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A portion of the same building, accessible by a stair nearer the head of the close, contained a hall-like apartment, with other apartments, all remarkable for their unusually lofty ceilings. In the large room were the remains of a spacious decorated chimney, to which, in the recollection of persons still living, there had been attached a chain, serving to confine the tongs to their proper domain. This was the memorial of an old custom, of which it is not easy to see the utility, unless some light be held as thrown upon it by a Scottish proverb, used when a child takes a thing and says he found it: ‘You found it, I suppose, where the Highlandman found the tongs.’ In the centre of almost all the ceilings of this part of the mansion I found, in 1824, circular entablatures, with coats of arms and other devices, in stucco, evidently of good workmanship, but obscured by successive coats of whitening.

The place pointed out by tradition as the queen-regent’s oratory was in the first-floor of the building opposite—a spacious and lofty hall, with large windows designed to make up for the obscurity of the close. Here, besides a finely carved piscina, was a pretty large recess, of Gothic structure, in the back-wall, evidently designed for keeping things of importance. Many years ago, out of the wall behind this recess, there had been taken a small iron box, such as might have been employed to keep jewellery, but empty. I was the means of its being gifted to Sir Walter Scott, who had previously told me that ‘a passion for such little boxes was one of those that most did beset him;’ and it is now in the collection at Abbotsford.