Glimpses of Three Coasts

S PILG

its north and south promontories, it stretches a curving coast of ninety; and when Robert Burns strolled over its breezy uplands, he saw always beautiful and mysterious silver lines of land thrusting themselves out into the mists of the sea, point

parchment league in vain to keep green the memory of him who did not love and consecrate by his life-blood, in fight or in song, the soil where he trod. But for him who has done this,-who fought well, sang well,-t

lders of the different baronies of Ayrshire compared respe

r a man; Ky

tter and cheese;

whom Carrick can be proud as is Kyle of Robert Burns. It has been said that a copy of his poems lies on every Scotch cottager's shelf, by the side of the Bible. This is probably not very far fro

he pretty young vice-landlady of the King's Arms at Ayr, when

think of that?"

his summer. I think you love him in America a'most as well as we do oursel's. It's vary seldom the English come to see

the next morning as if it had been a pleasure excursion for herself. It is but a dull life she leads, helping her widowed mother keep the King's Arms,-dull, and unprofitable too, I fear; for it takes four men-servants and seven women to keep up the house, and I saw no symptom of any coming or going of customers in it. A stilln

It is very much to be questioned whether, in a republic, the people who find themselves temporarily lower down in the social scale than they like to be or expect to stay, feel, in their consciousness of the pos

ellers in these little suburban houses get fine off-looks seaward and a wholesome breeze in at their windows. The houses are built joined by twos, with a yard in common. They have three rooms besides the kitchen, and they rent for twenty-five pounds a year; so no industrious man of Ayr need be badly lodged. Where the houses leave off, hedges begin,-thorn and beech, untrimmed

Freemasons, and organized the club which, no doubt, cost him dear, "The Bachelors of Tarbolton." In the beginning this club consisted of only five members besides Burns and his broth

fessed lover of one or more of the sex. The proper person for this society is a cheerful, honest-hearted lad, who, if he has a friend that

squalid, with thatched roofs and walls awry; those that are not squalid are grim. The streets are winding and tangled; the people look poor and dull. As I drove up to the "Crown Inn," the place where the Tarbolton Freemasons meet now, and wh

e Sabbat

or a few moments, and then set off, at ful

takes three to open the chest. I think ye'll na see it th

bath in this country," said my dri

ll-ringer had come down, and followed me curiously about among the graves. One very old stone had carved upon it two high-top boot

it mean?

g about it. His mother, now ninety years of age, remembered seein

chains and stone posts, was a carefully kept square of green turf, on which lay a granite slab. "Every year comes the

raveyard was dilapidated, a

wall was here in B

ow, thatched cottage just outside it, "and yon shop-

abbath," and "he's sick in bed," and it was "against the rules to open the regalia chest unless three Masons were present," the kindly landlord, piling up reason after reason, irrespective of their consistency with each other, went on to explain that it would be impossible; but I might see the chair in which Burns always sat. Th

r, mem, plain as it is. You'd not think it; but there'

is probably much like the room in which Burns first opened his wondrous eyes. The man was lying on the floor playing with his baby. At the name of Burns, he sprang up with a hearty "Ay, weel," and ran out in his blue-stocking feet to show me the cellar, of which, it was plainly to be seen, he was far prouder than of his more comfortable side of the house. The name by which the inn was called in Burns's day he did not know. But "He's a Mason over there; he'll know," he cried; and before I could prevent h

rns's health at the lodge when

ronkit," he said, with a c

shed and barn, all in one low, long, oddly joined (or jointed) building of irregular heights, like a telescope pulled out to its full length; a little brook an

own on Wil

gh he th

, but just

e of him make out to

r horns, wi'

t my

she had th

ld na

new; and there is a look of thrift and comfort about the place, quite unlike the face it must have worn in 1784. The house stands on a rising knoll, and from the windows looking westward and seaward there must be a fine horizon and headlands to be seen at sunset. Nobody was at home on this day except a barefooted servant-girl, who was keeping the house while the family were at church. She came to the door with an expression of almost alarm, at the unwonted apparition of a carriage driving down the lane on Su

ll not speak on the Sabbath." It would have been useless to try to explain to him that the spectacle of this Scottish "S

few months before their father's death in 1784. It was stocked by the joint savings of the whole family; and each member of the family was allowed fair rates of wages for all labor perform

e bitter harvests from the wild oats sown during the seven years at

th a full resolution, 'Co

n a man's head, and completely screens from the road the farm-house and the outbuildings behind it. The present tenants have lived on the farm forty years, the first twenty in the same house which stood there when Robert and Gilbert Burns pledged themselves to pay one hundred and twenty pounds a

old house pulled down?" I said

ed; "it had na 'coomodation, and the thatc

she first came to this part of the country she was "vary soorpreezed" to find the great esteem in which Burns's poetry was held. In the North, where she had lived, he was "na thocht weel of." Her father had never permitted a copy of his poems to be brought inside his doors, and had forbidden his children to read a word of them. "He thocht them too

es, which must have been superb a century ago, stand to right and left of the house,-beeches, ashes, oaks, and planes. The fields which are in sight from the house are

cow'rin', tim'

ver since for a mint of reassuring comparison to all of us, remembering that "the best-laid schemes o'

, crimson-ti

about them. The stern air of the north country in which she had been reared still chilled som

ew houses built on either side of it; Gavin Hamilton's, a dark, picturesque stone house, joined to the ruins of Mauchline Castle; and Nansie Tinnoch's, a black and dilapidated hovel, into which it takes courage to go. It stands snugged up against the wall of the old graveyard, part below it and

their sins, an' so

r, cheerier place than now; else the "Jolly B

ssion was only three quarters of an hour long, this much of involuntary dissipation was plainly forced on them; but they did not abuse it, I can testify. They partook of it as of a p

t the Mossgiel farm and the disappearance of the old relics of Burns's life in that

ke up an elderly man. "It was na moor th

much amused at hearing of the farm-wife's disapproval of

bert Bur-r-r-ns." The prolongation of the "r" in the Scotch way of saying "Burns" is something that cannot be typographically represented.

fields,-she told me in a mysterious whisper that there was a nephew of Burns's in the kitchen, who would like to see me, if I would like to see him. "A nephew of Burns's!" I exclaimed. "Weel, not exactly," she explained, "but he's a grand-nephew of Burns's wife; she thet

ty. He, too, seemed only half willing to speak of poor "Jean,"-his kinswoman; but he led me to the cottage where she had lived, and pointed out the window from which she was said to have leaned out many a night listening to the songs of her lover when he sauntered across from th

ton himself, is still shown to visitors. This room I had a greater desire to see than any other spot i

hearty, and rosy as only an old Scotchwoman can be. This servant opened the door for us, her cap, calico gown, and white apron all alike bristling with starch, religion, and pride of family. He

eply, as she turned on her heel to go with the fruitle

shew it on

, who had kept in the backg

know me, El

ing herself up mentally against a

--?" repeating h

same cap, gown, and apron, a limber, rollicking, wellnigh improper old woman, who poked the grand-nephew in the ribs, clapped him on the

was an old man-servant of the house.) "An' m

he was eighteen years of age. Forbidden to marry her lover, she had drooped and pined. He went to India and died. I

lass," said Elspie, the te

are say she's shed many a salt tear over it; but naebod

. "There's a wee bit

all ivy-shaded window. "I closed her eyes wi' my h

heart was broken by her cruel will, seemed to shadow the very sunshine on the greensward in the court. The broken arches and crumbling walls of the old stone abbe

er, said: "I daur na! I daur na! I could na open the door that she'd na hear 't." And she seemed much relieved when I made haste to assure her that on no account

he one leading through Tarbolton, and much more beautiful, with superb beech-trees

astle, walled in by grand woo

d braes and

le o' Mo

woods and fair

ers neve

first unfau

the lang

took the l

et Highla

aired gate-keeper. As the horses' heads turned toward the gate, he arose slowly, without a change of muscle, and

to go in?" as

ng at the hoos?" asked

ke to see all the fine places

o orders-but-a decent pairson"-looking again scrutinizingly a

o attempt at decorative landscape art; grass, trees, distances,-these were all; but there were miles of these. It was at least a mile's drive to the other entrance to

please God," said the loyal creature, with another courtesy at the mention, unconsciously devout as that of the Catholic when he crosses himself. "An' it's a fine country ye've yersel' in America," she added politely. The Oswald estate has acres of beautiful curving uplands, all green and smooth and open; a lack of woods near the house, but great banks of sunshi

her from Ayr over any road except the one Tam o' Shanter took: it has been straightened a little since his day, but many a rod of it is the same that Maggie trod; and Alloway Kirk is as ghostly a place now, even at hig

our civil war; and side by side on the walls of his dining-room hang, framed, his two commissions in the Pennsylvania Volunteers and the m

unjust satire of their apparent love of Burns, which he ascribes to a perception of his recognition

much of him," he said. "It

ll square window of four panes. The bed is like the beds in all the old Scotch cottages, built into the wall, similar to tho

p keekit i

a lives will s

boy will b

'll ca' hi

iled with the well-known boxes, pincushions, baskets, paper-cutters, etc., made from sycamore wood grown on the banks of Doon and Ayr. These articles are all stamped with some pictures of scenery associated with Burns or with quotations from his verses. It is impossible to see all this money-making without thinking what a delicious, rollicking bit of verse Burns would write about it

columns, emblematic of the nine muses," say the guide-books. It stands in a garden overlooking the Doon, and is a painful sight. But in a room in the base of it are to be seen some relic

he "auld brig." This shining, silent water, and the overhanging, silent trees, and the silent bell in the gable of Al

stand at the foot of High Street, sile

n', ye'll think y

eekit o'er frae

the A

, narrow foot-p

barrows tremble

rmless bulk o'

onny brigs o'

interrupt the quarrel. Spite of all its boasting, however, the new bridge

y little

as glo

ills o' life

hief claims to distinction, the big wooden mug out of whic

nted unc

se had been "keepit" by a widow, who was "in no sense up to the beesiness," and "a' people did as they pleased in the hoos in her day." The mug has a metal rim and base; but spite of these it has needed to be clasped tog

rinted in Madison, Iowa. The old ladies were much interested in the approaching American election, had read all they could find about General Garfield, and were much impressed by the wise reticence of General Grant. "He must be a vary cautious man; disna say enough to please people," they said, with sagacious nods of approbation. They remembered Burns's wife very well, had visited her when she was living, a widow, at Dumfries, and told with glee a story which they said she herself used to narrate,

her; that was she,

"Na! never tell me now

hat he would sit up to open the door for Robert. Trembling with fear, the mother went to bed, and did not close her eyes, listening apprehensively for the angry meeting between father and son. She heard the door open, the old man's stern tone, Robert's gay reply; and in a twinkling more the two were sitting together over the fire, the father splitting his sides with half-unwilling laughter at the bo

s death he assumed the position of the head of the house, and led in family prayers each morning; and everybody said, even the servants, that there were never such beautiful prayers heard. He was a generous soul. After he left home he never came back for a visit, however poor he might be, without bringing a present for every me

In a word, learn taciturnity. Let that be your motto. Though you had the wisdom of Newto

village tragedy, in which great suffe

ommon run of men; but perhaps part of that fortitude is owing to their short-sightedness

ingenuous old spinsters remarked interrogatively. "At any rate, she suited him; an' it was ill speering at her after all that was said and done," the younger niece added, with real feeling in her tone. Well might she say so. If there be a touching picture in all the long list of faithful and ill-used women, it is that of "bonnie Jean,"-the unwedded mother of children

e a half-regret that I ever saw it, that I can recall vividly the ghastly graveyard of Saint Michael's, with its twenty-six thousand gravestones and monuments, crowded closer than they would be in a marble-yard, ranged in rows against the walls without any pretence of association with the dust they affect to commemorate. What a ballad Burns might have written about such a show! And what would it not have been given to him to say of the "Genius of Coila, finding her favorite son at the plough, and casting her mantle over him,"-that is, the sculptured

mmon tenement-house at the lower end of a poor and narrow street. As I was reading the tablet let i

"those three up there," pointing to the windows

ng joining the school. Here Burns lived for three years; and here, in a small chamber not more than twelve by fifteen feet in size, he died on

m is a tiny closet, l

said the servant-girl; "but I dare say it is onl

t to him from all over the world, but nobody knew what become of them. Now that he's so much thought aboot, I wonder his widow did not keep them. But, ye know, the poor thing was just comi

othing in the house, above or below, spoke to me of Burns so much as did they. I stood silent and rapt on the landing, and saw him coming wearily u

re in them three editorials headed with quotations from Burns's poems, and an account of

earth had done for him then a tithe of what it does now? Does he know it? Does he care? And does he

haunts his

rtal youth

every

side each

s in each r

ustlin

haunts this

mingled mi

hat fa

eath this r

s vacant cha

st and g

IN AULD

e "Auld Reekie." Perhaps there never was any such old gentleman; and perhaps he never did, as the legend narrates, regulate the hours of his f

ion puts into his mouth. They are wisely dated back to the reign of Charles II., a time from which none now speak to contradict; and they serve as well as any others to

turn to shrines. But few return thus to Edinburgh. It continually happens that people planning routes of travel are heard to say, "I have seen Edinburgh," pronouncing the word "seen" with a stress indicating a finality of completion. Nobody ever uses a phrase in that way about Ro

nds was a stronghold when Rome was a village. At any rate, there was a fortress there long before Edinburgh was a town, and that takes it back midway between the five hundredth and six hundredth year of our Lord. From that century down to this it was the centre of as glorious and ter

to the sunrise, by a west wind which never stopped blowing for the whole five days, streamed out the flag. To have read on its folds, "Castelh-Mynyd-Agned," or "Castrum Puellarum," would not have seemed at any hour a surprise. There is nowhere a relic of antiquity which so dominates its whole environment as does this rock fortress. Its actuality is sovereign; its personality majestic. The thousands of modern people thronging up and down Prince's Street seem perpetrating an impertinent anachronism. The times are the castle's times still; all this nineteenth-century haberdashery and chatter is an inexplicable and insolent freak of interruption. Sitting at one's Prince's Street windows, one sees it not; overlooks it as meaningless and of no consequence. Instead, he sees the constable's son, in Bruce's day, coming down that two hundred feet of precipice, hand over hand, on a bit of rope ladder, to visit the "wench in town" with whom he was in love; and anon turning this love-lore of his to patriotic ac

Every other one of Cromwell's men in the garrison had turned false, and done ready service to the king's officers; but not so Browne. It was only by main force that he was dragged to his gun, and forced to fire it. Whether the gun were old, and its time had come to burst, or whether the splendid old Pur

for the men, and for the officers oatmeal, stirred in the putrid water. This was the Duke of Gordon's doing, when he vowed to hold Edinburgh Castle for King James, if every other fortress in Scotland went over to William. When his last hope failed, and he gave his men permission to abandon the castle and go out to the enemy, if they chose, not a ma

ver who, in George the Third's day, went courting his duchess, over in Hyndford's Close, at the bottom of High Street. She was a famous beauty, daughter of Lady Maxwell; and thanks to one gossip and another, we know a good deal about her bringing-up. There was still living in Edinburgh, sixty years ago, an aged and courtly gentleman, who recollected well having seen her riding a sow in High Street; her sister running behind and thumping the beast with a stick. Duchesses a

untess Anne's bedchamber was great honor. The room was so small that the man-servant, John, gorgeous in the Balcarres livery, had to stand snugged up to the bedpost. Here, with one arm around the post, he stood like a statue, ready to

smells, filth underfoot, and, very likely, volleys of ribald abuse from gin-loosened tongues right and left and high up overhead; b

e above, it seems so far up and so dark blue, one half expects to see its stars glimmering at noonday. A single narrow winding stone stair is the only means of going up and down; and each floor being swarming full of wretched human beings, each room a tenement house in itself, of course this common stairway becomes a

the earl's wooing, which might better have been kept a secret between him and his father-in-law. The second Lady Eglintoune was ailing, and like to die, when Sir Archibald Kennedy arrived in Edinburgh, with his stalwart but beautiful daughter Susanna. She was much sought immediately; and Sir Archibald, in his perplexity among the many suitors, one day consulted his old friend Eglintoune. "Bide a wee, Sir Archy," replied the earl,-"bide a wee; my wife's very sickly." And so, by waiting, the fair Susanna became Countess of Eglintoune. It would seem as if Nature had some intent to punish the earl's impatient faithlessness to his sickly wife; for, year after year, seven years running, came a daughter,

ountry-place, she was so delighted with Johnson's conversation that she kissed him on parting,-from which we can argue her ladyship's liking for long words. She lived to be ninety-one, and amused herself in her last days

h individualities as these. The eighteenth century left a most entertaining budget, which we of to-day are too busy and too well educated to equal. No c

a thrifty housewife, of the better class, living there. She was coming home, with her market-basket on her arm. Seeing our eager scentin

, unwarned, a point in the winding stair where it was necessary to go bent half double; only a little child could have stood upright. With heads dizzy from the blow and eyes half blinded by the sudden darkness, we stumbled on, and brought out in a passage-way, perhaps three feet wide and ten long, from which opened four rooms: one the kitchen, a totally dark closet, not over six feet square; a tiny grate, a chair, table, and a bunk in the wall, where the servant slept, were all its furniture. The woman lighted a candle to show us how convenient was this bunk for the maid "to lie." Standing in the middle of the narrow passage, one could reach his head into kitchen, parlor, and both bedrooms without changin

heir customers, "an' the same a-comin' for seven year, noo." No doubt she has as lively a pride, and gets as many satisfactions between these narrow wal

as an elegant suburb. The city walls even then extended to enclose it, and it was eloquently describe

o her neighbors, in great state, driving six horses; and it not infrequently happened that when her lady

kname of Tam. Tam was so rich he was vulgarly believed to have the philosopher's stone; but he himself once gave a more probable explanation of his wealth, saying tha

sing, and fighting. Giving of an alms is like pouring oil on a fire. The whole gang is ablaze with envy and attack: the fierce and unscrupulous pillage of the seventeenth century is re-enacted in miniature in the Cowgate every day, when an injudicious stranger, passing through, throws a handful of pennies to the beggars. The general look of hopeless degradation in the spot is heightened by the great number of old-clothes shops along the whole line of the street. In the days when the Cowgate was an elegant suburb, the citizens were permitted by law to extend their upper stories seven feet into the street, provided they would build them of wood cut in the Borough Forest, a forest that harbored robbers dangerous to the town. These projecting upper stories are invaluable now to the old-clothes venders, who hang from them their hideous wares, in double and treble lines

but pious, must serve often now to point bitter jests among the ungodly. On one wretched, reeking tenement is: "O

ing, but my eye fell on it with as much relief as on a rift of blue sky in a storm: it was a little green fern growing in a pot. Outside the window it stood, on a perilously narrow ledge. As I watched it I grew frightened, lest the wind should blow

aces to rummage. If there were no other record of the slow decay and dwindling fortunes of the nobl

er Mary herself, but forgotten now as if they had never been; swords rusty, bent, battered, and stained; spoons with forgotten crests; punch-ladles worn smooth with the merry-makin

y locked in a glass case. On the back of it had been scratched, apparently with a pin, "Margret Fleming, fro

he time when not to know how to read was no indelible disgrace. In one of these shops, on the day I bought Margret Fleming's brooch, I found an old torn copy of "Pet Marjorie." Speaking of Dr. Brown and Rab to the bookseller,-himself almost a relic of antiquity,-I was astonished and greatl

hastily called the whole story a lee, from beginning to end, would hardly have shaken one's confidence

me to the surface quickly in associations which revived them. His conversation reminded us forcibly of somebody's excellent saying that Scotland would always be Scott-land. Not a line of Scott's novels which this vagabond cawdie did not seemingly know by heart. Scottish history, too, he had at his tongue's end, and its most familiar episodes sounded new

out a spot in the misty blue distance where was Dumbiedikes' house, where Jea

, sir, that it was that way she went, and it was there she met Dumbiedikes, and

Queen of Scots, Jeanie was evidently t

ned uniforms, were to be encountered, strolling, lounging, sitting with sweethearts or wives,-more of the former than the latter. It struck me also that the women were less good-looking than the men; but they were all beautified by happin

o' 't," I heard one old lady say to her husband, whose w

ht, to look a little scornfully on it. The soldiers did not seem to mind the affront, if they saw it; no doubt, they thought thei

es o' the

are wondr

a gie a s

a doub

them, gar

pon a

et better u

a ba

d held in place by a stout leather strap passing round their foreheads, they pull along at a steady, striding gait, up hill and down, carrying weights that it taxes a man's strength merely to lift. In fact, it is a fishwife's boast that she will run with a weight which it takes two men to put on her back. By reason of this great strength on the part of the women, and their immemorial habit of exercising it; perhaps also from other causes far back in the early days of Jutland, where these curious Newhaven fishing-folk are said to have originated,-it has

ught too selfish,-"it's a' spent i' the hoos. The men, they

in tha city, an' be spendin' a' the money,"

s an unjust system, and is much resented by both husbands and wives; but it has been established by law, and there is no help for it. It came in with the introduction of the steam trawlers. "They're the deestrooction o' the place," said one of the fish women. "A mon canna go oot wi' his lines an' mak a livin' noo. They just drag every

Newhaven wharf by seven o'clock in the morning, on a day when the traw

r, jostle, slip by to right and left of each other, and run up and down in their eager haste to catch the eye of one auctioneer, or to get first speech with another. The wharf is crowded with women,-an army in blue, two hundred, three hundred, at a time; white caps bobbing, elbows thrusting, shrill voices crying, fiery blue eyes shining, it is a sight worth going to Scotland for. If one has had an affection for Christie Johnstone, it is a del

warm that at first it seemed of no consequence whatever, so cold that all of a sudden one found himself

other side, on the narrow, rampart-like wall of stone, swarmed the fishmonger men. In this line I took my place, and the chances of the sc

her white hair blowing wildly about almost enough to

admitted, the "mist" was trickling in streams, while the cloak itsel

k cauld!" she cried. "Ye

hey flocked after him as he passed from one to another of the different lots of fish. They crowded in close circles around h

he women were fixed on the auctioneer's eyes; they beckoned; they shook forefingers at him; now and then a tall, stalwart one, reaching over less able-bodied comrades, took him by the shoulder, and compelled him to turn her way; one, most fearless of all, literally gripped him by the ear and pulled his head arou

othing more, breaking way for themselves, as if in a thicket of underbrush; presently the arms followed; and then, with a quick thrust of the arms to right and left, the space would be widened enough to let in the head, and when that was fairly through the victory was won. Straig

n my hasty efforts to better my standpoint. He also seemed to be there simply as a spectator, and

se they're bawn. God knows it's verra little they mak," he added, "an' t

down at our feet, he looked at t

o eat

id I. "Are th

look of superstitious terror spreading

. The crowd surged over to the opposite side of the pier, and a Babel of voices arose. The skipper w

auctioneer, "what do you add

for some reason of his own; at which a whirring sound o

the sea-water, dashed it over them, and piled them into baskets, in shining, sl

lling through four different hands in the five minutes during which I watched it. Each woman wore under her apron, in front, a sort of apron-like bag, in which she carried her money. There was evidently rivalry among them. They spied closely on each other's loads, and did some traffi

on the top; then, putting the rest, which were all small, in a pile by themselves, she pointed contemptuously to the contrast, and, with a toss of her head, ran after the auctioneer, and led him by the sleeve back to the spot where her fish lay.

aff saxpenc

. "They're too dear

pence; it is written

began packing

hing on them at that

n, to earn it, must trudge from Newhaven to Edinburgh (two miles) with a hundred pounds of fish on her back, and then toil up and down Edinburgh hills selling it from door to door. One shilling on every pound is the auctioneer's fee.

Her companions gazed at her in astonishment; presently they began to reply, and in a few seconds there was as fine a "rippet" going on as could have been heard in Cowgate in Tam's day. At last a woman

an' haud yer

ng?" I asked. "Wh

," she replied. "She's thet a

,-still more beautiful,-which, spite of its darkness, shows glints of red in the sun. The dark blue of their gowns and cloaks is the best color-frame and setting their faces could have; the bunched fulness of the petticoat is saved from looking clumsy by being so short, and the cloaks are in themselves graceful garments. The walking in a bent post

t the flanne

e way up to th

pped her petticoat high up, to show me the under petticoat, of the same heavy blue cloth, tucked on

g man with a creel of fish on his back. My fr

be seen carryin' a creel o' fish on his back li

creels?" I asked. "I'm sure i

d then as if it were waste of words to undertak

he's no pride left. There's the whole village been at him t

ies! Its stomach has as many and opposite standards as the human digestive apparatus. It is, like everything else, all and only a question of climate. Not a nabob anywhere who gets more daily satisfacti

Newhaven society, no doubt I should have come upon something which

nd a very gray, ugly sea it was, too; just such an one as used to stir Christie's soul with a heat of desire to spin out into it, and show the boys she was without fear. On the stony beach below the inn a woman was spreading linen to dry. Her motions as she raised and bent, and raised and bent, over her task were graceful

ought out her baby for the village to admire. It was dressed in very "braw attire" for Newhaven,-snowy white, and embroidery, and blue ribbo

down to the sea here,-before this sec

r it wentit white-" After a second's pause, and turning her eyes

rief-stricken queens have trod the Scottish shores; the centuries still keep their memory green, and their names haunt one's thoughts in every spot they knew. But more viv

ER ST

t is certainly also true that each place has its own distinctive measure; an indigenou

no less true. For instance, it would be a bold poet who should attempt to set pictures of Rome in any strain less solemn than the epic; and is it too strong a thing to say that only a foolish one would think of framing a Venice glimpse or memory in anything save dreamy songs, with dreamiest refrains? Endless vistas of reverie open to the imagination once entered on the road of this sort of fancy,-reveries which play strange pranks with both time and place, endow the dreamer with

rth Wales. Thys cyte in Brytyshe speech bete Carthleon, Chestre in Englyshe, and Cyte of Legyons also. For there laye a wynter, the legyons that Julius C?sar sent to wyne Irlonde. And after, Claudius C?sar sent legyons out of the cyte for to wynn the Islands th

Abbey monk,-him who wrote those old miracle plays, except for which we very like had never had such a t

ss in them; at each step he is, as it were, button-holed by a gable, an arch, a pavement, a door-sill, a sign, or a gate with a story to tell. A story, indeed? A hundred, or more; and if anybody doubts them, or has by reason of old age, or over-occupation with other matters, got them confused in his mind, all he has to do is to step into a public library,

easant and abounding in plenteousness of all things needful and necessary for man

writer c

; neither do they use the help of the Physicians nothing so much as in other countries. For when any of them are sic

the riv

eholden; nay, I suppose if I should call it the Mother, the Nurse, the Ma

nt and devout man, taking quite another view than tha

Infancy of the Christian Religion to attribute some divine honor and estimation

y guarded with Watch of Holy and Religious men, and through the Mercy of our Saviour always fenced and fortified with the merciful assista

ins and their Families, Advowsons, Wards, Reliefs, Escheates, Woods, Plains, Meadows, Pastures, Wayes, Pathes, Heaths, Turfs, Forests, Waters, Ponds, Parks, Fishing, Mills in Granges, Cotta

wers were caught in the Vale-Royale, they

, this devout writer, for he speaks with evident pri

usekeeping accordingly; but not so chargeable as in all other cities, because all thing are better cheap there.... He remaineth, most part of the day at a place called the Pendice which is a brave place bu

mpanions, and ran off with her sweetheart, through one of the city gates, at the foot of that street, which gate the enraged mayor ordered closed up forever, as if that would do any good; and some sharp-tongued and sensible Cestrian immediately p

vered his speech to the king; presented to him a "standing cup with a cover double gilt, and therein a hundred jacobins of gold;" likewise delivered to him the city's sword, and afterward bore it before him, in the procession. But when King James proposed, in return for all these civilities, to make a knight of him, Charles Fitton sturdily refused; which was a thing so

n banking-house had been robbed of a large sum of money by one of its clerks, who ran away, came to Chester, and went into hiding at the Falcon Inn. He was tracked and overtaken late one night. Hearing his pursuers on the stairs, he sprang from his bed and threw the treasure bags out of the window, plump into the ribbon-weaver's back-yard; where the disappointed constables naturally never thought of looking, and went back to London much chagrined, carrying only the man, and no money. None of the money having been found on the robber, he escaped conviction, but subsequently, for another offence, was tried, convicted, and executed. I take it for granted that it must have been he who told in his last hours what he did with the money bags: for certainly no one else kne

hey appear to have been as much of a puzzle two hundred years ago as to-day; for the devout old chronicler of the Vale-Royale, essaying to describe them, wrote the following paragraph, which, delicious as it is to those who know Chester, I think must be a stumbling-block and foolishness to those who do not. He says there is "a singular property of praise to this city, whereof I know not the like of any other: there be towards the street fair rooms, both for shops and dwelling-houses, to which there is rather a descent than an equal height with the floor or pavement of

f all or the most Passengers on foot from the passage of the street, amongst laden and empty Carts, loaden and travelling Horses, lumbering Coaches, Beer Carts, Beas

the cellars of the Rows to-day; and every now and then, in deepening a vault or cellar-way, workmen come on old Roman altars, built there by the "Legyons" of Julius, or Claudius C?sar, dedicated to "Nymphs and Fountains," or other genii of the day; baths, too, with their pillars and perforated tiles still in place, as they were in the days when cleanly and luxurious Roman soldiers took Turkish baths there, after hot victories. Knowing about these lower strata adds a weird charm to the fascination of strolling along in the balconies above, looking in, now at

ectacles! To sit snug in one's best chamber, ten feet above the street, ten feet out into it, with windows looking up and down the highway,-what vantage it must have been in the days when the Miracle Plays went wheeling along from street to street, played on double scaffolded carts; the players attiring themselves on the lower scaffold, while the play was progressing on the upper! They began to do this in Chester in the year of our Lord 1268. There

es in regard to these plays. The different trades and guild

Tanners, The F

iers, The Creat

d Water Leaders,

lers, and Leeches,

, and Pinners, Balak

ers, Daubers, and Tha

mayor, Henry Hardware by name, being a "godly and zealous man, caused the gyauntes in the mid-somer show to be broken

hn Savage, knight, being Mayor of Chester, which was the laste time they were played, and we praise God, and praye that we see not t

ore the plays; and there are some very curious accounts of expenditures made in Chester, under mayors less g

be made new, as neere as may be, lyke as they were before, at five pounds a giant,

er of various sorts, buckram size cloth, old sheets for their bodies, sleeves and shirts, tinsille, tinfoil, gold and silver leaf, colors of different kinds, and g

upon second thought the question occurs whether city funds are any better administered in these days. The paper giants

amatized old stories, legends, histories of kings, and the like. The story of ?neas and Queen Dido was one of the first played. No doubt all the "gyauntes" and hobble-de-horses which had not been eaten up by rats and moths came in as effectively in

d none but fools dispraised it.... The chiefest part of this people-pleas

heaven with wings, in a cloud; a "wheele of fire burning very cunningly, with other fireworks, mounted the Crosse by the assistance of ropes, in the midst of heavenly melody;" and, to top off with, a grotesque figure climbed up to the top of the "Crosse," and s

the value of all entertainments offered as substitutes for them. Probably in the midst of the heavenly melodies and "fireworks very delightfull," at the sheriff's grand show, old men went about shaking their heads regretfully, and saying, "Ah, but you should have seen the g

ever missed an occasion for turning out in fine array; and there being always somebody who took the trouble to write a full account of the parade, we of to-day know almost a

east six hundred horse. All the Gentle Men of the artelery yard lately erected in Chester, met her in Cow Lane, in very stately manner, all with greate white and blew fethers, and went before her chariot, in march, to the Bishop's Pallas

octrines which the Duchess of Tremoyle would have much disrelished in her day, as would also the "artelery Gentle Men" with their "greate white and blew fethers."

men, to the grim but gentle Quaker, holding feathers pernicious, plays deadly, and permitting to the people nothing but plain yea and nay. Of all this, and worlds

and nooks underfoot, all along the most ancient of the Rows. It is a piece of good luck to walk past half a dozen doors there without jostling something on the right or left, and bringing down a clattering pile on one's heels. From shadowy recesses, men and women eager for trade dart out, eying the stranger sharply. They are connoisseurs in customers, if in nothing else, the Cestrian dealers of to-day. They know at a glance who will give ten shillings and sixpence for a cream jug without any nose, and with a big crack in one side, on the bare chance of its being old Welsh.

ne day, as I was laughingly steering a cautious passage among her shaky pyramids of fourth or twentieth hand furniture. "It's lasted a while now, an' they've not forced

ys in these Rows, and see where the people live; see also where the

ndreds of years old. The different properties of the dozens of families living in tenements opening on the court are arranged around its sides, apparently each family keeping scrupulously to its own little hand's-breadth of room; frequently a tiny flower-bed, or a single plant in a pot, gives a gleam

rightly that I walked up the alley

y. "It do shine in here beautiful."

ved here lon

tinued with a deprecating courtesy, modestly anxious to dis

pride than she had shown the parlor. "It's three families has it together, mem," she explained. "It's a great thing to get a washroom. And we've a coal-hole, too, mem," she said eagerly; "you passed it, coming up." And she stepped a few paces down the alley, and threw open a door into a rayless place possibly five by seven feet in size. "It used to be a bedroom, mem, to the opposite house; but it's empty now, so we gets

same respectful courtesy she had made to me. "I'm just sh

s she tottered out, leaving her door w

old utensils, clothes, even her two or three books, were hung up by strings; there being only room for one tiny table, besides the stove. In one corner stood a step-ladder, which led up through a hole in the ceiling to the cranny overhead in which she slept. Th

ted his palace, the famous Eaton Hall. We had walked there for weary hours over marble floors, under frescoed domes, through long lines of statues, of pictures, of stained-glass windows, hangings, carvings, and

and gold, green, snowy white, orange; some of them as large as a fleur-de-lis. Another house was filled with ferns and palms, green, luxuriant, like a bit of tropical forest brought across seas for his grace's pleasure. The most superb sight of all was the lotus house. Cleopatra herself might have flushed with pleasure at beholding it. A deep tank, sixty feet long, and twenty wide, filled with white and blue and pink blossoms, floating, swaying, lolli

I started at hearing his grace'

to the Duke of Westminst

s 'im in, considerin' its size. 'Ee 's big rents in this town. Mebbe ye'v

ke of the old woman's soul, already enough wrung and embittered by the long strain of her hard lot, and its contrast with that of her betters, without having that contrast enforced by a viv

ach other without impediment." There are many places, now, however, which would by no means come up to that standard; Nature having usurped much space with her various growths, and time having been chipping away at them as well. In fact, on some portions of the wall, there is only a narrow grassy footpath, such as might wind around in a village churchyard. To come up by hoary stone stairs, out of the bustling street, atop of the wall, and out on such a bit of footpath as this, with an outlook over the Rood Eye meadow and off toward the region of the old Welsh castles, is a fine early-morning treat in Chester. Some of the towers are now sunk to the ignoble uses of heterogeneous museums. Old women have the keys, and for a fee admit curious people to the ancient chambers and keeps, where, after having the satisfaction of standing where kings have stood, and looking off over fields where kings' battles were fought, they can gaze at

f one were to spend a whole day in the tower, she would never stop saying it. She was an enthusiastic show-woman of her little store; undismayed by any amount of indifference on the part of her listeners. "'E

r: twenty years ago, 'ee was in Hamerica. You must undustand the puttin' of 'em hup better than we do, mem,

erican paper currency, and a string of shell money from the South Sea Islands, all arranged in close proximity. Taking up the bit of American currency, she held it out toward us, saying inquiringly, "He

beggars, and rapscallions he could find,-"a tumultuous rout," says the chronicle, "of loose, disorderly, and dissolute persons, players, minstrels, shoemakers and the like,-and marched speedily towards the enemy." The Welsh, seeing so great a multitude coming, raised their siege and fled; and the earl, thus delivered, showed his gratitude to Constable Roger by conferring upon him perpetual authority over the loose, idle persons in Cheshire; making the

ing rather to die like a soldier, than to starve to death. He slew many of the enemy, but was at last with much difficulty taken prisoner; so he and his soldiers were brought prisoners to the King of France, where, by the command of the king, Roger Lacy was to be held no strict prisoner, for his great honesty and trust in keeping the Castle so gallantly.... King John's letter to Roger Lacy concerning the keeping of the said c

rt Nixon was the son of a farmer in Cheshire County, and was born in the year 1467. His stupidity and ignorance were said to be "invincible." No efforts could make him understand anything save the care of cattle, and even in this he showed at times a brutish and idiotic cruelty. He had a very rough, coarse voice, but said little, sometimes passing whole months without opening his lips to speak. He began very early to foretell events, and with an apparently pre

he harrow c

ven's nes

the last abbot of that monastery was named Harrow, and when the king suppressed

s of Vale-Royale and Norton should meet on Orton bridge a

of them were used in rebuilding that bridge; and the thorn-tree was cut down, and placed

opped suddenly, and with his whip pointing now one way, now another, cried aloud, "Now, Richard," "Now, Harry!" At last he said, "Now, Harry, get over that ditch, and you gain the day!" The plou

predictions; and King Henry was so impressed by them that

an, weeping and crying that the king was about sending for

n his brother's kitchen. Just before the messenger came in sight, he shr

a diamond ring, and commanded Nixon to find it; but all the answer he got from the cunning varlet was, "He that hideth can find." The king caused all h

officer, in turn, to make sure that no ill befell the poor fellow, locked him up in one of his private rooms, and with his own hands carried food to him. But after a day or two, a very urgent message from the king calling this officer suddenly away, in the haste of his departure he forgot Nixon, and left him locked up in the apartmen

ing to echoes such as these from all the fair country in sight in embrace of the Dee, or to saunter

an information I had been in search of for days. Markets are especially interesting in places where caste and class lines are strongly drawn, as in England. The market man or woman whose ancestors have been of the same following, and who has no higher ambition in life t

shment, I saw her with her own hands measuring onions into a huckster-woman's basket. On drawing nearer, I discovered that she was the proprietress of a natty vegetable cart, piled full of all sorts of green stuff, which she was selling to the sellers. She could not have been more than eighteen. Her manner and speech were prompt, decisive, business-like; she

in' standin'," she said; "an' I'm 'ome

ore themselves toward her with a certain respectfulness of demeanor, s

a distance of six miles, because the load of greens, eggs, poultry, and flowers was all

," she explained, as the little thing shrunk back, covered with confusion, and pretended to be very busy arranging the flowers on a little board laid across two stones, behind which she was squatted,-"my daughter, mem

hought Ada would have the spending of it herself, in her own childish way. But I bought a big bunch of red and white daisies, and another of columbines, white pinks, ivy, an

head barely reached to his ears; but he entered very cleverly into the spirit of the farce of being kept in place by such a mite, and to that end employed her busily in feeding him with handfuls of grass. If she stopped, he poked his nose into her neck and rummaged under her chin, till she began again. All had flowers to sell, if it were only a single bunch, or plant in a pot; and there were in the building several fine stalls entirely filled with flowers,-roses, carnations, geraniums, and wonderful pansies. Noticing, in one stall, a blossom I had never before seen, I asked the old woman who kept the stand to tell me its n

her words woke seemed to span Chester's centuries more vividly than all the old chronicle traditions and legends, than sculptured Roman altar, or coin, or graven story in stone. The strange changes they recorded were bu