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.[1] 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 port-cullis 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 man 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
Harwick. 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_!
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[1] “The castle of Dalhousie upon the South-Esk, is a strong and large
castle, with a large wall of aslure work going round about the same,
with a tower upon ilk corner thereof.”—_Grose’s Antiquities._