On this the hill, on that the brae, The brig is built abune the ford; Of Peggy's mill; and o'er't the howm The street in breadth is sixty feet; With doors and windows painted white, And roofs of tyle, and slate. Half way between the rocks and brig, Eastle the rocks a canty inn Gives lodging, beer, and bread; Over the door it has the sign Of Mause the witch's head: 'Tis thirteen miles from Edinburgh, Upon the Biggar road; Which runs below the Pentland Hills, * See the preceding poem, on Peggy's Myll below The Carlyng's Loupis. Be-south the craigs the carline lived, So blithesome Ramsay tells, With towzled harigells: The tree still stands, where, like a stane, He stood in sight, and swithered lang Or he durst venture near: East from the inn, and rocks, And of west winds from Carlops Hill, It still can bear the shocks *. The craigs, be-north of Mause's hut, Directly intervene, And make a narrow pass, betwixt Beyond the green, half round it, south, * See the View of Mause's Cottage, and Roger's Habitation ; and the Map. Roger's Habitation was once used as an inn. See Dr Pennecuik's Description of Taceddale. Before that, it was the mansion of the estate; and after, in the days of Allan Ramsay, the farmstead to the whole lands of the Carlops, as one sheep walk, on their annexation to New Hall. Beneath a gently-rising bank, Till, ending in a swelling know, It opens to a haugh below, In distant vista, down this vale, The loyal friend of honest Glaud, Called on him at Monk's Haugh *. East, from this valley's southern edge, Behind the opening 'twixt the rocks, Its shelter on the north: See the View, and Description of Glaud's Onstead; and the Map. + See the Map. As far's the square, the houses line The street without a bend ; Upon this flat expanded spot, "Twixt Patie's Hill, and Roger's Rig, There pastoral flutes, with vernal glee, For the prize pipe contend ‡. Another in October's held, Upon its fifteenth day; This day, when Ramsay first drew breath, * See the Descriptions of Mause's Cottage; and The Lin Burn ; also the Almanacks. See the Map, for the site of Ramsay's Tower. These annual contests, among the shepherds of the Pentland Hills, at Ramsay's Tower in the spring, for a Scots pastoral flute, recall the days of Theocritus, and Virgil, and the competitions for the prize pipe, amidst the Arcadian scenes of Sicily, and Italy, which constitute the chief subjects of their Idyls, and Eclogues. To crowds, at e'en, amidst the scenes That gave his drama birth, The shepherds act it, to the life, And crown his fame with mirth *. The tents are pitched upon the heights And, to attract the dealers more, There gingerbread, and ribbons gay, The farmers hale their cattle bring; Sometimes the drums and streamand pipes, Whan thro' the fair the serjeant struts, * See the Description of Mause's Cottage, and Roger's Habitation; and, in NO. 6. of this Appendix, among the Popular Poems, the Prologue to The Gentle Shepherd, written by James Forrest, when it was acted at Roger's Rig, near the Carlops. |