Perthshire in bygone days

THE IEELANDS OF MILNHOLE. 573
was more natural than that the Lynedoch family (who
had, no doubt, many domestics) should erect a bower on
Burnbrae ; and without suspicion that they were to be the
sole victims, the two young ladies may have been mainly
instrumental in devising and erecting it. Every pre-
caution may have been used by the household ; but if
Mary's lover came to her out of the vortex of the disease,
nothing was more likely than that he would carry infection
to her, and that she, along with the friend of her bosom,
would become tenants of the bower that they had biggit.
This does not violate the terms of the legend, but acquits
the young ladies of selfishness and the other members of
their families of cruel neglect. The mind revolts from the
implied accusation that the parents left their children to
perish, or that the girls left their homes to starve in the
midst of a wood, while they were in perfect health, merely
because they were in the neighbourhood of disease ; but
when the pestilence came, the law of submission would
assert itself, and the affectionate and much beloved daughter
would have to put on her final robe and wend her way to
the little lazar-house that erewhile her tender hands had
assisted in building on " yon burn-brae."
CHAPTEE II.
THE IEELANDS OF MILNHOLE.
" For why ? because the good old rule
Sufliceth them, the simple plan
That they may take who have the power,
And they may keep who can."
WOItDSWORTH.
This somewhat pestilent family had their residence for
many years on the northern bank of the little river Shochie,
about a mile to the westward of the parish church of
Moneydie. Some relics of it are still scattered about, and
there are men yet alive who remember a portion of the
house still standing. It occupied a finely-sheltered nook of
earth on the north-east corner of what is now the estate of