aded beadle turned the keys
with his shaking hand, the antiquary was admitted into an ancient
building, which, from the style of its architecture, and some monuments
of the Mowbrays of St. Ronan's, which the old man was accustomed to
point out, was generally conjectured to be as early as the thirteenth
century.

These Mowbrays of St. Ronan's seem to have been at one time a very
powerful family. They were allied to, and friends of the house of
Douglas, at the time when the overgrown power of that heroic race made
the Stewarts tremble on the Scottish throne. It followed that, when, as
our old _naif_ historian expresses it, "no one dared to strive with a
Douglas, nor yet with a Douglas's man, for if he did, he was sure to
come by the waur," the family of St. Ronan's shared their prosperity,
and became lords of almost the whole of the rich valley of which their
mansion commanded the prospect. But upon the turning of the tide, in the
reign of James II., they became despoiled of the greater part of those
fair acquisitions, and succeeding events reduced their importance still
farther. Nevertheless, they were, in the middle of the seventeenth
century, still a family of considerable note; and Sir Reginald Mowbray,
after the unhappy battle of Dunbar, distinguished himself by the
obstinate defence of the Castle against the arms of Cromwell, who,
incensed at the opposition which he had unexpectedly encountered in an
obscure corner, caused the fortress to be dismantled and blown up with
gunpowder.

After this catastrophe the old Castle was abandoned to ruin; but Sir
Reginald, when, like Allan Ramsay's Sir William Worthy, he returned
after the Revolution, built himself a house in the fashion of that later
age, which he prudently suited in size to the diminished fortunes of his
family. It was situated about the middle of the village, whose vicinity
was not in those days judged any inconvenience, upon a spot of ground
more level than was presented by the rest of the acclivity, where, as we
said before, the houses were notched as it were into the side of the
steep bank, with little more level ground about them than the spot
occupied by their site. But the Laird's house had a court in front and a
small garden behind, connected with another garden, which, occupying
three terraces, descended, in emulation of the orchards of the old
Castle, almost to the banks of the stream.

The family continued to inhabit this new messuage until about