The story of the Iron Press hung about my memory for years before I got it localised; nor do I know very well how it came to me, whether from the page of an old broad-sheet, or the tougher tongue of an old dame--the real vellum for the inscription of wonderful legends. However this may be, it is of small importance, inasmuch as I was subsequently so fortunate--and the word will be properly estimated by the real story-hunter--as to find myself in the very room where the recess of the press was still to be seen. How I did look at it, to be sure! nay, if it had been of gold--all my own, too--I question if I could have gazed into the dark recess with more interest; for gold, to people of my bias, is nothing in comparison with the enchantment that hangs about the real concrete _souvenir_ of an old wonder. But before going further, I must apprise the English reader that the word “press”--a Scotch word of somewhat doubtful derivation (_maugre_ Jamieson)--is convertible into the more modern designation “cupboard,” or rather “pantry;” with the qualification that our Scotch term more generally implies the adjunct of a door with lock and key. With which help you may be induced to represent to yourself, as vividly as the fervour of your imagination may enable you, the house in Hyndford’s Close, which, at the time wherein we are concerned, was occupied by a retired advocate called Mr George Plenderleith. You may see in it yet the signs of its old gentility. There are the panellings on the walls, the hooks whereon were suspended the flowered and figured draperies, the painted roofs, the peculiar enamelled sides of the chimneys having the appearance of china--all so very unlike our modern house fashions. It may not be that the iron press which was in the back bed-room, and the recess of which still remains, had anything to do with the fashion of the time; nor would it be easy to divine its use in a private gentleman’s house, who had no ledgers, journals, or cash-books to preserve from fire, lest certain creditors might say they were burnt to help concealment. Perhaps it was for the conservation of some great property rights, or title-deeds as we call them; perhaps state papers--anything you like, but not the least unlikely, it may have been for the purpose of concealing some unfortunate Covenanter, who could still boast, in his pathetic way, that he had verily nowhere to lay his head; for the cell was too small for a reclining posture--nay, he could scarcely have got upon his knees to offer his Ebenezer for the preservation of the solemn league and covenant, and give thanks that he had got out of “the bishop’s drag-net” and into an iron cage.