Lord Stair made use of a notorious Colonel Dalzell to rid himself of his wife. The plot succeeded, and they were divorced; but when she discovered the shameful artifice that had been practised, the horror of it sent an already excitable mind off its balance, and for years Lady Stair was kept under restraint at her brother's house of the Hermitage. The tradition still lingers, that at nightfall passers-by along this lonely road were often startled by her screams. She recovered her senses some years before her death, and passed the remainder of her life in Edinburgh, an altered woman in every respect, and died there in 1847, and is buried on the north side of St. Cuthbert's Churchyard. [6] The arms of Fairlie of Brede were--or, a lion rampant, gules; between his forepaws a star of the last bruised with a bendlet, azure. It is said that the first of this family was a natural son of Robert II.; hence they have the tincture and figure of the Royal Arms (without the tressure), and bruised with a bendlet, a mark of illegitimation. (See Nisbet's _Heraldry_.) In his MS. notes, written in 1700, William Wauchope of Niddrie mentions the Fairlies of Brede among the seven old families in the county which were already extinct. The others were--the Logans of Lochsterrick (Restalrig); the Prestons of Craigmillar, the Herrings of Gilmerton, the Edmistons of Edmiston, the Giffords of Sheriffhall, and the Lauders of the Bass. Of late years the Hermitage has been usually let, and at present is the residence of Mr. Skelton, to whom we owe so many valuable historical works. On the opposite side of the road is the pond belonging to the Morton Hall Curling Club. A few hundred yards farther up the hill, and passing on our left the road which leads to Liberton, we reach the highest point, where the road is cut through the solid rock which forms the westmost spur of the Braid Hills. From here, on a bright spring day, when the distance is cleared by a north-west wind, the view is most beautiful. Edinburgh and the sea lie at our feet; and beyond, the eye travels westward, from the fertile shores of Fife, to where the Ochils rise behind the wooded crest of Corstorphine, and then melt away into the far-off Perthshire hills, that stand above Loch Katrine, and guard the entrance to the Highlands. Far in the west a distant blue peak fading into the sky is Ben Lomond; and, on a very clear day, we may just see the shadow of the Cobbler behind it. Nearer to us is the rocky outline of the Dalmahoy hills, and between us and them stretches a fair expanse of woodland and pasture, which gradually sweeps up to where the Pentlands shut out the view to the south-west. Just before reaching the lodge of Morton Hall, we pass the Buckstone on our left,--a large rocky fragment, on which the proprietor of the barony of Penicuik, That fair dome, where suit is paid By blast of bugle free,[7]