was off on a holiday ramble in the White Mountains—the Highlands of New England—where a letter followed me, the last I was ever to receive from my oldest surviving friend. “I intend,” he wrote, “to set out on a trip to Greece about the middle of next month, taking with me a party which will consist of Mrs. Nelson, Meta, Alice, and Dr. Walter Smith, who will act as chaplain. We will go direct to Trieste from London, via Dover, Calais, Basle, and Venice; and will sail for Athens by the Austrian Lloyd’s steamer which leaves on Saturday, the 24th, for the Piræus; a voyage which will occupy about three and a half days. After spending a fortnight there, we will likely, if all is well, push on for Constantinople; and after being there for about a week, will return home as rapidly as possible. Such at least is my present intention, and I trust that nothing will occur to prevent my carrying out the programme.” He then gives an account of the successful completion of the work at St. Bernard’s Well, and thus proceeds: “As to the Castle, the Argyle Tower is finished, and it forms a striking object viewed from Princes Street, and is a great improvement to the outline of the north side of the Castle. The architect deserves great praise for having done his part so well in the restoration of this building. The room that is above what was the old state prison is a very fine one, and the feeling of the architecture of the period that he has aimed at—which is, if I remember right, about the year 1500—is admirably carried out. The room, when I get it hung round with engravings of the Castle at different periods from 1573 downwards, and also get it decorated in various parts with trophies of arms and armour, which I am to have permission to select from the armoury in the Castle, will be one of the most interesting rooms there. My collection of views of the Castle will be largely taken advantage of for the decoration of this room. The view from the top of the tower is, I need not say, one of the finest in Europe; and there is a path right round, so that the view can be seen from all points.