ssion down to Leith, and shine singly far along Leith Pier.
Thus, the plan of the city and her suburbs is mapped out upon the ground
of blackness, as when a child pricks a drawing full of pinholes and
exposes it before a candle; not the darkest night of winter can conceal
her high station and fanciful design; every evening in the year she
proceeds to illuminate herself in honour of her own beauty; and as if to
complete the scheme--or rather as if some prodigal Pharaoh were
beginning to extend to the adjacent sea and country--half-way over to
Fife, there is an outpost of light upon Inchkeith, and far to seaward,
yet another on the May.

And while you are looking, across upon the Castle Hill, the drums and
bugles begin to recall the scattered garrison; the air thrills with the
sound; the bugles sing aloud; and the last rising flourish mounts and
melts into the darkness like a star: a martial swan-song, fitly rounding
in the labours of the day.

CHAPTER IX

WINTER AND NEW YEAR

The Scots dialect is singularly rich in terms of reproach against the
winter wind. _Snell_, _blae_, _nirly_, and _scowthering_, are four of
these significant vocables; they are all words that carry a shiver with
them; and for my part as I see them aligned before me on the page, I am
persuaded that a big wind comes tearing over the Firth from Burntisland
and the northern hills; I think I can hear it howl in the chimney, and
as I set my face northwards, feel its smarting kisses on my cheek. Even
in the names of places there is often a desolate, inhospitable sound;
and I remember two from the near neighbourhood of Edinburgh, Cauldhame
and Blaw-weary, that would promise but starving comfort to their
inhabitants. The inclemency of heaven, which has thus endowed the
language of Scotland with words, has also largely modified the spirit of
its poetry. Both poverty and a northern climate teach men the love of
the hearth and the sentiment of the family; and the latter, in its own
right, inclines a poet to the praise of strong waters. In Scotland, all
our singers have a stave or two for blazing fires and stout
potations:--to get indoors out of the wind and to swallow something hot
to the stomach, are benefits so easily appreciated where they dwelt!

And this is not only so in country districts where the shepherd must
wade in the snow all day after his flock, but in Edinburgh itself, and
nowhere more apparently stated than in the works of our Edinb