the family. When they buried in Liberton, they were laid there as the lairds of The Gledstanes-as Gledstanes of that Ilk-and latterly as the lairds of Arthurshiel in the same parish, and they were consigned with all the reverence of privacy to their own aisle. But since 1756, they have been laid in Biggar churchyard simply as honest tradesmen and burgesses of the town are laid-in the picce of ground set apart for them among their neighbours and equals in the daily life of the place. The men whose dust lies here thus belong to a family to which a great interest attaches, not only from the striking vicissitudes of fortune which it has undergone, but also for the part which its members have played in local, especially Border story, for its restoration in our times to its original landed position, above all for the power which one of its members in our own day has had and still has in moulding the policy and the destinies of the British nation. For the great-grandson of the Gladstones who was first laid in Biggar churchyard is the statesman and scholarWilliam Ewart Gladstone. Let us go on now to see the original seat of this ancient and stalwart line, and let us look for a little at the story of the race. We leave the churchyard to the right and proceed northwards, following for the most part the line of the Biggar Burn. We leave CambusWallace, and go on through the Carwood. Still ascending, we come to the pastoral uplands of Muirlee. We go on past Castlelochy, and then reach the Bell Craig, 1,005 feet above the sea. Here the road descends, passes across a streamlet, and on the rising knowes on the opposite side we first see the object of our walk and interest-the two Gledstanes, Wester and Easter. It was on that knowe lying below us, known as Easter Gledstanes, that the family named of that Ilk had its original seat; it was there they lived in very early times and for several generations, and it was from that spot they came forth to add to the deeds-many of them valiant, some of them dark enough-of Border story. Looking down and around from the Bell Craig, let us note the surroundings of The Gledstanes. In the small valley on this side a streamlet or syke makes its way as a feeder to a burn which flows northward to the valley of the South Medwyn now before us, and joins it ere it fuses with the North Medwyn, and the united stream makes its way to the Clyde. This burn has its source in a long hill to our right, which slopes upwards to the north, rises to a height of more than 1,000 feet, and is named Coklaw. The burn is the Ghyll Burn, showing that the Scandinavians, who left a good sprinkling of their names along the head-waters of the Tweed and the Clyde, reached as far as the valley of the Medwyn and its tributary glens. The surrounding outlook over earth and sky is of the widest and finest kind-thoroughly characteristic of a Lowland, even a Border landscape. There is no far prospect to the west; only the Bell of Scotland, with the hardiest and the cheapest firs-monotonous and crowded. But to the east nature is pure, intact, and grand. The Black Mount, heather-covered to the top, and surrounded by two or three heights, rises to about 1,700 feet-a massive and shapely hill. Boreland Hill is to the north; the Medwyn Water flanks it in that direction with its pastoral and solitary valley; and on the other side of the stream Dunsyre Hill, with its white pointed top, gives a distinct and picturesque impression in relief. Other lower hills flow along the north side of the valley of the Medwyn, accompany it, and sink with it, as it tends to its fall in the haugh of the Clyde. The plough has now told on the knowes and valleys, and the natural pasture lands only recover their verdure after being torn up, sown, and cropped; but there is still a distinctive pastoral feeling in the region. The sheep dot the knowes, and in the olden time, and not very long ago, these heights of the Gledstanes and Coklaw would have seemed a typical specimen of the secluded and pathetic uplands which form the true heart of the Border Land of Scotland. But we make a slight descent, cross the valley, and we are at the Gledstanes. And what are the Gledstanes now? Wester Gledstanes, which stands a few hundred yards from Easter Gledstanes, is an old abandoned farm-house, with a line of outhouses and cottages adjoining. Easter Gledstanes is a new farm-house with good capacious byres, on the best principles for rearing and fattening cattlesuggesting modern markets and their demands. Both farms are now the property of the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge; and the directors are obviously careful of the farmer and the knout. But there is no mistaking the old fashion of the surroundings. There is the avenue which led to the castle, and of which one side at least retains its grand old trees-chiefly ashes, as fine as are to be seen anywhere in the country. There are lines of green mounds marking the boundaries of parks or squares, skirted also by stately trees-elms and planes, as well as ashes. They are about nine hundred feet above sea level, yet rise magnificently to the heavens. The ancient castle or peel-tower which stood in a square of trees in front of the modern farm-house has wholly disappeared. Only its green mounds remain, facing the small burn which, as was wont, determined its site. But recently was the last or ground arched roof of the tower cleared away; and so fast were its stones knit together by the old mortar, that two or three charges of dynamite were required to blast it into pieces-an application of the discoveries of modern science for which of course we ought to be duly thankful Its various coloured stones-telling of old volcanic forces in the Pentlands and regions immediately to the south-now make a curious and picturesque mosaic in the ox-stalls required by modern farming But let us be just to the destroyers, or rather, I believe, to the architect acting under their instructions. The old tower had for a lintel above a window or doorway—I am not sure which—a curious wants. served and placed in the wall of a new stable. Thus I represent it: (NF) This 1619 indicates a date too modern for the Gledstanes. The I M represents, I think, John Menzies, of Culterallers, who had succeeded the Menzies, to whom the Gledstanes disposed of the property some time before. Then there is another relique, which was got in the low cattle vault of the tower. This, too, is built into the wall of the modern byres. It is evidently the lower part of a handmill for corn. more recent relique there still is. We have a stone lintel with indented letters, now built into one of the byres, with the inscription : 17 G. R. K. M. 78 Who these were it is hard to say, though I was told the letters could once be truthfully read. Well, here, in this high bleak moorland, as it then was, we find the first mention of the name of Gledestane, or Gledstanes as it was afterwards commonly written. Herbert de Gledestane appears on the Ragman Roll of 1296 as one of the lairds who swore fealty to Edward I. The origin of the name is obvious. It is the gled or glede, the old Angle or Scotch for hawk or falcon, and stane is for stone or rock. There may have been some spot where Wester or Easter Gledstanes now stands once known by the name of the Gled's stane. But we have only to look a little to the south-west, where Bell Craig rises to upwards of a thousand feet, to see where of old the gled would find his resting-place, whither he would retire with his prey, and where too of a morning he would tell of the dawn, and rouse the inmates of the dwellings. As Gawain Douglas puts it: Fast by my chalmir in heych wisnit trees Originally apparently Gledestane or Gledstane, the name very soon came to be written Gledstanes, Gledstaines, Gladstanes, Gladstones. Finally it has become, what must be pronounced to be a meaningless Nearly fifty years pass on, over the struggles of Wallace and Bruce, and the Gledstane is still at the head of the Ghyll Burn. In the time of David II. the family add to their landed possessions. Now they get lands in the valley of the Eddlestone Water, about a mile from the town of Peebles, and some twenty miles south-east of the Ghyll Burn. They had evidently been of use to the king. After David's defeat and capture at Neville's Cross (1346), there were negotiations regarding the transfer to England of the shires of Roxburgh, Selkirk, Tweeddale, and Lauderdale. Umphraville, Percy, and Neville were the English Commissioners; the abbots of Melrose, Jedburgh, Dryburgh, and several laymen, including Patrick and William of Gledstanes, acted for Scotland. In 1365, after David's return to Scotland, he granted to William of Gledstanes, the son and heir to William of Gledstanes, knight, deceased, the lands of Woodgrenynton. These lands can still be identified. They were then pleasant slopes and meadow lands near and around the old religious house of Chapelhill, which stood amid its orchards, watered by the Eddlestone. 6 This was apparently the first addition to the fortunes of the laird of Gledstanes. But another was soon to follow. One John Trumble [Turnbull] held the lands of Hundleshope, the hungry, hungry Hundleshope' of the old picturesque rhyme. For the haugh lands were then under water-in fact, a loch-and the hills and glens now to be prized for their stern and savage beauty, their alpine recesses, and their autumn glow of heather, were, perhaps, looked at, in the days of cattle and corn,' as but a bare possession. Yet old Hundleshope has a fine ring about it-of the sound of the horn and the tongue of the hound; for it is in its earliest form the Houndwallshope, or the Hope of the Hound's Well. And in those far-back days its heights and its wild glens would be the hardest hunting-ground, the best refuge for deer and boar and wolf which even the grand hills around afforded. .6 John Trumble got the lands of Hundleshope from David II., between 1329 and 1371. Obviously he had come across from the old Turnbull country of Bedrule. Margaret, John's daughter, only child and heiress, was wooed and won by William Gledstanes of Gledstanes. Matters had been fitly arranged by John Trumble and young Gledstanes in the old quaint fortalice of Hundleshope-now long passed away. In due time there came a son, John Gledstanes; and finally Margaret, his mother, resigned to him in her lifetime the lands of Hundleshope, which she had inherited from her father. 'These lands were duly conveyed to the son by a charter of Robert III., somewhere between 1390 and 1406. It was probably after 1390, as William Gledstanes, presumably the husband, was then living, and appears as signatory to a charter of Robert III. of date 1391. But Margaret Trumble was destined to bring to the Gledstanes another territorial connection. She had property in Teviotdale. In her lifetime, and still in the reign of Robert III., she further resigned served and placed in the wall of a new stable. Thus I represent This 1619 indicates a date too modern for the Gledstanes. The IM represents, I think, John Menzies, of Culterallers, who had succeeded the Menzies, to whom the Gledstanes disposed of the property some time before. Then there is another relique, which was got in the low cattle vault of the tower. This, too, is built into the wall of the modern byres. It is evidently the lower part of a handmill for corn. A more recent relique there still is. We have a stone lintel with indented letters, now built into one of the byres, with the inscription : 17 G. R. K. M. 78 Who these were it is hard to say, though I was told the letters could once be truthfully read. Well, here, in this high bleak moorland, as it then was, we find the first mention of the name of Gledestane, or Gledstanes as it was afterwards commonly written. Herbert de Gledestane appears on the Ragman Roll of 1296 as one of the lairds who swore fealty to Edward I. The origin of the name is obvious. It is the gled or glede, the old Angle or Scotch for hawk or falcon, and stane is for stone or rock. There may have been some spot where Wester or Easter Gledstanes now stands once known by the name of the Gled's stane. But we have only to look a little to the south-west, where Bell Craig rises to upwards of a thousand feet, to see where of old the gled would find his resting-place, whither he would retire with his prey, and where too of a morning he would tell of the dawn, and rouse the inmates of the dwellings. As Gawain Douglas puts it:: Fast by my chalmir in heych wisnit trees The soir gled quhisles loud with mony ane pew, Originally apparently Gledestane or Gledstane, the name very soon came to be written Gledstanes, Gledstaines, Gladstanes, Gladstones. Finally it has become, what must be pronounced to be a meaningless |