accurate on these points. John Borthwick, Esq. in a note to the
publisher, (June I1, 1813.) says that _Colmslie_ belonged to Mr.
Innes of Stow, while _Hillslap_ forms part of the estate of
Crookston. He adds--"In proof that the tower of Hillslap, which I have
taken measures to preserve from injury, was chiefly in his head, as
the tower of _Glendearg,_ when writing the Monastery, I may
mention that, on one of the occasions when I had the honour of being a
visiter at Abbotsford, the stables then being full, I sent a pony to
be put up at our tenant's at Hillslap:--'Well.' said Sir Walter, 'if
you do that, you must trust for its not being _lifted_ before
to-morrow, to the protection of Halbert Glendinning: against Christie
of the Clintshill.' At page 58, vol. iii., the first edition, the
'_winding_ stair' which the monk ascended is described. The
winding stone stair is still to be seen in Hillslap, but not in either
of the other two towers" It is. however, probable, from the
Goat's-Head crest on Colmslie, that that tower also had been of old a
possession of the Borthwicks.] a third, the house of Langshaw, also
ruinous, but near which the proprietor, Mr. Baillie of Jerviswood and
Mellerstain, has built a small shooting box.

All these ruins, so strangely huddled together in a very solitary
spot, have recollections and traditions of their own, but none of them
bear the most distant resemblance to the descriptions in the Romance
of the Monastery; and as the author could hardly have erred so grossly
regarding a spot within a morning's ride of his own house, the
inference is, that no resemblance was intended. Hillslap is remembered
by the humours of the last inhabitants, two or three elderly ladies,
of the class of Miss Raynalds, in the Old Manor House, though less
important by birth and fortune. Colmslie is commemorated in song:--