The country people call it General Kay's monument.
According to them, an officer of that name had perished there in battle at some indistinct period before the beginning of history. The date is reassuring; for I think cautious writers are silent on the General's exploits. But the stone is connected with one of those remarkable tenures of land which linger on into the modern world from Feudalism.Whenever the reigning sovereign
passes by, a certain landed proprietor is held bound to climb on to the top,
trumpet in hand, and sound a flourish according to the measure of his knowledge
in that art. Happily for a respectable family, crowned heads have no great
business in the Pentland Hills. But the story lends a character of comicality
to the stone; and the passer-by will sometimes chuckle to himself.
The district is dear to the
superstitious.
Hard by, at the back-gate of Comiston, a belated carter beheld a
lady in white, 'with the most beautiful, clear shoes upon her
feet,' who looked upon him in a very ghastly manner and then
vanished; and just in front is the Hunters' Tryst, once a roadside inn, and not
so long ago haunted by the devil in person.
Satan led the inhabitants a pitiful
existence. He shook the four corners of the building with lamentable outcries,
beat at the doors and windows, overthrew crockery in the dead hours of the
morning, and danced unholy dances on the roof. Every kind of spiritual
disinfectant was put in requisition; chosen ministers were summoned out of
Edinburgh and prayed by the hour; pious neighbours sat up all night making a
noise of psalmody; but Satan minded them no more than the wind about the hill-tops;
and it was only after years of persecution, that he left the Hunters' Tryst in
peace to occupy himself with the remainder of mankind.
What with General Kay,
and the white lady, and this singular visitation, the neighbourhood offers
great facilities to the makers of sun-myths; and without exactly casting in
one's lot with that disenchanting school of writers, one cannot help hearing a
good deal of the winter wind in the last story.
'That
nicht,' says Burns in
one of his happiest moments,-
'THAT NICHT A CHILD MIGHT
UNDERSTAND
THE DEIL HAD BUSINESS ON HIS HAND.'
And if people sit up all night in
lone places on the hills, with Bibles and tremulous psalms, they will be apt to
hear some of the most fiendish noises in the world; the wind will beat on doors
and dance upon roofs for them, and make the hills howl around their cottage
with a clamour like the judgment-day.
The road goes down through another
valley, and then finally begins to scale the main slope of the Pentlands. A
bouquet of old trees stands round a white farmhouse; and from a neighbouring
dell, you can see smoke rising and leaves ruffling in the breeze.
Straight
above, the hills climb a thousand feet into the air. The neighbourhood, about
the time of lambs, is clamorous with the bleating of flocks; and you will be
awakened, in the grey of early summer mornings, by the barking of a dog or the
voice of a shepherd shouting to the echoes. This, with the hamlet lying behind
unseen, is Swanston.
The place in the dell is immediately
connected with the city. Long ago, this sheltered field was purchased by
the Edinburgh magistrates
for the sake of the springs that rise or gather there. After they had built
their water-house and laid their pipes, it occurred to them that the place was
suitable for junketing. Once entertained, with jovial magistrates and public
funds, the idea led speedily to accomplishment; and Edinburgh could
soon boast of a municipal Pleasure House. The dell was turned into a garden;
and on the knoll that shelters it from the plain and the sea winds, they built
a cottage looking to the hills.
They brought crockets and gargoyles from
old St Giles which
they were then restoring, and disposed them on the gables and over the door and
about the garden; and the quarry which had supplied them with building
material, they draped with clematis and carpeted with beds of roses. So much
for the pleasure of the eye; for creature comfort, they made a capacious cellar
in the hillside and fitted it with bins of the hewn stone. In process of time,
the trees grew higher and gave shade to the cottage, and the evergreens sprang
up and turned the dell into a thicket. There, purple magistrates relaxed
themselves from the pursuit of municipal ambition; cocked hats paraded soberly
about the garden and in and out among the hollies; authoritative canes drew
ciphering upon the path; and at night, from high upon the hills, a shepherd saw
lighted windows through the foliage and heard the voice of city dignitaries
raised in song.
The farm is older. It was first a
grange of Whitekirk Abbey, tilled and inhabited by rosy friars. Thence, after
the Reformation it passed into the hands of a true-blue Protestant family. During the
covenanting troubles, when a night conventicle was held upon the Pentlands, the
farm doors stood hospitably open till the morning; the dresser was laden with
cheese and bannocks, milk and brandy; and the worshippers kept slipping down
from the hill between two exercises, as couples visit the supper-room between
two dances of a modern ball.
In the Forty-Five, some foraging Highlanders from
Prince Charlie's army fell upon Swanston in the dawn. The great-grandfather of
the late farmer was then a little child; him they awakened by plucking the
blankets from his bed, and he remembered, when he was an old man, their
truculent looks and uncouth speech. The churn stood full of cream in the dairy,
and with this they made their brose in high delight. 'It was braw brose,' said
one of them. At last they made off, laden like camels with their booty; and
Swanston Farm has lain out of the way of history from that time forward. I do
not know what may be yet in store for it. On dark days, when the mist runs low
upon the hill, the house has a gloomy air as if suitable for private tragedy.
But in hot July, you can fancy nothing more perfect than the garden, laid out
in alleys and arbours and bright, old-fashioned flower- plots, and ending in a
miniature ravine, all trellis-work and moss and tinkling waterfall, and housed
from the sun under fathoms of broad foliage.
The hamlet behind is one of the least
considerable of hamlets, and consists of a few cottages on a green beside a
burn. Some of them (a strange thing in Scotland) are models of internal
neatness; the beds adorned with patchwork, the shelves arrayed with willow-
pattern plates, the floors and tables bright with scrubbing or pipe-clay, and
the very kettle polished like silver. It is the sign of a contented old age in
country places, where there is little matter for gossip and no street sights.
Housework becomes an art; and at evening, when the cottage interior shines and
twinkles in the glow of the fire, the housewife folds her hands and
contemplates her finished picture; the snow and the wind may do their worst,
she has made herself a pleasant corner in the world.
The city might be a
thousand miles away, and yet it was from close by that Mr. Bough painted the
distant view of Edinburgh which
has been engraved for this collection; and you have only to look at the
etching, to see how near it is at hand. But hills and hill people are not
easily sophisticated; and if you walk out here on a summer Sunday, it is as
like as not the shepherd may set his dogs upon you. But keep an unmoved
countenance; they look formidable at the charge, but their hearts are in the
right place, and they will only bark and sprawl about you on the grass,
unmindful of their master's excitations.
