castle, to which, no doubt, it was entitled long after the date of its
erection, in the fifteenth century, although no longer boasting of
either the strength or magnificence which such a name implies. Its
position, however, is picturesque--standing on the bank of a romantic
and finely-wooded Highland glen, and commanding a view on one side of
a mountain-range, and on the other of a cultivated country, with its
towns and villages in the distance. The mansion is flanked on one side
by a court-yard and 'louping-on-stane;' and on the other, by a velvety
bowling-green, stretching along to an antique garden of cut yews and
hollies overhanging the glen. It boasts, of course, its haunted
chamber, and traditional stories of love and murder; but we have not
now to do with life or death above stairs, though many a tale might be
founded on truths 'stranger than fiction.' Our present purpose is with
the neighbourhood of the kitchen. There, too, we find some relics of
olden times; a fireplace which would legalise the Scottish invitation,
to 'come in to the fire,' inasmuch as within the chimney-arch was the
seat of honour and comfort, where a dozen cronies could sit beside the
embers, while an ox might roast in front. From that cozy neuk did the
old fiddler play in the evening, when the spinning-wheels were put
away, and the maids, generally tenants' daughters, had their dance
with the stragglers from the stables and cottages. Near the kitchen
was a much colder and more dismal place, that went by the name of 'the
Pit'--a half-subterranean recess, several steps lower than the
kitchen, into which scarcely a ray of light penetrated through the
small 'bole' that was drilled in the massive walls for a window. The
cheerless aspect of the place seemed to confirm the tradition, that it
had sometimes served of yore as a place of involuntary restraint. Its
present occupant, however, the son of a day-labourer, found no fault
with the accommodation it afforded him. He was a young boy, who
cleaned shoes, scoured knives, and received with great deference the