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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/382-0.txt b/382-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..787a27b --- /dev/null +++ b/382-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2352 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Edinburgh, by Robert Louis Stevenson + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Edinburgh + Picturesque Notes + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: November 5, 2010 [eBook #382] +[This file was first posted on February 12, 1995] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDINBURGH*** + + +Transcribed from the 1903 Seeley & Co. Ltd. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + EDINBURGH + + + _Picturesque Notes_ + _by_ + Robert Louis Stevenson + + * * * * * + + _People’s Edition_. + + * * * * * + + LONDON + SEELEY & CO. LTD., 38 GREAT RUSSELL STREET + 1903 + + + + +CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. + + +The ancient and famous metropolis of the North sits overlooking a windy +estuary from the slope and summit of three hills. No situation could be +more commanding for the head city of a kingdom; none better chosen for +noble prospects. From her tall precipice and terraced gardens she looks +far and wide on the sea and broad champaigns. To the east you may catch +at sunset the spark of the May lighthouse, where the Firth expands into +the German Ocean; and away to the west, over all the carse of Stirling, +you can see the first snows upon Ben Ledi. + +But Edinburgh pays cruelly for her high seat in one of the vilest +climates under heaven. She is liable to be beaten upon by all the winds +that blow, to be drenched with rain, to be buried in cold sea fogs out of +the east, and powdered with the snow as it comes flying southward from +the Highland hills. The weather is raw and boisterous in winter, shifty +and ungenial in summer, and a downright meteorological purgatory in the +spring. The delicate die early, and I, as a survivor, among bleak winds +and plumping rain, have been sometimes tempted to envy them their fate. +For all who love shelter and the blessings of the sun, who hate dark +weather and perpetual tilting against squalls, there could scarcely be +found a more unhomely and harassing place of residence. Many such aspire +angrily after that Somewhere-else of the imagination, where all troubles +are supposed to end. They lean over the great bridge which joins the New +Town with the Old—that windiest spot, or high altar, in this northern +temple of the winds—and watch the trains smoking out from under them and +vanishing into the tunnel on a voyage to brighter skies. Happy the +passengers who shake off the dust of Edinburgh, and have heard for the +last time the cry of the east wind among her chimney-tops! And yet the +place establishes an interest in people’s hearts; go where they will, +they find no city of the same distinction; go where they will, they take +a pride in their old home. + +[Picture: Gate of Holyrood] Venice, it has been said, differs from +another cities in the sentiment which she inspires. The rest may have +admirers; she only, a famous fair one, counts lovers in her train. And, +indeed, even by her kindest friends, Edinburgh is not considered in a +similar sense. These like her for many reasons, not any one of which is +satisfactory in itself. They like her whimsically, if you will, and +somewhat as a virtuoso dotes upon his cabinet. Her attraction is +romantic in the narrowest meaning of the term. Beautiful as she is, she +is not so much beautiful as interesting. She is pre-eminently Gothic, +and all the more so since she has set herself off with some Greek airs, +and erected classic temples on her crags. In a word, and above all, she +is a curiosity. The Palace of Holyrood has been left aside in the growth +of Edinburgh, and stands grey and silent in a workman’s quarter and among +breweries and gas works. It is a house of many memories. Great people +of yore, kings and queens, buffoons and grave ambassadors, played their +stately farce for centuries in Holyrood. Wars have been plotted, dancing +has lasted deep into the night,—murder has been done in its chambers. +There Prince Charlie held his phantom levees, and in a very gallant +manner represented a fallen dynasty for some hours. Now, all these +things of clay are mingled with the dust, the king’s crown itself is +shown for sixpence to the vulgar; but the stone palace has outlived these +charges. For fifty weeks together, it is no more than a show for +tourists and a museum of old furniture; but on the fifty-first, behold +the palace reawakened and mimicking its past. The Lord Commissioner, a +kind of stage sovereign, sits among stage courtiers; a coach and six and +clattering escort come and go before the gate; at night, the windows are +lighted up, and its near neighbours, the workmen, may dance in their own +houses to the palace music. And in this the palace is typical. There is +a spark among the embers; from time to time the old volcano smokes. +Edinburgh has but partly abdicated, and still wears, in parody, her +metropolitan trappings. Half a capital and half a country town, the +whole city leads a double existence; it has long trances of the one and +flashes of the other; like the king of the Black Isles, it is half alive +and half a monumental marble. There are armed men and cannon in the +citadel overhead; you may see the troops marshalled on the high parade; +and at night after the early winter even-fall, and in the morning before +the laggard winter dawn, the wind carries abroad over Edinburgh the sound +of drums and bugles. Grave judges sit bewigged in what was once the +scene of imperial deliberations. Close by in the High Street perhaps the +trumpets may sound about the stroke of noon; and you see a troop of +citizens in tawdry masquerade; tabard above, heather-mixture trowser +below, and the men themselves trudging in the mud among unsympathetic +by-standers. The grooms of a well-appointed circus tread the streets +with a better presence. And yet these are the Heralds and Pursuivants of +Scotland, who are about to proclaim a new law of the United Kingdom +before two-score boys, and thieves, and hackney-coachmen. Meanwhile +every hour the bell of the University rings out over the hum of the +streets, and every hour a double tide of students, coming and going, +fills the deep archways. And lastly, one night in the springtime—or say +one morning rather, at the peep of day—late folk may hear voices of many +men singing a psalm in unison from a church on one side of the old High +Street; and a little after, or perhaps a little before, the sound of many +men singing a psalm in unison from another church on the opposite side of +the way. There will be something in the words above the dew of Hermon, +and how goodly it is to see brethren dwelling together in unity. And the +late folk will tell themselves that all this singing denotes the +conclusion of two yearly ecclesiastical parliaments—the parliaments of +Churches which are brothers in many admirable virtues, but not specially +like brothers in this particular of a tolerant and peaceful life. + +Again, meditative people will find a charm in a certain consonancy +between the aspect of the city and its odd and stirring history. Few +places, if any, offer a more barbaric display of contrasts to the eye. +In the very midst stands one of the most satisfactory crags in nature—a +Bass Rock upon dry land, rooted in a garden shaken by passing trains, +carrying a crown of battlements and turrets, and describing its war-like +shadow over the liveliest and brightest thoroughfare of the new town. +From their smoky beehives, ten stories high, the unwashed look down upon +the open squares and gardens of the wealthy; and gay people sunning +themselves along Princes Street, with its mile of commercial palaces all +beflagged upon some great occasion, see, across a gardened valley set +with statues, where the washings of the Old Town flutter in the breeze at +its high windows. And then, upon all sides, what a clashing of +architecture! In this one valley, where the life of the town goes most +busily forward, there may be seen, shown one above and behind another by +the accidents of the ground, buildings in almost every style upon the +globe. Egyptian and Greek temples, Venetian palaces and Gothic spires, +are huddled one over another in a most admired disorder; while, above +all, the brute mass of the Castle and the summit of Arthur’s Seat look +down upon these imitations with a becoming dignity, as the works of +Nature may look down the monuments of Art. But Nature is a more +indiscriminate patroness than we imagine, and in no way frightened of a +strong effect. The birds roost as willingly among the Corinthian +capitals as in the crannies of the crag; the same atmosphere and daylight +clothe the eternal rock and yesterday’s imitation portico; and as the +soft northern sunshine throws out everything into a glorified +distinctness—or easterly mists, coming up with the blue evening, fuse all +these incongruous features into one, and the lamps begin to glitter along +the street, and faint lights to burn in the high windows across the +valley—the feeling grows upon you that this also is a piece of nature in +the most intimate sense; that this profusion of eccentricities, this +dream in masonry and living rock, is not a drop-scene in a theatre, but a +city in the world of every-day reality, connected by railway and +telegraph-wire with all the capitals of Europe, and inhabited by citizens +of the familiar type, who keep ledgers, and attend church, and have sold +their immortal portion to a daily paper. By all the canons of romance, +the place demands to be half deserted and leaning towards decay; birds we +might admit in profusion, the play of the sun and winds, and a few +gipsies encamped in the chief thoroughfare; but these citizens with their +cabs and tramways, their trains and posters, are altogether out of key. +Chartered tourists, they make free with historic localities, and rear +their young among the most picturesque sites with a grand human +indifference. To see them thronging by, in their neat clothes and +conscious moral rectitude, and with a little air of possession that +verges on the absurd, is not the least striking feature of the place. +{10} + +And the story of the town is as eccentric as its appearance. For +centuries it was a capital thatched with heather, and more than once, in +the evil days of English invasion, it has gone up in flame to heaven, a +beacon to ships at sea. It was the jousting-ground of jealous nobles, +not only on Greenside, or by the King’s Stables, where set tournaments +were fought to the sound of trumpets and under the authority of the royal +presence, but in every alley where there was room to cross swords, and in +the main street, where popular tumult under the Blue Blanket alternated +with the brawls of outlandish clansmen and retainers. Down in the palace +John Knox reproved his queen in the accents of modern democracy. In the +town, in one of those little shops plastered like so many swallows’ nests +among the buttresses of the old Cathedral, that familiar autocrat, James +VI., would gladly share a bottle of wine with George Heriot the +goldsmith. Up on the Pentland Hills, that so quietly look down on the +Castle with the city lying in waves around it, those mad and dismal +fanatics, the Sweet Singers, haggard from long exposure on the moors, sat +day and night with ‘tearful psalmns’ to see Edinburgh consumed with fire +from heaven, like another Sodom or Gomorrah. There, in the Grass-market, +stiff-necked, covenanting heroes, offered up the often unnecessary, but +not less honourable, sacrifice of their lives, and bade eloquent farewell +to sun, moon, and stars, and earthly friendships, or died silent to the +roll of drums. Down by yon outlet rode Grahame of Claverhouse and his +thirty dragoons, with the town beating to arms behind their horses’ +tails—a sorry handful thus riding for their lives, but with a man at the +head who was to return in a different temper, make a dash that staggered +Scotland to the heart, and die happily in the thick of fight. There +Aikenhead was hanged for a piece of boyish incredulity; there, a few +years afterwards, David Hume ruined Philosophy and Faith, an undisturbed +and well-reputed citizen; and thither, in yet a few years more, Burns +came from the plough-tail, as to an academy of gilt unbelief and +artificial letters. There, when the great exodus was made across the +valley, and the New Town began to spread abroad its draughty +parallelograms, and rear its long frontage on the opposing hill, there +was such a flitting, such a change of domicile and dweller, as was never +excelled in the history of cities: the cobbler succeeded the earl; the +beggar ensconced himself by the judge’s chimney; what had been a palace +was used as a pauper refuge; and great mansions were so parcelled out +among the least and lowest in society, that the hearthstone of the old +proprietor was thought large enough to be partitioned off into a bedroom +by the new. + + + + +CHAPTER II. OLD TOWN—THE LANDS. + + +The Old Town, it is pretended, is the chief characteristic, and, from a +picturesque point of view, the liver-wing of Edinburgh. It is one of the +most common forms of depreciation to throw cold water on the whole by +adroit over-commendation of a part, since everything worth judging, +whether it be a man, a work of art, or only a fine city, must be judged +upon its merits as a whole. The Old Town depends for much of its effect +on the new quarters that lie around it, on the sufficiency of its +situation, and on the hills that back it up. If you were to set it +somewhere else by itself, it would look remarkably like Stirling in a +bolder and loftier edition. The point is to see this embellished +Stirling planted in the midst of a large, active, and fantastic modern +city; for there the two re-act in a picturesque sense, and the one is the +making of the other. + +The Old Town occupies a sloping ridge or tail of diluvial matter, +protected, in some subsidence of the waters, by the Castle cliffs which +fortify it to the west. On the one side of it and the other the new +towns of the south and of the north occupy their lower, broader, and more +gentle hill-tops. Thus, the quarter of the Castle over-tops the whole +city and keeps an open view to sea and land. It dominates for miles on +every side; and people on the decks of ships, or ploughing in quiet +country places over in Fife, can see the banner on the Castle +battlements, and the smoke of the Old Town blowing abroad over the +subjacent country. A city that is set upon a hill. It was, I suppose, +from this distant aspect that she got her nickname of _Auld Reekie_. +Perhaps it was given her by people who had never crossed her doors: day +after day, from their various rustic Pisgahs, they had seen the pile of +building on the hill-top, and the long plume of smoke over the plain; so +it appeared to them; so it had appeared to their fathers tilling the same +field; and as that was all they knew of the place, it could be all +expressed in these two words. + + [Picture: Cowfeeder Row and Head of West Port] + +Indeed, even on a nearer view, the Old Town is properly smoked; and +though it is well washed with rain all the year round, it has a grim and +sooty aspect among its younger suburbs. It grew, under the law that +regulates the growth of walled cities in precarious situations, not in +extent, but in height and density. Public buildings were forced, +wherever there was room for them, into the midst of thoroughfares; +thorough—fares were diminished into lanes; houses sprang up story after +story, neighbour mounting upon neighbour’s shoulder, as in some Black +Hole of Calcutta, until the population slept fourteen or fifteen deep in +a vertical direction. The tallest of these _lands_, as they are locally +termed, have long since been burnt out; but to this day it is not +uncommon to see eight or ten windows at a flight; and the cliff of +building which hangs imminent over Waverley Bridge would still put many +natural precipices to shame. The cellars are already high above the +gazer’s head, planted on the steep hill-side; as for the garret, all the +furniture may be in the pawn-shop, but it commands a famous prospect to +the Highland hills. The poor man may roost up there in the centre of +Edinburgh, and yet have a peep of the green country from his window; he +shall see the quarters of the well-to-do fathoms underneath, with their +broad squares and gardens; he shall have nothing overhead but a few +spires, the stone top-gallants of the city; and perhaps the wind may +reach him with a rustic pureness, and bring a smack of the sea or of +flowering lilacs in the spring. + +It is almost the correct literary sentiment to deplore the revolutionary +improvements of Mr. Chambers and his following. It is easy to be a +conservator of the discomforts of others; indeed, it is only our good +qualities we find it irksome to conserve. Assuredly, in driving streets +through the black labyrinth, a few curious old corners have been swept +away, and some associations turned out of house and home. But what +slices of sunlight, what breaths of clean air, have been let in! And +what a picturesque world remains untouched! You go under dark arches, +and down dark stairs and alleys. The way is so narrow that you can lay a +hand on either wall; so steep that, in greasy winter weather, the +pavement is almost as treacherous as ice. Washing dangles above washing +from the windows; the houses bulge outwards upon flimsy brackets; you see +a bit of sculpture in a dark corner; at the top of all, a gable and a few +crowsteps are printed on the sky. Here, you come into a court where the +children are at play and the grown people sit upon their doorsteps, and +perhaps a church spire shows itself above the roofs. Here, in the +narrowest of the entry, you find a great old mansion still erect, with +some insignia of its former state—some scutcheon, some holy or courageous +motto, on the lintel. The local antiquary points out where famous and +well-born people had their lodging; and as you look up, out pops the head +of a slatternly woman from the countess’s window. The Bedouins camp +within Pharaoh’s palace walls, and the old war-ship is given over to the +rats. We are already a far way from the days when powdered heads were +plentiful in these alleys, with jolly, port-wine faces underneath. Even +in the chief thoroughfares Irish washings flutter at the windows, and the +pavements are encumbered with loiterers. + + [Picture: Old Bow-Head, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh] + +These loiterers are a true character of the scene. Some shrewd Scotch +workmen may have paused on their way to a job, debating Church affairs +and politics with their tools upon their arm. But the most part are of a +different order—skulking jail-birds; unkempt, bare-foot children; +big-mouthed, robust women, in a sort of uniform of striped flannel +petticoat and short tartan shawl; among these, a few surpervising +constables and a dismal sprinkling of mutineers and broken men from +higher ranks in society, with some mark of better days upon them, like a +brand. In a place no larger than Edinburgh, and where the traffic is +mostly centred in five or six chief streets, the same face comes often +under the notice of an idle stroller. In fact, from this point of view, +Edinburgh is not so much a small city as the largest of small towns. It +is scarce possible to avoid observing your neighbours; and I never yet +heard of any one who tried. It has been my fortune, in this anonymous +accidental way, to watch more than one of these downward travellers for +some stages on the road to ruin. One man must have been upwards of sixty +before I first observed him, and he made then a decent, personable figure +in broad-cloth of the best. For three years he kept falling—grease +coming and buttons going from the square-skirted coat, the face puffing +and pimpling, the shoulders growing bowed, the hair falling scant and +grey upon his head; and the last that ever I saw of him, he was standing +at the mouth of an entry with several men in moleskin, three parts drunk, +and his old black raiment daubed with mud. I fancy that I still can hear +him laugh. There was something heart-breaking in this gradual declension +at so advanced an age; you would have thought a man of sixty out of the +reach of these calamities; you would have thought that he was niched by +that time into a safe place in life, whence he could pass quietly and +honourably into the grave. + +One of the earliest marks of these _dégringolades_ is, that the victim +begins to disappear from the New Town thoroughfares, and takes to the +High Street, like a wounded animal to the woods. And such an one is the +type of the quarter. It also has fallen socially. A scutcheon over the +door somewhat jars in sentiment where there is a washing at every window. +The old man, when I saw him last, wore the coat in which he had played +the gentleman three years before; and that was just what gave him so +pre-eminent an air of wretchedness. + +[Picture: High Street] It is true that the over-population was at least +as dense in the epoch of lords and ladies, and that now-a-days some +customs which made Edinburgh notorious of yore have been fortunately +pretermitted. But an aggregation of comfort is not distasteful like an +aggregation of the reverse. Nobody cares how many lords and ladies, and +divines and lawyers, may have been crowded into these houses in the +past—perhaps the more the merrier. The glasses clink around the china +punch-bowl, some one touches the virginals, there are peacocks’ feathers +on the chimney, and the tapers burn clear and pale in the red firelight. +That is not an ugly picture in itself, nor will it become ugly upon +repetition. All the better if the like were going on in every second +room; the _land_ would only look the more inviting. Times are changed. +In one house, perhaps, two-score families herd together; and, perhaps, +not one of them is wholly out of the reach of want. The great hotel is +given over to discomfort from the foundation to the chimney-tops; +everywhere a pinching, narrow habit, scanty meals, and an air of +sluttishness and dirt. In the first room there is a birth, in another a +death, in a third a sordid drinking-bout, and the detective and the +Bible-reader cross upon the stairs. High words are audible from dwelling +to dwelling, and children have a strange experience from the first; only +a robust soul, you would think, could grow up in such conditions without +hurt. And even if God tempers His dispensations to the young, and all +the ill does not arise that our apprehensions may forecast, the sight of +such a way of living is disquieting to people who are more happily +circumstanced. Social inequality is nowhere more ostentatious than at +Edinburgh. I have mentioned already how, to the stroller along Princes +Street, the High Street callously exhibits its back garrets. It is true, +there is a garden between. And although nothing could be more glaring by +way of contrast, sometimes the opposition is more immediate; sometimes +the thing lies in a nutshell, and there is not so much as a blade of +grass between the rich and poor. To look over the South Bridge and see +the Cowgate below full of crying hawkers, is to view one rank of society +from another in the twinkling of an eye. + +One night I went along the Cowgate after every one was a-bed but the +policeman, and stopped by hazard before a tall _land_. The moon touched +upon its chimneys, and shone blankly on the upper windows; there was no +light anywhere in the great bulk of building; but as I stood there it +seemed to me that I could hear quite a body of quiet sounds from the +interior; doubtless there were many clocks ticking, and people snoring on +their backs. And thus, as I fancied, the dense life within made itself +faintly audible in my ears, family after family contributing its quota to +the general hum, and the whole pile beating in tune to its timepieces, +like a great disordered heart. Perhaps it was little more than a fancy +altogether, but it was strangely impressive at the time, and gave me an +imaginative measure of the disproportion between the quantity of living +flesh and the trifling walls that separated and contained it. + +There was nothing fanciful, at least, but every circumstance of terror +and reality, in the fall of the _land_ in the High Street. The building +had grown rotten to the core; the entry underneath had suddenly closed up +so that the scavenger’s barrow could not pass; cracks and reverberations +sounded through the house at night; the inhabitants of the huge old human +bee-hive discussed their peril when they encountered on the stair; some +had even left their dwellings in a panic of fear, and returned to them +again in a fit of economy or self-respect; when, in the black hours of a +Sunday morning, the whole structure ran together with a hideous uproar +and tumbled story upon story to the ground. The physical shock was felt +far and near; and the moral shock travelled with the morning milkmaid +into all the suburbs. The church-bells never sounded more dismally over +Edinburgh than that grey forenoon. Death had made a brave harvest, and, +like Samson, by pulling down one roof, destroyed many a home. None who +saw it can have forgotten the aspect of the gable; here it was plastered, +there papered, according to the rooms; here the kettle still stood on the +hob, high overhead; and there a cheap picture of the Queen was pasted +over the chimney. So, by this disaster, you had a glimpse into the life +of thirty families, all suddenly cut off from the revolving years. The +_land_ had fallen; and with the _land_ how much! Far in the country, +people saw a gap in the city ranks, and the sun looked through between +the chimneys in an unwonted place. And all over the world, in London, in +Canada, in New Zealand, fancy what a multitude of people could exclaim +with truth: ‘The house that I was born in fell last night!’ + + + + +CHAPTER III. THE PARLIAMENT CLOSE. + + +Time has wrought its changes most notably around the precincts of St. +Giles’s Church. The church itself, if it were not for the spire, would +be unrecognisable; the _Krames_ are all gone, not a shop is left to +shelter in its buttresses; and zealous magistrates and a misguided +architect have shorn the design of manhood, and left it poor, naked, and +pitifully pretentious. As St. Giles’s must have had in former days a +rich and quaint appearance now forgotten, so the neighbourhood was +bustling, sunless, and romantic. It was here that the town was most +overbuilt; but the overbuilding has been all rooted out, and not only a +free fair-way left along the High Street with an open space on either +side of the church, but a great porthole, knocked in the main line of the +_lands_, gives an outlook to the north and the New Town. + +[Picture: The Spire of St. Giles’s] There is a silly story of a +subterranean passage between the Castle and Holyrood, and a bold Highland +piper who volunteered to explore its windings. He made his entrance by +the upper end, playing a strathspey; the curious footed it after him down +the street, following his descent by the sound of the chanter from below; +until all of a sudden, about the level of St. Giles’s, the music came +abruptly to an end, and the people in the street stood at fault with +hands uplifted. Whether he was choked with gases, or perished in a quag, +or was removed bodily by the Evil One, remains a point of doubt; but the +piper has never again been seen or heard of from that day to this. +Perhaps he wandered down into the land of Thomas the Rhymer, and some +day, when it is least expected, may take a thought to revisit the sunlit +upper world. That will be a strange moment for the cabmen on the stance +besides St. Giles’s, when they hear the drone of his pipes reascending +from the bowels of the earth below their horses’ feet. + +But it is not only pipers who have vanished, many a solid bulk of masonry +has been likewise spirited into the air. Here, for example, is the shape +of a heart let into the causeway. This was the site of the Tolbooth, the +Heart of Midlothian, a place old in story and namefather to a noble book. +The walls are now down in the dust; there is no more _squalor carceris_ +for merry debtors, no more cage for the old, acknowledged prison-breaker; +but the sun and the wind play freely over the foundations of the jail. +Nor is this the only memorial that the pavement keeps of former days. +The ancient burying-ground of Edinburgh lay behind St. Giles’s Church, +running downhill to the Cowgate and covering the site of the present +Parliament House. It has disappeared as utterly as the prison or the +Luckenbooths; and for those ignorant of its history, I know only one +token that remains. In the Parliament Close, trodden daily underfoot by +advocates, two letters and a date mark the resting-place of the man who +made Scotland over again in his own image, the indefatigable, +undissuadable John Knox. He sleeps within call of the church that so +often echoed to his preaching. + +Hard by the reformer, a bandy-legged and garlanded Charles Second, made +of lead, bestrides a tun-bellied charger. The King has his backed +turned, and, as you look, seems to be trotting clumsily away from such a +dangerous neighbour. Often, for hours together, these two will be alone +in the Close, for it lies out of the way of all but legal traffic. On +one side the south wall of the church, on the other the arcades of the +Parliament House, enclose this irregular bight of causeway and describe +their shadows on it in the sun. At either end, from round St. Giles’s +buttresses, you command a look into the High Street with its motley +passengers; but the stream goes by, east and west, and leaves the +Parliament Close to Charles the Second and the birds. Once in a while, a +patient crowd may be seen loitering there all day, some eating fruit, +some reading a newspaper; and to judge by their quiet demeanour, you +would think they were waiting for a distribution of soup-tickets. The +fact is far otherwise; within in the Justiciary Court a man is upon trial +for his life, and these are some of the curious for whom the gallery was +found too narrow. Towards afternoon, if the prisoner is unpopular, there +will be a round of hisses when he is brought forth. Once in a while, +too, an advocate in wig and gown, hand upon mouth, full of pregnant nods, +sweeps to and fro in the arcade listening to an agent; and at certain +regular hours a whole tide of lawyers hurries across the space. + +The Parliament Close has been the scene of marking incidents in Scottish +history. Thus, when the Bishops were ejected from the Convention in +1688, ‘all fourteen of them gathered together with pale faces and stood +in a cloud in the Parliament Close:’ poor episcopal personages who were +done with fair weather for life! Some of the west-country Societarians +standing by, who would have ‘rejoiced more than in great sums’ to be at +their hanging, hustled them so rudely that they knocked their heads +together. It was not magnanimous behaviour to dethroned enemies; but +one, at least, of the Societarians had groaned in the _boots_, and they +had all seen their dear friends upon the scaffold. Again, at the ‘woeful +Union,’ it was here that people crowded to escort their favourite from +the last of Scottish parliaments: people flushed with nationality, as +Boswell would have said, ready for riotous acts, and fresh from throwing +stones at the author of ‘Robinson Crusoe’ as he looked out of window. + + [Picture: John Knox’s House in the High Street] + +One of the pious in the seventeenth century, going to pass his _trials_ +(examinations as we now say) for the Scottish Bar, beheld the Parliament +Close open and had a vision of the mouth of Hell. This, and small +wonder, was the means of his conversion. Nor was the vision unsuitable +to the locality; for after an hospital, what uglier piece is there in +civilisation than a court of law? Hither come envy, malice, and all +uncharitableness to wrestle it out in public tourney; crimes, broken +fortunes, severed households, the knave and his victim, gravitate to this +low building with the arcade. To how many has not St. Giles’s bell told +the first hour after ruin? I think I see them pause to count the +strokes, and wander on again into the moving High Street, stunned and +sick at heart. + +A pair of swing doors gives admittance to a hall with a carved roof, hung +with legal portraits, adorned with legal statuary, lighted by windows of +painted glass, and warmed by three vast fires. This is the _Salle des +pas perdus_ of the Scottish Bar. Here, by a ferocious custom, idle +youths must promenade from ten till two. From end to end, singly or in +pairs or trios, the gowns and wigs go back and forward. Through a hum of +talk and footfalls, the piping tones of a Macer announce a fresh cause +and call upon the names of those concerned. Intelligent men have been +walking here daily for ten or twenty years without a rag of business or a +shilling of reward. In process of time, they may perhaps be made the +Sheriff-Substitute and Fountain of Justice at Lerwick or Tobermory. +There is nothing required, you would say, but a little patience and a +taste for exercise and bad air. To breathe dust and bombazine, to feed +the mind on cackling gossip, to hear three parts of a case and drink a +glass of sherry, to long with indescribable longings for the hour when a +man may slip out of his travesty and devote himself to golf for the rest +of the afternoon, and to do this day by day and year after year, may seem +so small a thing to the inexperienced! But those who have made the +experiment are of a different way of thinking, and count it the most +arduous form of idleness. + +More swing doors open into pigeon-holes where judges of the First Appeal +sit singly, and halls of audience where the supreme Lords sit by three or +four. Here, you may see Scott’s place within the bar, where he wrote +many a page of Waverley novels to the drone of judicial proceeding. You +will hear a good deal of shrewdness, and, as their Lordships do not +altogether disdain pleasantry, a fair proportion of dry fun. The +broadest of broad Scotch is now banished from the bench; but the courts +still retain a certain national flavour. We have a solemn enjoyable way +of lingering on a case. We treat law as a fine art, and relish and +digest a good distinction. There is no hurry: point after point must be +rightly examined and reduced to principle; judge after judge must utter +forth his _obiter dicta_ to delighted brethren. + +Besides the courts, there are installed under the same roof no less than +three libraries: two of no mean order; confused and semi-subterranean, +full of stairs and galleries; where you may see the most studious-looking +wigs fishing out novels by lanthorn light, in the very place where the +old Privy Council tortured Covenanters. As the Parliament House is built +upon a slope, although it presents only one story to the north, it +measures half-a-dozen at least upon the south; and range after range of +vaults extend below the libraries. Few places are more characteristic of +this hilly capital. You descend one stone stair after another, and +wander, by the flicker of a match, in a labyrinth of stone cellars. Now, +you pass below the Outer Hall and hear overhead, brisk but ghostly, the +interminable pattering of legal feet. Now, you come upon a strong door +with a wicket: on the other side are the cells of the police office and +the trap-stair that gives admittance to the dock in the Justiciary Court. +Many a foot that has gone up there lightly enough, has been dead-heavy in +the descent. Many a man’s life has been argued away from him during long +hours in the court above. But just now that tragic stage is empty and +silent like a church on a week-day, with the bench all sheeted up and +nothing moving but the sunbeams on the wall. A little farther and you +strike upon a room, not empty like the rest, but crowded with +_productions_ from bygone criminal cases: a grim lumber: lethal weapons, +poisoned organs in a jar, a door with a shot-hole through the panel, +behind which a man fell dead. I cannot fancy why they should preserve +them unless it were against the Judgment Day. At length, as you continue +to descend, you see a peep of yellow gaslight and hear a jostling, +whispering noise ahead; next moment you turn a corner, and there, in a +whitewashed passage, is a machinery belt industriously turning on its +wheels. You would think the engine had grown there of its own accord, +like a cellar fungus, and would soon spin itself out and fill the vaults +from end to end with its mysterious labours. In truth, it is only some +gear of the steam ventilator; and you will find the engineers at hand, +and may step out of their door into the sunlight. For all this while, +you have not been descending towards the earth’s centre, but only to the +bottom of the hill and the foundations of the Parliament House; low down, +to be sure, but still under the open heaven and in a field of grass. The +daylight shines garishly on the back windows of the Irish quarter; on +broken shutters, wry gables, old palsied houses on the brink of ruin, a +crumbling human pig-sty fit for human pigs. There are few signs of life, +besides a scanty washing or a face at a window: the dwellers are abroad, +but they will return at night and stagger to their pallets. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. LEGENDS. + + +The character of a place is often most perfectly expressed in its +associations. An event strikes root and grows into a legend, when it has +happened amongst congenial surroundings. Ugly actions, above all in ugly +places, have the true romantic quality, and become an undying property of +their scene. To a man like Scott, the different appearances of nature +seemed each to contain its own legend ready made, which it was his to +call forth: in such or such a place, only such or such events ought with +propriety to happen; and in this spirit he made the _Lady of the Lake_ +for Ben Venue, the _Heart of Midlothian_ for Edinburgh, and the _Pirate_, +so indifferently written but so romantically conceived, for the desolate +islands and roaring tideways of the North. The common run of mankind +have, from generation to generation, an instinct almost as delicate as +that of Scott; but where he created new things, they only forget what is +unsuitable among the old; and by survival of the fittest, a body of +tradition becomes a work of art. So, in the low dens and high-flying +garrets of Edinburgh, people may go back upon dark passages in the town’s +adventures, and chill their marrow with winter’s tales about the fire: +tales that are singularly apposite and characteristic, not only of the +old life, but of the very constitution of built nature in that part, and +singularly well qualified to add horror to horror, when the wind pipes +around the tall _lands_, and hoots adown arched passages, and the +far-spread wilderness of city lamps keeps quavering and flaring in the +gusts. + +[Picture: The Canongate] Here, it is the tale of Begbie the bank-porter, +stricken to the heart at a blow and left in his blood within a step or +two of the crowded High Street. There, people hush their voices over +Burke and Hare; over drugs and violated graves, and the resurrection-men +smothering their victims with their knees. Here, again, the fame of +Deacon Brodie is kept piously fresh. A great man in his day was the +Deacon; well seen in good society, crafty with his hands as a +cabinet-maker, and one who could sing a song with taste. Many a citizen +was proud to welcome the Deacon to supper, and dismissed him with regret +at a timeous hour, who would have been vastly disconcerted had he known +how soon, and in what guise, his visitor returned. Many stories are told +of this redoubtable Edinburgh burglar, but the one I have in my mind most +vividly gives the key of all the rest. A friend of Brodie’s, nested some +way towards heaven in one of these great _lands_, had told him of a +projected visit to the country, and afterwards, detained by some affairs, +put it off and stayed the night in town. The good man had lain some time +awake; it was far on in the small hours by the Tron bell; when suddenly +there came a creak, a jar, a faint light. Softly he clambered out of bed +and up to a false window which looked upon another room, and there, by +the glimmer of a thieves’ lantern, was his good friend the Deacon in a +mask. It is characteristic of the town and the town’s manners that this +little episode should have been quietly tided over, and quite a good time +elapsed before a great robbery, an escape, a Bow Street runner, a +cock-fight, an apprehension in a cupboard in Amsterdam, and a last step +into the air off his own greatly-improved gallows drop, brought the +career of Deacon William Brodie to an end. But still, by the mind’s eye, +he may be seen, a man harassed below a mountain of duplicity, slinking +from a magistrate’s supper-room to a thieves’ ken, and pickeering among +the closes by the flicker of a dark lamp. + + [Picture: Planestones Close, Canongate] + +Or where the Deacon is out of favour, perhaps some memory lingers of the +great plagues, and of fatal houses still unsafe to enter within the +memory of man. For in time of pestilence the discipline had been sharp +and sudden, and what we now call ‘stamping out contagion’ was carried on +with deadly rigour. The officials, in their gowns of grey, with a white +St. Andrew’s cross on back and breast, and a white cloth carried before +them on a staff, perambulated the city, adding the terror of man’s +justice to the fear of God’s visitation. The dead they buried on the +Borough Muir; the living who had concealed the sickness were drowned, if +they were women, in the Quarry Holes, and if they were men, were hanged +and gibbeted at their own doors; and wherever the evil had passed, +furniture was destroyed and houses closed. And the most bogeyish part of +the story is about such houses. Two generations back they still stood +dark and empty; people avoided them as they passed by; the boldest +schoolboy only shouted through the keyhole and made off; for within, it +was supposed, the plague lay ambushed like a basilisk, ready to flow +forth and spread blain and pustule through the city. What a terrible +next-door neighbour for superstitious citizens! A rat scampering within +would send a shudder through the stoutest heart. Here, if you like, was +a sanitary parable, addressed by our uncleanly forefathers to their own +neglect. + +And then we have Major Weir; for although even his house is now +demolished, old Edinburgh cannot clear herself of his unholy memory. He +and his sister lived together in an odour of sour piety. She was a +marvellous spinster; he had a rare gift of supplication, and was known +among devout admirers by the name of Angelical Thomas. ‘He was a tall, +black man, and ordinarily looked down to the ground; a grim countenance, +and a big nose. His garb was still a cloak, and somewhat dark, and he +never went without his staff.’ How it came about that Angelical Thomas +was burned in company with his staff, and his sister in gentler manner +hanged, and whether these two were simply religious maniacs of the more +furious order, or had real as well as imaginary sins upon their old-world +shoulders, are points happily beyond the reach of our intention. At +least, it is suitable enough that out of this superstitious city some +such example should have been put forth: the outcome and fine flower of +dark and vehement religion. And at least the facts struck the public +fancy and brought forth a remarkable family of myths. It would appear +that the Major’s staff went upon his errands, and even ran before him +with a lantern on dark nights. Gigantic females, ‘stentoriously laughing +and gaping with tehees of laughter’ at unseasonable hours of night and +morning, haunted the purlieus of his abode. His house fell under such a +load of infamy that no one dared to sleep in it, until municipal +improvement levelled the structure to the ground. And my father has +often been told in the nursery how the devil’s coach, drawn by six +coal-black horses with fiery eyes, would drive at night into the West +Bow, and belated people might see the dead Major through the glasses. + +Another legend is that of the two maiden sisters. A legend I am afraid +it may be, in the most discreditable meaning of the term; or perhaps +something worse—a mere yesterday’s fiction. But it is a story of some +vitality, and is worthy of a place in the Edinburgh kalendar. This pair +inhabited a single room; from the facts, it must have been double-bedded; +and it may have been of some dimensions: but when all is said, it was a +single room. Here our two spinsters fell out—on some point of +controversial divinity belike: but fell out so bitterly that there was +never a word spoken between them, black or white, from that day forward. +You would have thought they would separate: but no; whether from lack of +means, or the Scottish fear of scandal, they continued to keep house +together where they were. A chalk line drawn upon the floor separated +their two domains; it bisected the doorway and the fireplace, so that +each could go out and in, and do her cooking, without violating the +territory of the other. So, for years, they coexisted in a hateful +silence; their meals, their ablutions, their friendly visitors, exposed +to an unfriendly scrutiny; and at night, in the dark watches, each could +hear the breathing of her enemy. Never did four walls look down upon an +uglier spectacle than these sisters rivalling in unsisterliness. Here is +a canvas for Hawthorne to have turned into a cabinet picture—he had a +Puritanic vein, which would have fitted him to treat this Puritanic +horror; he could have shown them to us in their sicknesses and at their +hideous twin devotions, thumbing a pair of great Bibles, or praying aloud +for each other’s penitence with marrowy emphasis; now each, with kilted +petticoat, at her own corner of the fire on some tempestuous evening; now +sitting each at her window, looking out upon the summer landscape sloping +far below them towards the firth, and the field-paths where they had +wandered hand in hand; or, as age and infirmity grew upon them and +prolonged their toilettes, and their hands began to tremble and their +heads to nod involuntarily, growing only the more steeled in enmity with +years; until one fine day, at a word, a look, a visit, or the approach of +death, their hearts would melt and the chalk boundary be overstepped for +ever. + +Alas! to those who know the ecclesiastical history of the race—the most +perverse and melancholy in man’s annals—this will seem only a figure of +much that is typical of Scotland and her high-seated capital above the +Forth—a figure so grimly realistic that it may pass with strangers for a +caricature. We are wonderful patient haters for conscience sake up here +in the North. I spoke, in the first of these papers, of the Parliaments +of the Established and Free Churches, and how they can hear each other +singing psalms across the street. There is but a street between them in +space, but a shadow between them in principle; and yet there they sit, +enchanted, and in damnatory accents pray for each other’s growth in +grace. It would be well if there were no more than two; but the sects in +Scotland form a large family of sisters, and the chalk lines are thickly +drawn, and run through the midst of many private homes. Edinburgh is a +city of churches, as though it were a place of pilgrimage. You will see +four within a stone-cast at the head of the West Bow. Some are crowded +to the doors; some are empty like monuments; and yet you will ever find +new ones in the building. Hence that surprising clamour of church bells +that suddenly breaks out upon the Sabbath morning from Trinity and the +sea-skirts to Morningside on the borders of the hills. I have heard the +chimes of Oxford playing their symphony in a golden autumn morning, and +beautiful it was to hear. But in Edinburgh all manner of loud bells +join, or rather disjoin, in one swelling, brutal babblement of noise. +Now one overtakes another, and now lags behind it; now five or six all +strike on the pained tympanum at the same punctual instant of time, and +make together a dismal chord of discord; and now for a second all seem to +have conspired to hold their peace. Indeed, there are not many uproars +in this world more dismal than that of the Sabbath bells in Edinburgh: a +harsh ecclesiastical tocsin; the outcry of incongruous orthodoxies, +calling on every separate conventicler to put up a protest, each in his +own synagogue, against ‘right-hand extremes and left-hand defections.’ +And surely there are few worse extremes than this extremity of zeal; and +few more deplorable defections than this disloyalty to Christian love. +Shakespeare wrote a comedy of ‘Much Ado about Nothing.’ The Scottish +nation made a fantastic tragedy on the same subject. And it is for the +success of this remarkable piece that these bells are sounded every +Sabbath morning on the hills above the Forth. How many of them might +rest silent in the steeple, how many of these ugly churches might be +demolished and turned once more into useful building material, if people +who think almost exactly the same thoughts about religion would +condescend to worship God under the same roof! But there are the chalk +lines. And which is to pocket pride, and speak the foremost word? + + + + +CHAPTER V. GREYFRIARS. + + +It was Queen Mary who threw open the gardens of the Grey Friars: a new +and semi-rural cemetery in those days, although it has grown an antiquity +in its turn and been superseded by half-a-dozen others. The Friars must +have had a pleasant time on summer evenings; for their gardens were +situated to a wish, with the tall castle and the tallest of the castle +crags in front. Even now, it is one of our famous Edinburgh points of +view; and strangers are led thither to see, by yet another instance, how +strangely the city lies upon her hills. The enclosure is of an irregular +shape; the double church of Old and New Greyfriars stands on the level at +the top; a few thorns are dotted here and there, and the ground falls by +terrace and steep slope towards the north. The open shows many slabs and +table tombstones; and all round the margin, the place is girt by an array +of aristocratic mausoleums appallingly adorned. + +Setting aside the tombs of Roubiliac, which belong to the heroic order of +graveyard art, we Scotch stand, to my fancy, highest among nations in the +matter of grimly illustrating death. We seem to love for their own sake +the emblems of time and the great change; and even around country +churches you will find a wonderful exhibition of skulls, and crossbones, +and noseless angels, and trumpets pealing for the Judgment Day. Every +mason was a pedestrian Holbein: he had a deep consciousness of death, and +loved to put its terrors pithily before the churchyard loiterer; he was +brimful of rough hints upon mortality, and any dead farmer was seized +upon to be a text. The classical examples of this art are in Greyfriars. +In their time, these were doubtless costly monuments, and reckoned of a +very elegant proportion by contemporaries; and now, when the elegance is +not so apparent, the significance remains. You may perhaps look with a +smile on the profusion of Latin mottoes—some crawling endwise up the +shaft of a pillar, some issuing on a scroll from angels’ trumpets—on the +emblematic horrors, the figures rising headless from the grave, and all +the traditional ingenuities in which it pleased our fathers to set forth +their sorrow for the dead and their sense of earthly mutability. But it +is not a hearty sort of mirth. Each ornament may have been executed by +the merriest apprentice, whistling as he plied the mallet; but the +original meaning of each, and the combined effect of so many of them in +this quiet enclosure, is serious to the point of melancholy. + +Round a great part of the circuit, houses of a low class present their +backs to the churchyard. Only a few inches separate the living from the +dead. Here, a window is partly blocked up by the pediment of a tomb; +there, where the street falls far below the level of the graves, a +chimney has been trained up the back of a monument, and a red pot looks +vulgarly over from behind. A damp smell of the graveyard finds its way +into houses where workmen sit at meat. Domestic life on a small scale +goes forward visibly at the windows. The very solitude and stillness of +the enclosure, which lies apart from the town’s traffic, serves to +accentuate the contrast. As you walk upon the graves, you see children +scattering crumbs to feed the sparrows; you hear people singing or +washing dishes, or the sound of tears and castigation; the linen on a +clothes-pole flaps against funereal sculpture; or perhaps the cat slips +over the lintel and descends on a memorial urn. And as there is nothing +else astir, these incongruous sights and noises take hold on the +attention and exaggerate the sadness of the place. + + [Picture: Greyfriars] + +Greyfriars is continually overrun by cats. I have seen one afternoon, as +many as thirteen of them seated on the grass beside old Milne, the Master +Builder, all sleek and fat, and complacently blinking, as if they had fed +upon strange meats. Old Milne was chaunting with the saints, as we may +hope, and cared little for the company about his grave; but I confess the +spectacle had an ugly side for me; and I was glad to step forward and +raise my eyes to where the Castle and the roofs of the Old Town, and the +spire of the Assembly Hall, stood deployed against the sky with the +colourless precision of engraving. An open outlook is to be desired from +a churchyard, and a sight of the sky and some of the world’s beauty +relieves a mind from morbid thoughts. + +I shall never forget one visit. It was a grey, dropping day; the grass +was strung with rain-drops; and the people in the houses kept hanging out +their shirts and petticoats and angrily taking them in again, as the +weather turned from wet to fair and back again. A grave-digger, and a +friend of his, a gardener from the country, accompanied me into one after +another of the cells and little courtyards in which it gratified the +wealthy of old days to enclose their old bones from neighbourhood. In +one, under a sort of shrine, we found a forlorn human effigy, very +realistically executed down to the detail of his ribbed stockings, and +holding in his hand a ticket with the date of his demise. He looked most +pitiful and ridiculous, shut up by himself in his aristocratic precinct, +like a bad old boy or an inferior forgotten deity under a new +dispensation; the burdocks grew familiarly about his feet, the rain +dripped all round him; and the world maintained the most entire +indifference as to who he was or whither he had gone. In another, a +vaulted tomb, handsome externally but horrible inside with damp and +cobwebs, there were three mounds of black earth and an uncovered thigh +bone. This was the place of interment, it appeared, of a family with +whom the gardener had been long in service. He was among old +acquaintances. ‘This’ll be Miss Marg’et’s,’ said he, giving the bone a +friendly kick. ‘The auld ---!’ I have always an uncomfortable feeling +in a graveyard, at sight of so many tombs to perpetuate memories best +forgotten; but I never had the impression so strongly as that day. +People had been at some expense in both these cases: to provoke a +melancholy feeling of derision in the one, and an insulting epithet in +the other. The proper inscription for the most part of mankind, I began +to think, is the cynical jeer, _cras tibi_. That, if anything, will stop +the mouth of a carper; since it both admits the worst and carries the war +triumphantly into the enemy’s camp. + +Greyfriars is a place of many associations. There was one window in a +house at the lower end, now demolished, which was pointed out to me by +the gravedigger as a spot of legendary interest. Burke, the resurrection +man, infamous for so many murders at five shillings a-head, used to sit +thereat, with pipe and nightcap, to watch burials going forward on the +green. In a tomb higher up, which must then have been but newly +finished, John Knox, according to the same informant, had taken refuge in +a turmoil of the Reformation. Behind the church is the haunted mausoleum +of Sir George Mackenzie: Bloody Mackenzie, Lord Advocate in the +Covenanting troubles and author of some pleasing sentiments on +toleration. Here, in the last century, an old Heriot’s Hospital boy once +harboured from the pursuit of the police. The Hospital is next door to +Greyfriars—a courtly building among lawns, where, on Founder’s Day, you +may see a multitude of children playing Kiss-in-the-Ring and Round the +Mulberry-bush. Thus, when the fugitive had managed to conceal himself in +the tomb, his old schoolmates had a hundred opportunities to bring him +food; and there he lay in safety till a ship was found to smuggle him +abroad. But his must have been indeed a heart of brass, to lie all day +and night alone with the dead persecutor; and other lads were far from +emulating him in courage. When a man’s soul is certainly in hell, his +body will scarce lie quiet in a tomb however costly; some time or other +the door must open, and the reprobate come forth in the abhorred garments +of the grave. It was thought a high piece of prowess to knock at the +Lord Advocate’s mausoleum and challenge him to appear. ‘Bluidy +Mackingie, come oot if ye dar’!’ sang the fool-hardy urchins. But Sir +George had other affairs on hand; and the author of an essay on +toleration continues to sleep peacefully among the many whom he so +intolerantly helped to slay. + +[Picture: The Grassmarket] For this _infelix campus_, as it is dubbed in +one of its own inscriptions—an inscription over which Dr. Johnson passed +a critical eye—is in many ways sacred to the memory of the men whom +Mackenzie persecuted. It was here, on the flat tombstones, that the +Covenant was signed by an enthusiastic people. In the long arm of the +church-yard that extends to Lauriston, the prisoners from Bothwell +Bridge—fed on bread and water and guarded, life for life, by vigilant +marksmen—lay five months looking for the scaffold or the plantations. +And while the good work was going forward in the Grassmarket, idlers in +Greyfriars might have heard the throb of the military drums that drowned +the voices of the martyrs. Nor is this all: for down in the corner +farthest from Sir George, there stands a monument dedicated, in uncouth +Covenanting verse, to all who lost their lives in that contention. There +is no moorsman shot in a snow shower beside Irongray or Co’monell; there +is not one of the two hundred who were drowned off the Orkneys; nor so +much as a poor, over-driven, Covenanting slave in the American +plantations; but can lay claim to a share in that memorial, and, if such +things interest just men among the shades, can boast he has a monument on +earth as well as Julius Cæsar or the Pharaohs. Where they may all lie, I +know not. Far-scattered bones, indeed! But if the reader cares to learn +how some of them—or some part of some of them—found their way at length +to such honourable sepulture, let him listen to the words of one who was +their comrade in life and their apologist when they were dead. Some of +the insane controversial matter I omit, as well as some digressions, but +leave the rest in Patrick Walker’s language and orthography:— + + ‘The never to be forgotten Mr. _James Renwick_ told me, that he was + Witness to their Public Murder at the _Gallowlee_, between _Leith_ + and _Edinburgh_, when he saw the Hangman hash and hagg off all their + Five Heads, with _Patrick Foreman’s_ Right Hand: Their Bodies were + all buried at the Gallows Foot; their Heads, with _Patrick’s_ Hand, + were brought and put upon five Pikes on the _Pleasaunce-Port_. . . . + Mr. _Renwick_ told me also that it was the first public Action that + his Hand was at, to conveen Friends, and lift their murthered Bodies, + and carried them to the West Churchyard of _Edinburgh_,’—not + Greyfriars, this time,—‘and buried them there. Then they came about + the City . . . . and took down these Five Heads and that Hand; and + Day being come, they went quickly up the _Pleasaunce_; and when they + came to _Lauristoun_ Yards, upon the South-side of the City, they + durst not venture, being so light, to go and bury their Heads with + their Bodies, which they designed; it being present Death, if any of + them had been found. _Alexander Tweedie_, a Friend, being with them, + who at that Time was Gardner in these Yards, concluded to bury them + in his Yard, being in a Box (wrapped in Linen), where they lay 45 + Years except 3 Days, being executed upon the 10th of _October_ 1681, + and found the 7th Day of October 1726. That Piece of Ground lay for + some Years unlaboured; and trenching it, the Gardner found them, + which affrighted him the Box was consumed. Mr. _Schaw_, the Owner of + these Yards, caused lift them, and lay them upon a Table in his + Summer-house: Mr. _Schaw’s_ mother was so kind, as to cut out a + Linen-cloth, and cover them. They lay Twelve Days there, where all + had Access to see them. _Alexander Tweedie_, the foresaid Gardner, + said, when dying, There was a Treasure hid in his Yard, but neither + Gold nor Silver. _Daniel Tweedie_, his Son, came along with me to + that Yard, and told me that his Father planted a white Rose-bush + above them, and farther down the Yard a red Rose-bush, which were + more fruitful than any other Bush in the Yard. . . . Many came’—to + see the heads—‘out of Curiosity; yet I rejoiced to see so many + concerned grave Men and Women favouring the Dust of our Martyrs. + There were Six of us concluded to bury them upon the Nineteenth Day + of _October_ 1726, and every One of us to acquaint Friends of the Day + and Hour, being _Wednesday_, the Day of the Week on which most of + them were executed, and at 4 of the Clock at Night, being the Hour + that most of them went to their resting Graves. We caused make a + compleat Coffin for them in Black, with four Yards of fine Linen, the + way that our Martyrs Corps were managed. . . . Accordingly we kept + the aforesaid Day and Hour, and doubled the Linen, and laid the Half + of it below them, their nether jaws being parted from their Heads; + but being young Men, their Teeth remained. All were Witness to the + Holes in each of their Heads, which the Hangman broke with his + Hammer; and according to the Bigness of their Sculls, we laid the + Jaws to them, and drew the other Half of the Linen above them, and + stufft the Coffin with Shavings. Some prest hard to go thorow the + chief Parts of the City as was done at the Revolution; but this we + refused, considering that it looked airy and frothy, to make such + Show of them, and inconsistent with the solid serious Observing of + such an affecting, surprizing unheard-of Dispensation: But took the + ordinary Way of other Burials from that Place, to wit, we went east + the Back of the Wall, and in at _Bristo-Port_, and down the Way to + the Head of the _Cowgate_, and turned up to the Church-yard, where + they were interred closs to the Martyrs Tomb, with the greatest + Multitude of People Old and Young, Men and Women, Ministers and + others, that ever I saw together.’ + +And so there they were at last, in ‘their resting graves.’ So long as +men do their duty, even if it be greatly in a misapprehension, they will +be leading pattern lives; and whether or not they come to lie beside a +martyrs’ monument, we may be sure they will find a safe haven somewhere +in the providence of God. It is not well to think of death, unless we +temper the thought with that of heroes who despised it. Upon what +ground, is of small account; if it be only the bishop who was burned for +his faith in the antipodes, his memory lightens the heart and makes us +walk undisturbed among graves. And so the martyrs’ monument is a +wholesome, heartsome spot in the field of the dead; and as we look upon +it, a brave influence comes to us from the land of those who have won +their discharge and, in another phrase of Patrick Walker’s, got ‘cleanly +off the stage.’ + + + + +CHAPTER VI. NEW TOWN—TOWN AND COUNTRY. + + +It is as much a matter of course to decry the New Town as to exalt the +Old; and the most celebrated authorities have picked out this quarter as +the very emblem of what is condemnable in architecture. Much may be +said, much indeed has been said, upon the text; but to the +unsophisticated, who call anything pleasing if it only pleases them, the +New Town of Edinburgh seems, in itself, not only gay and airy, but highly +picturesque. An old skipper, invincibly ignorant of all theories of the +sublime and beautiful, once propounded as his most radiant notion for +Paradise: ‘The new town of Edinburgh, with the wind a matter of a point +free.’ He has now gone to that sphere where all good tars are promised +pleasant weather in the song, and perhaps his thoughts fly somewhat +higher. But there are bright and temperate days—with soft air coming +from the inland hills, military music sounding bravely from the hollow of +the gardens, the flags all waving on the palaces of Princes Street—when I +have seen the town through a sort of glory, and shaken hands in sentiment +with the old sailor. And indeed, for a man who has been much tumbled +round Orcadian skerries, what scene could be more agreeable to witness? +On such a day, the valley wears a surprising air of festival. It seems +(I do not know how else to put my meaning) as if it were a trifle too +good to be true. It is what Paris ought to be. It has the scenic +quality that would best set off a life of unthinking, open-air diversion. +It was meant by nature for the realisation of the society of comic +operas. And you can imagine, if the climate were but towardly, how all +the world and his wife would flock into these gardens in the cool of the +evening, to hear cheerful music, to sip pleasant drinks, to see the moon +rise from behind Arthur’s Seat and shine upon the spires and monuments +and the green tree-tops in the valley. Alas! and the next morning the +rain is splashing on the windows, and the passengers flee along Princes +Street before the galloping squalls. + + [Picture: The Royal Institution] + +It cannot be denied that the original design was faulty and +short-sighted, and did not fully profit by the capabilities of the +situation. The architect was essentially a town bird, and he laid out +the modern city with a view to street scenery, and to street scenery +alone. The country did not enter into his plan; he had never lifted his +eyes to the hills. If he had so chosen, every street upon the northern +slope might have been a noble terrace and commanded an extensive and +beautiful view. But the space has been too closely built; many of the +houses front the wrong way, intent, like the Man with the Muck-Rake, on +what is not worth observation, and standing discourteously back-foremost +in the ranks; and, in a word, it is too often only from attic-windows, or +here and there at a crossing, that you can get a look beyond the city +upon its diversified surroundings. But perhaps it is all the more +surprising, to come suddenly on a corner, and see a perspective of a mile +or more of falling street, and beyond that woods and villas, and a blue +arm of sea, and the hills upon the farther side. + +Fergusson, our Edinburgh poet, Burns’s model, once saw a butterfly at the +Town Cross; and the sight inspired him with a worthless little ode. This +painted country man, the dandy of the rose garden, looked far abroad in +such a humming neighbourhood; and you can fancy what moral considerations +a youthful poet would supply. But the incident, in a fanciful sort of +way, is characteristic of the place. Into no other city does the sight +of the country enter so far; if you do not meet a butterfly, you shall +certainly catch a glimpse of far-away trees upon your walk; and the place +is full of theatre tricks in the way of scenery. You peep under an arch, +you descend stairs that look as if they would land you in a cellar, you +turn to the back-window of a grimy tenement in a lane:—and behold! you +are face-to-face with distant and bright prospects. You turn a corner, +and there is the sun going down into the Highland hills. You look down +an alley, and see ships tacking for the Baltic. + +For the country people to see Edinburgh on her hill-tops, is one thing; +it is another for the citizen, from the thick of his affairs, to overlook +the country. It should be a genial and ameliorating influence in life; +it should prompt good thoughts and remind him of Nature’s unconcern: that +he can watch from day to day, as he trots officeward, how the Spring +green brightens in the wood or the field grows black under a moving +ploughshare. I have been tempted, in this connexion, to deplore the +slender faculties of the human race, with its penny-whistle of a voice, +its dull cars, and its narrow range of sight. If you could see as people +are to see in heaven, if you had eyes such as you can fancy for a +superior race, if you could take clear note of the objects of vision, not +only a few yards, but a few miles from where you stand:—think how +agreeably your sight would be entertained, how pleasantly your thoughts +would be diversified, as you walked the Edinburgh streets! For you might +pause, in some business perplexity, in the midst of the city traffic, and +perhaps catch the eye of a shepherd as he sat down to breathe upon a +heathery shoulder of the Pentlands; or perhaps some urchin, clambering in +a country elm, would put aside the leaves and show you his flushed and +rustic visage; or a fisher racing seawards, with the tiller under his +elbow, and the sail sounding in the wind, would fling you a salutation +from between Anst’er and the May. + +To be old is not the same thing as to be picturesque; nor because the Old +Town bears a strange physiognomy, does it at all follow that the New Town +shall look commonplace. Indeed, apart from antique houses, it is curious +how much description would apply commonly to either. The same sudden +accidents of ground, a similar dominating site above the plain, and the +same superposition of one rank of society over another, are to be +observed in both. Thus, the broad and comely approach to Princes Street +from the east, lined with hotels and public offices, makes a leap over +the gorge of the Low Calton; if you cast a glance over the parapet, you +look direct into that sunless and disreputable confluent of Leith Street; +and the same tall houses open upon both thoroughfares. This is only the +New Town passing overhead above its own cellars; walking, so to speak, +over its own children, as is the way of cities and the human race. But +at the Dean Bridge, you may behold a spectacle of a more novel order. +The river runs at the bottom of a deep valley, among rocks and between +gardens; the crest of either bank is occupied by some of the most +commodious streets and crescents in the modern city; and a handsome +bridge unites the two summits. Over this, every afternoon, private +carriages go spinning by, and ladies with card-cases pass to and fro +about the duties of society. And yet down below, you may still see, with +its mills and foaming weir, the little rural village of Dean. Modern +improvement has gone overhead on its high-level viaduct; and the extended +city has cleanly overleapt, and left unaltered, what was once the summer +retreat of its comfortable citizens. Every town embraces hamlets in its +growth; Edinburgh herself has embraced a good few; but it is strange to +see one still surviving—and to see it some hundreds of feet below your +path. Is it Torre del Greco that is built above buried Herculaneum? +Herculaneum was dead at least; but the sun still shines upon the roofs of +Dean; the smoke still rises thriftily from its chimneys; the dusty miller +comes to his door, looks at the gurgling water, hearkens to the turning +wheel and the birds about the shed, and perhaps whistles an air of his +own to enrich the symphony—for all the world as if Edinburgh were still +the old Edinburgh on the Castle Hill, and Dean were still the quietest of +hamlets buried a mile or so in the green country. + + [Picture: In the Village of Dean] + +It is not so long ago since magisterial David Hume lent the authority of +his example to the exodus from the Old Town, and took up his new abode in +a street which is still (so oddly may a jest become perpetuated) known as +Saint David Street. Nor is the town so large but a holiday schoolboy may +harry a bird’s nest within half a mile of his own door. There are places +that still smell of the plough in memory’s nostrils. Here, one had heard +a blackbird on a hawthorn; there, another was taken on summer evenings to +eat strawberries and cream; and you have seen a waving wheatfield on the +site of your present residence. The memories of an Edinburgh boy are but +partly memories of the town. I look back with delight on many an +escalade of garden walls; many a ramble among lilacs full of piping +birds; many an exploration in obscure quarters that were neither town nor +country; and I think that both for my companions and myself, there was a +special interest, a point of romance, and a sentiment as of foreign +travel, when we hit in our excursions on the butt-end of some former +hamlet, and found a few rustic cottages embedded among streets and +squares. The tunnel to the Scotland Street Station, the sight of the +trains shooting out of its dark maw with the two guards upon the brake, +the thought of its length and the many ponderous edifices and open +thoroughfares above, were certainly things of paramount impressiveness to +a young mind. It was a subterranean passage, although of a larger bore +than we were accustomed to in Ainsworth’s novels; and these two words, +‘subterreanean passage,’ were in themselves an irresistible attraction, +and seemed to bring us nearer in spirit to the heroes we loved and the +black rascals we secretly aspired to imitate. To scale the Castle Rock +from West Princes Street Gardens, and lay a triumphal hand against the +rampart itself, was to taste a high order of romantic pleasure. And +there are other sights and exploits which crowd back upon my mind under a +very strong illumination of remembered pleasure. But the effect of not +one of them all will compare with the discoverer’s joy, and the sense of +old Time and his slow changes on the face of this earth, with which I +explored such corners as Cannonmills or Water Lane, or the nugget of +cottages at Broughton Market. They were more rural than the open +country, and gave a greater impression of antiquity than the oldest +_land_ upon the High Street. They too, like Fergusson’s butterfly, had a +quaint air of having wandered far from their own place; they looked +abashed and homely, with their gables and their creeping plants, their +outside stairs and running mill-streams; there were corners that smelt +like the end of the country garden where I spent my Aprils; and the +people stood to gossip at their doors, as they might have done in +Colinton or Cramond. + +In a great measure we may, and shall, eradicate this haunting flavour of +the country. The last elm is dead in Elm Row; and the villas and the +workmen’s quarters spread apace on all the borders of the city. We can +cut down the trees; we can bury the grass under dead paving-stones; we +can drive brisk streets through all our sleepy quarters; and we may +forget the stories and the playgrounds of our boyhood. But we have some +possessions that not even the infuriate zeal of builders can utterly +abolish and destroy. Nothing can abolish the hills, unless it be a +cataclysm of nature which shall subvert Edinburgh Castle itself and lay +all her florid structures in the dust. And as long as we have the hills +and the Firth, we have a famous heritage to leave our children. Our +windows, at no expense to us, are most artfully stained to represent a +landscape. And when the Spring comes round, and the hawthorns begin to +flower, and the meadows to smell of young grass, even in the thickest of +our streets, the country hilltops find out a young man’s eyes, and set +his heart beating for travel and pure air. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. THE VILLA QUARTERS. + + +Mr. Ruskin’s denunciation of the New Town of Edinburgh includes, as I +have heard it repeated, nearly all the stone and lime we have to show. +Many however find a grand air and something settled and imposing in the +better parts; and upon many, as I have said, the confusion of styles +induces an agreeable stimulation of the mind. But upon the subject of +our recent villa architecture, I am frankly ready to mingle my tears with +Mr. Ruskin’s, and it is a subject which makes one envious of his large +declamatory and controversial eloquence. + +Day by day, one new villa, one new object of offence, is added to +another; all around Newington and Morningside, the dismallest structures +keep springing up like mushrooms; the pleasant hills are loaded with +them, each impudently squatted in its garden, each roofed and carrying +chimneys like a house. And yet a glance of an eye discovers their true +character. They are not houses; for they were not designed with a view +to human habitation, and the internal arrangements are, as they tell me, +fantastically unsuited to the needs of man. They are not buildings; for +you can scarcely say a thing is built where every measurement is in +clamant disproportion with its neighbour. They belong to no style of +art, only to a form of business much to be regretted. + +Why should it be cheaper to erect a structure where the size of the +windows bears no rational relation to the size of the front? Is there +any profit in a misplaced chimney-stalk? Does a hard-working, greedy +builder gain more on a monstrosity than on a decent cottage of equal +plainness? Frankly, we should say, No. Bricks may be omitted, and green +timber employed, in the construction of even a very elegant design; and +there is no reason why a chimney should be made to vent, because it is so +situated as to look comely from without. On the other hand, there is a +noble way of being ugly: a high-aspiring fiasco like the fall of Lucifer. +There are daring and gaudy buildings that manage to be offensive, without +being contemptible; and we know that ‘fools rush in where angels fear to +tread.’ But to aim at making a common-place villa, and to make it +insufferably ugly in each particular; to attempt the homeliest +achievement, and to attain the bottom of derided failure; not to have any +theory but profit and yet, at an equal expense, to outstrip all +competitors in the art of conceiving and rendering permanent deformity; +and to do all this in what is, by nature, one of the most agreeable +neighbourhoods in Britain:—what are we to say, but that this also is a +distinction, hard to earn although not greatly worshipful? + +Indifferent buildings give pain to the sensitive; but these things offend +the plainest taste. It is a danger which threatens the amenity of the +town; and as this eruption keeps spreading on our borders, we have ever +the farther to walk among unpleasant sights, before we gain the country +air. If the population of Edinburgh were a living, autonomous body, it +would arise like one man and make night hideous with arson; the builders +and their accomplices would be driven to work, like the Jews of yore, +with the trowel in one hand and the defensive cutlass in the other; and +as soon as one of these masonic wonders had been consummated, +right-minded iconoclasts should fall thereon and make an end of it at +once. + +Possibly these words may meet the eye of a builder or two. It is no use +asking them to employ an architect; for that would be to touch them in a +delicate quarter, and its use would largely depend on what architect they +were minded to call in. But let them get any architect in the world to +point out any reasonably well-proportioned villa, not his own design; and +let them reproduce that model to satiety. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. THE CALTON HILL. + + +The east of new Edinburgh is guarded by a craggy hill, of no great +elevation, which the town embraces. The old London road runs on one side +of it; while the New Approach, leaving it on the other hand, completes +the circuit. You mount by stairs in a cutting of the rock to find +yourself in a field of monuments. Dugald Stewart has the honours of +situation and architecture; Burns is memorialised lower down upon a spur; +Lord Nelson, as befits a sailor, gives his name to the top-gallant of the +Calton Hill. This latter erection has been differently and yet, in both +cases, aptly compared to a telescope and a butter-churn; comparisons +apart, it ranks among the vilest of men’s handiworks. But the chief +feature is an unfinished range of columns, ‘the Modern Ruin’ as it has +been called, an imposing object from far and near, and giving Edinburgh, +even from the sea, that false air; of a Modern Athens which has earned +for her so many slighting speeches. It was meant to be a National +Monument; and its present state is a very suitable monument to certain +national characteristics. The old Observatory—a quaint brown building on +the edge of the steep—and the new Observatory—a classical edifice with a +dome—occupy the central portion of the summit. All these are scattered +on a green turf, browsed over by some sheep. + + [Picture: The Calton Hill] + +The scene suggests reflections on fame and on man’s injustice to the +dead. You see Dugald Stewart rather more handsomely commemorated than +Burns. Immediately below, in the Canongate churchyard, lies Robert +Fergusson, Burns’s master in his art, who died insane while yet a +stripling; and if Dugald Stewart has been somewhat too boisterously +acclaimed, the Edinburgh poet, on the other hand, is most unrighteously +forgotten. The votaries of Burns, a crew too common in all ranks in +Scotland and more remarkable for number than discretion, eagerly suppress +all mention of the lad who handed to him the poetic impulse and, up to +the time when he grew famous, continued to influence him in his manner +and the choice of subjects. Burns himself not only acknowledged his debt +in a fragment of autobiography, but erected a tomb over the grave in +Canongate churchyard. This was worthy of an artist, but it was done in +vain; and although I think I have read nearly all the biographies of +Burns, I cannot remember one in which the modesty of nature was not +violated, or where Fergusson was not sacrificed to the credit of his +follower’s originality. There is a kind of gaping admiration that would +fain roll Shakespeare and Bacon into one, to have a bigger thing to gape +at; and a class of men who cannot edit one author without disparaging all +others. They are indeed mistaken if they think to please the great +originals; and whoever puts Fergusson right with fame, cannot do better +than dedicate his labours to the memory of Burns, who will be the best +delighted of the dead. + + [Picture: Queen Mary’s Bath] + +Of all places for a view, this Calton Hill is perhaps the best; since you +can see the Castle, which you lose from the Castle, and Arthur’s Seat, +which you cannot see from Arthur’s Seat. It is the place to stroll on +one of those days of sunshine and east wind which are so common in our +more than temperate summer. The breeze comes off the sea, with a little +of the freshness, and that touch of chill, peculiar to the quarter, which +is delightful to certain very ruddy organizations and greatly the reverse +to the majority of mankind. It brings with it a faint, floating haze, a +cunning decolourizer, although not thick enough to obscure outlines near +at hand. But the haze lies more thickly to windward at the far end of +Musselburgh Bay; and over the Links of Aberlady and Berwick Law and the +hump of the Bass Rock it assumes the aspect of a bank of thin sea fog. + +[Picture: Arthur’s Seat] Immediately underneath upon the south, you +command the yards of the High School, and the towers and courts of the +new Jail—a large place, castellated to the extent of folly, standing by +itself on the edge of a steep cliff, and often joyfully hailed by +tourists as the Castle. In the one, you may perhaps see female prisoners +taking exercise like a string of nuns; in the other, schoolboys running +at play and their shadows keeping step with them. From the bottom of the +valley, a gigantic chimney rises almost to the level of the eye, a taller +and a shapelier edifice than Nelson’s Monument. Look a little farther, +and there is Holyrood Palace, with its Gothic frontal and ruined abbey, +and the red sentry pacing smartly too and fro before the door like a +mechanical figure in a panorama. By way of an outpost, you can single +out the little peak-roofed lodge, over which Rizzio’s murderers made +their escape and where Queen Mary herself, according to gossip, bathed in +white wine to entertain her loveliness. Behind and overhead, lie the +Queen’s Park, from Muschat’s Cairn to Dumbiedykes, St. Margaret’s Loch, +and the long wall of Salisbury Crags: and thence, by knoll and rocky +bulwark and precipitous slope, the eye rises to the top of Arthur’s Seat, +a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtue of its bold design. This upon +your left. Upon the right, the roofs and spires of the Old Town climb +one above another to where the citadel prints its broad bulk and jagged +crown of bastions on the western sky.—Perhaps it is now one in the +afternoon; and at the same instant of time, a ball rises to the summit of +Nelson’s flagstaff close at hand, and, far away, a puff of smoke followed +by a report bursts from the half-moon battery at the Castle. This is the +time-gun by which people set their watches, as far as the sea coast or in +hill farms upon the Pentlands.—To complete the view, the eye enfilades +Princes Street, black with traffic, and has a broad look over the valley +between the Old Town and the New: here, full of railway trains and +stepped over by the high North Bridge upon its many columns, and there, +green with trees and gardens. + + [Picture: Back of Greenside] + +On the north, the Calton Hill is neither so abrupt in itself nor has it +so exceptional an outlook; and yet even here it commands a striking +prospect. A gully separates it from the New Town. This is Greenside, +where witches were burned and tournaments held in former days. Down that +almost precipitous bank, Bothwell launched his horse, and so first, as +they say, attracted the bright eyes of Mary. It is now tesselated with +sheets and blankets out to dry, and the sound of people beating carpets +is rarely absent. Beyond all this, the suburbs run out to Leith; Leith +camps on the seaside with her forest of masts; Leith roads are full of +ships at anchor; the sun picks out the white pharos upon Inchkeith +Island; the Firth extends on either hand from the Ferry to the May; the +towns of Fifeshire sit, each in its bank of blowing smoke, along the +opposite coast; and the hills enclose the view, except to the farthest +east, where the haze of the horizon rests upon the open sea. There lies +the road to Norway: a dear road for Sir Patrick Spens and his Scots +Lords; and yonder smoke on the hither side of Largo Law is Aberdour, from +whence they sailed to seek a queen for Scotland. + + ‘O lang, lang, may the ladies sit, + Wi’ their fans into their hand, + Or ere they see Sir Patrick Spens + Come sailing to the land!’ + +The sight of the sea, even from a city, will bring thoughts of storm and +sea disaster. The sailors’ wives of Leith and the fisherwomen of +Cockenzie, not sitting languorously with fans, but crowding to the tail +of the harbour with a shawl about their ears, may still look vainly for +brave Scotsmen who will return no more, or boats that have gone on their +last fishing. Since Sir Patrick sailed from Aberdour, what a multitude +have gone down in the North Sea! Yonder is Auldhame, where the London +smack went ashore and wreckers cut the rings from ladies’ fingers; and a +few miles round Fife Ness is the fatal Inchcape, now a star of guidance; +and the lee shore to the east of the Inchcape, is that Forfarshire coast +where Mucklebackit sorrowed for his son. + +These are the main features of the scene roughly sketched. How they are +all tilted by the inclination of the ground, how each stands out in +delicate relief against the rest, what manifold detail, and play of sun +and shadow, animate and accentuate the picture, is a matter for a person +on the spot, and turning swiftly on his heels, to grasp and bind together +in one comprehensive look. It is the character of such a prospect, to be +full of change and of things moving. The multiplicity embarrasses the +eye; and the mind, among so much, suffers itself to grow absorbed with +single points. You remark a tree in a hedgerow, or follow a cart along a +country road. You turn to the city, and see children, dwarfed by +distance into pigmies, at play about suburban doorsteps; you have a +glimpse upon a thoroughfare where people are densely moving; you note +ridge after ridge of chimney-stacks running downhill one behind another, +and church spires rising bravely from the sea of roofs. At one of the +innumerable windows, you watch a figure moving; on one of the multitude +of roofs, you watch clambering chimney-sweeps. The wind takes a run and +scatters the smoke; bells are heard, far and near, faint and loud, to +tell the hour; or perhaps a bird goes dipping evenly over the housetops, +like a gull across the waves. And here you are in the meantime, on this +pastoral hillside, among nibbling sheep and looked upon by monumental +buildings. + +Return thither on some clear, dark, moonless night, with a ring of frost +in the air, and only a star or two set sparsedly in the vault of heaven; +and you will find a sight as stimulating as the hoariest summit of the +Alps. The solitude seems perfect; the patient astronomer, flat on his +back under the Observatory dome and spying heaven’s secrets, is your only +neighbour; and yet from all round you there come up the dull hum of the +city, the tramp of countless people marching out of time, the rattle of +carriages and the continuous keen jingle of the tramway bells. An hour +or so before, the gas was turned on; lamplighters scoured the city; in +every house, from kitchen to attic, the windows kindled and gleamed forth +into the dusk. And so now, although the town lies blue and darkling on +her hills, innumerable spots of the bright element shine far and near +along the pavements and upon the high facades. Moving lights of the +railway pass and repass below the stationary lights upon the bridge. +Lights burn in the jail. Lights burn high up in the tall _lands_ and on +the Castle turrets, they burn low down in Greenside or along the Park. +They run out one beyond the other into the dark country. They walk in a +procession down to Leith, and shine singly far along Leith Pier. Thus, +the plan of the city and her suburbs is mapped out upon the ground of +blackness, as when a child pricks a drawing full of pinholes and exposes +it before a candle; not the darkest night of winter can conceal her high +station and fanciful design; every evening in the year she proceeds to +illuminate herself in honour of her own beauty; and as if to complete the +scheme—or rather as if some prodigal Pharaoh were beginning to extend to +the adjacent sea and country—half-way over to Fife, there is an outpost +of light upon Inchkeith, and far to seaward, yet another on the May. + +And while you are looking, across upon the Castle Hill, the drums and +bugles begin to recall the scattered garrison; the air thrills with the +sound; the bugles sing aloud; and the last rising flourish mounts and +melts into the darkness like a star: a martial swan-song, fitly rounding +in the labours of the day. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. WINTER AND NEW YEAR. + + +The Scotch dialect is singularly rich in terms of reproach against the +winter wind. _Snell_, _blae_, _nirly_, and _scowthering_, are four of +these significant vocables; they are all words that carry a shiver with +them; and for my part, as I see them aligned before me on the page, I am +persuaded that a big wind comes tearing over the Firth from Burntisland +and the northern hills; I think I can hear it howl in the chimney, and as +I set my face northwards, feel its smarting kisses on my cheek. Even in +the names of places there is often a desolate, inhospitable sound; and I +remember two from the near neighbourhood of Edinburgh, Cauldhame and +Blaw-weary, that would promise but starving comfort to their inhabitants. +The inclemency of heaven, which has thus endowed the language of Scotland +with words, has also largely modified the spirit of its poetry. Both +poverty and a northern climate teach men the love of the hearth and the +sentiment of the family; and the latter, in its own right, inclines a +poet to the praise of strong waters. In Scotland, all our singers have a +stave or two for blazing fires and stout potations:—to get indoors out of +the wind and to swallow something hot to the stomach, are benefits so +easily appreciated where they dwelt! + +And this is not only so in country districts where the shepherd must wade +in the snow all day after his flock, but in Edinburgh itself, and nowhere +more apparently stated than in the works of our Edinburgh poet, +Fergusson. He was a delicate youth, I take it, and willingly slunk from +the robustious winter to an inn fire-side. Love was absent from his +life, or only present, if you prefer, in such a form that even the least +serious of Burns’s amourettes was ennobling by comparison; and so there +is nothing to temper the sentiment of indoor revelry which pervades the +poor boy’s verses. Although it is characteristic of his native town, and +the manners of its youth to the present day, this spirit has perhaps done +something to restrict his popularity. He recalls a supper-party +pleasantry with something akin to tenderness; and sounds the praises of +the act of drinking as if it were virtuous, or at least witty, in itself. +The kindly jar, the warm atmosphere of tavern parlours, and the revelry +of lawyers’ clerks, do not offer by themselves the materials of a rich +existence. It was not choice, so much as an external fate, that kept +Fergusson in this round of sordid pleasures. A Scot of poetic +temperament, and without religious exaltation, drops as if by nature into +the public-house. The picture may not be pleasing; but what else is a +man to do in this dog’s weather? + +To none but those who have themselves suffered the thing in the body, can +the gloom and depression of our Edinburgh winter be brought home. For +some constitutions there is something almost physically disgusting in the +bleak ugliness of easterly weather; the wind wearies, the sickly sky +depresses them; and they turn back from their walk to avoid the aspect of +the unrefulgent sun going down among perturbed and pallid mists. The +days are so short that a man does much of his business, and certainly all +his pleasure, by the haggard glare of gas lamps. The roads are as heavy +as a fallow. People go by, so drenched and draggle-tailed that I have +often wondered how they found the heart to undress. And meantime the +wind whistles through the town as if it were an open meadow; and if you +lie awake all night, you hear it shrieking and raving overhead with a +noise of shipwrecks and of falling houses. In a word, life is so +unsightly that there are times when the heart turns sick in a man’s +inside; and the look of a tavern, or the thought of the warm, fire-lit +study, is like the touch of land to one who has been long struggling with +the seas. + +As the weather hardens towards frost, the world begins to improve for +Edinburgh people. We enjoy superb, sub-arctic sunsets, with the profile +of the city stamped in indigo upon a sky of luminous green. The wind may +still be cold, but there is a briskness in the air that stirs good blood. +People do not all look equally sour and downcast. They fall into two +divisions: one, the knight of the blue face and hollow paunch, whom +Winter has gotten by the vitals; the other well lined with New-year’s +fare, conscious of the touch of cold on his periphery, but stepping +through it by the glow of his internal fires. Such an one I remember, +triply cased in grease, whom no extremity of temperature could vanquish. +‘Well,’ would be his jovial salutation, ‘here’s a sneezer!’ And the look +of these warm fellows is tonic, and upholds their drooping +fellow-townsmen. There is yet another class who do not depend on +corporal advantages, but support the winter in virtue of a brave and +merry heart. One shivering evening, cold enough for frost but with too +high a wind, and a little past sundown, when the lamps were beginning to +enlarge their circles in the growing dusk, a brace of barefoot lassies +were seen coming eastward in the teeth of the wind. If the one was as +much as nine, the other was certainly not more than seven. They were +miserably clad; and the pavement was so cold, you would have thought no +one could lay a naked foot on it unflinching. Yet they came along +waltzing, if you please, while the elder sang a tune to give them music. +The person who saw this, and whose heart was full of bitterness at the +moment, pocketed a reproof which has been of use to him ever since, and +which he now hands on, with his good wishes, to the reader. + +At length, Edinburgh, with her satellite hills and all the sloping +country, are sheeted up in white. If it has happened in the dark hours, +nurses pluck their children out of bed and run with them to some +commanding window, whence they may see the change that has been worked +upon earth’s face. ‘A’ the hills are covered wi’ snaw,’ they sing, ‘and +Winter’s noo come fairly!’ And the children, marvelling at the silence +and the white landscape, find a spell appropriate to the season in the +words. The reverberation of the snow increases the pale daylight, and +brings all objects nearer the eye. The Pentlands are smooth and +glittering, with here and there the black ribbon of a dry-stone dyke, and +here and there, if there be wind, a cloud of blowing snow upon a +shoulder. The Firth seems a leaden creek, that a man might almost jump +across, between well-powdered Lothian and well-powdered Fife. And the +effect is not, as in other cities, a thing of half a day; the streets are +soon trodden black, but the country keeps its virgin white; and you have +only to lift your eyes and look over miles of country snow. An +indescribable cheerfulness breathes about the city; and the well-fed +heart sits lightly and beats gaily in the—bosom. It is New-year’s +weather. + +New-year’s Day, the great national festival, is a time of family +expansions and of deep carousal. Sometimes, by a sore stoke of fate for +this Calvinistic people, the year’s anniversary fails upon a Sunday, when +the public-houses are inexorably closed, when singing and even whistling +is banished from our homes and highways, and the oldest toper feels +called upon to go to church. Thus pulled about, as if between two +loyalties, the Scotch have to decide many nice cases of conscience, and +ride the marches narrowly between the weekly and the annual observance. +A party of convivial musicians, next door to a friend of mine, hung +suspended in this manner on the brink of their diversions. From ten +o’clock on Sunday night, my friend heard them tuning their instruments: +and as the hour of liberty drew near, each must have had his music open, +his bow in readiness across the fiddle, his foot already raised to mark +the time, and his nerves braced for execution; for hardly had the twelfth +stroke sounded from the earliest steeple, before they had launced forth +into a secular bravura. + +Currant-loaf is now popular eating in all house-holds. For weeks before +the great morning, confectioners display stacks of Scotch bun—a dense, +black substance, inimical to life—and full moons of shortbread adorned +with mottoes of peel or sugar-plum, in honour of the season and the +family affections. ‘Frae Auld Reekie,’ ‘A guid New Year to ye a’,’ ‘For +the Auld Folk at Hame,’ are among the most favoured of these devices. +Can you not see the carrier, after half-a-day’s journey on pinching +hill-roads, draw up before a cottage in Teviotdale, or perhaps in Manor +Glen among the rowans, and the old people receiving the parcel with moist +eyes and a prayer for Jock or Jean in the city? For at this season, on +the threshold of another year of calamity and stubborn conflict, men feel +a need to draw closer the links that unite them; they reckon the number +of their friends, like allies before a war; and the prayers grow longer +in the morning as the absent are recommended by name into God’s keeping. + +On the day itself, the shops are all shut as on a Sunday; only taverns, +toyshops, and other holiday magazines, keep open doors. Every one looks +for his handsel. The postman and the lamplighters have left, at every +house in their districts, a copy of vernacular verses, asking and +thanking in a breath; and it is characteristic of Scotland that these +verses may have sometimes a touch of reality in detail or sentiment and a +measure of strength in the handling. All over the town, you may see +comforter’d schoolboys hasting to squander their half-crowns. There are +an infinity of visits to be paid; all the world is in the street, except +the daintier classes; the sacramental greeting is heard upon all sides; +Auld Lang Syne is much in people’s mouths; and whisky and shortbread are +staple articles of consumption. From an early hour a stranger will be +impressed by the number of drunken men; and by afternoon drunkenness has +spread to the women. With some classes of society, it is as much a +matter of duty to drink hard on New-year’s Day as to go to church on +Sunday. Some have been saving their wages for perhaps a month to do the +season honour. Many carry a whisky-bottle in their pocket, which they +will press with embarrassing effusion on a perfect stranger. It is +inexpedient to risk one’s body in a cab, or not, at least, until after a +prolonged study of the driver. The streets, which are thronged from end +to end, become a place for delicate pilotage. Singly or arm-in-arm, some +speechless, others noisy and quarrelsome, the votaries of the New Year go +meandering in and out and cannoning one against another; and now and +again, one falls and lies as he has fallen. Before night, so many have +gone to bed or the police office, that the streets seem almost clearer. +And as _guisards_ and _first-footers_ are now not much seen except in +country places, when once the New Year has been rung in and proclaimed at +the Tron railings, the festivities begin to find their way indoors and +something like quiet returns upon the town. But think, in these piled +_lands_, of all the senseless snorers, all the broken heads and empty +pockets! + +Of old, Edinburgh University was the scene of heroic snowballing; and one +riot obtained the epic honours of military intervention. But the great +generation, I am afraid, is at an end; and even during my own college +days, the spirit appreciably declined. Skating and sliding, on the other +hand, are honoured more and more; and curling, being a creature of the +national genius, is little likely to be disregarded. The patriotism that +leads a man to eat Scotch bun will scarce desert him at the curling-pond. +Edinburgh, with its long, steep pavements, is the proper home of sliders; +many a happy urchin can slide the whole way to school; and the profession +of errand-boy is transformed into a holiday amusement. As for skating, +there is scarce any city so handsomely provided. Duddingstone Loch lies +under the abrupt southern side of Arthur’s Seat; in summer a shield of +blue, with swans sailing from the reeds; in winter, a field of ringing +ice. The village church sits above it on a green promontory; and the +village smoke rises from among goodly trees. At the church gates, is the +historical _joug_; a place of penance for the neck of detected sinners, +and the historical _louping-on stane_, from which Dutch-built lairds and +farmers climbed into the saddle. Here Prince Charlie slept before the +battle of Prestonpans; and here Deacon Brodie, or one of his gang, stole +a plough coulter before the burglary in Chessel’s Court. On the opposite +side of the loch, the ground rises to Craigmillar Castle, a place +friendly to Stuart Mariolaters. It is worth a climb, even in summer, to +look down upon the loch from Arthur’s Seat; but it is tenfold more so on +a day of skating. The surface is thick with people moving easily and +swiftly and leaning over at a thousand graceful inclinations; the crowd +opens and closes, and keeps moving through itself like water; and the ice +rings to half a mile away, with the flying steel. As night draws on, the +single figures melt into the dusk, until only an obscure stir, and coming +and going of black clusters, is visible upon the loch. A little longer, +and the first torch is kindled and begins to flit rapidly across the ice +in a ring of yellow reflection, and this is followed by another and +another, until the whole field is full of skimming lights. + + + + +CHAPTER X. TO THE PENTLAND HILLS. + + +On three sides of Edinburgh, the country slopes downward from the city, +here to the sea, there to the fat farms of Haddington, there to the +mineral fields of Linlithgow. On the south alone, it keeps rising until +it not only out-tops the Castle but looks down on Arthur’s Seat. The +character of the neighbourhood is pretty strongly marked by a scarcity of +hedges; by many stone walls of varying height; by a fair amount of +timber, some of it well grown, but apt to be of a bushy, northern profile +and poor in foliage; by here and there a little river, Esk or Leith or +Almond, busily journeying in the bottom of its glen; and from almost +every point, by a peep of the sea or the hills. There is no lack of +variety, and yet most of the elements are common to all parts; and the +southern district is alone distinguished by considerable summits and a +wide view. + +From Boroughmuirhead, where the Scottish army encamped before Flodden, +the road descends a long hill, at the bottom of which and just as it is +preparing to mount upon the other side, it passes a toll-bar and issues +at once into the open country. Even as I write these words, they are +being antiquated in the progress of events, and the chisels are tinkling +on a new row of houses. The builders have at length adventured beyond +the toll which held them in respect so long, and proceed to career in +these fresh pastures like a herd of colts turned loose. As Lord +Beaconsfield proposed to hang an architect by way of stimulation, a man, +looking on these doomed meads, imagines a similar example to deter the +builders; for it seems as if it must come to an open fight at last to +preserve a corner of green country unbedevilled. And here, appropriately +enough, there stood in old days a crow-haunted gibbet, with two bodies +hanged in chains. I used to be shown, when a child, a flat stone in the +roadway to which the gibbet had been fixed. People of a willing fancy +were persuaded, and sought to persuade others, that this stone was never +dry. And no wonder, they would add, for the two men had only stolen +fourpence between them. + +For about two miles the road climbs upwards, a long hot walk in summer +time. You reach the summit at a place where four ways meet, beside the +toll of Fairmilehead. The spot is breezy and agreeable both in name and +aspect. The hills are close by across a valley: Kirk Yetton, with its +long, upright scars visible as far as Fife, and Allermuir the tallest on +this side with wood and tilled field running high upon their borders, and +haunches all moulded into innumerable glens and shelvings and variegated +with heather and fern. The air comes briskly and sweetly off the hills, +pure from the elevation and rustically scented by the upland plants; and +even at the toll, you may hear the curlew calling on its mate. At +certain seasons, when the gulls desert their surfy forelands, the birds +of sea and mountain hunt and scream together in the same field by +Fairmilehead. The winged, wild things intermix their wheelings, the +sea-birds skim the tree-tops and fish among the furrows of the plough. +These little craft of air are at home in all the world, so long as they +cruise in their own element; and, like sailors, ask but food and water +from the shores they coast. + +Below, over a stream, the road passes Bow Bridge, now a dairy-farm, but +once a distillery of whisky. It chanced, some time in the past century, +that the distiller was on terms of good-fellowship with the visiting +officer of excise. The latter was of an easy, friendly disposition, and +a master of convivial arts. Now and again, he had to walk out of +Edinburgh to measure the distiller’s stock; and although it was agreeable +to find his business lead him in a friend’s direction, it was unfortunate +that the friend should be a loser by his visits. Accordingly, when he +got about the level of Fairmilehead, the gauger would take his flute, +without which he never travelled, from his pocket, fit it together, and +set manfully to playing, as if for his own delectation and inspired by +the beauty of the scene. His favourite air, it seems, was ‘Over the +hills and far away.’ At the first note, the distiller pricked his ears. +A flute at Fairmilehead? and playing ‘Over the hills and far away?’ This +must be his friendly enemy, the gauger. Instantly horses were harnessed, +and sundry barrels of whisky were got upon a cart, driven at a gallop +round Hill End, and buried in the mossy glen behind Kirk Yetton. In the +same breath, you may be sure, a fat fowl was put to the fire, and the +whitest napery prepared for the back parlour. A little after, the +gauger, having had his fill of music for the moment, came strolling down +with the most innocent air imaginable, and found the good people at Bow +Bridge taken entirely unawares by his arrival, but none the less glad to +see him. The distiller’s liquor and the gauger’s flute would combine to +speed the moments of digestion; and when both were somewhat mellow, they +would wind up the evening with ‘Over the hills and far away’ to an +accompaniment of knowing glances. And at least, there is a smuggling +story, with original and half-idyllic features. + +A little further, the road to the right passes an upright stone in a +field. The country people call it General Kay’s monument. According to +them, an officer of that name had perished there in battle at some +indistinct period before the beginning of history. The date is +reassuring; for I think cautious writers are silent on the General’s +exploits. But the stone is connected with one of those remarkable +tenures of land which linger on into the modern world from Feudalism. +Whenever the reigning sovereign passes by, a certain landed proprietor is +held bound to climb on to the top, trumpet in hand, and sound a flourish +according to the measure of his knowledge in that art. Happily for a +respectable family, crowned heads have no great business in the Pentland +Hills. But the story lends a character of comicality to the stone; and +the passer-by will sometimes chuckle to himself. + +The district is dear to the superstitious. Hard by, at the back-gate of +Comiston, a belated carter beheld a lady in white, ‘with the most +beautiful, clear shoes upon her feet,’ who looked upon him in a very +ghastly manner and then vanished; and just in front is the Hunters’ +Tryst, once a roadside inn, and not so long ago haunted by the devil in +person. Satan led the inhabitants a pitiful existence. He shook the +four corners of the building with lamentable outcries, beat at the doors +and windows, overthrew crockery in the dead hours of the morning, and +danced unholy dances on the roof. Every kind of spiritual disinfectant +was put in requisition; chosen ministers were summoned out of Edinburgh +and prayed by the hour; pious neighbours sat up all night making a noise +of psalmody; but Satan minded them no more than the wind about the +hill-tops; and it was only after years of persecution, that he left the +Hunters’ Tryst in peace to occupy himself with the remainder of mankind. +What with General Kay, and the white lady, and this singular visitation, +the neighbourhood offers great facilities to the makers of sun-myths; and +without exactly casting in one’s lot with that disenchanting school of +writers, one cannot help hearing a good deal of the winter wind in the +last story. ‘That nicht,’ says Burns, in one of his happiest moments,— + + ‘_That nicht a child might understand_ + _The deil had business on his hand_.’ + +And if people sit up all night in lone places on the hills, with Bibles +and tremulous psalms, they will be apt to hear some of the most fiendish +noises in the world; the wind will beat on doors and dance upon roofs for +them, and make the hills howl around their cottage with a clamour like +the judgment-day. + +The road goes down through another valley, and then finally begins to +scale the main slope of the Pentlands. A bouquet of old trees stands +round a white farmhouse; and from a neighbouring dell, you can see smoke +rising and leaves ruffling in the breeze. Straight above, the hills +climb a thousand feet into the air. The neighbourhood, about the time of +lambs, is clamorous with the bleating of flocks; and you will be +awakened, in the grey of early summer mornings, by the barking of a dog +or the voice of a shepherd shouting to the echoes. This, with the hamlet +lying behind unseen, is Swanston. + +The place in the dell is immediately connected with the city. Long ago, +this sheltered field was purchased by the Edinburgh magistrates for the +sake of the springs that rise or gather there. After they had built +their water-house and laid their pipes, it occurred to them that the +place was suitable for junketing. Once entertained, with jovial +magistrates and public funds, the idea led speedily to accomplishment; +and Edinburgh could soon boast of a municipal Pleasure House. The dell +was turned into a garden; and on the knoll that shelters it from the +plain and the sea winds, they built a cottage looking to the hills. They +brought crockets and gargoyles from old St. Giles’s which they were then +restoring, and disposed them on the gables and over the door and about +the garden; and the quarry which had supplied them with building +material, they draped with clematis and carpeted with beds of roses. So +much for the pleasure of the eye; for creature comfort, they made a +capacious cellar in the hillside and fitted it with bins of the hewn +stone. In process of time, the trees grew higher and gave shade to the +cottage, and the evergreens sprang up and turned the dell into a thicket. +There, purple magistrates relaxed themselves from the pursuit of +municipal ambition; cocked hats paraded soberly about the garden and in +and out among the hollies; authoritative canes drew ciphering upon the +path; and at night, from high upon the hills, a shepherd saw lighted +windows through the foliage and heard the voice of city dignitaries +raised in song. + +The farm is older. It was first a grange of Whitekirk Abbey, tilled and +inhabited by rosy friars. Thence, after the Reformation, it passed into +the hands of a true-blue Protestant family. During the covenanting +troubles, when a night conventicle was held upon the Pentlands, the farm +doors stood hospitably open till the morning; the dresser was laden with +cheese and bannocks, milk and brandy; and the worshippers kept slipping +down from the hill between two exercises, as couples visit the +supper-room between two dances of a modern ball. In the Forty-Five, some +foraging Highlanders from Prince Charlie’s army fell upon Swanston in the +dawn. The great-grandfather of the late farmer was then a little child; +him they awakened by plucking the blankets from his bed, and he +remembered, when he was an old man, their truculent looks and uncouth +speech. The churn stood full of cream in the dairy, and with this they +made their brose in high delight. ‘It was braw brose,’ said one of them. +At last they made off, laden like camels with their booty; and Swanston +Farm has lain out of the way of history from that time forward. I do not +know what may be yet in store for it. On dark days, when the mist runs +low upon the hill, the house has a gloomy air as if suitable for private +tragedy. But in hot July, you can fancy nothing more perfect than the +garden, laid out in alleys and arbours and bright, old-fashioned +flower-plots, and ending in a miniature ravine, all trellis-work and moss +and tinkling waterfall, and housed from the sun under fathoms of broad +foliage. + +The hamlet behind is one of the least considerable of hamlets, and +consists of a few cottages on a green beside a burn. Some of them (a +strange thing in Scotland) are models of internal neatness; the beds +adorned with patchwork, the shelves arrayed with willow-pattern plates, +the floors and tables bright with scrubbing or pipe-clay, and the very +kettle polished like silver. It is the sign of a contented old age in +country places, where there is little matter for gossip and no street +sights. Housework becomes an art; and at evening, when the cottage +interior shines and twinkles in the glow of the fire, the housewife folds +her hands and contemplates her finished picture; the snow and the wind +may do their worst, she has made herself a pleasant corner in the world. +The city might be a thousand miles away, and yet it was from close by +that Mr. Bough painted the distant view of Edinburgh which has been +engraved for this collection; and you have only to look at the etching, +{118} to see how near it is at hand. But hills and hill people are not +easily sophisticated; and if you walk out here on a summer Sunday, it is +as like as not the shepherd may set his dogs upon you. But keep an +unmoved countenance; they look formidable at the charge, but their hearts +are in the right place, and they will only bark and sprawl about you on +the grass, unmindful of their master’s excitations. + +Kirk Yetton forms the north-eastern angle of the range; thence, the +Pentlands trend off to south and west. From the summit you look over a +great expanse of champaign sloping to the sea, and behold a large variety +of distant hills. There are the hills of Fife, the hills of Peebles, the +Lammermoors and the Ochils, more or less mountainous in outline, more or +less blue with distance. Of the Pentlands themselves, you see a field of +wild heathery peaks with a pond gleaming in the midst; and to that side +the view is as desolate as if you were looking into Galloway or +Applecross. To turn to the other is like a piece of travel. Far out in +the lowlands Edinburgh shows herself, making a great smoke on clear days +and spreading her suburbs about her for miles; the Castle rises darkly in +the midst, and close by, Arthur’s Seat makes a bold figure in the +landscape. All around, cultivated fields, and woods, and smoking +villages, and white country roads, diversify the uneven surface of the +land. Trains crawl slowly abroad upon the railway lines; little ships +are tacking in the Firth; the shadow of a mountainous cloud, as large as +a parish, travels before the wind; the wind itself ruffles the wood and +standing corn, and sends pulses of varying colour across the landscape. +So you sit, like Jupiter upon Olympus, and look down from afar upon men’s +life. The city is as silent as a city of the dead: from all its humming +thoroughfares, not a voice, not a footfall, reaches you upon the hill. +The sea-surf, the cries of ploughmen, the streams and the mill-wheels, +the birds and the wind, keep up an animated concert through the plain; +from farm to farm, dogs and crowing cocks contend together in defiance; +and yet from this Olympian station, except for the whispering rumour of a +train, the world has fallen into a dead silence, and the business of town +and country grown voiceless in your ears. A crying hill-bird, the bleat +of a sheep, a wind singing in the dry grass, seem not so much to +interrupt, as to accompany, the stillness; but to the spiritual ear, the +whole scene makes a music at once human and rural, and discourses +pleasant reflections on the destiny of man. The spiry habitable city, +ships, the divided fields, and browsing herds, and the straight highways, +tell visibly of man’s active and comfortable ways; and you may be never +so laggard and never so unimpressionable, but there is something in the +view that spirits up your blood and puts you in the vein for cheerful +labour. + +Immediately below is Fairmilehead, a spot of roof and a smoking chimney, +where two roads, no thicker than packthread, intersect beside a hanging +wood. If you are fanciful, you will be reminded of the gauger in the +story. And the thought of this old exciseman, who once lipped and +fingered on his pipe and uttered clear notes from it in the mountain air, +and the words of the song he affected, carry your mind ‘Over the hills +and far away’ to distant countries; and you have a vision of Edinburgh +not, as you see her, in the midst of a little neighbourhood, but as a +boss upon the round world with all Europe and the deep sea for her +surroundings. For every place is a centre to the earth, whence highways +radiate or ships set sail for foreign ports; the limit of a parish is not +more imaginary than the frontier of an empire; and as a man sitting at +home in his cabinet and swiftly writing books, so a city sends abroad an +influence and a portrait of herself. There is no Edinburgh emigrant, far +or near, from China to Peru, but he or she carries some lively pictures +of the mind, some sunset behind the Castle cliffs, some snow scene, some +maze of city lamps, indelible in the memory and delightful to study in +the intervals of toil. For any such, if this book fall in their way, +here are a few more home pictures. It would be pleasant, if they should +recognise a house where they had dwelt, or a walk that they had taken. + + * * * * * + + * * * * * + + LONDON + Printed by STRANGEWAYS and Sons, Tower St. Cambridge Circus, W.C. + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{10} These sentences have, I hear, given offence in my native town, and +a proportionable pleasure to our rivals of Glasgow. I confess the news +caused me both pain and merriment. May I remark, as a balm for wounded +fellow-townsmen, that there is nothing deadly in my accusations? Small +blame to them if they keep ledgers: ’tis an excellent business habit. +Churchgoing is not, that ever I heard, a subject of reproach; decency of +linen is a mark of prosperous affairs, and conscious moral rectitude one +of the tokens of good living. It is not their fault it the city calls +for something more specious by way of inhabitants. A man in a frock-coat +looks out of place upon an Alp or Pyramid, although he has the virtues of +a Peabody and the talents of a Bentham. And let them console +themselves—they do as well as anybody else; the population of (let us +say) Chicago would cut quite as rueful a figure on the same romantic +stage. To the Glasgow people I would say only one word, but that is of +gold; _I have not yet written a book about Glasgow_. + +{118} One of the illustrations of the First Edition. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDINBURGH*** + + +******* This file should be named 382-0.txt or 382-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/8/382 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Edinburgh + Picturesque Notes + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: November 5, 2010 [eBook #382] +[This file was first posted on February 12, 1995] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDINBURGH*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1903 Seeley & Co. Ltd. edition by +David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>EDINBURGH</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Picturesque Notes</i><br /> +<i>by</i><br /> +Robert Louis Stevenson</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>People’s Edition</i>.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="smcap">london</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">SEELEY & CO. Ltd.</span>, 38 <span +class="smcap">Great Russell Street</span><br /> +1903</p> +<h2>CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.</h2> +<p>The ancient and famous metropolis of the North sits +overlooking a windy estuary from the slope and summit of three +hills. No situation could be more commanding for the head +city of a kingdom; none better chosen for noble prospects. +From her tall precipice and terraced gardens she looks far and +wide on the sea and broad champaigns. To the east you may +catch at sunset the spark of the May lighthouse, where the Firth +expands into the German Ocean; and away to the west, over all the +carse of Stirling, you can see the first snows upon Ben Ledi.</p> +<p>But Edinburgh pays cruelly for her high seat in one of the +vilest climates under heaven. She is liable to be beaten +upon by all the winds that blow, to be drenched with rain, to be +buried in cold sea fogs out of the east, and powdered with the +snow as it comes flying southward from the Highland hills. +The weather is raw and boisterous in winter, shifty and ungenial +in summer, and a downright meteorological purgatory in the +spring. The delicate die early, and I, as a survivor, among +bleak winds and plumping rain, have been sometimes tempted to +envy them their fate. For all who love shelter and the +blessings of the sun, who hate dark weather and perpetual tilting +against squalls, there could scarcely be found a more unhomely +and harassing place of residence. Many such aspire angrily +after that Somewhere-else of the imagination, where all troubles +are supposed to end. They lean over the great bridge which +joins the New Town with the Old—that windiest spot, or high +altar, in this northern temple of the winds—and watch the +trains smoking out from under them and vanishing into the tunnel +on a voyage to brighter skies. Happy the passengers who +shake off the dust of Edinburgh, and have heard for the last time +the cry of the east wind among her chimney-tops! And yet +the place establishes an interest in people’s hearts; go +where they will, they find no city of the same distinction; go +where they will, they take a pride in their old home.</p> +<p> +<a href="images/p4b.jpg"> +<img class='floatright' alt= +"Gate of Holyrood" +title= +"Gate of Holyrood" +src="images/p4s.jpg" /> +</a>Venice, it has been said, differs from another cities in the +sentiment which she inspires. The rest may have admirers; +she only, a famous fair one, counts lovers in her train. +And, indeed, even by her kindest friends, Edinburgh is not +considered in a similar sense. These like her for many +reasons, not any one of which is satisfactory in itself. +They like her whimsically, if you will, and somewhat as a +virtuoso dotes upon his cabinet. Her attraction is romantic +in the narrowest meaning of the term. Beautiful as she is, +she is not so much beautiful as interesting. She is +pre-eminently Gothic, and all the more so since she has set +herself off with some Greek airs, and erected classic temples on +her crags. In a word, and above all, she is a +curiosity. The Palace of Holyrood has been left aside in +the growth of Edinburgh, and stands grey and silent in a +workman’s quarter and among breweries and gas works. +It is a house of many memories. Great people of yore, kings +and queens, buffoons and grave ambassadors, played their stately +farce for centuries in Holyrood. Wars have been plotted, +dancing has lasted deep into the night,—murder has been +done in its chambers. There Prince Charlie held his phantom +levees, and in a very gallant manner represented a fallen dynasty +for some hours. Now, all these things of clay are mingled +with the dust, the king’s crown itself is shown for +sixpence to the vulgar; but the stone palace has outlived these +charges. For fifty weeks together, it is no more than a +show for tourists and a museum of old furniture; but on the +fifty-first, behold the palace reawakened and mimicking its +past. The Lord Commissioner, a kind of stage sovereign, +sits among stage courtiers; a coach and six and clattering escort +come and go before the gate; at night, the windows are lighted +up, and its near neighbours, the workmen, may dance in their own +houses to the palace music. And in this the palace is +typical. There is a spark among the embers; from time to +time the old volcano smokes. Edinburgh has but partly +abdicated, and still wears, in parody, her metropolitan +trappings. Half a capital and half a country town, the +whole city leads a double existence; it has long trances of the +one and flashes of the other; like the king of the Black Isles, +it is half alive and half a monumental marble. There are +armed men and cannon in the citadel overhead; you may see the +troops marshalled on the high parade; and at night after the +early winter even-fall, and in the morning before the laggard +winter dawn, the wind carries abroad over Edinburgh the sound of +drums and bugles. Grave judges sit bewigged in what was +once the scene of imperial deliberations. Close by in the +High Street perhaps the trumpets may sound about the stroke of +noon; and you see a troop of citizens in tawdry masquerade; +tabard above, heather-mixture trowser below, and the men +themselves trudging in the mud among unsympathetic +by-standers. The grooms of a well-appointed circus tread +the streets with a better presence. And yet these are the +Heralds and Pursuivants of Scotland, who are about to proclaim a +new law of the United Kingdom before two-score boys, and thieves, +and hackney-coachmen. Meanwhile every hour the bell of the +University rings out over the hum of the streets, and every hour +a double tide of students, coming and going, fills the deep +archways. And lastly, one night in the springtime—or +say one morning rather, at the peep of day—late folk may +hear voices of many men singing a psalm in unison from a church +on one side of the old High Street; and a little after, or +perhaps a little before, the sound of many men singing a psalm in +unison from another church on the opposite side of the way. +There will be something in the words above the dew of Hermon, and +how goodly it is to see brethren dwelling together in +unity. And the late folk will tell themselves that all this +singing denotes the conclusion of two yearly ecclesiastical +parliaments—the parliaments of Churches which are brothers +in many admirable virtues, but not specially like brothers in +this particular of a tolerant and peaceful life.</p> +<p>Again, meditative people will find a charm in a certain +consonancy between the aspect of the city and its odd and +stirring history. Few places, if any, offer a more barbaric +display of contrasts to the eye. In the very midst stands +one of the most satisfactory crags in nature—a Bass Rock +upon dry land, rooted in a garden shaken by passing trains, +carrying a crown of battlements and turrets, and describing its +war-like shadow over the liveliest and brightest thoroughfare of +the new town. From their smoky beehives, ten stories high, +the unwashed look down upon the open squares and gardens of the +wealthy; and gay people sunning themselves along Princes Street, +with its mile of commercial palaces all beflagged upon some great +occasion, see, across a gardened valley set with statues, where +the washings of the Old Town flutter in the breeze at its high +windows. And then, upon all sides, what a clashing of +architecture! In this one valley, where the life of the +town goes most busily forward, there may be seen, shown one above +and behind another by the accidents of the ground, buildings in +almost every style upon the globe. Egyptian and Greek +temples, Venetian palaces and Gothic spires, are huddled one over +another in a most admired disorder; while, above all, the brute +mass of the Castle and the summit of Arthur’s Seat look +down upon these imitations with a becoming dignity, as the works +of Nature may look down the monuments of Art. But Nature is +a more indiscriminate patroness than we imagine, and in no way +frightened of a strong effect. The birds roost as willingly +among the Corinthian capitals as in the crannies of the crag; the +same atmosphere and daylight clothe the eternal rock and +yesterday’s imitation portico; and as the soft northern +sunshine throws out everything into a glorified +distinctness—or easterly mists, coming up with the blue +evening, fuse all these incongruous features into one, and the +lamps begin to glitter along the street, and faint lights to burn +in the high windows across the valley—the feeling grows +upon you that this also is a piece of nature in the most intimate +sense; that this profusion of eccentricities, this dream in +masonry and living rock, is not a drop-scene in a theatre, but a +city in the world of every-day reality, connected by railway and +telegraph-wire with all the capitals of Europe, and inhabited by +citizens of the familiar type, who keep ledgers, and attend +church, and have sold their immortal portion to a daily +paper. By all the canons of romance, the place demands to +be half deserted and leaning towards decay; birds we might admit +in profusion, the play of the sun and winds, and a few gipsies +encamped in the chief thoroughfare; but these citizens with their +cabs and tramways, their trains and posters, are altogether out +of key. Chartered tourists, they make free with historic +localities, and rear their young among the most picturesque sites +with a grand human indifference. To see them thronging by, +in their neat clothes and conscious moral rectitude, and with a +little air of possession that verges on the absurd, is not the +least striking feature of the place. <a name="citation10"></a><a +href="#footnote10" class="citation">[10]</a></p> +<p>And the story of the town is as eccentric as its +appearance. For centuries it was a capital thatched with +heather, and more than once, in the evil days of English +invasion, it has gone up in flame to heaven, a beacon to ships at +sea. It was the jousting-ground of jealous nobles, not only +on Greenside, or by the King’s Stables, where set +tournaments were fought to the sound of trumpets and under the +authority of the royal presence, but in every alley where there +was room to cross swords, and in the main street, where popular +tumult under the Blue Blanket alternated with the brawls of +outlandish clansmen and retainers. Down in the palace John +Knox reproved his queen in the accents of modern democracy. +In the town, in one of those little shops plastered like so many +swallows’ nests among the buttresses of the old Cathedral, +that familiar autocrat, James VI., would gladly share a bottle of +wine with George Heriot the goldsmith. Up on the Pentland +Hills, that so quietly look down on the Castle with the city +lying in waves around it, those mad and dismal fanatics, the +Sweet Singers, haggard from long exposure on the moors, sat day +and night with ‘tearful psalmns’ to see Edinburgh +consumed with fire from heaven, like another Sodom or +Gomorrah. There, in the Grass-market, stiff-necked, +covenanting heroes, offered up the often unnecessary, but not +less honourable, sacrifice of their lives, and bade eloquent +farewell to sun, moon, and stars, and earthly friendships, or +died silent to the roll of drums. Down by yon outlet rode +Grahame of Claverhouse and his thirty dragoons, with the town +beating to arms behind their horses’ tails—a sorry +handful thus riding for their lives, but with a man at the head +who was to return in a different temper, make a dash that +staggered Scotland to the heart, and die happily in the thick of +fight. There Aikenhead was hanged for a piece of boyish +incredulity; there, a few years afterwards, David Hume ruined +Philosophy and Faith, an undisturbed and well-reputed citizen; +and thither, in yet a few years more, Burns came from the +plough-tail, as to an academy of gilt unbelief and artificial +letters. There, when the great exodus was made across the +valley, and the New Town began to spread abroad its draughty +parallelograms, and rear its long frontage on the opposing hill, +there was such a flitting, such a change of domicile and dweller, +as was never excelled in the history of cities: the cobbler +succeeded the earl; the beggar ensconced himself by the +judge’s chimney; what had been a palace was used as a +pauper refuge; and great mansions were so parcelled out among the +least and lowest in society, that the hearthstone of the old +proprietor was thought large enough to be partitioned off into a +bedroom by the new.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II. OLD TOWN—THE LANDS.</h2> +<p>The Old Town, it is pretended, is the chief characteristic, +and, from a picturesque point of view, the liver-wing of +Edinburgh. It is one of the most common forms of +depreciation to throw cold water on the whole by adroit +over-commendation of a part, since everything worth judging, +whether it be a man, a work of art, or only a fine city, must be +judged upon its merits as a whole. The Old Town depends for +much of its effect on the new quarters that lie around it, on the +sufficiency of its situation, and on the hills that back it +up. If you were to set it somewhere else by itself, it +would look remarkably like Stirling in a bolder and loftier +edition. The point is to see this embellished Stirling +planted in the midst of a large, active, and fantastic modern +city; for there the two re-act in a picturesque sense, and the +one is the making of the other.</p> +<p>The Old Town occupies a sloping ridge or tail of diluvial +matter, protected, in some subsidence of the waters, by the +Castle cliffs which fortify it to the west. On the one side +of it and the other the new towns of the south and of the north +occupy their lower, broader, and more gentle hill-tops. +Thus, the quarter of the Castle over-tops the whole city and +keeps an open view to sea and land. It dominates for miles +on every side; and people on the decks of ships, or ploughing in +quiet country places over in Fife, can see the banner on the +Castle battlements, and the smoke of the Old Town blowing abroad +over the subjacent country. A city that is set upon a +hill. It was, I suppose, from this distant aspect that she +got her nickname of <i>Auld Reekie</i>. Perhaps it was +given her by people who had never crossed her doors: day after +day, from their various rustic Pisgahs, they had seen the pile of +building on the hill-top, and the long plume of smoke over the +plain; so it appeared to them; so it had appeared to their +fathers tilling the same field; and as that was all they knew of +the place, it could be all expressed in these two words.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p15b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Cowfeeder Row and Head of West Port" +title= +"Cowfeeder Row and Head of West Port" +src="images/p15s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Indeed, even on a nearer view, the Old Town is properly +smoked; and though it is well washed with rain all the year +round, it has a grim and sooty aspect among its younger +suburbs. It grew, under the law that regulates the growth +of walled cities in precarious situations, not in extent, but in +height and density. Public buildings were forced, wherever +there was room for them, into the midst of thoroughfares; +thorough—fares were diminished into lanes; houses sprang up +story after story, neighbour mounting upon neighbour’s +shoulder, as in some Black Hole of Calcutta, until the population +slept fourteen or fifteen deep in a vertical direction. The +tallest of these <i>lands</i>, as they are locally termed, have +long since been burnt out; but to this day it is not uncommon to +see eight or ten windows at a flight; and the cliff of building +which hangs imminent over Waverley Bridge would still put many +natural precipices to shame. The cellars are already high +above the gazer’s head, planted on the steep hill-side; as +for the garret, all the furniture may be in the pawn-shop, but it +commands a famous prospect to the Highland hills. The poor +man may roost up there in the centre of Edinburgh, and yet have a +peep of the green country from his window; he shall see the +quarters of the well-to-do fathoms underneath, with their broad +squares and gardens; he shall have nothing overhead but a few +spires, the stone top-gallants of the city; and perhaps the wind +may reach him with a rustic pureness, and bring a smack of the +sea or of flowering lilacs in the spring.</p> +<p>It is almost the correct literary sentiment to deplore the +revolutionary improvements of Mr. Chambers and his +following. It is easy to be a conservator of the +discomforts of others; indeed, it is only our good qualities we +find it irksome to conserve. Assuredly, in driving streets +through the black labyrinth, a few curious old corners have been +swept away, and some associations turned out of house and +home. But what slices of sunlight, what breaths of clean +air, have been let in! And what a picturesque world remains +untouched! You go under dark arches, and down dark stairs +and alleys. The way is so narrow that you can lay a hand on +either wall; so steep that, in greasy winter weather, the +pavement is almost as treacherous as ice. Washing dangles +above washing from the windows; the houses bulge outwards upon +flimsy brackets; you see a bit of sculpture in a dark corner; at +the top of all, a gable and a few crowsteps are printed on the +sky. Here, you come into a court where the children are at +play and the grown people sit upon their doorsteps, and perhaps a +church spire shows itself above the roofs. Here, in the +narrowest of the entry, you find a great old mansion still erect, +with some insignia of its former state—some scutcheon, some +holy or courageous motto, on the lintel. The local +antiquary points out where famous and well-born people had their +lodging; and as you look up, out pops the head of a slatternly +woman from the countess’s window. The Bedouins camp +within Pharaoh’s palace walls, and the old war-ship is +given over to the rats. We are already a far way from the +days when powdered heads were plentiful in these alleys, with +jolly, port-wine faces underneath. Even in the chief +thoroughfares Irish washings flutter at the windows, and the +pavements are encumbered with loiterers.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p19b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Old Bow-Head, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh" +title= +"Old Bow-Head, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh" +src="images/p19s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>These loiterers are a true character of the scene. Some +shrewd Scotch workmen may have paused on their way to a job, +debating Church affairs and politics with their tools upon their +arm. But the most part are of a different +order—skulking jail-birds; unkempt, bare-foot children; +big-mouthed, robust women, in a sort of uniform of striped +flannel petticoat and short tartan shawl; among these, a few +surpervising constables and a dismal sprinkling of mutineers and +broken men from higher ranks in society, with some mark of better +days upon them, like a brand. In a place no larger than +Edinburgh, and where the traffic is mostly centred in five or six +chief streets, the same face comes often under the notice of an +idle stroller. In fact, from this point of view, Edinburgh +is not so much a small city as the largest of small towns. +It is scarce possible to avoid observing your neighbours; and I +never yet heard of any one who tried. It has been my +fortune, in this anonymous accidental way, to watch more than one +of these downward travellers for some stages on the road to +ruin. One man must have been upwards of sixty before I +first observed him, and he made then a decent, personable figure +in broad-cloth of the best. For three years he kept +falling—grease coming and buttons going from the +square-skirted coat, the face puffing and pimpling, the shoulders +growing bowed, the hair falling scant and grey upon his head; and +the last that ever I saw of him, he was standing at the mouth of +an entry with several men in moleskin, three parts drunk, and his +old black raiment daubed with mud. I fancy that I still can +hear him laugh. There was something heart-breaking in this +gradual declension at so advanced an age; you would have thought +a man of sixty out of the reach of these calamities; you would +have thought that he was niched by that time into a safe place in +life, whence he could pass quietly and honourably into the +grave.</p> +<p>One of the earliest marks of these <i>dégringolades</i> +is, that the victim begins to disappear from the New Town +thoroughfares, and takes to the High Street, like a wounded +animal to the woods. And such an one is the type of the +quarter. It also has fallen socially. A scutcheon +over the door somewhat jars in sentiment where there is a washing +at every window. The old man, when I saw him last, wore the +coat in which he had played the gentleman three years before; and +that was just what gave him so pre-eminent an air of +wretchedness.</p> +<p> +<a href="images/p22b.jpg"> +<img class='floatright' alt= +"High Street" +title= +"High Street" +src="images/p22s.jpg" /> +</a>It is true that the over-population was at least as dense in +the epoch of lords and ladies, and that now-a-days some customs +which made Edinburgh notorious of yore have been fortunately +pretermitted. But an aggregation of comfort is not +distasteful like an aggregation of the reverse. Nobody +cares how many lords and ladies, and divines and lawyers, may +have been crowded into these houses in the past—perhaps the +more the merrier. The glasses clink around the china +punch-bowl, some one touches the virginals, there are +peacocks’ feathers on the chimney, and the tapers burn +clear and pale in the red firelight. That is not an ugly +picture in itself, nor will it become ugly upon repetition. +All the better if the like were going on in every second room; +the <i>land</i> would only look the more inviting. Times +are changed. In one house, perhaps, two-score families herd +together; and, perhaps, not one of them is wholly out of the +reach of want. The great hotel is given over to discomfort +from the foundation to the chimney-tops; everywhere a pinching, +narrow habit, scanty meals, and an air of sluttishness and +dirt. In the first room there is a birth, in another a +death, in a third a sordid drinking-bout, and the detective and +the Bible-reader cross upon the stairs. High words are +audible from dwelling to dwelling, and children have a strange +experience from the first; only a robust soul, you would think, +could grow up in such conditions without hurt. And even if +God tempers His dispensations to the young, and all the ill does +not arise that our apprehensions may forecast, the sight of such +a way of living is disquieting to people who are more happily +circumstanced. Social inequality is nowhere more +ostentatious than at Edinburgh. I have mentioned already +how, to the stroller along Princes Street, the High Street +callously exhibits its back garrets. It is true, there is a +garden between. And although nothing could be more glaring +by way of contrast, sometimes the opposition is more immediate; +sometimes the thing lies in a nutshell, and there is not so much +as a blade of grass between the rich and poor. To look over +the South Bridge and see the Cowgate below full of crying +hawkers, is to view one rank of society from another in the +twinkling of an eye.</p> +<p>One night I went along the Cowgate after every one was a-bed +but the policeman, and stopped by hazard before a tall +<i>land</i>. The moon touched upon its chimneys, and shone +blankly on the upper windows; there was no light anywhere in the +great bulk of building; but as I stood there it seemed to me that +I could hear quite a body of quiet sounds from the interior; +doubtless there were many clocks ticking, and people snoring on +their backs. And thus, as I fancied, the dense life within +made itself faintly audible in my ears, family after family +contributing its quota to the general hum, and the whole pile +beating in tune to its timepieces, like a great disordered +heart. Perhaps it was little more than a fancy altogether, +but it was strangely impressive at the time, and gave me an +imaginative measure of the disproportion between the quantity of +living flesh and the trifling walls that separated and contained +it.</p> +<p>There was nothing fanciful, at least, but every circumstance +of terror and reality, in the fall of the <i>land</i> in the High +Street. The building had grown rotten to the core; the +entry underneath had suddenly closed up so that the +scavenger’s barrow could not pass; cracks and +reverberations sounded through the house at night; the +inhabitants of the huge old human bee-hive discussed their peril +when they encountered on the stair; some had even left their +dwellings in a panic of fear, and returned to them again in a fit +of economy or self-respect; when, in the black hours of a Sunday +morning, the whole structure ran together with a hideous uproar +and tumbled story upon story to the ground. The physical +shock was felt far and near; and the moral shock travelled with +the morning milkmaid into all the suburbs. The church-bells +never sounded more dismally over Edinburgh than that grey +forenoon. Death had made a brave harvest, and, like Samson, +by pulling down one roof, destroyed many a home. None who +saw it can have forgotten the aspect of the gable; here it was +plastered, there papered, according to the rooms; here the kettle +still stood on the hob, high overhead; and there a cheap picture +of the Queen was pasted over the chimney. So, by this +disaster, you had a glimpse into the life of thirty families, all +suddenly cut off from the revolving years. The <i>land</i> +had fallen; and with the <i>land</i> how much! Far in the +country, people saw a gap in the city ranks, and the sun looked +through between the chimneys in an unwonted place. And all +over the world, in London, in Canada, in New Zealand, fancy what +a multitude of people could exclaim with truth: ‘The house +that I was born in fell last night!’</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III. THE PARLIAMENT CLOSE.</h2> +<p>Time has wrought its changes most notably around the precincts +of St. Giles’s Church. The church itself, if it were +not for the spire, would be unrecognisable; the <i>Krames</i> are +all gone, not a shop is left to shelter in its buttresses; and +zealous magistrates and a misguided architect have shorn the +design of manhood, and left it poor, naked, and pitifully +pretentious. As St. Giles’s must have had in former +days a rich and quaint appearance now forgotten, so the +neighbourhood was bustling, sunless, and romantic. It was +here that the town was most overbuilt; but the overbuilding has +been all rooted out, and not only a free fair-way left along the +High Street with an open space on either side of the church, but +a great porthole, knocked in the main line of the <i>lands</i>, +gives an outlook to the north and the New Town.</p> +<p> +<a href="images/p28b.jpg"> +<img class='floatleft' alt= +"The Spire of St. Giles’s" +title= +"The Spire of St. Giles’s" +src="images/p28s.jpg" /> +</a>There is a silly story of a subterranean passage between the +Castle and Holyrood, and a bold Highland piper who volunteered to +explore its windings. He made his entrance by the upper +end, playing a strathspey; the curious footed it after him down +the street, following his descent by the sound of the chanter +from below; until all of a sudden, about the level of St. +Giles’s, the music came abruptly to an end, and the people +in the street stood at fault with hands uplifted. Whether +he was choked with gases, or perished in a quag, or was removed +bodily by the Evil One, remains a point of doubt; but the piper +has never again been seen or heard of from that day to +this. Perhaps he wandered down into the land of Thomas the +Rhymer, and some day, when it is least expected, may take a +thought to revisit the sunlit upper world. That will be a +strange moment for the cabmen on the stance besides St. +Giles’s, when they hear the drone of his pipes reascending +from the bowels of the earth below their horses’ feet.</p> +<p>But it is not only pipers who have vanished, many a solid bulk +of masonry has been likewise spirited into the air. Here, +for example, is the shape of a heart let into the causeway. +This was the site of the Tolbooth, the Heart of Midlothian, a +place old in story and namefather to a noble book. The +walls are now down in the dust; there is no more <i>squalor +carceris</i> for merry debtors, no more cage for the old, +acknowledged prison-breaker; but the sun and the wind play freely +over the foundations of the jail. Nor is this the only +memorial that the pavement keeps of former days. The +ancient burying-ground of Edinburgh lay behind St. Giles’s +Church, running downhill to the Cowgate and covering the site of +the present Parliament House. It has disappeared as utterly +as the prison or the Luckenbooths; and for those ignorant of its +history, I know only one token that remains. In the +Parliament Close, trodden daily underfoot by advocates, two +letters and a date mark the resting-place of the man who made +Scotland over again in his own image, the indefatigable, +undissuadable John Knox. He sleeps within call of the +church that so often echoed to his preaching.</p> +<p>Hard by the reformer, a bandy-legged and garlanded Charles +Second, made of lead, bestrides a tun-bellied charger. The +King has his backed turned, and, as you look, seems to be +trotting clumsily away from such a dangerous neighbour. +Often, for hours together, these two will be alone in the Close, +for it lies out of the way of all but legal traffic. On one +side the south wall of the church, on the other the arcades of +the Parliament House, enclose this irregular bight of causeway +and describe their shadows on it in the sun. At either end, +from round St. Giles’s buttresses, you command a look into +the High Street with its motley passengers; but the stream goes +by, east and west, and leaves the Parliament Close to Charles the +Second and the birds. Once in a while, a patient crowd may +be seen loitering there all day, some eating fruit, some reading +a newspaper; and to judge by their quiet demeanour, you would +think they were waiting for a distribution of soup-tickets. +The fact is far otherwise; within in the Justiciary Court a man +is upon trial for his life, and these are some of the curious for +whom the gallery was found too narrow. Towards afternoon, +if the prisoner is unpopular, there will be a round of hisses +when he is brought forth. Once in a while, too, an advocate +in wig and gown, hand upon mouth, full of pregnant nods, sweeps +to and fro in the arcade listening to an agent; and at certain +regular hours a whole tide of lawyers hurries across the +space.</p> +<p>The Parliament Close has been the scene of marking incidents +in Scottish history. Thus, when the Bishops were ejected +from the Convention in 1688, ‘all fourteen of them gathered +together with pale faces and stood in a cloud in the Parliament +Close:’ poor episcopal personages who were done with fair +weather for life! Some of the west-country Societarians +standing by, who would have ‘rejoiced more than in great +sums’ to be at their hanging, hustled them so rudely that +they knocked their heads together. It was not magnanimous +behaviour to dethroned enemies; but one, at least, of the +Societarians had groaned in the <i>boots</i>, and they had all +seen their dear friends upon the scaffold. Again, at the +‘woeful Union,’ it was here that people crowded to +escort their favourite from the last of Scottish parliaments: +people flushed with nationality, as Boswell would have said, +ready for riotous acts, and fresh from throwing stones at the +author of ‘Robinson Crusoe’ as he looked out of +window.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p32b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"John Knox’s House in the High Street" +title= +"John Knox’s House in the High Street" +src="images/p32s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>One of the pious in the seventeenth century, going to pass his +<i>trials</i> (examinations as we now say) for the Scottish Bar, +beheld the Parliament Close open and had a vision of the mouth of +Hell. This, and small wonder, was the means of his +conversion. Nor was the vision unsuitable to the locality; +for after an hospital, what uglier piece is there in civilisation +than a court of law? Hither come envy, malice, and all +uncharitableness to wrestle it out in public tourney; crimes, +broken fortunes, severed households, the knave and his victim, +gravitate to this low building with the arcade. To how many +has not St. Giles’s bell told the first hour after +ruin? I think I see them pause to count the strokes, and +wander on again into the moving High Street, stunned and sick at +heart.</p> +<p>A pair of swing doors gives admittance to a hall with a carved +roof, hung with legal portraits, adorned with legal statuary, +lighted by windows of painted glass, and warmed by three vast +fires. This is the <i>Salle des pas perdus</i> of the +Scottish Bar. Here, by a ferocious custom, idle youths must +promenade from ten till two. From end to end, singly or in +pairs or trios, the gowns and wigs go back and forward. +Through a hum of talk and footfalls, the piping tones of a Macer +announce a fresh cause and call upon the names of those +concerned. Intelligent men have been walking here daily for +ten or twenty years without a rag of business or a shilling of +reward. In process of time, they may perhaps be made the +Sheriff-Substitute and Fountain of Justice at Lerwick or +Tobermory. There is nothing required, you would say, but a +little patience and a taste for exercise and bad air. To +breathe dust and bombazine, to feed the mind on cackling gossip, +to hear three parts of a case and drink a glass of sherry, to +long with indescribable longings for the hour when a man may slip +out of his travesty and devote himself to golf for the rest of +the afternoon, and to do this day by day and year after year, may +seem so small a thing to the inexperienced! But those who +have made the experiment are of a different way of thinking, and +count it the most arduous form of idleness.</p> +<p>More swing doors open into pigeon-holes where judges of the +First Appeal sit singly, and halls of audience where the supreme +Lords sit by three or four. Here, you may see Scott’s +place within the bar, where he wrote many a page of Waverley +novels to the drone of judicial proceeding. You will hear a +good deal of shrewdness, and, as their Lordships do not +altogether disdain pleasantry, a fair proportion of dry +fun. The broadest of broad Scotch is now banished from the +bench; but the courts still retain a certain national +flavour. We have a solemn enjoyable way of lingering on a +case. We treat law as a fine art, and relish and digest a +good distinction. There is no hurry: point after point must +be rightly examined and reduced to principle; judge after judge +must utter forth his <i>obiter dicta</i> to delighted +brethren.</p> +<p>Besides the courts, there are installed under the same roof no +less than three libraries: two of no mean order; confused and +semi-subterranean, full of stairs and galleries; where you may +see the most studious-looking wigs fishing out novels by lanthorn +light, in the very place where the old Privy Council tortured +Covenanters. As the Parliament House is built upon a slope, +although it presents only one story to the north, it measures +half-a-dozen at least upon the south; and range after range of +vaults extend below the libraries. Few places are more +characteristic of this hilly capital. You descend one stone +stair after another, and wander, by the flicker of a match, in a +labyrinth of stone cellars. Now, you pass below the Outer +Hall and hear overhead, brisk but ghostly, the interminable +pattering of legal feet. Now, you come upon a strong door +with a wicket: on the other side are the cells of the police +office and the trap-stair that gives admittance to the dock in +the Justiciary Court. Many a foot that has gone up there +lightly enough, has been dead-heavy in the descent. Many a +man’s life has been argued away from him during long hours +in the court above. But just now that tragic stage is empty +and silent like a church on a week-day, with the bench all +sheeted up and nothing moving but the sunbeams on the wall. +A little farther and you strike upon a room, not empty like the +rest, but crowded with <i>productions</i> from bygone criminal +cases: a grim lumber: lethal weapons, poisoned organs in a jar, a +door with a shot-hole through the panel, behind which a man fell +dead. I cannot fancy why they should preserve them unless +it were against the Judgment Day. At length, as you +continue to descend, you see a peep of yellow gaslight and hear a +jostling, whispering noise ahead; next moment you turn a corner, +and there, in a whitewashed passage, is a machinery belt +industriously turning on its wheels. You would think the +engine had grown there of its own accord, like a cellar fungus, +and would soon spin itself out and fill the vaults from end to +end with its mysterious labours. In truth, it is only some +gear of the steam ventilator; and you will find the engineers at +hand, and may step out of their door into the sunlight. For +all this while, you have not been descending towards the +earth’s centre, but only to the bottom of the hill and the +foundations of the Parliament House; low down, to be sure, but +still under the open heaven and in a field of grass. The +daylight shines garishly on the back windows of the Irish +quarter; on broken shutters, wry gables, old palsied houses on +the brink of ruin, a crumbling human pig-sty fit for human +pigs. There are few signs of life, besides a scanty washing +or a face at a window: the dwellers are abroad, but they will +return at night and stagger to their pallets.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV. LEGENDS.</h2> +<p>The character of a place is often most perfectly expressed in +its associations. An event strikes root and grows into a +legend, when it has happened amongst congenial +surroundings. Ugly actions, above all in ugly places, have +the true romantic quality, and become an undying property of +their scene. To a man like Scott, the different appearances +of nature seemed each to contain its own legend ready made, which +it was his to call forth: in such or such a place, only such or +such events ought with propriety to happen; and in this spirit he +made the <i>Lady of the Lake</i> for Ben Venue, the <i>Heart of +Midlothian</i> for Edinburgh, and the <i>Pirate</i>, so +indifferently written but so romantically conceived, for the +desolate islands and roaring tideways of the North. The +common run of mankind have, from generation to generation, an +instinct almost as delicate as that of Scott; but where he +created new things, they only forget what is unsuitable among the +old; and by survival of the fittest, a body of tradition becomes +a work of art. So, in the low dens and high-flying garrets +of Edinburgh, people may go back upon dark passages in the +town’s adventures, and chill their marrow with +winter’s tales about the fire: tales that are singularly +apposite and characteristic, not only of the old life, but of the +very constitution of built nature in that part, and singularly +well qualified to add horror to horror, when the wind pipes +around the tall <i>lands</i>, and hoots adown arched passages, +and the far-spread wilderness of city lamps keeps quavering and +flaring in the gusts.</p> +<p> +<a href="images/p41b.jpg"> +<img class='floatright' alt= +"The Canongate" +title= +"The Canongate" +src="images/p41s.jpg" /> +</a>Here, it is the tale of Begbie the bank-porter, stricken to +the heart at a blow and left in his blood within a step or two of +the crowded High Street. There, people hush their voices +over Burke and Hare; over drugs and violated graves, and the +resurrection-men smothering their victims with their knees. +Here, again, the fame of Deacon Brodie is kept piously +fresh. A great man in his day was the Deacon; well seen in +good society, crafty with his hands as a cabinet-maker, and one +who could sing a song with taste. Many a citizen was proud +to welcome the Deacon to supper, and dismissed him with regret at +a timeous hour, who would have been vastly disconcerted had he +known how soon, and in what guise, his visitor returned. +Many stories are told of this redoubtable Edinburgh burglar, but +the one I have in my mind most vividly gives the key of all the +rest. A friend of Brodie’s, nested some way towards +heaven in one of these great <i>lands</i>, had told him of a +projected visit to the country, and afterwards, detained by some +affairs, put it off and stayed the night in town. The good +man had lain some time awake; it was far on in the small hours by +the Tron bell; when suddenly there came a creak, a jar, a faint +light. Softly he clambered out of bed and up to a false +window which looked upon another room, and there, by the glimmer +of a thieves’ lantern, was his good friend the Deacon in a +mask. It is characteristic of the town and the town’s +manners that this little episode should have been quietly tided +over, and quite a good time elapsed before a great robbery, an +escape, a Bow Street runner, a cock-fight, an apprehension in a +cupboard in Amsterdam, and a last step into the air off his own +greatly-improved gallows drop, brought the career of Deacon +William Brodie to an end. But still, by the mind’s +eye, he may be seen, a man harassed below a mountain of +duplicity, slinking from a magistrate’s supper-room to a +thieves’ ken, and pickeering among the closes by the +flicker of a dark lamp.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p43b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Planestones Close, Canongate" +title= +"Planestones Close, Canongate" +src="images/p43s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Or where the Deacon is out of favour, perhaps some memory +lingers of the great plagues, and of fatal houses still unsafe to +enter within the memory of man. For in time of pestilence +the discipline had been sharp and sudden, and what we now call +‘stamping out contagion’ was carried on with deadly +rigour. The officials, in their gowns of grey, with a white +St. Andrew’s cross on back and breast, and a white cloth +carried before them on a staff, perambulated the city, adding the +terror of man’s justice to the fear of God’s +visitation. The dead they buried on the Borough Muir; the +living who had concealed the sickness were drowned, if they were +women, in the Quarry Holes, and if they were men, were hanged and +gibbeted at their own doors; and wherever the evil had passed, +furniture was destroyed and houses closed. And the most +bogeyish part of the story is about such houses. Two +generations back they still stood dark and empty; people avoided +them as they passed by; the boldest schoolboy only shouted +through the keyhole and made off; for within, it was supposed, +the plague lay ambushed like a basilisk, ready to flow forth and +spread blain and pustule through the city. What a terrible +next-door neighbour for superstitious citizens! A rat +scampering within would send a shudder through the stoutest +heart. Here, if you like, was a sanitary parable, addressed +by our uncleanly forefathers to their own neglect.</p> +<p>And then we have Major Weir; for although even his house is +now demolished, old Edinburgh cannot clear herself of his unholy +memory. He and his sister lived together in an odour of +sour piety. She was a marvellous spinster; he had a rare +gift of supplication, and was known among devout admirers by the +name of Angelical Thomas. ‘He was a tall, black man, +and ordinarily looked down to the ground; a grim countenance, and +a big nose. His garb was still a cloak, and somewhat dark, +and he never went without his staff.’ How it came +about that Angelical Thomas was burned in company with his staff, +and his sister in gentler manner hanged, and whether these two +were simply religious maniacs of the more furious order, or had +real as well as imaginary sins upon their old-world shoulders, +are points happily beyond the reach of our intention. At +least, it is suitable enough that out of this superstitious city +some such example should have been put forth: the outcome and +fine flower of dark and vehement religion. And at least the +facts struck the public fancy and brought forth a remarkable +family of myths. It would appear that the Major’s +staff went upon his errands, and even ran before him with a +lantern on dark nights. Gigantic females, +‘stentoriously laughing and gaping with tehees of +laughter’ at unseasonable hours of night and morning, +haunted the purlieus of his abode. His house fell under +such a load of infamy that no one dared to sleep in it, until +municipal improvement levelled the structure to the ground. +And my father has often been told in the nursery how the +devil’s coach, drawn by six coal-black horses with fiery +eyes, would drive at night into the West Bow, and belated people +might see the dead Major through the glasses.</p> +<p>Another legend is that of the two maiden sisters. A +legend I am afraid it may be, in the most discreditable meaning +of the term; or perhaps something worse—a mere +yesterday’s fiction. But it is a story of some +vitality, and is worthy of a place in the Edinburgh +kalendar. This pair inhabited a single room; from the +facts, it must have been double-bedded; and it may have been of +some dimensions: but when all is said, it was a single +room. Here our two spinsters fell out—on some point +of controversial divinity belike: but fell out so bitterly that +there was never a word spoken between them, black or white, from +that day forward. You would have thought they would +separate: but no; whether from lack of means, or the Scottish +fear of scandal, they continued to keep house together where they +were. A chalk line drawn upon the floor separated their two +domains; it bisected the doorway and the fireplace, so that each +could go out and in, and do her cooking, without violating the +territory of the other. So, for years, they coexisted in a +hateful silence; their meals, their ablutions, their friendly +visitors, exposed to an unfriendly scrutiny; and at night, in the +dark watches, each could hear the breathing of her enemy. +Never did four walls look down upon an uglier spectacle than +these sisters rivalling in unsisterliness. Here is a canvas +for Hawthorne to have turned into a cabinet picture—he had +a Puritanic vein, which would have fitted him to treat this +Puritanic horror; he could have shown them to us in their +sicknesses and at their hideous twin devotions, thumbing a pair +of great Bibles, or praying aloud for each other’s +penitence with marrowy emphasis; now each, with kilted petticoat, +at her own corner of the fire on some tempestuous evening; now +sitting each at her window, looking out upon the summer landscape +sloping far below them towards the firth, and the field-paths +where they had wandered hand in hand; or, as age and infirmity +grew upon them and prolonged their toilettes, and their hands +began to tremble and their heads to nod involuntarily, growing +only the more steeled in enmity with years; until one fine day, +at a word, a look, a visit, or the approach of death, their +hearts would melt and the chalk boundary be overstepped for +ever.</p> +<p>Alas! to those who know the ecclesiastical history of the +race—the most perverse and melancholy in man’s +annals—this will seem only a figure of much that is typical +of Scotland and her high-seated capital above the Forth—a +figure so grimly realistic that it may pass with strangers for a +caricature. We are wonderful patient haters for conscience +sake up here in the North. I spoke, in the first of these +papers, of the Parliaments of the Established and Free Churches, +and how they can hear each other singing psalms across the +street. There is but a street between them in space, but a +shadow between them in principle; and yet there they sit, +enchanted, and in damnatory accents pray for each other’s +growth in grace. It would be well if there were no more +than two; but the sects in Scotland form a large family of +sisters, and the chalk lines are thickly drawn, and run through +the midst of many private homes. Edinburgh is a city of +churches, as though it were a place of pilgrimage. You will +see four within a stone-cast at the head of the West Bow. +Some are crowded to the doors; some are empty like monuments; and +yet you will ever find new ones in the building. Hence that +surprising clamour of church bells that suddenly breaks out upon +the Sabbath morning from Trinity and the sea-skirts to +Morningside on the borders of the hills. I have heard the +chimes of Oxford playing their symphony in a golden autumn +morning, and beautiful it was to hear. But in Edinburgh all +manner of loud bells join, or rather disjoin, in one swelling, +brutal babblement of noise. Now one overtakes another, and +now lags behind it; now five or six all strike on the pained +tympanum at the same punctual instant of time, and make together +a dismal chord of discord; and now for a second all seem to have +conspired to hold their peace. Indeed, there are not many +uproars in this world more dismal than that of the Sabbath bells +in Edinburgh: a harsh ecclesiastical tocsin; the outcry of +incongruous orthodoxies, calling on every separate conventicler +to put up a protest, each in his own synagogue, against +‘right-hand extremes and left-hand defections.’ +And surely there are few worse extremes than this extremity of +zeal; and few more deplorable defections than this disloyalty to +Christian love. Shakespeare wrote a comedy of ‘Much +Ado about Nothing.’ The Scottish nation made a +fantastic tragedy on the same subject. And it is for the +success of this remarkable piece that these bells are sounded +every Sabbath morning on the hills above the Forth. How +many of them might rest silent in the steeple, how many of these +ugly churches might be demolished and turned once more into +useful building material, if people who think almost exactly the +same thoughts about religion would condescend to worship God +under the same roof! But there are the chalk lines. +And which is to pocket pride, and speak the foremost word?</p> +<h2>CHAPTER V. GREYFRIARS.</h2> +<p>It was Queen Mary who threw open the gardens of the Grey +Friars: a new and semi-rural cemetery in those days, although it +has grown an antiquity in its turn and been superseded by +half-a-dozen others. The Friars must have had a pleasant +time on summer evenings; for their gardens were situated to a +wish, with the tall castle and the tallest of the castle crags in +front. Even now, it is one of our famous Edinburgh points +of view; and strangers are led thither to see, by yet another +instance, how strangely the city lies upon her hills. The +enclosure is of an irregular shape; the double church of Old and +New Greyfriars stands on the level at the top; a few thorns are +dotted here and there, and the ground falls by terrace and steep +slope towards the north. The open shows many slabs and +table tombstones; and all round the margin, the place is girt by +an array of aristocratic mausoleums appallingly adorned.</p> +<p>Setting aside the tombs of Roubiliac, which belong to the +heroic order of graveyard art, we Scotch stand, to my fancy, +highest among nations in the matter of grimly illustrating +death. We seem to love for their own sake the emblems of +time and the great change; and even around country churches you +will find a wonderful exhibition of skulls, and crossbones, and +noseless angels, and trumpets pealing for the Judgment Day. +Every mason was a pedestrian Holbein: he had a deep consciousness +of death, and loved to put its terrors pithily before the +churchyard loiterer; he was brimful of rough hints upon +mortality, and any dead farmer was seized upon to be a +text. The classical examples of this art are in +Greyfriars. In their time, these were doubtless costly +monuments, and reckoned of a very elegant proportion by +contemporaries; and now, when the elegance is not so apparent, +the significance remains. You may perhaps look with a smile +on the profusion of Latin mottoes—some crawling endwise up +the shaft of a pillar, some issuing on a scroll from +angels’ trumpets—on the emblematic horrors, the +figures rising headless from the grave, and all the traditional +ingenuities in which it pleased our fathers to set forth their +sorrow for the dead and their sense of earthly mutability. +But it is not a hearty sort of mirth. Each ornament may +have been executed by the merriest apprentice, whistling as he +plied the mallet; but the original meaning of each, and the +combined effect of so many of them in this quiet enclosure, is +serious to the point of melancholy.</p> +<p>Round a great part of the circuit, houses of a low class +present their backs to the churchyard. Only a few inches +separate the living from the dead. Here, a window is partly +blocked up by the pediment of a tomb; there, where the street +falls far below the level of the graves, a chimney has been +trained up the back of a monument, and a red pot looks vulgarly +over from behind. A damp smell of the graveyard finds its +way into houses where workmen sit at meat. Domestic life on +a small scale goes forward visibly at the windows. The very +solitude and stillness of the enclosure, which lies apart from +the town’s traffic, serves to accentuate the +contrast. As you walk upon the graves, you see children +scattering crumbs to feed the sparrows; you hear people singing +or washing dishes, or the sound of tears and castigation; the +linen on a clothes-pole flaps against funereal sculpture; or +perhaps the cat slips over the lintel and descends on a memorial +urn. And as there is nothing else astir, these incongruous +sights and noises take hold on the attention and exaggerate the +sadness of the place.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p55b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Greyfriars" +title= +"Greyfriars" +src="images/p55s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Greyfriars is continually overrun by cats. I have seen +one afternoon, as many as thirteen of them seated on the grass +beside old Milne, the Master Builder, all sleek and fat, and +complacently blinking, as if they had fed upon strange +meats. Old Milne was chaunting with the saints, as we may +hope, and cared little for the company about his grave; but I +confess the spectacle had an ugly side for me; and I was glad to +step forward and raise my eyes to where the Castle and the roofs +of the Old Town, and the spire of the Assembly Hall, stood +deployed against the sky with the colourless precision of +engraving. An open outlook is to be desired from a +churchyard, and a sight of the sky and some of the world’s +beauty relieves a mind from morbid thoughts.</p> +<p>I shall never forget one visit. It was a grey, dropping +day; the grass was strung with rain-drops; and the people in the +houses kept hanging out their shirts and petticoats and angrily +taking them in again, as the weather turned from wet to fair and +back again. A grave-digger, and a friend of his, a gardener +from the country, accompanied me into one after another of the +cells and little courtyards in which it gratified the wealthy of +old days to enclose their old bones from neighbourhood. In +one, under a sort of shrine, we found a forlorn human effigy, +very realistically executed down to the detail of his ribbed +stockings, and holding in his hand a ticket with the date of his +demise. He looked most pitiful and ridiculous, shut up by +himself in his aristocratic precinct, like a bad old boy or an +inferior forgotten deity under a new dispensation; the burdocks +grew familiarly about his feet, the rain dripped all round him; +and the world maintained the most entire indifference as to who +he was or whither he had gone. In another, a vaulted tomb, +handsome externally but horrible inside with damp and cobwebs, +there were three mounds of black earth and an uncovered thigh +bone. This was the place of interment, it appeared, of a +family with whom the gardener had been long in service. He +was among old acquaintances. ‘This’ll be Miss +Marg’et’s,’ said he, giving the bone a friendly +kick. ‘The auld ---!’ I have always an +uncomfortable feeling in a graveyard, at sight of so many tombs +to perpetuate memories best forgotten; but I never had the +impression so strongly as that day. People had been at some +expense in both these cases: to provoke a melancholy feeling of +derision in the one, and an insulting epithet in the other. +The proper inscription for the most part of mankind, I began to +think, is the cynical jeer, <i>cras tibi</i>. That, if +anything, will stop the mouth of a carper; since it both admits +the worst and carries the war triumphantly into the enemy’s +camp.</p> +<p>Greyfriars is a place of many associations. There was +one window in a house at the lower end, now demolished, which was +pointed out to me by the gravedigger as a spot of legendary +interest. Burke, the resurrection man, infamous for so many +murders at five shillings a-head, used to sit thereat, with pipe +and nightcap, to watch burials going forward on the green. +In a tomb higher up, which must then have been but newly +finished, John Knox, according to the same informant, had taken +refuge in a turmoil of the Reformation. Behind the church +is the haunted mausoleum of Sir George Mackenzie: Bloody +Mackenzie, Lord Advocate in the Covenanting troubles and author +of some pleasing sentiments on toleration. Here, in the +last century, an old Heriot’s Hospital boy once harboured +from the pursuit of the police. The Hospital is next door +to Greyfriars—a courtly building among lawns, where, on +Founder’s Day, you may see a multitude of children playing +Kiss-in-the-Ring and Round the Mulberry-bush. Thus, when +the fugitive had managed to conceal himself in the tomb, his old +schoolmates had a hundred opportunities to bring him food; and +there he lay in safety till a ship was found to smuggle him +abroad. But his must have been indeed a heart of brass, to +lie all day and night alone with the dead persecutor; and other +lads were far from emulating him in courage. When a +man’s soul is certainly in hell, his body will scarce lie +quiet in a tomb however costly; some time or other the door must +open, and the reprobate come forth in the abhorred garments of +the grave. It was thought a high piece of prowess to knock +at the Lord Advocate’s mausoleum and challenge him to +appear. ‘Bluidy Mackingie, come oot if ye +dar’!’ sang the fool-hardy urchins. But Sir +George had other affairs on hand; and the author of an essay on +toleration continues to sleep peacefully among the many whom he +so intolerantly helped to slay.</p> +<p> +<a href="images/p60b.jpg"> +<img class='floatright' alt= +"The Grassmarket" +title= +"The Grassmarket" +src="images/p60s.jpg" /> +</a>For this <i>infelix campus</i>, as it is dubbed in one of its +own inscriptions—an inscription over which Dr. Johnson +passed a critical eye—is in many ways sacred to the memory +of the men whom Mackenzie persecuted. It was here, on the +flat tombstones, that the Covenant was signed by an enthusiastic +people. In the long arm of the church-yard that extends to +Lauriston, the prisoners from Bothwell Bridge—fed on bread +and water and guarded, life for life, by vigilant +marksmen—lay five months looking for the scaffold or the +plantations. And while the good work was going forward in +the Grassmarket, idlers in Greyfriars might have heard the throb +of the military drums that drowned the voices of the +martyrs. Nor is this all: for down in the corner farthest +from Sir George, there stands a monument dedicated, in uncouth +Covenanting verse, to all who lost their lives in that +contention. There is no moorsman shot in a snow shower +beside Irongray or Co’monell; there is not one of the two +hundred who were drowned off the Orkneys; nor so much as a poor, +over-driven, Covenanting slave in the American plantations; but +can lay claim to a share in that memorial, and, if such things +interest just men among the shades, can boast he has a monument +on earth as well as Julius Cæsar or the Pharaohs. +Where they may all lie, I know not. Far-scattered bones, +indeed! But if the reader cares to learn how some of +them—or some part of some of them—found their way at +length to such honourable sepulture, let him listen to the words +of one who was their comrade in life and their apologist when +they were dead. Some of the insane controversial matter I +omit, as well as some digressions, but leave the rest in Patrick +Walker’s language and orthography:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘The never to be forgotten Mr. <i>James +Renwick</i> told me, that he was Witness to their Public Murder +at the <i>Gallowlee</i>, between <i>Leith</i> and +<i>Edinburgh</i>, when he saw the Hangman hash and hagg off all +their Five Heads, with <i>Patrick Foreman’s</i> Right Hand: +Their Bodies were all buried at the Gallows Foot; their Heads, +with <i>Patrick’s</i> Hand, were brought and put upon five +Pikes on the <i>Pleasaunce-Port</i>. . . . Mr. <i>Renwick</i> +told me also that it was the first public Action that his Hand +was at, to conveen Friends, and lift their murthered Bodies, and +carried them to the West Churchyard of +<i>Edinburgh</i>,’—not Greyfriars, this +time,—‘and buried them there. Then they came +about the City . . . . and took down these Five Heads and that +Hand; and Day being come, they went quickly up the +<i>Pleasaunce</i>; and when they came to <i>Lauristoun</i> Yards, +upon the South-side of the City, they durst not venture, being so +light, to go and bury their Heads with their Bodies, which they +designed; it being present Death, if any of them had been +found. <i>Alexander Tweedie</i>, a Friend, being with them, +who at that Time was Gardner in these Yards, concluded to bury +them in his Yard, being in a Box (wrapped in Linen), where they +lay 45 Years except 3 Days, being executed upon the 10th of +<i>October</i> 1681, and found the 7th Day of October 1726. +That Piece of Ground lay for some Years unlaboured; and trenching +it, the Gardner found them, which affrighted him the Box was +consumed. Mr. <i>Schaw</i>, the Owner of these Yards, +caused lift them, and lay them upon a Table in his Summer-house: +Mr. <i>Schaw’s</i> mother was so kind, as to cut out a +Linen-cloth, and cover them. They lay Twelve Days there, +where all had Access to see them. <i>Alexander Tweedie</i>, +the foresaid Gardner, said, when dying, There was a Treasure hid +in his Yard, but neither Gold nor Silver. <i>Daniel +Tweedie</i>, his Son, came along with me to that Yard, and told +me that his Father planted a white Rose-bush above them, and +farther down the Yard a red Rose-bush, which were more fruitful +than any other Bush in the Yard. . . . Many came’—to +see the heads—‘out of Curiosity; yet I rejoiced to +see so many concerned grave Men and Women favouring the Dust of +our Martyrs. There were Six of us concluded to bury them +upon the Nineteenth Day of <i>October</i> 1726, and every One of +us to acquaint Friends of the Day and Hour, being +<i>Wednesday</i>, the Day of the Week on which most of them were +executed, and at 4 of the Clock at Night, being the Hour that +most of them went to their resting Graves. We caused make a +compleat Coffin for them in Black, with four Yards of fine Linen, +the way that our Martyrs Corps were managed. . . . Accordingly we +kept the aforesaid Day and Hour, and doubled the Linen, and laid +the Half of it below them, their nether jaws being parted from +their Heads; but being young Men, their Teeth remained. All +were Witness to the Holes in each of their Heads, which the +Hangman broke with his Hammer; and according to the Bigness of +their Sculls, we laid the Jaws to them, and drew the other Half +of the Linen above them, and stufft the Coffin with +Shavings. Some prest hard to go thorow the chief Parts of +the City as was done at the Revolution; but this we refused, +considering that it looked airy and frothy, to make such Show of +them, and inconsistent with the solid serious Observing of such +an affecting, surprizing unheard-of Dispensation: But took the +ordinary Way of other Burials from that Place, to wit, we went +east the Back of the Wall, and in at <i>Bristo-Port</i>, and down +the Way to the Head of the <i>Cowgate</i>, and turned up to the +Church-yard, where they were interred closs to the Martyrs Tomb, +with the greatest Multitude of People Old and Young, Men and +Women, Ministers and others, that ever I saw together.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And so there they were at last, in ‘their resting +graves.’ So long as men do their duty, even if it be +greatly in a misapprehension, they will be leading pattern lives; +and whether or not they come to lie beside a martyrs’ +monument, we may be sure they will find a safe haven somewhere in +the providence of God. It is not well to think of death, +unless we temper the thought with that of heroes who despised +it. Upon what ground, is of small account; if it be only +the bishop who was burned for his faith in the antipodes, his +memory lightens the heart and makes us walk undisturbed among +graves. And so the martyrs’ monument is a wholesome, +heartsome spot in the field of the dead; and as we look upon it, +a brave influence comes to us from the land of those who have won +their discharge and, in another phrase of Patrick Walker’s, +got ‘cleanly off the stage.’</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI. NEW TOWN—TOWN AND COUNTRY.</h2> +<p>It is as much a matter of course to decry the New Town as to +exalt the Old; and the most celebrated authorities have picked +out this quarter as the very emblem of what is condemnable in +architecture. Much may be said, much indeed has been said, +upon the text; but to the unsophisticated, who call anything +pleasing if it only pleases them, the New Town of Edinburgh +seems, in itself, not only gay and airy, but highly +picturesque. An old skipper, invincibly ignorant of all +theories of the sublime and beautiful, once propounded as his +most radiant notion for Paradise: ‘The new town of +Edinburgh, with the wind a matter of a point free.’ +He has now gone to that sphere where all good tars are promised +pleasant weather in the song, and perhaps his thoughts fly +somewhat higher. But there are bright and temperate +days—with soft air coming from the inland hills, military +music sounding bravely from the hollow of the gardens, the flags +all waving on the palaces of Princes Street—when I have +seen the town through a sort of glory, and shaken hands in +sentiment with the old sailor. And indeed, for a man who +has been much tumbled round Orcadian skerries, what scene could +be more agreeable to witness? On such a day, the valley +wears a surprising air of festival. It seems (I do not know +how else to put my meaning) as if it were a trifle too good to be +true. It is what Paris ought to be. It has the scenic +quality that would best set off a life of unthinking, open-air +diversion. It was meant by nature for the realisation of +the society of comic operas. And you can imagine, if the +climate were but towardly, how all the world and his wife would +flock into these gardens in the cool of the evening, to hear +cheerful music, to sip pleasant drinks, to see the moon rise from +behind Arthur’s Seat and shine upon the spires and +monuments and the green tree-tops in the valley. Alas! and +the next morning the rain is splashing on the windows, and the +passengers flee along Princes Street before the galloping +squalls.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p67b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Royal Institution" +title= +"The Royal Institution" +src="images/p67s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>It cannot be denied that the original design was faulty and +short-sighted, and did not fully profit by the capabilities of +the situation. The architect was essentially a town bird, +and he laid out the modern city with a view to street scenery, +and to street scenery alone. The country did not enter into +his plan; he had never lifted his eyes to the hills. If he +had so chosen, every street upon the northern slope might have +been a noble terrace and commanded an extensive and beautiful +view. But the space has been too closely built; many of the +houses front the wrong way, intent, like the Man with the +Muck-Rake, on what is not worth observation, and standing +discourteously back-foremost in the ranks; and, in a word, it is +too often only from attic-windows, or here and there at a +crossing, that you can get a look beyond the city upon its +diversified surroundings. But perhaps it is all the more +surprising, to come suddenly on a corner, and see a perspective +of a mile or more of falling street, and beyond that woods and +villas, and a blue arm of sea, and the hills upon the farther +side.</p> +<p>Fergusson, our Edinburgh poet, Burns’s model, once saw a +butterfly at the Town Cross; and the sight inspired him with a +worthless little ode. This painted country man, the dandy +of the rose garden, looked far abroad in such a humming +neighbourhood; and you can fancy what moral considerations a +youthful poet would supply. But the incident, in a fanciful +sort of way, is characteristic of the place. Into no other +city does the sight of the country enter so far; if you do not +meet a butterfly, you shall certainly catch a glimpse of far-away +trees upon your walk; and the place is full of theatre tricks in +the way of scenery. You peep under an arch, you descend +stairs that look as if they would land you in a cellar, you turn +to the back-window of a grimy tenement in a lane:—and +behold! you are face-to-face with distant and bright +prospects. You turn a corner, and there is the sun going +down into the Highland hills. You look down an alley, and +see ships tacking for the Baltic.</p> +<p>For the country people to see Edinburgh on her hill-tops, is +one thing; it is another for the citizen, from the thick of his +affairs, to overlook the country. It should be a genial and +ameliorating influence in life; it should prompt good thoughts +and remind him of Nature’s unconcern: that he can watch +from day to day, as he trots officeward, how the Spring green +brightens in the wood or the field grows black under a moving +ploughshare. I have been tempted, in this connexion, to +deplore the slender faculties of the human race, with its +penny-whistle of a voice, its dull cars, and its narrow range of +sight. If you could see as people are to see in heaven, if +you had eyes such as you can fancy for a superior race, if you +could take clear note of the objects of vision, not only a few +yards, but a few miles from where you stand:—think how +agreeably your sight would be entertained, how pleasantly your +thoughts would be diversified, as you walked the Edinburgh +streets! For you might pause, in some business perplexity, +in the midst of the city traffic, and perhaps catch the eye of a +shepherd as he sat down to breathe upon a heathery shoulder of +the Pentlands; or perhaps some urchin, clambering in a country +elm, would put aside the leaves and show you his flushed and +rustic visage; or a fisher racing seawards, with the tiller under +his elbow, and the sail sounding in the wind, would fling you a +salutation from between Anst’er and the May.</p> +<p>To be old is not the same thing as to be picturesque; nor +because the Old Town bears a strange physiognomy, does it at all +follow that the New Town shall look commonplace. Indeed, +apart from antique houses, it is curious how much description +would apply commonly to either. The same sudden accidents +of ground, a similar dominating site above the plain, and the +same superposition of one rank of society over another, are to be +observed in both. Thus, the broad and comely approach to +Princes Street from the east, lined with hotels and public +offices, makes a leap over the gorge of the Low Calton; if you +cast a glance over the parapet, you look direct into that sunless +and disreputable confluent of Leith Street; and the same tall +houses open upon both thoroughfares. This is only the New +Town passing overhead above its own cellars; walking, so to +speak, over its own children, as is the way of cities and the +human race. But at the Dean Bridge, you may behold a +spectacle of a more novel order. The river runs at the +bottom of a deep valley, among rocks and between gardens; the +crest of either bank is occupied by some of the most commodious +streets and crescents in the modern city; and a handsome bridge +unites the two summits. Over this, every afternoon, private +carriages go spinning by, and ladies with card-cases pass to and +fro about the duties of society. And yet down below, you +may still see, with its mills and foaming weir, the little rural +village of Dean. Modern improvement has gone overhead on +its high-level viaduct; and the extended city has cleanly +overleapt, and left unaltered, what was once the summer retreat +of its comfortable citizens. Every town embraces hamlets in +its growth; Edinburgh herself has embraced a good few; but it is +strange to see one still surviving—and to see it some +hundreds of feet below your path. Is it Torre del Greco +that is built above buried Herculaneum? Herculaneum was +dead at least; but the sun still shines upon the roofs of Dean; +the smoke still rises thriftily from its chimneys; the dusty +miller comes to his door, looks at the gurgling water, hearkens +to the turning wheel and the birds about the shed, and perhaps +whistles an air of his own to enrich the symphony—for all +the world as if Edinburgh were still the old Edinburgh on the +Castle Hill, and Dean were still the quietest of hamlets buried a +mile or so in the green country.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p73b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"In the Village of Dean" +title= +"In the Village of Dean" +src="images/p73s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>It is not so long ago since magisterial David Hume lent the +authority of his example to the exodus from the Old Town, and +took up his new abode in a street which is still (so oddly may a +jest become perpetuated) known as Saint David Street. Nor +is the town so large but a holiday schoolboy may harry a +bird’s nest within half a mile of his own door. There +are places that still smell of the plough in memory’s +nostrils. Here, one had heard a blackbird on a hawthorn; +there, another was taken on summer evenings to eat strawberries +and cream; and you have seen a waving wheatfield on the site of +your present residence. The memories of an Edinburgh boy +are but partly memories of the town. I look back with +delight on many an escalade of garden walls; many a ramble among +lilacs full of piping birds; many an exploration in obscure +quarters that were neither town nor country; and I think that +both for my companions and myself, there was a special interest, +a point of romance, and a sentiment as of foreign travel, when we +hit in our excursions on the butt-end of some former hamlet, and +found a few rustic cottages embedded among streets and +squares. The tunnel to the Scotland Street Station, the +sight of the trains shooting out of its dark maw with the two +guards upon the brake, the thought of its length and the many +ponderous edifices and open thoroughfares above, were certainly +things of paramount impressiveness to a young mind. It was +a subterranean passage, although of a larger bore than we were +accustomed to in Ainsworth’s novels; and these two words, +‘subterreanean passage,’ were in themselves an +irresistible attraction, and seemed to bring us nearer in spirit +to the heroes we loved and the black rascals we secretly aspired +to imitate. To scale the Castle Rock from West Princes +Street Gardens, and lay a triumphal hand against the rampart +itself, was to taste a high order of romantic pleasure. And +there are other sights and exploits which crowd back upon my mind +under a very strong illumination of remembered pleasure. +But the effect of not one of them all will compare with the +discoverer’s joy, and the sense of old Time and his slow +changes on the face of this earth, with which I explored such +corners as Cannonmills or Water Lane, or the nugget of cottages +at Broughton Market. They were more rural than the open +country, and gave a greater impression of antiquity than the +oldest <i>land</i> upon the High Street. They too, like +Fergusson’s butterfly, had a quaint air of having wandered +far from their own place; they looked abashed and homely, with +their gables and their creeping plants, their outside stairs and +running mill-streams; there were corners that smelt like the end +of the country garden where I spent my Aprils; and the people +stood to gossip at their doors, as they might have done in +Colinton or Cramond.</p> +<p>In a great measure we may, and shall, eradicate this haunting +flavour of the country. The last elm is dead in Elm Row; +and the villas and the workmen’s quarters spread apace on +all the borders of the city. We can cut down the trees; we +can bury the grass under dead paving-stones; we can drive brisk +streets through all our sleepy quarters; and we may forget the +stories and the playgrounds of our boyhood. But we have +some possessions that not even the infuriate zeal of builders can +utterly abolish and destroy. Nothing can abolish the hills, +unless it be a cataclysm of nature which shall subvert Edinburgh +Castle itself and lay all her florid structures in the +dust. And as long as we have the hills and the Firth, we +have a famous heritage to leave our children. Our windows, +at no expense to us, are most artfully stained to represent a +landscape. And when the Spring comes round, and the +hawthorns begin to flower, and the meadows to smell of young +grass, even in the thickest of our streets, the country hilltops +find out a young man’s eyes, and set his heart beating for +travel and pure air.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII. THE VILLA QUARTERS.</h2> +<p>Mr. Ruskin’s denunciation of the New Town of Edinburgh +includes, as I have heard it repeated, nearly all the stone and +lime we have to show. Many however find a grand air and +something settled and imposing in the better parts; and upon +many, as I have said, the confusion of styles induces an +agreeable stimulation of the mind. But upon the subject of +our recent villa architecture, I am frankly ready to mingle my +tears with Mr. Ruskin’s, and it is a subject which makes +one envious of his large declamatory and controversial +eloquence.</p> +<p>Day by day, one new villa, one new object of offence, is added +to another; all around Newington and Morningside, the dismallest +structures keep springing up like mushrooms; the pleasant hills +are loaded with them, each impudently squatted in its garden, +each roofed and carrying chimneys like a house. And yet a +glance of an eye discovers their true character. They are +not houses; for they were not designed with a view to human +habitation, and the internal arrangements are, as they tell me, +fantastically unsuited to the needs of man. They are not +buildings; for you can scarcely say a thing is built where every +measurement is in clamant disproportion with its neighbour. +They belong to no style of art, only to a form of business much +to be regretted.</p> +<p>Why should it be cheaper to erect a structure where the size +of the windows bears no rational relation to the size of the +front? Is there any profit in a misplaced +chimney-stalk? Does a hard-working, greedy builder gain +more on a monstrosity than on a decent cottage of equal +plainness? Frankly, we should say, No. Bricks may be +omitted, and green timber employed, in the construction of even a +very elegant design; and there is no reason why a chimney should +be made to vent, because it is so situated as to look comely from +without. On the other hand, there is a noble way of being +ugly: a high-aspiring fiasco like the fall of Lucifer. +There are daring and gaudy buildings that manage to be offensive, +without being contemptible; and we know that ‘fools rush in +where angels fear to tread.’ But to aim at making a +common-place villa, and to make it insufferably ugly in each +particular; to attempt the homeliest achievement, and to attain +the bottom of derided failure; not to have any theory but profit +and yet, at an equal expense, to outstrip all competitors in the +art of conceiving and rendering permanent deformity; and to do +all this in what is, by nature, one of the most agreeable +neighbourhoods in Britain:—what are we to say, but that +this also is a distinction, hard to earn although not greatly +worshipful?</p> +<p>Indifferent buildings give pain to the sensitive; but these +things offend the plainest taste. It is a danger which +threatens the amenity of the town; and as this eruption keeps +spreading on our borders, we have ever the farther to walk among +unpleasant sights, before we gain the country air. If the +population of Edinburgh were a living, autonomous body, it would +arise like one man and make night hideous with arson; the +builders and their accomplices would be driven to work, like the +Jews of yore, with the trowel in one hand and the defensive +cutlass in the other; and as soon as one of these masonic wonders +had been consummated, right-minded iconoclasts should fall +thereon and make an end of it at once.</p> +<p>Possibly these words may meet the eye of a builder or +two. It is no use asking them to employ an architect; for +that would be to touch them in a delicate quarter, and its use +would largely depend on what architect they were minded to call +in. But let them get any architect in the world to point +out any reasonably well-proportioned villa, not his own design; +and let them reproduce that model to satiety.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII. THE CALTON HILL.</h2> +<p>The east of new Edinburgh is guarded by a craggy hill, of no +great elevation, which the town embraces. The old London +road runs on one side of it; while the New Approach, leaving it +on the other hand, completes the circuit. You mount by +stairs in a cutting of the rock to find yourself in a field of +monuments. Dugald Stewart has the honours of situation and +architecture; Burns is memorialised lower down upon a spur; Lord +Nelson, as befits a sailor, gives his name to the top-gallant of +the Calton Hill. This latter erection has been differently +and yet, in both cases, aptly compared to a telescope and a +butter-churn; comparisons apart, it ranks among the vilest of +men’s handiworks. But the chief feature is an +unfinished range of columns, ‘the Modern Ruin’ as it +has been called, an imposing object from far and near, and giving +Edinburgh, even from the sea, that false air; of a Modern Athens +which has earned for her so many slighting speeches. It was +meant to be a National Monument; and its present state is a very +suitable monument to certain national characteristics. The +old Observatory—a quaint brown building on the edge of the +steep—and the new Observatory—a classical edifice +with a dome—occupy the central portion of the summit. +All these are scattered on a green turf, browsed over by some +sheep.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p82b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Calton Hill" +title= +"The Calton Hill" +src="images/p82s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The scene suggests reflections on fame and on man’s +injustice to the dead. You see Dugald Stewart rather more +handsomely commemorated than Burns. Immediately below, in +the Canongate churchyard, lies Robert Fergusson, Burns’s +master in his art, who died insane while yet a stripling; and if +Dugald Stewart has been somewhat too boisterously acclaimed, the +Edinburgh poet, on the other hand, is most unrighteously +forgotten. The votaries of Burns, a crew too common in all +ranks in Scotland and more remarkable for number than discretion, +eagerly suppress all mention of the lad who handed to him the +poetic impulse and, up to the time when he grew famous, continued +to influence him in his manner and the choice of subjects. +Burns himself not only acknowledged his debt in a fragment of +autobiography, but erected a tomb over the grave in Canongate +churchyard. This was worthy of an artist, but it was done +in vain; and although I think I have read nearly all the +biographies of Burns, I cannot remember one in which the modesty +of nature was not violated, or where Fergusson was not sacrificed +to the credit of his follower’s originality. There is +a kind of gaping admiration that would fain roll Shakespeare and +Bacon into one, to have a bigger thing to gape at; and a class of +men who cannot edit one author without disparaging all +others. They are indeed mistaken if they think to please +the great originals; and whoever puts Fergusson right with fame, +cannot do better than dedicate his labours to the memory of +Burns, who will be the best delighted of the dead.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p85b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Queen Mary’s Bath" +title= +"Queen Mary’s Bath" +src="images/p85s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Of all places for a view, this Calton Hill is perhaps the +best; since you can see the Castle, which you lose from the +Castle, and Arthur’s Seat, which you cannot see from +Arthur’s Seat. It is the place to stroll on one of +those days of sunshine and east wind which are so common in our +more than temperate summer. The breeze comes off the sea, +with a little of the freshness, and that touch of chill, peculiar +to the quarter, which is delightful to certain very ruddy +organizations and greatly the reverse to the majority of +mankind. It brings with it a faint, floating haze, a +cunning decolourizer, although not thick enough to obscure +outlines near at hand. But the haze lies more thickly to +windward at the far end of Musselburgh Bay; and over the Links of +Aberlady and Berwick Law and the hump of the Bass Rock it assumes +the aspect of a bank of thin sea fog.</p> +<p> +<a href="images/p87.jpg"> +<img class='floatleft' alt= +"Arthur’s Seat" +title= +"Arthur’s Seat" +src="images/p87.jpg" /> +</a>Immediately underneath upon the south, you command the yards +of the High School, and the towers and courts of the new +Jail—a large place, castellated to the extent of folly, +standing by itself on the edge of a steep cliff, and often +joyfully hailed by tourists as the Castle. In the one, you +may perhaps see female prisoners taking exercise like a string of +nuns; in the other, schoolboys running at play and their shadows +keeping step with them. From the bottom of the valley, a +gigantic chimney rises almost to the level of the eye, a taller +and a shapelier edifice than Nelson’s Monument. Look +a little farther, and there is Holyrood Palace, with its Gothic +frontal and ruined abbey, and the red sentry pacing smartly too +and fro before the door like a mechanical figure in a +panorama. By way of an outpost, you can single out the +little peak-roofed lodge, over which Rizzio’s murderers +made their escape and where Queen Mary herself, according to +gossip, bathed in white wine to entertain her loveliness. +Behind and overhead, lie the Queen’s Park, from +Muschat’s Cairn to Dumbiedykes, St. Margaret’s Loch, +and the long wall of Salisbury Crags: and thence, by knoll and +rocky bulwark and precipitous slope, the eye rises to the top of +Arthur’s Seat, a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtue +of its bold design. This upon your left. Upon the +right, the roofs and spires of the Old Town climb one above +another to where the citadel prints its broad bulk and jagged +crown of bastions on the western sky.—Perhaps it is now one +in the afternoon; and at the same instant of time, a ball rises +to the summit of Nelson’s flagstaff close at hand, and, far +away, a puff of smoke followed by a report bursts from the +half-moon battery at the Castle. This is the time-gun by +which people set their watches, as far as the sea coast or in +hill farms upon the Pentlands.—To complete the view, the +eye enfilades Princes Street, black with traffic, and has a broad +look over the valley between the Old Town and the New: here, full +of railway trains and stepped over by the high North Bridge upon +its many columns, and there, green with trees and gardens.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p89b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Back of Greenside" +title= +"Back of Greenside" +src="images/p89s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>On the north, the Calton Hill is neither so abrupt in itself +nor has it so exceptional an outlook; and yet even here it +commands a striking prospect. A gully separates it from the +New Town. This is Greenside, where witches were burned and +tournaments held in former days. Down that almost +precipitous bank, Bothwell launched his horse, and so first, as +they say, attracted the bright eyes of Mary. It is now +tesselated with sheets and blankets out to dry, and the sound of +people beating carpets is rarely absent. Beyond all this, +the suburbs run out to Leith; Leith camps on the seaside with her +forest of masts; Leith roads are full of ships at anchor; the sun +picks out the white pharos upon Inchkeith Island; the Firth +extends on either hand from the Ferry to the May; the towns of +Fifeshire sit, each in its bank of blowing smoke, along the +opposite coast; and the hills enclose the view, except to the +farthest east, where the haze of the horizon rests upon the open +sea. There lies the road to Norway: a dear road for Sir +Patrick Spens and his Scots Lords; and yonder smoke on the hither +side of Largo Law is Aberdour, from whence they sailed to seek a +queen for Scotland.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘O lang, lang, may the ladies sit,<br /> + Wi’ their fans into their hand,<br /> +Or ere they see Sir Patrick Spens<br /> + Come sailing to the land!’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The sight of the sea, even from a city, will bring thoughts of +storm and sea disaster. The sailors’ wives of Leith +and the fisherwomen of Cockenzie, not sitting languorously with +fans, but crowding to the tail of the harbour with a shawl about +their ears, may still look vainly for brave Scotsmen who will +return no more, or boats that have gone on their last +fishing. Since Sir Patrick sailed from Aberdour, what a +multitude have gone down in the North Sea! Yonder is +Auldhame, where the London smack went ashore and wreckers cut the +rings from ladies’ fingers; and a few miles round Fife Ness +is the fatal Inchcape, now a star of guidance; and the lee shore +to the east of the Inchcape, is that Forfarshire coast where +Mucklebackit sorrowed for his son.</p> +<p>These are the main features of the scene roughly +sketched. How they are all tilted by the inclination of the +ground, how each stands out in delicate relief against the rest, +what manifold detail, and play of sun and shadow, animate and +accentuate the picture, is a matter for a person on the spot, and +turning swiftly on his heels, to grasp and bind together in one +comprehensive look. It is the character of such a prospect, +to be full of change and of things moving. The multiplicity +embarrasses the eye; and the mind, among so much, suffers itself +to grow absorbed with single points. You remark a tree in a +hedgerow, or follow a cart along a country road. You turn +to the city, and see children, dwarfed by distance into pigmies, +at play about suburban doorsteps; you have a glimpse upon a +thoroughfare where people are densely moving; you note ridge +after ridge of chimney-stacks running downhill one behind +another, and church spires rising bravely from the sea of +roofs. At one of the innumerable windows, you watch a +figure moving; on one of the multitude of roofs, you watch +clambering chimney-sweeps. The wind takes a run and +scatters the smoke; bells are heard, far and near, faint and +loud, to tell the hour; or perhaps a bird goes dipping evenly +over the housetops, like a gull across the waves. And here +you are in the meantime, on this pastoral hillside, among +nibbling sheep and looked upon by monumental buildings.</p> +<p>Return thither on some clear, dark, moonless night, with a +ring of frost in the air, and only a star or two set sparsedly in +the vault of heaven; and you will find a sight as stimulating as +the hoariest summit of the Alps. The solitude seems +perfect; the patient astronomer, flat on his back under the +Observatory dome and spying heaven’s secrets, is your only +neighbour; and yet from all round you there come up the dull hum +of the city, the tramp of countless people marching out of time, +the rattle of carriages and the continuous keen jingle of the +tramway bells. An hour or so before, the gas was turned on; +lamplighters scoured the city; in every house, from kitchen to +attic, the windows kindled and gleamed forth into the dusk. +And so now, although the town lies blue and darkling on her +hills, innumerable spots of the bright element shine far and near +along the pavements and upon the high facades. Moving +lights of the railway pass and repass below the stationary lights +upon the bridge. Lights burn in the jail. Lights burn +high up in the tall <i>lands</i> and on the Castle turrets, they +burn low down in Greenside or along the Park. They run out +one beyond the other into the dark country. They walk in a +procession down to Leith, and shine singly far along Leith +Pier. Thus, the plan of the city and her suburbs is mapped +out upon the ground of blackness, as when a child pricks a +drawing full of pinholes and exposes it before a candle; not the +darkest night of winter can conceal her high station and fanciful +design; every evening in the year she proceeds to illuminate +herself in honour of her own beauty; and as if to complete the +scheme—or rather as if some prodigal Pharaoh were beginning +to extend to the adjacent sea and country—half-way over to +Fife, there is an outpost of light upon Inchkeith, and far to +seaward, yet another on the May.</p> +<p>And while you are looking, across upon the Castle Hill, the +drums and bugles begin to recall the scattered garrison; the air +thrills with the sound; the bugles sing aloud; and the last +rising flourish mounts and melts into the darkness like a star: a +martial swan-song, fitly rounding in the labours of the day.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX. WINTER AND NEW YEAR.</h2> +<p>The Scotch dialect is singularly rich in terms of reproach +against the winter wind. <i>Snell</i>, <i>blae</i>, +<i>nirly</i>, and <i>scowthering</i>, are four of these +significant vocables; they are all words that carry a shiver with +them; and for my part, as I see them aligned before me on the +page, I am persuaded that a big wind comes tearing over the Firth +from Burntisland and the northern hills; I think I can hear it +howl in the chimney, and as I set my face northwards, feel its +smarting kisses on my cheek. Even in the names of places +there is often a desolate, inhospitable sound; and I remember two +from the near neighbourhood of Edinburgh, Cauldhame and +Blaw-weary, that would promise but starving comfort to their +inhabitants. The inclemency of heaven, which has thus +endowed the language of Scotland with words, has also largely +modified the spirit of its poetry. Both poverty and a +northern climate teach men the love of the hearth and the +sentiment of the family; and the latter, in its own right, +inclines a poet to the praise of strong waters. In +Scotland, all our singers have a stave or two for blazing fires +and stout potations:—to get indoors out of the wind and to +swallow something hot to the stomach, are benefits so easily +appreciated where they dwelt!</p> +<p>And this is not only so in country districts where the +shepherd must wade in the snow all day after his flock, but in +Edinburgh itself, and nowhere more apparently stated than in the +works of our Edinburgh poet, Fergusson. He was a delicate +youth, I take it, and willingly slunk from the robustious winter +to an inn fire-side. Love was absent from his life, or only +present, if you prefer, in such a form that even the least +serious of Burns’s amourettes was ennobling by comparison; +and so there is nothing to temper the sentiment of indoor revelry +which pervades the poor boy’s verses. Although it is +characteristic of his native town, and the manners of its youth +to the present day, this spirit has perhaps done something to +restrict his popularity. He recalls a supper-party +pleasantry with something akin to tenderness; and sounds the +praises of the act of drinking as if it were virtuous, or at +least witty, in itself. The kindly jar, the warm atmosphere +of tavern parlours, and the revelry of lawyers’ clerks, do +not offer by themselves the materials of a rich existence. +It was not choice, so much as an external fate, that kept +Fergusson in this round of sordid pleasures. A Scot of +poetic temperament, and without religious exaltation, drops as if +by nature into the public-house. The picture may not be +pleasing; but what else is a man to do in this dog’s +weather?</p> +<p>To none but those who have themselves suffered the thing in +the body, can the gloom and depression of our Edinburgh winter be +brought home. For some constitutions there is something +almost physically disgusting in the bleak ugliness of easterly +weather; the wind wearies, the sickly sky depresses them; and +they turn back from their walk to avoid the aspect of the +unrefulgent sun going down among perturbed and pallid +mists. The days are so short that a man does much of his +business, and certainly all his pleasure, by the haggard glare of +gas lamps. The roads are as heavy as a fallow. People +go by, so drenched and draggle-tailed that I have often wondered +how they found the heart to undress. And meantime the wind +whistles through the town as if it were an open meadow; and if +you lie awake all night, you hear it shrieking and raving +overhead with a noise of shipwrecks and of falling houses. +In a word, life is so unsightly that there are times when the +heart turns sick in a man’s inside; and the look of a +tavern, or the thought of the warm, fire-lit study, is like the +touch of land to one who has been long struggling with the +seas.</p> +<p>As the weather hardens towards frost, the world begins to +improve for Edinburgh people. We enjoy superb, sub-arctic +sunsets, with the profile of the city stamped in indigo upon a +sky of luminous green. The wind may still be cold, but +there is a briskness in the air that stirs good blood. +People do not all look equally sour and downcast. They fall +into two divisions: one, the knight of the blue face and hollow +paunch, whom Winter has gotten by the vitals; the other well +lined with New-year’s fare, conscious of the touch of cold +on his periphery, but stepping through it by the glow of his +internal fires. Such an one I remember, triply cased in +grease, whom no extremity of temperature could vanquish. +‘Well,’ would be his jovial salutation, +‘here’s a sneezer!’ And the look of these +warm fellows is tonic, and upholds their drooping +fellow-townsmen. There is yet another class who do not +depend on corporal advantages, but support the winter in virtue +of a brave and merry heart. One shivering evening, cold +enough for frost but with too high a wind, and a little past +sundown, when the lamps were beginning to enlarge their circles +in the growing dusk, a brace of barefoot lassies were seen coming +eastward in the teeth of the wind. If the one was as much +as nine, the other was certainly not more than seven. They +were miserably clad; and the pavement was so cold, you would have +thought no one could lay a naked foot on it unflinching. +Yet they came along waltzing, if you please, while the elder sang +a tune to give them music. The person who saw this, and +whose heart was full of bitterness at the moment, pocketed a +reproof which has been of use to him ever since, and which he now +hands on, with his good wishes, to the reader.</p> +<p>At length, Edinburgh, with her satellite hills and all the +sloping country, are sheeted up in white. If it has +happened in the dark hours, nurses pluck their children out of +bed and run with them to some commanding window, whence they may +see the change that has been worked upon earth’s +face. ‘A’ the hills are covered wi’ +snaw,’ they sing, ‘and Winter’s noo come +fairly!’ And the children, marvelling at the silence +and the white landscape, find a spell appropriate to the season +in the words. The reverberation of the snow increases the +pale daylight, and brings all objects nearer the eye. The +Pentlands are smooth and glittering, with here and there the +black ribbon of a dry-stone dyke, and here and there, if there be +wind, a cloud of blowing snow upon a shoulder. The Firth +seems a leaden creek, that a man might almost jump across, +between well-powdered Lothian and well-powdered Fife. And +the effect is not, as in other cities, a thing of half a day; the +streets are soon trodden black, but the country keeps its virgin +white; and you have only to lift your eyes and look over miles of +country snow. An indescribable cheerfulness breathes about +the city; and the well-fed heart sits lightly and beats gaily in +the—bosom. It is New-year’s weather.</p> +<p>New-year’s Day, the great national festival, is a time +of family expansions and of deep carousal. Sometimes, by a +sore stoke of fate for this Calvinistic people, the year’s +anniversary fails upon a Sunday, when the public-houses are +inexorably closed, when singing and even whistling is banished +from our homes and highways, and the oldest toper feels called +upon to go to church. Thus pulled about, as if between two +loyalties, the Scotch have to decide many nice cases of +conscience, and ride the marches narrowly between the weekly and +the annual observance. A party of convivial musicians, next +door to a friend of mine, hung suspended in this manner on the +brink of their diversions. From ten o’clock on Sunday +night, my friend heard them tuning their instruments: and as the +hour of liberty drew near, each must have had his music open, his +bow in readiness across the fiddle, his foot already raised to +mark the time, and his nerves braced for execution; for hardly +had the twelfth stroke sounded from the earliest steeple, before +they had launced forth into a secular bravura.</p> +<p>Currant-loaf is now popular eating in all house-holds. +For weeks before the great morning, confectioners display stacks +of Scotch bun—a dense, black substance, inimical to +life—and full moons of shortbread adorned with mottoes of +peel or sugar-plum, in honour of the season and the family +affections. ‘Frae Auld Reekie,’ ‘A guid +New Year to ye a’,’ ‘For the Auld Folk at +Hame,’ are among the most favoured of these devices. +Can you not see the carrier, after half-a-day’s journey on +pinching hill-roads, draw up before a cottage in Teviotdale, or +perhaps in Manor Glen among the rowans, and the old people +receiving the parcel with moist eyes and a prayer for Jock or +Jean in the city? For at this season, on the threshold of +another year of calamity and stubborn conflict, men feel a need +to draw closer the links that unite them; they reckon the number +of their friends, like allies before a war; and the prayers grow +longer in the morning as the absent are recommended by name into +God’s keeping.</p> +<p>On the day itself, the shops are all shut as on a Sunday; only +taverns, toyshops, and other holiday magazines, keep open +doors. Every one looks for his handsel. The postman +and the lamplighters have left, at every house in their +districts, a copy of vernacular verses, asking and thanking in a +breath; and it is characteristic of Scotland that these verses +may have sometimes a touch of reality in detail or sentiment and +a measure of strength in the handling. All over the town, +you may see comforter’d schoolboys hasting to squander +their half-crowns. There are an infinity of visits to be +paid; all the world is in the street, except the daintier +classes; the sacramental greeting is heard upon all sides; Auld +Lang Syne is much in people’s mouths; and whisky and +shortbread are staple articles of consumption. From an +early hour a stranger will be impressed by the number of drunken +men; and by afternoon drunkenness has spread to the women. +With some classes of society, it is as much a matter of duty to +drink hard on New-year’s Day as to go to church on +Sunday. Some have been saving their wages for perhaps a +month to do the season honour. Many carry a whisky-bottle +in their pocket, which they will press with embarrassing effusion +on a perfect stranger. It is inexpedient to risk +one’s body in a cab, or not, at least, until after a +prolonged study of the driver. The streets, which are +thronged from end to end, become a place for delicate +pilotage. Singly or arm-in-arm, some speechless, others +noisy and quarrelsome, the votaries of the New Year go meandering +in and out and cannoning one against another; and now and again, +one falls and lies as he has fallen. Before night, so many +have gone to bed or the police office, that the streets seem +almost clearer. And as <i>guisards</i> and +<i>first-footers</i> are now not much seen except in country +places, when once the New Year has been rung in and proclaimed at +the Tron railings, the festivities begin to find their way +indoors and something like quiet returns upon the town. But +think, in these piled <i>lands</i>, of all the senseless snorers, +all the broken heads and empty pockets!</p> +<p>Of old, Edinburgh University was the scene of heroic +snowballing; and one riot obtained the epic honours of military +intervention. But the great generation, I am afraid, is at +an end; and even during my own college days, the spirit +appreciably declined. Skating and sliding, on the other +hand, are honoured more and more; and curling, being a creature +of the national genius, is little likely to be disregarded. +The patriotism that leads a man to eat Scotch bun will scarce +desert him at the curling-pond. Edinburgh, with its long, +steep pavements, is the proper home of sliders; many a happy +urchin can slide the whole way to school; and the profession of +errand-boy is transformed into a holiday amusement. As for +skating, there is scarce any city so handsomely provided. +Duddingstone Loch lies under the abrupt southern side of +Arthur’s Seat; in summer a shield of blue, with swans +sailing from the reeds; in winter, a field of ringing ice. +The village church sits above it on a green promontory; and the +village smoke rises from among goodly trees. At the church +gates, is the historical <i>joug</i>; a place of penance for the +neck of detected sinners, and the historical <i>louping-on +stane</i>, from which Dutch-built lairds and farmers climbed into +the saddle. Here Prince Charlie slept before the battle of +Prestonpans; and here Deacon Brodie, or one of his gang, stole a +plough coulter before the burglary in Chessel’s +Court. On the opposite side of the loch, the ground rises +to Craigmillar Castle, a place friendly to Stuart +Mariolaters. It is worth a climb, even in summer, to look +down upon the loch from Arthur’s Seat; but it is tenfold +more so on a day of skating. The surface is thick with +people moving easily and swiftly and leaning over at a thousand +graceful inclinations; the crowd opens and closes, and keeps +moving through itself like water; and the ice rings to half a +mile away, with the flying steel. As night draws on, the +single figures melt into the dusk, until only an obscure stir, +and coming and going of black clusters, is visible upon the +loch. A little longer, and the first torch is kindled and +begins to flit rapidly across the ice in a ring of yellow +reflection, and this is followed by another and another, until +the whole field is full of skimming lights.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER X. TO THE PENTLAND HILLS.</h2> +<p>On three sides of Edinburgh, the country slopes downward from +the city, here to the sea, there to the fat farms of Haddington, +there to the mineral fields of Linlithgow. On the south +alone, it keeps rising until it not only out-tops the Castle but +looks down on Arthur’s Seat. The character of the +neighbourhood is pretty strongly marked by a scarcity of hedges; +by many stone walls of varying height; by a fair amount of +timber, some of it well grown, but apt to be of a bushy, northern +profile and poor in foliage; by here and there a little river, +Esk or Leith or Almond, busily journeying in the bottom of its +glen; and from almost every point, by a peep of the sea or the +hills. There is no lack of variety, and yet most of the +elements are common to all parts; and the southern district is +alone distinguished by considerable summits and a wide view.</p> +<p>From Boroughmuirhead, where the Scottish army encamped before +Flodden, the road descends a long hill, at the bottom of which +and just as it is preparing to mount upon the other side, it +passes a toll-bar and issues at once into the open country. +Even as I write these words, they are being antiquated in the +progress of events, and the chisels are tinkling on a new row of +houses. The builders have at length adventured beyond the +toll which held them in respect so long, and proceed to career in +these fresh pastures like a herd of colts turned loose. As +Lord Beaconsfield proposed to hang an architect by way of +stimulation, a man, looking on these doomed meads, imagines a +similar example to deter the builders; for it seems as if it must +come to an open fight at last to preserve a corner of green +country unbedevilled. And here, appropriately enough, there +stood in old days a crow-haunted gibbet, with two bodies hanged +in chains. I used to be shown, when a child, a flat stone +in the roadway to which the gibbet had been fixed. People +of a willing fancy were persuaded, and sought to persuade others, +that this stone was never dry. And no wonder, they would +add, for the two men had only stolen fourpence between them.</p> +<p>For about two miles the road climbs upwards, a long hot walk +in summer time. You reach the summit at a place where four +ways meet, beside the toll of Fairmilehead. The spot is +breezy and agreeable both in name and aspect. The hills are +close by across a valley: Kirk Yetton, with its long, upright +scars visible as far as Fife, and Allermuir the tallest on this +side with wood and tilled field running high upon their borders, +and haunches all moulded into innumerable glens and shelvings and +variegated with heather and fern. The air comes briskly and +sweetly off the hills, pure from the elevation and rustically +scented by the upland plants; and even at the toll, you may hear +the curlew calling on its mate. At certain seasons, when +the gulls desert their surfy forelands, the birds of sea and +mountain hunt and scream together in the same field by +Fairmilehead. The winged, wild things intermix their +wheelings, the sea-birds skim the tree-tops and fish among the +furrows of the plough. These little craft of air are at +home in all the world, so long as they cruise in their own +element; and, like sailors, ask but food and water from the +shores they coast.</p> +<p>Below, over a stream, the road passes Bow Bridge, now a +dairy-farm, but once a distillery of whisky. It chanced, +some time in the past century, that the distiller was on terms of +good-fellowship with the visiting officer of excise. The +latter was of an easy, friendly disposition, and a master of +convivial arts. Now and again, he had to walk out of +Edinburgh to measure the distiller’s stock; and although it +was agreeable to find his business lead him in a friend’s +direction, it was unfortunate that the friend should be a loser +by his visits. Accordingly, when he got about the level of +Fairmilehead, the gauger would take his flute, without which he +never travelled, from his pocket, fit it together, and set +manfully to playing, as if for his own delectation and inspired +by the beauty of the scene. His favourite air, it seems, +was ‘Over the hills and far away.’ At the first +note, the distiller pricked his ears. A flute at +Fairmilehead? and playing ‘Over the hills and far +away?’ This must be his friendly enemy, the +gauger. Instantly horses were harnessed, and sundry barrels +of whisky were got upon a cart, driven at a gallop round Hill +End, and buried in the mossy glen behind Kirk Yetton. In +the same breath, you may be sure, a fat fowl was put to the fire, +and the whitest napery prepared for the back parlour. A +little after, the gauger, having had his fill of music for the +moment, came strolling down with the most innocent air +imaginable, and found the good people at Bow Bridge taken +entirely unawares by his arrival, but none the less glad to see +him. The distiller’s liquor and the gauger’s +flute would combine to speed the moments of digestion; and when +both were somewhat mellow, they would wind up the evening with +‘Over the hills and far away’ to an accompaniment of +knowing glances. And at least, there is a smuggling story, +with original and half-idyllic features.</p> +<p>A little further, the road to the right passes an upright +stone in a field. The country people call it General +Kay’s monument. According to them, an officer of that +name had perished there in battle at some indistinct period +before the beginning of history. The date is reassuring; +for I think cautious writers are silent on the General’s +exploits. But the stone is connected with one of those +remarkable tenures of land which linger on into the modern world +from Feudalism. Whenever the reigning sovereign passes by, +a certain landed proprietor is held bound to climb on to the top, +trumpet in hand, and sound a flourish according to the measure of +his knowledge in that art. Happily for a respectable +family, crowned heads have no great business in the Pentland +Hills. But the story lends a character of comicality to the +stone; and the passer-by will sometimes chuckle to himself.</p> +<p>The district is dear to the superstitious. Hard by, at +the back-gate of Comiston, a belated carter beheld a lady in +white, ‘with the most beautiful, clear shoes upon her +feet,’ who looked upon him in a very ghastly manner and +then vanished; and just in front is the Hunters’ Tryst, +once a roadside inn, and not so long ago haunted by the devil in +person. Satan led the inhabitants a pitiful +existence. He shook the four corners of the building with +lamentable outcries, beat at the doors and windows, overthrew +crockery in the dead hours of the morning, and danced unholy +dances on the roof. Every kind of spiritual disinfectant +was put in requisition; chosen ministers were summoned out of +Edinburgh and prayed by the hour; pious neighbours sat up all +night making a noise of psalmody; but Satan minded them no more +than the wind about the hill-tops; and it was only after years of +persecution, that he left the Hunters’ Tryst in peace to +occupy himself with the remainder of mankind. What with +General Kay, and the white lady, and this singular visitation, +the neighbourhood offers great facilities to the makers of +sun-myths; and without exactly casting in one’s lot with +that disenchanting school of writers, one cannot help hearing a +good deal of the winter wind in the last story. ‘That +nicht,’ says Burns, in one of his happiest +moments,—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘<i>That nicht a child might +understand</i><br /> +<i>The deil had business on his hand</i>.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And if people sit up all night in lone places on the hills, +with Bibles and tremulous psalms, they will be apt to hear some +of the most fiendish noises in the world; the wind will beat on +doors and dance upon roofs for them, and make the hills howl +around their cottage with a clamour like the judgment-day.</p> +<p>The road goes down through another valley, and then finally +begins to scale the main slope of the Pentlands. A bouquet +of old trees stands round a white farmhouse; and from a +neighbouring dell, you can see smoke rising and leaves ruffling +in the breeze. Straight above, the hills climb a thousand +feet into the air. The neighbourhood, about the time of +lambs, is clamorous with the bleating of flocks; and you will be +awakened, in the grey of early summer mornings, by the barking of +a dog or the voice of a shepherd shouting to the echoes. +This, with the hamlet lying behind unseen, is Swanston.</p> +<p>The place in the dell is immediately connected with the +city. Long ago, this sheltered field was purchased by the +Edinburgh magistrates for the sake of the springs that rise or +gather there. After they had built their water-house and +laid their pipes, it occurred to them that the place was suitable +for junketing. Once entertained, with jovial magistrates +and public funds, the idea led speedily to accomplishment; and +Edinburgh could soon boast of a municipal Pleasure House. +The dell was turned into a garden; and on the knoll that shelters +it from the plain and the sea winds, they built a cottage looking +to the hills. They brought crockets and gargoyles from old +St. Giles’s which they were then restoring, and disposed +them on the gables and over the door and about the garden; and +the quarry which had supplied them with building material, they +draped with clematis and carpeted with beds of roses. So +much for the pleasure of the eye; for creature comfort, they made +a capacious cellar in the hillside and fitted it with bins of the +hewn stone. In process of time, the trees grew higher and +gave shade to the cottage, and the evergreens sprang up and +turned the dell into a thicket. There, purple magistrates +relaxed themselves from the pursuit of municipal ambition; cocked +hats paraded soberly about the garden and in and out among the +hollies; authoritative canes drew ciphering upon the path; and at +night, from high upon the hills, a shepherd saw lighted windows +through the foliage and heard the voice of city dignitaries +raised in song.</p> +<p>The farm is older. It was first a grange of Whitekirk +Abbey, tilled and inhabited by rosy friars. Thence, after +the Reformation, it passed into the hands of a true-blue +Protestant family. During the covenanting troubles, when a +night conventicle was held upon the Pentlands, the farm doors +stood hospitably open till the morning; the dresser was laden +with cheese and bannocks, milk and brandy; and the worshippers +kept slipping down from the hill between two exercises, as +couples visit the supper-room between two dances of a modern +ball. In the Forty-Five, some foraging Highlanders from +Prince Charlie’s army fell upon Swanston in the dawn. +The great-grandfather of the late farmer was then a little child; +him they awakened by plucking the blankets from his bed, and he +remembered, when he was an old man, their truculent looks and +uncouth speech. The churn stood full of cream in the dairy, +and with this they made their brose in high delight. +‘It was braw brose,’ said one of them. At last +they made off, laden like camels with their booty; and Swanston +Farm has lain out of the way of history from that time +forward. I do not know what may be yet in store for +it. On dark days, when the mist runs low upon the hill, the +house has a gloomy air as if suitable for private tragedy. +But in hot July, you can fancy nothing more perfect than the +garden, laid out in alleys and arbours and bright, old-fashioned +flower-plots, and ending in a miniature ravine, all trellis-work +and moss and tinkling waterfall, and housed from the sun under +fathoms of broad foliage.</p> +<p>The hamlet behind is one of the least considerable of hamlets, +and consists of a few cottages on a green beside a burn. +Some of them (a strange thing in Scotland) are models of internal +neatness; the beds adorned with patchwork, the shelves arrayed +with willow-pattern plates, the floors and tables bright with +scrubbing or pipe-clay, and the very kettle polished like +silver. It is the sign of a contented old age in country +places, where there is little matter for gossip and no street +sights. Housework becomes an art; and at evening, when the +cottage interior shines and twinkles in the glow of the fire, the +housewife folds her hands and contemplates her finished picture; +the snow and the wind may do their worst, she has made herself a +pleasant corner in the world. The city might be a thousand +miles away, and yet it was from close by that Mr. Bough painted +the distant view of Edinburgh which has been engraved for this +collection; and you have only to look at the etching, <a +name="citation118"></a><a href="#footnote118" +class="citation">[118]</a> to see how near it is at hand. +But hills and hill people are not easily sophisticated; and if +you walk out here on a summer Sunday, it is as like as not the +shepherd may set his dogs upon you. But keep an unmoved +countenance; they look formidable at the charge, but their hearts +are in the right place, and they will only bark and sprawl about +you on the grass, unmindful of their master’s +excitations.</p> +<p>Kirk Yetton forms the north-eastern angle of the range; +thence, the Pentlands trend off to south and west. From the +summit you look over a great expanse of champaign sloping to the +sea, and behold a large variety of distant hills. There are +the hills of Fife, the hills of Peebles, the Lammermoors and the +Ochils, more or less mountainous in outline, more or less blue +with distance. Of the Pentlands themselves, you see a field +of wild heathery peaks with a pond gleaming in the midst; and to +that side the view is as desolate as if you were looking into +Galloway or Applecross. To turn to the other is like a +piece of travel. Far out in the lowlands Edinburgh shows +herself, making a great smoke on clear days and spreading her +suburbs about her for miles; the Castle rises darkly in the +midst, and close by, Arthur’s Seat makes a bold figure in +the landscape. All around, cultivated fields, and woods, +and smoking villages, and white country roads, diversify the +uneven surface of the land. Trains crawl slowly abroad upon +the railway lines; little ships are tacking in the Firth; the +shadow of a mountainous cloud, as large as a parish, travels +before the wind; the wind itself ruffles the wood and standing +corn, and sends pulses of varying colour across the +landscape. So you sit, like Jupiter upon Olympus, and look +down from afar upon men’s life. The city is as silent +as a city of the dead: from all its humming thoroughfares, not a +voice, not a footfall, reaches you upon the hill. The +sea-surf, the cries of ploughmen, the streams and the +mill-wheels, the birds and the wind, keep up an animated concert +through the plain; from farm to farm, dogs and crowing cocks +contend together in defiance; and yet from this Olympian station, +except for the whispering rumour of a train, the world has fallen +into a dead silence, and the business of town and country grown +voiceless in your ears. A crying hill-bird, the bleat of a +sheep, a wind singing in the dry grass, seem not so much to +interrupt, as to accompany, the stillness; but to the spiritual +ear, the whole scene makes a music at once human and rural, and +discourses pleasant reflections on the destiny of man. The +spiry habitable city, ships, the divided fields, and browsing +herds, and the straight highways, tell visibly of man’s +active and comfortable ways; and you may be never so laggard and +never so unimpressionable, but there is something in the view +that spirits up your blood and puts you in the vein for cheerful +labour.</p> +<p>Immediately below is Fairmilehead, a spot of roof and a +smoking chimney, where two roads, no thicker than packthread, +intersect beside a hanging wood. If you are fanciful, you +will be reminded of the gauger in the story. And the +thought of this old exciseman, who once lipped and fingered on +his pipe and uttered clear notes from it in the mountain air, and +the words of the song he affected, carry your mind ‘Over +the hills and far away’ to distant countries; and you have +a vision of Edinburgh not, as you see her, in the midst of a +little neighbourhood, but as a boss upon the round world with all +Europe and the deep sea for her surroundings. For every +place is a centre to the earth, whence highways radiate or ships +set sail for foreign ports; the limit of a parish is not more +imaginary than the frontier of an empire; and as a man sitting at +home in his cabinet and swiftly writing books, so a city sends +abroad an influence and a portrait of herself. There is no +Edinburgh emigrant, far or near, from China to Peru, but he or +she carries some lively pictures of the mind, some sunset behind +the Castle cliffs, some snow scene, some maze of city lamps, +indelible in the memory and delightful to study in the intervals +of toil. For any such, if this book fall in their way, here +are a few more home pictures. It would be pleasant, if they +should recognise a house where they had dwelt, or a walk that +they had taken.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="smcap">london</span><br /> +Printed by <span class="smcap">Strangeways</span> and Sons, Tower +St. Cambridge Circus, W.C.</p> +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote10"></a><a href="#citation10" +class="footnote">[10]</a> These sentences have, I hear, +given offence in my native town, and a proportionable pleasure to +our rivals of Glasgow. I confess the news caused me both +pain and merriment. May I remark, as a balm for wounded +fellow-townsmen, that there is nothing deadly in my +accusations? Small blame to them if they keep ledgers: +’tis an excellent business habit. Churchgoing is not, +that ever I heard, a subject of reproach; decency of linen is a +mark of prosperous affairs, and conscious moral rectitude one of +the tokens of good living. It is not their fault it the +city calls for something more specious by way of +inhabitants. A man in a frock-coat looks out of place upon +an Alp or Pyramid, although he has the virtues of a Peabody and +the talents of a Bentham. And let them console +themselves—they do as well as anybody else; the population +of (let us say) Chicago would cut quite as rueful a figure on the +same romantic stage. To the Glasgow people I would say only +one word, but that is of gold; <i>I have not yet written a book +about Glasgow</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote118"></a><a href="#citation118" +class="footnote">[118]</a> One of the illustrations of the +First Edition.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDINBURGH***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 382-h.htm or 382-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/8/382 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Edinburgh + Picturesque Notes + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: November 5, 2010 [eBook #382] +[This file was first posted on February 12, 1995] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDINBURGH*** + + + +Transcribed from the 1903 Seeley & Co. Ltd. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + EDINBURGH + + + _Picturesque Notes_ + _by_ + Robert Louis Stevenson + + * * * * * + + _People's Edition_. + + * * * * * + + LONDON + SEELEY & CO. LTD., 38 GREAT RUSSELL STREET + 1903 + + + + +CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. + + +The ancient and famous metropolis of the North sits overlooking a windy +estuary from the slope and summit of three hills. No situation could be +more commanding for the head city of a kingdom; none better chosen for +noble prospects. From her tall precipice and terraced gardens she looks +far and wide on the sea and broad champaigns. To the east you may catch +at sunset the spark of the May lighthouse, where the Firth expands into +the German Ocean; and away to the west, over all the carse of Stirling, +you can see the first snows upon Ben Ledi. + +But Edinburgh pays cruelly for her high seat in one of the vilest +climates under heaven. She is liable to be beaten upon by all the winds +that blow, to be drenched with rain, to be buried in cold sea fogs out of +the east, and powdered with the snow as it comes flying southward from +the Highland hills. The weather is raw and boisterous in winter, shifty +and ungenial in summer, and a downright meteorological purgatory in the +spring. The delicate die early, and I, as a survivor, among bleak winds +and plumping rain, have been sometimes tempted to envy them their fate. +For all who love shelter and the blessings of the sun, who hate dark +weather and perpetual tilting against squalls, there could scarcely be +found a more unhomely and harassing place of residence. Many such aspire +angrily after that Somewhere-else of the imagination, where all troubles +are supposed to end. They lean over the great bridge which joins the New +Town with the Old--that windiest spot, or high altar, in this northern +temple of the winds--and watch the trains smoking out from under them and +vanishing into the tunnel on a voyage to brighter skies. Happy the +passengers who shake off the dust of Edinburgh, and have heard for the +last time the cry of the east wind among her chimney-tops! And yet the +place establishes an interest in people's hearts; go where they will, +they find no city of the same distinction; go where they will, they take +a pride in their old home. + +[Picture: Gate of Holyrood] Venice, it has been said, differs from +another cities in the sentiment which she inspires. The rest may have +admirers; she only, a famous fair one, counts lovers in her train. And, +indeed, even by her kindest friends, Edinburgh is not considered in a +similar sense. These like her for many reasons, not any one of which is +satisfactory in itself. They like her whimsically, if you will, and +somewhat as a virtuoso dotes upon his cabinet. Her attraction is +romantic in the narrowest meaning of the term. Beautiful as she is, she +is not so much beautiful as interesting. She is pre-eminently Gothic, +and all the more so since she has set herself off with some Greek airs, +and erected classic temples on her crags. In a word, and above all, she +is a curiosity. The Palace of Holyrood has been left aside in the growth +of Edinburgh, and stands grey and silent in a workman's quarter and among +breweries and gas works. It is a house of many memories. Great people +of yore, kings and queens, buffoons and grave ambassadors, played their +stately farce for centuries in Holyrood. Wars have been plotted, dancing +has lasted deep into the night,--murder has been done in its chambers. +There Prince Charlie held his phantom levees, and in a very gallant +manner represented a fallen dynasty for some hours. Now, all these +things of clay are mingled with the dust, the king's crown itself is +shown for sixpence to the vulgar; but the stone palace has outlived these +charges. For fifty weeks together, it is no more than a show for +tourists and a museum of old furniture; but on the fifty-first, behold +the palace reawakened and mimicking its past. The Lord Commissioner, a +kind of stage sovereign, sits among stage courtiers; a coach and six and +clattering escort come and go before the gate; at night, the windows are +lighted up, and its near neighbours, the workmen, may dance in their own +houses to the palace music. And in this the palace is typical. There is +a spark among the embers; from time to time the old volcano smokes. +Edinburgh has but partly abdicated, and still wears, in parody, her +metropolitan trappings. Half a capital and half a country town, the +whole city leads a double existence; it has long trances of the one and +flashes of the other; like the king of the Black Isles, it is half alive +and half a monumental marble. There are armed men and cannon in the +citadel overhead; you may see the troops marshalled on the high parade; +and at night after the early winter even-fall, and in the morning before +the laggard winter dawn, the wind carries abroad over Edinburgh the sound +of drums and bugles. Grave judges sit bewigged in what was once the +scene of imperial deliberations. Close by in the High Street perhaps the +trumpets may sound about the stroke of noon; and you see a troop of +citizens in tawdry masquerade; tabard above, heather-mixture trowser +below, and the men themselves trudging in the mud among unsympathetic +by-standers. The grooms of a well-appointed circus tread the streets +with a better presence. And yet these are the Heralds and Pursuivants of +Scotland, who are about to proclaim a new law of the United Kingdom +before two-score boys, and thieves, and hackney-coachmen. Meanwhile +every hour the bell of the University rings out over the hum of the +streets, and every hour a double tide of students, coming and going, +fills the deep archways. And lastly, one night in the springtime--or say +one morning rather, at the peep of day--late folk may hear voices of many +men singing a psalm in unison from a church on one side of the old High +Street; and a little after, or perhaps a little before, the sound of many +men singing a psalm in unison from another church on the opposite side of +the way. There will be something in the words above the dew of Hermon, +and how goodly it is to see brethren dwelling together in unity. And the +late folk will tell themselves that all this singing denotes the +conclusion of two yearly ecclesiastical parliaments--the parliaments of +Churches which are brothers in many admirable virtues, but not specially +like brothers in this particular of a tolerant and peaceful life. + +Again, meditative people will find a charm in a certain consonancy +between the aspect of the city and its odd and stirring history. Few +places, if any, offer a more barbaric display of contrasts to the eye. +In the very midst stands one of the most satisfactory crags in nature--a +Bass Rock upon dry land, rooted in a garden shaken by passing trains, +carrying a crown of battlements and turrets, and describing its war-like +shadow over the liveliest and brightest thoroughfare of the new town. +From their smoky beehives, ten stories high, the unwashed look down upon +the open squares and gardens of the wealthy; and gay people sunning +themselves along Princes Street, with its mile of commercial palaces all +beflagged upon some great occasion, see, across a gardened valley set +with statues, where the washings of the Old Town flutter in the breeze at +its high windows. And then, upon all sides, what a clashing of +architecture! In this one valley, where the life of the town goes most +busily forward, there may be seen, shown one above and behind another by +the accidents of the ground, buildings in almost every style upon the +globe. Egyptian and Greek temples, Venetian palaces and Gothic spires, +are huddled one over another in a most admired disorder; while, above +all, the brute mass of the Castle and the summit of Arthur's Seat look +down upon these imitations with a becoming dignity, as the works of +Nature may look down the monuments of Art. But Nature is a more +indiscriminate patroness than we imagine, and in no way frightened of a +strong effect. The birds roost as willingly among the Corinthian +capitals as in the crannies of the crag; the same atmosphere and daylight +clothe the eternal rock and yesterday's imitation portico; and as the +soft northern sunshine throws out everything into a glorified +distinctness--or easterly mists, coming up with the blue evening, fuse +all these incongruous features into one, and the lamps begin to glitter +along the street, and faint lights to burn in the high windows across the +valley--the feeling grows upon you that this also is a piece of nature in +the most intimate sense; that this profusion of eccentricities, this +dream in masonry and living rock, is not a drop-scene in a theatre, but a +city in the world of every-day reality, connected by railway and +telegraph-wire with all the capitals of Europe, and inhabited by citizens +of the familiar type, who keep ledgers, and attend church, and have sold +their immortal portion to a daily paper. By all the canons of romance, +the place demands to be half deserted and leaning towards decay; birds we +might admit in profusion, the play of the sun and winds, and a few +gipsies encamped in the chief thoroughfare; but these citizens with their +cabs and tramways, their trains and posters, are altogether out of key. +Chartered tourists, they make free with historic localities, and rear +their young among the most picturesque sites with a grand human +indifference. To see them thronging by, in their neat clothes and +conscious moral rectitude, and with a little air of possession that +verges on the absurd, is not the least striking feature of the place. +{10} + +And the story of the town is as eccentric as its appearance. For +centuries it was a capital thatched with heather, and more than once, in +the evil days of English invasion, it has gone up in flame to heaven, a +beacon to ships at sea. It was the jousting-ground of jealous nobles, +not only on Greenside, or by the King's Stables, where set tournaments +were fought to the sound of trumpets and under the authority of the royal +presence, but in every alley where there was room to cross swords, and in +the main street, where popular tumult under the Blue Blanket alternated +with the brawls of outlandish clansmen and retainers. Down in the palace +John Knox reproved his queen in the accents of modern democracy. In the +town, in one of those little shops plastered like so many swallows' nests +among the buttresses of the old Cathedral, that familiar autocrat, James +VI., would gladly share a bottle of wine with George Heriot the +goldsmith. Up on the Pentland Hills, that so quietly look down on the +Castle with the city lying in waves around it, those mad and dismal +fanatics, the Sweet Singers, haggard from long exposure on the moors, sat +day and night with 'tearful psalmns' to see Edinburgh consumed with fire +from heaven, like another Sodom or Gomorrah. There, in the Grass-market, +stiff-necked, covenanting heroes, offered up the often unnecessary, but +not less honourable, sacrifice of their lives, and bade eloquent farewell +to sun, moon, and stars, and earthly friendships, or died silent to the +roll of drums. Down by yon outlet rode Grahame of Claverhouse and his +thirty dragoons, with the town beating to arms behind their horses' +tails--a sorry handful thus riding for their lives, but with a man at the +head who was to return in a different temper, make a dash that staggered +Scotland to the heart, and die happily in the thick of fight. There +Aikenhead was hanged for a piece of boyish incredulity; there, a few +years afterwards, David Hume ruined Philosophy and Faith, an undisturbed +and well-reputed citizen; and thither, in yet a few years more, Burns +came from the plough-tail, as to an academy of gilt unbelief and +artificial letters. There, when the great exodus was made across the +valley, and the New Town began to spread abroad its draughty +parallelograms, and rear its long frontage on the opposing hill, there +was such a flitting, such a change of domicile and dweller, as was never +excelled in the history of cities: the cobbler succeeded the earl; the +beggar ensconced himself by the judge's chimney; what had been a palace +was used as a pauper refuge; and great mansions were so parcelled out +among the least and lowest in society, that the hearthstone of the old +proprietor was thought large enough to be partitioned off into a bedroom +by the new. + + + + +CHAPTER II. OLD TOWN--THE LANDS. + + +The Old Town, it is pretended, is the chief characteristic, and, from a +picturesque point of view, the liver-wing of Edinburgh. It is one of the +most common forms of depreciation to throw cold water on the whole by +adroit over-commendation of a part, since everything worth judging, +whether it be a man, a work of art, or only a fine city, must be judged +upon its merits as a whole. The Old Town depends for much of its effect +on the new quarters that lie around it, on the sufficiency of its +situation, and on the hills that back it up. If you were to set it +somewhere else by itself, it would look remarkably like Stirling in a +bolder and loftier edition. The point is to see this embellished +Stirling planted in the midst of a large, active, and fantastic modern +city; for there the two re-act in a picturesque sense, and the one is the +making of the other. + +The Old Town occupies a sloping ridge or tail of diluvial matter, +protected, in some subsidence of the waters, by the Castle cliffs which +fortify it to the west. On the one side of it and the other the new +towns of the south and of the north occupy their lower, broader, and more +gentle hill-tops. Thus, the quarter of the Castle over-tops the whole +city and keeps an open view to sea and land. It dominates for miles on +every side; and people on the decks of ships, or ploughing in quiet +country places over in Fife, can see the banner on the Castle +battlements, and the smoke of the Old Town blowing abroad over the +subjacent country. A city that is set upon a hill. It was, I suppose, +from this distant aspect that she got her nickname of _Auld Reekie_. +Perhaps it was given her by people who had never crossed her doors: day +after day, from their various rustic Pisgahs, they had seen the pile of +building on the hill-top, and the long plume of smoke over the plain; so +it appeared to them; so it had appeared to their fathers tilling the same +field; and as that was all they knew of the place, it could be all +expressed in these two words. + + [Picture: Cowfeeder Row and Head of West Port] + +Indeed, even on a nearer view, the Old Town is properly smoked; and +though it is well washed with rain all the year round, it has a grim and +sooty aspect among its younger suburbs. It grew, under the law that +regulates the growth of walled cities in precarious situations, not in +extent, but in height and density. Public buildings were forced, +wherever there was room for them, into the midst of thoroughfares; +thorough--fares were diminished into lanes; houses sprang up story after +story, neighbour mounting upon neighbour's shoulder, as in some Black +Hole of Calcutta, until the population slept fourteen or fifteen deep in +a vertical direction. The tallest of these _lands_, as they are locally +termed, have long since been burnt out; but to this day it is not +uncommon to see eight or ten windows at a flight; and the cliff of +building which hangs imminent over Waverley Bridge would still put many +natural precipices to shame. The cellars are already high above the +gazer's head, planted on the steep hill-side; as for the garret, all the +furniture may be in the pawn-shop, but it commands a famous prospect to +the Highland hills. The poor man may roost up there in the centre of +Edinburgh, and yet have a peep of the green country from his window; he +shall see the quarters of the well-to-do fathoms underneath, with their +broad squares and gardens; he shall have nothing overhead but a few +spires, the stone top-gallants of the city; and perhaps the wind may +reach him with a rustic pureness, and bring a smack of the sea or of +flowering lilacs in the spring. + +It is almost the correct literary sentiment to deplore the revolutionary +improvements of Mr. Chambers and his following. It is easy to be a +conservator of the discomforts of others; indeed, it is only our good +qualities we find it irksome to conserve. Assuredly, in driving streets +through the black labyrinth, a few curious old corners have been swept +away, and some associations turned out of house and home. But what +slices of sunlight, what breaths of clean air, have been let in! And +what a picturesque world remains untouched! You go under dark arches, +and down dark stairs and alleys. The way is so narrow that you can lay a +hand on either wall; so steep that, in greasy winter weather, the +pavement is almost as treacherous as ice. Washing dangles above washing +from the windows; the houses bulge outwards upon flimsy brackets; you see +a bit of sculpture in a dark corner; at the top of all, a gable and a few +crowsteps are printed on the sky. Here, you come into a court where the +children are at play and the grown people sit upon their doorsteps, and +perhaps a church spire shows itself above the roofs. Here, in the +narrowest of the entry, you find a great old mansion still erect, with +some insignia of its former state--some scutcheon, some holy or +courageous motto, on the lintel. The local antiquary points out where +famous and well-born people had their lodging; and as you look up, out +pops the head of a slatternly woman from the countess's window. The +Bedouins camp within Pharaoh's palace walls, and the old war-ship is +given over to the rats. We are already a far way from the days when +powdered heads were plentiful in these alleys, with jolly, port-wine +faces underneath. Even in the chief thoroughfares Irish washings flutter +at the windows, and the pavements are encumbered with loiterers. + + [Picture: Old Bow-Head, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh] + +These loiterers are a true character of the scene. Some shrewd Scotch +workmen may have paused on their way to a job, debating Church affairs +and politics with their tools upon their arm. But the most part are of a +different order--skulking jail-birds; unkempt, bare-foot children; +big-mouthed, robust women, in a sort of uniform of striped flannel +petticoat and short tartan shawl; among these, a few surpervising +constables and a dismal sprinkling of mutineers and broken men from +higher ranks in society, with some mark of better days upon them, like a +brand. In a place no larger than Edinburgh, and where the traffic is +mostly centred in five or six chief streets, the same face comes often +under the notice of an idle stroller. In fact, from this point of view, +Edinburgh is not so much a small city as the largest of small towns. It +is scarce possible to avoid observing your neighbours; and I never yet +heard of any one who tried. It has been my fortune, in this anonymous +accidental way, to watch more than one of these downward travellers for +some stages on the road to ruin. One man must have been upwards of sixty +before I first observed him, and he made then a decent, personable figure +in broad-cloth of the best. For three years he kept falling--grease +coming and buttons going from the square-skirted coat, the face puffing +and pimpling, the shoulders growing bowed, the hair falling scant and +grey upon his head; and the last that ever I saw of him, he was standing +at the mouth of an entry with several men in moleskin, three parts drunk, +and his old black raiment daubed with mud. I fancy that I still can hear +him laugh. There was something heart-breaking in this gradual declension +at so advanced an age; you would have thought a man of sixty out of the +reach of these calamities; you would have thought that he was niched by +that time into a safe place in life, whence he could pass quietly and +honourably into the grave. + +One of the earliest marks of these _degringolades_ is, that the victim +begins to disappear from the New Town thoroughfares, and takes to the +High Street, like a wounded animal to the woods. And such an one is the +type of the quarter. It also has fallen socially. A scutcheon over the +door somewhat jars in sentiment where there is a washing at every window. +The old man, when I saw him last, wore the coat in which he had played +the gentleman three years before; and that was just what gave him so +pre-eminent an air of wretchedness. + +[Picture: High Street] It is true that the over-population was at least +as dense in the epoch of lords and ladies, and that now-a-days some +customs which made Edinburgh notorious of yore have been fortunately +pretermitted. But an aggregation of comfort is not distasteful like an +aggregation of the reverse. Nobody cares how many lords and ladies, and +divines and lawyers, may have been crowded into these houses in the +past--perhaps the more the merrier. The glasses clink around the china +punch-bowl, some one touches the virginals, there are peacocks' feathers +on the chimney, and the tapers burn clear and pale in the red firelight. +That is not an ugly picture in itself, nor will it become ugly upon +repetition. All the better if the like were going on in every second +room; the _land_ would only look the more inviting. Times are changed. +In one house, perhaps, two-score families herd together; and, perhaps, +not one of them is wholly out of the reach of want. The great hotel is +given over to discomfort from the foundation to the chimney-tops; +everywhere a pinching, narrow habit, scanty meals, and an air of +sluttishness and dirt. In the first room there is a birth, in another a +death, in a third a sordid drinking-bout, and the detective and the +Bible-reader cross upon the stairs. High words are audible from dwelling +to dwelling, and children have a strange experience from the first; only +a robust soul, you would think, could grow up in such conditions without +hurt. And even if God tempers His dispensations to the young, and all +the ill does not arise that our apprehensions may forecast, the sight of +such a way of living is disquieting to people who are more happily +circumstanced. Social inequality is nowhere more ostentatious than at +Edinburgh. I have mentioned already how, to the stroller along Princes +Street, the High Street callously exhibits its back garrets. It is true, +there is a garden between. And although nothing could be more glaring by +way of contrast, sometimes the opposition is more immediate; sometimes +the thing lies in a nutshell, and there is not so much as a blade of +grass between the rich and poor. To look over the South Bridge and see +the Cowgate below full of crying hawkers, is to view one rank of society +from another in the twinkling of an eye. + +One night I went along the Cowgate after every one was a-bed but the +policeman, and stopped by hazard before a tall _land_. The moon touched +upon its chimneys, and shone blankly on the upper windows; there was no +light anywhere in the great bulk of building; but as I stood there it +seemed to me that I could hear quite a body of quiet sounds from the +interior; doubtless there were many clocks ticking, and people snoring on +their backs. And thus, as I fancied, the dense life within made itself +faintly audible in my ears, family after family contributing its quota to +the general hum, and the whole pile beating in tune to its timepieces, +like a great disordered heart. Perhaps it was little more than a fancy +altogether, but it was strangely impressive at the time, and gave me an +imaginative measure of the disproportion between the quantity of living +flesh and the trifling walls that separated and contained it. + +There was nothing fanciful, at least, but every circumstance of terror +and reality, in the fall of the _land_ in the High Street. The building +had grown rotten to the core; the entry underneath had suddenly closed up +so that the scavenger's barrow could not pass; cracks and reverberations +sounded through the house at night; the inhabitants of the huge old human +bee-hive discussed their peril when they encountered on the stair; some +had even left their dwellings in a panic of fear, and returned to them +again in a fit of economy or self-respect; when, in the black hours of a +Sunday morning, the whole structure ran together with a hideous uproar +and tumbled story upon story to the ground. The physical shock was felt +far and near; and the moral shock travelled with the morning milkmaid +into all the suburbs. The church-bells never sounded more dismally over +Edinburgh than that grey forenoon. Death had made a brave harvest, and, +like Samson, by pulling down one roof, destroyed many a home. None who +saw it can have forgotten the aspect of the gable; here it was plastered, +there papered, according to the rooms; here the kettle still stood on the +hob, high overhead; and there a cheap picture of the Queen was pasted +over the chimney. So, by this disaster, you had a glimpse into the life +of thirty families, all suddenly cut off from the revolving years. The +_land_ had fallen; and with the _land_ how much! Far in the country, +people saw a gap in the city ranks, and the sun looked through between +the chimneys in an unwonted place. And all over the world, in London, in +Canada, in New Zealand, fancy what a multitude of people could exclaim +with truth: 'The house that I was born in fell last night!' + + + + +CHAPTER III. THE PARLIAMENT CLOSE. + + +Time has wrought its changes most notably around the precincts of St. +Giles's Church. The church itself, if it were not for the spire, would +be unrecognisable; the _Krames_ are all gone, not a shop is left to +shelter in its buttresses; and zealous magistrates and a misguided +architect have shorn the design of manhood, and left it poor, naked, and +pitifully pretentious. As St. Giles's must have had in former days a +rich and quaint appearance now forgotten, so the neighbourhood was +bustling, sunless, and romantic. It was here that the town was most +overbuilt; but the overbuilding has been all rooted out, and not only a +free fair-way left along the High Street with an open space on either +side of the church, but a great porthole, knocked in the main line of the +_lands_, gives an outlook to the north and the New Town. + +[Picture: The Spire of St. Giles's] There is a silly story of a +subterranean passage between the Castle and Holyrood, and a bold Highland +piper who volunteered to explore its windings. He made his entrance by +the upper end, playing a strathspey; the curious footed it after him down +the street, following his descent by the sound of the chanter from below; +until all of a sudden, about the level of St. Giles's, the music came +abruptly to an end, and the people in the street stood at fault with +hands uplifted. Whether he was choked with gases, or perished in a quag, +or was removed bodily by the Evil One, remains a point of doubt; but the +piper has never again been seen or heard of from that day to this. +Perhaps he wandered down into the land of Thomas the Rhymer, and some +day, when it is least expected, may take a thought to revisit the sunlit +upper world. That will be a strange moment for the cabmen on the stance +besides St. Giles's, when they hear the drone of his pipes reascending +from the bowels of the earth below their horses' feet. + +But it is not only pipers who have vanished, many a solid bulk of masonry +has been likewise spirited into the air. Here, for example, is the shape +of a heart let into the causeway. This was the site of the Tolbooth, the +Heart of Midlothian, a place old in story and namefather to a noble book. +The walls are now down in the dust; there is no more _squalor carceris_ +for merry debtors, no more cage for the old, acknowledged prison-breaker; +but the sun and the wind play freely over the foundations of the jail. +Nor is this the only memorial that the pavement keeps of former days. +The ancient burying-ground of Edinburgh lay behind St. Giles's Church, +running downhill to the Cowgate and covering the site of the present +Parliament House. It has disappeared as utterly as the prison or the +Luckenbooths; and for those ignorant of its history, I know only one +token that remains. In the Parliament Close, trodden daily underfoot by +advocates, two letters and a date mark the resting-place of the man who +made Scotland over again in his own image, the indefatigable, +undissuadable John Knox. He sleeps within call of the church that so +often echoed to his preaching. + +Hard by the reformer, a bandy-legged and garlanded Charles Second, made +of lead, bestrides a tun-bellied charger. The King has his backed +turned, and, as you look, seems to be trotting clumsily away from such a +dangerous neighbour. Often, for hours together, these two will be alone +in the Close, for it lies out of the way of all but legal traffic. On +one side the south wall of the church, on the other the arcades of the +Parliament House, enclose this irregular bight of causeway and describe +their shadows on it in the sun. At either end, from round St. Giles's +buttresses, you command a look into the High Street with its motley +passengers; but the stream goes by, east and west, and leaves the +Parliament Close to Charles the Second and the birds. Once in a while, a +patient crowd may be seen loitering there all day, some eating fruit, +some reading a newspaper; and to judge by their quiet demeanour, you +would think they were waiting for a distribution of soup-tickets. The +fact is far otherwise; within in the Justiciary Court a man is upon trial +for his life, and these are some of the curious for whom the gallery was +found too narrow. Towards afternoon, if the prisoner is unpopular, there +will be a round of hisses when he is brought forth. Once in a while, +too, an advocate in wig and gown, hand upon mouth, full of pregnant nods, +sweeps to and fro in the arcade listening to an agent; and at certain +regular hours a whole tide of lawyers hurries across the space. + +The Parliament Close has been the scene of marking incidents in Scottish +history. Thus, when the Bishops were ejected from the Convention in +1688, 'all fourteen of them gathered together with pale faces and stood +in a cloud in the Parliament Close:' poor episcopal personages who were +done with fair weather for life! Some of the west-country Societarians +standing by, who would have 'rejoiced more than in great sums' to be at +their hanging, hustled them so rudely that they knocked their heads +together. It was not magnanimous behaviour to dethroned enemies; but +one, at least, of the Societarians had groaned in the _boots_, and they +had all seen their dear friends upon the scaffold. Again, at the 'woeful +Union,' it was here that people crowded to escort their favourite from +the last of Scottish parliaments: people flushed with nationality, as +Boswell would have said, ready for riotous acts, and fresh from throwing +stones at the author of 'Robinson Crusoe' as he looked out of window. + + [Picture: John Knox's House in the High Street] + +One of the pious in the seventeenth century, going to pass his _trials_ +(examinations as we now say) for the Scottish Bar, beheld the Parliament +Close open and had a vision of the mouth of Hell. This, and small +wonder, was the means of his conversion. Nor was the vision unsuitable +to the locality; for after an hospital, what uglier piece is there in +civilisation than a court of law? Hither come envy, malice, and all +uncharitableness to wrestle it out in public tourney; crimes, broken +fortunes, severed households, the knave and his victim, gravitate to this +low building with the arcade. To how many has not St. Giles's bell told +the first hour after ruin? I think I see them pause to count the +strokes, and wander on again into the moving High Street, stunned and +sick at heart. + +A pair of swing doors gives admittance to a hall with a carved roof, hung +with legal portraits, adorned with legal statuary, lighted by windows of +painted glass, and warmed by three vast fires. This is the _Salle des +pas perdus_ of the Scottish Bar. Here, by a ferocious custom, idle +youths must promenade from ten till two. From end to end, singly or in +pairs or trios, the gowns and wigs go back and forward. Through a hum of +talk and footfalls, the piping tones of a Macer announce a fresh cause +and call upon the names of those concerned. Intelligent men have been +walking here daily for ten or twenty years without a rag of business or a +shilling of reward. In process of time, they may perhaps be made the +Sheriff-Substitute and Fountain of Justice at Lerwick or Tobermory. +There is nothing required, you would say, but a little patience and a +taste for exercise and bad air. To breathe dust and bombazine, to feed +the mind on cackling gossip, to hear three parts of a case and drink a +glass of sherry, to long with indescribable longings for the hour when a +man may slip out of his travesty and devote himself to golf for the rest +of the afternoon, and to do this day by day and year after year, may seem +so small a thing to the inexperienced! But those who have made the +experiment are of a different way of thinking, and count it the most +arduous form of idleness. + +More swing doors open into pigeon-holes where judges of the First Appeal +sit singly, and halls of audience where the supreme Lords sit by three or +four. Here, you may see Scott's place within the bar, where he wrote +many a page of Waverley novels to the drone of judicial proceeding. You +will hear a good deal of shrewdness, and, as their Lordships do not +altogether disdain pleasantry, a fair proportion of dry fun. The +broadest of broad Scotch is now banished from the bench; but the courts +still retain a certain national flavour. We have a solemn enjoyable way +of lingering on a case. We treat law as a fine art, and relish and +digest a good distinction. There is no hurry: point after point must be +rightly examined and reduced to principle; judge after judge must utter +forth his _obiter dicta_ to delighted brethren. + +Besides the courts, there are installed under the same roof no less than +three libraries: two of no mean order; confused and semi-subterranean, +full of stairs and galleries; where you may see the most studious-looking +wigs fishing out novels by lanthorn light, in the very place where the +old Privy Council tortured Covenanters. As the Parliament House is built +upon a slope, although it presents only one story to the north, it +measures half-a-dozen at least upon the south; and range after range of +vaults extend below the libraries. Few places are more characteristic of +this hilly capital. You descend one stone stair after another, and +wander, by the flicker of a match, in a labyrinth of stone cellars. Now, +you pass below the Outer Hall and hear overhead, brisk but ghostly, the +interminable pattering of legal feet. Now, you come upon a strong door +with a wicket: on the other side are the cells of the police office and +the trap-stair that gives admittance to the dock in the Justiciary Court. +Many a foot that has gone up there lightly enough, has been dead-heavy in +the descent. Many a man's life has been argued away from him during long +hours in the court above. But just now that tragic stage is empty and +silent like a church on a week-day, with the bench all sheeted up and +nothing moving but the sunbeams on the wall. A little farther and you +strike upon a room, not empty like the rest, but crowded with +_productions_ from bygone criminal cases: a grim lumber: lethal weapons, +poisoned organs in a jar, a door with a shot-hole through the panel, +behind which a man fell dead. I cannot fancy why they should preserve +them unless it were against the Judgment Day. At length, as you continue +to descend, you see a peep of yellow gaslight and hear a jostling, +whispering noise ahead; next moment you turn a corner, and there, in a +whitewashed passage, is a machinery belt industriously turning on its +wheels. You would think the engine had grown there of its own accord, +like a cellar fungus, and would soon spin itself out and fill the vaults +from end to end with its mysterious labours. In truth, it is only some +gear of the steam ventilator; and you will find the engineers at hand, +and may step out of their door into the sunlight. For all this while, +you have not been descending towards the earth's centre, but only to the +bottom of the hill and the foundations of the Parliament House; low down, +to be sure, but still under the open heaven and in a field of grass. The +daylight shines garishly on the back windows of the Irish quarter; on +broken shutters, wry gables, old palsied houses on the brink of ruin, a +crumbling human pig-sty fit for human pigs. There are few signs of life, +besides a scanty washing or a face at a window: the dwellers are abroad, +but they will return at night and stagger to their pallets. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. LEGENDS. + + +The character of a place is often most perfectly expressed in its +associations. An event strikes root and grows into a legend, when it has +happened amongst congenial surroundings. Ugly actions, above all in ugly +places, have the true romantic quality, and become an undying property of +their scene. To a man like Scott, the different appearances of nature +seemed each to contain its own legend ready made, which it was his to +call forth: in such or such a place, only such or such events ought with +propriety to happen; and in this spirit he made the _Lady of the Lake_ +for Ben Venue, the _Heart of Midlothian_ for Edinburgh, and the _Pirate_, +so indifferently written but so romantically conceived, for the desolate +islands and roaring tideways of the North. The common run of mankind +have, from generation to generation, an instinct almost as delicate as +that of Scott; but where he created new things, they only forget what is +unsuitable among the old; and by survival of the fittest, a body of +tradition becomes a work of art. So, in the low dens and high-flying +garrets of Edinburgh, people may go back upon dark passages in the town's +adventures, and chill their marrow with winter's tales about the fire: +tales that are singularly apposite and characteristic, not only of the +old life, but of the very constitution of built nature in that part, and +singularly well qualified to add horror to horror, when the wind pipes +around the tall _lands_, and hoots adown arched passages, and the +far-spread wilderness of city lamps keeps quavering and flaring in the +gusts. + +[Picture: The Canongate] Here, it is the tale of Begbie the bank-porter, +stricken to the heart at a blow and left in his blood within a step or +two of the crowded High Street. There, people hush their voices over +Burke and Hare; over drugs and violated graves, and the resurrection-men +smothering their victims with their knees. Here, again, the fame of +Deacon Brodie is kept piously fresh. A great man in his day was the +Deacon; well seen in good society, crafty with his hands as a +cabinet-maker, and one who could sing a song with taste. Many a citizen +was proud to welcome the Deacon to supper, and dismissed him with regret +at a timeous hour, who would have been vastly disconcerted had he known +how soon, and in what guise, his visitor returned. Many stories are told +of this redoubtable Edinburgh burglar, but the one I have in my mind most +vividly gives the key of all the rest. A friend of Brodie's, nested some +way towards heaven in one of these great _lands_, had told him of a +projected visit to the country, and afterwards, detained by some affairs, +put it off and stayed the night in town. The good man had lain some time +awake; it was far on in the small hours by the Tron bell; when suddenly +there came a creak, a jar, a faint light. Softly he clambered out of bed +and up to a false window which looked upon another room, and there, by +the glimmer of a thieves' lantern, was his good friend the Deacon in a +mask. It is characteristic of the town and the town's manners that this +little episode should have been quietly tided over, and quite a good time +elapsed before a great robbery, an escape, a Bow Street runner, a +cock-fight, an apprehension in a cupboard in Amsterdam, and a last step +into the air off his own greatly-improved gallows drop, brought the +career of Deacon William Brodie to an end. But still, by the mind's eye, +he may be seen, a man harassed below a mountain of duplicity, slinking +from a magistrate's supper-room to a thieves' ken, and pickeering among +the closes by the flicker of a dark lamp. + + [Picture: Planestones Close, Canongate] + +Or where the Deacon is out of favour, perhaps some memory lingers of the +great plagues, and of fatal houses still unsafe to enter within the +memory of man. For in time of pestilence the discipline had been sharp +and sudden, and what we now call 'stamping out contagion' was carried on +with deadly rigour. The officials, in their gowns of grey, with a white +St. Andrew's cross on back and breast, and a white cloth carried before +them on a staff, perambulated the city, adding the terror of man's +justice to the fear of God's visitation. The dead they buried on the +Borough Muir; the living who had concealed the sickness were drowned, if +they were women, in the Quarry Holes, and if they were men, were hanged +and gibbeted at their own doors; and wherever the evil had passed, +furniture was destroyed and houses closed. And the most bogeyish part of +the story is about such houses. Two generations back they still stood +dark and empty; people avoided them as they passed by; the boldest +schoolboy only shouted through the keyhole and made off; for within, it +was supposed, the plague lay ambushed like a basilisk, ready to flow +forth and spread blain and pustule through the city. What a terrible +next-door neighbour for superstitious citizens! A rat scampering within +would send a shudder through the stoutest heart. Here, if you like, was +a sanitary parable, addressed by our uncleanly forefathers to their own +neglect. + +And then we have Major Weir; for although even his house is now +demolished, old Edinburgh cannot clear herself of his unholy memory. He +and his sister lived together in an odour of sour piety. She was a +marvellous spinster; he had a rare gift of supplication, and was known +among devout admirers by the name of Angelical Thomas. 'He was a tall, +black man, and ordinarily looked down to the ground; a grim countenance, +and a big nose. His garb was still a cloak, and somewhat dark, and he +never went without his staff.' How it came about that Angelical Thomas +was burned in company with his staff, and his sister in gentler manner +hanged, and whether these two were simply religious maniacs of the more +furious order, or had real as well as imaginary sins upon their old-world +shoulders, are points happily beyond the reach of our intention. At +least, it is suitable enough that out of this superstitious city some +such example should have been put forth: the outcome and fine flower of +dark and vehement religion. And at least the facts struck the public +fancy and brought forth a remarkable family of myths. It would appear +that the Major's staff went upon his errands, and even ran before him +with a lantern on dark nights. Gigantic females, 'stentoriously laughing +and gaping with tehees of laughter' at unseasonable hours of night and +morning, haunted the purlieus of his abode. His house fell under such a +load of infamy that no one dared to sleep in it, until municipal +improvement levelled the structure to the ground. And my father has +often been told in the nursery how the devil's coach, drawn by six +coal-black horses with fiery eyes, would drive at night into the West +Bow, and belated people might see the dead Major through the glasses. + +Another legend is that of the two maiden sisters. A legend I am afraid +it may be, in the most discreditable meaning of the term; or perhaps +something worse--a mere yesterday's fiction. But it is a story of some +vitality, and is worthy of a place in the Edinburgh kalendar. This pair +inhabited a single room; from the facts, it must have been double-bedded; +and it may have been of some dimensions: but when all is said, it was a +single room. Here our two spinsters fell out--on some point of +controversial divinity belike: but fell out so bitterly that there was +never a word spoken between them, black or white, from that day forward. +You would have thought they would separate: but no; whether from lack of +means, or the Scottish fear of scandal, they continued to keep house +together where they were. A chalk line drawn upon the floor separated +their two domains; it bisected the doorway and the fireplace, so that +each could go out and in, and do her cooking, without violating the +territory of the other. So, for years, they coexisted in a hateful +silence; their meals, their ablutions, their friendly visitors, exposed +to an unfriendly scrutiny; and at night, in the dark watches, each could +hear the breathing of her enemy. Never did four walls look down upon an +uglier spectacle than these sisters rivalling in unsisterliness. Here is +a canvas for Hawthorne to have turned into a cabinet picture--he had a +Puritanic vein, which would have fitted him to treat this Puritanic +horror; he could have shown them to us in their sicknesses and at their +hideous twin devotions, thumbing a pair of great Bibles, or praying aloud +for each other's penitence with marrowy emphasis; now each, with kilted +petticoat, at her own corner of the fire on some tempestuous evening; now +sitting each at her window, looking out upon the summer landscape sloping +far below them towards the firth, and the field-paths where they had +wandered hand in hand; or, as age and infirmity grew upon them and +prolonged their toilettes, and their hands began to tremble and their +heads to nod involuntarily, growing only the more steeled in enmity with +years; until one fine day, at a word, a look, a visit, or the approach of +death, their hearts would melt and the chalk boundary be overstepped for +ever. + +Alas! to those who know the ecclesiastical history of the race--the most +perverse and melancholy in man's annals--this will seem only a figure of +much that is typical of Scotland and her high-seated capital above the +Forth--a figure so grimly realistic that it may pass with strangers for a +caricature. We are wonderful patient haters for conscience sake up here +in the North. I spoke, in the first of these papers, of the Parliaments +of the Established and Free Churches, and how they can hear each other +singing psalms across the street. There is but a street between them in +space, but a shadow between them in principle; and yet there they sit, +enchanted, and in damnatory accents pray for each other's growth in +grace. It would be well if there were no more than two; but the sects in +Scotland form a large family of sisters, and the chalk lines are thickly +drawn, and run through the midst of many private homes. Edinburgh is a +city of churches, as though it were a place of pilgrimage. You will see +four within a stone-cast at the head of the West Bow. Some are crowded +to the doors; some are empty like monuments; and yet you will ever find +new ones in the building. Hence that surprising clamour of church bells +that suddenly breaks out upon the Sabbath morning from Trinity and the +sea-skirts to Morningside on the borders of the hills. I have heard the +chimes of Oxford playing their symphony in a golden autumn morning, and +beautiful it was to hear. But in Edinburgh all manner of loud bells +join, or rather disjoin, in one swelling, brutal babblement of noise. +Now one overtakes another, and now lags behind it; now five or six all +strike on the pained tympanum at the same punctual instant of time, and +make together a dismal chord of discord; and now for a second all seem to +have conspired to hold their peace. Indeed, there are not many uproars +in this world more dismal than that of the Sabbath bells in Edinburgh: a +harsh ecclesiastical tocsin; the outcry of incongruous orthodoxies, +calling on every separate conventicler to put up a protest, each in his +own synagogue, against 'right-hand extremes and left-hand defections.' +And surely there are few worse extremes than this extremity of zeal; and +few more deplorable defections than this disloyalty to Christian love. +Shakespeare wrote a comedy of 'Much Ado about Nothing.' The Scottish +nation made a fantastic tragedy on the same subject. And it is for the +success of this remarkable piece that these bells are sounded every +Sabbath morning on the hills above the Forth. How many of them might +rest silent in the steeple, how many of these ugly churches might be +demolished and turned once more into useful building material, if people +who think almost exactly the same thoughts about religion would +condescend to worship God under the same roof! But there are the chalk +lines. And which is to pocket pride, and speak the foremost word? + + + + +CHAPTER V. GREYFRIARS. + + +It was Queen Mary who threw open the gardens of the Grey Friars: a new +and semi-rural cemetery in those days, although it has grown an antiquity +in its turn and been superseded by half-a-dozen others. The Friars must +have had a pleasant time on summer evenings; for their gardens were +situated to a wish, with the tall castle and the tallest of the castle +crags in front. Even now, it is one of our famous Edinburgh points of +view; and strangers are led thither to see, by yet another instance, how +strangely the city lies upon her hills. The enclosure is of an irregular +shape; the double church of Old and New Greyfriars stands on the level at +the top; a few thorns are dotted here and there, and the ground falls by +terrace and steep slope towards the north. The open shows many slabs and +table tombstones; and all round the margin, the place is girt by an array +of aristocratic mausoleums appallingly adorned. + +Setting aside the tombs of Roubiliac, which belong to the heroic order of +graveyard art, we Scotch stand, to my fancy, highest among nations in the +matter of grimly illustrating death. We seem to love for their own sake +the emblems of time and the great change; and even around country +churches you will find a wonderful exhibition of skulls, and crossbones, +and noseless angels, and trumpets pealing for the Judgment Day. Every +mason was a pedestrian Holbein: he had a deep consciousness of death, and +loved to put its terrors pithily before the churchyard loiterer; he was +brimful of rough hints upon mortality, and any dead farmer was seized +upon to be a text. The classical examples of this art are in Greyfriars. +In their time, these were doubtless costly monuments, and reckoned of a +very elegant proportion by contemporaries; and now, when the elegance is +not so apparent, the significance remains. You may perhaps look with a +smile on the profusion of Latin mottoes--some crawling endwise up the +shaft of a pillar, some issuing on a scroll from angels' trumpets--on the +emblematic horrors, the figures rising headless from the grave, and all +the traditional ingenuities in which it pleased our fathers to set forth +their sorrow for the dead and their sense of earthly mutability. But it +is not a hearty sort of mirth. Each ornament may have been executed by +the merriest apprentice, whistling as he plied the mallet; but the +original meaning of each, and the combined effect of so many of them in +this quiet enclosure, is serious to the point of melancholy. + +Round a great part of the circuit, houses of a low class present their +backs to the churchyard. Only a few inches separate the living from the +dead. Here, a window is partly blocked up by the pediment of a tomb; +there, where the street falls far below the level of the graves, a +chimney has been trained up the back of a monument, and a red pot looks +vulgarly over from behind. A damp smell of the graveyard finds its way +into houses where workmen sit at meat. Domestic life on a small scale +goes forward visibly at the windows. The very solitude and stillness of +the enclosure, which lies apart from the town's traffic, serves to +accentuate the contrast. As you walk upon the graves, you see children +scattering crumbs to feed the sparrows; you hear people singing or +washing dishes, or the sound of tears and castigation; the linen on a +clothes-pole flaps against funereal sculpture; or perhaps the cat slips +over the lintel and descends on a memorial urn. And as there is nothing +else astir, these incongruous sights and noises take hold on the +attention and exaggerate the sadness of the place. + + [Picture: Greyfriars] + +Greyfriars is continually overrun by cats. I have seen one afternoon, as +many as thirteen of them seated on the grass beside old Milne, the Master +Builder, all sleek and fat, and complacently blinking, as if they had fed +upon strange meats. Old Milne was chaunting with the saints, as we may +hope, and cared little for the company about his grave; but I confess the +spectacle had an ugly side for me; and I was glad to step forward and +raise my eyes to where the Castle and the roofs of the Old Town, and the +spire of the Assembly Hall, stood deployed against the sky with the +colourless precision of engraving. An open outlook is to be desired from +a churchyard, and a sight of the sky and some of the world's beauty +relieves a mind from morbid thoughts. + +I shall never forget one visit. It was a grey, dropping day; the grass +was strung with rain-drops; and the people in the houses kept hanging out +their shirts and petticoats and angrily taking them in again, as the +weather turned from wet to fair and back again. A grave-digger, and a +friend of his, a gardener from the country, accompanied me into one after +another of the cells and little courtyards in which it gratified the +wealthy of old days to enclose their old bones from neighbourhood. In +one, under a sort of shrine, we found a forlorn human effigy, very +realistically executed down to the detail of his ribbed stockings, and +holding in his hand a ticket with the date of his demise. He looked most +pitiful and ridiculous, shut up by himself in his aristocratic precinct, +like a bad old boy or an inferior forgotten deity under a new +dispensation; the burdocks grew familiarly about his feet, the rain +dripped all round him; and the world maintained the most entire +indifference as to who he was or whither he had gone. In another, a +vaulted tomb, handsome externally but horrible inside with damp and +cobwebs, there were three mounds of black earth and an uncovered thigh +bone. This was the place of interment, it appeared, of a family with +whom the gardener had been long in service. He was among old +acquaintances. 'This'll be Miss Marg'et's,' said he, giving the bone a +friendly kick. 'The auld ---!' I have always an uncomfortable feeling +in a graveyard, at sight of so many tombs to perpetuate memories best +forgotten; but I never had the impression so strongly as that day. +People had been at some expense in both these cases: to provoke a +melancholy feeling of derision in the one, and an insulting epithet in +the other. The proper inscription for the most part of mankind, I began +to think, is the cynical jeer, _cras tibi_. That, if anything, will stop +the mouth of a carper; since it both admits the worst and carries the war +triumphantly into the enemy's camp. + +Greyfriars is a place of many associations. There was one window in a +house at the lower end, now demolished, which was pointed out to me by +the gravedigger as a spot of legendary interest. Burke, the resurrection +man, infamous for so many murders at five shillings a-head, used to sit +thereat, with pipe and nightcap, to watch burials going forward on the +green. In a tomb higher up, which must then have been but newly +finished, John Knox, according to the same informant, had taken refuge in +a turmoil of the Reformation. Behind the church is the haunted mausoleum +of Sir George Mackenzie: Bloody Mackenzie, Lord Advocate in the +Covenanting troubles and author of some pleasing sentiments on +toleration. Here, in the last century, an old Heriot's Hospital boy once +harboured from the pursuit of the police. The Hospital is next door to +Greyfriars--a courtly building among lawns, where, on Founder's Day, you +may see a multitude of children playing Kiss-in-the-Ring and Round the +Mulberry-bush. Thus, when the fugitive had managed to conceal himself in +the tomb, his old schoolmates had a hundred opportunities to bring him +food; and there he lay in safety till a ship was found to smuggle him +abroad. But his must have been indeed a heart of brass, to lie all day +and night alone with the dead persecutor; and other lads were far from +emulating him in courage. When a man's soul is certainly in hell, his +body will scarce lie quiet in a tomb however costly; some time or other +the door must open, and the reprobate come forth in the abhorred garments +of the grave. It was thought a high piece of prowess to knock at the +Lord Advocate's mausoleum and challenge him to appear. 'Bluidy +Mackingie, come oot if ye dar'!' sang the fool-hardy urchins. But Sir +George had other affairs on hand; and the author of an essay on +toleration continues to sleep peacefully among the many whom he so +intolerantly helped to slay. + +[Picture: The Grassmarket] For this _infelix campus_, as it is dubbed in +one of its own inscriptions--an inscription over which Dr. Johnson passed +a critical eye--is in many ways sacred to the memory of the men whom +Mackenzie persecuted. It was here, on the flat tombstones, that the +Covenant was signed by an enthusiastic people. In the long arm of the +church-yard that extends to Lauriston, the prisoners from Bothwell +Bridge--fed on bread and water and guarded, life for life, by vigilant +marksmen--lay five months looking for the scaffold or the plantations. +And while the good work was going forward in the Grassmarket, idlers in +Greyfriars might have heard the throb of the military drums that drowned +the voices of the martyrs. Nor is this all: for down in the corner +farthest from Sir George, there stands a monument dedicated, in uncouth +Covenanting verse, to all who lost their lives in that contention. There +is no moorsman shot in a snow shower beside Irongray or Co'monell; there +is not one of the two hundred who were drowned off the Orkneys; nor so +much as a poor, over-driven, Covenanting slave in the American +plantations; but can lay claim to a share in that memorial, and, if such +things interest just men among the shades, can boast he has a monument on +earth as well as Julius Caesar or the Pharaohs. Where they may all lie, +I know not. Far-scattered bones, indeed! But if the reader cares to +learn how some of them--or some part of some of them--found their way at +length to such honourable sepulture, let him listen to the words of one +who was their comrade in life and their apologist when they were dead. +Some of the insane controversial matter I omit, as well as some +digressions, but leave the rest in Patrick Walker's language and +orthography:-- + + 'The never to be forgotten Mr. _James Renwick_ told me, that he was + Witness to their Public Murder at the _Gallowlee_, between _Leith_ + and _Edinburgh_, when he saw the Hangman hash and hagg off all their + Five Heads, with _Patrick Foreman's_ Right Hand: Their Bodies were + all buried at the Gallows Foot; their Heads, with _Patrick's_ Hand, + were brought and put upon five Pikes on the _Pleasaunce-Port_. . . . + Mr. _Renwick_ told me also that it was the first public Action that + his Hand was at, to conveen Friends, and lift their murthered Bodies, + and carried them to the West Churchyard of _Edinburgh_,'--not + Greyfriars, this time,--'and buried them there. Then they came about + the City . . . . and took down these Five Heads and that Hand; and + Day being come, they went quickly up the _Pleasaunce_; and when they + came to _Lauristoun_ Yards, upon the South-side of the City, they + durst not venture, being so light, to go and bury their Heads with + their Bodies, which they designed; it being present Death, if any of + them had been found. _Alexander Tweedie_, a Friend, being with them, + who at that Time was Gardner in these Yards, concluded to bury them + in his Yard, being in a Box (wrapped in Linen), where they lay 45 + Years except 3 Days, being executed upon the 10th of _October_ 1681, + and found the 7th Day of October 1726. That Piece of Ground lay for + some Years unlaboured; and trenching it, the Gardner found them, + which affrighted him the Box was consumed. Mr. _Schaw_, the Owner of + these Yards, caused lift them, and lay them upon a Table in his + Summer-house: Mr. _Schaw's_ mother was so kind, as to cut out a + Linen-cloth, and cover them. They lay Twelve Days there, where all + had Access to see them. _Alexander Tweedie_, the foresaid Gardner, + said, when dying, There was a Treasure hid in his Yard, but neither + Gold nor Silver. _Daniel Tweedie_, his Son, came along with me to + that Yard, and told me that his Father planted a white Rose-bush + above them, and farther down the Yard a red Rose-bush, which were + more fruitful than any other Bush in the Yard. . . . Many came'--to + see the heads--'out of Curiosity; yet I rejoiced to see so many + concerned grave Men and Women favouring the Dust of our Martyrs. + There were Six of us concluded to bury them upon the Nineteenth Day + of _October_ 1726, and every One of us to acquaint Friends of the Day + and Hour, being _Wednesday_, the Day of the Week on which most of + them were executed, and at 4 of the Clock at Night, being the Hour + that most of them went to their resting Graves. We caused make a + compleat Coffin for them in Black, with four Yards of fine Linen, the + way that our Martyrs Corps were managed. . . . Accordingly we kept + the aforesaid Day and Hour, and doubled the Linen, and laid the Half + of it below them, their nether jaws being parted from their Heads; + but being young Men, their Teeth remained. All were Witness to the + Holes in each of their Heads, which the Hangman broke with his + Hammer; and according to the Bigness of their Sculls, we laid the + Jaws to them, and drew the other Half of the Linen above them, and + stufft the Coffin with Shavings. Some prest hard to go thorow the + chief Parts of the City as was done at the Revolution; but this we + refused, considering that it looked airy and frothy, to make such + Show of them, and inconsistent with the solid serious Observing of + such an affecting, surprizing unheard-of Dispensation: But took the + ordinary Way of other Burials from that Place, to wit, we went east + the Back of the Wall, and in at _Bristo-Port_, and down the Way to + the Head of the _Cowgate_, and turned up to the Church-yard, where + they were interred closs to the Martyrs Tomb, with the greatest + Multitude of People Old and Young, Men and Women, Ministers and + others, that ever I saw together.' + +And so there they were at last, in 'their resting graves.' So long as +men do their duty, even if it be greatly in a misapprehension, they will +be leading pattern lives; and whether or not they come to lie beside a +martyrs' monument, we may be sure they will find a safe haven somewhere +in the providence of God. It is not well to think of death, unless we +temper the thought with that of heroes who despised it. Upon what +ground, is of small account; if it be only the bishop who was burned for +his faith in the antipodes, his memory lightens the heart and makes us +walk undisturbed among graves. And so the martyrs' monument is a +wholesome, heartsome spot in the field of the dead; and as we look upon +it, a brave influence comes to us from the land of those who have won +their discharge and, in another phrase of Patrick Walker's, got 'cleanly +off the stage.' + + + + +CHAPTER VI. NEW TOWN--TOWN AND COUNTRY. + + +It is as much a matter of course to decry the New Town as to exalt the +Old; and the most celebrated authorities have picked out this quarter as +the very emblem of what is condemnable in architecture. Much may be +said, much indeed has been said, upon the text; but to the +unsophisticated, who call anything pleasing if it only pleases them, the +New Town of Edinburgh seems, in itself, not only gay and airy, but highly +picturesque. An old skipper, invincibly ignorant of all theories of the +sublime and beautiful, once propounded as his most radiant notion for +Paradise: 'The new town of Edinburgh, with the wind a matter of a point +free.' He has now gone to that sphere where all good tars are promised +pleasant weather in the song, and perhaps his thoughts fly somewhat +higher. But there are bright and temperate days--with soft air coming +from the inland hills, military music sounding bravely from the hollow of +the gardens, the flags all waving on the palaces of Princes Street--when +I have seen the town through a sort of glory, and shaken hands in +sentiment with the old sailor. And indeed, for a man who has been much +tumbled round Orcadian skerries, what scene could be more agreeable to +witness? On such a day, the valley wears a surprising air of festival. +It seems (I do not know how else to put my meaning) as if it were a +trifle too good to be true. It is what Paris ought to be. It has the +scenic quality that would best set off a life of unthinking, open-air +diversion. It was meant by nature for the realisation of the society of +comic operas. And you can imagine, if the climate were but towardly, how +all the world and his wife would flock into these gardens in the cool of +the evening, to hear cheerful music, to sip pleasant drinks, to see the +moon rise from behind Arthur's Seat and shine upon the spires and +monuments and the green tree-tops in the valley. Alas! and the next +morning the rain is splashing on the windows, and the passengers flee +along Princes Street before the galloping squalls. + + [Picture: The Royal Institution] + +It cannot be denied that the original design was faulty and +short-sighted, and did not fully profit by the capabilities of the +situation. The architect was essentially a town bird, and he laid out +the modern city with a view to street scenery, and to street scenery +alone. The country did not enter into his plan; he had never lifted his +eyes to the hills. If he had so chosen, every street upon the northern +slope might have been a noble terrace and commanded an extensive and +beautiful view. But the space has been too closely built; many of the +houses front the wrong way, intent, like the Man with the Muck-Rake, on +what is not worth observation, and standing discourteously back-foremost +in the ranks; and, in a word, it is too often only from attic-windows, or +here and there at a crossing, that you can get a look beyond the city +upon its diversified surroundings. But perhaps it is all the more +surprising, to come suddenly on a corner, and see a perspective of a mile +or more of falling street, and beyond that woods and villas, and a blue +arm of sea, and the hills upon the farther side. + +Fergusson, our Edinburgh poet, Burns's model, once saw a butterfly at the +Town Cross; and the sight inspired him with a worthless little ode. This +painted country man, the dandy of the rose garden, looked far abroad in +such a humming neighbourhood; and you can fancy what moral considerations +a youthful poet would supply. But the incident, in a fanciful sort of +way, is characteristic of the place. Into no other city does the sight +of the country enter so far; if you do not meet a butterfly, you shall +certainly catch a glimpse of far-away trees upon your walk; and the place +is full of theatre tricks in the way of scenery. You peep under an arch, +you descend stairs that look as if they would land you in a cellar, you +turn to the back-window of a grimy tenement in a lane:--and behold! you +are face-to-face with distant and bright prospects. You turn a corner, +and there is the sun going down into the Highland hills. You look down +an alley, and see ships tacking for the Baltic. + +For the country people to see Edinburgh on her hill-tops, is one thing; +it is another for the citizen, from the thick of his affairs, to overlook +the country. It should be a genial and ameliorating influence in life; +it should prompt good thoughts and remind him of Nature's unconcern: that +he can watch from day to day, as he trots officeward, how the Spring +green brightens in the wood or the field grows black under a moving +ploughshare. I have been tempted, in this connexion, to deplore the +slender faculties of the human race, with its penny-whistle of a voice, +its dull cars, and its narrow range of sight. If you could see as people +are to see in heaven, if you had eyes such as you can fancy for a +superior race, if you could take clear note of the objects of vision, not +only a few yards, but a few miles from where you stand:--think how +agreeably your sight would be entertained, how pleasantly your thoughts +would be diversified, as you walked the Edinburgh streets! For you might +pause, in some business perplexity, in the midst of the city traffic, and +perhaps catch the eye of a shepherd as he sat down to breathe upon a +heathery shoulder of the Pentlands; or perhaps some urchin, clambering in +a country elm, would put aside the leaves and show you his flushed and +rustic visage; or a fisher racing seawards, with the tiller under his +elbow, and the sail sounding in the wind, would fling you a salutation +from between Anst'er and the May. + +To be old is not the same thing as to be picturesque; nor because the Old +Town bears a strange physiognomy, does it at all follow that the New Town +shall look commonplace. Indeed, apart from antique houses, it is curious +how much description would apply commonly to either. The same sudden +accidents of ground, a similar dominating site above the plain, and the +same superposition of one rank of society over another, are to be +observed in both. Thus, the broad and comely approach to Princes Street +from the east, lined with hotels and public offices, makes a leap over +the gorge of the Low Calton; if you cast a glance over the parapet, you +look direct into that sunless and disreputable confluent of Leith Street; +and the same tall houses open upon both thoroughfares. This is only the +New Town passing overhead above its own cellars; walking, so to speak, +over its own children, as is the way of cities and the human race. But +at the Dean Bridge, you may behold a spectacle of a more novel order. +The river runs at the bottom of a deep valley, among rocks and between +gardens; the crest of either bank is occupied by some of the most +commodious streets and crescents in the modern city; and a handsome +bridge unites the two summits. Over this, every afternoon, private +carriages go spinning by, and ladies with card-cases pass to and fro +about the duties of society. And yet down below, you may still see, with +its mills and foaming weir, the little rural village of Dean. Modern +improvement has gone overhead on its high-level viaduct; and the extended +city has cleanly overleapt, and left unaltered, what was once the summer +retreat of its comfortable citizens. Every town embraces hamlets in its +growth; Edinburgh herself has embraced a good few; but it is strange to +see one still surviving--and to see it some hundreds of feet below your +path. Is it Torre del Greco that is built above buried Herculaneum? +Herculaneum was dead at least; but the sun still shines upon the roofs of +Dean; the smoke still rises thriftily from its chimneys; the dusty miller +comes to his door, looks at the gurgling water, hearkens to the turning +wheel and the birds about the shed, and perhaps whistles an air of his +own to enrich the symphony--for all the world as if Edinburgh were still +the old Edinburgh on the Castle Hill, and Dean were still the quietest of +hamlets buried a mile or so in the green country. + + [Picture: In the Village of Dean] + +It is not so long ago since magisterial David Hume lent the authority of +his example to the exodus from the Old Town, and took up his new abode in +a street which is still (so oddly may a jest become perpetuated) known as +Saint David Street. Nor is the town so large but a holiday schoolboy may +harry a bird's nest within half a mile of his own door. There are places +that still smell of the plough in memory's nostrils. Here, one had heard +a blackbird on a hawthorn; there, another was taken on summer evenings to +eat strawberries and cream; and you have seen a waving wheatfield on the +site of your present residence. The memories of an Edinburgh boy are but +partly memories of the town. I look back with delight on many an +escalade of garden walls; many a ramble among lilacs full of piping +birds; many an exploration in obscure quarters that were neither town nor +country; and I think that both for my companions and myself, there was a +special interest, a point of romance, and a sentiment as of foreign +travel, when we hit in our excursions on the butt-end of some former +hamlet, and found a few rustic cottages embedded among streets and +squares. The tunnel to the Scotland Street Station, the sight of the +trains shooting out of its dark maw with the two guards upon the brake, +the thought of its length and the many ponderous edifices and open +thoroughfares above, were certainly things of paramount impressiveness to +a young mind. It was a subterranean passage, although of a larger bore +than we were accustomed to in Ainsworth's novels; and these two words, +'subterreanean passage,' were in themselves an irresistible attraction, +and seemed to bring us nearer in spirit to the heroes we loved and the +black rascals we secretly aspired to imitate. To scale the Castle Rock +from West Princes Street Gardens, and lay a triumphal hand against the +rampart itself, was to taste a high order of romantic pleasure. And +there are other sights and exploits which crowd back upon my mind under a +very strong illumination of remembered pleasure. But the effect of not +one of them all will compare with the discoverer's joy, and the sense of +old Time and his slow changes on the face of this earth, with which I +explored such corners as Cannonmills or Water Lane, or the nugget of +cottages at Broughton Market. They were more rural than the open +country, and gave a greater impression of antiquity than the oldest +_land_ upon the High Street. They too, like Fergusson's butterfly, had a +quaint air of having wandered far from their own place; they looked +abashed and homely, with their gables and their creeping plants, their +outside stairs and running mill-streams; there were corners that smelt +like the end of the country garden where I spent my Aprils; and the +people stood to gossip at their doors, as they might have done in +Colinton or Cramond. + +In a great measure we may, and shall, eradicate this haunting flavour of +the country. The last elm is dead in Elm Row; and the villas and the +workmen's quarters spread apace on all the borders of the city. We can +cut down the trees; we can bury the grass under dead paving-stones; we +can drive brisk streets through all our sleepy quarters; and we may +forget the stories and the playgrounds of our boyhood. But we have some +possessions that not even the infuriate zeal of builders can utterly +abolish and destroy. Nothing can abolish the hills, unless it be a +cataclysm of nature which shall subvert Edinburgh Castle itself and lay +all her florid structures in the dust. And as long as we have the hills +and the Firth, we have a famous heritage to leave our children. Our +windows, at no expense to us, are most artfully stained to represent a +landscape. And when the Spring comes round, and the hawthorns begin to +flower, and the meadows to smell of young grass, even in the thickest of +our streets, the country hilltops find out a young man's eyes, and set +his heart beating for travel and pure air. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. THE VILLA QUARTERS. + + +Mr. Ruskin's denunciation of the New Town of Edinburgh includes, as I +have heard it repeated, nearly all the stone and lime we have to show. +Many however find a grand air and something settled and imposing in the +better parts; and upon many, as I have said, the confusion of styles +induces an agreeable stimulation of the mind. But upon the subject of +our recent villa architecture, I am frankly ready to mingle my tears with +Mr. Ruskin's, and it is a subject which makes one envious of his large +declamatory and controversial eloquence. + +Day by day, one new villa, one new object of offence, is added to +another; all around Newington and Morningside, the dismallest structures +keep springing up like mushrooms; the pleasant hills are loaded with +them, each impudently squatted in its garden, each roofed and carrying +chimneys like a house. And yet a glance of an eye discovers their true +character. They are not houses; for they were not designed with a view +to human habitation, and the internal arrangements are, as they tell me, +fantastically unsuited to the needs of man. They are not buildings; for +you can scarcely say a thing is built where every measurement is in +clamant disproportion with its neighbour. They belong to no style of +art, only to a form of business much to be regretted. + +Why should it be cheaper to erect a structure where the size of the +windows bears no rational relation to the size of the front? Is there +any profit in a misplaced chimney-stalk? Does a hard-working, greedy +builder gain more on a monstrosity than on a decent cottage of equal +plainness? Frankly, we should say, No. Bricks may be omitted, and green +timber employed, in the construction of even a very elegant design; and +there is no reason why a chimney should be made to vent, because it is so +situated as to look comely from without. On the other hand, there is a +noble way of being ugly: a high-aspiring fiasco like the fall of Lucifer. +There are daring and gaudy buildings that manage to be offensive, without +being contemptible; and we know that 'fools rush in where angels fear to +tread.' But to aim at making a common-place villa, and to make it +insufferably ugly in each particular; to attempt the homeliest +achievement, and to attain the bottom of derided failure; not to have any +theory but profit and yet, at an equal expense, to outstrip all +competitors in the art of conceiving and rendering permanent deformity; +and to do all this in what is, by nature, one of the most agreeable +neighbourhoods in Britain:--what are we to say, but that this also is a +distinction, hard to earn although not greatly worshipful? + +Indifferent buildings give pain to the sensitive; but these things offend +the plainest taste. It is a danger which threatens the amenity of the +town; and as this eruption keeps spreading on our borders, we have ever +the farther to walk among unpleasant sights, before we gain the country +air. If the population of Edinburgh were a living, autonomous body, it +would arise like one man and make night hideous with arson; the builders +and their accomplices would be driven to work, like the Jews of yore, +with the trowel in one hand and the defensive cutlass in the other; and +as soon as one of these masonic wonders had been consummated, +right-minded iconoclasts should fall thereon and make an end of it at +once. + +Possibly these words may meet the eye of a builder or two. It is no use +asking them to employ an architect; for that would be to touch them in a +delicate quarter, and its use would largely depend on what architect they +were minded to call in. But let them get any architect in the world to +point out any reasonably well-proportioned villa, not his own design; and +let them reproduce that model to satiety. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. THE CALTON HILL. + + +The east of new Edinburgh is guarded by a craggy hill, of no great +elevation, which the town embraces. The old London road runs on one side +of it; while the New Approach, leaving it on the other hand, completes +the circuit. You mount by stairs in a cutting of the rock to find +yourself in a field of monuments. Dugald Stewart has the honours of +situation and architecture; Burns is memorialised lower down upon a spur; +Lord Nelson, as befits a sailor, gives his name to the top-gallant of the +Calton Hill. This latter erection has been differently and yet, in both +cases, aptly compared to a telescope and a butter-churn; comparisons +apart, it ranks among the vilest of men's handiworks. But the chief +feature is an unfinished range of columns, 'the Modern Ruin' as it has +been called, an imposing object from far and near, and giving Edinburgh, +even from the sea, that false air; of a Modern Athens which has earned +for her so many slighting speeches. It was meant to be a National +Monument; and its present state is a very suitable monument to certain +national characteristics. The old Observatory--a quaint brown building +on the edge of the steep--and the new Observatory--a classical edifice +with a dome--occupy the central portion of the summit. All these are +scattered on a green turf, browsed over by some sheep. + + [Picture: The Calton Hill] + +The scene suggests reflections on fame and on man's injustice to the +dead. You see Dugald Stewart rather more handsomely commemorated than +Burns. Immediately below, in the Canongate churchyard, lies Robert +Fergusson, Burns's master in his art, who died insane while yet a +stripling; and if Dugald Stewart has been somewhat too boisterously +acclaimed, the Edinburgh poet, on the other hand, is most unrighteously +forgotten. The votaries of Burns, a crew too common in all ranks in +Scotland and more remarkable for number than discretion, eagerly suppress +all mention of the lad who handed to him the poetic impulse and, up to +the time when he grew famous, continued to influence him in his manner +and the choice of subjects. Burns himself not only acknowledged his debt +in a fragment of autobiography, but erected a tomb over the grave in +Canongate churchyard. This was worthy of an artist, but it was done in +vain; and although I think I have read nearly all the biographies of +Burns, I cannot remember one in which the modesty of nature was not +violated, or where Fergusson was not sacrificed to the credit of his +follower's originality. There is a kind of gaping admiration that would +fain roll Shakespeare and Bacon into one, to have a bigger thing to gape +at; and a class of men who cannot edit one author without disparaging all +others. They are indeed mistaken if they think to please the great +originals; and whoever puts Fergusson right with fame, cannot do better +than dedicate his labours to the memory of Burns, who will be the best +delighted of the dead. + + [Picture: Queen Mary's Bath] + +Of all places for a view, this Calton Hill is perhaps the best; since you +can see the Castle, which you lose from the Castle, and Arthur's Seat, +which you cannot see from Arthur's Seat. It is the place to stroll on +one of those days of sunshine and east wind which are so common in our +more than temperate summer. The breeze comes off the sea, with a little +of the freshness, and that touch of chill, peculiar to the quarter, which +is delightful to certain very ruddy organizations and greatly the reverse +to the majority of mankind. It brings with it a faint, floating haze, a +cunning decolourizer, although not thick enough to obscure outlines near +at hand. But the haze lies more thickly to windward at the far end of +Musselburgh Bay; and over the Links of Aberlady and Berwick Law and the +hump of the Bass Rock it assumes the aspect of a bank of thin sea fog. + +[Picture: Arthur's Seat] Immediately underneath upon the south, you +command the yards of the High School, and the towers and courts of the +new Jail--a large place, castellated to the extent of folly, standing by +itself on the edge of a steep cliff, and often joyfully hailed by +tourists as the Castle. In the one, you may perhaps see female prisoners +taking exercise like a string of nuns; in the other, schoolboys running +at play and their shadows keeping step with them. From the bottom of the +valley, a gigantic chimney rises almost to the level of the eye, a taller +and a shapelier edifice than Nelson's Monument. Look a little farther, +and there is Holyrood Palace, with its Gothic frontal and ruined abbey, +and the red sentry pacing smartly too and fro before the door like a +mechanical figure in a panorama. By way of an outpost, you can single +out the little peak-roofed lodge, over which Rizzio's murderers made +their escape and where Queen Mary herself, according to gossip, bathed in +white wine to entertain her loveliness. Behind and overhead, lie the +Queen's Park, from Muschat's Cairn to Dumbiedykes, St. Margaret's Loch, +and the long wall of Salisbury Crags: and thence, by knoll and rocky +bulwark and precipitous slope, the eye rises to the top of Arthur's Seat, +a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtue of its bold design. This upon +your left. Upon the right, the roofs and spires of the Old Town climb +one above another to where the citadel prints its broad bulk and jagged +crown of bastions on the western sky.--Perhaps it is now one in the +afternoon; and at the same instant of time, a ball rises to the summit of +Nelson's flagstaff close at hand, and, far away, a puff of smoke followed +by a report bursts from the half-moon battery at the Castle. This is the +time-gun by which people set their watches, as far as the sea coast or in +hill farms upon the Pentlands.--To complete the view, the eye enfilades +Princes Street, black with traffic, and has a broad look over the valley +between the Old Town and the New: here, full of railway trains and +stepped over by the high North Bridge upon its many columns, and there, +green with trees and gardens. + + [Picture: Back of Greenside] + +On the north, the Calton Hill is neither so abrupt in itself nor has it +so exceptional an outlook; and yet even here it commands a striking +prospect. A gully separates it from the New Town. This is Greenside, +where witches were burned and tournaments held in former days. Down that +almost precipitous bank, Bothwell launched his horse, and so first, as +they say, attracted the bright eyes of Mary. It is now tesselated with +sheets and blankets out to dry, and the sound of people beating carpets +is rarely absent. Beyond all this, the suburbs run out to Leith; Leith +camps on the seaside with her forest of masts; Leith roads are full of +ships at anchor; the sun picks out the white pharos upon Inchkeith +Island; the Firth extends on either hand from the Ferry to the May; the +towns of Fifeshire sit, each in its bank of blowing smoke, along the +opposite coast; and the hills enclose the view, except to the farthest +east, where the haze of the horizon rests upon the open sea. There lies +the road to Norway: a dear road for Sir Patrick Spens and his Scots +Lords; and yonder smoke on the hither side of Largo Law is Aberdour, from +whence they sailed to seek a queen for Scotland. + + 'O lang, lang, may the ladies sit, + Wi' their fans into their hand, + Or ere they see Sir Patrick Spens + Come sailing to the land!' + +The sight of the sea, even from a city, will bring thoughts of storm and +sea disaster. The sailors' wives of Leith and the fisherwomen of +Cockenzie, not sitting languorously with fans, but crowding to the tail +of the harbour with a shawl about their ears, may still look vainly for +brave Scotsmen who will return no more, or boats that have gone on their +last fishing. Since Sir Patrick sailed from Aberdour, what a multitude +have gone down in the North Sea! Yonder is Auldhame, where the London +smack went ashore and wreckers cut the rings from ladies' fingers; and a +few miles round Fife Ness is the fatal Inchcape, now a star of guidance; +and the lee shore to the east of the Inchcape, is that Forfarshire coast +where Mucklebackit sorrowed for his son. + +These are the main features of the scene roughly sketched. How they are +all tilted by the inclination of the ground, how each stands out in +delicate relief against the rest, what manifold detail, and play of sun +and shadow, animate and accentuate the picture, is a matter for a person +on the spot, and turning swiftly on his heels, to grasp and bind together +in one comprehensive look. It is the character of such a prospect, to be +full of change and of things moving. The multiplicity embarrasses the +eye; and the mind, among so much, suffers itself to grow absorbed with +single points. You remark a tree in a hedgerow, or follow a cart along a +country road. You turn to the city, and see children, dwarfed by +distance into pigmies, at play about suburban doorsteps; you have a +glimpse upon a thoroughfare where people are densely moving; you note +ridge after ridge of chimney-stacks running downhill one behind another, +and church spires rising bravely from the sea of roofs. At one of the +innumerable windows, you watch a figure moving; on one of the multitude +of roofs, you watch clambering chimney-sweeps. The wind takes a run and +scatters the smoke; bells are heard, far and near, faint and loud, to +tell the hour; or perhaps a bird goes dipping evenly over the housetops, +like a gull across the waves. And here you are in the meantime, on this +pastoral hillside, among nibbling sheep and looked upon by monumental +buildings. + +Return thither on some clear, dark, moonless night, with a ring of frost +in the air, and only a star or two set sparsedly in the vault of heaven; +and you will find a sight as stimulating as the hoariest summit of the +Alps. The solitude seems perfect; the patient astronomer, flat on his +back under the Observatory dome and spying heaven's secrets, is your only +neighbour; and yet from all round you there come up the dull hum of the +city, the tramp of countless people marching out of time, the rattle of +carriages and the continuous keen jingle of the tramway bells. An hour +or so before, the gas was turned on; lamplighters scoured the city; in +every house, from kitchen to attic, the windows kindled and gleamed forth +into the dusk. And so now, although the town lies blue and darkling on +her hills, innumerable spots of the bright element shine far and near +along the pavements and upon the high facades. Moving lights of the +railway pass and repass below the stationary lights upon the bridge. +Lights burn in the jail. Lights burn high up in the tall _lands_ and on +the Castle turrets, they burn low down in Greenside or along the Park. +They run out one beyond the other into the dark country. They walk in a +procession down to Leith, and shine singly far along Leith Pier. Thus, +the plan of the city and her suburbs is mapped out upon the ground of +blackness, as when a child pricks a drawing full of pinholes and exposes +it before a candle; not the darkest night of winter can conceal her high +station and fanciful design; every evening in the year she proceeds to +illuminate herself in honour of her own beauty; and as if to complete the +scheme--or rather as if some prodigal Pharaoh were beginning to extend to +the adjacent sea and country--half-way over to Fife, there is an outpost +of light upon Inchkeith, and far to seaward, yet another on the May. + +And while you are looking, across upon the Castle Hill, the drums and +bugles begin to recall the scattered garrison; the air thrills with the +sound; the bugles sing aloud; and the last rising flourish mounts and +melts into the darkness like a star: a martial swan-song, fitly rounding +in the labours of the day. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. WINTER AND NEW YEAR. + + +The Scotch dialect is singularly rich in terms of reproach against the +winter wind. _Snell_, _blae_, _nirly_, and _scowthering_, are four of +these significant vocables; they are all words that carry a shiver with +them; and for my part, as I see them aligned before me on the page, I am +persuaded that a big wind comes tearing over the Firth from Burntisland +and the northern hills; I think I can hear it howl in the chimney, and as +I set my face northwards, feel its smarting kisses on my cheek. Even in +the names of places there is often a desolate, inhospitable sound; and I +remember two from the near neighbourhood of Edinburgh, Cauldhame and +Blaw-weary, that would promise but starving comfort to their inhabitants. +The inclemency of heaven, which has thus endowed the language of Scotland +with words, has also largely modified the spirit of its poetry. Both +poverty and a northern climate teach men the love of the hearth and the +sentiment of the family; and the latter, in its own right, inclines a +poet to the praise of strong waters. In Scotland, all our singers have a +stave or two for blazing fires and stout potations:--to get indoors out +of the wind and to swallow something hot to the stomach, are benefits so +easily appreciated where they dwelt! + +And this is not only so in country districts where the shepherd must wade +in the snow all day after his flock, but in Edinburgh itself, and nowhere +more apparently stated than in the works of our Edinburgh poet, +Fergusson. He was a delicate youth, I take it, and willingly slunk from +the robustious winter to an inn fire-side. Love was absent from his +life, or only present, if you prefer, in such a form that even the least +serious of Burns's amourettes was ennobling by comparison; and so there +is nothing to temper the sentiment of indoor revelry which pervades the +poor boy's verses. Although it is characteristic of his native town, and +the manners of its youth to the present day, this spirit has perhaps done +something to restrict his popularity. He recalls a supper-party +pleasantry with something akin to tenderness; and sounds the praises of +the act of drinking as if it were virtuous, or at least witty, in itself. +The kindly jar, the warm atmosphere of tavern parlours, and the revelry +of lawyers' clerks, do not offer by themselves the materials of a rich +existence. It was not choice, so much as an external fate, that kept +Fergusson in this round of sordid pleasures. A Scot of poetic +temperament, and without religious exaltation, drops as if by nature into +the public-house. The picture may not be pleasing; but what else is a +man to do in this dog's weather? + +To none but those who have themselves suffered the thing in the body, can +the gloom and depression of our Edinburgh winter be brought home. For +some constitutions there is something almost physically disgusting in the +bleak ugliness of easterly weather; the wind wearies, the sickly sky +depresses them; and they turn back from their walk to avoid the aspect of +the unrefulgent sun going down among perturbed and pallid mists. The +days are so short that a man does much of his business, and certainly all +his pleasure, by the haggard glare of gas lamps. The roads are as heavy +as a fallow. People go by, so drenched and draggle-tailed that I have +often wondered how they found the heart to undress. And meantime the +wind whistles through the town as if it were an open meadow; and if you +lie awake all night, you hear it shrieking and raving overhead with a +noise of shipwrecks and of falling houses. In a word, life is so +unsightly that there are times when the heart turns sick in a man's +inside; and the look of a tavern, or the thought of the warm, fire-lit +study, is like the touch of land to one who has been long struggling with +the seas. + +As the weather hardens towards frost, the world begins to improve for +Edinburgh people. We enjoy superb, sub-arctic sunsets, with the profile +of the city stamped in indigo upon a sky of luminous green. The wind may +still be cold, but there is a briskness in the air that stirs good blood. +People do not all look equally sour and downcast. They fall into two +divisions: one, the knight of the blue face and hollow paunch, whom +Winter has gotten by the vitals; the other well lined with New-year's +fare, conscious of the touch of cold on his periphery, but stepping +through it by the glow of his internal fires. Such an one I remember, +triply cased in grease, whom no extremity of temperature could vanquish. +'Well,' would be his jovial salutation, 'here's a sneezer!' And the look +of these warm fellows is tonic, and upholds their drooping +fellow-townsmen. There is yet another class who do not depend on +corporal advantages, but support the winter in virtue of a brave and +merry heart. One shivering evening, cold enough for frost but with too +high a wind, and a little past sundown, when the lamps were beginning to +enlarge their circles in the growing dusk, a brace of barefoot lassies +were seen coming eastward in the teeth of the wind. If the one was as +much as nine, the other was certainly not more than seven. They were +miserably clad; and the pavement was so cold, you would have thought no +one could lay a naked foot on it unflinching. Yet they came along +waltzing, if you please, while the elder sang a tune to give them music. +The person who saw this, and whose heart was full of bitterness at the +moment, pocketed a reproof which has been of use to him ever since, and +which he now hands on, with his good wishes, to the reader. + +At length, Edinburgh, with her satellite hills and all the sloping +country, are sheeted up in white. If it has happened in the dark hours, +nurses pluck their children out of bed and run with them to some +commanding window, whence they may see the change that has been worked +upon earth's face. 'A' the hills are covered wi' snaw,' they sing, 'and +Winter's noo come fairly!' And the children, marvelling at the silence +and the white landscape, find a spell appropriate to the season in the +words. The reverberation of the snow increases the pale daylight, and +brings all objects nearer the eye. The Pentlands are smooth and +glittering, with here and there the black ribbon of a dry-stone dyke, and +here and there, if there be wind, a cloud of blowing snow upon a +shoulder. The Firth seems a leaden creek, that a man might almost jump +across, between well-powdered Lothian and well-powdered Fife. And the +effect is not, as in other cities, a thing of half a day; the streets are +soon trodden black, but the country keeps its virgin white; and you have +only to lift your eyes and look over miles of country snow. An +indescribable cheerfulness breathes about the city; and the well-fed +heart sits lightly and beats gaily in the--bosom. It is New-year's +weather. + +New-year's Day, the great national festival, is a time of family +expansions and of deep carousal. Sometimes, by a sore stoke of fate for +this Calvinistic people, the year's anniversary fails upon a Sunday, when +the public-houses are inexorably closed, when singing and even whistling +is banished from our homes and highways, and the oldest toper feels +called upon to go to church. Thus pulled about, as if between two +loyalties, the Scotch have to decide many nice cases of conscience, and +ride the marches narrowly between the weekly and the annual observance. +A party of convivial musicians, next door to a friend of mine, hung +suspended in this manner on the brink of their diversions. From ten +o'clock on Sunday night, my friend heard them tuning their instruments: +and as the hour of liberty drew near, each must have had his music open, +his bow in readiness across the fiddle, his foot already raised to mark +the time, and his nerves braced for execution; for hardly had the twelfth +stroke sounded from the earliest steeple, before they had launced forth +into a secular bravura. + +Currant-loaf is now popular eating in all house-holds. For weeks before +the great morning, confectioners display stacks of Scotch bun--a dense, +black substance, inimical to life--and full moons of shortbread adorned +with mottoes of peel or sugar-plum, in honour of the season and the +family affections. 'Frae Auld Reekie,' 'A guid New Year to ye a',' 'For +the Auld Folk at Hame,' are among the most favoured of these devices. +Can you not see the carrier, after half-a-day's journey on pinching +hill-roads, draw up before a cottage in Teviotdale, or perhaps in Manor +Glen among the rowans, and the old people receiving the parcel with moist +eyes and a prayer for Jock or Jean in the city? For at this season, on +the threshold of another year of calamity and stubborn conflict, men feel +a need to draw closer the links that unite them; they reckon the number +of their friends, like allies before a war; and the prayers grow longer +in the morning as the absent are recommended by name into God's keeping. + +On the day itself, the shops are all shut as on a Sunday; only taverns, +toyshops, and other holiday magazines, keep open doors. Every one looks +for his handsel. The postman and the lamplighters have left, at every +house in their districts, a copy of vernacular verses, asking and +thanking in a breath; and it is characteristic of Scotland that these +verses may have sometimes a touch of reality in detail or sentiment and a +measure of strength in the handling. All over the town, you may see +comforter'd schoolboys hasting to squander their half-crowns. There are +an infinity of visits to be paid; all the world is in the street, except +the daintier classes; the sacramental greeting is heard upon all sides; +Auld Lang Syne is much in people's mouths; and whisky and shortbread are +staple articles of consumption. From an early hour a stranger will be +impressed by the number of drunken men; and by afternoon drunkenness has +spread to the women. With some classes of society, it is as much a +matter of duty to drink hard on New-year's Day as to go to church on +Sunday. Some have been saving their wages for perhaps a month to do the +season honour. Many carry a whisky-bottle in their pocket, which they +will press with embarrassing effusion on a perfect stranger. It is +inexpedient to risk one's body in a cab, or not, at least, until after a +prolonged study of the driver. The streets, which are thronged from end +to end, become a place for delicate pilotage. Singly or arm-in-arm, some +speechless, others noisy and quarrelsome, the votaries of the New Year go +meandering in and out and cannoning one against another; and now and +again, one falls and lies as he has fallen. Before night, so many have +gone to bed or the police office, that the streets seem almost clearer. +And as _guisards_ and _first-footers_ are now not much seen except in +country places, when once the New Year has been rung in and proclaimed at +the Tron railings, the festivities begin to find their way indoors and +something like quiet returns upon the town. But think, in these piled +_lands_, of all the senseless snorers, all the broken heads and empty +pockets! + +Of old, Edinburgh University was the scene of heroic snowballing; and one +riot obtained the epic honours of military intervention. But the great +generation, I am afraid, is at an end; and even during my own college +days, the spirit appreciably declined. Skating and sliding, on the other +hand, are honoured more and more; and curling, being a creature of the +national genius, is little likely to be disregarded. The patriotism that +leads a man to eat Scotch bun will scarce desert him at the curling-pond. +Edinburgh, with its long, steep pavements, is the proper home of sliders; +many a happy urchin can slide the whole way to school; and the profession +of errand-boy is transformed into a holiday amusement. As for skating, +there is scarce any city so handsomely provided. Duddingstone Loch lies +under the abrupt southern side of Arthur's Seat; in summer a shield of +blue, with swans sailing from the reeds; in winter, a field of ringing +ice. The village church sits above it on a green promontory; and the +village smoke rises from among goodly trees. At the church gates, is the +historical _joug_; a place of penance for the neck of detected sinners, +and the historical _louping-on stane_, from which Dutch-built lairds and +farmers climbed into the saddle. Here Prince Charlie slept before the +battle of Prestonpans; and here Deacon Brodie, or one of his gang, stole +a plough coulter before the burglary in Chessel's Court. On the opposite +side of the loch, the ground rises to Craigmillar Castle, a place +friendly to Stuart Mariolaters. It is worth a climb, even in summer, to +look down upon the loch from Arthur's Seat; but it is tenfold more so on +a day of skating. The surface is thick with people moving easily and +swiftly and leaning over at a thousand graceful inclinations; the crowd +opens and closes, and keeps moving through itself like water; and the ice +rings to half a mile away, with the flying steel. As night draws on, the +single figures melt into the dusk, until only an obscure stir, and coming +and going of black clusters, is visible upon the loch. A little longer, +and the first torch is kindled and begins to flit rapidly across the ice +in a ring of yellow reflection, and this is followed by another and +another, until the whole field is full of skimming lights. + + + + +CHAPTER X. TO THE PENTLAND HILLS. + + +On three sides of Edinburgh, the country slopes downward from the city, +here to the sea, there to the fat farms of Haddington, there to the +mineral fields of Linlithgow. On the south alone, it keeps rising until +it not only out-tops the Castle but looks down on Arthur's Seat. The +character of the neighbourhood is pretty strongly marked by a scarcity of +hedges; by many stone walls of varying height; by a fair amount of +timber, some of it well grown, but apt to be of a bushy, northern profile +and poor in foliage; by here and there a little river, Esk or Leith or +Almond, busily journeying in the bottom of its glen; and from almost +every point, by a peep of the sea or the hills. There is no lack of +variety, and yet most of the elements are common to all parts; and the +southern district is alone distinguished by considerable summits and a +wide view. + +From Boroughmuirhead, where the Scottish army encamped before Flodden, +the road descends a long hill, at the bottom of which and just as it is +preparing to mount upon the other side, it passes a toll-bar and issues +at once into the open country. Even as I write these words, they are +being antiquated in the progress of events, and the chisels are tinkling +on a new row of houses. The builders have at length adventured beyond +the toll which held them in respect so long, and proceed to career in +these fresh pastures like a herd of colts turned loose. As Lord +Beaconsfield proposed to hang an architect by way of stimulation, a man, +looking on these doomed meads, imagines a similar example to deter the +builders; for it seems as if it must come to an open fight at last to +preserve a corner of green country unbedevilled. And here, appropriately +enough, there stood in old days a crow-haunted gibbet, with two bodies +hanged in chains. I used to be shown, when a child, a flat stone in the +roadway to which the gibbet had been fixed. People of a willing fancy +were persuaded, and sought to persuade others, that this stone was never +dry. And no wonder, they would add, for the two men had only stolen +fourpence between them. + +For about two miles the road climbs upwards, a long hot walk in summer +time. You reach the summit at a place where four ways meet, beside the +toll of Fairmilehead. The spot is breezy and agreeable both in name and +aspect. The hills are close by across a valley: Kirk Yetton, with its +long, upright scars visible as far as Fife, and Allermuir the tallest on +this side with wood and tilled field running high upon their borders, and +haunches all moulded into innumerable glens and shelvings and variegated +with heather and fern. The air comes briskly and sweetly off the hills, +pure from the elevation and rustically scented by the upland plants; and +even at the toll, you may hear the curlew calling on its mate. At +certain seasons, when the gulls desert their surfy forelands, the birds +of sea and mountain hunt and scream together in the same field by +Fairmilehead. The winged, wild things intermix their wheelings, the +sea-birds skim the tree-tops and fish among the furrows of the plough. +These little craft of air are at home in all the world, so long as they +cruise in their own element; and, like sailors, ask but food and water +from the shores they coast. + +Below, over a stream, the road passes Bow Bridge, now a dairy-farm, but +once a distillery of whisky. It chanced, some time in the past century, +that the distiller was on terms of good-fellowship with the visiting +officer of excise. The latter was of an easy, friendly disposition, and +a master of convivial arts. Now and again, he had to walk out of +Edinburgh to measure the distiller's stock; and although it was agreeable +to find his business lead him in a friend's direction, it was unfortunate +that the friend should be a loser by his visits. Accordingly, when he +got about the level of Fairmilehead, the gauger would take his flute, +without which he never travelled, from his pocket, fit it together, and +set manfully to playing, as if for his own delectation and inspired by +the beauty of the scene. His favourite air, it seems, was 'Over the +hills and far away.' At the first note, the distiller pricked his ears. +A flute at Fairmilehead? and playing 'Over the hills and far away?' This +must be his friendly enemy, the gauger. Instantly horses were harnessed, +and sundry barrels of whisky were got upon a cart, driven at a gallop +round Hill End, and buried in the mossy glen behind Kirk Yetton. In the +same breath, you may be sure, a fat fowl was put to the fire, and the +whitest napery prepared for the back parlour. A little after, the +gauger, having had his fill of music for the moment, came strolling down +with the most innocent air imaginable, and found the good people at Bow +Bridge taken entirely unawares by his arrival, but none the less glad to +see him. The distiller's liquor and the gauger's flute would combine to +speed the moments of digestion; and when both were somewhat mellow, they +would wind up the evening with 'Over the hills and far away' to an +accompaniment of knowing glances. And at least, there is a smuggling +story, with original and half-idyllic features. + +A little further, the road to the right passes an upright stone in a +field. The country people call it General Kay's monument. According to +them, an officer of that name had perished there in battle at some +indistinct period before the beginning of history. The date is +reassuring; for I think cautious writers are silent on the General's +exploits. But the stone is connected with one of those remarkable +tenures of land which linger on into the modern world from Feudalism. +Whenever the reigning sovereign passes by, a certain landed proprietor is +held bound to climb on to the top, trumpet in hand, and sound a flourish +according to the measure of his knowledge in that art. Happily for a +respectable family, crowned heads have no great business in the Pentland +Hills. But the story lends a character of comicality to the stone; and +the passer-by will sometimes chuckle to himself. + +The district is dear to the superstitious. Hard by, at the back-gate of +Comiston, a belated carter beheld a lady in white, 'with the most +beautiful, clear shoes upon her feet,' who looked upon him in a very +ghastly manner and then vanished; and just in front is the Hunters' +Tryst, once a roadside inn, and not so long ago haunted by the devil in +person. Satan led the inhabitants a pitiful existence. He shook the +four corners of the building with lamentable outcries, beat at the doors +and windows, overthrew crockery in the dead hours of the morning, and +danced unholy dances on the roof. Every kind of spiritual disinfectant +was put in requisition; chosen ministers were summoned out of Edinburgh +and prayed by the hour; pious neighbours sat up all night making a noise +of psalmody; but Satan minded them no more than the wind about the +hill-tops; and it was only after years of persecution, that he left the +Hunters' Tryst in peace to occupy himself with the remainder of mankind. +What with General Kay, and the white lady, and this singular visitation, +the neighbourhood offers great facilities to the makers of sun-myths; and +without exactly casting in one's lot with that disenchanting school of +writers, one cannot help hearing a good deal of the winter wind in the +last story. 'That nicht,' says Burns, in one of his happiest moments,-- + + '_That nicht a child might understand_ + _The deil had business on his hand_.' + +And if people sit up all night in lone places on the hills, with Bibles +and tremulous psalms, they will be apt to hear some of the most fiendish +noises in the world; the wind will beat on doors and dance upon roofs for +them, and make the hills howl around their cottage with a clamour like +the judgment-day. + +The road goes down through another valley, and then finally begins to +scale the main slope of the Pentlands. A bouquet of old trees stands +round a white farmhouse; and from a neighbouring dell, you can see smoke +rising and leaves ruffling in the breeze. Straight above, the hills +climb a thousand feet into the air. The neighbourhood, about the time of +lambs, is clamorous with the bleating of flocks; and you will be +awakened, in the grey of early summer mornings, by the barking of a dog +or the voice of a shepherd shouting to the echoes. This, with the hamlet +lying behind unseen, is Swanston. + +The place in the dell is immediately connected with the city. Long ago, +this sheltered field was purchased by the Edinburgh magistrates for the +sake of the springs that rise or gather there. After they had built +their water-house and laid their pipes, it occurred to them that the +place was suitable for junketing. Once entertained, with jovial +magistrates and public funds, the idea led speedily to accomplishment; +and Edinburgh could soon boast of a municipal Pleasure House. The dell +was turned into a garden; and on the knoll that shelters it from the +plain and the sea winds, they built a cottage looking to the hills. They +brought crockets and gargoyles from old St. Giles's which they were then +restoring, and disposed them on the gables and over the door and about +the garden; and the quarry which had supplied them with building +material, they draped with clematis and carpeted with beds of roses. So +much for the pleasure of the eye; for creature comfort, they made a +capacious cellar in the hillside and fitted it with bins of the hewn +stone. In process of time, the trees grew higher and gave shade to the +cottage, and the evergreens sprang up and turned the dell into a thicket. +There, purple magistrates relaxed themselves from the pursuit of +municipal ambition; cocked hats paraded soberly about the garden and in +and out among the hollies; authoritative canes drew ciphering upon the +path; and at night, from high upon the hills, a shepherd saw lighted +windows through the foliage and heard the voice of city dignitaries +raised in song. + +The farm is older. It was first a grange of Whitekirk Abbey, tilled and +inhabited by rosy friars. Thence, after the Reformation, it passed into +the hands of a true-blue Protestant family. During the covenanting +troubles, when a night conventicle was held upon the Pentlands, the farm +doors stood hospitably open till the morning; the dresser was laden with +cheese and bannocks, milk and brandy; and the worshippers kept slipping +down from the hill between two exercises, as couples visit the +supper-room between two dances of a modern ball. In the Forty-Five, some +foraging Highlanders from Prince Charlie's army fell upon Swanston in the +dawn. The great-grandfather of the late farmer was then a little child; +him they awakened by plucking the blankets from his bed, and he +remembered, when he was an old man, their truculent looks and uncouth +speech. The churn stood full of cream in the dairy, and with this they +made their brose in high delight. 'It was braw brose,' said one of them. +At last they made off, laden like camels with their booty; and Swanston +Farm has lain out of the way of history from that time forward. I do not +know what may be yet in store for it. On dark days, when the mist runs +low upon the hill, the house has a gloomy air as if suitable for private +tragedy. But in hot July, you can fancy nothing more perfect than the +garden, laid out in alleys and arbours and bright, old-fashioned +flower-plots, and ending in a miniature ravine, all trellis-work and moss +and tinkling waterfall, and housed from the sun under fathoms of broad +foliage. + +The hamlet behind is one of the least considerable of hamlets, and +consists of a few cottages on a green beside a burn. Some of them (a +strange thing in Scotland) are models of internal neatness; the beds +adorned with patchwork, the shelves arrayed with willow-pattern plates, +the floors and tables bright with scrubbing or pipe-clay, and the very +kettle polished like silver. It is the sign of a contented old age in +country places, where there is little matter for gossip and no street +sights. Housework becomes an art; and at evening, when the cottage +interior shines and twinkles in the glow of the fire, the housewife folds +her hands and contemplates her finished picture; the snow and the wind +may do their worst, she has made herself a pleasant corner in the world. +The city might be a thousand miles away, and yet it was from close by +that Mr. Bough painted the distant view of Edinburgh which has been +engraved for this collection; and you have only to look at the etching, +{118} to see how near it is at hand. But hills and hill people are not +easily sophisticated; and if you walk out here on a summer Sunday, it is +as like as not the shepherd may set his dogs upon you. But keep an +unmoved countenance; they look formidable at the charge, but their hearts +are in the right place, and they will only bark and sprawl about you on +the grass, unmindful of their master's excitations. + +Kirk Yetton forms the north-eastern angle of the range; thence, the +Pentlands trend off to south and west. From the summit you look over a +great expanse of champaign sloping to the sea, and behold a large variety +of distant hills. There are the hills of Fife, the hills of Peebles, the +Lammermoors and the Ochils, more or less mountainous in outline, more or +less blue with distance. Of the Pentlands themselves, you see a field of +wild heathery peaks with a pond gleaming in the midst; and to that side +the view is as desolate as if you were looking into Galloway or +Applecross. To turn to the other is like a piece of travel. Far out in +the lowlands Edinburgh shows herself, making a great smoke on clear days +and spreading her suburbs about her for miles; the Castle rises darkly in +the midst, and close by, Arthur's Seat makes a bold figure in the +landscape. All around, cultivated fields, and woods, and smoking +villages, and white country roads, diversify the uneven surface of the +land. Trains crawl slowly abroad upon the railway lines; little ships +are tacking in the Firth; the shadow of a mountainous cloud, as large as +a parish, travels before the wind; the wind itself ruffles the wood and +standing corn, and sends pulses of varying colour across the landscape. +So you sit, like Jupiter upon Olympus, and look down from afar upon men's +life. The city is as silent as a city of the dead: from all its humming +thoroughfares, not a voice, not a footfall, reaches you upon the hill. +The sea-surf, the cries of ploughmen, the streams and the mill-wheels, +the birds and the wind, keep up an animated concert through the plain; +from farm to farm, dogs and crowing cocks contend together in defiance; +and yet from this Olympian station, except for the whispering rumour of a +train, the world has fallen into a dead silence, and the business of town +and country grown voiceless in your ears. A crying hill-bird, the bleat +of a sheep, a wind singing in the dry grass, seem not so much to +interrupt, as to accompany, the stillness; but to the spiritual ear, the +whole scene makes a music at once human and rural, and discourses +pleasant reflections on the destiny of man. The spiry habitable city, +ships, the divided fields, and browsing herds, and the straight highways, +tell visibly of man's active and comfortable ways; and you may be never +so laggard and never so unimpressionable, but there is something in the +view that spirits up your blood and puts you in the vein for cheerful +labour. + +Immediately below is Fairmilehead, a spot of roof and a smoking chimney, +where two roads, no thicker than packthread, intersect beside a hanging +wood. If you are fanciful, you will be reminded of the gauger in the +story. And the thought of this old exciseman, who once lipped and +fingered on his pipe and uttered clear notes from it in the mountain air, +and the words of the song he affected, carry your mind 'Over the hills +and far away' to distant countries; and you have a vision of Edinburgh +not, as you see her, in the midst of a little neighbourhood, but as a +boss upon the round world with all Europe and the deep sea for her +surroundings. For every place is a centre to the earth, whence highways +radiate or ships set sail for foreign ports; the limit of a parish is not +more imaginary than the frontier of an empire; and as a man sitting at +home in his cabinet and swiftly writing books, so a city sends abroad an +influence and a portrait of herself. There is no Edinburgh emigrant, far +or near, from China to Peru, but he or she carries some lively pictures +of the mind, some sunset behind the Castle cliffs, some snow scene, some +maze of city lamps, indelible in the memory and delightful to study in +the intervals of toil. For any such, if this book fall in their way, +here are a few more home pictures. It would be pleasant, if they should +recognise a house where they had dwelt, or a walk that they had taken. + + * * * * * + + * * * * * + + LONDON + Printed by STRANGEWAYS and Sons, Tower St. Cambridge Circus, W.C. + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{10} These sentences have, I hear, given offence in my native town, and +a proportionable pleasure to our rivals of Glasgow. I confess the news +caused me both pain and merriment. May I remark, as a balm for wounded +fellow-townsmen, that there is nothing deadly in my accusations? Small +blame to them if they keep ledgers: 'tis an excellent business habit. +Churchgoing is not, that ever I heard, a subject of reproach; decency of +linen is a mark of prosperous affairs, and conscious moral rectitude one +of the tokens of good living. It is not their fault it the city calls +for something more specious by way of inhabitants. A man in a frock-coat +looks out of place upon an Alp or Pyramid, although he has the virtues of +a Peabody and the talents of a Bentham. And let them console +themselves--they do as well as anybody else; the population of (let us +say) Chicago would cut quite as rueful a figure on the same romantic +stage. To the Glasgow people I would say only one word, but that is of +gold; _I have not yet written a book about Glasgow_. + +{118} One of the illustrations of the First Edition. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDINBURGH*** + + +******* This file should be named 382.txt or 382.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/8/382 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Edinburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson +Scanned and proofed by +David Price, ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +EDINBURGH + + + +CHAPTER I. +INTRODUCTORY. + + + +THE ancient and famous metropolis of the North sits +overlooking a windy estuary from the slope and summit of +three hills. No situation could be more commanding for +the head city of a kingdom; none better chosen for noble +prospects. From her tall precipice and terraced gardens +she looks far and wide on the sea and broad champaigns. +To the east you may catch at sunset the spark of the May +lighthouse, where the Firth expands into the German +Ocean; and away to the west, over all the carse of +Stirling, you can see the first snows upon Ben Ledi. + +But Edinburgh pays cruelly for her high seat in one +of the vilest climates under heaven. She is liable to be +beaten upon by all the winds that blow, to be drenched +with rain, to be buried in cold sea fogs out of the east, +and powdered with the snow as it comes flying southward +from the Highland hills. The weather is raw and +boisterous in winter, shifty and ungenial in summer, and +a downright meteorological purgatory in the spring. The +delicate die early, and I, as a survivor, among bleak +winds and plumping rain, have been sometimes tempted to +envy them their fate. For all who love shelter and the +blessings of the sun, who hate dark weather and perpetual +tilting against squalls, there could scarcely be found a +more unhomely and harassing place of residence. Many +such aspire angrily after that Somewhere-else of the +imagination, where all troubles are supposed to end. +They lean over the great bridge which joins the New Town +with the Old - that windiest spot, or high altar, in this +northern temple of the winds - and watch the trains +smoking out from under them and vanishing into the tunnel +on a voyage to brighter skies. Happy the passengers who +shake off the dust of Edinburgh, and have heard for the +last time the cry of the east wind among her chimney- +tops! And yet the place establishes an interest in +people's hearts; go where they will, they find no city of +the same distinction; go where they will, they take a +pride in their old home. + +Venice, it has been said, differs from another +cities in the sentiment which she inspires. The rest may +have admirers; she only, a famous fair one, counts lovers +in her train. And, indeed, even by her kindest friends, +Edinburgh is not considered in a similar sense. These +like her for many reasons, not any one of which is +satisfactory in itself. They like her whimsically, if +you will, and somewhat as a virtuoso dotes upon his +cabinet. Her attraction is romantic in the narrowest +meaning of the term. Beautiful as she is, she is not so +much beautiful as interesting. She is pre-eminently +Gothic, and all the more so since she has set herself off +with some Greek airs, and erected classic temples on her +crags. In a word, and above all, she is a curiosity. +The Palace of Holyrood has been left aside in the growth +of Edinburgh, and stands grey and silent in a workman's +quarter and among breweries and gas works. It is a house +of many memories. Great people of yore, kings and +queens, buffoons and grave ambassadors, played their +stately farce for centuries in Holyrood. Wars have been +plotted, dancing has lasted deep into the night, - murder +has been done in its chambers. There Prince Charlie held +his phantom levees, and in a very gallant manner +represented a fallen dynasty for some hours. Now, all +these things of clay are mingled with the dust, the +king's crown itself is shown for sixpence to the vulgar; +but the stone palace has outlived these charges. For +fifty weeks together, it is no more than a show for +tourists and a museum of old furniture; but on the fifty- +first, behold the palace reawakened and mimicking its +past. The Lord Commissioner, a kind of stage sovereign, +sits among stage courtiers; a coach and six and +clattering escort come and go before the gate; at night, +the windows are lighted up, and its near neighbours, the +workmen, may dance in their own houses to the palace +music. And in this the palace is typical. There is a +spark among the embers; from time to time the old volcano +smokes. Edinburgh has but partly abdicated, and still +wears, in parody, her metropolitan trappings. Half a +capital and half a country town, the whole city leads a +double existence; it has long trances of the one and +flashes of the other; like the king of the Black Isles, +it is half alive and half a monumental marble. There are +armed men and cannon in the citadel overhead; you may see +the troops marshalled on the high parade; and at night +after the early winter even-fall, and in the morning +before the laggard winter dawn, the wind carries abroad +over Edinburgh the sound of drums and bugles. Grave +judges sit bewigged in what was once the scene of +imperial deliberations. Close by in the High Street +perhaps the trumpets may sound about the stroke of noon; +and you see a troop of citizens in tawdry masquerade; +tabard above, heather-mixture trowser below, and the men +themselves trudging in the mud among unsympathetic by- +standers. The grooms of a well-appointed circus tread +the streets with a better presence. And yet these are +the Heralds and Pursuivants of Scotland, who are about to +proclaim a new law of the United Kingdom before two-score +boys, and thieves, and hackney-coachmen. Meanwhile every +hour the bell of the University rings out over the hum of +the streets, and every hour a double tide of students, +coming and going, fills the deep archways. And lastly, +one night in the springtime - or say one morning rather, +at the peep of day - late folk may hear voices of many +men singing a psalm in unison from a church on one side +of the old High Street; and a little after, or perhaps a +little before, the sound of many men singing a psalm in +unison from another church on the opposite side of the +way. There will be something in the words above the dew +of Hermon, and how goodly it is to see brethren dwelling +together in unity. And the late folk will tell +themselves that all this singing denotes the conclusion +of two yearly ecclesiastical parliaments - the +parliaments of Churches which are brothers in many +admirable virtues, but not specially like brothers in +this particular of a tolerant and peaceful life. + +Again, meditative people will find a charm in a +certain consonancy between the aspect of the city and its +odd and stirring history. Few places, if any, offer a +more barbaric display of contrasts to the eye. In the +very midst stands one of the most satisfactory crags in +nature - a Bass Rock upon dry land, rooted in a garden +shaken by passing trains, carrying a crown of battlements +and turrets, and describing its war-like shadow over the +liveliest and brightest thoroughfare of the new town. +From their smoky beehives, ten stories high, the unwashed +look down upon the open squares and gardens of the +wealthy; and gay people sunning themselves along Princes +Street, with its mile of commercial palaces all beflagged +upon some great occasion, see, across a gardened valley +set with statues, where the washings of the Old Town +flutter in the breeze at its high windows. And then, +upon all sides, what a clashing of architecture! In this +one valley, where the life of the town goes most busily +forward, there may be seen, shown one above and behind +another by the accidents of the ground, buildings in +almost every style upon the globe. Egyptian and Greek +temples, Venetian palaces and Gothic spires, are huddled +one over another in a most admired disorder; while, above +all, the brute mass of the Castle and the summit of +Arthur's Seat look down upon these imitations with a +becoming dignity, as the works of Nature may look down +the monuments of Art. But Nature is a more +indiscriminate patroness than we imagine, and in no way +frightened of a strong effect. The birds roost as +willingly among the Corinthian capitals as in the +crannies of the crag; the same atmosphere and daylight +clothe the eternal rock and yesterday's imitation +portico; and as the soft northern sunshine throws out +everything into a glorified distinctness - or easterly +mists, coming up with the blue evening, fuse all these +incongruous features into one, and the lamps begin to +glitter along the street, and faint lights to burn in the +high windows across the valley - the feeling grows upon +you that this also is a piece of nature in the most +intimate sense; that this profusion of eccentricities, +this dream in masonry and living rock, is not a drop- +scene in a theatre, but a city in the world of every-day +reality, connected by railway and telegraph-wire with all +the capitals of Europe, and inhabited by citizens of the +familiar type, who keep ledgers, and attend church, and +have sold their immortal portion to a daily paper. By +all the canons of romance, the place demands to be half +deserted and leaning towards decay; birds we might admit +in profusion, the play of the sun and winds, and a few +gipsies encamped in the chief thoroughfare; but these +citizens with their cabs and tramways, their trains and +posters, are altogether out of key. Chartered tourists, +they make free with historic localities, and rear their +young among the most picturesque sites with a grand human +indifference. To see them thronging by, in their neat +clothes and conscious moral rectitude, and with a little +air of possession that verges on the absurd, is not the +least striking feature of the place. * + +* These sentences have, I hear, given offence in my +native town, and a proportionable pleasure to our rivals +of Glasgow. I confess the news caused me both pain and +merriment. May I remark, as a balm for wounded fellow- +townsmen, that there is nothing deadly in my accusations? +Small blame to them if they keep ledgers: 'tis an +excellent business habit. Churchgoing is not, that ever +I heard, a subject of reproach; decency of linen is a +mark of prosperous affairs, and conscious moral rectitude +one of the tokens of good living. It is not their fault +it the city calls for something more specious by way of +inhabitants. A man in a frock-coat looks out of place +upon an Alp or Pyramid, although he has the virtues of a +Peabody and the talents of a Bentham. And let them +console themselves - they do as well as anybody else; the +population of (let us say) Chicago would cut quite as +rueful a figure on the same romantic stage. To the +Glasgow people I would say only one word, but that is of +gold; I HAVE NOT YET WRITTEN A BOOK ABOUT GLASGOW. + +And the story of the town is as eccentric as its +appearance. For centuries it was a capital thatched with +heather, and more than once, in the evil days of English +invasion, it has gone up in flame to heaven, a beacon to +ships at sea. It was the jousting-ground of jealous +nobles, not only on Greenside, or by the King's Stables, +where set tournaments were fought to the sound of +trumpets and under the authority of the royal presence, +but in every alley where there was room to cross swords, +and in the main street, where popular tumult under the +Blue Blanket alternated with the brawls of outlandish +clansmen and retainers. Down in the palace John Knox +reproved his queen in the accents of modern democracy. +In the town, in one of those little shops plastered like +so many swallows' nests among the buttresses of the old +Cathedral, that familiar autocrat, James VI., would +gladly share a bottle of wine with George Heriot the +goldsmith. Up on the Pentland Hills, that so quietly +look down on the Castle with the city lying in waves +around it, those mad and dismal fanatics, the Sweet +Singers, haggard from long exposure on the moors, sat day +and night with 'tearful psalmns' to see Edinburgh +consumed with fire from heaven, like another Sodom or +Gomorrah. There, in the Grass-market, stiff-necked, +covenanting heroes, offered up the often unnecessary, but +not less honourable, sacrifice of their lives, and bade +eloquent farewell to sun, moon, and stars, and earthly +friendships, or died silent to the roll of drums. Down +by yon outlet rode Grahame of Claverhouse and his thirty +dragoons, with the town beating to arms behind their +horses' tails - a sorry handful thus riding for their +lives, but with a man at the head who was to return in a +different temper, make a dash that staggered Scotland to +the heart, and die happily in the thick of fight. There +Aikenhead was hanged for a piece of boyish incredulity; +there, a few years afterwards, David Hume ruined +Philosophy and Faith, an undisturbed and well-reputed +citizen; and thither, in yet a few years more, Burns came +from the plough-tail, as to an academy of gilt unbelief +and artificial letters. There, when the great exodus was +made across the valley, and the New Town began to spread +abroad its draughty parallelograms, and rear its long +frontage on the opposing hill, there was such a flitting, +such a change of domicile and dweller, as was never +excelled in the history of cities: the cobbler succeeded +the earl; the beggar ensconced himself by the judge's +chimney; what had been a palace was used as a pauper +refuge; and great mansions were so parcelled out among +the least and lowest in society, that the hearthstone of +the old proprietor was thought large enough to be +partitioned off into a bedroom by the new. + + +CHAPTER II. +OLD TOWN - THE LANDS. + + +THE Old Town, it is pretended, is the chief +characteristic, and, from a picturesque point of view, +the liver-wing of Edinburgh. It is one of the most +common forms of depreciation to throw cold water on the +whole by adroit over-commendation of a part, since +everything worth judging, whether it be a man, a work of +art, or only a fine city, must be judged upon its merits +as a whole. The Old Town depends for much of its effect +on the new quarters that lie around it, on the +sufficiency of its situation, and on the hills that back +it up. If you were to set it somewhere else by itself, +it would look remarkably like Stirling in a bolder and +loftier edition. The point is to see this embellished +Stirling planted in the midst of a large, active, and +fantastic modern city; for there the two re-act in a +picturesque sense, and the one is the making of the +other. + +The Old Town occupies a sloping ridge or tail of +diluvial matter, protected, in some subsidence of the +waters, by the Castle cliffs which fortify it to the +west. On the one side of it and the other the new towns +of the south and of the north occupy their lower, +broader, and more gentle hill-tops. Thus, the quarter of +the Castle over-tops the whole city and keeps an open +view to sea and land. It dominates for miles on every +side; and people on the decks of ships, or ploughing in +quiet country places over in Fife, can see the banner on +the Castle battlements, and the smoke of the Old Town +blowing abroad over the subjacent country. A city that +is set upon a hill. It was, I suppose, from this distant +aspect that she got her nickname of AULD REEKIE. Perhaps +it was given her by people who had never crossed her +doors: day after day, from their various rustic Pisgahs, +they had seen the pile of building on the hill-top, and +the long plume of smoke over the plain; so it appeared to +them; so it had appeared to their fathers tilling the +same field; and as that was all they knew of the place, +it could be all expressed in these two words. + +Indeed, even on a nearer view, the Old Town is +properly smoked; and though it is well washed with rain +all the year round, it has a grim and sooty aspect among +its younger suburbs. It grew, under the law that +regulates the growth of walled cities in precarious +situations, not in extent, but in height and density. +Public buildings were forced, wherever there was room for +them, into the midst of thoroughfares; thorough - fares +were diminished into lanes; houses sprang up story after +story, neighbour mounting upon neighbour's shoulder, as +in some Black Hole of Calcutta, until the population +slept fourteen or fifteen deep in a vertical direction. +The tallest of these LANDS, as they are locally termed, +have long since been burnt out; but to this day it is not +uncommon to see eight or ten windows at a flight; and the +cliff of building which hangs imminent over Waverley +Bridge would still put many natural precipices to shame. +The cellars are already high above the gazer's head, +planted on the steep hill-side; as for the garret, all +the furniture may be in the pawn-shop, but it commands a +famous prospect to the Highland hills. The poor man may +roost up there in the centre of Edinburgh, and yet have a +peep of the green country from his window; he shall see +the quarters of the well-to-do fathoms underneath, with +their broad squares and gardens; he shall have nothing +overhead but a few spires, the stone top-gallants of the +city; and perhaps the wind may reach him with a rustic +pureness, and bring a smack of the sea or of flowering +lilacs in the spring. + +It is almost the correct literary sentiment to +deplore the revolutionary improvements of Mr. Chambers +and his following. It is easy to be a conservator of the +discomforts of others; indeed, it is only our good +qualities we find it irksome to conserve. Assuredly, in +driving streets through the black labyrinth, a few +curious old corners have been swept away, and some +associations turned out of house and home. But what +slices of sunlight, what breaths of clean air, have been +let in! And what a picturesque world remains untouched! +You go under dark arches, and down dark stairs and +alleys. The way is so narrow that you can lay a hand on +either wall; so steep that, in greasy winter weather, the +pavement is almost as treacherous as ice. Washing +dangles above washing from the windows; the houses bulge +outwards upon flimsy brackets; you see a bit of sculpture +in a dark corner; at the top of all, a gable and a few +crowsteps are printed on the sky. Here, you come into a +court where the children are at play and the grown people +sit upon their doorsteps, and perhaps a church spire +shows itself above the roofs. Here, in the narrowest of +the entry, you find a great old mansion still erect, with +some insignia of its former state - some scutcheon, some +holy or courageous motto, on the lintel. The local +antiquary points out where famous and well-born people +had their lodging; and as you look up, out pops the head +of a slatternly woman from the countess's window. The +Bedouins camp within Pharaoh's palace walls, and the old +war-ship is given over to the rats. We are already a far +way from the days when powdered heads were plentiful in +these alleys, with jolly, port-wine faces underneath. +Even in the chief thoroughfares Irish washings flutter at +the windows, and the pavements are encumbered with +loiterers. + +These loiterers are a true character of the scene. +Some shrewd Scotch workmen may have paused on their way +to a job, debating Church affairs and politics with their +tools upon their arm. But the most part are of a +different order - skulking jail-birds; unkempt, bare-foot +children; big-mouthed, robust women, in a sort of uniform +of striped flannel petticoat and short tartan shawl; +among these, a few surpervising constables and a dismal +sprinkling of mutineers and broken men from higher ranks +in society, with some mark of better days upon them, like +a brand. In a place no larger than Edinburgh, and where +the traffic is mostly centred in five or six chief +streets, the same face comes often under the notice of an +idle stroller. In fact, from this point of view, +Edinburgh is not so much a small city as the largest of +small towns. It is scarce possible to avoid observing +your neighbours; and I never yet heard of any one who +tried. It has been my fortune, in this anonymous +accidental way, to watch more than one of these downward +travellers for some stages on the road to ruin. One man +must have been upwards of sixty before I first observed +him, and he made then a decent, personable figure in +broad-cloth of the best. For three years he kept falling +- grease coming and buttons going from the square-skirted +coat, the face puffing and pimpling, the shoulders +growing bowed, the hair falling scant and grey upon his +head; and the last that ever I saw of him, he was +standing at the mouth of an entry with several men in +moleskin, three parts drunk, and his old black raiment +daubed with mud. I fancy that I still can hear him +laugh. There was something heart-breaking in this +gradual declension at so advanced an age; you would have +thought a man of sixty out of the reach of these +calamities; you would have thought that he was niched by +that time into a safe place in life, whence he could pass +quietly and honourably into the grave. + +One of the earliest marks of these DEGRINGOLADES is, +that the victim begins to disappear from the New Town +thoroughfares, and takes to the High Street, like a +wounded animal to the woods. And such an one is the type +of the quarter. It also has fallen socially. A +scutcheon over the door somewhat jars in sentiment where +there is a washing at every window. The old man, when I +saw him last, wore the coat in which he had played the +gentleman three years before; and that was just what gave +him so pre-eminent an air of wretchedness. + +It is true that the over-population was at least as +dense in the epoch of lords and ladies, and that now-a- +days some customs which made Edinburgh notorious of yore +have been fortunately pretermitted. But an aggregation +of comfort is not distasteful like an aggregation of the +reverse. Nobody cares how many lords and ladies, and +divines and lawyers, may have been crowded into these +houses in the past - perhaps the more the merrier. The +glasses clink around the china punch-bowl, some one +touches the virginals, there are peacocks' feathers on +the chimney, and the tapers burn clear and pale in the +red firelight. That is not an ugly picture in itself, +nor will it become ugly upon repetition. All the better +if the like were going on in every second room; the LAND +would only look the more inviting. Times are changed. +In one house, perhaps, two-score families herd together; +and, perhaps, not one of them is wholly out of the reach +of want. The great hotel is given over to discomfort +from the foundation to the chimney-tops; everywhere a +pinching, narrow habit, scanty meals, and an air of +sluttishness and dirt. In the first room there is a +birth, in another a death, in a third a sordid drinking- +bout, and the detective and the Bible-reader cross upon +the stairs. High words are audible from dwelling to +dwelling, and children have a strange experience from the +first; only a robust soul, you would think, could grow up +in such conditions without hurt. And even if God tempers +His dispensations to the young, and all the ill does not +arise that our apprehensions may forecast, the sight of +such a way of living is disquieting to people who are +more happily circumstanced. Social inequality is nowhere +more ostentatious than at Edinburgh. I have mentioned +already how, to the stroller along Princes Street, the +High Street callously exhibits its back garrets. It is +true, there is a garden between. And although nothing +could be more glaring by way of contrast, sometimes the +opposition is more immediate; sometimes the thing lies in +a nutshell, and there is not so much as a blade of grass +between the rich and poor. To look over the South Bridge +and see the Cowgate below full of crying hawkers, is to +view one rank of society from another in the twinkling of +an eye. + +One night I went along the Cowgate after every one +was a-bed but the policeman, and stopped by hazard before +a tall LAND. The moon touched upon its chimneys, and +shone blankly on the upper windows; there was no light +anywhere in the great bulk of building; but as I stood +there it seemed to me that I could hear quite a body of +quiet sounds from the interior; doubtless there were many +clocks ticking, and people snoring on their backs. And +thus, as I fancied, the dense life within made itself +faintly audible in my ears, family after family +contributing its quota to the general hum, and the whole +pile beating in tune to its timepieces, like a great +disordered heart. Perhaps it was little more than a +fancy altogether, but it was strangely impressive at the +time, and gave me an imaginative measure of the +disproportion between the quantity of living flesh and +the trifling walls that separated and contained it. + +There was nothing fanciful, at least, but every +circumstance of terror and reality, in the fall of the +LAND in the High Street. The building had grown rotten +to the core; the entry underneath had suddenly closed up +so that the scavenger's barrow could not pass; cracks and +reverberations sounded through the house at night; the +inhabitants of the huge old human bee-hive discussed +their peril when they encountered on the stair; some had +even left their dwellings in a panic of fear, and +returned to them again in a fit of economy or self- +respect; when, in the black hours of a Sunday morning, +the whole structure ran together with a hideous uproar +and tumbled story upon story to the ground. The physical +shock was felt far and near; and the moral shock +travelled with the morning milkmaid into all the suburbs. +The church-bells never sounded more dismally over +Edinburgh than that grey forenoon. Death had made a +brave harvest, and, like Samson, by pulling down one +roof, destroyed many a home. None who saw it can have +forgotten the aspect of the gable; here it was plastered, +there papered, according to the rooms; here the kettle +still stood on the hob, high overhead; and there a cheap +picture of the Queen was pasted over the chimney. So, by +this disaster, you had a glimpse into the life of thirty +families, all suddenly cut off from the revolving years. +The LAND had fallen; and with the LAND how much! Far in +the country, people saw a gap in the city ranks, and the +sun looked through between the chimneys in an unwonted +place. And all over the world, in London, in Canada, in +New Zealand, fancy what a multitude of people could +exclaim with truth: 'The house that I was born in fell +last night!' + + + +CHAPTER III. +THE PARLIAMENT CLOSE. + + + +TIME has wrought its changes most notably around the +precincts of St. Giles's Church. The church itself, if +it were not for the spire, would be unrecognisable; the +KRAMES are all gone, not a shop is left to shelter in its +buttresses; and zealous magistrates and a misguided +architect have shorn the design of manhood, and left it +poor, naked, and pitifully pretentious. As St. Giles's +must have had in former days a rich and quaint appearance +now forgotten, so the neighbourhood was bustling, +sunless, and romantic. It was here that the town was +most overbuilt; but the overbuilding has been all rooted +out, and not only a free fair-way left along the High +Street with an open space on either side of the church, +but a great porthole, knocked in the main line of the +LANDS, gives an outlook to the north and the New Town. + +There is a silly story of a subterranean passage +between the Castle and Holyrood, and a bold Highland +piper who volunteered to explore its windings. He made +his entrance by the upper end, playing a strathspey; the +curious footed it after him down the street, following +his descent by the sound of the chanter from below; until +all of a sudden, about the level of St. Giles's, the +music came abruptly to an end, and the people in the +street stood at fault with hands uplifted. Whether he +was choked with gases, or perished in a quag, or was +removed bodily by the Evil One, remains a point of doubt; +but the piper has never again been seen or heard of from +that day to this. Perhaps he wandered down into the land +of Thomas the Rhymer, and some day, when it is least +expected, may take a thought to revisit the sunlit upper +world. That will be a strange moment for the cabmen on +the stance besides St. Giles's, when they hear the drone +of his pipes reascending from the bowels of the earth +below their horses' feet. + +But it is not only pipers who have vanished, many a +solid bulk of masonry has been likewise spirited into the +air. Here, for example, is the shape of a heart let into +the causeway. This was the site of the Tolbooth, the +Heart of Midlothian, a place old in story and namefather +to a noble book. The walls are now down in the dust; +there is no more SQUALOR CARCERIS for merry debtors, no +more cage for the old, acknowledged prison-breaker; but +the sun and the wind play freely over the foundations of +the jail. Nor is this the only memorial that the +pavement keeps of former days. The ancient burying- +ground of Edinburgh lay behind St. Giles's Church, +running downhill to the Cowgate and covering the site of +the present Parliament House. It has disappeared as +utterly as the prison or the Luckenbooths; and for those +ignorant of its history, I know only one token that +remains. In the Parliament Close, trodden daily +underfoot by advocates, two letters and a date mark the +resting-place of the man who made Scotland over again in +his own image, the indefatigable, undissuadable John +Knox. He sleeps within call of the church that so often +echoed to his preaching. + +Hard by the reformer, a bandy-legged and garlanded +Charles Second, made of lead, bestrides a tun-bellied +charger. The King has his backed turned, and, as you +look, seems to be trotting clumsily away from such a +dangerous neighbour. Often, for hours together, these +two will be alone in the Close, for it lies out of the +way of all but legal traffic. On one side the south wall +of the church, on the other the arcades of the Parliament +House, enclose this irregular bight of causeway and +describe their shadows on it in the sun. At either end, +from round St. Giles's buttresses, you command a look +into the High Street with its motley passengers; but the +stream goes by, east and west, and leaves the Parliament +Close to Charles the Second and the birds. Once in a +while, a patient crowd may be seen loitering there all +day, some eating fruit, some reading a newspaper; and to +judge by their quiet demeanour, you would think they were +waiting for a distribution of soup-tickets. The fact is +far otherwise; within in the Justiciary Court a man is +upon trial for his life, and these are some of the +curious for whom the gallery was found too narrow. +Towards afternoon, if the prisoner is unpopular, there +will be a round of hisses when he is brought forth. Once +in a while, too, an advocate in wig and gown, hand upon +mouth, full of pregnant nods, sweeps to and fro in the +arcade listening to an agent; and at certain regular +hours a whole tide of lawyers hurries across the space. + +The Parliament Close has been the scene of marking +incidents in Scottish history. Thus, when the Bishops +were ejected from the Convention in 1688, 'all fourteen +of them gathered together with pale faces and stood in a +cloud in the Parliament Close:' poor episcopal personages +who were done with fair weather for life! Some of the +west-country Societarians standing by, who would have +'rejoiced more than in great sums' to be at their +hanging, hustled them so rudely that they knocked their +heads together. It was not magnanimous behaviour to +dethroned enemies; but one, at least, of the Societarians +had groaned in the BOOTS, and they had all seen their +dear friends upon the scaffold. Again, at the 'woeful +Union,' it was here that people crowded to escort their +favourite from the last of Scottish parliaments: people +flushed with nationality, as Boswell would have said, +ready for riotous acts, and fresh from throwing stones at +the author of 'Robinson Crusoe' as he looked out of +window. + +One of the pious in the seventeenth century, going +to pass his TRIALS (examinations as we now say) for the +Scottish Bar, beheld the Parliament Close open and had a +vision of the mouth of Hell. This, and small wonder, was +the means of his conversion. Nor was the vision +unsuitable to the locality; for after an hospital, what +uglier piece is there in civilisation than a court of +law? Hither come envy, malice, and all uncharitableness +to wrestle it out in public tourney; crimes, broken +fortunes, severed households, the knave and his victim, +gravitate to this low building with the arcade. To how +many has not St. Giles's bell told the first hour after +ruin? I think I see them pause to count the strokes, and +wander on again into the moving High Street, stunned and +sick at heart. + +A pair of swing doors gives admittance to a hall +with a carved roof, hung with legal portraits, adorned +with legal statuary, lighted by windows of painted glass, +and warmed by three vast fires. This is the SALLE DES +PAS PERDUS of the Scottish Bar. Here, by a ferocious +custom, idle youths must promenade from ten till two. +From end to end, singly or in pairs or trios, the gowns +and wigs go back and forward. Through a hum of talk and +footfalls, the piping tones of a Macer announce a fresh +cause and call upon the names of those concerned. +Intelligent men have been walking here daily for ten or +twenty years without a rag of business or a shilling of +reward. In process of time, they may perhaps be made the +Sheriff-Substitute and Fountain of Justice at Lerwick or +Tobermory. There is nothing required, you would say, but +a little patience and a taste for exercise and bad air. +To breathe dust and bombazine, to feed the mind on +cackling gossip, to hear three parts of a case and drink +a glass of sherry, to long with indescribable longings +for the hour when a man may slip out of his travesty and +devote himself to golf for the rest of the afternoon, and +to do this day by day and year after year, may seem so +small a thing to the inexperienced! But those who have +made the experiment are of a different way of thinking, +and count it the most arduous form of idleness. + +More swing doors open into pigeon-holes where judges +of the First Appeal sit singly, and halls of audience +where the supreme Lords sit by three or four. Here, you +may see Scott's place within the bar, where he wrote many +a page of Waverley novels to the drone of judicial +proceeding. You will hear a good deal of shrewdness, +and, as their Lordships do not altogether disdain +pleasantry, a fair proportion of dry fun. The broadest +of broad Scotch is now banished from the bench; but the +courts still retain a certain national flavour. We have +a solemn enjoyable way of lingering on a case. We treat +law as a fine art, and relish and digest a good +distinction. There is no hurry: point after point must +be rightly examined and reduced to principle; judge after +judge must utter forth his OBITER DICTA to delighted +brethren. + +Besides the courts, there are installed under the +same roof no less than three libraries: two of no mean +order; confused and semi-subterranean, full of stairs and +galleries; where you may see the most studious-looking +wigs fishing out novels by lanthorn light, in the very +place where the old Privy Council tortured Covenanters. +As the Parliament House is built upon a slope, although +it presents only one story to the north, it measures +half-a-dozen at least upon the south; and range after +range of vaults extend below the libraries. Few places +are more characteristic of this hilly capital. You +descend one stone stair after another, and wander, by the +flicker of a match, in a labyrinth of stone cellars. +Now, you pass below the Outer Hall and hear overhead, +brisk but ghostly, the interminable pattering of legal +feet. Now, you come upon a strong door with a wicket: on +the other side are the cells of the police office and the +trap-stair that gives admittance to the dock in the +Justiciary Court. Many a foot that has gone up there +lightly enough, has been dead-heavy in the descent. Many +a man's life has been argued away from him during long +hours in the court above. But just now that tragic stage +is empty and silent like a church on a week-day, with the +bench all sheeted up and nothing moving but the sunbeams +on the wall. A little farther and you strike upon a +room, not empty like the rest, but crowded with +PRODUCTIONS from bygone criminal cases: a grim lumber: +lethal weapons, poisoned organs in a jar, a door with a +shot-hole through the panel, behind which a man fell +dead. I cannot fancy why they should preserve them +unless it were against the Judgment Day. At length, as +you continue to descend, you see a peep of yellow +gaslight and hear a jostling, whispering noise ahead; +next moment you turn a corner, and there, in a +whitewashed passage, is a machinery belt industriously +turning on its wheels. You would think the engine had +grown there of its own accord, like a cellar fungus, and +would soon spin itself out and fill the vaults from end +to end with its mysterious labours. In truth, it is only +some gear of the steam ventilator; and you will find the +engineers at hand, and may step out of their door into +the sunlight. For all this while, you have not been +descending towards the earth's centre, but only to the +bottom of the hill and the foundations of the Parliament +House; low down, to be sure, but still under the open +heaven and in a field of grass. The daylight shines +garishly on the back windows of the Irish quarter; on +broken shutters, wry gables, old palsied houses on the +brink of ruin, a crumbling human pig-sty fit for human +pigs. There are few signs of life, besides a scanty +washing or a face at a window: the dwellers are abroad, +but they will return at night and stagger to their +pallets. + + + +CHAPTER IV. +LEGENDS. + + + +THE character of a place is often most perfectly +expressed in its associations. An event strikes root and +grows into a legend, when it has happened amongst +congenial surroundings. Ugly actions, above all in ugly +places, have the true romantic quality, and become an +undying property of their scene. To a man like Scott, +the different appearances of nature seemed each to +contain its own legend ready made, which it was his to +call forth: in such or such a place, only such or such +events ought with propriety to happen; and in this spirit +he made the LADY OF THE LAKE for Ben Venue, the HEART OF +MIDLOTHIAN for Edinburgh, and the PIRATE, so +indifferently written but so romantically conceived, for +the desolate islands and roaring tideways of the North. +The common run of mankind have, from generation to +generation, an instinct almost as delicate as that of +Scott; but where he created new things, they only forget +what is unsuitable among the old; and by survival of the +fittest, a body of tradition becomes a work of art. So, +in the low dens and high-flying garrets of Edinburgh, +people may go back upon dark passages in the town's +adventures, and chill their marrow with winter's tales +about the fire: tales that are singularly apposite and +characteristic, not only of the old life, but of the very +constitution of built nature in that part, and singularly +well qualified to add horror to horror, when the wind +pipes around the tall LANDS, and hoots adown arched +passages, and the far-spread wilderness of city lamps +keeps quavering and flaring in the gusts. + +Here, it is the tale of Begbie the bank-porter, +stricken to the heart at a blow and left in his blood +within a step or two of the crowded High Street. There, +people hush their voices over Burke and Hare; over drugs +and violated graves, and the resurrection-men smothering +their victims with their knees. Here, again, the fame of +Deacon Brodie is kept piously fresh. A great man in his +day was the Deacon; well seen in good society, crafty +with his hands as a cabinet-maker, and one who could sing +a song with taste. Many a citizen was proud to welcome +the Deacon to supper, and dismissed him with regret at a +timeous hour, who would have been vastly disconcerted had +he known how soon, and in what guise, his visitor +returned. Many stories are told of this redoubtable +Edinburgh burglar, but the one I have in my mind most +vividly gives the key of all the rest. A friend of +Brodie's, nested some way towards heaven in one of these +great LANDS, had told him of a projected visit to the +country, and afterwards, detained by some affairs, put it +off and stayed the night in town. The good man had lain +some time awake; it was far on in the small hours by the +Tron bell; when suddenly there came a creak, a jar, a +faint light. Softly he clambered out of bed and up to a +false window which looked upon another room, and there, +by the glimmer of a thieves' lantern, was his good friend +the Deacon in a mask. It is characteristic of the town +and the town's manners that this little episode should +have been quietly tided over, and quite a good time +elapsed before a great robbery, an escape, a Bow Street +runner, a cock-fight, an apprehension in a cupboard in +Amsterdam, and a last step into the air off his own +greatly-improved gallows drop, brought the career of +Deacon William Brodie to an end. But still, by the +mind's eye, he may be seen, a man harassed below a +mountain of duplicity, slinking from a magistrate's +supper-room to a thieves' ken, and pickeering among the +closes by the flicker of a dark lamp. + +Or where the Deacon is out of favour, perhaps some +memory lingers of the great plagues, and of fatal houses +still unsafe to enter within the memory of man. For in +time of pestilence the discipline had been sharp and +sudden, and what we now call 'stamping out contagion' was +carried on with deadly rigour. The officials, in their +gowns of grey, with a white St. Andrew's cross on back +and breast, and a white cloth carried before them on a +staff, perambulated the city, adding the terror of man's +justice to the fear of God's visitation. The dead they +buried on the Borough Muir; the living who had concealed +the sickness were drowned, if they were women, in the +Quarry Holes, and if they were men, were hanged and +gibbeted at their own doors; and wherever the evil had +passed, furniture was destroyed and houses closed. And +the most bogeyish part of the story is about such houses. +Two generations back they still stood dark and empty; +people avoided them as they passed by; the boldest +schoolboy only shouted through the keyhole and made off; +for within, it was supposed, the plague lay ambushed like +a basilisk, ready to flow forth and spread blain and +pustule through the city. What a terrible next-door +neighbour for superstitious citizens! A rat scampering +within would send a shudder through the stoutest heart. +Here, if you like, was a sanitary parable, addressed by +our uncleanly forefathers to their own neglect. + +And then we have Major Weir; for although even his +house is now demolished, old Edinburgh cannot clear +herself of his unholy memory. He and his sister lived +together in an odour of sour piety. She was a marvellous +spinster; he had a rare gift of supplication, and was +known among devout admirers by the name of Angelical +Thomas. 'He was a tall, black man, and ordinarily looked +down to the ground; a grim countenance, and a big nose. +His garb was still a cloak, and somewhat dark, and he +never went without his staff.' How it came about that +Angelical Thomas was burned in company with his staff, +and his sister in gentler manner hanged, and whether +these two were simply religious maniacs of the more +furious order, or had real as well as imaginary sins upon +their old-world shoulders, are points happily beyond the +reach of our intention. At least, it is suitable enough +that out of this superstitious city some such example +should have been put forth: the outcome and fine flower +of dark and vehement religion. And at least the facts +struck the public fancy and brought forth a remarkable +family of myths. It would appear that the Major's staff +went upon his errands, and even ran before him with a +lantern on dark nights. Gigantic females, 'stentoriously +laughing and gaping with tehees of laughter' at +unseasonable hours of night and morning, haunted the +purlieus of his abode. His house fell under such a load +of infamy that no one dared to sleep in it, until +municipal improvement levelled the structure to the +ground. And my father has often been told in the nursery +how the devil's coach, drawn by six coal-black horses +with fiery eyes, would drive at night into the West Bow, +and belated people might see the dead Major through the +glasses. + +Another legend is that of the two maiden sisters. A +legend I am afraid it may be, in the most discreditable +meaning of the term; or perhaps something worse - a mere +yesterday's fiction. But it is a story of some vitality, +and is worthy of a place in the Edinburgh kalendar. This +pair inhabited a single room; from the facts, it must +have been double-bedded; and it may have been of some +dimensions: but when all is said, it was a single room. +Here our two spinsters fell out - on some point of +controversial divinity belike: but fell out so bitterly +that there was never a word spoken between them, black or +white, from that day forward. You would have thought +they would separate: but no; whether from lack of means, +or the Scottish fear of scandal, they continued to keep +house together where they were. A chalk line drawn upon +the floor separated their two domains; it bisected the +doorway and the fireplace, so that each could go out and +in, and do her cooking, without violating the territory +of the other. So, for years, they coexisted in a hateful +silence; their meals, their ablutions, their friendly +visitors, exposed to an unfriendly scrutiny; and at +night, in the dark watches, each could hear the breathing +of her enemy. Never did four walls look down upon an +uglier spectacle than these sisters rivalling in +unsisterliness. Here is a canvas for Hawthorne to have +turned into a cabinet picture - he had a Puritanic vein, +which would have fitted him to treat this Puritanic +horror; he could have shown them to us in their +sicknesses and at their hideous twin devotions, thumbing +a pair of great Bibles, or praying aloud for each other's +penitence with marrowy emphasis; now each, with kilted +petticoat, at her own corner of the fire on some +tempestuous evening; now sitting each at her window, +looking out upon the summer landscape sloping far below +them towards the firth, and the field-paths where they +had wandered hand in hand; or, as age and infirmity grew +upon them and prolonged their toilettes, and their hands +began to tremble and their heads to nod involuntarily, +growing only the more steeled in enmity with years; until +one fine day, at a word, a look, a visit, or the approach +of death, their hearts would melt and the chalk boundary +be overstepped for ever. + +Alas! to those who know the ecclesiastical history +of the race - the most perverse and melancholy in man's +annals - this will seem only a figure of much that is +typical of Scotland and her high-seated capital above the +Forth - a figure so grimly realistic that it may pass +with strangers for a caricature. We are wonderful +patient haters for conscience sake up here in the North. +I spoke, in the first of these papers, of the Parliaments +of the Established and Free Churches, and how they can +hear each other singing psalms across the street. There +is but a street between them in space, but a shadow +between them in principle; and yet there they sit, +enchanted, and in damnatory accents pray for each other's +growth in grace. It would be well if there were no more +than two; but the sects in Scotland form a large family +of sisters, and the chalk lines are thickly drawn, and +run through the midst of many private homes. Edinburgh +is a city of churches, as though it were a place of +pilgrimage. You will see four within a stone-cast at the +head of the West Bow. Some are crowded to the doors; +some are empty like monuments; and yet you will ever find +new ones in the building. Hence that surprising clamour +of church bells that suddenly breaks out upon the Sabbath +morning from Trinity and the sea-skirts to Morningside on +the borders of the hills. I have heard the chimes of +Oxford playing their symphony in a golden autumn morning, +and beautiful it was to hear. But in Edinburgh all +manner of loud bells join, or rather disjoin, in one +swelling, brutal babblement of noise. Now one overtakes +another, and now lags behind it; now five or six all +strike on the pained tympanum at the same punctual +instant of time, and make together a dismal chord of +discord; and now for a second all seem to have conspired +to hold their peace. Indeed, there are not many uproars +in this world more dismal than that of the Sabbath bells +in Edinburgh: a harsh ecclesiastical tocsin; the outcry +of incongruous orthodoxies, calling on every separate +conventicler to put up a protest, each in his own +synagogue, against 'right-hand extremes and left-hand +defections.' And surely there are few worse extremes +than this extremity of zeal; and few more deplorable +defections than this disloyalty to Christian love. +Shakespeare wrote a comedy of 'Much Ado about Nothing.' +The Scottish nation made a fantastic tragedy on the same +subject. And it is for the success of this remarkable +piece that these bells are sounded every Sabbath morning +on the hills above the Forth. How many of them might +rest silent in the steeple, how many of these ugly +churches might be demolished and turned once more into +useful building material, if people who think almost +exactly the same thoughts about religion would condescend +to worship God under the same roof! But there are the +chalk lines. And which is to pocket pride, and speak the +foremost word? + + +CHAPTER V. +GREYFRIARS. + + +IT was Queen Mary who threw open the gardens of the +Grey Friars: a new and semi-rural cemetery in those days, +although it has grown an antiquity in its turn and been +superseded by half-a-dozen others. The Friars must have +had a pleasant time on summer evenings; for their gardens +were situated to a wish, with the tall castle and the +tallest of the castle crags in front. Even now, it is +one of our famous Edinburgh points of view; and strangers +are led thither to see, by yet another instance, how +strangely the city lies upon her hills. The enclosure is +of an irregular shape; the double church of Old and New +Greyfriars stands on the level at the top; a few thorns +are dotted here and there, and the ground falls by +terrace and steep slope towards the north. The open +shows many slabs and table tombstones; and all round the +margin, the place is girt by an array of aristocratic +mausoleums appallingly adorned. + +Setting aside the tombs of Roubiliac, which belong +to the heroic order of graveyard art, we Scotch stand, to +my fancy, highest among nations in the matter of grimly +illustrating death. We seem to love for their own sake +the emblems of time and the great change; and even around +country churches you will find a wonderful exhibition of +skulls, and crossbones, and noseless angels, and trumpets +pealing for the Judgment Day. Every mason was a +pedestrian Holbein: he had a deep consciousness of death, +and loved to put its terrors pithily before the +churchyard loiterer; he was brimful of rough hints upon +mortality, and any dead farmer was seized upon to be a +text. The classical examples of this art are in +Greyfriars. In their time, these were doubtless costly +monuments, and reckoned of a very elegant proportion by +contemporaries; and now, when the elegance is not so +apparent, the significance remains. You may perhaps look +with a smile on the profusion of Latin mottoes - some +crawling endwise up the shaft of a pillar, some issuing +on a scroll from angels' trumpets - on the emblematic +horrors, the figures rising headless from the grave, and +all the traditional ingenuities in which it pleased our +fathers to set forth their sorrow for the dead and their +sense of earthly mutability. But it is not a hearty sort +of mirth. Each ornament may have been executed by the +merriest apprentice, whistling as he plied the mallet; +but the original meaning of each, and the combined effect +of so many of them in this quiet enclosure, is serious to +the point of melancholy. + +Round a great part of the circuit, houses of a low +class present their backs to the churchyard. Only a few +inches separate the living from the dead. Here, a window +is partly blocked up by the pediment of a tomb; there, +where the street falls far below the level of the graves, +a chimney has been trained up the back of a monument, and +a red pot looks vulgarly over from behind. A damp smell +of the graveyard finds its way into houses where workmen +sit at meat. Domestic life on a small scale goes forward +visibly at the windows. The very solitude and stillness +of the enclosure, which lies apart from the town's +traffic, serves to accentuate the contrast. As you walk +upon the graves, you see children scattering crumbs to +feed the sparrows; you hear people singing or washing +dishes, or the sound of tears and castigation; the linen +on a clothes-pole flaps against funereal sculpture; or +perhaps the cat slips over the lintel and descends on a +memorial urn. And as there is nothing else astir, these +incongruous sights and noises take hold on the attention +and exaggerate the sadness of the place. + +Greyfriars is continually overrun by cats. I have +seen one afternoon, as many as thirteen of them seated on +the grass beside old Milne, the Master Builder, all sleek +and fat, and complacently blinking, as if they had fed +upon strange meats. Old Milne was chaunting with the +saints, as we may hope, and cared little for the company +about his grave; but I confess the spectacle had an ugly +side for me; and I was glad to step forward and raise my +eyes to where the Castle and the roofs of the Old Town, +and the spire of the Assembly Hall, stood deployed +against the sky with the colourless precision of +engraving. An open outlook is to be desired from a +churchyard, and a sight of the sky and some of the +world's beauty relieves a mind from morbid thoughts. + +I shall never forget one visit. It was a grey, +dropping day; the grass was strung with rain-drops; and +the people in the houses kept hanging out their shirts +and petticoats and angrily taking them in again, as the +weather turned from wet to fair and back again. A grave- +digger, and a friend of his, a gardener from the country, +accompanied me into one after another of the cells and +little courtyards in which it gratified the wealthy of +old days to enclose their old bones from neighbourhood. +In one, under a sort of shrine, we found a forlorn human +effigy, very realistically executed down to the detail of +his ribbed stockings, and holding in his hand a ticket +with the date of his demise. He looked most pitiful and +ridiculous, shut up by himself in his aristocratic +precinct, like a bad old boy or an inferior forgotten +deity under a new dispensation; the burdocks grew +familiarly about his feet, the rain dripped all round +him; and the world maintained the most entire +indifference as to who he was or whither he had gone. In +another, a vaulted tomb, handsome externally but horrible +inside with damp and cobwebs, there were three mounds of +black earth and an uncovered thigh bone. This was the +place of interment, it appeared, of a family with whom +the gardener had been long in service. He was among old +acquaintances. 'This'll be Miss Marg'et's,' said he, +giving the bone a friendly kick. 'The auld - !' I have +always an uncomfortable feeling in a graveyard, at sight +of so many tombs to perpetuate memories best forgotten; +but I never had the impression so strongly as that day. +People had been at some expense in both these cases: to +provoke a melancholy feeling of derision in the one, and +an insulting epithet in the other. The proper +inscription for the most part of mankind, I began to +think, is the cynical jeer, CRAS TIBI. That, if +anything, will stop the mouth of a carper; since it both +admits the worst and carries the war triumphantly into +the enemy's camp. + +Greyfriars is a place of many associations. There +was one window in a house at the lower end, now +demolished, which was pointed out to me by the +gravedigger as a spot of legendary interest. Burke, the +resurrection man, infamous for so many murders at five +shillings a-head, used to sit thereat, with pipe and +nightcap, to watch burials going forward on the green. +In a tomb higher up, which must then have been but newly +finished, John Knox, according to the same informant, had +taken refuge in a turmoil of the Reformation. Behind the +church is the haunted mausoleum of Sir George Mackenzie: +Bloody Mackenzie, Lord Advocate in the Covenanting +troubles and author of some pleasing sentiments on +toleration. Here, in the last century, an old Heriot's +Hospital boy once harboured from the pursuit of the +police. The Hospital is next door to Greyfriars - a +courtly building among lawns, where, on Founder's Day, +you may see a multitude of children playing Kiss-in-the- +Ring and Round the Mulberry-bush. Thus, when the +fugitive had managed to conceal himself in the tomb, his +old schoolmates had a hundred opportunities to bring him +food; and there he lay in safety till a ship was found to +smuggle him abroad. But his must have been indeed a +heart of brass, to lie all day and night alone with the +dead persecutor; and other lads were far from emulating +him in courage. When a man's soul is certainly in hell, +his body will scarce lie quiet in a tomb however costly; +some time or other the door must open, and the reprobate +come forth in the abhorred garments of the grave. It was +thought a high piece of prowess to knock at the Lord +Advocate's mausoleum and challenge him to appear. +'Bluidy Mackingie, come oot if ye dar'!' sang the fool- +hardy urchins. But Sir George had other affairs on hand; +and the author of an essay on toleration continues to +sleep peacefully among the many whom he so intolerantly +helped to slay. + +For this INFELIX CAMPUS, as it is dubbed in one of +its own inscriptions - an inscription over which Dr. +Johnson passed a critical eye - is in many ways sacred to +the memory of the men whom Mackenzie persecuted. It was +here, on the flat tombstones, that the Covenant was +signed by an enthusiastic people. In the long arm of the +church-yard that extends to Lauriston, the prisoners from +Bothwell Bridge - fed on bread and water and guarded, +life for life, by vigilant marksmen - lay five months +looking for the scaffold or the plantations. And while +the good work was going forward in the Grassmarket, +idlers in Greyfriars might have heard the throb of the +military drums that drowned the voices of the martyrs. +Nor is this all: for down in the corner farthest from Sir +George, there stands a monument dedicated, in uncouth +Covenanting verse, to all who lost their lives in that +contention. There is no moorsman shot in a snow shower +beside Irongray or Co'monell; there is not one of the two +hundred who were drowned off the Orkneys; nor so much as +a poor, over-driven, Covenanting slave in the American +plantations; but can lay claim to a share in that +memorial, and, if such things interest just men among the +shades, can boast he has a monument on earth as well as +Julius Caesar or the Pharaohs. Where they may all lie, I +know not. Far-scattered bones, indeed! But if the +reader cares to learn how some of them - or some part of +some of them - found their way at length to such +honourable sepulture, let him listen to the words of one +who was their comrade in life and their apologist when +they were dead. Some of the insane controversial matter +I omit, as well as some digressions, but leave the rest +in Patrick Walker's language and orthography:- + + +'The never to be forgotten Mr. JAMES RENWICK TOLD +me, that he was Witness to their Public Murder at the +GALLOWLEE, between LEITH and EDINBURGH, when he saw the +Hangman hash and hagg off all their Five Heads, with +PATRICK FOREMAN'S Right Hand: Their Bodies were all +buried at the Gallows Foot; their Heads, with PATRICK'S +Hand, were brought and put upon five Pikes on the +PLEASAUNCE-PORT. . . . Mr. RENWICK told me also that it +was the first public Action that his Hand was at, to +conveen Friends, and lift their murthered Bodies, and +carried them to the West Churchyard of EDINBURGH,' - not +Greyfriars, this time, - 'and buried them there. Then +they came about the City . . . . and took down these Five +Heads and that Hand; and Day being come, they went +quickly up the PLEASAUNCE; and when they came to +LAURISTOUN Yards, upon the South-side of the City, they +durst not venture, being so light, to go and bury their +Heads with their Bodies, which they designed; it being +present Death, if any of them had been found. ALEXANDER +TWEEDIE, a Friend, being with them, who at that Time was +Gardner in these Yards, concluded to bury them in his +Yard, being in a Box (wrapped in Linen), where they lay +45 Years except 3 Days, being executed upon the 10th of +OCTOBER 1681, and found the 7th Day of OCTOBER 1726. +That Piece of Ground lay for some Years unlaboured; and +trenching it, the Gardner found them, which affrighted +him the Box was consumed. Mr. SCHAW, the Owner of these +Yards, caused lift them, and lay them upon a Table in his +Summer-house: Mr. SCHAW'S mother was so kind, as to cut +out a Linen-cloth, and cover them. They lay Twelve Days +there, where all had Access to see them. ALEXANDER +TWEEDIE, the foresaid Gardner, said, when dying, There +was a Treasure hid in his Yard, but neither Gold nor +Silver. DANIEL TWEEDIE, his Son, came along with me to +that Yard, and told me that his Father planted a white +Rose-bush above them, and farther down the Yard a red +Rose-bush, which were more fruitful than any other Bush +in the Yard. . . . Many came' - to see the heads - 'out +of Curiosity; yet I rejoiced to see so many concerned +grave Men and Women favouring the Dust of our Martyrs. +There were Six of us concluded to bury them upon the +Nineteenth Day of OCTOBER 1726, and every One of us to +acquaint Friends of the Day and Hour, being WEDNESDAY, +the Day of the Week on which most of them were executed, +and at 4 of the Clock at Night, being the Hour that most +of them went to their resting Graves. We caused make a +compleat Coffin for them in Black, with four Yards of +fine Linen, the way that our Martyrs Corps were managed. +. . . Accordingly we kept the aforesaid Day and Hour, and +doubled the Linen, and laid the Half of it below them, +their nether jaws being parted from their Heads; but +being young Men, their Teeth remained. All were Witness +to the Holes in each of their Heads, which the Hangman +broke with his Hammer; and according to the Bigness of +their Sculls, we laid the Jaws to them, and drew the +other Half of the Linen above them, and stufft the Coffin +with Shavings. Some prest hard to go thorow the chief +Parts of the City as was done at the Revolution; but this +we refused, considering that it looked airy and frothy, +to make such Show of them, and inconsistent with the +solid serious Observing of such an affecting, surprizing +unheard-of Dispensation: But took the ordinary Way of +other Burials from that Place, to wit, we went east the +Back of the Wall, and in at BRISTO-PORT, and down the Way +to the Head of the COWGATE, and turned up to the Church- +yard, where they were interred closs to the Martyrs Tomb, +with the greatest Multitude of People Old and Young, Men +and Women, Ministers and others, that ever I saw +together.' + +And so there they were at last, in 'their resting +graves.' So long as men do their duty, even if it be +greatly in a misapprehension, they will be leading +pattern lives; and whether or not they come to lie beside +a martyrs' monument, we may be sure they will find a safe +haven somewhere in the providence of God. It is not well +to think of death, unless we temper the thought with that +of heroes who despised it. Upon what ground, is of small +account; if it be only the bishop who was burned for his +faith in the antipodes, his memory lightens the heart and +makes us walk undisturbed among graves. And so the +martyrs' monument is a wholesome, heartsome spot in the +field of the dead; and as we look upon it, a brave +influence comes to us from the land of those who have won +their discharge and, in another phrase of Patrick +Walker's, got 'cleanly off the stage.' + + +CHAPTER VI. +NEW TOWN - TOWN AND COUNTRY. + + +IT is as much a matter of course to decry the New +Town as to exalt the Old; and the most celebrated +authorities have picked out this quarter as the very +emblem of what is condemnable in architecture. Much may +be said, much indeed has been said, upon the text; but to +the unsophisticated, who call anything pleasing if it +only pleases them, the New Town of Edinburgh seems, in +itself, not only gay and airy, but highly picturesque. +An old skipper, invincibly ignorant of all theories of +the sublime and beautiful, once propounded as his most +radiant notion for Paradise: 'The new town of Edinburgh, +with the wind a matter of a point free.' He has now gone +to that sphere where all good tars are promised pleasant +weather in the song, and perhaps his thoughts fly +somewhat higher. But there are bright and temperate days +- with soft air coming from the inland hills, military +music sounding bravely from the hollow of the gardens, +the flags all waving on the palaces of Princes Street - +when I have seen the town through a sort of glory, and +shaken hands in sentiment with the old sailor. And +indeed, for a man who has been much tumbled round +Orcadian skerries, what scene could be more agreeable to +witness? On such a day, the valley wears a surprising +air of festival. It seems (I do not know how else to put +my meaning) as if it were a trifle too good to be true. +It is what Paris ought to be. It has the scenic quality +that would best set off a life of unthinking, open-air +diversion. It was meant by nature for the realisation of +the society of comic operas. And you can imagine, if the +climate were but towardly, how all the world and his wife +would flock into these gardens in the cool of the +evening, to hear cheerful music, to sip pleasant drinks, +to see the moon rise from behind Arthur's Seat and shine +upon the spires and monuments and the green tree-tops in +the valley. Alas! and the next morning the rain is +splashing on the windows, and the passengers flee along +Princes Street before the galloping squalls. + +It cannot be denied that the original design was +faulty and short-sighted, and did not fully profit by the +capabilities of the situation. The architect was +essentially a town bird, and he laid out the modern city +with a view to street scenery, and to street scenery +alone. The country did not enter into his plan; he had +never lifted his eyes to the hills. If he had so chosen, +every street upon the northern slope might have been a +noble terrace and commanded an extensive and beautiful +view. But the space has been too closely built; many of +the houses front the wrong way, intent, like the Man with +the Muck-Rake, on what is not worth observation, and +standing discourteously back-foremost in the ranks; and, +in a word, it is too often only from attic-windows, or +here and there at a crossing, that you can get a look +beyond the city upon its diversified surroundings. But +perhaps it is all the more surprising, to come suddenly +on a corner, and see a perspective of a mile or more of +falling street, and beyond that woods and villas, and a +blue arm of sea, and the hills upon the farther side. + +Fergusson, our Edinburgh poet, Burns's model, once +saw a butterfly at the Town Cross; and the sight inspired +him with a worthless little ode. This painted country +man, the dandy of the rose garden, looked far abroad in +such a humming neighbourhood; and you can fancy what +moral considerations a youthful poet would supply. But +the incident, in a fanciful sort of way, is +characteristic of the place. Into no other city does the +sight of the country enter so far; if you do not meet a +butterfly, you shall certainly catch a glimpse of far- +away trees upon your walk; and the place is full of +theatre tricks in the way of scenery. You peep under an +arch, you descend stairs that look as if they would land +you in a cellar, you turn to the back-window of a grimy +tenement in a lane:- and behold! you are face-to-face +with distant and bright prospects. You turn a corner, +and there is the sun going down into the Highland hills. +You look down an alley, and see ships tacking for the +Baltic. + +For the country people to see Edinburgh on her hill- +tops, is one thing; it is another for the citizen, from +the thick of his affairs, to overlook the country. It +should be a genial and ameliorating influence in life; it +should prompt good thoughts and remind him of Nature's +unconcern: that he can watch from day to day, as he trots +officeward, how the Spring green brightens in the wood or +the field grows black under a moving ploughshare. I have +been tempted, in this connexion, to deplore the slender +faculties of the human race, with its penny-whistle of a +voice, its dull cars, and its narrow range of sight. If +you could see as people are to see in heaven, if you had +eyes such as you can fancy for a superior race, if you +could take clear note of the objects of vision, not only +a few yards, but a few miles from where you stand:- think +how agreeably your sight would be entertained, how +pleasantly your thoughts would be diversified, as you +walked the Edinburgh streets! For you might pause, in +some business perplexity, in the midst of the city +traffic, and perhaps catch the eye of a shepherd as he +sat down to breathe upon a heathery shoulder of the +Pentlands; or perhaps some urchin, clambering in a +country elm, would put aside the leaves and show you his +flushed and rustic visage; or a fisher racing seawards, +with the tiller under his elbow, and the sail sounding in +the wind, would fling you a salutation from between +Anst'er and the May. + +To be old is not the same thing as to be +picturesque; nor because the Old Town bears a strange +physiognomy, does it at all follow that the New Town +shall look commonplace. Indeed, apart from antique +houses, it is curious how much description would apply +commonly to either. The same sudden accidents of ground, +a similar dominating site above the plain, and the same +superposition of one rank of society over another, are to +be observed in both. Thus, the broad and comely approach +to Princes Street from the east, lined with hotels and +public offices, makes a leap over the gorge of the Low +Calton; if you cast a glance over the parapet, you look +direct into that sunless and disreputable confluent of +Leith Street; and the same tall houses open upon both +thoroughfares. This is only the New Town passing +overhead above its own cellars; walking, so to speak, +over its own children, as is the way of cities and the +human race. But at the Dean Bridge, you may behold a +spectacle of a more novel order. The river runs at the +bottom of a deep valley, among rocks and between gardens; +the crest of either bank is occupied by some of the most +commodious streets and crescents in the modern city; and +a handsome bridge unites the two summits. Over this, +every afternoon, private carriages go spinning by, and +ladies with card-cases pass to and fro about the duties +of society. And yet down below, you may still see, with +its mills and foaming weir, the little rural village of +Dean. Modern improvement has gone overhead on its high- +level viaduct; and the extended city has cleanly +overleapt, and left unaltered, what was once the summer +retreat of its comfortable citizens. Every town embraces +hamlets in its growth; Edinburgh herself has embraced a +good few; but it is strange to see one still surviving - +and to see it some hundreds of feet below your path. Is +it Torre del Greco that is built above buried +Herculaneum? Herculaneum was dead at least; but the sun +still shines upon the roofs of Dean; the smoke still +rises thriftily from its chimneys; the dusty miller comes +to his door, looks at the gurgling water, hearkens to the +turning wheel and the birds about the shed, and perhaps +whistles an air of his own to enrich the symphony - for +all the world as if Edinburgh were still the old +Edinburgh on the Castle Hill, and Dean were still the +quietest of hamlets buried a mile or so in the green +country. + +It is not so long ago since magisterial David Hume +lent the authority of his example to the exodus from the +Old Town, and took up his new abode in a street which is +still (so oddly may a jest become perpetuated) known as +Saint David Street. Nor is the town so large but a +holiday schoolboy may harry a bird's nest within half a +mile of his own door. There are places that still smell +of the plough in memory's nostrils. Here, one had heard +a blackbird on a hawthorn; there, another was taken on +summer evenings to eat strawberries and cream; and you +have seen a waving wheatfield on the site of your present +residence. The memories of an Edinburgh boy are but +partly memories of the town. I look back with delight on +many an escalade of garden walls; many a ramble among +lilacs full of piping birds; many an exploration in +obscure quarters that were neither town nor country; and +I think that both for my companions and myself, there was +a special interest, a point of romance, and a sentiment +as of foreign travel, when we hit in our excursions on +the butt-end of some former hamlet, and found a few +rustic cottages embedded among streets and squares. The +tunnel to the Scotland Street Station, the sight of the +trains shooting out of its dark maw with the two guards +upon the brake, the thought of its length and the many +ponderous edifices and open thoroughfares above, were +certainly things of paramount impressiveness to a young +mind. It was a subterranean passage, although of a +larger bore than we were accustomed to in Ainsworth's +novels; and these two words, 'subterreanean passage,' +were in themselves an irresistible attraction, and seemed +to bring us nearer in spirit to the heroes we loved and +the black rascals we secretly aspired to imitate. To +scale the Castle Rock from West Princes Street Gardens, +and lay a triumphal hand against the rampart itself, was +to taste a high order of romantic pleasure. And there +are other sights and exploits which crowd back upon my +mind under a very strong illumination of remembered +pleasure. But the effect of not one of them all will +compare with the discoverer's joy, and the sense of old +Time and his slow changes on the face of this earth, with +which I explored such corners as Cannonmills or Water +Lane, or the nugget of cottages at Broughton Market. +They were more rural than the open country, and gave a +greater impression of antiquity than the oldest LAND upon +the High Street. They too, like Fergusson's butterfly, +had a quaint air of having wandered far from their own +place; they looked abashed and homely, with their gables +and their creeping plants, their outside stairs and +running mill-streams; there were corners that smelt like +the end of the country garden where I spent my Aprils; +and the people stood to gossip at their doors, as they +might have done in Colinton or Cramond. + +In a great measure we may, and shall, eradicate this +haunting flavour of the country. The last elm is dead in +Elm Row; and the villas and the workmen's quarters spread +apace on all the borders of the city. We can cut down +the trees; we can bury the grass under dead paving- +stones; we can drive brisk streets through all our sleepy +quarters; and we may forget the stories and the +playgrounds of our boyhood. But we have some possessions +that not even the infuriate zeal of builders can utterly +abolish and destroy. Nothing can abolish the hills, +unless it be a cataclysm of nature which shall subvert +Edinburgh Castle itself and lay all her florid structures +in the dust. And as long as we have the hills and the +Firth, we have a famous heritage to leave our children. +Our windows, at no expense to us, are most artfully +stained to represent a landscape. And when the Spring +comes round, and the hawthorns begin to flower, and the +meadows to smell of young grass, even in the thickest of +our streets, the country hilltops find out a young man's +eyes, and set his heart beating for travel and pure air. + + +CHAPTER VII. +THE VILLA QUARTERS. + + +MR. RUSKIN'S denunciation of the New Town of +Edinburgh includes, as I have heard it repeated, nearly +all the stone and lime we have to show. Many however +find a grand air and something settled and imposing in +the better parts; and upon many, as I have said, the +confusion of styles induces an agreeable stimulation of +the mind. But upon the subject of our recent villa +architecture, I am frankly ready to mingle my tears with +Mr. Ruskin's, and it is a subject which makes one envious +of his large declamatory and controversial eloquence. + +Day by day, one new villa, one new object of +offence, is added to another; all around Newington and +Morningside, the dismallest structures keep springing up +like mushrooms; the pleasant hills are loaded with them, +each impudently squatted in its garden, each roofed and +carrying chimneys like a house. And yet a glance of an +eye discovers their true character. They are not houses; +for they were not designed with a view to human +habitation, and the internal arrangements are, as they +tell me, fantastically unsuited to the needs of man. +They are not buildings; for you can scarcely say a thing +is built where every measurement is in clamant +disproportion with its neighbour. They belong to no +style of art, only to a form of business much to be +regretted. + +Why should it be cheaper to erect a structure where +the size of the windows bears no rational relation to the +size of the front? Is there any profit in a misplaced +chimney-stalk? Does a hard-working, greedy builder gain +more on a monstrosity than on a decent cottage of equal +plainness? Frankly, we should say, No. Bricks may be +omitted, and green timber employed, in the construction +of even a very elegant design; and there is no reason why +a chimney should be made to vent, because it is so +situated as to look comely from without. On the other +hand, there is a noble way of being ugly: a high-aspiring +fiasco like the fall of Lucifer. There are daring and +gaudy buildings that manage to be offensive, without +being contemptible; and we know that 'fools rush in where +angels fear to tread.' But to aim at making a common- +place villa, and to make it insufferably ugly in each +particular; to attempt the homeliest achievement, and to +attain the bottom of derided failure; not to have any +theory but profit and yet, at an equal expense, to +outstrip all competitors in the art of conceiving and +rendering permanent deformity; and to do all this in what +is, by nature, one of the most agreeable neighbourhoods +in Britain:- what are we to say, but that this also is a +distinction, hard to earn although not greatly +worshipful? + +Indifferent buildings give pain to the sensitive; +but these things offend the plainest taste. It is a +danger which threatens the amenity of the town; and as +this eruption keeps spreading on our borders, we have +ever the farther to walk among unpleasant sights, before +we gain the country air. If the population of Edinburgh +were a living, autonomous body, it would arise like one +man and make night hideous with arson; the builders and +their accomplices would be driven to work, like the Jews +of yore, with the trowel in one hand and the defensive +cutlass in the other; and as soon as one of these masonic +wonders had been consummated, right-minded iconoclasts +should fall thereon and make an end of it at once. + +Possibly these words may meet the eye of a builder +or two. It is no use asking them to employ an architect; +for that would be to touch them in a delicate quarter, +and its use would largely depend on what architect they +were minded to call in. But let them get any architect +in the world to point out any reasonably well- +proportioned villa, not his own design; and let them +reproduce that model to satiety. + + +CHAPTER VIII. +THE CALTON HILL. + + +THE east of new Edinburgh is guarded by a craggy +hill, of no great elevation, which the town embraces. +The old London road runs on one side of it; while the New +Approach, leaving it on the other hand, completes the +circuit. You mount by stairs in a cutting of the rock to +find yourself in a field of monuments. Dugald Stewart +has the honours of situation and architecture; Burns is +memorialised lower down upon a spur; Lord Nelson, as +befits a sailor, gives his name to the top-gallant of the +Calton Hill. This latter erection has been differently +and yet, in both cases, aptly compared to a telescope and +a butter-churn; comparisons apart, it ranks among the +vilest of men's handiworks. But the chief feature is an +unfinished range of columns, 'the Modern Ruin' as it has +been called, an imposing object from far and near, and +giving Edinburgh, even from the sea, that false air; of a +Modern Athens which has earned for her so many slighting +speeches. It was meant to be a National Monument; and +its present state is a very suitable monument to certain +national characteristics. The old Observatory - a quaint +brown building on the edge of the steep - and the new +Observatory - a classical edifice with a dome - occupy +the central portion of the summit. All these are +scattered on a green turf, browsed over by some sheep. + +The scene suggests reflections on fame and on man's +injustice to the dead. You see Dugald Stewart rather +more handsomely commemorated than Burns. Immediately +below, in the Canongate churchyard, lies Robert +Fergusson, Burns's master in his art, who died insane +while yet a stripling; and if Dugald Stewart has been +somewhat too boisterously acclaimed, the Edinburgh poet, +on the other hand, is most unrighteously forgotten. The +votaries of Burns, a crew too common in all ranks in +Scotland and more remarkable for number than discretion, +eagerly suppress all mention of the lad who handed to him +the poetic impulse and, up to the time when he grew +famous, continued to influence him in his manner and the +choice of subjects. Burns himself not only acknowledged +his debt in a fragment of autobiography, but erected a +tomb over the grave in Canongate churchyard. This was +worthy of an artist, but it was done in vain; and +although I think I have read nearly all the biographies +of Burns, I cannot remember one in which the modesty of +nature was not violated, or where Fergusson was not +sacrificed to the credit of his follower's originality. +There is a kind of gaping admiration that would fain roll +Shakespeare and Bacon into one, to have a bigger thing to +gape at; and a class of men who cannot edit one author +without disparaging all others. They are indeed mistaken +if they think to please the great originals; and whoever +puts Fergusson right with fame, cannot do better than +dedicate his labours to the memory of Burns, who will be +the best delighted of the dead. + +Of all places for a view, this Calton Hill is +perhaps the best; since you can see the Castle, which you +lose from the Castle, and Arthur's Seat, which you cannot +see from Arthur's Seat. It is the place to stroll on one +of those days of sunshine and east wind which are so +common in our more than temperate summer. The breeze +comes off the sea, with a little of the freshness, and +that touch of chill, peculiar to the quarter, which is +delightful to certain very ruddy organizations and +greatly the reverse to the majority of mankind. It +brings with it a faint, floating haze, a cunning +decolourizer, although not thick enough to obscure +outlines near at hand. But the haze lies more thickly to +windward at the far end of Musselburgh Bay; and over the +Links of Aberlady and Berwick Law and the hump of the +Bass Rock it assumes the aspect of a bank of thin sea +fog. + +Immediately underneath upon the south, you command +the yards of the High School, and the towers and courts +of the new Jail - a large place, castellated to the +extent of folly, standing by itself on the edge of a +steep cliff, and often joyfully hailed by tourists as the +Castle. In the one, you may perhaps see female prisoners +taking exercise like a string of nuns; in the other, +schoolboys running at play and their shadows keeping step +with them. From the bottom of the valley, a gigantic +chimney rises almost to the level of the eye, a taller +and a shapelier edifice than Nelson's Monument. Look a +little farther, and there is Holyrood Palace, with its +Gothic frontal and ruined abbey, and the red sentry +pacing smartly too and fro before the door like a +mechanical figure in a panorama. By way of an outpost, +you can single out the little peak-roofed lodge, over +which Rizzio's murderers made their escape and where +Queen Mary herself, according to gossip, bathed in white +wine to entertain her loveliness. Behind and overhead, +lie the Queen's Park, from Muschat's Cairn to +Dumbiedykes, St. Margaret's Loch, and the long wall of +Salisbury Crags: and thence, by knoll and rocky bulwark +and precipitous slope, the eye rises to the top of +Arthur's Seat, a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtue +of its bold design. This upon your left. Upon the +right, the roofs and spires of the Old Town climb one +above another to where the citadel prints its broad bulk +and jagged crown of bastions on the western sky. - +Perhaps it is now one in the afternoon; and at the same +instant of time, a ball rises to the summit of Nelson's +flagstaff close at hand, and, far away, a puff of smoke +followed by a report bursts from the half-moon battery at +the Castle. This is the time-gun by which people set +their watches, as far as the sea coast or in hill farms +upon the Pentlands. - To complete the view, the eye +enfilades Princes Street, black with traffic, and has a +broad look over the valley between the Old Town and the +New: here, full of railway trains and stepped over by the +high North Bridge upon its many columns, and there, green +with trees and gardens. + +On the north, the Calton Hill is neither so abrupt +in itself nor has it so exceptional an outlook; and yet +even here it commands a striking prospect. A gully +separates it from the New Town. This is Greenside, where +witches were burned and tournaments held in former days. +Down that almost precipitous bank, Bothwell launched his +horse, and so first, as they say, attracted the bright +eyes of Mary. It is now tesselated with sheets and +blankets out to dry, and the sound of people beating +carpets is rarely absent. Beyond all this, the suburbs +run out to Leith; Leith camps on the seaside with her +forest of masts; Leith roads are full of ships at anchor; +the sun picks out the white pharos upon Inchkeith Island; +the Firth extends on either hand from the Ferry to the +May; the towns of Fifeshire sit, each in its bank of +blowing smoke, along the opposite coast; and the hills +enclose the view, except to the farthest east, where the +haze of the horizon rests upon the open sea. There lies +the road to Norway: a dear road for Sir Patrick Spens and +his Scots Lords; and yonder smoke on the hither side of +Largo Law is Aberdour, from whence they sailed to seek a +queen for Scotland. + + +'O lang, lang, may the ladies sit, +Wi' their fans into their hand, +Or ere they see Sir Patrick Spens +Come sailing to the land!' + + +The sight of the sea, even from a city, will bring +thoughts of storm and sea disaster. The sailors' wives +of Leith and the fisherwomen of Cockenzie, not sitting +languorously with fans, but crowding to the tail of the +harbour with a shawl about their ears, may still look +vainly for brave Scotsmen who will return no more, or +boats that have gone on their last fishing. Since Sir +Patrick sailed from Aberdour, what a multitude have gone +down in the North Sea! Yonder is Auldhame, where the +London smack went ashore and wreckers cut the rings from +ladies' fingers; and a few miles round Fife Ness is the +fatal Inchcape, now a star of guidance; and the lee shore +to the east of the Inchcape, is that Forfarshire coast +where Mucklebackit sorrowed for his son. + +These are the main features of the scene roughly +sketched. How they are all tilted by the inclination of +the ground, how each stands out in delicate relief +against the rest, what manifold detail, and play of sun +and shadow, animate and accentuate the picture, is a +matter for a person on the spot, and turning swiftly on +his heels, to grasp and bind together in one +comprehensive look. It is the character of such a +prospect, to be full of change and of things moving. The +multiplicity embarrasses the eye; and the mind, among so +much, suffers itself to grow absorbed with single points. +You remark a tree in a hedgerow, or follow a cart along a +country road. You turn to the city, and see children, +dwarfed by distance into pigmies, at play about suburban +doorsteps; you have a glimpse upon a thoroughfare where +people are densely moving; you note ridge after ridge of +chimney-stacks running downhill one behind another, and +church spires rising bravely from the sea of roofs. At +one of the innumerable windows, you watch a figure +moving; on one of the multitude of roofs, you watch +clambering chimney-sweeps. The wind takes a run and +scatters the smoke; bells are heard, far and near, faint +and loud, to tell the hour; or perhaps a bird goes +dipping evenly over the housetops, like a gull across the +waves. And here you are in the meantime, on this +pastoral hillside, among nibbling sheep and looked upon +by monumental buildings. + +Return thither on some clear, dark, moonless night, +with a ring of frost in the air, and only a star or two +set sparsedly in the vault of heaven; and you will find a +sight as stimulating as the hoariest summit of the Alps. +The solitude seems perfect; the patient astronomer, flat +on his back under the Observatory dome and spying +heaven's secrets, is your only neighbour; and yet from +all round you there come up the dull hum of the city, the +tramp of countless people marching out of time, the +rattle of carriages and the continuous keen jingle of the +tramway bells. An hour or so before, the gas was turned +on; lamplighters scoured the city; in every house, from +kitchen to attic, the windows kindled and gleamed forth +into the dusk. And so now, although the town lies blue +and darkling on her hills, innumerable spots of the +bright element shine far and near along the pavements and +upon the high facades. Moving lights of the railway pass +and repass below the stationary lights upon the bridge. +Lights burn in the jail. Lights burn high up in the tall +LANDS and on the Castle turrets, they burn low down in +Greenside or along the Park. They run out one beyond the +other into the dark country. They walk in a procession +down to Leith, and shine singly far along Leith Pier. +Thus, the plan of the city and her suburbs is mapped out +upon the ground of blackness, as when a child pricks a +drawing full of pinholes and exposes it before a candle; +not the darkest night of winter can conceal her high +station and fanciful design; every evening in the year +she proceeds to illuminate herself in honour of her own +beauty; and as if to complete the scheme - or rather as +if some prodigal Pharaoh were beginning to extend to the +adjacent sea and country - half-way over to Fife, there +is an outpost of light upon Inchkeith, and far to +seaward, yet another on the May. + +And while you are looking, across upon the Castle +Hill, the drums and bugles begin to recall the scattered +garrison; the air thrills with the sound; the bugles sing +aloud; and the last rising flourish mounts and melts into +the darkness like a star: a martial swan-song, fitly +rounding in the labours of the day. + + + +CHAPTER IX. +WINTER AND NEW YEAR. + + + +THE Scotch dialect is singularly rich in terms of +reproach against the winter wind. SNELL, BLAE, NIRLY, +and SCOWTHERING, are four of these significant vocables; +they are all words that carry a shiver with them; and for +my part, as I see them aligned before me on the page, I +am persuaded that a big wind comes tearing over the Firth +from Burntisland and the northern hills; I think I can +hear it howl in the chimney, and as I set my face +northwards, feel its smarting kisses on my cheek. Even +in the names of places there is often a desolate, +inhospitable sound; and I remember two from the near +neighbourhood of Edinburgh, Cauldhame and Blaw-weary, +that would promise but starving comfort to their +inhabitants. The inclemency of heaven, which has thus +endowed the language of Scotland with words, has also +largely modified the spirit of its poetry. Both poverty +and a northern climate teach men the love of the hearth +and the sentiment of the family; and the latter, in its +own right, inclines a poet to the praise of strong +waters. In Scotland, all our singers have a stave or two +for blazing fires and stout potations:- to get indoors +out of the wind and to swallow something hot to the +stomach, are benefits so easily appreciated where they +dwelt! + +And this is not only so in country districts where +the shepherd must wade in the snow all day after his +flock, but in Edinburgh itself, and nowhere more +apparently stated than in the works of our Edinburgh +poet, Fergusson. He was a delicate youth, I take it, and +willingly slunk from the robustious winter to an inn +fire-side. Love was absent from his life, or only +present, if you prefer, in such a form that even the +least serious of Burns's amourettes was ennobling by +comparison; and so there is nothing to temper the +sentiment of indoor revelry which pervades the poor boy's +verses. Although it is characteristic of his native +town, and the manners of its youth to the present day, +this spirit has perhaps done something to restrict his +popularity. He recalls a supper-party pleasantry with +something akin to tenderness; and sounds the praises of +the act of drinking as if it were virtuous, or at least +witty, in itself. The kindly jar, the warm atmosphere of +tavern parlours, and the revelry of lawyers' clerks, do +not offer by themselves the materials of a rich +existence. It was not choice, so much as an external +fate, that kept Fergusson in this round of sordid +pleasures. A Scot of poetic temperament, and without +religious exaltation, drops as if by nature into the +public-house. The picture may not be pleasing; but what +else is a man to do in this dog's weather? + +To none but those who have themselves suffered the +thing in the body, can the gloom and depression of our +Edinburgh winter be brought home. For some constitutions +there is something almost physically disgusting in the +bleak ugliness of easterly weather; the wind wearies, the +sickly sky depresses them; and they turn back from their +walk to avoid the aspect of the unrefulgent sun going +down among perturbed and pallid mists. The days are so +short that a man does much of his business, and certainly +all his pleasure, by the haggard glare of gas lamps. The +roads are as heavy as a fallow. People go by, so +drenched and draggle-tailed that I have often wondered +how they found the heart to undress. And meantime the +wind whistles through the town as if it were an open +meadow; and if you lie awake all night, you hear it +shrieking and raving overhead with a noise of shipwrecks +and of falling houses. In a word, life is so unsightly +that there are times when the heart turns sick in a man's +inside; and the look of a tavern, or the thought of the +warm, fire-lit study, is like the touch of land to one +who has been long struggling with the seas. + +As the weather hardens towards frost, the world +begins to improve for Edinburgh people. We enjoy superb, +sub-arctic sunsets, with the profile of the city stamped +in indigo upon a sky of luminous green. The wind may +still be cold, but there is a briskness in the air that +stirs good blood. People do not all look equally sour +and downcast. They fall into two divisions: one, the +knight of the blue face and hollow paunch, whom Winter +has gotten by the vitals; the other well lined with New- +year's fare, conscious of the touch of cold on his +periphery, but stepping through it by the glow of his +internal fires. Such an one I remember, triply cased in +grease, whom no extremity of temperature could vanquish. +'Well,' would be his jovial salutation, 'here's a +sneezer!' And the look of these warm fellows is tonic, +and upholds their drooping fellow-townsmen. There is yet +another class who do not depend on corporal advantages, +but support the winter in virtue of a brave and merry +heart. One shivering evening, cold enough for frost but +with too high a wind, and a little past sundown, when the +lamps were beginning to enlarge their circles in the +growing dusk, a brace of barefoot lassies were seen +coming eastward in the teeth of the wind. If the one was +as much as nine, the other was certainly not more than +seven. They were miserably clad; and the pavement was so +cold, you would have thought no one could lay a naked +foot on it unflinching. Yet they came along waltzing, if +you please, while the elder sang a tune to give them +music. The person who saw this, and whose heart was full +of bitterness at the moment, pocketed a reproof which has +been of use to him ever since, and which he now hands on, +with his good wishes, to the reader. + +At length, Edinburgh, with her satellite hills and +all the sloping country, are sheeted up in white. If it +has happened in the dark hours, nurses pluck their +children out of bed and run with them to some commanding +window, whence they may see the change that has been +worked upon earth's face. 'A' the hills are covered wi' +snaw,' they sing, 'and Winter's noo come fairly!' And +the children, marvelling at the silence and the white +landscape, find a spell appropriate to the season in the +words. The reverberation of the snow increases the pale +daylight, and brings all objects nearer the eye. The +Pentlands are smooth and glittering, with here and there +the black ribbon of a dry-stone dyke, and here and there, +if there be wind, a cloud of blowing snow upon a +shoulder. The Firth seems a leaden creek, that a man +might almost jump across, between well-powdered Lothian +and well-powdered Fife. And the effect is not, as in +other cities, a thing of half a day; the streets are soon +trodden black, but the country keeps its virgin white; +and you have only to lift your eyes and look over miles +of country snow. An indescribable cheerfulness breathes +about the city; and the well-fed heart sits lightly and +beats gaily in the - bosom. It is New-year's weather. + +New-year's Day, the great national festival, is a +time of family expansions and of deep carousal. +Sometimes, by a sore stoke of fate for this Calvinistic +people, the year's anniversary fails upon a Sunday, when +the public-houses are inexorably closed, when singing and +even whistling is banished from our homes and highways, +and the oldest toper feels called upon to go to church. +Thus pulled about, as if between two loyalties, the +Scotch have to decide many nice cases of conscience, and +ride the marches narrowly between the weekly and the +annual observance. A party of convivial musicians, next +door to a friend of mine, hung suspended in this manner +on the brink of their diversions. From ten o'clock on +Sunday night, my friend heard them tuning their +instruments: and as the hour of liberty drew near, each +must have had his music open, his bow in readiness across +the fiddle, his foot already raised to mark the time, and +his nerves braced for execution; for hardly had the +twelfth stroke. sounded from the earliest steeple, before +they had launced forth into a secular bravura. + +Currant-loaf is now popular eating in all house- +holds. For weeks before the great morning, confectioners +display stacks of Scotch bun - a dense, black substance, +inimical to life - and full moons of shortbread adorned +with mottoes of peel or sugar-plum, in honour of the +season and the family affections. 'Frae Auld Reekie,' 'A +guid New Year to ye a',' 'For the Auld Folk at Hame,' are +among the most favoured of these devices. Can you not +see the carrier, after half-a-day's journey on pinching +hill-roads, draw up before a cottage in Teviotdale, or +perhaps in Manor Glen among the rowans, and the old +people receiving the parcel with moist eyes and a prayer +for Jock or Jean in the city? For at this season, on the +threshold of another year of calamity and stubborn +conflict, men feel a need to draw closer the links that +unite them; they reckon the number of their friends, like +allies before a war; and the prayers grow longer in the +morning as the absent are recommended by name into God's +keeping. + +On the day itself, the shops are all shut as on a +Sunday; only taverns, toyshops, and other holiday +magazines, keep open doors. Every one looks for his +handsel. The postman and the lamplighters have left, at +every house in their districts, a copy of vernacular +verses, asking and thanking in a breath; and it is +characteristic of Scotland that these verses may have +sometimes a touch of reality in detail or sentiment and a +measure of strength in the handling. All over the town, +you may see comforter'd schoolboys hasting to squander +their half-crowns. There are an infinity of visits to be +paid; all the world is in the street, except the daintier +classes; the sacramental greeting is heard upon all +sides; Auld Lang Syne is much in people's mouths; and +whisky and shortbread are staple articles of consumption. +From an early hour a stranger will be impressed by the +number of drunken men; and by afternoon drunkenness has +spread to the women. With some classes of society, it is +as much a matter of duty to drink hard on New-year's Day +as to go to church on Sunday. Some have been saving +their wages for perhaps a month to do the season honour. +Many carry a whisky-bottle in their pocket, which they +will press with embarrassing effusion on a perfect +stranger. It is inexpedient to risk one's body in a cab, +or not, at least, until after a prolonged study of the +driver. The streets, which are thronged from end to end, +become a place for delicate pilotage. Singly or arm-in- +arm, some speechless, others noisy and quarrelsome, the +votaries of the New Year go meandering in and out and +cannoning one against another; and now and again, one +falls and lies as he has fallen. Before night, so many +have gone to bed or the police office, that the streets +seem almost clearer. And as GUISARDS and FIRST-FOOTERS +are now not much seen except in country places, when once +the New Year has been rung in and proclaimed at the Tron +railings, the festivities begin to find their way indoors +and something like quiet returns upon the town. But +think, in these piled LANDS, of all the senseless +snorers, all the broken heads and empty pockets! + +Of old, Edinburgh University was the scene of heroic +snowballing; and one riot obtained the epic honours of +military intervention. But the great generation, I am +afraid, is at an end; and even during my own college +days, the spirit appreciably declined. Skating and +sliding, on the other hand, are honoured more and more; +and curling, being a creature of the national genius, is +little likely to be disregarded. The patriotism that +leads a man to eat Scotch bun will scarce desert him at +the curling-pond. Edinburgh, with its long, steep +pavements, is the proper home of sliders; many a happy +urchin can slide the whole way to school; and the +profession of errand-boy is transformed into a holiday +amusement. As for skating, there is scarce any city so +handsomely provided. Duddingstone Loch lies under the +abrupt southern side of Arthur's Seat; in summer a shield +of blue, with swans sailing from the reeds; in winter, a +field of ringing ice. The village church sits above it +on a green promontory; and the village smoke rises from +among goodly trees. At the church gates, is the +historical JOUG; a place of penance for the neck of +detected sinners, and the historical LOUPING-ON STANE, +from which Dutch-built lairds and farmers climbed into +the saddle. Here Prince Charlie slept before the battle +of Prestonpans; and here Deacon Brodie, or one of his +gang, stole a plough coulter before the burglary in +Chessel's Court. On the opposite side of the loch, the +ground rises to Craigmillar Castle, a place friendly to +Stuart Mariolaters. It is worth a climb, even in summer, +to look down upon the loch from Arthur's Seat; but it is +tenfold more so on a day of skating. The surface is +thick with people moving easily and swiftly and leaning +over at a thousand graceful inclinations; the crowd opens +and closes, and keeps moving through itself like water; +and the ice rings to half a mile away, with the flying +steel. As night draws on, the single figures melt into +the dusk, until only an obscure stir, and coming and +going of black clusters, is visible upon the loch. A +little longer, and the first torch is kindled and begins +to flit rapidly across the ice in a ring of yellow +reflection, and this is followed by another and another, +until the whole field is full of skimming lights. + + + +CHAPTER X. +TO THE PENTLAND HILLS. + + +ON three sides of Edinburgh, the country slopes +downward from the city, here to the sea, there to the fat +farms of Haddington, there to the mineral fields of +Linlithgow. On the south alone, it keeps rising until it +not only out-tops the Castle but looks down on Arthur's +Seat. The character of the neighbourhood is pretty +strongly marked by a scarcity of hedges; by many stone +walls of varying height; by a fair amount of timber, some +of it well grown, but apt to be of a bushy, northern +profile and poor in foliage; by here and there a little +river, Esk or Leith or Almond, busily journeying in the +bottom of its glen; and from almost every point, by a +peep of the sea or the hills. There is no lack of +variety, and yet most of the elements are common to all +parts; and the southern district is alone distinguished +by considerable summits and a wide view. + +From Boroughmuirhead, where the Scottish army +encamped before Flodden, the road descends a long hill, +at the bottom of which and just as it is preparing to +mount upon the other side, it passes a toll-bar and +issues at once into the open country. Even as I write +these words, they are being antiquated in the progress of +events, and the chisels are tinkling on a new row of +houses. The builders have at length adventured beyond +the toll which held them in respect so long, and proceed +to career in these fresh pastures like a herd of colts +turned loose. As Lord Beaconsfield proposed to hang an +architect by way of stimulation, a man, looking on these +doomed meads, imagines a similar example to deter the +builders; for it seems as if it must come to an open +fight at last to preserve a corner of green country +unbedevilled. And here, appropriately enough, there +stood in old days a crow-haunted gibbet, with two bodies +hanged in chains. I used to be shown, when a child, a +flat stone in the roadway to which the gibbet had been +fixed. People of a willing fancy were persuaded, and +sought to persuade others, that this stone was never dry. +And no wonder, they would add, for the two men had only +stolen fourpence between them. + +For about two miles the road climbs upwards, a long +hot walk in summer time. You reach the summit at a place +where four ways meet, beside the toll of Fairmilehead. +The spot is breezy and agreeable both in name and aspect. +The hills are close by across a valley: Kirk Yetton, with +its long, upright scars visible as far as Fife, and +Allermuir the tallest on this side with wood and tilled +field running high upon their borders, and haunches all +moulded into innumerable glens and shelvings and +variegated with heather and fern. The air comes briskly +and sweetly off the hills, pure from the elevation and +rustically scented by the upland plants; and even at the +toll, you may hear the curlew calling on its mate. At +certain seasons, when the gulls desert their surfy +forelands, the birds of sea and mountain hunt and scream +together in the same field by Fairmilehead. The winged, +wild things intermix their wheelings, the sea-birds skim +the tree-tops and fish among the furrows of the plough. +These little craft of air are at home in all the world, +so long as they cruise in their own element; and, like +sailors, ask but food and water from the shores they +coast. + +Below, over a stream, the road passes Bow Bridge, +now a dairy-farm, but once a distillery of whisky. It +chanced, some time in the past century, that the +distiller was on terms of good-fellowship with the +visiting officer of excise. The latter was of an easy, +friendly disposition, and a master of convivial arts. +Now and again, he had to walk out of Edinburgh to measure +the distiller's stock; and although it was agreeable to +find his business lead him in a friend's direction, it +was unfortunate that the friend should be a loser by his +visits. Accordingly, when he got about the level of +Fairmilehead, the gauger would take his flute, without +which he never travelled, from his pocket, fit it +together, and set manfully to playing, as if for his own +delectation and inspired by the beauty of the scene. His +favourite air, it seems, was 'Over the hills and far +away.' At the first note, the distiller pricked his +ears. A flute at Fairmilehead? and playing 'Over the +hills and far away?' This must be his friendly enemy, +the gauger. Instantly horses were harnessed, and sundry +barrels of whisky were got upon a cart, driven at a +gallop round Hill End, and buried in the mossy glen +behind Kirk Yetton. In the same breath, you may be sure, +a fat fowl was put to the fire, and the whitest napery +prepared for the back parlour. A little after, the +gauger, having had his fill of music for the moment, came +strolling down with the most innocent air imaginable, and +found the good people at Bow Bridge taken entirely +unawares by his arrival, but none the less glad to see +him. The distiller's liquor and the gauger's flute would +combine to speed the moments of digestion; and when both +were somewhat mellow, they would wind up the evening with +'Over the hills and far away' to an accompaniment of +knowing glances. And at least, there is a smuggling +story, with original and half-idyllic features. + +A little further, the road to the right passes an +upright stone in a field. The country people call it +General Kay's monument. According to them, an officer of +that name had perished there in battle at some indistinct +period before the beginning of history. The date is +reassuring; for I think cautious writers are silent on +the General's exploits. But the stone is connected with +one of those remarkable tenures of land which linger on +into the modern world from Feudalism. Whenever the +reigning sovereign passes by, a certain landed proprietor +is held bound to climb on to the top, trumpet in hand, +and sound a flourish according to the measure of his +knowledge in that art. Happily for a respectable family, +crowned heads have no great business in the Pentland +Hills. But the story lends a character of comicality to +the stone; and the passer-by will sometimes chuckle to +himself. + +The district is dear to the superstitious. Hard by, +at the back-gate of Comiston, a belated carter beheld a +lady in white, 'with the most beautiful, clear shoes upon +her feet,' who looked upon him in a very ghastly manner +and then vanished; and just in front is the Hunters' +Tryst, once a roadside inn, and not so long ago haunted +by the devil in person. Satan led the inhabitants a +pitiful existence. He shook the four corners of the +building with lamentable outcries, beat at the doors and +windows, overthrew crockery in the dead hours of the +morning, and danced unholy dances on the roof. Every +kind of spiritual disinfectant was put in requisition; +chosen ministers were summoned out of Edinburgh and +prayed by the hour; pious neighbours sat up all night +making a noise of psalmody; but Satan minded them no more +than the wind about the hill-tops; and it was only after +years of persecution, that he left the Hunters' Tryst in +peace to occupy himself with the remainder of mankind. +What with General Kay, and the white lady, and this +singular visitation, the neighbourhood offers great +facilities to the makers of sun-myths; and without +exactly casting in one's lot with that disenchanting +school of writers, one cannot help hearing a good deal of +the winter wind in the last story. 'That nicht,' says +Burns, in one of his happiest moments,- + + +'THAT NICHT A CHILD MIGHT UNDERSTAND +THE DEIL HAD BUSINESS ON HIS HAND.' + + +And if people sit up all night in lone places on the +hills, with Bibles and tremulous psalms, they will be apt +to hear some of the most fiendish noises in the world; +the wind will beat on doors and dance upon roofs for +them, and make the hills howl around their cottage with a +clamour like the judgment-day. + +The road goes down through another valley, and then +finally begins to scale the main slope of the Pentlands. +A bouquet of old trees stands round a white farmhouse; +and from a neighbouring dell, you can see smoke rising +and leaves ruffling in the breeze. Straight above, the +hills climb a thousand feet into the air. The +neighbourhood, about the time of lambs, is clamorous with +the bleating of flocks; and you will be awakened, in the +grey of early summer mornings, by the barking of a dog or +the voice of a shepherd shouting to the echoes. This, +with the hamlet lying behind unseen, is Swanston. + +The place in the dell is immediately connected with +the city. Long ago, this sheltered field was purchased +by the Edinburgh magistrates for the sake of the springs +that rise or gather there. After they had built their +water-house and laid their pipes, it occurred to them +that the place was suitable for junketing. Once +entertained, with jovial magistrates and public funds, +the idea led speedily to accomplishment; and Edinburgh +could soon boast of a municipal Pleasure House. The dell +was turned into a garden; and on the knoll that shelters +it from the plain and the sea winds, they built a cottage +looking to the hills. They brought crockets and +gargoyles from old St. Giles's which they were then +restoring, and disposed them on the gables and over the +door and about the garden; and the quarry which had +supplied them with building material, they draped with +clematis and carpeted with beds of roses. So much for +the pleasure of the eye; for creature comfort, they made +a capacious cellar in the hillside and fitted it with +bins of the hewn stone. In process of time, the trees +grew higher and gave shade to the cottage, and the +evergreens sprang up and turned the dell into a thicket. +There, purple magistrates relaxed themselves from the +pursuit of municipal ambition; cocked hats paraded +soberly about the garden and in and out among the +hollies; authoritative canes drew ciphering upon the +path; and at night, from high upon the hills, a shepherd +saw lighted windows through the foliage and heard the +voice of city dignitaries raised in song. + +The farm is older. It was first a grange of +Whitekirk Abbey, tilled and inhabited by rosy friars. +Thence, after the Reformation, it passed into the hands +of a true-blue Protestant family. During the covenanting +troubles, when a night conventicle was held upon the +Pentlands, the farm doors stood hospitably open till the +morning; the dresser was laden with cheese and bannocks, +milk and brandy; and the worshippers kept slipping down +from the hill between two exercises, as couples visit the +supper-room between two dances of a modern ball. In the +Forty-Five, some foraging Highlanders from Prince +Charlie's army fell upon Swanston in the dawn. The +great-grandfather of the late farmer was then a little +child; him they awakened by plucking the blankets from +his bed, and he remembered, when he was an old man, their +truculent looks and uncouth speech. The churn stood full +of cream in the dairy, and with this they made their +brose in high delight. 'It was braw brose,' said one of +them. At last they made off, laden like camels with +their booty; and Swanston Farm has lain out of the way of +history from that time forward. I do not know what may +be yet in store for it. On dark days, when the mist runs +low upon the hill, the house has a gloomy air as if +suitable for private tragedy. But in hot July, you can +fancy nothing more perfect than the garden, laid out in +alleys and arbours and bright, old-fashioned flower- +plots, and ending in a miniature ravine, all trellis-work +and moss and tinkling waterfall, and housed from the sun +under fathoms of broad foliage. + +The hamlet behind is one of the least considerable +of hamlets, and consists of a few cottages on a green +beside a burn. Some of them (a strange thing in +Scotland) are models of internal neatness; the beds +adorned with patchwork, the shelves arrayed with willow- +pattern plates, the floors and tables bright with +scrubbing or pipe-clay, and the very kettle polished like +silver. It is the sign of a contented old age in country +places, where there is little matter for gossip and no +street sights. Housework becomes an art; and at evening, +when the cottage interior shines and twinkles in the glow +of the fire, the housewife folds her hands and +contemplates her finished picture; the snow and the wind +may do their worst, she has made herself a pleasant +corner in the world. The city might be a thousand miles +away, and yet it was from close by that Mr. Bough painted +the distant view of Edinburgh which has been engraved for +this collection; and you have only to look at the +etching, * to see how near it is at hand. But hills and +hill people are not easily sophisticated; and if you walk +out here on a summer Sunday, it is as like as not the +shepherd may set his dogs upon you. But keep an unmoved +countenance; they look formidable at the charge, but +their hearts are in the right place, and they will only +bark and sprawl about you on the grass, unmindful of +their master's excitations. + +* One of the illustrations of the First Edition. + +Kirk Yetton forms the north-eastern angle of the +range; thence, the Pentlands trend off to south and west. +From the summit you look over a great expanse of +champaign sloping to the sea, and behold a large variety +of distant hills. There are the hills of Fife, the hills +of Peebles, the Lammermoors and the Ochils, more or less +mountainous in outline, more or less blue with distance. +Of the Pentlands themselves, you see a field of wild +heathery peaks with a pond gleaming in the midst; and to +that side the view is as desolate as if you were looking +into Galloway or Applecross. To turn to the other is +like a piece of travel. Far out in the lowlands +Edinburgh shows herself, making a great smoke on clear +days and spreading her suburbs about her for miles; the +Castle rises darkly in the midst, and close by, Arthur's +Seat makes a bold figure in the landscape. All around, +cultivated fields, and woods, and smoking villages, and +white country roads, diversify the uneven surface of the +land. Trains crawl slowly abroad upon the railway lines; +little ships are tacking in the Firth; the shadow of a +mountainous cloud, as large as a parish, travels before +the wind; the wind itself ruffles the wood and standing +corn, and sends pulses of varying colour across the +landscape. So you sit, like Jupiter upon Olympus, and +look down from afar upon men's life. The city is as +silent as a city of the dead: from all its humming +thoroughfares, not a voice, not a footfall, reaches you +upon the hill. The sea-surf, the cries of ploughmen, the +streams and the mill-wheels, the birds and the wind, keep +up an animated concert through the plain; from farm to +farm, dogs and crowing cocks contend together in +defiance; and yet from this Olympian station, except for +the whispering rumour of a train, the world has fallen +into a dead silence, and the business of town and country +grown voiceless in your ears. A crying hill-bird, the +bleat of a sheep, a wind singing in the dry grass, seem +not so much to interrupt, as to accompany, the stillness; +but to the spiritual ear, the whole scene makes a music +at once human and rural, and discourses pleasant +reflections on the destiny of man. The spiry habitable +city, ships, the divided fields, and browsing herds, and +the straight highways, tell visibly of man's active and +comfortable ways; and you may be never so laggard and +never so unimpressionable, but there is something in the +view that spirits up your blood and puts you in the vein +for cheerful labour. + +Immediately below is Fairmilehead, a spot of roof +and a smoking chimney, where two roads, no thicker than +packthread, intersect beside a hanging wood. If you are +fanciful, you will be reminded of the gauger in the +story. And the thought of this old exciseman, who once +lipped and fingered on his pipe and uttered clear notes +from it in the mountain air, and the words of the song he +affected, carry your mind 'Over the hills and far away' +to distant countries; and you have a vision of Edinburgh +not, as you see her, in the midst of a little +neighbourhood, but as a boss upon the round world with +all Europe and the deep sea for her surroundings. For +every place is a centre to the earth, whence highways +radiate or ships set sail for foreign ports; the limit of +a parish is not more imaginary than the frontier of an +empire; and as a man sitting at home in his cabinet and +swiftly writing books, so a city sends abroad an +influence and a portrait of herself. There is no +Edinburgh emigrant, far or near, from China to Peru, but +he or she carries some lively pictures of the mind, some +sunset behind the Castle cliffs, some snow scene, some +maze of city lamps, indelible in the memory and +delightful to study in the intervals of toil. For any +such, if this book fall in their way, here are a few more +home pictures. It would be pleasant, if they should +recognise a house where they had dwelt, or a walk that +they had taken. + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg eText Edinburgh - +Picturesque Notes + diff --git a/old/edinn10.zip b/old/edinn10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..971c965 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/edinn10.zip |
