EDZELL-DE JURE LORD DE LYNDESAY.

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aged about eighty years—a landless outcast, yet unquestionably de jure Lord de Lyndesay.'"1

The life of this remarkable man is certainly not without a moral; and any description of his chequered career cannot be more appropriately closed than by a brief narration of the account of his "flittin'," which is thus given in the simple but impressive language of local tradition :-" The Laird, like his father," as quoted in the Lives of the Lindsays so often referred to, "had been a wild and wasteful man, and had been lang awa'; he was deeply engaged with the unsuccessful party of the Stuarts, and the rumours of their defeat were still occupying the minds of all the country side. One afternoon the poor Baron, with a sad and sorrowful countenance and heavy heart, and followed by only one of a' his company, both on horseback, came to the castle, almost unnoticed by any. Everything was silent-he ga'ed into his great big house, a solitary man—there was no wife or child to gi'e him welcome, for he had never been married. The castle was almost deserted; a few old servants had been the only inhabitants for many months. Neither the Laird nor his faithful follower took any rest that night. Lindsay, the broken-hearted ruined man, sat all that night in the large hall, sadly occupied destroying papers sometimes, reading papers sometimes, sometimes writing, some

1 Lives, ii. p. 260. The sale of the property of Edzell and Glenesk was completed in the spring of 1715; and the purchase-money amounted to the then large sum of £192,502 Scots, or nearly £16,042 stg. In the Reg. de Panmure, ii. pp. 347-50, the Submission and Decreet Arbitral of Ranking and Sale, the Disposition, and the Instrument of Sasine on this Disposition are given; the Sasine contains a most valuable and interesting list of the towns, lands, towers, patronages, offices, and privileges which belonged to the Lindsays of Edzell. The present rental of the Panmure estates in Edzell, Lethnot, and Glenesk, amounts to £11,975, 14s. 8d. stg. The laird's feelings regarding the Stuart interest may be inferred from the following extract from a letter addressed by him to Colin, Earl of Balcarres, on the 13th of May 1712, in which the daring and luckless transaction is hinted at in obscure but unmistakeable terms:-"I spoke to my Lord Dun [David Erskine of Dun], who told me he would write immediately, but thought it better to delay it till he went to Edinburgh, and procured a letter from ye Justice Clerk [James Erskine of Grange] to his brother, the Earl of Marr, to go along wyth his oun; he is very frank for ye project, and says he will write wyt all concern and care of it."-(Crawford Case, pp. 201 sq.)

times sitting mournfully silent-unable to fix his thoughts on the present or to contemplate the future. In the course of the following day he left the castle in the same manner in which he had come; he saw none of his people or tenants: his one attendant only accompanied him: they rode away, taking with them as much of what was valuable or useful as they could conveniently carry. And, turning round to take a last look of the old towers, he drew a last long sigh, and wept. He was never seen here again."

Although the fact of "Edzell's" embarrassment was generally known, and but "ower true a tale," some thought otherwise, and gave credence to the local story of a treasure being hid about the castle walls; indeed so convinced was a deceased worthy of this, that he set out one dark Saturday evening for the purpose of seizing the pose, the precise locality of which his knowing had placed beyond a doubt. With mattock over his shoulder, he issued in haste and solitary majesty from his clay-built tenement in the moss of Arnhall, and, with hardy step and unquivering lip, bade defiance to all the ghaists that hovered around the Chapelton burying-ground, and to the fiery spirits that now and then lent their blue or scarlet gleam to guide his path over the marshy grounds that he had unavoidably to cross. He stayed not at the heartrending cries of mercy that fell upon his ear, as the phantom of the courageous bride plunged into the river to avert a 'fate worse than death itself" at the hands of Major Wood; nor did he listen to the loud victorious laugh of the spirit of Linmartin, as it rose on the opposite bank of the Esk and grinned across to this hapless aspirant to untold wealth. But on he hied along the narrow plank that crossed the deep gully at the Snecks, and held on, as he thought, to the California of Edzell.

The round tower on the north side of the building was the "gold-seeker's" haven; and a small triangular stone of a different colour from the rest, near the extremity of the tower, 1 Lives, ii. p. 264.

EDZELL-SEARCH FOR TREASURE.

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was supposed to cover the store of riches. To this elevated part he had to worm his way over heaps of mouldered turrets, through bat-inhabited chambers, riven and slimy archways, to a flight of irregular steps, many of which were so much worn as scarcely to afford a footing for a crow. Still, to our hero-who felt assured of finding the long-hidden treasure-these, even at the dark hour of midnight, were no obstacles. On the contrary, step by step he groped on to the pinnacle of his ambition; and having satisfied himself as to where he should direct the blows of his mattock, he commenced operations. The rain fell apace and the heavens seemed to frown in wrathful indignation upon his unhallowed searches; while the feathery inhabitants of the ruins-the wild warning notes from the murdered minstrel's pibroch, which echoed from the arch of the Piper's Brig—and the branches of the neighbouring giant trees, all joined in the spirit of nature's discontent. Still, these fell as nothing on his ear: sparks of fire followed the successive and increasing strokes of the mattock, and his anxiety and joy kindled as at last he felt the "keystane" shake under his determined aims. Another stroke, and he believed that the mine of gold would be disclosed and made wholly his own; but alas! on the blow being given, down fell the luckless whin or ragstone; so also did a neighbouring part of the wall, carrying with it half the rickety stair of the turret; and on the top landing, which was the only secure part of the lofty wall, the old farmer of the Mains, when he looked from his window on the Sunday morning, beheld the sorry "gold-seeker" standing drenched with rain, and weeping, as the hero of old, over the ruins of his ambition!