Penelope's Progress: Her Experiences in Scotland. Part First. In Town

I.

EDINBURGH, April, 189-.

22, Breadalbane Terrace.

WE have traveled together before, Salemina, Francesca, and I, and we know the very worst there is to know about one another. After this point has been reached, it is as if a triangular marriage had taken place, and, with the honeymoon comfortably over, we slip along in thoroughly friendly fashion. I use no warmer word than “ friendly,” because, in the first place, the highest tides of feeling do not visit the coast of triangular alliances; and because, in the second place, “ friendly ” is a word capable of putting to the blush many a more passionate and endearing one.

Every one knows of our experiences in England last year, for we wrote volumes of letters concerning them, the which were widely circulated among our friends at the time and read aloud under the evening lamps in the several cities of our residence.

Since then few striking changes have taken place in our history.

Salemina returned to Boston for the winter, to find, to her amazement, that for forty-odd years she had been rather overestimating it.

On arriving in New York, Francesca discovered that the young lawyer whom for six months she had been advising to marry somebody “ more worthy than herself ” was at last about to do it. This was somewhat in the nature of a shock, for Francesca has been in the habit, ever since she was seventeen, of giving her lovers similar advice, and up to this time no one of them has ever taken it. She therefore has had the not unnatural hope, I think, of organizing at one time or another all these disappointed and faithful swains into a celibate brotherhood ; and perhaps of driving by the interesting monastery with her husband and calling his attention modestly to the fact that these poor monks were filling their barren lives with deeds of piety, trying to remember their Creator with such assiduity that they might, in time, forget Her.

Her chagrin was all the keener at losing this last aspirant to her hand in that she had almost persuaded herself that she was as fond of him as she was likely to be of anybody, and that, on the whole, she had better marry him and save his life and reason.

Fortunately she had not communicated this gleam of hope by letter, feeling, I suppose, that she would like to see for herself the light of joy breaking over his pale cheek. The scene would have been rather pretty and touching, but meantime the Worm had turned and dispatched a letter to the Majestic at the quarantine station, telling her that he had found a less reluctant bride in the person of her intimate friend Miss Rosa Van Brunt; and so Francesca’s dream of duty and sacrifice was over.

Salemina says she was somewhat constrained for a week and a trifle cynical for a fortnight, but that afterwards her spirits mounted on ever ascending spirals to impossible heights, where they have since remained. It appears from all this that although she was piqued at being taken at her word, her heart was not in the least damaged. It never was one of those fragile things which have to he wrapped in cotton, and preserved from the slightest blow — Francesca’s heart. It is made of excellent stout, durable material, and I often tell her with the care she takes of it, and the moderate strain to which it is subjected, it ought to be as good as new a hundred years hence.

As for me, the scene of my love story is laid in America and England, and has naught to do with Edinburgh. It is far from finished ; indeed, I hope it will be the longest serial on record, one of those charming tales that grow in interest as chapter after chapter unfolds, until at the end we feel as if we could never part with the dear people.

I should be, at this very moment, Mrs. William Beresford, a highly respectable young matron who painted rather good pictures in her spinster days, when she was Penelope Hamilton of the great American working-class, Unlimited ; hut first Mrs. Beresford’s dangerous illness and then her death have kept my dear boy a willing prisoner in Cannes, his heart sadly torn betwixt his love and duty to his mother and his desire to be with me. The separation is virtually over now, and we two, alas, have ne’er a mother or a father between us, so we shall not wait many months before beginning to comfort each other in good earnest.

Meantime Salemina and Francesca have persuaded me to join their forces, and Mr. Beresford will follow us to Scotland in a few short weeks when we shall have established ourselves in the country.

We are overjoyed at being together again, we three womenfolk. As I said before, we know the worst of one another, and the future has no terrors. We have learned, for example, that : —

Francesca does not like an early morning start. Salemina refuses to arrive late anywhere. Penelope prefers to stay behind and follow next day.

Francesca hates to travel third class. So does Salemina, but she will if urged.

Penelope likes substantial breakfasts. Francesca dislikes the sight of food in the morning.

Francesca would like to divide a pint of claret with Salemina. Salemina would rather split a bottle of beer with Penelope.

Penelope hates a four-wheeler. Salemina is nervous in a hansom. Francesca prefers a victoria.

Salemina likes a steady fire in the grate. Penelope opens a window and fans herself.

Salemina inclines to instructive and profitable expeditions. Francesca loves processions and sightseeing. Penelope abhors all of these equally.

Salemina likes history. Francesca loves fiction. Penelope adores poetry and detests facts.

This does not sound promising, but it works perfectly well in practice by the exercise of a little flexibility.

As we left dear old Dovermarle Street and Smith’s Private Hotel behind, and drove to the station to take the Flying Scotsman, we indulged in floods of reminiscence over the joys of travel we had tasted together in the past, and talked with lively anticipation of the new experiences awaiting us in the land o’ heather.

While Salemina went to purchase the three first-class tickets, I superintended the porters as they disposed our luggage in the van, and in so doing my eye lighted upon a third-class carriage which was, for a wonder, clean, comfortable, and vacant. Comparing it hastily with the first-class compartment being held by Francesca, I found that it differed only in having no carpet on the floor, and a smaller number of “squabs” or buttons in the upholstering. This was really heart-rending when the difference in fare for three persons would be at least twenty dollars. What a delightful sum to put aside for a rainy day ; that is, you understand, what a delightful sum to put aside and spend on the first rainy day; for that is the way we always interpret the expression.

When Salemina returned with the tickets, she found me, as usual, bewailing our extravagance.

Francesca descended suddenly from her post, and, snatching the tickets from her duenna, exclaimed, “ ‘ I know that I can save the country, and I know no other man can ! ’ as William Pitt said to the Duke of Devonshire. I have had enough of this argument . For six months of last year we discussed traveling third class and continued to travel first. Get into that clean, hard-seated, ill-upholstered third-class carriage immediately, both of you ; save room enough for a mother with two babies, a man carrying a basket of fish, and an old woman with five pieces of hand-luggage and a dog; meanwhile I will exchange the tickets.”

So saying, she disappeared rapidly among the throng of passengers, guards, porters, newspaper boys, golfers with bags of clubs, young ladies with bicycles and old ladies with tin hat-boxes.

“ What decision, what swiftness of judgment, what courage and energy ! ” murmured Salemina. “ Is n’t she wonderfully improved ? ”

Francesca rejoined us just as the guard was about to lock us in, and flung herself down, quite breathless from her unusual exertion.

“Well, we are traveling ‘third’ for once, and the money is saved, or at least it is ready to spend again at the first opportunity. The man didn’t wish to exchange the tickets at all. He says it is never done. I told him they were bought by a very inexperienced American lady (that is you, Salemina) who knew almost nothing of the distinctions between first and third class, and naturally took the best, believing it to be none too good for a citizen of the greatest republic on the face of the earth. He said the tickets had been stamped on. I said so should I be if I returned without exchanging them. He said it was a large sum of money for a railway company to return. I said it was a large sum for three poor Americans to expend simply for a few ‘ squabs.’ I said that was extremely dear for game at any season. He was a very dense person, and did n’t see my joke at all, but that may have been because ‘ squabs ’ is an American upholsterism or an upholsterer’s Americanism, and perhaps squabs are not game in England; and then there were thirteen men in line behind me, with the train starting in three minutes, and there is nothing so debilitating to a naturally weak sense of humor as selling tickets behind a grating, so I am not really vexed with him. There ! we are quite comfortable, pending the arrival of the babies, the dog, and the fish, and certainly no vender of periodic literature will dare approach us while we keep these Books in evidence.”

She had Royal Edinburgh, by Mrs. Oliphant; I had Lord Cockburn’s Memorials of his time ; and somebody had given Salemina, at the moment of leaving London, a work on “ Scotia’s darlingseat ” in three huge volumes. When all this printed matter was heaped on the top of Salemina’s hold-all on the platform, the guard had asked, “ Do you belong to these books, mam ?

“ We may consider ourselves injured in going from London to Edinburgh in a third - class carriage in eight or ten hours, hut listen to this,’said Salemina, who had opened one of her large volumes at random when the train started.

“ ‘ The Edinburgh and London StageCoach begins on Monday, 13th October. 1712. All that desire ... let them repair to the Coach and Horses at the head of the Canongate every Saturday, or the Black Swan in Holborn every other Monday, at both of which places they may be received in a coach which performs the whole journey in thirteen days without any stoppage (if God permits), having eighty able horses. Each passenger paying £4 10s. for the whole journey, alowing each 20 lbs. weight and all above to pay 6d. per lb. The coach sets off at six in the morning ’ (you could never have caught it. Francesca!), ‘and is performed by Henry Harrison.’ And here is a ‘ modern improvement,’ fortytwo years later. In July, 1754, the Edinburgh Courant advertises the stagecoach drawn by six horses, with a postilion on one of the leaders, as a ' new, genteel, two - end glass machine, hung on steel springs, exceeding light and easy, to go in ten days in summer and twelve in winter. Passengers to pay as usual. Performed (if God permits) by your dutiful servant, Hosea Eastgate. Care is taken of small parcels according to their value.' ”

“It would have been a long, wearisome journey,” said I contemplatively; “ but, nevertheless, I wish we were making it in 1712 instead of a century and three quarters later.”

“ What would have been happening, Salemina?” asked Francesca politely.

“ The Union had been already established five years,” began Salemina intelligently.

“ Which Union ? ”

“ Whose Union ? ”

Salemina is used to these interruptions and eruptions of illiteracy on our part. I think she rather enjoys them, as in the presence of such complete ignorance as ours her lamp of knowledge burns all the brighter.

“ Anne was on the throne,” she went on with serene dignity.

“ What Anne ? ”

“ I know the Anne ! ” exclaimed Francesca excitedly. “ She came from the Midnight Sun country, or up that way. She was very extravagant, and had something to do with Jingling Geordie in The Fortunes of Nigel. It is marvelous how one’s history comes back to one ! ”

“ Quite marvelous,” said Salemina dryly ; “ or at least the state in which it comes back is marvelous. I am not a stickler for dates, as you know, but if you could only contrive to fix a few periods in your minds, girls, just in a general way, you would not be so shamefully befogged. Your Anne of Denmark was the wife of James VI. of Scotland, who was James I. of England, and she died a hundred years before the Anne I mean, — the last of the Stuarts, you know. My Anne came after William and Mary, and before the Georges.”

“ Which William and Mary ? ”

“ What Georges? ”

But this was too much even for Salemina’s equanimity, and she retired behind her book in dignified displeasure, while Francesca and I meekly looked up the Annes in a genealogical table, and tried to decide whether " b. 1665 ” meant born or beheaded.

II.

The weather that greeted us on our unheralded arrival in Scotland was of the precise sort offered by Edinburgh to her unfortunate queen, when

John Knox records of those memorable days : " The very face of heaven did manifestlie speak what comfort was brought to this country with hir — to wit, sorrow, dolour, darkness and all impiety — for in the memorie of man never was seen a more dolorous face of the heavens than was at her arryvall . . . the myst was so thick that skairse micht onie man espy another; and the sun was not seyn to shyne two days befoir nor two days after.”

We could not see Edina’s famous palaces and towers because of the haar, that damp, chilling, drizzling, dripping fog or mist which the east wind summons from the sea; but we knew that they were there, shrouded in the heart of the opaque mysterious grayness, and that before many hours our eyes would feast upon their beauty.

Perhaps it was the weather, but I could think of nothing but poor Queen Mary ! She had drifted into my imagination with the haar, so that I could fancy her homesick gaze across the water as she murmured, " Adieu, ma chère France! Je ne vous verray jamais plus ! ” — could fancy her saying as in Allan Cunningham’s verse : —

And then I recalled Mary’s first goodnight in Edinburgh: that " serenade of 500 rascals with vile fiddles and rebecks ; ” that singing, " in had accord,” of Protestant psalms by the wet crowd beneath the palace windows, while the fires on Arthur’s Seat shot flickering gleams of welcome through the dreary fog. What a lullaby for poor Mary, half Frenchwoman and all Papist!

It is but just to remember John Knox’s statement, " the melody lyked her weill and she willed the same to be continewed some nightis after.” For my part, however, I distrust John Knox’s musical feeling, and incline sympathetically to the Sieur de Brantôme’s account, with its " vile fiddles ” and " discordant psalms,” although his judgment was doubtless a good deal depressed by what be called the si grand brauillard that so dampened the spirits of Mary’s French retinue.

Ah well, I was obliged to remember, in order to be reasonably happy myself, that Mary had a gay heart, after all; that she was but nineteen ; that, though already a widow, she did not mourn her young husband as one who could not be comforted ; and that she must soon have been furnished with merrier music than the psalms, for another of the sour comments of the time is, " Our Queen weareth the dule [weeds], hut she can dance daily, dule and all ! ”

These were my thoughts as we drove through invisible streets in the Edinburgh haar, turned into what proved, next day, to be a Crescent, and drew up to an invisible house with a visible number 22 gleaming over a door which gaslight transformed into a probability. We alighted, and though we could scarcely discern the driver’s outstretched hand, he was quite able to discern a half-crown, and demanded three shillings.

The noise of our cab had brought Mrs. M’Collop to the door, — good (or at least pretty good) Mrs. M’Collop, to whose apartments we had been commended by English friends who had never occupied them.

Dreary as it was without, all was comfortable within doors, and a cheery (oneand-sixpenny) fire crackled in the grate. Our private drawing-room was charmingly furnished, and so large that notwithstanding the presence of a piano, two sofas, five small tables, cabinets, desks, and chairs, — not forgetting a dainty five-o’clock tea equipage, — we might have given a party in the remaining space.

“ If this is a typical Scotch lodging I like it; and if it is Scotch hospitality to lay the cloth and make the fire before it is asked for, then I call it simply Arabian in character! ” and Salemina drew off her damp gloves, and extended her hands to the blaze.

“And is n’t it delightful that the bill does n’t come in for a whole week ? ” asked Francesca. “ We have only our English experiences on which to found our knowledge, and all is delicious mystery. The tea may be a present from Mrs. M’Collop, and the sugar may not be an extra ; the fire may be included in the rent of the apartment, and the piano may not be taken away to-morrow to enhance the attractions of the diningroom floor.” (It was Francesca, you remember, who had “ warstled ” with the itemized accounts at Smith’s Private Hotel in London, and she who was always obliged to turn pounds, shillings, and pence into dollars and cents before she could add or subtract.)

“ Come and look at the flowers in my bedroom,” I called, “ four great boxes full! Mr. Beresford must have ordered the carnations, because he always does ; but where did the roses come from, I wonder ? ”

I rang the bell, and a neat whiteaproned maid appeared.

“ Who brought these flowers, please ? ”

“ I couldna say, mam.”

“ Thank you; will you be good enough to ask Mrs. M’Collop P ”

In a moment she returned with the message, “ There will be a letter in the box, mam.”

“ It seems to me the letter should be in the box now, if it is ever to be,” I thought, and I presently drew this card from among the fragrant buds : —

“ Lady Baird sends these Scotch roses as a small return for the pleasure she has received from Miss Hamilton’s pictures. Lady Baird hopes that Miss Hamilton and her party will dine with her some evening this week.”

“ How nice ! ”

“ The celebrated Miss Hamilton’s undistinguished party presents its humble compliments to Lady Baird,” chanted Francesca, “ and having no engagements whatever, and small hope of any, will dine with her on any and every evening she may name, Miss Hamilton’s party will wear its best clothes, polish its mental jewels, and endeavor in every possible way not to injure the gifted Miss Hamilton’s reputation among the Scottish nobility.”

I wrote a hasty note of acceptance and thanks to Lady Baird, and rang the bell.

“ Can I send a message, please ? ” I asked the maid.

“ I couldna sayr, mam.”

“ Will you be good enough to ask Mrs. M’Collop, please ? ”

Interval ; then : —

“ The Boots will tak’ it at acht o’clock, mam.”

“ Thank you ; is Fotheringay Crescent near here ? ”

“ I couldna say, mam.”

“ Thank you; what is your name, please ? ”

I waited in well-grounded anxiety, for I had no idea that she knew her name, or that if she had ever heard it, she could say it ; but, to my surprise, she answered almost immediately, “ Susanna Crum, mam !”

What a joy it is in a vexatious world, where things “ gang aft agley,”to find something absolutely right.

If I had devoted years to the subject, having the body of Susanna Crum before my eyes every minute of the time for inspiration, Susanna Crum is what I should have named that maid. Not a vowel could be added, not a consonant omitted. I said so when first I saw her, and weeks of intimate acquaintance only deepened my reverence for the parental genius that had so described her to the world.

III.

When we awoke next morning the sun was shining in at Mrs. M’Collop’s back windows.

We should have arisen at once to burn sacrifices and offer oblations, but we had seen the sun frequently in America, and had no idea (poor fools !) that it was anything to be grateful for, so we accepted it, almost without comment, as one of the perennial providences of life.

When I speak of Edinburgh sunshine I do not mean, of course, any such burning, whole-souled, ardent warmth of beam as one finds in countries where they make a specialty of climate. It is, generally speaking, a half-hearted, uncertain ray, as pale and as transitory as a martyr’s smile, but its faintest gleam, or its most puerile attempt to gleam, is admired and recorded by its well-disciplined constituency. Not only that, but at the first timid blink of the sun the true Scotsman remarks smilingly, “ I think now we shall be having settled weather ! ” It is a pathetic optimism, beautiful but quite groundless, and leads one to believe in the story that when Father Noah refused to take Sandy into the ark, he sat down philosophically outside, saying. “ I 'll no be fashed; the day ’s jist aboot the ord’nar’, an’ I wouldna won’er if we saw the sun afore nicht! ”

But what loyal son of Edina cares for these transatlantic gibes, and where is the dweller within her royal gates who fails to succumb to the sombre beauty of that old gray town of the North ? “ Gray ! why, it is gray, or gi’ay and gold, or gray and gold and blue, or gray and gold and blue and green, or gray and gold and blue and green and purple, according as the heaven pleases and you choose your ground ! But take it when it is most sombrely gray, where is another such gray city ? ”

So says one of her lovers, and so the great army of lovers would say, had they the same gift of language ; for

We ate a hasty breakfast that first morning, and prepared to go out for a walk into the great unknown, perhaps the most pleasurable sensation in the world. Francesca was ready first, and having mentioned the fact several times ostentatiously, she went into the drawing-room to wait and read The Scotsman. When we went thither a few minutes later we found that she had disappeared.

“ She is below, of course,” said Salemina. “ She fancies that we shall feel more ashamed at our tardiness if we find her sitting on the hall bench in silent martyrdom.”

There was no one in the hall, however, save Susanna, who inquired if we would see the cook before going out.

“We have no time now, Susanna,” I said. “We are anxious to have a walk before the weather changes, but we shall be out for luncheon and in for dinner, and Mrs. M’Collop may give us anything she pleases. Do you know where Miss Francesca is ? ”

“ I couldna s— ”

“ Certainly, of course you could n’t;

I wonder if Mrs. M’Collop saw her ? ”

Mrs. M’Collop appeared from the basement, and vouchsafed the information that she had seen “ the young leddy rinnin’ after the regiment.”

“ Running after the regiment! ” repeated Salemina automatically. “ What a reversal of the laws of nature! Why, in Berlin, it was always the regiment that used to run after her ! ”

We learned in what direction the soldiers had gone, and pursuing the same path found the young lady on the corner of a street near by. She was quite unabashed. “ You don’t know what you have missed ! ” she said excitedly. “Let us get into this tram, and possibly we can head them off somewhere. They may be going into battle, and if so my heart’s blood is at their service. It is one of those experiences that come only once in a lifetime. There were pipes and there were kilts ! (I did n’t suppose they ever really wore them outside of the theatre !) When you have seen the kilts swinging, Salemina, you will never be the same woman afterwards ! You never expected to see the Olympian gods walking, did you P Perhaps you thought they always sat on practicable rocks and made stiff gestures from the elbow, as they do in the Wagner operas ? Well, these gods walked, if you can call the inspired gait a walk ! If there is a single spinster left in Scotland, it is because none of these ever asked her to marry him. Ah, how grateful I ought to be that I am free to say 1 yes,’ if a kilt ever asks me to be his ! Poor Penelope, yoked to your commonplace trousered Beresford ! (I wish the tram would go faster !) You must capture one of them, by fair means or foul, Penelope, and Salemina and I will hold him down while you paint him. There they are ! they are there somewhere, — don’t you hear them ? ”

There they were indeed, filing down the grassy slopes of the Gardens, swinging across one of the stone bridges, and winding up the Castle Hill to the Esplanade like a long, glittering snake ; the streamers of their Highland bonnets waving, their arms glistening in the sun, and the bagpipes playing The March of the Cameron Men. The pipers themselves were mercifully hidden from us on that first occasion, or we could never have borne the weight of ecstasy that possessed us.

It was in Princes Street that we had alighted, — named thus for the prince who afterwards became George IV.; and I hope he was, and is, properly grateful. It ought never to be called a street, this most magnificent of terraces, and the world has cause to bless that interdict of the Court of Sessions in 1774, which prevented the Gradgriiids of the day from erecting buildings along its south side, — a sordid scheme that makes one shudder in retrospect.

It was an envious Glasgow chiel who said grudgingly, as he came out of Waverley Station, and gazed along its splendid length, “Weel, wi’ a’ their yammerin’ aboot it, it’s but half a street, onyhow/”— which always reminded me of the Western farmer who came from his native plains to the beautiful Berkshire hills. “ I’ve always heard o’ this scenery,” he said. “ Blamed if I can find any scenery ; but if there was, nobody could see it, there’s so much high ground in the way ! ”

To think that not so much more than a hundred years ago Princes Street was naught but a straight country road, the “ Lang Dykes ” as it was called.

We looked down over the grassy chasm that separates the New from the Old Town; looked our first on Arthur’s Seat,—that grand and awful slope of hill, that crouching lion of a mountain ; saw the Corstorphine hills, and Calton Heights, and Salisbury Crags, and finally that stupendous bluff of rock that culminates so majestically in the Castle. There is something else which, like Susanna Crum’s name, is absolutely and ideally right! If there is a human creature who can stand in Princes Street for the first time and look at Edinburgh Castle without being ready to swoon with joy, he ought to be condemned to live in a prairie village for the rest of his life.

The men who would have the courage to build such a castle in such a spot are all dead ; all dead, and the world is infinitely more comfortable without them. They are all gone, and no more like unto them will ever be born, and we can most of us count upon dying safely in our beds, of diseases bred of modern civilization. But I am glad that those old barbarians, those rudimentary creatures working their way up into the divine likeness, when they were not hanging, drawing, quartering, torturing, and chopping their neighbors, and using their heads in conventional patterns on the tops of gateposts, did devote their leisure intervals to rearing fortresses like this. Why, Edinburgh Castle could not be conceived, much less built, nowadays, when all our energy is consumed in bettering the condition of the “submerged tenth”! What did they care about the “ masses,” that “ regal race that is now no more,” when they were hewing those blocks of rugged rock and piling them against the sky-line on the top of that great stone mountain ! It amuses me to think how much more picturesque they left the world, and how much better we shall leave it; though if an artist were requested to distribute individual awards to different generations, you could never persuade him to give first prizes to the centuries that produced steam laundries and sanitary plumbing.

What did they reck of peace congresses and bloodless arbitrations when they lighted the bale-fires on the beacons, flaming out to the gudeman and his sons ploughing or sowing in the Lang Dykes the news that their “ ancient enemies of England had crossed the Tweed ”!

I am the most peaceful person in the world, but the Castle was too much for my imagination. I was mounted and off and away from the first moment I gazed upon its embattled towers, heard the pipers in the distance, and saw the old 79th swinging up the green steeps where the huge fortress “ holds its state.” The modern world had vanished, and my steed was galloping, galloping back into the plaee-of-the-things-that-are-past, traversing centuries at every leap.

“ To arms ! Let every banner in Scotland float defiance to the breeze ! ” (So I heard my new-born imaginary spirit say to my real one.) “ Yes, and let the Deacon Convener unfurl the sacred Blue Blanket, under which every liege burgher of the kingdom is bound to answer summons ! The bale-fires are gleaming, giving alarm to Hume, Haddington, Dunbar, Dalkeith, and Eggerhope. Rise, Stirling, Fife, and the North! All Scotland will be under arms in two hours. One balefire: the English are in motion! Two: they are advancing! Four in a row: they are of great strength ! All men in arms west of Edinburgh muster there! All eastward, at Haddington! And every Englishman caught in Scotland is lawfully the prisoner of whoever takes him ! ” (What am I saying? I love Englishmen, but the spell is upon me !) “ Come on, Macduff! ” (The only personal challenge my warlike tenant can summon at the moment.) “ I am the son of a Gael! My dagger is in my belt, and with the guid broadsword at my side I can with one blow cut a man in twain! My bow is cut from the wood of the yews of Glenure ; the shaft is from the wood of Lochetive, the feathers from the great golden eagles of Lochtreigside! My arrowhead was made by the smiths of the race of Macphedran ! Come on, Macduff ! And cursed be he who first cries, ‘ Hold, enough! ’ ”

And now a shopkeeper has filled his window with royal Stuart tartans, and I am instantly a Jacobite.

It is the eve of the battle of Prestonpans. Is it not under the Rock of Dunsappie on yonder Arthur’s Seat that our Highland army will encamp to-night ? At dusk the prince will hold a council of his chiefs and nobles (I am a chief and a noble), and at daybreak we shall march through the old hedgerows and woods of Duddingston, pipes playing and colors Hying, bonnie Charlie at the head, his claymore drawn and the scabbard flung away ! (I mean awa’ !)

(O shades of Washington, Lincoln, and Janies K. Polk, forgive me ! I am not responsible ; I am under the glamour !)

I hope that those in authority will never attempt to convene a peace congress in Edinburgh, lest the influence of the Castle be too strong for the delegates. They could not resist it nor turn their backs upon it, since, unlike other ancient fortresses, it is but a stone’s throw from the front windows of all the hotels. They might mean never so well, but they would end by buying dirk hat-pins and claymore brooches for their wives, their daughters would all run after the kilted regiment and marry as many of the pipers as asked them, and before night they would all be shouting with the noble Fitz-Eustace,

While I was rhapsodizing, Salemina and Francesca were shopping in the Arcade, buying some of the cairn-gorms and Tam o’ Shanter purses and models of Burns’s cottage and copies of Marmion in plaided tartan covers and thistle belt-buckles and bluebell penwipers, with which we afterwards inundated our native land. I sat down on the steps of the Scott monument and watched the passers-by in a sort of waking dream. I suppose they were the usual professors and doctors and ministers who are wont to walk up and down the Edinburgh streets, with a sprinkling of lairds and leddies of high degree and a few Americans looking at the shop windows to choose their clan-tartans; but for me they did not exist. In their places stalked the ghosts of kings and queens and knights and nobles : Columba, Abbot of Iona; Queen Margaret and Malcolm — she the sweetest saint in all the throng ; King David riding towards Drumsheugh forest on Holy Rood-day with his horns and hounds and huntsmen following close behind ; Anne of Denmark and Jingling Geordie ; Mary Stuart in all her girlish beauty with the four Maries in her train; John Knox in his black Geneva cloak; Bonnie Prince Charlie and Flora Macdonald ; lovely Annabella Drummond ; Robert the Bruce; James I. carrying The King’s Quair; Oliver Cromwell; and a long line of heroes, martyrs, humble saints, and princely knaves.

Behind them, regardless of precedence, came Robbie Burns and the Ettrick Shepherd, Boswell and Dr. Johnson, Dr. John Brown and Thomas Carlyle, Lady Nairne and Drummond of Hawthornden, Allan Ramsay and Sir Walter ; and is it not a proof of the Wizard’s magic art that side by side with the wraiths of these real people walked, or seemed to walk, the Fair Maid of Perth, Jeanie Deans, Meg Merrilies, Guy Mannering, Ellen, Marmion, and a host of others so sweetly familiar and so humanly dear that the very street laddies could have named and greeted them as they passed ?

Kate Douglas Wiggin.

(To be continued.)