fter to the doors of the coach-office in Edinburgh
without a single check. Fortune did not favour me, and why should I
recapitulate the details of futile precautions which deceived nobody and
wearisome arts which proved to be artless?

The day was drawing to an end when Mr. Rowley and I bowled into
Edinburgh to the stirring sound of the guard's bugle and the clattering
team. I was here upon my field of battle; on the scene of my former
captivity, escape, and exploits; and in the same city with my love. My
heart expanded; I have rarely felt more of a hero. All down the Bridges
I sat by the driver with my arms folded and my face set, unflinchingly
meeting every eye, and prepared every moment for a cry of recognition.
Hundreds of the population were in the habit of visiting the Castle,
where it was my practice (before the days of Flora) to make myself
conspicuous among the prisoners; and I think it an extraordinary thing
that I should have encountered so few to recognise me. But doubtless a
clean chin is a disguise in itself; and the change is great from a suit
of sulphur-yellow to fine linen, a well-fitting mouse-coloured greatcoat
furred in black, a pair of tight trousers of fashionable cut, and a hat
of inimitable curl. After all, it was more likely that I should have
recognised our visitors, than that they should have identified the
modish gentleman with the miserable prisoner in the Castle.

I was glad to set foot on the flagstones, and to escape from the crowd
that had assembled to receive the mail. Here we were, with but little
daylight before us, and that on Saturday afternoon, the eve of the
famous Scottish Sabbath, adrift in the New Town of Edinburgh, and
overladen with baggage. We carried it ourselves. I would not take a cab,
nor so much as hire a porter, who might afterwards serve as a link
between my lodgings and the mail, and connect me again with the
claret-coloured chaise and Aylesbury. For I was resolved to break the
chain of evidence for good, and to begin life afresh (so far as regards
caution) with a new character. The first step was to find lodgings, and
to find them quickly. This was the more needful as Mr. Rowley and I, in
our smart clothes and with our cumbrous burthen, made a noticeable
appearance in the streets at that time of the day and in that quarter of
the town, which was largely given up to fine folk, bucks and dandies and
young ladies, or respectable professional men on their way home to
d