We found Peebles a most interesting place, and the neighbourhood
immediately surrounding it was full of history. The site on which our
hotel had been built was that of the hostelage belonging to the Abbey of
Arbroath in 1317, the monks granting the hostelage to William Maceon, a
burgess of Peebles, on condition that he would give to them, and their
attorneys, honest lodging whenever business brought them to that town.
He was to let them have the use of the hall, with tables and trestles,
also the use of the spence (pantry) and buttery, sleeping chambers, a
decent kitchen, and stables, and to provide them with the best candles
of Paris, with rushes for the floor and salt for the table. In later
times it was the town house of Williamson of Cardrona, and in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries became one of the principal inns,
especially for those who, like ourselves, were travelling from the
north, and was conducted by a family named Ritchie. Sir Walter Scott,
who at that time resided quite near, frequented the house, which in his
day was called the "Yett," and we were shown the room he sat in. Miss
Ritchie, the landlady in Scott's day, who died in 1841, was the
prototype of "Meg Dobs," the inn being the "Cleikum Inn" of his novel
_St.
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