Thus the Lindesay spoke, Thus clamour still the war-notes when The King to mass his way has ta'en, Or to St. Katharine's of Sienne, Or Chapel of Saint Rocque. SCOTT--"Marmion." [20] Sir David Lindesay in "The Monarchie" thus enumerates the saints to whom superstitious honours were paid: Thair superstitious pilgramagis To menie divers imagis; Sum to Sanct Roche, with diligence To saif them from the pestilence; For thair teeth to Sanct Apollene; To Sanct Tred well to mend thair ene. Before turning down Blackford Avenue, which opens to our right, a hundred yards farther on, let us glance for a moment at that curious old house, the Grange,--or, as its title more correctly stands, St. Giles's Grange. This was once the farm belonging to the cathedral church of St. Giles, in the pre-Reformation days, when each church and abbey had broad lands attached to it. In the 17th century the Grange was among the large possessions of Sir William Dick; and in the wreck of his fortunes, it was preserved to his third son William by the liberality and wealth of the latter's wife, Janet M'Math. She had inherited great riches from her own family, of whom she was the last survivor, as well as from her first husband, Thomas Bannatyne. Much of this money she devoted to the needs of her second husband's family, even paying the bill of poor Sir William's funeral expenses. Her descendant, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder (who also represents a younger branch of Lauder of the Bass), is the present possessor of the Grange. When Prince Charles held his court at Holyrood, he visited the Grange, and presented the family with the thistle from his bonnet, which is still preserved by them with great care. Robertson, the historian, spent the last years of his life here, where he died in 1793. Parts of the house are very old, but it has been a good deal added to, at different times. It is said to be haunted by a ghost in the form of a miser, who rolls a sack of gold coins about the older parts of the building. The tradition is, that if any of the family were to see him, they would become possessed of the treasure. Till within the last few years, the most picturesque cottages imaginable stood close to the gate of the Grange. Their whitewashed walls, overhung with masses of ivy,--their thatched roofs and irregular gables,--their curious outside stairs, and the air of antiquity that overshadowed them, made them dear to every artist's soul; and no scene in the vicinity of Edinburgh was more often drawn or painted. Now, alas! the mania for so-called improvement, which is the curse of the present day, has swept them away; and the Grange, like any other villa, is enclosed by a prim stone wall, ending in the most modern of lodges.