To the west of the place lay the garden, the most enchanting tangle of flowers, fruit-trees, and shady bowers. Everything in it seemed to grow to greater perfection, and to bloom earlier than elsewhere, it was so sheltered and so sunny. Peaches and apricots ripened on the walls, and the beds were full of every old-fashioned, sweet-scented flower. Beyond it rose the ruins of Granton Castle, over which strayed the Persian yellow rose and the Austrian briar, and veiled the mouldering walls with wreaths of golden petals. In the corner next the old fig-tree, a door opened into what we used to call the "opera-box." It had exactly its shape and form. You stepped in and found yourself overhanging the shore,--but instead of a painted scene, lay the wide panorama of the Forth, with the hills beyond fading into softer and softer purple; and for music, there was the ceaseless plash of the waves on the rocks far down below us. The "opera-box" itself had been part of the outer buildings of the old castle. This once belonged to Sir Thomas Hope of Craighall, the famous lawyer of Charles I.'s time, who made it his principal residence. After his death in 1646, it passed through many different hands, including various members of the Hope family, till it was bought in 1740 by John, Duke of Argyle and Greenwich, who had acquired Roystoun the year before from Sir James Mackenzie, grandson of the Lord Tarbat who built the house. The Duke threw the two places together, and called them Caroline Park, out of compliment to his royal mistress, the queen of George II. At his death, the property passed, by the marriage of his daughter Caroline, to the ducal family of Buccleuch, who now possess it. The prosperity of the neighbouring port of Granton has proved the destruction of Caroline Park. Warehouses and other buildings press closely upon it, and the beautiful old house itself has been turned into the offices of a printing-ink manufactory. Leaving it behind us, we turn along a road which leads westwards from the lodge, and, passing a little place called Granton House, we soon reach Muirhouse. Griffins surmount the gate-pillars which open on to a broad and fine avenue, at the end of which stand the ruins of the old royal hunting-lodge, and a finely wooded park slopes down to the sea. This barony was granted by King Robert Bruce to Sir William Oliphant of Aberdalgy. Previously it had been royal property. The last Oliphant that possessed Muirhouse, or the Murrows, as it was then called, was Sir James Oliphant of Newton (born in 1612), who in a drunken fit stabbed his own mother with a sword, so that she died. This dreadful event obliged him to fly into Ireland, where he died in great penury and wretchedness.[62] All his property was sold. Muirhouse now belongs to the Davidson family, who acquired it in 1776. [62] Scot's _Staggering State_. [Illustration: _Carved Stone at Lauriston Castle._]