than a hundred feet to the narrow passage, or abyss, where the Esk makes its way. This mansion, the seat of Sir Francis Drummond Walker, is a modern structure, but there are broken arches and moss-grown relics of an ancient baronial building, rudely, but strongly fortified.
"Where erst his library he stored."
There are a number of compartments of a honeycomb form, cut in the wall of the caves to which you descend, which bear the name of King Robert Bruce's Library. His sword also is shown at the mansion.
"And pealing from those caverns drear,
In old disastrous times."
In those dens and subterranean galleries the Cov- enanters, in the days of "Old Mortality," found refuge. From thence also Sir Alexander Ramsay issued forth, and performed some memorable exploits, during the contests between Bruce and Baliol.
"And there's the Oak, beneath whose shade
He welcomed tuneful Ben."
Drummond usually composed his poems in a romantic nook, scooped from the face of the cliff, and embosomed in hawthorn. But when Ben Jonson came
