That we may know the Laird better, a brief description of his home may be introduced. Within a mile and a half of the east end of Princes Street, Edinburgh, lies, on the left of the railway to the south, a squalid suburb. You drive or walk on a dirty road, north-eastwards, through unambitious shops, factories, tall chimneys, flaming advertisements, and houses for artisans. The road climbs a hill, and you begin to find, on each side of you, walls of ancient construction, and traces of great old doorways, now condemned. On the left are ploughed fields, and even clumps of trees with blackened trunks. Grimy are the stacks of corn in the farmyard to the left, at the crest of the hill. On the right, a gateway gives on a short avenue which leads to a substantial modern house. Having reached this point in my pilgrimage, I met a gentleman who occupies the house, and asked if I might be permitted to view the site. The other, with much courtesy, took me up to the house, of which only the portion in view from the road was modern. Facing the west all was of the old Scottish château style, with gables, narrow windows, and a strange bulky chimney on the north, bulging out of the wall. The west side of the house stood on the very brink of a steep precipice, beneath which lay what is now but a large deep waterhole, but, at the period of the Gowrie conspiracy, was a loch fringed with water weeds, and a haunt of wild fowl. By this loch, Restalrig Loch, the witch more than three centuries ago met the ghost of Tam Reid, who fell in Pinkie fight, and by the ghost was initiated into the magic which brought her to the stake. I scrambled over a low wall with a deep drop, and descended the cliff so as to get a view of the ancient château that faces the setting sun. Beyond the loch was a muddy field, then rows on rows of ugly advertisements, then lines of ‘smoky dwarf houses,’ and, above these, clear against a sky of March was the leonine profile of Arthur’s Seat. Steam rose and trailed from the shrieking southward trains between the loch and the mountain, old and new were oddly met, for the château was the home of an ancient race, the Logans of Restalrig, ancestors of that last Laird with whom our story has to do. Their rich lands stretched far and wide; their huge dovecot stands, sturdy as a little pyramid, in a field to the north, towards the firth. They had privileges over Leith Harbour which must have been very valuable: they were of Royal descent, through a marriage of a Logan with a daughter of Robert II. But their glory was in their ancestor, Sir Robert Logan, who fell where the good Lord James of Douglas died, charging the Saracens on a field of Spain, and following the heart of Bruce. So Barbour sings, and to be named by Barbour, for a deed and a death so chivalrous, is honour enough. [Picture: Restalrig House] [Picture: Restalrig Village]