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;