FAST-CASTLE. — DUNGLASS. — PEATHS. 45 



supported by a hundred resolute followers, surprised this fortress, and cap- 

 tured its governor, Holden, who had long infested the neighbouring country 

 by his predatory excursions and systematic oppression. At a later date, 

 that of the Gowrie conspiracy, this fortaUce belonged to Logan of Restalrigg, 

 whose fate, or rather that of his family, is so well known. Several years after 

 his death, he was tried and condemned for having been engaged in that con- 

 spiracy,* and his estates bestowed upon the earl of Dunbar. As a curious 

 fact resulting from this post-mortem trial, it is mentioned that a notary in 

 Eyemouth, who had produced some treasonable correspondence between Goverie 

 and Logan, was afterwards rewarded by a public execution in Edinburgh. 



Between this bleak promontory and Dunglass, the country is high, and 

 intersected by several deep ravines, whose sides rise abrupt and precipitous, 

 and by corresponding indentations warrant the conclusion of having been 

 the result of remote convulsions. The most remarkable of them is that called 

 the Peaths, which is spanned by a bridge of greater altitude, probably, than 

 any other in Europe, being two hundred and forty feet in height, by three 

 hundred in length.f In ancient times this was a pass of easy defence, and 

 was one of the outlets blocked up against Cromwell, who, after the afJair at 

 Dunbar, described it in his despatch, as a pass " where one man to hinder, was 

 better than twelve to make way." A little beyond this is another ravine, 

 commanded by the tower of Colbrandspath, and which, like the Peaths, served as 

 a kind of sluice by which the tide of war could be loosened, or confined at pleasure. 

 To the westward of this, is Dunglass, the seat of Sir James Hall, hart., em- 

 bowered in an extensive and richly wooded demesne. The site of the present 

 house is that of the ancient castle, which was occupied in the early part of the civil 

 war by the Covenanters, and blown up, it is stated, by a page, who set fire to the 

 powder magazine, when the earl of Haddington, and eighty others, were killed. 

 Here, also, James VI. was twice entertained ui his progress north and south.J 



St. Bathans § is a place of great antiquity. In the early part of the seventh 



• See a subsequent page of this work. 



t The centre bridge of the Via-Mala, in Switzerland, is estimated at three hundred feet above the 

 torrent ; and the Pantenbrucke, in Claris, at two hundred ; but their length is much inferior to that of the 

 Peaths, or Pease-bridge, according to the latest estimate. — See Switzerland Ilbistrated. 



t Cranshaws Castle, also in this neighbourhood, is conjectured to have been the original of Ravenswood, 

 in " the Bride of Lammermoor." It is, comparatively, a small building, in form an oblong square, forty 

 feet by twenty-four, and forty-five feet high, and used in Border warfare as a refuge against the sudden 

 incursions of marauders. Of the Castle of Scarlaw, which served for similar purposes, very little now remains. 



§ St. Bathans claims the honour of giving birth to David Hume, of Godscroft, the intimate friend of 

 the celebrated Andrew Melville, and who held a conspicuous station among the miscellaneous writers of 

 the seventeenth century. He was a master in ancient and modern languages, theology, politics, and 

 history, and preeminent for his skill in the composition of Latin poetry. 



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