When Robert attempts to flee the persecution of Gil-Martin, he takes a path south that leads him through Midlothian and Roxburghshire, then back northwards through Selkirkshire. This map shows the places that Robert stops off at: (A) is Edinburgh; (B) is Chesters; (C) is Ancrum; (D) is Altrive; (E) is Cowan’s Croft.

 

The end of Robert’s journey sees him arrive very close to Ettrick where James Hogg spent most of his life. Once a royal hunting ground for the Scottish monarchy, it had since become a sheep-farming district, all rolling hillside studded with farms. The transformation deprived the area of much of its former forest but it retained the strong oral tradition it had accrued during its earlier incarnation. Hogg gathered from this a rich store of folklore that was to furnish his tales, and Ettrick and its neighbouring areas exert a strong presence in much of his writing.

 

 

 

Most of the action in Private Memoirs takes place in Edinburgh. In the late 17 ^th to early 18 ^th century, this was still a relatively small settlement restricted to one main street (now called the Royal Mile). Various dark, narrow alleys (or, to use the Scots terms, wynds and closes) issued from this thoroughfare, housing a rapidly expanding population that grew from 25–30,000 people in the 1660s to around 45,000 by 1700. To the west of the city was Edinburgh Castle, an ancient fortress which still dominates the skyline today. To the east lay Holyrood Park, a former royal hunting estate riddled with lochs, glens, hills and rocky cliffs. At the centre of this is Arthur’s Seat, the highest peak in Edinburgh and site of one of the most terrifying scenes in Private Memoirs.

 

Linlithgow is an ancient town in the central Scottish lowlands. It lies roughly 20 miles to the west of Edinburgh.

 

Peebles is a town in the Scottish Borders situated on the edge of the River Tweed. It lies approximately 23 miles south of Edinburgh.

 

Penpont is a small town in Nithsdale, Dumfries and Galloway. Why Robert deems the name so ludicrous is not quite clear.

During Hogg’s time, West Port was a street in the former burgh of barony, Portsburgh. It is now a part of Edinburgh and lies just south of the castle.

 

Chesters is a hamlet of Hawick in the Scottish Borders.

This refers to Allan Water, a river which joins the Tweed just east of Selkirk. The Tweed itself is a 97-mile long river which begins in the Southern Uplands of Scotland, forms the Scottish-English border for 17 miles and empties in the North Sea in Berwick, north-east England.

 

The point where Allan Water joins the River Tweed.

Ancrum is a small village in the Scottish Borders.

 

A valley in the western part of Northumberland. Chesters is only a few miles above the border of Redesdale, so Gil-Martin is dauntingly nearby. The fact that he is inquiring about Robert’s whereabouts from a point further south than Robert himself has reached suggests he is both pursuing and lying in wait. Robert, therefore, is effectively surrounded.

  

Also known as Altrive, Altrieve and Eltrive (as the Editor calls it on page 231), this was formerly a farm in the Yarrow Valley near Selkirk about 22 miles north-west of Chesters. Hogg himself lived and worked here for 21 years until his death in 1835.

 

 

Roberton is a rural parish straddling the county boundaries of Selkirk and Roxburgh.

 

 

Hart Leap is a pass connecting the Ettrick and Yarrow valleys.