ALDIE CASTLE FOURTH PERIOD the plan of the building would present very much the character of that of many modern houses. The elevations (Figs. 917 and 9 18) of the additions are extremely plain, probably late seventeenth-century work. The settle shown on Fig. 916 stands in the hall; such pieces of furniture are rare in abandoned Scottish houses. Nothing but its frame- work remains ; the back was evidently filled in, probably with leather. The sinking of the interlacing circle-work has been picked out in red. I I FIG. 918. Alclie Castle. View from the South-West. Aldie was acquired by the Mercers, it is believed, about the middle of the fourteenth century, as the portion of Aldia Murray, daughter of Sir William Murray of Tullibardine. According to the Statistical Account the place was named after the lady, and the Mercers assumed the star or mullet of the Murrays as part of their arms, which are : or, on a fesse between three cross pattees in chief gules, and a star in base azure, three besants of the first, supported by two savages with steel caps on their heads, holding batons downward before their legs, and standing on a compartment with these words, Crux Christi nostra corona, " which supporters," says Nisbet, writing nearly two hundred years ago, " are to
