George, first Lord Forrester, having no male issue, made an arrangement whereby his son-in-law, James Baillie, was to succeed him as second Lord Forrester and proprietor of the estate of Corstorphine.  Just four years after this compact was made, Lord Forrester died, and James Baillie, a young man of twenty-five, succeeded to the title and property.  But this arrangement did not meet with the approval of Lord Forrester’s daughters, who regarded it as a manifest injustice that the honours of their ancient family should devolve on an alien—­a feeling of dissatisfaction which was more particularly nourished by the third daughter, Lady Hamilton, whose husband was far from wealthy.

It so happened that Lady Hamilton had a daughter, Christian, who was noted for her rare beauty and high spirit.  But, unfortunately, she was a girl of strong passion, which, added to her self-will, caused her, when she had barely arrived at a marriageable age, to engage herself to one James Nimmo, the son of an Edinburgh merchant.  Before many weeks had elapsed, the young couple were married, and the handsome young wife was settled in her new home in Edinburgh.  Time wore on, the novelty of marriage died away, and as Mrs. Nimmo dwelt on her mercantile surroundings, she recognised more and more what an ill-assorted match she had made, and in her excitable mind, “she cursed the bond which connected her with a man whose social position she despised, and whose occupations she scorned.”  The report, however, of her uncommon beauty, could not fail to reach the ears of young Lord Forrester, who on the score of relationship was often attracted to Mrs. Nimmo’s house.  At first he was received with coldness, but, by flattering and appealing to her vanity, he gradually “accomplished the ruin of this unhappy young woman,” and made her the victim of his licentious and unprincipled designs.

But no long time had elapsed when this shameful intrigue became the subject of common talk, and public indignation took the side of the injured woman, when Lord Forrester, after getting tired of her, “was so cruel and base as to speak of her openly in the most opprobrious manner,” even alluding to her criminal connection with him.  In so doing, however, he had not taken into consideration the violent character of the woman he had wronged, nor thought he of her jealousy, wounded pride, and despair.  In his haste, also, to rid himself of the woman who no longer fascinated him, he paid no heed to the passion that was lurking in her inflamed bosom, nor counted on her spretae injuria formae.

On the other hand, whilst he was forgetting the past in his orgies, Mrs. Nimmo—­whose love for him was turned to the bitterest hate—­was hourly reproaching him, and at last the fatal moment arrived when she felt bound to proceed to Corstorphine Castle, and confront her evil-doer.  At the time, Lord Forrester was drinking at the village tavern, and, when the infuriated woman demanded to see him, he was flushed with claret, and himself in no amiable mood.  The altercation, naturally, “soon became violent, bitter reproaches were uttered on the one side, and contemptuous sneers on the other.”  Goaded to frenzy, the unhappy woman stabbed her paramour to the heart, killing him instantly.