om left it. Dr Burton gave his wife a little
pony-carriage, by means of which sea-bathing could be had, when desired,
from Lauriston Place.

During the year 1860, the new buildings in the neighbourhood spoiled the
situation of the house, so as to render it hardly habitable. The field
where the volunteers had drilled was built upon almost up to the windows
of the house. To escape these disagreeables, a cottage at Lochgoilhead
was taken for August and September, and much enjoyed by the whole
family. A complete removal was also determined on for the following
Whitsuntide.

An old house near the Braid Hills had been a childish haunt of his
wife's, and it had been a childish dream of hers to repair that house,
then a ruin, and live in it. The situation of the place seemed, and
seems to her, the finest in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, and the
house was a historical one of no small interest.

The greatest part of it had been built in the year Queen Mary married
Darnley (1565), but part of the building was very much older; a
subterranean passage especially, of considerable length, well arched,
too narrow for a sally-port, unaccountable therefore by any other
theory, Dr Burton always believed as old as the Romans. Craighouse had
been besieged by Queen Mary's son in person, and had stood the siege and
resisted the king.[11] The then laird of Craighouse, whose name was
Kincaid, ran away with a widow, who was a royal ward, and married her in
spite of the king; whether with or without the lady's own consent no
record condescends to specify. The laird was afterwards nearly ruined
by a fine, of which a part consisted of a favourite _nag_, which it
would appear King Jamie had been personally acquainted with and coveted.

[Footnote 11: See Pitcairn's Criminal Trials.]

The distance of Craighouse from the town was not great--nothing as a
walk to such walkers as Dr Burton and all his family; but it was enough
to interfere seriously with evening engagements. Once home from
business, it was an effort to return again to the town to dine or attend
any sort of social gathering. The thing was not impossible, but its
difficulty served as too good an excuse for Dr Burton's increasing
unsociability. For a time, while some of the old circle still survived,
Dr Burton saw them with pleasure at his own table, but he too early
adopted a determination--which no one should ever adopt--to make no new
friends. Almost all his old friends predeceased