med by the desperation of its character,
stationed forthwith a body of police on the hillside, to prevent, in
future, any such breaches of the peace.

It was a beautiful Sunday evening, the rays of the descending sun were
reflected redly from the grey walls of the Castle, and from the black
rocks on which it was founded. The bicker had long since commenced,
stones from sling and hand were flying; but the callants of the New Town
were now carrying everything before them.

A full-grown baker's apprentice was at their head; he was foaming with
rage, and had taken the field, as I was told, in order to avenge his
brother, whose eye had been knocked out in one of the late bickers. He
was no slinger or flinger, but brandished in his right hand the spoke of
a cart-wheel, like my countryman Tom Hickathrift of old in his encounter
with the giant of the Lincolnshire fen. Protected by a piece of wicker-
work attached to his left arm, he rushed on to the fray, disregarding the
stones which were showered against him, and was ably seconded by his
followers. Our own party was chased half way up the hill, where I was
struck to the ground by the baker, after having been foiled in an attempt
which I had made to fling a handful of earth into his eyes. All now
appeared lost, the Auld Toon was in full retreat. I myself lay at the
baker's feet, who had just raised his spoke, probably to give me the
_coup de grace_,--it was an awful moment. Just then I heard a shout and
a rushing sound; a wild-looking figure is descending the hill with
terrible bounds; it is a lad of some fifteen years; he is bare-headed,
and his red uncombed hair stands on end like hedgehogs' bristles; his
frame is lithy, like that of an antelope, but he has prodigious breadth
of chest; he wears a military undress, that of the regiment, even of a
drummer, for it is wild Davy, {79} whom a month before I had seen
enlisted on Leith Links to serve King George with drum and drumstick as
long as his services might be required, and who, ere a week had elapsed,
had smitten with his fist Drum-Major Elzigood, who, incensed at his
inaptitude, had threatened him with his cane; he has been in confinement
for weeks, this is the first day of his liberation, and he is now
descending the hill with horrid bounds and shoutings; he is now about
five yards distant, and the baker, who apprehends that something
dangerous is at hand, prepares himself for the encounter; but what avails
the st