East Lothian

“ But I quite agree with my lord, now, that you stayed too long at Rome under the circumstances. It was a good move—that going to Sicily, and so wise of you to travel in Egypt. Men should travel.”
“I have not been to Egypt,” said Lothair; “I have been to the Holy Land, and am a pilgrim. I wish you would tell Miss Arundel that I shall ask her permission to present her with my crucifix, which contains the earth of the holy places. I should have told her this myself, if I had seen her yesterday. Is she here?”
“She is at Vauxe; she could not tear herself away from the roses.” ”

“ And the leil men of Lothian be luppen on their horse;
Then shall the poor people be spoiled full near,
And the Mers shall mourn many days after.
And all the abbies truly that stands on Tweed,
And all Lothian shall live on their lives after,
They shall burn and slay, and great reif make,
There dare no poor man say whose man he is. ”

“ All Father Galway's devotion before and afterwards to each and all of us,—all Lady Lothian's untiring kindness, I can never tell you, it was so beautiful. Then came long days of watching by the body. The nuns of the Precious Blood sent their large crucifix and their high silver candlesticks; the room was hung in black and white. Auntie is sadly altered, but always patient and self-sacrificing. I was with Lady Lothian a week; how that week went by I cannot tell, and now there are lawyers. I long for rest. There is such a blank, such a loneliness. ”

“ The cession of Lothian, whatever its date, was made on the condition that the men of Lothian should retain their customs and laws, with the important result that the Scottish south-eastern lowlands became the centre from which Anglo-Saxon and Norman civilisation gradually permeated Scotland. ”

“ On the other lay the three Lothians, with all their ripening fields and dark-green woods, the lonely cone of Soltra, the lonelier Lammermuirs, and the undulating sweep of the far-stretching Pentlands, a long blue waving chain of heath-clad mountain, that dwarfed the lesser hills, and threw the wooded cliffs of Corstorphine, the Calton, the castled rock, and even proud Arthur's basaltic brow, into comparative obscurity. ”

“ Lothian, however, had now become a very important and influential dependence of the kingdom, and its Saxon population must have looked with longing eyes to the children of their revered Saxon princess Queen Margaret as their natural lords. This is clear from the Saxon Chronicle, which, in recording the death of Eadward, the eldest son of Malcolm 436by Queen Margaret, who was slain with his father in 1093, adds ‘who should, if he had lived, have been king after him,’ and in Lothian the claim of Eadmund, the next surviving son, would be preferred. ”

“ The davach [266] being the only denomination common to both parts of the country, we may infer that it belongs to the old Celtic system of land-measures, and that the others are foreign importations. Now we find in the ancient province of Lothian, which originally formed part of the Anglic kingdom of Northumbria and possessed an Anglic population, the land-measures consisted of Carucates or ploughgates, and Bovates or oxgangs. The oxgang contained thirteen acres, two oxgangs made a husband-land, and eight oxgangs a ploughgate, which thus consisted of 104 acres of arable land. ”

“ The memory of the incursions of the Annandale and Liddisdale borderers is still preserved, not only in the Scotish and English border districts, but even in the interior of Scotland. I have been informed by persons of good authority in Lothian, that they recollected to have heard in their infancy different songs which celebrated the prowess of the men of Lothian in repulsing the Scotish borderers. It is probable, however, that these rude lays have been suffered to elude the grasp of tradition. ”

“ Of late the monsignore had assumed that Lothair had promised to attend it.
Why should he not? The world was all vanity. Never did he feel more convinced than at this moment of the truth of his conclusion, that if religion were a real thing, man should live for it alone; but then came the question of the Churches. He could not bring himself without a pang to contemplate a secession from the Church of his fathers. He took refuge in the wild but beautiful thought of a reconciliation between Rome and England. ”

“ Malcolm may at one time have been in no hurry to carry out a marriage dictated by political reasons; yet he may have afterwards become eager for the same marriage after he had seen her whose hand was designed for him. Question of Lothian. As for the Lothian earldom, we here see the beginning of the later Scottish argument, that homage was due from the Scottish to the English king only for lands held within the kingdom of England. At this stage Lothian was the land held within the kingdom of England ”

“ The king particularly noticed it, and said to Lord Lothian (an exceeding large man) , Lothian, I have heard much of your agility, let us see you run up after that boy. Sire, replied Lord Lothian, it is my duty to follow your majesty.
763. A gentleman crossing a very narrow bridge, which was not railed on either side to secure passengers from falling, said to a countryman whom he met, Me-thinks this narrow causeway must be very dangerous, honest friend! pray are not people lost here sometimes? Lost! no, sir, replied the man, I never knew anybody lost here in my life ”

“ It is certain that the province of York extended ecclesiastically, as the kingdom of Northumbria did civilly, to the Firth of Forth; and so far as concerned the churches of Lothian and Teviotdale, the former of which were now under the rule of the bishop of St. Andrews, while the latter were claimed by Glasgow, there may have been some ground for the assertion of such a right, similar to that which the annexation of Lothian to the kingdom of Scotland gave for the civil claim ”

“ The “lotus” or “lotos” of northern Africa, the fruit of which was supposed to possess the wonderful power of making all who tasted it forget their “homes and friends and native shores,” is a tree, the Celtis Australis. If the ancients, who delighted so much in fables and myths, had only known of this charming place, they would have located their lotus-land here in the distant East, where the air is so pure and balmy, and the scenery so enchanting.
About a mile and a half beyond Tompasso we came to a number of “mud-wells,” and I began to examine them ”

“ He met Ramuntcho in the Basque country, but dearer than all to him is Brittany: here it was that he met his Iceland fishermen.
The Breton soul bears an imprint of Armorica's primitive soil: it is melancholy and noble. There is an undefinable charm about those arid lands and those sod-flanked hills of granite, whose sole horizon is the far-stretching sea. Europe ends here, and beyond remains only the broad expanse of the ocean. The poor people who dwell here are silent and tenacious: their heart is full of tenderness and of dreams. ”

“ One wonders how much or how little of State policy might mingle in this pious act, for no doubt the establishment of an easy and constant means of communication between the wealthy Lothians and the then centre of national life must have been of unspeakable use in consolidating a kingdom still so imperfectly knit together and divided by the formidable line of the great estuary. It is one drawback of a religious chronicler that no such motive, large and noble as it might be, is thought of, since even national advantage counted so much less than the cultivation of piety. ”

“ From Bannalec to Toulven is an hour's drive through the woods. With my eyes fixed in front of me I watch for the granite steeple of the church in the distance of the green horizon.
And now it appears reflected deep below in the mournful pool. The weather has cleared and the sky is blue again, a pale blue.
Toulven! . . . The diligence stops. Yves is there waiting for me, holding little Pierre by the hand.
We look at each other—and our first impulse is to laugh, on account of our moustaches. Our faces are altered, and we seem odd to each other. ”

“ Live stock does not count for so much in West Lothian as in other Scottish counties, though a considerable number of cattle are fattened and dairy farming is followed successfully, the fresh butter and milk finding a market in Edinburgh. There is some sheep-farming, and horses and pigs are reared. The wooded land occurs principally in the parks and “policies” surrounding the many noblemen’s mansions and private estates.
Other Industries.—The shale-oil trade flourishes at Bathgate, Broxburn, Armadale, Uphall, Winchburgh, Philpstoun and Dalmeny. ”

“ As the Leopoldine faded out of vision, Gaud, as if drawn by a magnet, followed the pathway all along the cliffs till she had to stop, because the land came to an end; she sat down at the foot of a tall cross, which rises amidst the gorse and stones. As it was rather an elevated spot, the sea, as seen from there, appeared to be rimmed, as in a bowl, and the Leopoldine, now a mere point, appeared sailing up the incline of that immense circle. The water rose in great slow undulations, like the upheavals of a submarine combat going on somewhere beyond the horizon ”

“ I can recall passages in etchings of those dim, night-palaces of Venice, up which the sad-lighted sea sends faint, equivocating shivers, that give me the exact sensation of lines of Loti. They rise to mind from depths of consciousness. And without volition. Now that Loti is traveling and writing of what he sees no more, and Whistler’s etching needle is stilled, there are two joys fewer in the world for me. ”

“ From the height we had reached we could see woods as far as eye could command; the blackthorns were already in flower; all the branches, all the reddish sprigs, full of buds, were waiting for the spring. And, in the distance, in the midst of this country of trees, Toulven church raised its grey spire.
We had been out so long that Corentine had been placed on the look out in the green lane to announce our return. We saw her from a distance, jumping, dancing, playing all sorts of tricks alone, her big head-dress and her collarette fluttering in the wind. ”

“ Yes Colonel Campian is rather proud of possessing them. He collects only modern art, for which I believe there is a great future, though some of our friends think it is yet in its cradle.”
“I am very sorry to say,” said Lothair, “that I know very little about art, or indeed any thing else, but I admire what is beautiful. I know something about architecture, at least church architecture.”
“Well, religion has produced some of our finest buildings,” said Theodora; “there is no question of that; and as long as they are adapted to what takes place in them they are admirable. ”

“ On our way we picked the last foxgloves, the last red silenes, the last scabious.
In the sunken lanes, in the green darkness, we passed long-haired old men, and women in cloth bodices embroidered with rows of eyes.
There were mysterious crossways in the woods. In the distance one could see the wooded hills ranged in monotonous lines, the unchanging ageless horizon of the country of Toulven, the same horizon as the Celts must have seen, the farthest planes losing themselves in the grey obscurities, in bluish tones tending to black. ”

“ Here and there, on the roadside, are grey cottages, very old and covered with moss.
From one of them comes a lullaby, sung in slow cadence by a voice which also is very old:
"Boudoul, boudoul, galaïchen! [4]
Boudoul, boudoul, galaïch du!"
"It is he they are rocking," said Yves, smiling. "Come in!"
This cottage of the old Keremenen people is half-buried and overgrown with moss. Above it the oaks and beeches spread their green vault; it seems as old as the earth of the lanes.
Inside the light is dim; one sees the press-beds in line with cupboards along the rough granite of the walls. ”

“ By the population of Lothian and Cumbria, who had probably had enough of Donald and his Gaelic followers, Duncan would no doubt be received at once; for though the people of Lothian might have preferred a son of the Saxon queen, and might not dislike to see him set aside for one of that family, they would have no hesitation in supporting his cause against that of his uncle. The Gaelic inhabitants of Scotland proper seem to have been divided. ”

“ On some Sundays, parties of young fellows who came out of the taverns or back from Paimpol, passed along the road, near the door of the Moans; they were such as lived at the land's end of Pors-Even way. They passed very late, caring little for the cold and wet, accustomed as they were to frost and tempests. Gaud lent her ear to the medley of their songs and shouts—soon lost in the uproar of the squalls or the breakers—trying to distinguish Yann's voice, and then feeling strangely perplexed if she thought she had heard it. ”

“ The Leopoldine was such a good boat, next to new, and her crew were such able-bodied seamen.
Granny Moan stood by them shaking her head; the distress of her granddaughter had almost given her back her own strength and reason; she tidied up the place, glancing from time to time at the faded portrait of Sylvestre, which hung upon the granite wall with its anchor emblems and mourning-wreath of black bead-work. Ever since the sea had robbed her of her own last offspring she believed no longer in safe returns; she only prayed through fear, bearing Heaven a grudge in the bottom of her heart. ”

“ He remained there a long time lost in thought, dreaming of his village, this poor soldier on the banks of the Senegal. With sunset and nightfall, his thoughts plunged themselves in unrelieved gloom.
From the direction of N’dar-toute came the hurried drumming of the tom-tom, summoning the negroes to the bamboula, and fires were lighted in the Yolof huts. It was an evening in December; a vexatious winter wind sprang up, whirling the sand in eddies here and there, and the great, parched land shuddered with an unwonted sensation of chill. ”