LECKIE 



from the same region, adapt themselves with re- 

 markable readiness to the cool soil and humid air 

 of the north. The exquisite beauty of the perennial 

 species, with its delicate leafage, festoons of carmine 

 blossom and blue berries, has been the despair of 

 many English amateurs ; for there are very few places 

 south of Yorkshire where it will consent to flourish. 

 Yet it is very capricious ; establishing itself some- 

 times in the most unexpected way and in the least 

 likely environment. Thus in Mrs. Benson's beautiful 

 garden at Buckhurst in Sussex, on a dry, hot soil, 

 this tropseolum has possessed itself of some of the 

 borders, over-running shrubs and walls as wantonly 

 and irresistabty as in any Scottish cottage garden. 



Leckie, like most places in this central plain of 

 Scotland, is rich in historic association. It belonged 

 once to King Robert the Bruce, who, in 1326, gave 

 half the lands to his ancient ally Malcolm, Earl of 

 Lennox, receiving in exchange two plough-gates of 

 land at Cardross on the Clyde, 1 where he built him- 

 self a country house and spent his declining years in 

 the usual pursuits of a country gentleman hunting, 

 hawking, farming and yachting. It was at Leckie 

 that Prince Charlie lay after Lord George Murray 

 had routed General Hawley at Falkirk. It was 

 the last house he occupied in the Lowlands, setting 

 forth thence in the dark days of January, 1746, on 

 his ill-starred march to the north, where his star 

 was to be quenched for evermore on Culloden Moor. 



: Not Cardross on the Forth, which is only a few miles east of Leckie. 



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