beyond my view; in the archway that led downward to the castle
gate, only the red coat and the bright arms of a sentry glittered
in the shadow; and I could but return to my place upon the
ramparts.

I am not very sure that I was properly entitled to this corner.
But I was a high favourite; not an officer, and scarce a private,
in the castle would have turned me back, except upon a thing of
moment; and whenever I desired to be solitary, I was suffered to
sit here behind my piece of cannon unmolested. The cliff went down
before me almost sheer, but mantled with a thicket of climbing
trees; from farther down, an outwork raised its turret; and across
the valley I had a view of that long terrace of Princes Street
which serves as a promenade to the fashionable inhabitants of
Edinburgh. A singularity in a military prison, that it should
command a view on the chief thoroughfare!

It is not necessary that I should trouble you with the train of my
reflections, which turned upon the interview I had just concluded
and the hopes that were now opening before me. What is more
essential, my eye (even while I thought) kept following the
movement of the passengers on Princes Street, as they passed
briskly to and fro--met, greeted, and bowed to each other--or
entered and left the shops, which are in that quarter, and, for a
town of the Britannic provinces, particularly fine. My mind being
busy upon other things, the course of my eye was the more random;
and it chanced that I followed, for some time, the advance of a
young gentleman with a red head and a white great-coat, for whom I
cared nothing at the moment, and of whom it is probable I shall be
gathered to my fathers without learning more. He seemed to have a