Page:A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland.djvu/145

Rh banks, amidst thick wood; about a mile from the town of Dalkeith.

Roslin! sweet Roslin!—even though on a gloomy afternoon, and a good deal of rain, I was charmed, I was enchanted, with its beauties. The chapel was the first thing seen, being very near the inn. Its outside appeared to me like a common looking kirk, with a tiny side door for an entrance. Certainly a larger one, at the end, must have once existed, though now walled up. At present there are only two small Gothic doors, opposite each other. No sooner had I passed the threshold, and entered the side aile, than I was struck with astonishment, at the beautiful structure and workmanship of the ceiling, and pillars; which, I suppose, were originally of a redish stone, which time and weather have changed and softened to a variety of most beautiful tints. This chapel was built in the purest age of Gothic architecture, by a Sinclair of Caithness; who married the daughter of Robert Bruce, King of Scotland. The chapel is a good way from the castle that was Sinclair's residence; which, in its time, must have been a place of great strength from its situation, on a point of a rock, inaccessible on every side but one, and that