have entranced the man of science with delight, but which the
uninitiated and sordid man would have regarded less than the
mole rearing up his hill in silence and in darkness.

George did admire this halo of glory, which still grew wider, and
less defined, as he approached the surface, of the cloud. But, to
his utter amazement and supreme delight, he found, on reaching
the top of Arthur's Seat, that this sublunary rainbow, this
terrestrial glory, was spread in its most vivid hues beneath his
feet. Still he could not perceive the body of the sun, although the
light behind him was dazzling; but the cloud of haze lying dense
in that deep dell that separates the hill from the rocks of
Salisbury, and the dull shadow of the hill mingling with that
cloud made the dell a pit of darkness. On that shadowy cloud was
the lovely rainbow formed, spreading itself on a horizontal plain,
and having a slight and brilliant shade of all the colours of the
heavenly bow, but all of them paler and less defined. But this
terrestrial phenomenon of the early morn cannot be better
delineated than by the name given of it by the shepherd boys,
"The little wee ghost of the rainbow."

Such was the description of the morning, and the wild shades of
the hill, that George gave to his father and Mr. Adam Gordon that
same day on which he had witnessed them; and it is necessary
that the reader should comprehend something of their nature to
understand what follows.

He seated himself on the pinnacle of the rocky precipice, a little
within the top of the hill to the westward, and, with a light and
buoyant heart, viewed the beauties of the morning, and inhaled its