And crown your rightfu', lawfu' king,
For wha'll be king but Charlie?'

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

`Where's the coward who would not dare
To fight for such a land?'

While I was rhapsodising, Salemina and Francesca were shopping in
the Arcade, buying some of the cairngorms, and Tam O'Shanter purses,
and models of Burns's cottage, and copies of Marmion in plaided
covers, and thistle belt-buckles, and bluebell penwipers, with which
we afterwards inundated our native land. When my warlike mood had
passed, I sat down upon the steps of the Scott monument and watched
the passers-by in a sort of waking dream. I suppose they were the
usual professors and doctors and ministers who are wont to walk up
and down the Edinburgh streets, with a sprinkling of lairds and
leddies of high degree and a few Americans looking at the shop
windows to choose their clan tartans; but for me they did not exist.
In their places stalked the ghosts of kings and queens and knights
and nobles; Columba, Abbot of Iona; Queen Margaret and Malcolm--she