125. LETTER CXXV.
DALHOUSIE CASTLE — THE EARL AND COUNTESS — ANTIQUITY
OF THEIR FAMILY.
Edinboro' has extended to “St. Leonard's,” and
the home of Jeanie Deans is now the commencement
of the railway! How sadly is romance ridden over
by the march of intellect!
With twenty-four persons and some climbers behind,
I was drawn ten miles in the hour by a single
horse upon the Dalkeith railroad, and landed within a
mile of Dalhousie Castle. Two “wee callants” here
undertook my portmanteau, and in ten minutes more
I was at the rustic lodge in the park, the gate of which
swung hospitably open with the welcome announcement
that I was expected. An avenue of near three
quarters of a mile of firs, cedars, laburnums, and
larches, wound through the park to the castle; and
dipping over the edge of a deep and wild dell, I found
the venerable old pile below me, its round towers and
battlemented turrets frowning among the trees, and
forming with the river, which swept round its base,
one of the finest specimens imaginable of the feudal
picturesque.
[32]
The nicely gravelled terraces, as I approached,
the plate-glass windows and rich curtains,
diminished somewhat of the romance; but I am not
free to say that the promise they gave of the luxury
within did not offer a succedaneum.
I was met at the threshold by the castle's noble and
distinguished master, and as the light modern gothic
door swung open on its noiseless hinges, I looked up
at the rude armorial scutcheon above, and at the slits
for the portcullis chains and the rough hollows in the
walls which had served for its rest, and it seemed to
me that the kind and polished earl, in his velvet cap,
and the modern door on its patent hinges, were pleasant
substitutes even for a raised drawbridge and a helmeted
knight. I beg pardon of the romantic, if this
be treason against Della Crusca.
The gong had sounded its first summons to dinner,
and I went immediately to my room to achieve my
toilet. I found myself in the south wing, with a glorious
view up the valley of the Esk, and comforts
about me such as are only found in a private chamber
in England. The nicely-fitted carpet, the heavy curtains,
the well-appointed dressing-table, the patent
grate and its blazing fire (for where is a fire not
welcome in Scotland?) the tapestry, the books, the
boundless bed, the bell that will ring, and the servants
that anticipate the pull — oh, you should have pined
for comfort in France and Italy to know what this catalogue
is worth.
After dinner, Lady Dalhousie, who is much of an
invalid, mounted a small poney to show me the
grounds. We took a winding path away from the
door, and descended at once into the romantic dell over
which the castle towers. It is naturally a most wild
and precipitous glen, through which the rapid Esk
pursues its way almost in darkness; but, leaving only
the steep and rocky shelves leaning over the river with
their crown of pines, the successive lords of Dalhousie
have cultivated the banks and hills around for a
park and a paradise. The smooth gravel walks cross
and interweave, the smoother lawns sink and swell
with their green bosoms, the stream dashes on murmuring
below, and the lofty trees shadow and overhang
all. At one extremity of the grounds are a flower
and a fruit garden, and beyond it the castle-farm;
at the other, a little village of the family dependants,
with their rose-imbowered cottages; and, as far as you
would ramble in a day, extend the woods and glades,
and hares leap across your path, and pheasants and
partridges whirr up as you approach, and you may fatigue
yourself in a scene that is formed in every feature
from the gentle-born and the refined. The labor
and the taste of successive generations can alone create
such an Eden. Primogeniture! I half forgive
thee.
The various views of the castle from the bottom of
the dell are perfectly beautiful. With all its internal
refinement, it is still the warlike fortress at a little distance,
and bartizan and battlement bring boldly back
the days when Bruce was at Hawthornden (six miles
distant), and Lord Dalhousie's ancestor, the knightly
Sir Alexander Ramsay, defended the ford of the Esk,
and made himself a name in Scottish story in the days
of Wallace and the Douglasses. Dalhousie was besieged
by Edward the first and by John of Gaunt,
among others, and being the nearest of a chain of castles
from the Esk to the Pentland Hills, it was the
scene of some pretty fighting in most of the wars of
Scotland.
Lord Dalhousie showed me a singular old bridle-bit,
the history of which is thus told in Scott's Tales
of a Grandfather:
“Sir Alexander Ramsay having taken by storm the strong
castle of Roxburgh, the king bestowed on him the office of
sheriff of the county, which was before engaged by the knight
of Liddesdale. As this was placing another person in his
room, the knight of Liddesdale altogether forgot his old
friendship for Ramsay, and resolved to put him to death. He
came suddenly upon him with a strong party of men while he
was administering justice at Hawick. Ramsay, having no
suspicion of injury from the hands of his old comrade, and
having few men with him, was easily overpowered; and, being
wounded, was hurried away to the lonely castle of the
Hermitage, which stands in the middle of the morasses of
Liddesdale. Here he was thrown into a dungeon (with his
horse) where he had no other sustenance than some grain
which fell down from a granary above; and, after lingering
awhile in that dreadful condition, the brave Sir Alexander
Ramsay died. This was in 1412. Nearly four hundred and
fifty years afterward, that is, about forty years ago, a mason,
digging among the ruins of Hermitage Castle, broke into a
dungeon, where lay a quantity of chaff, some human bones
and a bridle-bit, which were supposed to mark the vault as
the place of Ramsay's death. The bridle-bit was given to
grandpapa, who presented it to the present gallant earl of
Dalhousie, a brave soldier, like his ancestor, Sir Alexander
Ramsay, from whom he is lineally descended.”
There is another singular story connected with the
family which escaped Sir Walter, and which has never
appeared in print. Lady Dalhousie is of the ancient
family of Coulston, one of the ancestors of which,
Brown of Coulston, married the daughter of the famous
Warlock of Gifford, described in Marmion. As
they were proceeding to the church, the wizard lord
stopped the bridal procession beneath a pear-tree, and
plucking one of the pears, he gave it to his daughter,
telling her that he had no dowry to give her, but that
as long as she kept that gift, good fortune would never
desert her or her descendants. This was in 1270,
and the pear is still preserved in a silver box. About
two centuries ago, a maiden lady of the family chose
to try her teeth upon it, and very soon after two of the
best farms of the estate were lost in some litigation —
the only misfortune that has befallen the inheritance
of the Coulstons in six centuries — thanks (perhaps)
to the Warlock pear!
