sacrifice of their lives, and bade eloquent farewell to sun, moon and stars and earthly friendships, or died silent to the roll of the drums.  Down by yon outlet rode Grahame of Claverhouse and his thirty dragoons, with the town beating to arms behind their horses’ tails—­a sorry handful thus riding for their lives, but with a man at their head who was to return in a different temper, make a bold dash that staggered Scotland, and die happily in the thick of the fight....

“The palace of Holyrood is a house of many memories....  Great people of yore, kings and queens, buffoons and grave ambassadors played their stately farce for centuries in Holyrood.  Wars have been plotted, dancing has lasted deep into the night, murder has been done in its chambers.  There Prince Charlie held his phantom levees and in a very gallant manner represented a fallen dynasty for some hours....

“There is an old story of the subterranean passage between the castle and Holyrood and a bold Highland piper who volunteered to explore its windings.  He made his entrance by the upper end, playing a strathspey; the curious footed it after him down the street, following his descent by the sound of the chanter from below; until all of a sudden, about the level of St. Giles the music came abruptly to an end, and the people in the street stood at fault with hands uplifted.  Whether he choked with gases, or perished in a quag, or was removed bodily by the Evil One, remains a point of doubt, but the piper has never again been seen or heard of from that day to this.  Perhaps he wandered down into the land of Thomas the Rhymer, and some day, when it is least expected, may take a thought to revisit the sunlit upper world.  That will be a strange moment for the cabmen on the stands beside St. Giles, when they hear the crone of his pipes reascending from the earth below their horses’ feet.”

In Edinburgh to-day there are armed men and cannon in the castle high up on the great rock above you:  “You may see the troops marshalled on the high parade, and at night after the early winter evenfall and in the morning before the laggard winter dawn, the wind carries abroad over Edinburgh the sounds of drums and bugles.” (Stevenson, “Essay on Edinburgh.”)

Long before Louis could write he made up verses and stories for himself, and Cummie wrote them down for him.  “I thought they were rare nonsense then,” she said, little dreaming that these same bits of “rare nonsense” were the beginnings of what was to make “her boy” famous across two seas in years to come.

He writes of her when speaking of long nights he lay awake unable to sleep because of a troublesome cough:  “How well I remember her lifting me out of bed, carrying me to the window and showing me one or two lit windows up in Queen Street across the dark belt of garden, where also, we told each other, there might be sick little boys and their nurses waiting, like us, for the morning.”