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