The town residence of Lord Clermistonlee was a lofty and narrow mansion of antique aspect; it stood immediately within the Craig-end-gate, that low-browed archway in the eastern flank of the city wall, which, from the foot of Leith Wynd still faces the bluff rock of the Calton. With high pedimented windows and Flemish gables, Clermiston-lodging towered above the mossy, grass-tufted, and time-worn rampart of the city--the aforesaid portal of which gave entrance to it on one side, while the more immediate path from the great central street was a steep and narrow close, the mansions of which were as black as the smoke of four centuries could make them. Their huge façades, plastered over with rough lime and oyster shells, completely intercepted the view to the south, while that to the north was shut in by the black cliffs of the bare Calton and the Multrees-hill with the ancient suburb of St. Ninian, straggling through the narrow chasm that yawned between them, and afforded a glimpse of Leith and the far-off hills of Fife. At the base of the hill lay the last fragments of the monastery of Greenside, and opposite a thatched hamlet crept close to the margin of the Loch, the broad sluice of which the irrascible Baillies of Edinburgh invariably shut, when they quarrelled with a colony of sturdy and "contumacious" weavers and tanners who had located there, and whose communication with Halkerstoune Wynd they could cut off at pleasure by damming up the waters of the Loch. Immediately under the windows of the mansion lay the park, hospital, and venerable church of the Holy Trinity, founded by the Queen of James II. about two hundred years before. On the night described in the last chapter, a large fire burned cheerily in the chamber of dais; and the walls of wainscot, varnished and gilded, glittered in its glow. Supper was laid; carved crystal, plate, and snow-white napery gleamed in the light of the ruddy fire, and of four large wax candles that towered aloft in massive square holders of French workmanship. Over the mantel-piece, in an oak frame amid the carving of which, grapes, nymphs, and bacchanals were all entwined together, hung a portrait painted by Jamieson, representing a pale young lady in a ruff and fardingale of James VI. days, and having the pale blue eyes, exquisitely fair complexion and lint-white locks, which were then so much admired. It was his Lordship's mother, a lady of the house of Spynie.