rest and seclusion
excited by this confined and quiet scene, that he forgot the misery and
dirt of the hamlet he had left behind him. The opening into the paved
court-yard corresponded with the rest of the scene. The house, which
seemed to consist of two or three high, narrow, and steep-roofed
buildings, projecting from each other at right angles, formed one side of
the inclosure. It had been built at a period when castles were no longer
necessary, and when the Scottish architects had not yet acquired the art
of designing a domestic residence. The windows were numberless, but very
small; the roof had some nondescript kind of projections, called
bartizans, and displayed at each frequent angle a small turret, rather
resembling a pepper-box than a Gothic watchtower. Neither did the front
indicate absolute security from danger. There were loop-holes for
musketry, and iron stanchions on the lower windows, probably to repel any
roving band of gypsies, or resist a predatory visit from the caterans of
the neighbouring Highlands. Stables and other offices occupied another
side of the square. The former were low vaults, with narrow slits instead
of windows, resembling, as Edward's groom observed, 'rather a prison for
murderers, and larceners, and such like as are tried at 'sizes, than a
place for any Christian cattle.' Above these dungeon-looking stables were
granaries, called girnels, and other offices, to which there was access
by outside stairs of heavy masonry. Two battlemented walls, one of which
faced the avenue, and the other divided the court from the garden,
completed the inclosure.

Nor was the court without its ornaments. In one corner was a tun-bellied
pigeon-house, of great size and rotundity, resembling in figure and
proportion the curious edifice called Arthur's Oven, which would have
turned the brains of all the antiquaries in England, had not the worthy
proprietor pulled it down for the sake of mending a neighbouring
dam-dyke. This dove-cot, or columbarium, as the owner called it, was no
small resource to a Scottish laird of that period, whose scanty rents
were eked out by the contributions levied upon the farms by these light
foragers, and the conscriptions exacted from the latter for the benefit
of the table.

Another corner of the court displayed a fountain, where a huge bear,
carved in stone, predominated over a large stone-basin, into which he
disgorged the water. This work of art was the wonder of the cou