[3] Wilkie the painter once paid him a visit there while in Scotland studying the subject of his "Penny Wedding;" and Dugald Stewart found for him the old farm-house with the cradle-chimney, which he introduced in that picture. But Kinneil House has had its imaginary inhabitants as well as its real ones, the ghost of a Lady Lilburn, once an occupant of the place, still "haunting" some of the unoccupied chambers. Dugald Stewart told Wilkie one night, as he was going to bed, of the unearthly wailings which he himself had heard proceeding from the ancient apartments; but to him at least they had been explained by the door opening out upon the roof being blown in on gusty nights, when a jarring and creaking noise was heard all over the house. One advantage derived from the house being "haunted" was, that the garden was never broken into, and the winter apples and stores were at all times kept safe from depredation in the apartments of the Lady Lilburn. [4] Dr. Roebuck had been on the brink of great good fortune, but he did not know it. Mr. Ralph Moore, in his "Papers on the Blackband Ironstones" (Glasgow, 1861), observes:--"Strange to say, he was leaving behind him, almost as the roof of one of the seams of coal which he worked, a valuable blackband ironstone, upon which Kinneil Iron Works are now founded. The coal-field continued to be worked until the accidental discovery of the blackband about 1845. The old coal-pits are now used for working the ironstone." [5] The Mushets are an old Kincardine family; but they were almost extinguished by the plague in the reign of Charles the Second. Their numbers were then reduced to two; one of whom remained at Kincardine, and the other, a clergyman, the Rev. George Mushet, accompanied Montrose as chaplain. He is buried in Kincardine churchyard. [6] Papers on Iron and Steel. By David Mushet. London, 1840. [7] This valuable description of iron ore was discovered by Mr. Mushet, as he afterwards informs us (Papers on Iron and Steel, 121), in the year 1801, when crossing the river Calder, in the parish of Old Monkland. Having subjected a specimen which he found in the river-bed to the test of his crucible, he satisfied himself as to its properties, and proceeded to ascertain its geological position and relations. He shortly found that it belonged to the upper part of the coal-formation, and hence he designated it carboniferous ironstone. He prosecuted his researches, and found various rich beds of the mineral distributed throughout the western counties of Scotland. On analysis, it was found to contain a little over 50 per cent. of protoxide of iron. The coaly matter it contained was not its least valuable ingredient; for by the aid of the hot blast it was afterwards found practicable to smelt it almost without any addition of coal. Seams of black band have since been discovered and successfully worked in Edinburghshire, Staffordshire, and North Wales. CHAPTER IX.